BED RIDDEN

Chapter Four:

Chapter Four:

“Mrs. Brownridge, a pleasure.” He lightly squeezed her hand, then turned. “And you must be Inga.”

On closer inspection he found Inga to be older than she first appeared, bettering his own age by several years. But if anything, the maturity made her all the more desirable.

“Tell us about your wife,” Mrs. Brownridge said, settling into her chair and positioning wire-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose so as to peruse the menu.

Nick couldn’t help himself. The first thing he did was look at her hands. He was surprised. He expected to see gnarled fingers and swollen joints but Mrs. Brownridge’s hands looked quite normal, soft and supple in fact. He didn’t know much about arthritis but had heard sufferers sometimes went into remission and enjoyed periods free from pain. Maybe Mrs. Brownridge was enjoying such a respite.

Nick took a sidelong look at Inga and cleared his throat. “Cloey’s twenty-eight,” he started, wishing he didn’t have to discuss a wife in front of Inga. “She’s on-air at a local television station; a newscaster and she comes home late. Well, she used to, I mean. Three months ago she was in a collision and has been in hospital all this time.”

Mrs. Brownridge set the menu aside. “But now she’s finally coming home?”

“Yes. She’s paralyzed and needs special care. I don’t have the necessary skills, you see, and I work full-time...” Nick ran through Doctor Evans’ prognosis. “So we hope it’s not permanent,” he finished off. “But she needs someone right now. We need someone.”

A little pleading couldn’t hurt, he thought to himself, eyeing Inga– more bravely this time.

Mrs. Brownridge dropped her reading glasses onto a cushiony chest where they dangled on a silver chain like a couple of fishing lures. “I’ll have the eggs benedict with a nice pot of tea. Earl Grey.”

Nick shot the waiter a look.

He thought it safest to follow suit so once the man had pulled out his pad, Nick ordered two eggs benedict and looked across the table. “Inga?”

God, how he wanted the waiter, who was currently assessing the front of Inga’s blouse, to believe she was his bed-mate. Hell, Nick wanted every man in the damned restaurant to think he was screwing the big blonde.

Inga finally looked up. “I’ll have the hamburger. Two patties, medium rare, with bacon and double cheese. And be sure the french fries are crispy.” She snapped the menu closed.

Nick considered asking if she’d like a boilermaker to go with the ‘burger. “And a pot of Earl Grey,” he said, once again taking the safer route.

“So this would absolutely not be a live-in arrangement, you understand.” Mrs. Brownridge spoke for Inga. “That would not be proper.”

Nick felt he was sweating it out on the witness stand. “Oh no. Definitely not. My wife would never approve,” Nick said, though “if only” was what he was wishing for. The sight of Inga stepping naked from his shower stall in the mornings solidified in his mind. For that, he’d drill a peephole in his bathroom wall.

“And we don’t do housework,” Mrs. Brownridge added.

“I’m quite capable with the housework,” Nick said defensively, while watching the wait staff arrive with their lunch.

Mrs. Brownridge looked about the room. “Good. I like to see a man in an apron. Now, I need to wash up. Where might I find The Lady’s?” She stood and took the two steps down to the mezzanine level. Nick watched her go.

“You’re holding up remarkably well.”

Nick flinched– a surprised look aimed across the table. Inga was grinning at him.

“Damn. So you do speak English,” he said, his tone sour. “I was wondering...”

“It’s sort of a prerequisite in this country. I speak French and German as well.”

“Oh German? That’s good. I feel like I’m on the hot seat with a Nazi interrogator holding a gun to my head.”

Inga broke out in a gutsy, honest laugh. “My aunt leaves that impression on a lot of people. Try to bear up.” She took a serious munch out of her ‘burger.

“Your aunt?” Nick gawked. “There’s no family resemblance.”

Inga was still grinning. “I’ll take that as a complement,” she said, chewing lively. “Thank you. So, you like tea, do you?”

“Can’t stand the stuff.”

Inga’s eyes sparkled with delight and Nick went all buttery inside.

“Me neither,” Inga said. “But I draw the line at eggs benedict. I’m sure to get a lecture later.”

Nick looked at his cooling eggs. “Yeah. This stuff is truly revolting. You were smart to opt for the lecture.” Nick returned his eyes to her handsome features. “Say. You two live together?”

“God no. I’ve got a dorm room at the University. It’s fine for now.”

“And you work there? At the University?”

“For the present, until I receive my certification. But I got flexible hours. That’s how I’m available to help you out.”

“So you gonna come work for me?”

Inga licked ketchup from a finger. “Sure. If she’ll let me.”

Nick was aware of his p***s moving at the sight of her tongue. It was long and thick. Like a calf’s. “You look capable.”

“I am. Is she pretty?”

“Is who pretty?”

“Your wife.”

“Does it matter?”

Inga ran a napkin around her lips. “You ever clean a bedpan?”

Nick felt a little sick to his stomach. Shook his head.

“Can I lift her?”

“Cloey weighs less than a hundred.”

Inga smiled. “One-handed. Careful, now. Here she comes,” Inga cautioned.

“Mrs. Brownridge? Oh crap.”

Inga shot him her wide grin. “Don’t worry. She likes you.”

Cloey was delivered the next day. And delivered was the right word for it. Nick watched with glum resolve as the men unloaded his wife. She might as well be a roll of damned carpet, he thought. Cloey was dressed in her favorite bunny pajamas, her feet were bare, her toes small and lovely. The attendants set the gurney beside the bed, lifted Cloey, then rolled her back and forth to extract their blanket. With no more than a flick of a hand, they left.

Nick looked at his wife.

Cloey was little. And for Nick, that had always been her most endearing quality. She was a Kit-Kat. Wasn’t that what they called it? He had read it somewhere: Kit-Kat. A mature pussycat with all the look and innocence of a kitten. Hell, he’d been relegated to picking up the weekend wine when Cloey became fed-up with being questioned for her ID. But now Cloey looked shrunken and frail. Vulnerable. And those were qualities that were not Cloey. Qualities that were foreign to him and for the first time, he was aware of a crack opening in the bricks of his marriage and wondered if they, if he, had the strength to get beyond her disability.

Nick stepped forward and looked down into cloudy blue eyes. Eyes that had once been crystalline, alive, fired-up with life. He stroked her scrubby hair, still searching, trying to get the old feelings back. There was a scratching at the backdoor and he went to open it.

Peaches didn’t harbor any of Nick’s misgivings. She bolted into the room, paused to sniff, and yipped out a greeting. Peaches charged the bed and yapping excitedly, ran circles ‘round it. With a squeal of delight, she bounded from the floor, landed on Cloey’s chest and scrambled forward to lick her face. Cloey’s mouth opened as she tried to laugh. She expelled a lungful of breath which warbled

her tongue, producing a distinct purring sound. It was good enough for Peaches. The puppy curled into the softness of Cloey’s throat and immediately went to sleep. Cloey felt the animal’s faint heartbeat against her skin and with tears clinging in her eyelashes, she too, slumbered.

From the love seat opposite, Nick watched the pair, but his thoughts were focused on a big blond woman who was due to arrive later that afternoon. He was scared. What would Cloey think when she found he had hired an Amazonian Swede to be her caregiver. And why was he anxiously awaiting the woman’s arrival. He conjured up an image of the big blonde; her muscular thighs shimmering beneath a tight skirt, her breasts thrusting from her silk blouse. God, Inga had a battleground for a body and he wondered how it would feel to grapple her, force her to the ground and jam his way up between her legs. He shook himself and retreated to his study.

Rudd Lewinsky stood with his afternoon coffee, watching out his kitchen window at nothing in particular and thinking the same. He was just reaching for the whiskey bottle when he caught sight of a rusty old Malibu rolling to a stop in his neighbor’s drive. It was yellow with a torn and faded black vinyl roof.

He paused a moment, mildly interested in the old relic and was just turning away when the blonde hauled herself out from behind the wheel. She looked like a female wrestler– one of the really nice ones. Rudd jerked around to gawk, dribbling coffee down the front of his clean shirt.

“Crap!”

His interest was diverted for just an instant before he tore his eyes from the spreading stain to devour the sight of the blonde striding up the driveway in ankle-high, laced trainers. She was angling in on Nick and Cloey’s door. “Who the hell...”

She wore some sort of workout leggings– a shiny spandex that fitted like wet skin and sheathed her thighs, extending to just below the knee leaving her bulging calf muscles exposed. And even from across his yard he could see the jutting p***y-mound and how the stretchy fabric tucked into the fleshy rolls and gathered in the slice below. A loose white blouse softened the muscular meat of arms, neck and shoulders.

She was the type of woman a man could only aspire to possess. A distant, unapproachable trophy. Maybe a friend of Cloey’s come to visit, he thought, peeling off his stained shirt. Someone in television, perhaps, a show-business type. Christ, she sure had the body for it. He rifled his closet for a clean shirt.

Then he thought of porn and the sweat gathered in his armpits.

“God! Maybe she stars in movies, porno-flicks,” he said out loud to his reflection in the mirror, the fantasy taking hold in his steamy brain. “I have to get a look at her, up close, at least get her name.” And he fiddled with the hair about his ears before bounding out his side door.