Island Hideaway 12 - A sponge but No Inflatable Giraffe​

When she'd been with me four days I finally worked up the courage to strip Mo naked. She was more than ready, her pyjamas were beginning to pong, though she didn't move she clearly still excreted sweat. I had feared I would find her naked body insanely alluring, that I'd be tempted to do things I won't mention, but it wasn't and I didn't. There was nothing sexual about a body that was, to all extent and purposes, as dead as a dodo, though obviously not as a dodo, dodos are very much alive, just hiding, you know what I mean. ​​
​​
Her boobs were as large and round as I’d always imagined, her pubic hair was perfectly trimmed. How the hell did she manage that? I wondered. Did somebody shave her pubes whilst she's been in a coma. Or I suppose pubic hair doesn't grow that quickly. Mine doesn't, but then mine doesn't grow at all, no need to ever shave it. I tried to recall, but it had been a while since I had been with a woman and I couldn't remember their pubic hair growth rates. 
​​
I carefully removed her clothing, taking every caution not to disturb her tubes, then gave her a bed bath, with a sponge I had purchased especially from the Boatman, much to his bemusement. "Never sold a sponge before," he'd said. "I have a few in my hold, I thought they were just sitting there getting free cruises."​​
​​
"Well now you've sold one," I said. ​​
​​
"Yes," he said, "Now I have."​​
​​
"I suppose I should take two. Just in case.​​"
​​
"You never know", he said. "Situations may arise when two sponges are a necessity. The only thing standing between you and the end of the world. I don't suppose I could interest you in an inflatable giraffe.​​"
​​
"An inflatable giraffe?"  ​​
​​
"Only I have a few in my hold, unsold. Like we were saying about the sponges, you never know, you may need one one day. Or two. For an unspecified reason.​​"
​​
Had he worked out what I was buying the sponges for? Was he blackmailing me, buy my inflatable giraffes or else I will reveal your secret coma patient to the world? Or was he just chancing his luck and trying to flog me any old junk on the basis that I appeared to have lost my power of reasoning. I decided on the latter. ​​
​​
"Let's revisit the giraffes in a few weeks. I can only buy so many things at one time."​​
​​
"Okay. If I'm running low I'll let you know. I wouldn’t want you to miss out.”​
​​
After bathing her I dressed her in the clean pyjamas, changed her drip, checked her tubes, checked her connections and settled down to read. ​​
​​
By this time I had moved on to the biography of the French Queen. I didn't enjoy the book at all, it was full of repetition and flattery. I can understand why her subjects would have made every effort to flatter her, she had the power of life or death over them after all, but why would someone writing hundreds of years after her death make such effort to present her in a good light. The book was full of detailed description of the physical content of her house and gardens, and the main political acts of her reign were described, always in favourable ways, but there was little or no detail as to who she was, what her life was like, what the impact of her reign was on the inhabitants of her kingdom (or should that be queendom, I should know this, I've been living under the reign of a queen every single day of my life). ​​
​​
I skipped several chapters, Mo didn't seem to mind, and before long we'd moved on to the history of the Crimean War. Now this was more like it, the book was jam packed with detail, with characters, with graphic description of the impact of the first modern war (a controversial claim, surely the Franco Prussian War or even the American Civil War could lay claim to that title). So much happened. ​​
​​
Some of the stories I knew, Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, the Charge of the Light Brigade. I'd read the poem once, and remember hearing a song entitled 'Charge of the Light Brigade' by a band called the Hussars.​
 ​
I have, during the course of my life, had occasion to wear both a cardigan and a balaclava (though not at the same time) and knew both to originate from the Crimean War, though it was fascinating to find out the detail, the knitted woollen waistcoats the officers wore to fight off the cold and the battle near Sevastopol where the troops wore knitted headgear to keep warm. That was Britain's secret weapon at the time, wool, it drove our economy and was the main factor in our fight against cold, which was the real battle in the Crimea. I read each passage with the breathless excitement of a young boy, encountering history for the first time.

I wondered whether Mo felt the same excitement. Whether she felt anything at all.​​