Free The Squashed Man Who Married a Dragon by Anthony Blackie Page A

say – ‘what would you like?’ not what she means at all. The first thing I suggest, she says in scorn ‘we had that the other day’, the second suggestion I come up with is greeted with ‘not on the housekeeping I get’.
    So I keep falling in love, constantly searching, not surprising really, for a gentle word or friendly greeting – I’m mentally seeking the shelter of a kindly soul anywhere. I can take my shoes for repair and fall in love, the woman at the filling station has the strong appeal of a life-saving way, Mrs woman in the Spar shop has appeal in abundance. I even fell in love with a ‘hand’ once, just a solitary hand on its own.
    I had a blocked saliva gland, a fairly unusual fault – it makes swallowing difficult especially food, as one side of my mouth was always bone dry. We had a private medical insurance policy so I decided to be fettled.
    The evening prior to the op, I had checked in to the private hospital – signed various forms, sworn to abstain from smoking, alcohol and food and retired to my cell, wondering how to spend the evening. A knock on the door, and in came a fellow patient I had met very briefly at the check-in. Here he was clutching a six pack of extra strong lager, ‘thought you might like to help me get through these’ – he says. In to have his nose broken then reset for the second time. I must admit it didn’t look too bad to me, and what guts.
    The anaesthetist came round like the warm-up act, checking blood pressure and general health, he wasn’t too concerned about me, I was only having a local anaesthetic, a sort of part-time player.
    Next morning, dressed in pale green hospital tent type gown, with peep through ties down the back I walked to the operating theatre. My lady surgeon explained – she would go in through my mouth – make some small incision at the bottom edge of my cheek to find the blocked saliva gland. Several hours later she was in trouble – my gland remained shyly hidden. There was a half-time conference and she said ‘not to worry’. She would enter through the outside of my neck, make a small incision in the tiny crease somewhere in the region, which wouldn’t show when healed – good looks will remain unblemished, and then tunnel upward under or over my jawbone to locate the gland and undo the blockage. In truth ‘cutting my throat’ was a pretty accurate description of the work involved.
    Sometime later, lying there, not really worried yet – it was the problem for the lady surgeon – doing her stuff and murmuring things like ‘not to worry’ ‘it’s in here somewhere’ something burrowed up around and over my left side, in a rather secret but arousing way. I had to have my hands down around waist level, with all the action in the head region. So I put a hand out to greet this new found friend, we touched, nuzzled hand to hand in greeting, palm to palm, fingers entwined – this was a soft warm loving hand, gentle and kind. Ever mindful that we were dangerously close to my erogenous zone playing carefully, our hands clutched, clasped and enjoyed each other’s company. At first I thought it might be the furtive hand of the young nurse – perhaps trapped in an unhappy relationship seeking a tender moment of respite, or was it perhaps the other nurse slightly more mature that might be the owner of the hand, and finding me in a green backless gown lying tantalisingly close would be a strong aphrodisiac. And as she had time to study me close up – (only inches away) had caused her to throw caution to the wind and seize the moment. Either way this I knew this was real love – never mind fishnet tights and suspender belts at the top. Such are the fleeting images of love lost…. .
    Vicki on the other hand can’t even swallow any tablets/capsules; even the smallest Aspirin totally defeats her. It’s an