Coma

I woke to total blackness. I had a strong sense of me but I had no idea who or where I was.

It was too soon to panic because I was sure that in the past there must have been times when I had woken from a deep sleep in a similar condition, particularly after a night on the beer. There were three things that I did know, I was lying on my back, I was comfortably warm and I was not in any pain, so my situation, whatever it was, could not be that bad.

*

I think that, reassured by my previous thoughts. I must have drifted back to sleep because now I felt that some hours had passed. This time I attempted a more thorough examination. By patiently concentrating on each finger and toe in turn, I was able to detect the texture of cloth and thus ensure that all my limbs were still present, although I could feel unexplained pressure in two places on my right arm. There was no traffic noise, no matter how faint, or sound of other activity, so I didn't yet know if I still retained my sense of hearing. More worrying was the fact that I couldn't seem to move a single muscle, not even my tongue.

*

During my next encounter with lucidity, I carried on my assessment from where I'd left off. I knew that my mouth was open, that there was something inside it and my throat was extremely dry. The only logical explanation was that there had to be tube down my throat and that in turn meant that I must be in hospital, but how I arrived there remained a mystery. Thinking that there must be people around, I tried to call out but no sound of any kind issued from my throat. It was at this point that I wondered if I might be dead but if that was the case then where that was fabled column of bright light?

*

I came aware again to the sound of males talking. At first they were too far away to decipher what was being said but I could tell by the intonation and authority of their voices that they were professionals, probably either doctors or consultants. As they drew closer I was afraid they would walk straight by me (wherever I was) but thankfully they paused by my (assumed) bed.

"I can't do any more for this chap," one doctor was saying, "He may still snap out if his coma but brain activity is minimal and I'm afraid that he will inevitably drift into a permanent vegetative state."

"So what will happen," the other (younger?) man enquired.

"His right arm is badly broken but apart from the horrendous wound to his head he's in surprisingly good condition. I'm putting him in a ward where his relatives and friends can see him and talk to him. Maybe that stimulus will be all that he needs but if not, we've already ensured that his organs are good and he's been fully tissue typed.

"What if his folks want to continue the life support?"

"Not much chance of that these days, particularly when we point out that they'll have to fund most of the cost themselves."

At this point I could tell that they were about to move on but as they did so the younger man asked conversationally, "Have you read the new claim that many so-called vegetative patients were fully conscious all the time?"

The older guy laughed dismissively, "A load of rubbish believe me, I handled literally hundreds of these cases and I've yet to come across a single instance."

*

The scene had changed, or at least I knew that I could differentiate between night and day because now instead of blackness I had a lighter sheen showing on the inside of my eyelids. It also seemed likely that I had a bandage of some sort covering my eyes. I heard a door open and what sounded like a pair of sensible female shoes scurrying quickly across the floor towards me. Next moment I felt a large wet kiss on the corner of my mouth and I was enveloped in what could only be a mother smell, (a dab of cheap scent covering years of cooking odours absorbed into the pores of the skin). An image formed in front of my eyes and instinctively I knew it was from my childhood. I saw an old fashioned cottage kitchen with full open fired kitchen range. The atmosphere was one of warmth and happiness.

My mother of that time was small and rather plump but pretty. Most of the time she wore a pinafore covering a simple dress, but there were special occasions when she dressed up and I thought she was a princess.

My mother started to hug me before thinking better of it but she still declared fiercely, "We're here now love and we are not going to let you down, unlike some other person that I won't name." She paused and then called out, "Say hello Dad, so that he'll know that you're here."

A rough voice said, "Hi son," and a picture of my father, (from the same era) slotted into the mental tableau. He was a broad squat man, always wore heavy boots and corduroy trousers and was never without a tweed flat cap pasted on his head. He had a thick moustache on his upper lip and his skin was weather-beaten due to always working out of doors. Taciturn but dependable, that was my dad and I was rather fond of him.

My mother continued talking but I began to drift because I hadn't the faintest idea who or what she was talking about, even though it was obvious that she expected her references to have meaning to me. Hearing and smell were the only senses that I seemed to have retained and I was beginning to wish that hearing had been lost with the others. Thankfully my mother suddenly declared that she was going to find the coffee vending machine.

The moment that his wife was safely out of the room, my father quickly jumped up and moved close to the bed. This time it was the aroma of pipe tobacco that wafted over me. Putting his head close to mine, my dad said urgently, "I've only a minute to say this son and I hope the fuck you can hear me. Don't throw away an otherwise happy marriage for the sake of a bit of cheating and don't do anything even more foolish again either. Believe me, sex don't mount to nowt in the long run."

I think my father might had more to say but at that moment my mother must have re-entered the room because she called out, "I hope that you're not telling the lad anything that he doesn't need to hear."

"I'm just letting him know that we've got a bit put by if he needs it," my father told her, lying his way off the hook.

"I've just met this nice nurse out in the corridor and she's promised to bring us some coffee," my mother reported, (this explaining her fast re-appearance), but I cannot remember any more conversation so must have dropped back asleep.

*

I was unsure whether I was sleeping intermittently or popping in and out of unconsciousness. This time it was the unmistakable sound of stiletto heels crossing the floor towards me, but moving in a more hesitant manner. Her kiss was delivered in almost exactly to same spot as my mother's, but prolonged slightly longer and with her lips more firmly defined.

"I love you and you're the only man I ever will love, you must know that," she declared emotionally. "I just wish you hadn't run off like that. What you saw wasn't what it seemed." She paused and then qualified, "Well I've got to admit that it was what it seemed but it definitely wasn't as bad as it looked."

This had to be my wife. I knew the voice well and that expensive perfume was more than familiar, if only I could remember her name.

"It isn't as if I was having an affair," my wife continued. "That was only the second time ever that I did it with Bill. I knew you were suspicious the first time it happened at the Murgatroyd's party and I swore to myself then never to be so stupid again. It should never have happened in the first place but when Bill bustled me into a bedroom and said that he'd just seen you take Stephanie Pryce into the summer house it made me cross. On the spur of the moment, I let Bill do what he wanted with me just to get my own back on you. I'd had quite a lot to drink by then but I'm not claiming that as an excuse. Afterwards, when you found me coming downstairs I was convinced that you knew exactly what we'd been doing."

The name 'Stephanie Pryce' rang a bell and a picture of the summer house in question formed in my mind. I had gone out there in search of my wife, at the same time as Stephanie headed that way looking for her husband. I was not at all anxious, I'd simply lost track of my wife and was just casually wandering round until we reconnected. Stephanie was a tall slim girl with the face of a model and an awful lot of leg on display. I think she was up for it if I had pushed but there wasn't a lot of comfort available in the summer house and, despite the space heater, it was a little too chilly to start removing clothing. We must have sat and chatted for twenty minutes or so before separating and heading back to the main house.

My mental picture shifted to one of my wife walking down the Murgatroyd's stairs. She saw me at the same moment as I saw her. Her elegant scarlet silk dress clung flatteringly to her ripe curves but did seem somewhat less pristine than when we arrived a couple of hours before. To my eyes she looked warm and flustered but then many others appeared to be in the same condition. It was the look of guilt on her usually vivacious face that made me wonder what I had possibly missed.

My wife's voice brought my mind back to the hospital bed. Speaking urgently, she was saying, "It was absolutely the worst moment of my life when you caught Bill and me in bed together. When I opened my eyes and saw you standing by the bedroom door, I couldn't believe it because you were supposed to be thousands of miles away in America. With Bill's weight on top of me I couldn't move. I did shout out but he was just at that point when it's impossible for a man to stop. You didn't say a word; you just stood there and stared for a few seconds with that shocked look on your face before turning and walking away. I did eventually manage to push Bill off me and run after you but I was only in time to hear your car engine as you roared away."

You would think that such a traumatic moment would be indelibly imprinted on my memory but my mind was a total blank.

"I don't think you were trying to kill yourself," my wife declared. "I know that you would be driving fast because you were understandably angry but I'm convinced that you must have hit a patch of ice or something. I'll never believe that you crashed into that tree deliberately, despite what the police are claiming."

*

It was dark when I resurfaced to consciousness, not as dark as it had been but certainly black enough to know that daylight had ended. I could also detect two new presences in my room. One was the voice of a young woman, possibly a teenager but the other sounded older, more middle aged. For a time they collaborated from either side of the bed, rolling me this way and that, I think to replace my bottom sheet.

"I hate seeing young guys in this condition", the young one remarked sympathetically, "Without that life support thing in his mouth he'd be quite good looking and I don't think he can be any older that thirty."

"He's thirty four, or at least that's what it says on his chart," the older one informed. "Take my tip, don't start thinking of them as people because if you get emotionally involved it leads to heartache more often as not, especially in this department."

The more pragmatic of the pair was obviously in charge but she wandered off to do some other task, leaving the novice to manage my top sheet on her own. "He's got a stiffy," the girl suddenly cried out in delight, "Does that mean that he might be coming round?"

"It's a bit unusual but not significant," the older one explained, "It could be something in his deep subconscious that triggered it or something as simple as a waft of cold air."

"Whether he's unconscious or not, I hope he's excited because somehow he knows that I'm looking at his dick."

"What did I just say about identifying with patients?"

"Come and look at it anyway, it isn't a particularly big cock but it does look rather cute."

"Honey, when you've been doing this job as long as I have, big or small, one penis looks very much like another."

*

I think that I must have awoken again later in the same scene but now only the younger nurse was still with me. My covers must have been turned back because I could sense that my genitals were again on display. "You're still nice and stiff, I knew that you would be," the young woman was whispering to me, "I've slipped back specially to check. I'm convinced that you're really awake and this is the only way you can let me know."

She moved away for a moment but then I felt slim feminine fingers slip underneath my scrotum to comfortingly cup my balls. "I'm going to make you feel so good but first I think only proper for us to be introduced first. I know from your chart that you are called Steve and my name is Melanie. I'm very pleased to meet you," she said, making it almost comically formal.

Melanie started by gently squeezing my testicles while stroking the lower part of the shaft with her thumb. From there she progressed to many other things, I know not exactly what, but it certainly felt pretty damn good. All the time she kept up a running commentary with the questions, 'Are you enjoying this?,' 'Do you like that?' and 'Does that feel nice?' At one point she said, "Oh you really did like that", this when I think she had put her lips very close to the head of my cock and blown a stream of warm breath towards the slit.

I didn't last very long after that before my lower quarters exploded in a fireball of sensation. When Melanie spoke, the triumph and excitement in her voice was palpable as she said, "You had pleasure, I enjoyed giving you pleasure and there's no need for my boyfriend to know anything about it."

*

It must have been the next day because my parents were back and I was subjected to another maternal monologue. I felt as if I had cornered the market in aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces because the catalogue of their rather mundane doings seemed never ending. There were times when I desperately hoped for sleep to relieve me but my switch off mechanism seemed to have deserted me. Apart from an initial greeting, my dad never spoke directly to me but at one point I heard him in the background chatting cheerfully to the coffee vending nurse.

I was still awake when both said their goodbyes and left. A few minutes later my wife came in; her arrival signalled by her trademark stilettos. Her kiss was longer this time and I think intended to be more meaningful but it cut no ice with me because I now knew that she had cheated on me. Strangely I was not unduly agitated by knowledge of her infidelity but thought that might possibly change if I ever managed to remember her damn name.

"I'm not saying that it was completely Bill's fault because I was at least partly to blame for what happened, but I'm hoping that you will find yourself able to forgive me," my wife said, launching into her prepared speech. "If Bill hadn't turned up unexpectedly at the house that night, I wouldn't have dreamt of cheating on you again. I was resigned to being without you for the whole two weeks, it was going to be a long time but although I was already feeling lonely, I wasn't at all randy. When Bill rang the doorbell I didn't think anything of it. He's at the house all the time but never before when you weren't there. He said that he'd forgotten to mention that if there were any heavy jobs needed doing during your absence, he'd be happy to call in and look after them for you. I gave him a drink. He's always very easy to talk to so we sat in the lounge chatting and that one drink extended to three or four."

My wife paused for breath and her hand tentatively found mine. "Bill started saying that he hoped that you were going to behave yourself while you were over there in Dallas on your own. He said that American women are very willing and that lots of them really go for the old Brit accent. I said that you were not that kind of man but he insisted that everybody's human. He then said that if you did happen to stray from the straight and narrow then I shouldn't get too upset because it wouldn't mean anything. I don't quite know how it happened but the next thing we were talking about the Murgatroyd's party with Bill saying that he treasured the memory of having sex with me that night. He then said that he's fancied me for years and that it drives him crazy knowing that I'm his best friend's wife."

There was silence for over a minute and I thought that my wife had finished her confession but then she started speaking again with renewed determination. "We were sitting on opposite settees facing each other but Bill asked if he could move over and join me for a bit of a cuddle. He looked so forlorn sitting there with his heart on his sleeve, that I felt sorry for him and said that he could. It was nice and cosy snuggled under his arm but his hand quickly dropped down onto the top of my breast. I should have stopped him at that point but I didn't and he was soon taking other liberties. Bill then started saying that he felt we still had unfinished business, he said that at the party it had only been a quickie and that we both deserved more than that. I was very wet by this time, I found myself agreeing with him but I didn't say so. I kept remembering his cock. It wasn't much longer than yours but it was a lot stiffer. Maybe that's only to be expected in the circumstances."

'Smooth talking bastard' I'm thinking. Who the fuck was this Bill character? He had been referred to as 'my best friend' but I had no memory of anybody remotely fitting that description.

"By this time Bill was playing with my bare breasts and my hand was resting on the front of his trousers, just refreshing my memory a bit. I think I was hoping to keep it more or less at that level but Bill suddenly jumped to his feet taking me up with him, saying, 'No more messing around. We both need to get this out of our system and there's never going to be a better time than now'. I didn't put up any resistance when he pulled me upstairs with him and from that point I was every bit as bad as him. You know the rest."

*

This time it was definitely a male tread that I heard striding purposefully towards me. "How are you doing old son, I have to admit that I've seen you looking better," said a confident voice, which I presumed belonged to Bill. "I'm not going to bother apologising because what's done is done. I can't even say that I regret it because those two hours with Gloria before you blundered in were the best of my life. I don't really know why I've come."

Gloria, so that was my wife's name. Of course it was. After seven years of happy marriage, how could I possibly forget something as basic as that?

Bill broke the momentary pause by saying, "I do want to set the record straight on one point. Despite what you must think, I categorically did not send you to Dallas just to get out of the way. Originally we were going to go together and hopefully have the same fantastic time as we did in Vegas two years ago. It was a genuine reason that stopped me going this time and it wasn't until I saw you off at the airport that I realised it gave me a marvellous chance to look after some outstanding business. It was perfect, I could have had a nice bit of fun while you were away and you wouldn't have known a damn thing about if it wasn't for the most abominable bad luck. Who the hell heard of a fucking airliner turning round in mid Atlantic? It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been a genuine terrorist threat but finding out that it was only a false alarm is infuriating."

That bit of information made me smile, or at least I felt as if I was smiling but I doubt if the emotion registered on my face.

"This is partly your fault you know," Bill told me, switching to more conversational mode. "I probably wouldn't have intruded into your marriage in the first place if I hadn't known that you're hardly an angel yourself. You must have spent a small fortune on that lap dancer you took a fancy to in Vegas. Granted you'd won most of that on the tables but I was convinced that she was giving you special attention after hours, off the books so to speak. Anyway, I reckoned that if you were going to be dunking your doughnut in Dallas for two weeks, what was the harm in me grabbing a small taste for myself back here."