Tongue-Tied

Published 'Shadowdance' 1994

He felt the bed to be a large mouth. The back of his head was pillowed upon the mouth's lower lip whilst his chin was tucked up to the top one. Both lips were stained red. His limbs and torso felt uncomfortable as he tried to adjust the rough slobbery tongue over him like a hinged underblanket. The teeth dug into his spine. He felt the slimy beginnings of the throat with his bare toes. After a while, he managed to fall asleep and dream of sleeping in a real, bed. He woke with a start. All he could remember was his name. The room was hot and sweaty. No sign of daylight, since he couldn't make out the vague square where the window should have been. Like an oven and, what was more, he could not feel his feet properly. They must be sticking out the end of the bed, he thought. He tried to say something--a device like pinching one's arm in a real dream--but found himself tongue-tied. He had always been embarrassed by the way he spoke. There was a bubbling noise in his ears. He loved the special nurse who syringed his ears at the clinic. The uniform suited her, with the watch pinned upon the left breast. Today, she had come to give him a blanket bath. He woke, this time hopefully for real. He crossed himself. And again for good luck. "Mr. Urwin, are you all right?" He looked up to find several nurses plumping up his pillows. He was relieved to see that the special nurse was among them, with a sweetly revealing smile. He was too overcome to reply. He had been tongue-tied for most of his life. "Time for your injection, Mr. Urwin." ... He was rolled upon his stomach, pyjama trousers tugged down. An attempt at protest died in his throat. The sting of the needle lasted only a moment. However, last time the bed merely felt like a large mouth, but now it was one indeed.  The white turnover of the sheet formed the lower teeth the hardness of which probed his flesh.  He was relieved that the pieces of the puzzle were starting to make sense. Being chewed in half was not as bad as not knowing. The teeth sank to their gums into his flesh whilst he hoped that the teeth belonged to the nice special nurse. At last he was properly awake--third time lucky. From miles above, the special nurse's face reappeared. Did she still smile? Hard to be certain, looking through a film of tears as he was. But as his vision cleared slowly, her face transfigured with lust. Her tongue forked out, slid lasciviously along the upper lip and lengthened. The noise in his ears was a slobbering rather than the bubbling of an ear-wax budger. Something that was slithery-dry with stale dog-spit wrapped his body, tying him down so tight he could never escape the cloying trammels of what became the very last double-crossing of dream with dream in perpetuo.