Chapter 6 -- Polishing those Knobs
Susan looked over the garden fence. A lovely spring day when you could almost believe it was summer already -- if there had been leaves on the trees. There, in her neighbour's garden, sat Mr Canning reading a newspaper in a deckchair upon the flags of his patio, a pot of tea with cup and saucer to hand.
"What does he look like?" said her mother behind her. "Being well dressed is one thing but in your own back garden. You wouldn't find your dad like that...but he's not a poof!"
"I think he looks rather nice in an old-fashioned sort of way, Mum."
Certainly, the old man was dressed as if to go out, perhaps to a cricket match. Linen blazer, straw hat, white shirt with open neck and gaily coloured cravat within, neatly pressed light brown trousers and 'Hush Puppy' brown suede shoes.
"Well, certainly he's a generous old man. I'll give him that. He was wondering if you needed any pocket money. He said, if you like that is, you could pop around and do things for him and he would pay you."
"What sort of things?"
The sharpness of her tone surprised her mother. "Oh dear, Susan, you do fly off the handle and jump to such wrong conclusions. I'm not sending you round as a little tart." She laughed, "dear me, what would dad think if I sent you there as if on 'the game.' Really, Susan!"
"I didn't mean that, Mum, not at all." But her mother had certainly jumped to that conclusion and wouldn't let it go. She seemed to find the idea so funny.
"Buy you a little French maid's outfit so your stocking tops showed when you bent over with your feather duster!" Her mother was so amused. "Yes Susan, that is sort of what Mr Canning was suggesting. Would you like to do some cleaning and polishing for him? Dusting, hoovering, polishing his brass and silverware -- that sort of thing. He'll pay you."
And so Susan found herself at Mr Canning's once more, dressed not in her school clothes but jeans, blouse, trainers and with a scarf tied around her hair. Most certainly not a French maid's outfit. The house, though, looked immaculate, hardly in need of cleaning at all. It seemed almost embarrassing to take his money given it was rather obvious it would be for unnecessary work, but she set to, nonetheless, dusting and then vacuuming the carpets.
It was nice to sit after all that work and simply polish silver. Her mother had been careful to teach her well and she knew what to do with the Goddard's silver polish. For a moment she had expected to find a bottle of 'Ed McCaffrey's' silver polish under the sink. She was a little puzzled why that name should come into her mind. Certainly, she had been using that bottle of lotion hidden in her bedroom only the night before, but why should she think of it now when cleaning? Sexual thought and Mr Canning's house hardly came together.
Mr Canning came into the kitchen and suggested a cup of tea. He made it whilst Susan finished her polishing. She snapped off the rubber gloves and stood, undoing the apron she had put on to protect her clothes, watching him boiling the water. Mr Canning carried the tea into the living room. Sarah sat opposite, a coffee table between them.
There upon the table a colourful brochure advertising Ed McCaffrey products; the same stylised logo which so reminded Susan of an ejaculating penis prominent together with a picture of a pretty girl wrapped demurely in a fluffy, white towel and a speech bubble from her, 'Just do it.' What a co-incidence. She had just been thinking of 'Ed McCaffrey.' Susan picked it up and opened it. Did 'they' do silver polish?
Susan flicked the pages feeling a little funny. It was a catalogue of rather unusual products. She was a little surprised at Mr Canning for having it in his house. She recognised one or two. There was that lotion hidden away in her bedroom for one. She frowned, she could not remember buying it or how it had got there. It could hardly be her mother's. She blinked, her mind feeling a little fuzzy. Her hands turned the pages and she looked down at a picture of a round blue tin. It seemed the closest to silver polish - 'Ed McCaffrey's Knob Polish -- it does exactly what it says on the tin.'
"What's 'knob polish," Mr Canning? What does it say on the tin?"
"I don't know, Susan, I've not bought any. Doesn't the catalogue say?"
"Perhaps it's for polishing brass. Like the knobs on your big brass bed."
"I wouldn't think so. I'll buy a tin and we shall see."
Susan drank her tea and accepted another cup, a refill. The fragrant liquid poured out of the spout of the china teapot, out of a curving spout. She stared and then rubbed her eyes. It was as if the china spout had all of a sudden changed in front of her eyes, instead of a simple white porcelain spout with blue flowers like the body of the teapot, and indeed the matching cups, saucers, milk jug and sugar bowl, it had changed. It had become thicker and had very much taken on the appearance of a man's erect penis, admittedly with an unusual double bend to it -- and blue flowers. The tea was coming out of a swollen knob end and the feet of the teapot had become, at the front, like a pair of man's balls.
"Your teapot's become a cock, Mr Canning." She looked up at him aghast.
"No, it hasn't, Susan, what an idea! Are you feeling all right?" He put the teapot down and placed his hand on her knee. It was meant as a reassuring gesture. She could see that. But if he was not gay it could easily have seemed rather different. He patted the knee. The teapot spout did not seem like a cock anymore.
"More milk, Susan?"
She looked up at Mr Canning, he was leaning towards her, his eyes full of concern, his kindly eyes, his kindly brown eyes. "Oh, I... yes please." Her mouth fell open. The milk jug in his hand had become another cock like the teapot, a firm one with its knob pointed towards her china teacup. "Oh, oh, oh!" she said as the cock not so much poured white 'milk' into her tea as spurted, the 'milk' splashing into the hot liquid.
She blinked and all was normal. The tea in her cup swirling a little from the milk that had been poured. The dainty milk jug with its blue flowers being carefully replaced by Mr Canning upon the table.
"I was... I was having a hallucination." Had something been put in her tea? Susan had heard of mind-altering drugs. Was she on a 'trip.' It hardly seemed at all likely in nice, old, Mr Canning's house.
