Lolita: the later years (as imagined by Peter Serafinowicz)

Lolita, my aged Lolita! She cackles, and repeats her name at my bidding: Lo-Lee-Ta... The final syllable slurred, a casualty of her recent stroke, or perhaps of ill-fitting dentures. My wrinkled, withered, bent beauty! What dim flame she ignites in the ancient wasteland of my crotch, the catalyst that gently pumps a dull atom of lust imperceptibly slowly through my exhausted veins...

"Lolita's due for her nap now, Mr. Humbert," grumbled the matron, as she roughly swept the cracker crumbs from Lo's blanket with a sturdy palm. How I envied her fat hand, grazing those emaciated thighs, first downward, downward, now upward, towards Lolita's barren loins... Matron barked me out of my reverie: "Are you sure you don't want to sit down? You look like you're about to collapse."

"I'm perfectly happy on my frame, thank you Miss," I replied, bristling at the impudence of the girl, barely in her late sixties (but too stocky for my tastes). The delicious truth was, however, that with cankerous, blood-spotched elbows perched on my Zimmer, I had the most excellent vantage-point for gazing down Lolita's crumpled blouse; the old coquette had neglected to fasten her third and fourth buttons, allowing my milky eye to fall upon her naked breast: a raisin made flesh.

I stood, drooling, for a moment, or it could have been 15 minutes, until my ancient sexlet wheezed, "It's alright, matron. Mr. Humbert's just come to fetch me my books, haven't you love?" Matron eyed me warily, then mercifully retreated, doubtless sensing the atmosphere had become unmistakably charged with low-voltage electricity.

We were finally alone. Trembling with anticipation, or dementia, I reached into the plastic carrier bag and handed the magazines to my forbidden love (taking great care over my balance, lest I should slip, shattering my delicate skeleton on the hard hospital floor: even the slightest knock these days could snap a bone like kindling). I watched her face crinkle into a ghastly mask of pure, geriatric joy... It brought to my mind a mad map drawn by an obsessive cartographer, who, realising he has no more room for furrows and whorls, crumples it into a ball and upends his tea over it in disgust.

"Oh you are sweet, Mr. Humbert," she grimaced, "I love me puzzles, they keep the old brain ticking over."

As she greedily opened a shoddy pamphlet to devour yet another wordsearch, I took swift advantage of her diverted attention and allowed myself to leer: My Lolita, the filthy, decrepit star of the mildly erotic teleplays projected in my mind's cinema during those painful and pathetic attempts at self-love, before me in the pruny flesh! How I ached, not only from chronic osteoarthritis, but also with pure, diluted passion. How I longed to somehow muster the energy to undress her, there and then, and slowly attempt to ravish her with my pitiful, ravaged, quivering piss-whistle...

"Ma, what's he doing here?"

Neville. Her oaf of a son, who'd somehow tricked the constabulary into making him a detective chief inspector.

"He's harmless, pet, he just brought me some Puzzlers."

To me, now: "Get out. Or I'll have you locked up again. I don't care how old you are."

Who was he to order me about, this baby, this infant of a mere 56 years?

Nevertheless, I acquiesced. "Don't you worry, I'm going," I croaked, and stealing one last look at my dilapidated darling, I shambled off, past the matron's glare, comforted by the thought that I had plenty of material in the wank-bank.

Taken from 'A Billion Jokes: Volume One', by Peter Serafinowicz (Macmillan)