“My, you’re a cranky patient. Sit.” She tried to guide him back to the stretcher.
He stood firm. “I’d rather stand.” Tall and proud and healthy. Not wounded and weak, or dependent and vulnerable. A victim.
“Give me a few minutes. I’ve got to run and get some things then I’ll be back to get you all settled and you can relax until surgery.”
Relax. Fat chance.
In Roxie’s absence, Fig paced, holding his right elbow bent and his hand elevated or it started to throb. Three steps to the window. Pivot. Three steps to the door. Pivot. Repeat. And with each forward progression he asked himself, What am I going to do about Roxie?
Having her sleep over when she had no place else to go and so he could take care of her was okay, but having her puttering around Kyle’s condo when he wasn’t up to watching her and keeping in charge of her was something else entirely.
So far the issue of her preparing food for him hadn’t come up. Was it too much to hope Roxie didn’t like to cook? His stomach tightened. She wouldn’t understand. He’d no doubt hurt her feelings, and she didn’t need him adding to her current aggravation. He liked her, but he needed to keep things casual. Friends only—preferably friends who only had sex—nothing more. He’d found that to be the easiest way to conceal his…issues. Unfortunately, most women didn’t buy into the arrangement for long.
He’d lost track of how many laps he’d done—somewhere up in the hundreds—and still he hadn’t come up with any stupendous ideas by the time she returned, carrying two pink plastic basins filled with soap, lotion and washcloths. Over her shoulder rested at least a dozen towels.
“What’s all that for?” he asked.
“I ran up to the O.R. to get you some scrub pants. I’m going to give you a bed bath and help you get changed.”
* * *
“Like hell you are,” Fig said, sounding all big and tough. “I am not a child. Nor am I incapacitated. I do not need to be given a bath.”
Roxie had been a nurse long enough to know when someone was scared. And she wanted to help. “Maybe not, but in addition to getting you all cleaned up, it will relax you. I promise.” Roxie would make sure of it. “People say I give one primo bed bath.” She walked to the lone chair in the room and unloaded her towels.
“I bet they do.” His words, coated with sarcasm and heavy with sexual innuendo, hit their mark.
While she knew he was only lashing out due to his own inner struggles, his words hurt. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Roxie dropped the two basins, soap and lotion onto the counter by the sink. “I’m such a tramp you think I’d behave unprofessionally while bathing a patient? That I would take advantage of someone in my care by making inappropriate, unwanted sexual advances?”
“I didn’t mean…”
“Well, what did you mean, then?” Roxie glared at him, her arms crossed over her chest, and she waited for him to answer.
“I’m an ass,” Fig said, sitting heavily on the stretcher, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“I get it,” Roxie said. “You’re tense and uncomfortable and unhappy. I feel terrible even though I didn’t ask you to get involved cleaning at my house, you insisted. And I told you not to go into that room, yet you went in anyway. I am trying to do what I can to make this easier for you. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to stick around and be insulted just because you’re in a bad mood.”
Fig toed off his sneakers. “Okay.” He lay down on the stretcher, resting his right wrist on his belly. “If you think it will help, you can give me a bed bath.”
You can give me. “Oh, I can, can I? Maybe now I don’t want to. There are lots of other things I could be doing right now.” But none she’d rather be doing.
“Do you want my pants off or on?” he asked.
“Makes no difference to me.”
He reached down with his left hand and fumbled with the button to his jeans. “You’re going to stand there and watch me struggle?”
“Yes.” It’d serve him right.
“No, you’re not.” He stared up at her. “Because you’re too nice. And caring. And not at all mean. Come here,” he said. Contrite. Not a command. A plea. “Please.”
Her legs walked over to the stretcher.
“Don’t leave me,” he said quietly. “I need you.”
That was all she had to hear. Roxie moved to the head of the bed, kissed his forehead and said, “You’ve got me.” The idea excited her. Felt kind of girlfriendy. A new gig for her. She kinda liked the thought of taking care of him—her temporary man—looked forward to staying with him after surgery, to cooking and cleaning up after someone who’d actually appreciate it.
Roxie walked to the sink, adjusted the water temperature until she had it right where she wanted it and began filling one of the basins.
She returned to Fig. “I’m going to help you out of your pants,” she explained, just like she would to any patient. She undid the button and lowered the zipper. “Bend your knees and lift up,” she instructed.
He did. As she slid down his pants, his underwear came, too. Since he didn’t seem to have a problem with it, she made sure to maintain his privacy by keeping him covered by the hospital gown. Then she slid both down his long legs, taking his socks with her as she did.
With one basin filled, she began filling the other and returned to the bed. “I’m going to remove your gown now.”
Fig lay there with his eyes closed.
She slid the top half off his shoulders and down his arms, leaving it folded over his groin. Then she covered him from his neck to his ankles with towels, laying them crossways, pulling out the gown when she was all done.
When the second basin was filled she moved each to the over-the-bed table, set the height level with the mattress and got to work. “Let me have your left hand,” she said. Fig lifted it. His eyes still closed.
Roxie washed his hand and between his fingers. She spent extra time on it because Fig seemed very conscious of the cleanliness of his hands, to the point he carried a hand sanitizer with him. Then she submerged his hand in the rinse basin. “Let it soak for a minute.” In nursing school, while posing as a patient—in her bikini—for the demonstration on bed baths, the teacher had set each of Roxie’s hands to soak in the bathwater. It’d felt so good Roxie made it a point to do the same for each of her patients.
“I’m going to start with your head.” His beautiful head. “Lift.” She slid a towel beneath it then dipped the first of her washcloths in the heated water of the other basin and squeezed out the excess. She cleansed him gently, carefully. After rinsing his face and behind his ears, Roxie dipped the cloth in the clean water, squeezed it until it stopped dripping and set it over his eyes and forehead.
Then she lowered the towel covering his colorful chest. As she bathed him, she admired the beautiful artwork covering his upper body, all outdoor landscapes, she realized, which stuck her as odd for a man who preferred the indoors. She read the words tattooed in script on scrolls swirling over the backdrop of lush flowering bushes and trees, snow-capped mountains and ocean sunsets: “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,” over his left pectoral. “Life is a sum of all your choices ~ Albert Camus,” above his belly button. “To err is human, to forgive divine ~ Anon.,” on his left shoulder. “Happiness depends on ourselves ~ Aristotle,” on his right shoulder. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough ~ Joe E. Lewis,” curved around the outside of his right pectoral.
The proverbs resonated with her. “My favorite words of wisdom are ‘Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here we should dance.’”
“Who said it?” Fig asked.
“I have no idea.” But that simple sentence had become the basis of her life, the impetus to have
fun and find joy when and where she could.
After Roxie dried his torso, she took the lotion she’d left warming in the sink and massaged it into Fig’s upper body, avoiding his right forearm. Usually she wore gloves when giving a bed bath. Today she didn’t, relishing the smooth curve of each muscle, praying for healing at every raised scar from his painful past.
“Roll onto your left side.” She assisted him, positioning his right arm on a pillow and sliding towels underneath him to catch any dripping water.
After bathing, drying and lotioning him, she worked her fingers into his tight muscles.
“That feels so good,” Fig said.
Roxie smiled. “That’s what I’m aiming for.”
When she’d finished with his legs and feet, Roxie couldn’t miss the bulge under the towel covering Fig’s groin. She dipped a washcloth in the now sudsy water, wrung it out and placed it in his left hand. “You can do between your legs.”
At that he opened his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier. Technically, I’m not your patient so you don’t have to worry about adhering to any professional code of ethics.”
She knew that, which was why she’d planned a little something special to help alleviate his distress. “I don’t?” Roxie asked, knowing exactly where he was headed.
Fig shook his head. “And since we’ve already had sex, if you were to…let’s say…make any sexual advances—which I wouldn’t turn down, by the way—they wouldn’t be at all inappropriate. In fact they’d be welcomed. Appreciated even.” While giving a hand job during a bed bath certainly wasn’t nurselike behavior, it could very well fall into the realm of girlfriendlike behavior. At least a dozen times over the years she’d worked at Madrin Memorial she’d walked into a patient’s room to find the curtain drawn and the scent of sex heavy in the air.
Men liked it anywhere. Everywhere.
He still had an hour and a half before the earliest possible time the O.R. might call for him. There was plenty of time, but just to be sure… “Exactly what are you asking for, Fig?”
He took her hand and placed it on his erection so there’d be no doubt. “The bath helped. But I still feel wound tight. I want…”
“Something to release the built-up…tension?”
“Yeah.” He closed his eyes and guided her hand over the top of the towel, along the length of him, while he lifted his hips into her touch.
“If you wanted to get rid of the towel,” he added, “that’d be okay, too.”
She smiled, starting to get into the game he played. “What if I don’t want to use my hand?” Roxie asked seductively as she moved to the head of the stretcher and bent down close to his lips. “What if I wanted to use my tongue? Would that be okay?”
“Your mouth is perfection,” he said, staring up into her eyes.
She dropped down for a kiss. He turned his head. She connected with his jaw. Again. Strike two. One more time and she’d call him on it. Or did she really want to know the truth? That her mouth was perfect to go down on him, but not good enough to kiss? He wasn’t the first guy to avoid kissing her on the mouth. But his refusal hurt more than the others. Because what they had together—while still new—meant more. He meant more.
No. She would not go there. Today she was playing girlfriend.
But deciding not to use her mouth for anything more than talking and eating until he kissed her, she pulled away the towel, reached for the lotion, squeezed and watched ribbons of white cream twirl around his aroused flesh, all engorged and eager for attention.
She didn’t make him wait.
When she squeezed her fingers around his thick, firm flesh and slid from the rounded tip down the smooth, impressive length to the bare skin at its base, Fig let out a pleasure-filled groan. A wonderful sound.
“You like?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Oh, yeah.” Having him in her palm felt so good, Roxie almost groaned, too. She moved her hand in long, slow strokes, lubricated by the lotion. The rise and fall of Fig’s chest became more rapid, as did his thrusts to meet her.
Fig pulled at the towel covering his chest until it fell to the floor. His nipples beckoned her. Roxie bent to lick one, the roughened texture making her tongue tingle. She sucked it into her mouth. Okay, eating, talking and nipple sucking, but nothing else.
Fig clutched her head and leaned down to kiss the top of it. “I’ll make it up to you.” He strained against her palm. “Whatever you want, I’ll do.” He panted into her hair. “Anything. You feel so damn good. I’m going to…”
And with one final push that lifted his hips completely off the stretcher, Fig released all his tension into the towel Roxie had barely managed to toss on top of him.
While she cleaned him, Fig looked completely relaxed, maybe even asleep. His breathing returned to normal. His eyes closed. But when she covered him with fresh toweling and put up the side rails, he reached for her. “I’m going to take a nap.” He sounded like he’d already started. “Come lie with me.”
“There’s not enough room.”
He scooted over and patted the space he’d created to his left.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Honey, I feel so good I am incapable of recognizing pain.”
Good.
“Now come. Lie down with me.” He yawned. “We hardly got any sleep last night.”
She was kind of tired.
“Please,” he said. “I need to have you close.”
Roxie liked to be needed. So she slipped out of her sandals and carefully crawled up beside him. With the utmost care not to jostle his right forearm, she snuggled into his side, her head on his shoulder, her palm over his heart, her knee across his hips. “You comfortable?” she asked.
He nodded. “I like this,” he said sleepily. “Just don’t try to cook me breakfast,” he mumbled.
What? She lifted her head to look at him. He was out.
Roxie closed her eyes, enjoying his strong arm heavy across her back and the tiny twitches as his body fully relaxed in sleep.
While he was in surgery she’d run to visit Mami then make a quick trip to the store for the ingredients to make Mrs. Klein’s fabulous chicken soup with matzo balls. Jewish penicillin, she’d called it. Good for whatever ailed you.
Fig was going to love it.
* * *
Roxie was in the process of stocking Fig’s fridge with food when his cell phone—which she’d held on to along with all of his other valuables when he’d gone up to the O.R.—rang for the third time. She rummaged around her purse until she found it. The screen read: “Mom.” Knowing how much her mom worried when she couldn’t reach her, Roxie opened the phone. “Hello.”
“Who’s this?” an older female voice asked.
“Roxie. I’m a friend of Fig’s.”
“Where is he? What’s wrong? Albert,” she called out. “Come quick. Something’s happened to Ryan.”
“He took a little fall. He’s in surgery to repair…”
“He’s in the hospital,” Fig’s mother yelled to someone. “Get the car.”
“I’m going back to the hospital now. The recovery room called a few minutes ago and said he tolerated the procedure well and should be ready for discharge in a few hours.”
“They called you? Why did they call you? I’m his mother. Alllbbbeeerrrttt,” she yelled. “Oh, where is that blasted man?” she muttered. “I want to speak to the nurses myself. They need to know Ryan’s medical history. He’s a very fragile young man.”
He didn’t seem fragile to Roxie.
“Come. Come. I’m waiting. What hospital is he in?”
“Madrin Memorial.” Roxie almost said ma’am.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Fig’s
mom said.
“You really don’t have to…” The connection ended. “I have everything under control,” she finished, although no one was there to hear her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FIG felt absolutely horrible. Out of habit he scanned the recovery room for his mother, which was absolutely ridiculous since she was hours away and had no idea where he was. He retched again. The extra antinausea medication the nurse had shot into him wasn’t working. Fig didn’t care. “I want to go home,” he told the nurse standing beside him, holding the small plastic bowl he was supposed to puke into.
“Not until you’re taking oral fluids,” she said.
The thought of swallowing anything made him retch again. “You said I could go after I peed.” Which he’d done, into a plastic urinal container, with his nurse standing beside him—listening and watching as if he’d planned to substitute someone else’s urine for his own. All while his ass hung out from the back opening of his hospital gown. The ultimate humiliation.
She held out a cup of water with a straw in it. “Once you’re drinking I can discontinue your intravenous.”
He would never drink that easily contaminated tap-water swill despite the lining of his throat feeling like it’d been impaled with thousands of tiny shards of glass. Fig only drank bottled water. From bottles he opened himself. “I am going home,” Fig said. “Either discharge me or give me the papers to sign out against medical advice. I’m leaving either way. Where are my clothes?”
“Roxie took them. She said she’d bring you back clean ones to put on.”
Damn it. He had to leave now. Before his lungs tightened to the point he could not choke in a breath. Before his eyes blurred and he started to shake. Before the doctor ordered a sedative to drug him into a complacency that would enable people to manipulate him as they pleased.
No. Fig wasn’t a scared little boy anymore, and he’d walk out of here half-naked if he had to.
“I’m going to call your doctor,” the nurse said in a huff and walked back to the nurses’ station.
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