by Roxy Harte
* * * * *
I am tangled in bedsheets when I awaken, and my first thought isn’t about the woman lying next to me. My thoughts are of the woman I left at the hospital. I should have stayed there. What was I thinking, leaving her, knowing the hours following her surgery would be the most dangerous?
I meet Lin’s gaze and she smiles sweetly but I look away. Confused. Guilty. I still don’t know what I am going to say to her about where I went last night. I could tell her the truth but I’m just not ready to talk about it.
Struggling out of the bed, I follow a clothing trail to my slacks and rummage in the pocket for my cell. I quickly look at its face to see if I have any missed calls. There are three, but those are all from the club—no doubt I am late for something—and nothing from the hospital. I tell myself that no call is a good sign but then have the horrible thought that if her parents found out where she was and that I had already seen her, they would have me banned from any future visits.
Panic wells in my chest and I call the ICU. “This is Dr. George Kirkpatrick, and I am calling for an update on patient Giselle Marconi.”
I hear Lin’s footsteps behind me and turn in time to see her cover her mouth. I turn away, listening carefully to the nurse’s update. She’s still in critical condition.
When I disconnect and turn to face Lin, I discover she has left the room. I find her in the kitchen, sitting at a small table, and have no idea what to say to her.
“You were talking about the teenager who ruined your career.”
“Yes, except that she’s a woman now. She’s in the hospital and may not live.”
“Good riddance. She is a horrible person.”
I have to get out of here. Lin will never understand no matter how I explain it. I shouldn’t have come. I leave the room and dress quickly. When I return to the kitchen she seems surprised to see that I am dressed.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’m late already. The office keeps calling.”
She gives me a look that clearly says she doubts me, although I’ve never given her reason to believe that I’m not telling the truth. “Work or the hospital?”
“Work,” I say more sharply than is necessary. Seeing her hurt expression, I pull her into a hug. “Tonight will be a late night for me, but maybe I can come over in the morning when I get off?”
“It doesn’t matter how late or how early. I would like for you to stop by.”
I kiss her gently. The same lips I found so enticing yesterday tease mine with their sweetness today. Nothing has changed.
I keep telling myself that all the way to the office. A quick in and out to sign off on the remodel estimate and I’m back on the road, heading to the hospital. It shouldn’t feel like I lied to Lin, but it does.
I know my presence isn’t really necessary because Gigi is kept in a drug-induced coma and doesn’t even know I’m near, affording a lot of time to think. And remember…
One afternoon we went to a pier overlooking the bay. We sat at the eastern edge of the Golden Gate Recreational Area. I’d shown her the Wave Organ and we’d spent the better part of an hour with our ears pressed to listening tubes. Ice cream vendors pushing their cart attracted my attention and so I ran over, purchasing orange sherbet pushups.
With our feet dangling over the wall, we laughed and talked and licked our frozen treats. Her pink tongue darted out to swirl the top edge of the sweet confection.
Oh God.
I grow hard remembering it. That wasn’t the way it was!
“Can you fit the whole thing inside your mouth?”
She demonstrated that she could with a slow slide and an even slower withdrawal.
“Put it back in and see how long you can hold it in your mouth.”
She pushed the whole mass into her mouth and held it. Her eyes started to water from the coldness.
“Hum.”
She tried to ask “What” or “Why” around the melting orange blob on her tongue but I insisted, “Just do it.”
She started to hum.
She had to swallow as it melted, and she would gag but she kept humming. When the sherbet was completely gone tears were streaming down her face.
“Was it that intolerable then?”
“Not the sherbet. You.”
“I’m intolerable?”
“Yes, damn it. You make me happy enough to hum for the sake of happiness.”
After that day, our relationship changed drastically. We spent even more time together. That was the mistake…because when the shit did hit the fan, it really did.
It was late autumn on the day she broke into my house. Nighttime. It was a Monday, always a late night for me because after my regular patient schedule I taught class at the university.
I don’t know what she expected to find in my house or the reason behind her actions. I only know what she found there infuriated her. She destroyed photo albums filled with the pictures of men and women I’d played with over the years, threw a vase at my bedroom mirror, shattering it, and sliced my bedding to shreds. By the time I found her she’d bound herself to the St. Andrew’s Cross I kept in my playroom.
She wore jeans and a t-shirt and had managed to buckle three of four leather straps intended to secure her wrists and ankles. She was sobbing. “Master me.”
She was too young to understand what she was asking for. I rejected her, released her and sent her home in a taxi.
Two hours later I was arrested and charged with pandering pornography to a minor, rape and a dozen other charges. In the public hysteria that followed, I lost everything and I blamed her. But it wasn’t her fault. She was the kid. The fault was all mine.
Chapter Eight
Gigi
I’m dreaming. I know I am even though nothing makes sense, unless I am dreaming I am a fish, stuck in a fishbowl. That must be what it is. The images are watery, the sounds are muffled. I float, drifting…so cold.
Dr. Kirkpatrick is in my dream. George. I see him sitting in a stiff chair and his face is bowed into one of his hands. I can’t see his expression but I believe he is sad, horrifically so. I can’t imagine what has happened. He’s sobbing as if he lost someone very important.
I wish I could go to him and comfort him. I think I am dreaming about him because of that damn letter I had notarized. Damn Rachel. I was so terrified after the senator died, knowing she wouldn’t be there to watch my back anymore. I wrote a note stating what I wanted to happen should something horrible happen to me. Nothing like planning for the worst. That must be why I’m dreaming about George.
I wish he would look at me.
I’d like to see his face. It’s been so long. I think I loved him once. A child’s love, nothing more. He was so nice to me, and I repaid his good intentions with deceit…
I loved him.
I was young and devastated when he spurned my attempts to fit into his very adult world. I wanted him desperately, and I thought if he could only see me as an adult instead of a child…
I was so hysterical and embarrassed.
Everything spiraled out of control.
I still don’t know what happened except that everything went horribly wrong—for him and for me.
Pain. This is not a good dream. I hurt everywhere. I’m in so much pain I can’t think. I want to wake up. Wake up! Wake up! Oh God. I think I’m going to die. Please let this be another dream. A nightmare. I don’t care, just let me wake up from it.
“What should I call you?”
“God.”
I didn’t laugh, the demon beside me wasn’t joking. When I left the club with him lust ruled my every thought, but the car ride sobered me quick enough. I changed my mind, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
He grabbed my hair and dragged me into the hotel room. Too late I realized he wasn’t there for a little bondage play, or even dominance and submission play. He wanted to hurt me. He pushed me onto the bed and ripped my clothes off.
His hand wrapped around my neck, holdin
g me down as he pounded into me.
I screamed and kicked.
He laughed at me and spit in my face. He used me again and again…until he got tired and left me lying in the middle of the bed. I sat up, thinking I could make a run for the door, but his face was a mask of anger when he turned to face me…and then he swung the crowbar. Oh God!
I can’t breathe!
Help me! I can’t breathe!
Shhh, shhh. It’s okay, I’m breathing. In. Out. See? It’s just a dream. Sleep now. Sleep. Think about happy thoughts.
* * * * *
I’m so tired. I know I’m lying in bed and it must be time to wake up. I hear someone.
“Gigi? Can you open your eyes?”
I want to wake up. It’s just so hard. My eyes don’t want to open. I feel like I have been awake for some time, maybe not awake, but aware. Aware of sounds. Beeps. Air. I don’t know what that sound is. At first I thought air brakes, because I was dreaming I was on a bus, but then I wasn’t asleep, wasn’t dreaming anymore and the sound kept perfect rhythm. I find it confusing and strangely comforting, the sound lulling me.
“Gigi? Gigi? Open your eyes. Don’t try to move. Don’t try to talk.”
What?
I try to sit up but quickly realize I’m trapped. I can’t move. Without opening my eyes I try to figure out what is going on.
“Gigi. Open your eyes.”
That seems like a good idea but my eyelids are so heavy. Maybe I should sleep a little longer.
Pain.
I jerk, startled, suddenly wide-eyed, to find a man in a white lab coat pushing a hard piece of plastic against my sternum. “There you are. I’m Dr. Connor. Don’t try to talk. You experienced a major injury. You were in surgery for almost eight hours, and we’ve kept you sedated for five days to give your body time to heal.”
Not air brakes, a machine. I am not at home, I am in a bed. I try to sit up, to make sense of it all. I’m in a hospital. There is an intravenous line going into my arm, a brace holding my head and neck in position, straps restraining my shoulders. What happened to me?
I try to ask the doctor standing beside me but pain searing through my throat stops all thought.
“Don’t try to talk. I know you’re confused and frightened.”
I don’t know what happened to me! Was I in a car accident? I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything!
“Giselle Marconi. Is that your name?”
Giselle Marconi. Giselle. Gigi. Yes, I am Gigi. I am Giselle Marconi. I try to nod my head but the brace prevents movement.
The doctor thrusts a whiteboard and a pen at me.
I write Throat hurts.
“That’s to be expected. Do you remember what happened to you?”
I write No.
“We had to put your larynx back together. It was a very delicate operation. Right now a ventilator is helping you breathe. In a few hours we’ll see if you can breathe on your own, but you will still have a tracheostomy tube. The tubes going into your nose are feeding tubes.”
I write How long do the tubes stay in?
“That depends on a lot of variables, mainly how well you heal, but also how well you listen and obey. We have a collar on you to keep you from moving your head or neck. Don’t try to move. Don’t try to talk. Sneezing or coughing would be disastrous. The tubes will never come out if you reinjure yourself before you have a chance to heal completely.”
Never? I’m totally freaking out here. On the board I scribble. No! Not never.
“Our main goal is for you to breathe on your own, to swallow and eat. You’re not a singer, are you?”
I write No.
“That’s good. We can’t promise you’ll ever have a voice, and if you do get some vocal function, it probably isn’t going to sound pretty.”
I wince. I love to talk. Who doesn’t? I write As long as the tubes are out. As long as I’m mobile. Do I mean that?
“If you follow all of my instructions—after a few months—you’ll probably be able to manage a whisper.”
Months? Did he say months? Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod.
An alarm goes off on one of the machines near the bed. The doctor commands, “Giselle, relax.”
He inserts a needle into my IV line and I immediately feel warm and fuzzy, like my mind was wrapped in a blanket.
“You’re really very lucky. I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to not move. Give your body time to heal. In a few weeks we’ll set you up with physical therapists with the goal of getting you back on your feet.”
My eyes drift closed. I want to keep them open but I just can’t manage it.
* * * * *
I’m dreaming, I have to be, because I dream about George Kirkpatrick and I haven’t thought about him in years. I don’t want to think about him now.
I hurt him.
I was so young. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I told lies about him—lies that ruined his career and almost saw him sent to prison—and all he’d ever tried to do was be my friend. I wanted more than to be friends. I wanted to be his lover. His wife.
God, I was such an idiot.
I went into a jealous rage in his house when I found photos of him with other women, other men. I felt abandoned and betrayed. I completely lost my mind.
And now he is here to chastise me?
“Don’t fight the machines, Gigi.”
Fuck you, George.
Fuck these damn machines.
I want to leave this place. I feel fine. So what, my throat hurts. I’ve been in worse pain before. I don’t need a hospital. I don’t need doctors. I need to go home.
A nurse joins George, and I watch her shoot something into the IV line.
Oh, this seems like a bad idea. A really bad idea. Don’t drug me! Stop it!
“This will help her relax but she’ll stay conscious.”
The screaming machines start to beep rhythmically again. I feel like I am floating, but I no longer feel like ripping the tubes free. I watch my chest rise and fall and it dawns on me that a machine is making that happen. The machine I thought was a snoring man in my dream. Without this machine I wouldn’t be breathing.
Oh, shit! Holy fucking shit.
I sign How long will I be in the hospital?
“Let’s take one day at a time.”
I try to shake my head, but the collar reminds me I’m not supposed to move. Frustrated, I pound the mattress.
“Don’t panic, you’re doing great so far. And you’re alive.”
Closing my eyes, I rub my forehead and try to remember.
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
Unable to remember, I don’t open my eyes. It seems as if there is a fuzzy memory—if only I could grab hold of it—not a car accident. A man. You can call me God. He found me at the club.
Oh, fuck.
“Gigi? Don’t fight the machine. It’s to help you breathe.” The nurse shakes my shoulder gently and my arm swings up to block her touch…just as I’d blocked the man.
Pain.
“Ahhh!” My eyes fly open to see the heavy cast on my arm.
He hit me with a crowbar. Again and again. He didn’t want sex. He didn’t want to bind me or dominate me. He just wanted to hurt me.
Does he know I’m here?
Oh God! I have to get out of here.
“Gigi, we need you to calm down. The nurse is going to give you something to help you sleep.”
* * * * *
I understand now. If I am to be allowed to be awake and alert, I have to obey their rules. Don’t talk. Don’t move. Don’t pull at the tubes. I watch my chest go up and down with fascination. I’m obviously breathing, so why doesn’t it feel like I am?
Staring at the ceiling or watching my chest inflate and deflate are my main two occupations at the moment. There is a window, I can roll my eyes to see if it is day or night, but that doesn’t really seem to matter. I’m on hospital time. I sleep when they tell me to sleep, I wake when they tell me
to wake. There’s no food or drink or even trips to the bathroom to relieve my boredom.
There are sponge baths and diaper changes when I shit myself.
Occasionally they empty the bag of urine that my catheter drains into.
The catheter hurts like a motherfucker. Lying in bed, strapped down and in pain should be the answer to my every fantasy, but it’s sorely lacking. Meds numb the most intense discomfort and in this hospital setting there is absolutely no threat of imminent death.
In that, the few minutes I had alone with God were perfect. I thought I was going to die and orgasmed from the fear.
I also wet myself.
I felt the urine sliding down the inside of my leg, seeming so warm. It was indecent. I wondered if God could smell it.
Knock. Knock.
Looking toward the doorway to my room, I see two men. Flat on my back, my head and shoulders lifted at the slightest of angles and trapped by tubes and machines, I’m at a distinct disadvantage.
“Miss Marconi, I’m Detective Carr. This is my partner, Detective Robbins. The doctor has given us only a moment to speak with you.”
I look at them, wondering if they expect to be invited closer. I lift my right hand in, not a wave or a gesture, just motion. They take the hint and step closer.
The man who identified himself as Carr speaks. “Can you tell us who did this to you?”
Making a fist with the same right hand, I swing my hand at the wrist, left and right.
“I’m sorry, do you need a pen and paper?”
“She’s signing.”
My gaze jerks to the doorway, my heart in my throat. George!
He steps into the room and addresses both detectives. “Do either of you know sign language?”
They both shake their heads.
I sign to George, That’s okay, I’m rusty. I could use the whiteboard.
George walks to my bedside. “Or I can translate for you.”
I can’t stop smiling. He’s here, he’s really here. Was he here before or was it a dream as I believed it to be?