by Radclyffe
“I slept fine,” Jude said without elaboration. She was working on her second cup of coffee and trying valiantly to finish a bagel. She knew it might be a very long time before she ate again, and she definitely didn’t want any reason not to be sharp when she needed to be. The last thing she wanted was to get light-headed from hunger in front of Sinclair. “Honest, I feel great.”
She had no intention of telling Mel something she didn’t want to think about herself. When she had arrived home the night before, she had been too keyed up to sleep. The short walk to retrieve the car and the brief ride home had mercifully taken the edge off her acute state of stimulation. But she was afraid that if she got into bed wide-awake, all she would do was think about how incredibly erotic Sinclair’s face had been as she climaxed. And then the low level of desire still humming along her nerve endings would flare into flame, and she would never get to sleep. Not without relief. She knew it wouldn’t take much, considering how hot and how hard she had been less than an hour before. A few well-placed strokes and a little pressure, and she would lose it.
Just what I need, she’d snarled to herself. Jerk-off fantasies about a woman I have to see every day. God. Instead, she’d settled on a shower and shampoo to rid herself of the smoky, musky scent of the bar and her own pervasive excitement.
“Great.” Melissa attacked her cornflakes with vigor. So, don’t tell me what’s going on. Fine.
Jude muttered noncommittally, her mind still on the previous night. The shower had relaxed her and helped her get to sleep, but unfortunately, it had done nothing to eradicate whatever unfinished business simmered in her imagination. An hour before dawn, she’d been jolted awake by her own sharp cry as the intensely sexual scenario she had been dreaming culminated in a violent orgasm. Gasping, heart racing, her palm pressed against the heat between her thighs, she had curled on her side and moaned into the darkness. Eyes wide open, searching the shadows, she had seen Saxon Sinclair’s face.
“What?” Jude asked, vaguely aware that Mel had been speaking to her.
Nothing like that had ever happened before. She had always enjoyed sex, and orgasm was usually easy to attain with a considerate partner, but she couldn’t ever recall climaxing while asleep. But then again, she couldn’t ever recall her body taking over quite the way it had the night before during a simple conversation either.
For her, sex usually was a head thing, and her relationship with Lori was the perfect example of what she sought from a partner. When they had met at the home of a mutual acquaintance, she had found the bright, outgoing attorney attractive, but that wasn’t really the primary motivating factor behind her acceptance when Lori had suggested they see one another again. After having talked with her for several hours at the party, comparing notes on professional goals and relationship philosophies, Jude had realized they would make a good pair. Dating Lori just made good sense.
However, nothing about what had happened the previous evening with Saxon Sinclair made sense. In fact, thinking about it made her head hurt. Even worse, thinking about it made her body pick up where it had left off in the early morning hours. She absolutely could not walk around for the next thirty hours in a state of arousal. Resolutely, she picked up her bagel and began to eat.
“Hello? Earth to Jude?”
Startled, Jude stopped in mid-bite and stared across the table. Melissa was regarding her with a quizzical expression.
“What?”
“You said that already,” Melissa commented dryly. “I feel like I’m in the middle of an Abbott and Costello sketch. Pretty soon, I’m going to ask ÔWho’s on first?’”
“Sorry.” Jude firmly banished all thoughts of sex and sexy surgeons from her consciousness. “Where were we?”
“Uh...I was asking about the game plan for today.”
Thankfully back on familiar ground, Jude could concentrate. “Deb left a message on my machine that she’s doing an 8:00 a.m. surgery, so I want to tape it. I asked Jerry to meet us here at 6:30 to set up the sound in the OR. While he’s here, I want him to look at the situation in the trauma admitting area, too. Maybe we can fiddle with the mike placements down there and boost our sound quality a little bit. I think it’s okay, but I don’t want to miss anything critical during an alert.”
“It won’t hurt to check,” Melissa agreed. “How do you want to play the taping during this live surgery thing?”
“Deb said that she’d be doing a lot of the case, so I think our focus should be on showing her level of responsibility now. Then we can contrast it to the changes at the end of the year.”
“That makes sense if we’re going to focus on her transition from trainee to full-fledged trauma surgeon.” Melissa indicated the bagel on the plate Jude had pushed aside. “Are you going to eat that?”
“No, take it.” Jude was still thinking about the upcoming shoot. “We also need to get the interaction between Sinclair and Deb this morning. Whenever they’re together, that’s where the action will be.”
“Uh-huh.” Melissa reached for the bagel. “I’ve got a feeling that wherever Sinclair is, that’s where the action is.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mel, can’t you keep it in your pants once in a while?” Jude snapped. “At least while we’re working?”
Melissa gaped at her, astonished by her implacable friend’s quick flare of temper. “Jude? Hello? Are you in there? Did the pod people visit your apartment last night?”
“Hell, I’m sorry,” Jude said immediately. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. “It’s just that I’ve got a lot riding on this project.”
“Sure,” Melissa said easily, although she considered that explanation total bullshit. Whatever burr Jude had up her butt, it had to do with Saxon Sinclair, because every time the woman’s name was mentioned, Jude went into orbit. However, poking a sore spot was not her intention. “Why don’t we divide and conquer? I’ll head over to the OR with my gear, and you can meet Jerry and check the sound system down in the trauma admitting area.”
“Good deal. Thanks, Mel.” Jude gave her friend’s forearm a brief squeeze. “I’ll meet you upstairs in thirty minutes, and I’ll try to find my sense of humor along the way.”
Watching her walk away, Melissa wondered what it was about Saxon Sinclair and Jude Castle that she was missing.
July 4, 8:11 a.m.
“Just make sure you don’t touch anything that’s green,” the scrub nurse said with practiced nonchalance. “All the green sheets are sterile.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had to contend with visitors in the OR, and it usually fell to her to make sure they didn’t contaminate the sterile surgical field. The surgeons were usually too busy working, or too busy talking to the media people, to pay attention to that kind of detail.
“Right,” Jude said, moving out of the way as Deb entered the twenty-by-twenty-foot windowless space escorting her patient along with several nurses. The entire bed had been wheeled down the hall from the TICU to the operating suite, apparently to avoid the necessity of moving the patient and all the life-support equipment twice.
Jude looked over at Melissa to make sure her camera was rolling. It was unnecessary, but it was a habit she would never be able to break.
Once the patient was situated, Deb left to scrub her hands at the large, industrial size, stainless steel sinks just outside the door. Jude was surprised that Sinclair was nowhere in evidence. She’d assumed that the trauma chief would be participating in the operation with Deb. Occupying herself with dictating her log, noting the time and particulars of the taping session, she refused to acknowledge her disappointment. She’d already spent too much of her morning thinking about Dr. Sinclair.
A few minutes later, Deb returned, keeping her hands elevated above the level of her elbows so that the water would not stream down from the upper part of her arms to her hands, potentially contaminating them. The scrub nurse handed her a towel, then helped her into a sterile gown and gloved her. While this was happening, the circu
lating nurse exposed the patient and painted the twentysomething man’s neck, chest, and abdomen with an antiseptic iodine solution.
“A tracheostomy is necessary because his lungs were damaged by all the fluid we needed to give him during resuscitation as well as by toxic breakdown products from injured tissue. He’ll need ventilator support for quite a while,” Deb explained. Twenty minutes later, she had finished surgically inserting a breathing tube into his trachea through an incision in his neck and had moved on to his abdomen.
As she made an incision that started at his breastbone and ended just below his umbilicus, she continued, “Plus, we don’t expect him to be conscious and able to eat for at least a few weeks. That’s why I’m going to put a feeding tube directly into his intestine so that he can be fed that way.”
At that moment, the door opened and Saxon Sinclair entered. The atmosphere in the room altered perceptibly, or so it seemed to Jude. The light banter that had been flowing easily between the members of the operating team suddenly ceased, the unexpected silence echoing pointedly. Sinclair appeared not to notice but moved up close behind her fellow.
“Same case, Stein?” she asked with a hint of challenge in her deep voice. “You’ve been in here for forty minutes already. I’ve finished the newspaper, and I’m running out of things to read.”
“I’m about half done,” Deb said, apparently unperturbed by the mild heckling.
“Well, just don’t make it your life’s work,” Sinclair commented sharply as she peered over Deb’s shoulder into the wound. “Did you run the bowel yet?”
“Not yet. I just got into the belly.”
“Make sure you do.”
With that, Sax backed away from the operating table and crossed to Jude’s side. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Jude hoped her voice sounded calm, because she felt anything but. She met Sinclair’s eyes above the surgical mask that crossed the bridge of her nose and concealed the rest of her face. She hadn’t been sure what to expect from their first face-to-face meeting following the previous evening’s unintentional intimacy—an awkward embarrassment at the very least. Now, when Sinclair’s eyes held hers unflinchingly, unapologetically, it wasn’t discomfiture she felt but excitement. She knows I saw her last night in the bar, and she doesn’t care.
“Everything going all right?” Sax asked, nodding toward Melissa, who was opposite them with her video equipment.
“Yes, fine,” Jude replied. Here we are discussing business like nothing ever happened. First, I watched you have sex, and then I spent half the night lusting after you. This is nuts. She put her jumbled emotions firmly from her mind and concentrated on her work. “May I ask a question?”
Sax considered Jude silently for a moment, remembering the astonishing feeling of being driven to orgasm by the mere sight of her face. She couldn’t ever remember anyone moving her so powerfully, even when they were actually in bed together. I wonder if she has any idea what she did to me?
“Go ahead.” She matched Jude’s casual tone.
“What does it mean to ‘run the bowel’?” Jude wanted to know, but mostly she wanted to think about something—anything—other than how heart-stoppingly beautiful Sinclair had looked as she was about to come.
A mixture of amusement and regret made Sax grimace slightly behind her mask. Well, that answers that question. Our exchange last night obviously had more of an effect on me than it did on her.
“Stein needs to physically examine all of the internal organs to be sure there is no damage or disease. One of the easiest ways to do that is to gently pull the intestine through her fingers, so she can check for any tears or tumors or vascular damage. Then she’ll hold the bowel aside to look at the liver and spleen and palpate the kidneys.”
Jude could not resist watching Sinclair’s eyes while she spoke. Something in her tone and the intensity of her gaze struck a chord. She had that disconcerting feeling of dèjà vu again, and just as she was about to remember from where, Deb called, “Dr. Sinclair?” and Sax looked away.
“What’s up?”
“I think the gallbladder’s necrotic.”
“Excuse me,” Sax said, turning briskly to the OR table. “Suzanne, get some gloves for me. I’m scrubbing in.”
July 4, 9:35 a.m.
After the case, Deb joined Jude in the OR lounge. She pushed change into the soda machine and, after retrieving her Coke, dropped onto the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. “Did the boss leave?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jude replied. “She said she had a chief’s meeting.”
They’d bumped into each other, almost literally, in the locker room. To Jude’s surprise, even without the benefit of masks to cover any awkwardness, their exchange had been comfortable. She hadn’t been embarrassed, nor did Sinclair seem to be. Why should we be? It was hardly anything to be ashamed of. We’re both adults and it might be assumed that we both have sex. But it wasn’t the fact of what she had witnessed, or even where she had seen it, but the fact that she couldn’t forget how she’d felt watching it that was driving her crazy. She’d been as aroused as she’d ever felt when someone touched her for real.
“Great case, huh?” Deb continued, oblivious to Jude’s distraction.
Happy for the diversion, Jude indicated her tape recorder. “May I tape?”
“Sure.” Deb took a deep swallow of her soda. “God, I get so dehydrated when I operate.”
“What do you do during long cases?”
“Ignore it,” Deb said with a shrug.
“So, why was this a great case?”
Deb grinned. “Because I got to do an open gallbladder, which we don’t get to do very much anymore since most of the time it’s done through a laparoscope. You know, a small periscope that gets introduced into the abdomen through a tiny incision. Plus, besides getting to actually cut the gallbladder out, Sinclair assisted me.”
“Is that unusual?” Jude had managed to get close enough to the table to observe Sinclair and Deb work, and she had been impressed that Sinclair didn’t seem to be doing much except verbally leading Deb through the operation.
“It is for the first week of a trauma fellowship when she hasn’t worked with me very often before. She pretty much let me do the whole thing.”
“I was surprised,” Jude acknowledged. “Why wasn’t she there for the entire surgery?”
“This was a pretty straightforward case. She has to be around somewhere in the vicinity, in case there’s a problem, but it’s up to her how much I do on my own. So she was probably in the OR lounge most of the time.”
“Is that...” Jude hesitated, searching for the word. “Legal?”
Deb glanced at the clock, drained her soda, and tossed it in a nearby wastebasket. “I don’t think there’s any legality involved. This is a training program. How much I do is up to her. I am a licensed physician, and in theory, I could walk out the door and start my own practice right now. I’m only here for more experience.”
Jude chose her words carefully. “What if you weren’t...competent? I mean, what if you weren’t ready to be by yourself?”
“It’s up to Sinclair to decide that.” Deb grinned again. Then, with an expression that reminded Jude very much of Saxon Sinclair’s, she said, “But you don’t need to worry. Everyone’s always said I’ve got good hands.”
Jude laughed as she clicked off her recorder. Surgeons. Then again, I suppose if you’re going to have someone cutting into you, you want them to be confident about it.
Personal Project Log—Castle
July 4, 10:01 a.m.
Digital Reference Marks 3025–4150
This is the kind of thing that will make or break us—this uncensored view of on-the-job training. Is the average viewer really ready to see how physicians are made? I read this book when I was a kid, The Making of a Surgeon, and I remember being absolutely fascinated by how easily mistakes could happen even when everyone was trying their very best. I don’t suppose that book could get w
ritten today, because in today’s world, what doctor is going to admit that things go wrong on a daily basis? Not necessarily big things, or fatal errors, but definitely things that could turn out to be disastrous. [Note: ask Deb or Sinclair how the threat of litigation affects their decision-making process.]
Maybe that’s why Sinclair didn’t want us filming in real time—she didn’t want us to expose the potential dangers in the system...laugh. Yeah, right, Castle. She’s definitely the type to be scared by publicity. Exposure does not seem to be a problem for her.
Jude clicked off the recorder and took a deep breath. That was a line of thought she did not want to pursue.
Chapter Twelve
July 4, 11:30 a.m.
Jude stopped in the reception area immediately inside Saxon Sinclair’s office suite and greeted the stylishly dressed, auburn-haired woman behind the desk. “I’m Jude Castle from Horizon Productions. Dr. Sinclair told me I could stop by for a copy of her CV.”
She received a pleasant but reserved nod. “Of course. She mentioned you might come by. I’m Naomi Riley, Dr. Sinclair’s personal secretary.” Turning to a bank of file cabinets, she opened one of the drawers and within seconds handed Jude a surprisingly large document. “If you need any assistance with schedules or information about the training program, just call me.”
“Thanks.” Jude hesitated. “Actually, there is something I need. Perhaps you could help me arrange a time for a formal interview. I know she’s busy...”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Naomi replied in a practiced manner that suggested Jude might hear from her in the next millennium.