by Laney Cairo
Cecelia next door was singing ‘Killing Me Softly,’ and it occurred to me that Fox and Gimbel would probably kill her, and not very softly, for what she was doing to their precious song.
I wasn’t going to push my fingers inside Matthew, not without lube, and when I lifted my mouth from his cock he was holding the lube ready for me.
Fuck, he was so beautiful, lips parted, tip of his tongue showing, and I kept my eyes on his face while I pushed two fingers slowly inside him.
You think I’d be over the wonder of this, considering it was pretty much what I did professionally, but Matthew whimpered and pouted and kissed me, and I could have spent all day on that desk, finger-fucking him slowly until we both went insane, but we were under time constraints here, and the insanity needed to happen faster than that.
The feeling of the latex rolling down my cock was almost enough to make me scream, then Matthew smeared lube down the length of my cock.
“I’m ready,” he whispered, and he lay back across my desk Cecelia was murdering John Denver next door, proving herself remarkably sentimental for an oncologist. “…true yesterday la la tomorrow is open la la seems to la la just to be…” she sang, and I pushed slowly into Matthew, infinitesimally slowly, and then there was that moment where the head of my cock eased into him.
I groaned and held still, and Matthew’s eyes were closed and his mouth open, and he was breathing hard. I leaned forward, kissed his neck, whispered something, and began the slow sweet slide, deeper, until I was all the way in.
Matthew was trembling now, biting on the side of his hand, and I held still.
Cecelia sang, “…lost and la la on some…” and I was sure she had the order of the lyrics wrong. I thought briefly about buying her a book of lyrics for Christmas, but decided that might just encourage her. Perhaps I should buy her singing lessons?
Matthew whispered, “All right, you can move now,” and I stopped trying to distract myself.
I leaned forward, grabbed Matthew, pulled him a little closer to the edge of the desk, sending more stuff tumbling onto the utilitarian carpet tiles. We might have been better off on the floor, might have done less damage there, but it was a bit late to be thinking of that.
This had to be slow; anything faster would send the desk thudding into the wall of the office. Fuck, but it felt good to be buried inside someone, inside Matthew. I hadn’t done this for a long time and it felt delicious. Matthew was so tight and hot around me, and he was squirming on top of the slew of photocopies, keeping himself quiet with one hand, stroking his cock with the other.
I hitched my shirttails up a little higher, trying to keep them out of the lube, and concentrated on making each stroke as deep and as slow as my self-control would let me.
Matthew’s shirt had ridden up, leaving his belly exposed, and it was this more than anything that began to undo me.
I’d touched that skin, kissed that tattoo, come over it, slept with it pressed against my lower back … I took a deep breath, ran my fingers over the velvet skin and began to come, long slow waves that shook me, that made me clench my jaws tight to keep myself silent.
Cecelia had moved onto ABBA now, “…empty house la la tears la lala…” and I held onto the edge of the condom and pulled out slowly, then leaned forward and took Matthew’s cock into my mouth.
He moaned and clutched at my hair and I sucked him hard and he came almost instantly, thrashing around on the desk, causing more destruction, and I held onto his hips tightly, trying to still him.
He didn’t make too much noise, not like at the bar, and I stood up.
Oh, yeah, this was the unattractive, partly dressed man with a loaded condom dangling from his cock look. I dumped the condom and gloves into my rubbish bin and pulled my boxers and trousers up while Matthew struggled up to a sitting position.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “That was hot.”
I helped him to his feet and he wobbled unsteadily.
“Yeah,” I said, and I kissed him.
Two minutes later we left an office that looked like it had been vandalised, and I followed Matthew out past The Menopausal Monster and back to work.
Chapter Nineteen
Just fucked was not the right way to be when you’re being drilled on anesthetics in theatre so I made myself focus on propofol and sevoflurane and tried to remember not to lean against anything and contaminate it.
When I looked down, Nevins and Lin were holding hands behind their backs, acting innocent, and it was so sweet that I couldn’t help but smile.
“You!” the anesthetist said, pointing at me. “Tell me about why isoflurane has been phased out.”
That would serve me right for letting my attention wander, wouldn’t it?
“Isoflurane is pungent and can irritate the respiratory system, so is rarely used in Britain. But, in Third World countries, it’s still the inhaled anesthetic of choice because the patent on it has lapsed so it’s the most economical of the halogenated ethers.”
He moved his attention to Nevins and said, “Ether isn’t patented either. Why don’t we use ether?”
“Because it’s flammable,” Nevins said. “And that can’t be a good thing.”
The anesthetist chuckled. “It can’t, you’re right. Now, you’re going to be expected to handle a diathermy machine, too. Let’s move onto that.”
* * *
Dr. M wasn’t in the staff room we used for tutorials when we wandered in, and it was a relief to be able to sit down and hold a cup of coffee stolen from the ward pantry in my hands for a while. Lin was running over her schizophrenia presentation, Nevins had his nose buried in our anesthetics text, everyone else was chatting or eating snacks.
I had the printouts from the librarian with me, but I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I certainly couldn’t say anything intelligible about decubitus ulcers. It seemed pointless to waffle on about prevention since the hospital statistics indicated that almost all the patients with ulcers already had them when they arrived here.
Andrew pushed the door open and dropped his files and papers onto the desk. “Sorry I’m late, I was delayed in outpatients.”
He didn’t look at me at all but I felt my cheeks colouring a little anyway. He was late because he’d fucked me across his desk at lunchtime. On the pretext of collecting a book from him, which we had forgotten. Damn.
“Before we start presentations, I need to tell you all that I’ve been in touch with your course controller about your placements. I’m likely to be involved in industrial action in the near future, perhaps as soon as Monday. If I am, and the industrial action only involves one day of your placement, we’ll continue on the same as usual after that day. If the industrial action continues for longer than that, you’re to get in touch with your course controller and you’ll be reassigned to somewhere without Bolshie doctors.”
“Are you really going to strike?” Lin asked.
Dr. M shrugged. “Perhaps. We’ve got a stop work meeting at five. It’ll go to a vote then. Now, who’s first with today’s presentations?”
No one offered, of course, and he pointed at me and said,
“Blake? Let’s hear about decubitus ulcers.”
I talked until I was hopelessly over time with this but Dr. M didn’t stop me, he let me finish.
I was exhausted by then. I could feel sweat trickling down my back, and I couldn’t look at Andrew without remembering how we had been the night before. Fuck.
“How much of what actually happens here, on the wards, is evidence-based?” he asked the others. “Blake? Did you find that statistic during your adventures in Wonderland?”
I shook my head. Damn, I should have found that out.
“Medical mythology has it that ten to fifteen percent of what we actually do is evidence based, that is it is grounded in sound scientific process. You all probably want to write this down,” Dr. M said. “And put it somewhere you can see it everyday.”
There was silence while we scribbled, and Dr.
M smiled at us all. “Actually, a mere fifty-one percent of all medical care flies in the face of science.”
“Why do we do it, then?” Lin asked, face creased with dismay.
Dr. M crinkled his eyes at Lin. “Because we can’t bear to leave the patient to suffer, so we try anything we can.
Because we’re talking about the human body, not a machine, and we don’t actually understand how it works. Because the way to provide scientific proof for the treatment is too hideous for an ethics committee to approve. Can any of you think of examples of treatment on this ward, right at this moment, where there is consensus it’s the right thing to do and there’s no scientific rationale for it?”
“Um,” I said. “There’s the man with the abscess on his leg that’s growing pseudomonas. He’s being treated with antibiotics that MCS said the bug was resistant to.”
Dr. M nodded. “Five grams of amoxicillin a day. That’s a toxic dose. There isn’t any reason why it should help, but his WBC this morning has dropped. He’ll eventually get better by himself, we’re just giving him a bit of a hand to get started.”
He checked his watch. “We’re out of time. I’m off to a stop work meeting. Haven’t been to one of these since I worked as a labourer. If you want to observe, you’re welcome to come along, too.”
Did I want to watch? Oh, yeah. It was another chance to watch Andrew being impassioned about something, and while it wasn’t quite as personally rewarding as watching him being impassioned about me, it would still be good.
Chapter Twenty
The last meeting had been full of drama and threats, but this one was calm. The collective will of the staff was palpable from the moment when F stood up, piece of paper in his hand, and said that he had been sacked, effective immediately.
There really wasn’t any need for any of the discussion after that, but we went through the process, making sure that the minutes included discussion of the ethical implications of our actions.
F looked subdued, and sober, and I could just about imagine how it was for him. I was an interloper, trained in the US, and I’d only been at the hospital for two years. F, on the other hand, had been there for ten years, apart from a sabbatical in Philadelphia for research. This was his home, for all its failings.
I’d prearranged with the BMA rep and the independent lawyer they’d brought in to the chair the meeting that I’d be the one to propose the motion that we take industrial action, and after three-quarters of an hour I put my hand up.
“Madame Chair, Dr. Maynard, Registrar. I’d like to propose the motion that in protest at the administration’s disciplining and dismissal of Dr. Seagate that the medical staff withdraw their services from this hospital for eight hours on Monday the 23rd.”
Big words, that were going to mark me forever as a troublemaker, at least in the UK medical system, and I didn’t fucking care. They hired us to do a job, then fucked us over when we did it. This wasn’t enough, but it was a token of support for F, who was the best damn renal doctor I’d ever met.
The room was silent, but I could see F’s face, and his eyes were wet. Damn, I felt the same way myself.
Clarissa Jax, who was a surgical resident and the BMA divisional rep, with a background in student politics, raised her hand. “Madame Chair, Dr. Jax, Resident. I second that motion.”
“Dr. Maynard,” the chair said. “Would you like to speak to the motion?”
I stood up and turned around to face the crowded room. “I would, Madame Chair.” The room was completely full, packed with far more white coats and stethoscopes than I would ever have imagined. There was a hell of a lot of BMA membership cards pinned to pockets, too.
I spotted Matthew at the back of the room, with Lin and Nevins and the rest of the group. Word had obviously gone out on the med student grapevine because there were a lot of other short coats in the room.
“Dr. Seagate did what we all do every day; he attempted to circumvent the artificial restrictions the administration places on our practice. He was trying to get the speedy surgical review that his patient needed. It was no different in essence from all the times we talk to each other in the cafeteria or car park, bypassing the administration’s channels.
No different from buying roses for Gracie in outpatients to bump a patient up the waiting list, no different from a surgical registrar re-diagnosing a patient to change their place on the waiting list.
“He received a formal letter of discipline from the Director of Medical Services, and took the matter to the BMA for consultation. It was this act, that of consulting with a union lawyer at a meeting in this room, that led to his dismissal.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Britain is signatory, Article 23, clause 4, states that ‘Every person has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests.’”
I paused, gave them time to think about it, then said,
“That is why we should take industrial action. This administration has dismissed one of us for doing exactly what we are doing now, organizing.”
I sat down and pushed my hands between my knees to stop them from shaking. The room was silent, and my ears were ringing. The Chair said, “Dr. Jax, do you wish to speak to the motion?”
Clarissa stood and said, “Not at the moment, thank you.”
“Does anyone wish to speak against the motion?” the chair asked, and then it was on. Abrogation of duty of care.
Hippocratic oath. Socialised healthcare. I didn’t speak again; I didn’t need to.
After fifteen minutes, when I could no long bear it, I raised my hand, and the chair halted the lawyer and said, “Dr. Maynard, do you wish to withdraw your motion?”
“No, Madame Chair,” I said. “I wish to move the motion that the first motion be put to the vote without further debate.”
There was a chorus of seconders, and the chair said, “I will now put the motion that…” She glanced down at her notes.
“…that in protest at the administration’s disciplining and dismissal of Dr. Seagate that the medical staff withdraw their services from this hospital for eight hours on Monday the 23rd. Those in favour say ‘Aye’.”
There was a resounding chorus of ‘Ayes.’
“Those against, say ‘No’.”
It certainly wasn’t unanimous.
One of the administration’s lackeys stood up and said,
“Madame Chair, I request a secret ballot.”
“A reasonable request in the absence of a clear majority,”
the chair said.
There was a five minute recess while the ballot was counted, and I checked my watch. It was after six. I was going to be late collecting Henry, but that was hardly anything new.
I would have liked to have gone and stood with Matthew while we waited for the count to be done, just for the chance to be close to him, but F was looking like shit now, so I let him lean against me.
The chair called the meeting back to order and we took our seats again. Whichever way the count went, it wasn’t going to be good, and for a moment I doubted whether the staff had the collective will to carry this out, then someone behind me squeezed my shoulder.
The chair said, “By a margin of twenty-seven votes, the motion is carried.”
I should have stayed for the post-meeting discussions but I was exhausted all of a sudden. I just wanted to get out of there, pick Henry up, and be in my own home. It had been a long week, between work and Matthew, and I needed to just sit for a while.
Matthew was gone when I extricated myself from the crowd around F and got out of the room, and I was a little disappointed. I couldn’t have kissed him, or even touched him, but it would have been good to just see him smile.
Chapter Twenty One
The Morris wasn’t hard to spot, rusting away in the midst of the performance vehicles parked in the doctors’ bays in the car park. I sat down on the bonnet, knowing from experience the car had no alarm, and found myself explaining ex
actly what I was doing to the officious security guard who came around and shone a torch in my face suspiciously.
I showed him my medical student ID card and he wrote down the details and left me there, obviously unhappy.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing waiting for Andrew; for all I knew, he’d gone to the pub with Dr. Seagate. I just wanted to see him again. It wasn’t cold, I could wait a little while, and if he didn’t show up, I’d stick a note under the windscreen wiper and go home.
The security guard came around again, just as the fluorescent lighting in the car park flickered into life, and this time he didn’t point his torch at me.
My stomach rumbled. I pulled out a pen, found a sheet of notepaper in my backpack, and was scrawling a note for Andrew when footsteps made me look up.
All of a sudden I realised exactly how this looked. He’d said he was spending the weekend with his son and he couldn’t see me, and here I was, sitting on his car. Very stalkerish.
I put the pen and paper down as he walked up to me.
“Matthew?” Andrew said, and he smiled at me.
He looked exhausted, completely drained, and he leaned against the driver’s door of the car, keys in his hand.
“Um, Andrew,” I said. “I was just going to leave you a note…”
His dropped his keys in a pocket, his hand settled over mine as I went to screw the paper up and he took the paper out of my hand gently. He didn’t read it, just folded the paper up carefully and put it in his pocket, then reached out and brushed my hair off my forehead.
“I’m glad you waited,” he said.
His fingers were touching my cheekbone now, and he leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine.
I thought I knew about kissing. Kissing was what you did to someone’s mouth to show them what you wanted to do to the rest of their body. You could kiss in public, and it wasn’t necessarily obscene, and as long as you weren’t too worried about being gay-bashed, it was acceptable behaviour.