“I’m sure they’ll find something. They always do. They’re always coming up for cures for weird diseases… not that it’s a weird disease.” She adds this last part hastily. I can tell she doesn’t want to offend me.
“It’s OK,” I say. “It is a weird disease.”
“Not that weird. I’m sure other people have it.”
“Like two in the whole country or something.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and it’s not like there’s a lot of money to be made curing this. So the drug companies aren’t exactly working on a cure as we speak.”
“But the researchers? Come on, someone’s probably doing something now that will help in the future. You never know how these things will turn out.”
I don’t want to argue with her, but my mind’s already made up. I know I’m going to be stuck in this room forever.
“I’ll come visit you,” says Shelly. “I know I haven’t been good about it, but hell, I’ll come once a week if that’ll cheer you up.”
“I guess,” I say. “You’ll have to put on that mask and all that plastic gear.”
“That’s fine,” says Shelly. “At least I won’t have to put on makeup on those days.”
“That’s funny,” I say, without laughing. The laugher has died out of me.
“Well,” says Shelly. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I just wanted to call and check up on you. Call me anytime.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You got a date tonight or something?”
Shelly hesitates for a moment. I can tell she’s worried about hurting my feelings.
“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s not going to bother me if you’re going on a date.”
“OK,” says Shelly quickly. “You sure?”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can live vicariously through you. What’s he like?”
“He’s gorgeous,” says Shelly. I can hear the desire in her voice.
“Have you already slept with him?”
“Maybe,” says Shelly, giggling. That’s a little unlike her.
“What happened? For some reason I thought this was your first date or something.”
“It is, but we met at the gym.”
“Shelly,” I say. “You fucked him at the gym?”
Shelly giggles even harder. “I couldn’t help it,” I say. “There was no one else there, and so I went into the showers…”
“You went into the men’s showers?” I say, my voice rising in disbelief.
“Yeah,” says Shelly. Her voice gets a wistful sound to it. “It was incredible. He took me right there in the shower… You should have seen him. He was buck naked, and his cock was already rock hard. He said it was because of me. He’d seen me in the gym.”
“Damn, Shelly,” I say. “You’re getting bolder.”
“I know,” says Shelly, sounding surprised herself.
“Well,” I say. “Have fun. Send pictures if you can.”
“You wish,” says Shelly, hanging up the phone.
Putting the phone down, I stare at the ceiling. The depression starts to take over quickly. Talking to Shelly was just a minor reprieve from my normal state. Yeah, depression has become my normal state.
At least I’m not a virgin anymore.
But I’m stuck in my room forever.
And what really bothers me is that I wasn’t anything important to Liam. I was just another fuck, another notch in his belt…
There’s a crashing sound outside. I hear somewhere muttering something. It sounds like swearing.
Next there’s a thud.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone had just fallen from a tree or something right outside my window.
Rushing to the window, I peer out of it.
There’s Liam, lying on the ground.
He’s wearing a tight white t-shirt and jeans, looking more muscular than ever.
He’s holding his knee, an expression of pain on his face. Did he just try to climb up the trellis outside and fall down?
He knows I can’t open the window.
What the hell is he doing here?
Chapter 18
Liam
I just couldn’t let it go.
I don’t care if she’s not answering my phone calls. I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me. I know that if I can just talk to her, I can explain everything to her. And not only that, I know deep down that even though I’ve been suspended from the hospital, I can fix her.
I look up at the window but I don’t see anyone. I don’t think anyone heard me fall.
It’s been a little while since I’ve been rock climbing. It wouldn’t be a reach to say that I’m completely out of practice when it comes to climbing rocks. And scaling the sides of houses, even when wisteria trellises are involved, forget about it. I’ve never been good at that.
Good, so no one heard me. Her dad’s not going to rush out and threaten me with a shotgun. Or, more likely, a cell phone with the police on the other end.
That’s the last thing I need right now, considering everything that’s going on. If I have an arrest for attempted breaking and entering, I’d really be in danger of losing my medical license.
I feel around in my pocket for the vial of pure methylene blue that I brought with me. I got it by sneaking back into the hospital, breaking all the rules for suspended doctors, and removing it from the lab. No one’s going to notice, though, and it’s not going to hurt anyone. They have plenty of it.
I’m completely convinced that if Mia just takes her blue drops more regularly, then she’ll be fine. It’s just a matter of letting her cells get used to functioning at a higher level. For the first few months, at least, she’s not going to be able to go long periods of time without taking her medicine.
But the good news is that it might not be like that forever. When I was looking for more research papers on methylene blue, I discovered that for Mia’s condition, it’s unlikely it would work for more than a few hours. In a sense, she was lucky that it worked as long as it did.
The research paper also showed that over time, the cells get used to functioning better.
All she needs to do is take it for a few months frequently, and then she can probably relax her schedule. But she’ll always need to have a little bottle of methylene blue with her, in case an emergency situation pops up.
The only problem now is convincing her… while she won’t talk to me.
And, first and foremost, I need to get to her.
My knee hurts like hell, but as a doctor I know that I didn’t do any serious damage to it. It’s going to be fine, so long as I can deal with the pain.
Wincing a little, gritting my teeth, I stand up. I don’t put much weight on the knee, but it still flares up with pain.
Whatever. I’ve been through worse.
I grit my teeth and grab onto the wooden trellis that leads past her window.
This time I’ll just be more careful when climbing.
But the wood is impossibly thin, making it extremely difficult to get a grip on it. But I start like anything else, one foot at a time, knowing that I could very well fall again.
I’m going to keep climbing this trellis until I get up there, and I’m not leaving this house until I convince Mia to give the methylene blue another shot.
Normally it’s my cock that drives me to do things. It’s my cock that motivated me most of the time so far with Mia. But now… I feel something different. Even if she doesn’t want my cock, I want her to be better. I want her to be out and living a real life.
And of course, I want that life she’s living to be with me.
I know now that I simply can’t live without her.
But it’s not just her pussy that calls me… even though the mere thought of her tight, wet hole sends shivers down my spine and makes my cock swell incredibly.
I need her.
I need Mia.
My fingers hang on the thin wooden edge, in pain. But I can take it. I need the pain. It feels good. I’m
accomplishing something. I’m doing something.
I pull myself up. My muscles strain. My fingers strain in pain. But I can’t let go.
My right hand grabs the wooden ledge, and I let go with my left hand, letting my body hang for a moment.
Minutes go by, seeming to take forever.
My body hurts. But I love it.
I’m closer to her.
Finally, I’m at the window.
To my surprise, she’s already there.
She’s looking at me through the window, her eyes wide.
“Open the window,” I mouth at her.
She shakes her head, and points at her ear and my mouth.
“You can’t hear me?” I mouth at her.
If I speak loudly enough for her to hear me, then I’ll surely wake up her parents, screaming outside their daughter’s window in the middle of the night.
Hanging on with just one hand from the trellis, the wisteria vine all around me, I grab my phone from my pocket, and press her name on the contacts list. It’s a little tricky with just one hand. But she can’t ignore me now.
She’s got to pick up the phone.
She does.
“Hi,” I say.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she says.
“Open the window,” I say.
“Are you crazy? I don’t want to talk to you. Go away. You’re just going to try to fuck me again, aren’t you? You just want another notch on your belt or something.”
“No, Mia,” I say. “It’s not like that. I need you. And I want to help you. Can’t we just talk? Can’t I just come in?”
“If I open the window, I’ll be exposed to every allergen around,” she says. “You’re a doctor. You should know that.”
“Listen, Mia,” I say. “The methylene blue works. We already saw that it works. We know it works. It’s just that it didn’t last as long as we thought. You just need to take more of the drops.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No,” I say. I explain to her the research that I found that proves what I’m saying. “Remember when you called me when you were eating breakfast with your friend? You said you were having another attack, and then you took another drop and you were better.”
“Yeah,” says Mia. “But so what? That doesn’t prove anything. I had another attack. You said that two drops was going to be enough each day, and it wasn’t.”
“I was wrong,” I say. “I thought that two drops total for the day would be enough. But what was really going on was that the drug has a half life in your system, and you need to take it every couple hours. It’s not the total dose that matters for the day, but how frequently you take the dose.”
There’s a silence on the other end.
“Mia,” I say. “I’m not going to force the window open and make you take the drops, even though that’s what I think I should do. But I’m going to leave the decision up to you. You need to make the right decision, Mia.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I need you, Mia,” I say. “I need you in my life, and I can’t have you wasting away in that room, not out living life… with me.”
“I’m really that important to you?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what I’ve realized. You’re worried you’re just another notch on my belt, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You’re different, Mia. You’re different from any woman I’ve ever been with before. There’s something just… incredible about you. I need you, Mia.”
There’s a long pause.
I’m staring deep into her eyes through the window. I can partly see my reflection in the window, overlaid onto her face. I look sad, desperate, but sure of what I want. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life before.
I need her. I don’t just want her. I can’t go on without her.
Mia keeps looking at me, deep into my eyes. I feel like her gaze is piercing my soul.
My heart skips a beat as Mia reaches the window and unlocks it. She pulls the window up.
I’m suddenly much closer to her. There’s nothing between us. There’s no glass, nothing but the screen, which I lift up.
“OK,” Mia says, starting to say something longer.
But I cut her off and lean in to kiss her.
But I pause.
“Wait,” I say. “Let’s try the drops first. You’re already exposed to more allergens this way. Kissing me would certainly expose you to something much worse.”
“You’ve been eating something foul?” says Mia. “A lot of garlic or something?”
I chuckle. “Just the normal.”
“Here,” says Mia. “If you’re waiting for a formal invitation into my room, here it is: please join me in my little bubble.”
“Why thank you, lady,” I say, suddenly realizing again that I’m hanging rather precariously off the side of her house.
“Here, could you take this?” I say, handing her my cell phone.
“Sure,” says Mia.
She watches as I climb through the window.
Once inside, I close the window behind me.
“So if I’m right,” I say. “We still don’t have long before your attack starts again. The methylene blue has been out of your system for a long time and I don’t think we have very long before another attack comes along…”
“You’re right,” says Mia. “It doesn’t normally take long. You have some with you, I hope?”
“Of course,” I say, winking at her. “I had a feeling that your parents had taken it away.”
“I think the hospital wanted it,” says Mia.
“Oh,” I say, shrugging. “Yeah, that makes sense. They’re trying to build a solid legal case or something against me.”
“Are you going to be OK?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’m not worried about it. I mean, they can take my license from me if they really want. But I know that all along I’ve been trying to do the right thing even if I’m a little unorthodox in my methods.”
“You can say that again,” says Mia, taking a look at the little bottle of blue liquid that I pull out of my pocket.
“Are you OK?” I say, looking at her more closely.
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“Your face is getting red,” I say slowly. “It must have been the allergens introduced from opening the window…”
“No shit,” she says.
She looks horribly worried.
“I don’t want to go back to the hospital,” she says.
“I don’t want you to have to go back there either.”
“But I have to… Or I could die…”
“I don’t want you to have to stay in this room forever,” I say. “Here, take one of these… It’s going to help. Just a little drop of this bitter blue liquid…”
“I’m starting to feel it,” she says. “My throat… it’s closing up.”
Chapter 19
Mia
Oh shit. It’s happening again.
Liam’s next to me.
His body is comforting, just feeling him near me.
He pulls the dropper from the bottle and holds it out for me. A drop falls accidentally onto the carpet.
“Shit,” he says. “That’s never going to come out. This stuff stains.”
It’s a beige white carpet, and the stain is a deep blue. But I don’t care about that right now.
So much is riding on this.
I make a snap decision to just try it. I hold out my tongue and Liam drops the liquid onto it.
The taste somehow seems more bitter than before. I almost gag.
“It’s OK,” says Liam, putting his strong hand on my back. “Everything’s going to be OK.”
“Let me just sit down. I need to sit down.”
I’m not sure at this point which part of the reaction is anxiety and which part is the crazy allergies.
Five minutes go by, the two of us sitting on my bed, side by side, with Liam’s strong arm around me, holding me close to him.
By this point, normally I’d be having trouble breathing.
Ten minutes go by.
I still haven’t passed out. I’m still not dead.
“I think it worked,” I say, looking up and smiling at Liam.
Relief washes over me.
Liam smiles at me. “I think it did too,” he says. “But let’s just make sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I should take you to the hospital anyway, just in case something happens. Opening the window exposed you to all sorts of allergens. I want you to take this methylene blue with you. Put the little bottle in your pocket and don’t let them take it away from you.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” I say. “I thought you’d want to fuck me again.”
Liam grins at me. “I do,” he says. “I really do. But I want to do the responsible thing for once, and take you with me to the hospital. I want to make sure, beyond all doubt, that you’ll be completely safe.”
“OK,” I say.
“Should we go back out the window?” says Liam.
I laugh. “Are you serious? I’d break my neck.”
“I was joking,” says Liam.
“Hell of a time to joke. Come on, we’ll go down the normal way. Just stay quiet.”
“Yeah,” says Liam. “It’d be better not to get your parents involved in this one.”
It’s a strange sensation, pushing my way through the double plastic that guards my door from germs. It’s strange, leaving the room like this… even though I’ve done it before.
But this time I’m leaving it with Liam. He’s right here, by my side.
He follows me as I tiptoe down the steps that lead to the front door on the first floor.
“I’ve got my car out front,” whispers Liam.
I unlock the door, sliding back the bolt, and Liam follows me outside.
“I have to say,” I say. “I’m really impressed.”
“With what?”
“With you. For wanting to do the responsible thing, taking me to the hospital. Even though I know you don’t want to go back, and I don’t either. But it’s the right thing to do.”
“There’s just one more thing I want to do,” says Liam, putting his arms around my waist.
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