by Amira Rain
I noticed that other than a few smiling nurses sitting at a large, cream-colored main desk, the corridor seemed to be deserted. I didn’t see a single patient or visitor out for a stroll, and there didn’t seem to be any patients at all in any of the darkened rooms lining each side of the hall.
Shuffling along while my creaky knees began to loosen up a bit, I glanced over at Irene. “So... people in this town, or city, or wherever I am, don’t get sick very often?”
“Well, no, they do... but this is one of the ‘warm-up’ floors of the hospital, where young women like you go to get warm again. This week, you’ve been our only patient. Though even if there had been others, I think you still would have gotten your own floor.”
“And why is that?”
“Well... because of...” Irene paused to glance over at me. “Because of what’s to come between you and Commander Wallace in the future, you’re very special. You’re very special to all the people of the CFS. If things go well, which I have complete faith that they will, I think you’ll be very special for the rest of your life. So, you’ll have to get used to some special treatment and attention.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to think about what Irene just said. I was having a hard enough time trying to keep my slow, somewhat herky-jerky gait in a straight line. And right then, I smelled a scent so delicious that it drove all other thoughts right out of my head. It was the scent of rich, hot, simmering soup. Instantly, my mouth began to water. My eyes must have widened, too, because after a quick look at my face, Irene hooked an arm around my shoulders and began trying to help me walk faster.
“Almost there... and I hope my homemade soup will live up to your expectations. It’s a closely-guarded family recipe... ten great-grandmothers back, I think. All the way back from the time before the Great Dragon War. You were probably only... well, I suppose you were only about the same age as you are right now. About twenty-five, I’d guess? Twenty-six? Though the Great Dragon War was a very, very long time ago, of course.”
I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what Irene was talking about, and right then, I didn’t even want to try. As rude and greedy as it may have been, I just wanted her soup. I just wanted a lot of it. I normally tried to use polite table manners and be fairly ladylike when I ate, but at present, I honestly just wanted to plant my face in a huge bowl. I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said it felt like it had been hundreds of years since I’d last eaten.
In addition to hunger pangs so intense I felt like my stomach was turning inside out, my hands were even shaking, and I could also feel a light sheen of perspiration breaking out across my forehead. I was hungrier than I’d ever been in my life, by far. I was hungry to the point that I was embarrassed by it, almost too embarrassed to speak.
Once in the spacious staff lounge, I did, however, manage to croak out the words two and please when Irene asked me how many sandwiches I wanted. Then, pushing through my embarrassment, I changed my request to three.
Quickly transferring thick, hearty, turkey-and-Swiss sandwiches from a covered platter to a plate, Irene glanced over her shoulder at me, smiling. “Don’t be embarrassed to ask for however many sandwiches you’d like, even if that number seems absurdly high to you. This feeling of intense hunger is very typical. It just means you’re alive, and your body is just screaming for nourishment after all this time. I’ve seen newly-warmed young women eat half a cow before, almost literally.
Strangely, it never seems to cause stomach problems... as if the body is so eager for sustenance that it knows just how to absorb it into every last cell without causing digestive troubles. I’ve even seen a few young women polish off entire platters of sandwiches all by themselves with no ill-effects before; entire family-sized bowls of fruit, you name it.”
I wondered just who in the hell these half-cow inhaling young women were. I wondered why it seemed I was well on my way to becoming one.
While my soup cooled, I chomped through three-and-a-half sandwiches before moving on to a delectable fruit salad tossed with walnuts and creamy vanilla yogurt. Everything seemed to just melt on my tongue. I was so intent on my task that I couldn’t even speak -- just bite, chew, and swallow while the profound emptiness of my stomach began to fill, fraction by fraction.
I was glad Irene had flicked on a radio tuned to soft classical music before she’d sat down, because the noisy, rapid chewing sounds I was making would have made any decent person feel mortified, and were they the only sounds in the room. Though I was mortified anyway. I’d officially joined the half-cow-inhaler club.
Sitting across from me at one of two round, cream-colored tables in the room, Irene sat nibbling on a sandwich and leafing through medical charts, every so often glancing up at me with a little smile. I was glad she was kind. I was glad she didn’t seem to think that I was absolutely disgusting, or at least wasn’t showing it.
Her old-recipe minestrone soup not only lived up to my expectations, it shattered them with a baseball bat. Dense with mini pasta shells, beans, zucchini, and carrots in a thick tomato-basil base, Irene’s soup was miraculous, and after several large spoonfuls, I told her so.
“I can see your nursing skills at play even in your cooking, because this is the kind of soup that could just about bring someone back from the brink of death.”
Eying me from over the top of a chart, Irene suddenly stifled something like a giggle. “Well, thank you. Maybe I should have given you some yesterday. Might have made the whole process quicker.”
I set down a near-empty glass of milk and picked up my soup-spoon again, preoccupied with eagerly anticipating the next delicious bite. “What’s that?”
“Oh, nothing.”
As I went along stuffing my face, and there was no other way of putting it, a feeling of euphoria began building inside of me. All the questions I had for Irene, and there were many, didn’t even matter anymore. Nothing did. Nothing except the fact that I was finally beginning to feel full and warm for the first time in I didn’t even know how long. It felt like centuries.
I polished off three big bowls of soup and had just started in on more fruit salad when a few inexplicable chuckles tumbled out of my mouth. Nothing was particularly funny, but I just couldn’t stop them.
I swallowed a bite of yogurt-covered apple, shoulders shaking with mirth. “Sorry, Irene. I’ve got the giggles, and I don’t even know why. I just want to laugh for some reason.”
She set down a chart, smiling. “You’ve got the full belly, warm body high. Happens a lot post-thaw. It’s like you young women are reborn again with the joy of babies and children. It’s always nice to see, though it doesn’t last long, so enjoy it while you can.”
I laughed, spearing a few grapes with my fork. “I don’t even understand half of what you’re saying, and I haven’t all day, but it’s just striking me as kind of funny right now. Sorry.”
Irene chuckled. “Don’t be sorry. This is one of my favorite parts of being a warm-up nurse; just seeing a young woman experience joy after what she’s been through. The high is often contagious, too, I should tell you. I’ve been known to share in a giggle fit or two myself.”
She soon demonstrated that when we both laughed uproariously when, instead of spearing a grape, the tines of my fork just slid off the side, somehow shooting it off my plate and sending it sailing across the room. What would normally be cause for maybe a light chuckle, now had tears in our eyes.
After more laughter and after I’d made quick work of yet another enormous helping of fruit salad, probably my fourth, I sat back in my chair, running a hand over my very rounded and finally-full belly. “What was that silliness you were saying about me having a child with some commander? Well, look at me. I look like I’m pregnant already.”
I patted my distended stomach and looked up at Irene, laughing once again. Just in time to see a man standing in the doorway of the lounge. To my horror, an expression of amusement flickering across his handsome face told me he’d probably been standing there at least
long enough to hear what I’d just said.
He was in his early to mid-thirties, and handsome didn’t really even begin to describe his face. Maybe beyond handsome would have been more accurate. Or impossibly handsome. All I knew was that his face made my heart feel as if had just been launched in the air like that slippery grape. With a strong, masculine jaw, chiseled cheekbones, and eyes such a deep, dark blue they were a shade of midnight, his face seemed to me like a work of art. A rugged work of art maybe, with a bit of dark stubble across the lower portion of the “canvas.”
All muscle and hard ridges, the man’s physique was no less impressive. He stood a good several inches over six feet tall with broad shoulders, a trim waist, and slim hips. Some kind of a military uniform of black boots, black pants, and a collared black shirt with dark patches on the top of one sleeve showed off these features to their best advantage. Knowing I was blushing a little, because of how round my stomach was and what he’d heard me say, I took all this in within a quick second, willing my jaw not to drop.
With his dark blue eyes holding just the faintest hint of a twinkle, the man cleared his throat, his gaze on Irene and me. “Please excuse me, ladies. I didn’t know the two of you were having lunch.”
Irene, who’d whipped around in her seat to look toward the doorway when I’d suddenly stopped laughing, now heaved a sigh. “Well, I suppose you’re excused, Commander Wallace, though I have to admit I wasn’t expecting you. Didn’t the other nurses tell you our patient is having a bite to eat?”
A bite. Understatement of the year.
Commander Wallace shook his head. “There wasn’t anyone at the station when I passed by just now. Dr. Moore sent me a text saying that our patient was awake, so I rushed up here to make sure all was okay, though I didn’t plan on intruding upon our patient. I just figured I’d talk to you or Dr. Moore privately, and I certainly didn’t expect to find our patient here in the staff lounge.”
“Well, did you think I’d allow her to eat the tasteless slop they deliver to the rooms and serve up in the cafeteria? No, sir. Not when there’s homemade soup available. Not when our patient was hungrier for more than a bland little snack.”
Commander Wallace nodded, eyes still twinkling. “Of course.” While Irene muttered another disparaging remark about the quality of the hospital cafeteria food, he strode across the room, came to a stop by the table, and extended one large, strong-looking hand to me. “I’m Commander Jackson Wallace. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I took his hand and shook it, its firmness and warmth jumbling my thoughts further than they were already jumbled. “Likewise. I’m....” As he released my hand, I trailed off, recalling that I couldn’t recall my name. “Well, I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m a person. I’m a....” I paused again, swallowing, realizing that in contrast to his smart uniform, I was wearing standard-issue hospital garb. “I’m a person in a bathrobe.”
While I inwardly cursed myself for saying something so idiotic-sounding, he gave me a heart-stopping half-grin. “I like that shade of pale pink. It suits your fair skin.”
Right then, my fair skin burst into flames for some reason.
“Well, thank you. I just... I just threw it on, I guess.”
Irene had actually had to throw it on for me, because my shoulders had been too strangely creaky for me to move them much.
In response to what I’d said, Commander Wallace’s full lips twitched with amusement, making my face burn even hotter. At that moment, just when I was becoming absolutely terrified about what asinine thing would tumble out of my mouth next, Irene gave me a helping hand once again.
She fixed Commander Wallace with a mock-stern look, her gray brows drawn so closely together they were almost touching. “Commander, didn’t I warn you about harassing my patient? She needs to get back to her room and get some rest, and you’re keeping her from it.”
Lips still twitching, Commander Wallace shifted his gaze from me to her with what seemed like maybe just a bit of reluctance. “I’d better take my leave, then. Nothing fills my heart with as much fear as a nurse brandishing a soup ladle. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow if I’m allowed.”
Irene nodded. “Call first.”
After promising he would and wishing us a good day, Commander Wallace took his leave, striding out the door. I watched him go, noticing what a high, tight rear he had. And what a broad, muscular back he had. And how he was the type of man a woman could spend hours just daydreaming about. I realized that for a hospital patient wearing a bathrobe that barely closed over her bloated stomach, I was beginning to have some pretty sensuous thoughts.
CHAPTER TWO
“Well! I believe that’s the twitchiest I’ve ever seen that man’s mouth. Normally, he wears an expression closer to a stern, serious scowl. Hardly ever even shows the tiniest hint of a smile.”
Irene’s own mouth was more than a bit twitchy as she looked at me, awaiting my response to what she’d said.
Face still hot and mind still going in a few different directions, I just shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Well... well, that’s...”
I had no idea what it was.
“That’s fine, I guess.”
Irene chuckled. “Warm body, full belly high wear off already? Getting a little flustered has a funny way of doing that, but you shouldn’t feel bad at all. It’s a well-known fact that Commander Wallace has quite a flustering effect on most women. Even some of us older gals can feel a little thrown off-balance by him sometimes.”
She chuckled, and I tried to politely join in, though I had difficulty mustering much more than a feeble ha ha. Suddenly, I was tired. Profoundly, bone-weary tired. So tired that the act of blinking now felt like a grueling chore. Considering how cold I’d been, and then how hungry, I wasn’t surprised in the least by the extreme in feeling.
Irene immediately seemed to notice my flagging energy, got up, and extended a hand. “Come on. I’ll help you back to your room. An hour or two awake at a time is all most young women are able to handle for a few days after thawing.”
Far too tired to ask precisely what she meant by “thawing,” I took her hand, stifling a yawn. “Just a catnap. That’s all I need.”
My “catnap” ended up lasting seven-and-a-half hours. But unlike the last time I’d slept, or had been unconscious or whatever, this time the experience wasn’t like floating through a void of blackness or nothingness. This time, I dreamed. I dreamed of slowly descending through the air, two twin lakes of dark blue water beneath me. But when I neared the lakes, they began shrinking, becoming Commander Wallace’s black-lashed, midnight blue eyes. I dreamed some variation of this strange dream several times.
When I awoke, it was just after nine in the evening, and Irene asked if I was hungry. I asked if there was any soup left, and when she responded in the affirmative, I said that just a single bowlful this time would be perfectly fine.
“I’m a little hungry, but my half-a-cow hunger seems to have been a one-time thing, fortunately.”
Also fortunately, my stomach had seemed to flatten itself right out while I’d been sleeping. Or, at least as flat as it normally was, which was flattish, with a small, soft curve. It struck me as funny that I could remember the usual state of my stomach but not my own name. While she marked a page in a book she’d been reading at my bedside, I told Irene this, running a hand over my more or less flat stomach.
She got up from her chair, setting her book on a tray table. “You’re still drawing a blank on your name?”
“Yes. I really don’t have a clue. And shouldn’t I have a clue by now? I’ve been awake for a full day now, so it seems like if I’m really going to regain my memory, something should be happening by now.”
Earlier in the day when I’d been in the bathroom, I’d taken a good, long look at my face in the mirror, and despite it being completely familiar, despite me knowing that it was my face, it still hadn’t led to any revelations about myself. Which had felt indescribably odd, not to mentio
n frustrating.
Irene said that a full day wasn’t nearly a long enough length of time to have had any major recollections. “Not to mention that you’ve been fast asleep for most of the day.”
“Well, I wish I could at least remember my name.”
“Well, tell you what. How about you stay here and continue resting and thinking while I head down to the lounge and heat up our soup and maybe some chicken for our dinner? If, by the time I come back to get you, you still haven’t been able to recall your name, how about I just tell it to you?”
I gasped, stunned. “You mean you know it? You’ve known it all this time?”
Irene fought a grin. “Yep.”
“Well, why haven’t you told it to me?”
“Well, Dr. Moore thinks it’s best if a patient recalls her name herself, or at least gives it a bit of time before giving up and being told. Something about the recollection of the name giving the patient ‘subconscious confidence’ in trying to recall other personal details going forward. But me, personally, I don’t think it makes too awful much difference. So, if you want to keep it as our little secret, I’ll tell you when I come back to get you, if you still can’t remember it by then.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Irene left, and I began wracking my brain, but when she returned maybe fifteen minutes later, I was still clueless, and I told her so.
“I just still can’t remember.”
“Well, dear, do you even have any ideas?”
“Well...”
Chewing my lip, I turned my gaze to the front of the room, thinking hard. A TV hung in one corner, and on the front of it, the name Belvedere, presumably the manufacturer’s name, was printed in small silver lettering. Beneath the TV sat a white hamper marked laundry in what appeared to be black magic marker. On the wall behind it, a gold thumbtack held a shiny laminated sign that read House rule for all patients: If your nurse has asked you to remain in bed, please remain in bed!