Appearances, copyright 2006, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
-37-
A Midnight Ride
Philip and Gran said good-bye and left. After they were well out of earshot, I took the opportunity to tell Richard about the threat, and he decided to wait for Detective Howard to arrive.
About fifteen minutes later, Detective Howard came in. I pointed out which flower arrangement it was, and he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and examined it carefully, then he placed the card in a clear plastic bag, and sealed it. “Do you mind if I take the flower arrangement out of here along with the card and envelope?” he asked.
“Help yourself,” I said. “By the way, I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“Should we hire a security guard for this room?”
He thought about it for a minute or so, and said “No, I don’t think so. Access to the floors housing patients is fairly well controlled. However, you need to look into security arrangements when you go home.”
That was Richard’s cue, and he said “I think we’ve got that pretty much under control, with a security system, cameras, and a neighborhood patrol.”
Richard and the Detective discussed the case and its various aspects for a few minutes. Finally Detective Howard said good-bye and left, followed a few minutes later by Richard. I settled back on the pillow for a few minutes to think about things. Unfortunately, my reverie was interrupted by the arrival of an orderly whose name badge read ‘Sam.’ He had crutches in his hands, and was tall and thin with shoulder length brown hair.
I scowled at him “Oh, God, is it torture time again?”
“It is, if you ever want to get out of here,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Before your surgeon will release you, your chart has to show that you have made it all the way to the nurses’ station at least a couple of times. From what I read, you’ve only barely made it out of the door at this point.”
“Shit,” I said. “Okay, let’s get it over with.”
As he unhooked my drips, he said “I do have good news.”
“What.”
“One of these needles is coming out permanently.”
“Not the pain medication, I hope.”
“No, it’s the other one that is being discontinued,” as he slid the needle out of the vein on the back of my hand.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry, man. There is no easy way to do that.” He produced a tiny band aid and fastened it across the wound, which was seeping blood. He walked around to the other side of the bed. “Ready to rock and roll?”
“Okay, let’s get it over with,” I said, as he pulled me up, swivelled my body around and gently lowered my cast bound leg so that it was dangling over the edge of the bed. Just as John had done, he placed the armrests of the crutches under my arms and pulled me upright. I winced in pain.
“Don’t overdo it, man. This is more about muscle movement than how much weight your leg can bear.” We shuffled out the door and made it perhaps a third of the way to the nurses’ station before he said “That’s enough for this trip. John can try for a little more distance in the morning,” and we shuffled our way back to my room. As usual, I was sweating profusely and hurting like hell by the time I was back in my bed.
Without being asked to do so, Sam pulled the curtains and washed me as thoroughly as you can wash anyone who is flat on his back. “Thanks, Sam. A shower would have been a lot better, but I guess this is as good as it gets right now.”
“You got that right,” he said, as he tied a new gown around my neck and tidied up the bed. I reached for the drip controls as he walked out of the door and lay back to wait for the pain to recede. I must have dozed off, because I was awakened by Philip sticking his tongue hungrily down my throat.
“God, I can’t wait until pumpkin time,” he said.
“Pumpkin time?”
“You know, midnight, quiet corridors, privacy in the room, time for sex.”
“Oh yes, I’ve been too busy to think about that this afternoon.” I told him about my walk. “How did it go at Gran’s?”
“Well, she approved of all my ideas for your, now our, room, and I’m going to use her old sewing room for an office, so dictating with the voice recognition software won’t disturb you if you are sleeping. Then she invited me to have a cup of tea with her, and I did.”
“Cool. She really likes you, you know.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “I asked her if she minded my calling her Gran, and she said that she thought it was sweet.” Then he told me the rest of what she had said.
“As I said, you can do no wrong in her eyes now.” My nose twitched “Do I detect the smell of food?”
“You do, indeed,” he said and he produced some more Chinese food. “I would have gotten you oysters to give your batteries a charge for tonight, but this month has an ‘R’ in it.”
“Very funny,” I said.
We had just finished our Chinese, and Philip was assisting me with brushing my teeth, when Richard and Bruce came through the door.
“Hi guys,” I said, as I spat the toothpaste into the glass.
They came over to the bed. “How’re you doing?” asked Richard.
“Better, I guess. They made me walk a little further this evening, and evidently I won’t get out of here until my chart shows that I have made it all the way to the nurses’ station and back at least twice. Tonight I only got a third of the way there.”
The four of us visited for a while before they said goodbye and left. Philip turned out the overhead light, and lay down on the cot. “I’m going to close my eyes for a few minutes. Be sure and wake me up at midnight.” He flashed his million-dollar smile and closed his eyes.
I dozed off, as well, but roused up when someone came into the room. It was the night nurse. “How are you feeling,” she asked when she saw that I was awake.
“Pretty good,” I guess. “That last walk down the hall kind of took it out of me.”
“I know,” she said, “but it will be easier tomorrow.”
“So they tell me,” I answered.
Our conversation had awakened Philip, who sat up, rubbed his eyes, and asked “what time is it?”
The nurse answered “Eleven-thirty or so. I’m sorry we disturbed you.”
“No problem,” he said, and rolled back over on the cot, ostensibly to sleep.
She said good night, made me promise to ring if I needed anything, and left, closing the door behind her.
Philip sat up and off of the cot. “Show time,” he said happily.
“Its thirty minutes until midnight,” I said.
“I don’t care,” he answered. “I am going to have your dick in my mouth right now, and I don’t care if the whole fucking hospital comes in here to watch.” He pulled the sheets down, my gown up, and buried his face in my crotch.
“God, that feels good. It seems like forever since we last did anything.” He raised up as if to say something, but I pushed his head back down. “Don’t stop, please.” Not wanting my senses dulled during sex, I reached over and turned the drip off. In no time, I was shooting volley after volley down his willing throat.
Finally, he released me, licked my still hard dick dry, and moved up to my mouth. We kissed for a while, and he shared some of my semen with me. Finally, I broke away from his hungry mouth and said “get your ass up here and sit on my face now.”
He dropped his pants, and I observed “No underwear?”
“I thought going commando would make things easier and quicker,” he said. He crawled up on top of me and straddled my chest. With his left hand, he pulled the curtains around the bed. “This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” he said. “It’s damn difficult to balance myself with only one arm.”
He slid up my chest until his erection was aimed at my mouth. I pushed my face onto it like the starving man that I was. There is a reading light on an extending arm just above the head of the bed, and he reached up with his good hand and grabbed it to steady himself. Then he began to piston in and out of my mouth. It was a little awkward, but it felt wonderful, and in no time he filled my mouth with his semen.
Finally, he let go of the lamp and slid back down my torso, almost to my waist before he collapsed on top of me. He rested for a while and then raised himself and began to kiss me. He paused for a minute “You didn’t save any for me.”
I laughed softly and said “next time.”
He reached behind him with his good hand and found my erection. He slowly slid down my body until I could feel the tip of my penis touching his crack. “Don’t you need some lube?” I asked.
“Babe,” he said. “When I went into the bathroom earlier, I greased my ass up thoroughly after I removed my underwear. Not to worry.”
It took him a minute to get things lined up, and then I felt his ass begin to settle on my erection as he slowly and carefully impaled himself on me. When he hit bottom, he sat up straight and looked at me. “Are you ok?”
“Am I ever.”
“No, I mean am I on your pelvis like the Doc said, there’s no strain on your thighs is there?”
“Not at all.”
“The trouble is, I don’t have anything to hang on to,” he said. He glanced up at the ceiling and said “Oh my God. Why didn’t we notice that?”
“Notice what?” I asked and I followed his gaze.
“This is an orthopaedic ward, and there are bars hanging from the ceiling for patients to use in exercise, or more likely to hold body parts up in the air when they are in traction. Why didn’t we see them before, I wonder?” With his good arm, he grabbed the bar, which was just within reach, and began to pull himself up and down in a bouncing motion on my erection. The effect was electric. I gathered my wits enough to take my good hand and stroke his erection. In mere minutes, it was spurting all over my chest while I was shooting deep into his bowels.
He let go of the bar and once again collapsed on top of me. Eventually, he raised himself and kissed me again. “I’d better sit up before we get stuck together. That was wonderful, bouncing up and down on you like that. I had to resist the urge to yell ‘ride em cowboy.’”
“Slide up here again and let me show you just how much I enjoyed that.”
He scooted up my torso again, pointed his still hard cock at my mouth and grabbed hold of the light. “I hope this thing is bolted securely to the wall,” he said, as he began to piston in and out of my mouth again. It took a little longer this time but eventually he filled my mouth, before sliding back down my body and once again and collapsing on me.
Finally, he sat up and said “I think I’ve got one more ride in me.” He slid back down and once again impaled himself on me, simultaneously reaching for the overhead bar. I once again reached for his erection, but he said “just lay back and enjoy it and we will be three for three when I am through with you.”
Following his advice, I lay back on the pillow and watched the muscles in his torso ripple as he bounced up and down on my erection. What a picture this would make, I was thinking just as the sensations of orgasm took over my brain. As before, he collapsed on top of me. “I’m worn out,” he said. “Do you mind if I go back to my cot now?”
“Go ahead,” I said with a smile, “you’ve earned it.”
He climbed off of me and then off of the bed and found his pants and pulled them back up. He slid the curtain back and went to the bathroom for a few minutes. When he returned, he had a warm damp cloth in his good hand and he proceeded to wash all of the mingled sweat and semen off of my body. He returned the cloth to the bathroom, came back, and put my gown and my sheet back in place before he bent over and kissed me thoroughly.
“I love you so much it hurts,” he said.
“I know, babe. I feel the same way about you.”
“See you in the morning,” he said, and then he collapsed back on the cot. >From his breathing, I could tell that he was out like a light. I lay back and surrendered to exhaustion myself.
I was awakened the next morning by the overhead light being turned on as Dr. Taft came into the room to examine me. I looked down at the cot and saw that Philip was out cold. “You look relaxed,” he said, “and sleeping beauty looks exhausted.”
“Doc, we each had three orgasms last night between eleven thirty and one o’clock, and he had to do all of the work. We took your advice and tried everything you suggested except the one where I stand on the floor and stick my butt in the air. They all worked more than once.”
The Doctor smiled at that. “How is the pain this morning?”
“I don’t know. I turned the drip off last night so my senses wouldn’t be dulled during sex. Come to think of it, there isn’t any right now.”
“That is a very good sign,” he said. “However, after you finish your first walk of the morning, you’ll very likely need a bit of help with the pain.”
“They told me yesterday that I have to walk all the way to the nurses’ station and back at least twice before I can get out of here.”
“That’s our exercise benchmark for this kind of surgery,” he said. “From what I read here, I would guess that you’ll make the first full round trip by this afternoon.”
“God, I hope so. I want to go home.”
“I know,” he said.
Philip began to stir and then sat up. “What time is it?” he asked, sleepily.
I looked at the clock “Six-thirty.”
“I have to go home and get cleaned up before Richard and Bruce go to work, and I need their help to do that.” He finally noticed Doctor Taft. “Hi Doc,” he said. “We took your advice last night.”
“So I hear,” Dr. Taft said, “and it has done wonders for our patient. You, on the other hand, look like you have been through a wringer.”
“Well, it was a lot of work, and you were right, keeping my balance with one hand was not easy. In the middle of everything, I discovered that bar hanging from the ceiling and I made good use of it.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” the Doctor said, “but next time somebody asks me about having sex in a hospital bed, I’ll certainly recommend it.”
We all laughed at that. Philip came over and gave me a quick kiss. “Babe, I’m desperate for a shower, and I can’t do it by myself, so I’ve got to get home while there is help available. See you later. Bye, Doc, and thanks again,” he said as he left the room.
The Doctor watched Philip leave the room. “I think you got one of the good ones, there,” he said.
“Don’t I know it. That man is as beautiful inside as he is outside.”
“He has a great ass, too.”
“You noticed?”
“How could I not?” he replied. He finished his exam and left me to my own devices. The first thing I did was to pick up the telephone and dial into the office dictation system. I left some notes for Rosemary and gave her two very important documents to prepare, telling her to have Mark deliver them to the hospital after lunch and to have him bring a Notary Public with him. Just as I had hung up, the morning parade began. Aides took my vital signs, John came and dealt with urinal and bedpan, and a tray full of pap, passing as breakfast was delivered. I took a nap in lieu of breakfast. When I woke up, Philip was back at my side. “You look a lot better than you did earlier,” I said.
“All it took was a shower, a shave, and a cup of coffee,” he said.
Before we could really commence a conversation, John came in with the crutches. “I’m back,” he said.
“Torture time?”
“You know it, man. I see you made it a third of the way to the goal last evening. We need to set a new record today.” He went through the drill of getting me ready and soon enough we were shuffling down the hall. Amazingly, we did make it to the nurses’ station, but I was trembling all over by the time I was back in my bed. He went to the bathroom, returned with the basin and supplies, and began giving me a bath.
“John,” said Philip.
“Yes?”
“How would you go about enabling Charles to take a shower?”
He thought for a minute. “I would buy a bunch of ladies shower caps. A bunch of them because you will use one up every day. You cut a hole in the top of the cap and then slide it with the elastic side up over the cast until the elastic is above the top of the cast, then to make sure, you run some tape over the elastic Next you get a large 55 gallon plastic garbage bag, the kind with built in plastic drawstrings, and snug it up his leg until the top if the bag is well above the tape on the shower cap. Then you draw the drawstrings tight, and finally, you take some tape and seal the area around the top of the garbage bag. It’s not 100% effective, but it works most of the time.”
“Good,” Philip said. “I knew that there must be a way. Yesterday you said that you were pulling double shifts.”
“Unfortunately, I am.”
“I don’t want to seem nosy, but I have a reason for asking. Is it because the hospital is short handed or is it because you are hungry?”
“The latter,” John said. “I begin my next to the last term of nursing school in April, and I’m trying to save enough money to stop working then, so I can finish school in one term instead of two.”
“How long does the term last?” Philip asked.
“Three months.”
“Are you in school now?”
“Yes, but I’m only taking a few classes this term, because I have to work.”
“Your schedule doesn’t give you much time for your boyfriend, does it?”
“What makes you think I have a boyfriend?”
“John, you are young, blonde, cute as a button, utterly adorable in fact, and this IS gay Atlanta. Of course you have a boyfriend.”
John laughed. “Thanks for the compliments. Yes I do. His name is Joe, and he is in his final term of nursing school as we speak. We have been together for three years.”
“What kind of hours does that entail?”
“He is not working this term, and his classes start at nine most days.” John was getting curious, I could tell, but was still playing along with whatever it was that Philip was up to.
“Do either of you have any experience at Physical Therapy?”
“That’s what Joe did before he started back to school.”
“And I’ll bet that both of you are overloaded with school loans.”
“Too right. About twenty grand worth, in all” he said.
I was watching Philip closely now, but John’s back was turned to him as he continued to take care of me. Philip took out his checkbook and a pen. “What is your last name, John?” He asked.
“Tanner.”
“And what is Joe’s last name,” he asked.
“Cacci.”
“How do you spell that,” Philip asked.
John said “C A C C I.”
Philip was writing out two checks.
“As I said, John, I’m not just being nosy. There was a reason for this interrogation,” Philip said. “Look at this please.”
John turned around and Philip handed him a check. He looked at it, and said “It’s a check made out to Joe and me for, for. Oh my God that’s enough to pay off half of our student loans.”
“I want to hire the two of you John, for the next two months, or until Charles is fully functional again. Quit the hospital and come by our house every morning and help up us shower and shave. Bring Joe with you for that, because it will take two of you to get this guy in and out of the shower safely. Come back a couple more times each day to help him walk or with whatever else needs to be done that I can’t handle. Eventually, I can help, but not as long as this arm is in a sling. Joe can come back at his convenience and help with the physical therapy.”
He handed John another check, saying “This check is post-dated April 1st. You can cash it on that date if you and he have lived up to the bargain.”
John was in shock “it’s for the same amount of the other one.” He looked like he wanted to cry. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Can your lips form the word yes?”
“Oh yes, yes, yes,” John said, tears flowing freely, “but why?”
“Think about it, John. We were both shot. Somebody out there may still be gunning for us. The more times I have to transport this guy different places for therapy and other services, the more vulnerable we are. His grandmother’s house is old, huge, and solid as a rock. With a little additional security, we will be as safe there as we can be anywhere until they get whoever did this to us. Sure, I could call a service today and hire somebody for less, but we both know and like you and more important, Charles is comfortable with you. Remember, getting us both in and out of the shower means that everybody has to get naked. I have to engage the services of professional help, so why shouldn’t I do a good deed in the process and help a deserving young man and his equally deserving boyfriend who happen also to be family? As a side benefit it will allow you to spend more time with your man before you plunge back into school again.”
John was silently and unabashedly crying.
Philip stood up, came over to the bed, kissed me, and then turned and gave John a hug. “What’s the good in being rich if you can’t spend money helping your loved ones,” he said. He kissed John on the check, released him, and turned around to kiss me again.
He turned back to John. “Of course, Joe might not want to do this.”
John got himself under control. “Oh, he will, he will, and if he is the least bit reluctant, I have ways of persuading him to do what I want.”
Philip laughed at that. “I’ll just bet you do,” he said.
John finished his duties and hurried out of the room, presumably to telephone Joe. I looked at Philip. “Like I told Dr. Taft this morning, you are as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside.”
“I’ve been mulling this over since yesterday,” he said, “and it just seemed to be a fortuitous solution, and I’m not kidding about the security aspects of this. You do realize, don’t you, that somebody has been watching us for a while and monitoring our movements?”
“I have had too much on my mind to focus on that, but yes, you are right.”
“So, it follows that we need to be both less visible, and less predictable, and when Richard brings Gran here this afternoon, you need to discuss security for her house.”
I had a sudden flashback. “You know babe, this is a role reversal for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night we met, I had to take charge of our lives. Now you are taking charge.”
“I guess so,” he said, and he bent down and laid his head on my chest.
“By the way,” I asked, “how large were those checks?”
“Twelve Thousand Five Hundred.”
“Each!”
“Yes. I know it was perhaps, overkill, but sometimes throwing money at a problem really and truly works.”
“I repeat what I said, as beautiful inside as outside. God I love you so much.”
He kissed me and said “I guess I had better sit back down before someone comes in and catches us in flagrante. Did you have breakfast?”
“They brought up a tray of some kind of gray slop, but I elected to take a nap instead.”
“I was afraid of that,” he said, and he got up.
“Where are you going?”
“Downstairs to get you a sandwich or two to tide you over,” he said, and he walked out the door. I closed my eyes for a few minutes and in what seemed like no time, he was back with a bag of food.
“Thanks,” I said, as I dug into the sandwich.
“Got to keep your strength up for tonight,” he said with a smile. “Now I have to dash again, I have a lot to do, including a brief appointment with Randolph later this afternoon.”
“Watch your back, babe,” I said.
“I will,” he said, “trust me. I’ll keep an eye on the rear view mirror, and if I see the same car too many times, I will run for help.”
“Just like in the movies?”
“You got it, kiddo.” He kissed me for a minute, and left.
-To be continued-
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