The Pain Nurse - страница 64

The room was at the end of the hallway, where it ended in the fire stairwell, and the door was closed. As she had so many times before, she knocked twice, then opened the door and stepped inside. The nearest bed was empty and neatly made up. The bed by the window was concealed by a curtain.

“Hello?”

She felt the air rush of the heavy door being closed behind her even before she heard it slam shut.

Gary Nagle stood behind the door, wearing nothing but a fierce erection. He leered at her. “Hey, baby.”

She instantly grabbed the doorknob, but he was stronger and kept the door shut.

“You used to like this…”

She was momentarily in a coma of surprise and shock. His eyes were an animal’s. Beneath her animal fear, her mind began processing: this is it…this is what the moment before being raped feels like. She vowed to herself she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Gary.” She tried to keep her voice calm, but heard it waver. “You’re not yourself. Your wife died…”

“Ex!” He shouted it and made a flourish with one hand. “Yeah, poor Chris. Poor, poor Chris…the whore!” His eyes narrowed and he thrust his right hand out toward her in a half-fist.

“Slash! Slash! Slash!” He made violent cuts back and forth with an invisible knife, crouching down like a street fighter. His hard penis shook like a diving board. “You know I can use a knife! Chris, you whore. For what you did to me…”

He stepped toward Cheryl Beth, but his effort to hold the door kept him just enough off balance.

Springing to the foot of the first bed, she slid the rolling table that usually held a patient’s dinner tray between them.

“Gary, I swear to God I’m going to start screaming.”

“You used to like this, Cheryl Beth.” He stroked himself. He had always been irrepressibly proud of his endowment, bragging about how difficult it was to find size thirteen shoes. Now the memory made her shudder.

“You’re acting like some kid resident, not a seasoned physician,” she said, making her voice sound a haughtiness she didn’t feel. “And I’m sure not a nurse looking for a doctor husband.”

“Oh, Cheryl Beth, we had such fun…”

There he was with his finely toned physique, but she felt nothing. It was just a body. Another fragile container of bone and muscle and tissue in the hospital. Nursing aides giving sponge baths often caused male patients to have erections. It wasn’t sexy. It was kind of sad. She felt all this, but only below the incoming waves of fear.

He could see her take a deep breath to call for help and began speaking rapidly.

“You’ve got to help me, Cheryl. The cops came to my apartment this morning, with a search warrant. That big black detective.” He held his hands in a pleading position. “He thinks I killed Chris. They took away things. Evidence. Please, please…” His chiseled, confident face dissolved into tears and he slid down against the wall sobbing. “Please, I need you.”

“Put your pants on or I’m out of here.” She squared her shoulders and gave him her nastiest look. She wouldn’t let herself show fear. “And step away from the door.”

“You’ll talk?”

“If you step away from the door.”

He pulled himself up and walked slowly to a chair that held his clothes. She saw the clothes only now-they might have been a clue to stay out if she had seen them earlier. As he moved, she kept the rolling table between them. With the door unguarded, she made two wide strides to it, threw it open, and started out.

“Please!”

She turned to face him. “I’ll stay for the moment, if you don’t piss me off or get weird. But get dressed. And don’t call me Cheryl. You know what my name is.”

“Sure, sure.” He was half mumbling as he slid into his boxers and his slacks. She dropped down the doorstop so the door was half open, and she leaned against the wall by the jamb.

“God, I need to fuck right now.”

It was true: he used sex to relieve stress. It took her awhile to realize that he was most aroused when he was under the greatest pressure. Soon after that, she came to understand that she might just as well not have been there. She was just a female body to him. A way to work off stress. Another conquest.