by B. B. Hamel
“Okay, yeah,” she says. “Are you sure you want to take my grandmother on?”
“No,” I admit. “I have too many patients as it is. But I’m the best fucking chance your grandmother has at leaving this place.”
I turn and leave without another word. There’s nothing left to say.
I can feel her staring after me, and I can’t help but smile.
I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t normally do shit like this, but Ruby, well… she’s beautiful. She’s alluring.
She’s going to be my new plaything.
3
Ruby
“That doctor really is an asshole.”
I laugh stupidly, shaking my head. Grandmom is sitting up in bed, grinning at me. This is the happiest I’ve seen her since she came to this place over a week ago.
“You’re feeling better though, right?”
“Sure am,” she says. “Whatever he has me on seems to be doing the trick.”
Relief floods me. “That’s great.”
“The man has the personality of a linebacker, but he knows his stuff. All the nurses say so.”
“Really?” I ask, trying not to sound too curious.
Grandmom laughs softly. “They all say he’s an egomaniac and a jerk. They say everyone hates him, even his bosses.”
“So why is he still here?” I wonder aloud.
“He’s good,” Grandmom says. “At least, that’s what my nurse said this morning. I don’t know about that, I just like his confidence. That other doctor was a moron.” She makes a face.
I laugh again, not used to this new woman. “I’m just happy you’re feeling better.”
“Me too, dear.”
The door opens and we both look over as Dr. Hill steps into the room. “Ladies,” he says, looking impeccable and gorgeous.
“Hi,” I say, smiling a little. I’m wearing a burgundy dress with a loose skirt and knee-high boots. He’s still in his usual doctor outfit.
He walks over and grabs Grandmom’s chart. He glances over it and up at her. “Feeling okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” she says. “Better.”
“Good. Tell the nurses if you feel like you might barf.” He looks at me. “Ready?”
I nod and stand. “Ready.”
“Have fun, kids,” Grandmom says.
He nods at her and leaves the room. I hurry to keep up with him, glancing back at Grandmom as I step out the door.
“I know a place nearby,” he says, not looking at me as we walk down the hall. We get to the end and he hesitates while glancing at me. “I think we’ll take the elevator.”
“Good one,” I grumble at him as he grins at me. We do take the elevator though, stuffed in with a few other nurses and patients.
We leave the hospital together. A few people say hello to him as we pass, mostly patients. I can’t help but notice the other doctors all ignore him completely, and only a few nurses smile as he walks by.
The patients though, almost every one of them say hello. One guy even gives him a hug, practically in tears. I can tell it makes him supremely uncomfortable.
“Call me Aiden,” he says once we leave the hospital out of nowhere. “I hate being called doctor outside of that place.”
“Uh, sure,” I say.
He glances at me. “And you should still be on crutches.”
I make a face at him and he grins. We walk down the sidewalk and head deeper into the city.
He takes me to a bar, a place I’ve never heard of before, called Informal. It’s a nice spot, like the usual hipster gastropub-type place. Aiden leads me to the bar and we sit down next to each other.
He orders a whisky and I order a glass of wine. He looks at me out of the corner of my eye.
“How long have you been a doctor?” I venture, breaking the silence.
He shrugs. “A long time,” he says. “Been at Jefferson since the beginning.”
“Do you like it?”
He barks a laugh. “Not at all.”
“Really?” Our drinks arrive and he sips his whisky right away.
“Gets tedious sometimes. And it’s gotten in the way of… well, just in the way.”
I want to ask him what he means but I decide not to press. “Your patients seem to like you.”
“They usually do when they survive. The dead ones can’t really call you an asshole, though.”
I bite my lip. “That’s really freaking dark.”
He laughs a little. “Sorry. I’m still shedding that place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like whenever I leave the hospital, I have to shed a layer of skin. I have to leave all that misery behind.”
“It’s not all misery.”
“No, it’s not,” he admits. “There are some nice parts.” He looks at me appraisingly again, and I get the feeling that I’m being examined.
I like it, but it makes me blush. I look away, sipping my wine to distract me from his intense scrutiny.
“Tell me about yourself,” he says finally, and I start talking.
I tell him about my mother dying, about my father running off, about taking care of myself. I went to college, took out loans, basically got myself through school. When my friends went home to their comfortable suburban homes, I stayed here and worked. The only person I care about in my family is my grandmother.
He seems to understand. He nods, listening carefully, and I feel like he actually hears what I’m saying.
“My parents died when I was young also,” he says when I finish. “I was raised by my uncle.”
“Really? Where?”
“Here, in the city. I went to med school at Penn, put myself through it.”
“Huh. So we both shared that.”
He shrugs. “It was easier for me. You’re, what, twenty-two?”
“Exactly,” I say, laughing. “How’d you know?”
“I have a talent for it,” he says. “You’re almost half my age, you know.”
I frown slightly. He’s right. I hadn’t even thought about it.
But he is twice my age. His hair’s graying slightly, but he looks like he’s thirty at most. He’s so attractive that I hadn’t realized how old he actually is.
Which is strange. I’ve never been into older men, let alone men like him. If I had just met him on the street, I’d think he was an asshole.
He tells me about school and soon we’re both eating burgers. We get another drink, and another, and the evening turns into night. Before I realize it, we’ve been sitting at the bar for three hours talking about going to school in the city, and Aiden’s even laughing a little bit.
I can almost see the skin he shed. The hospital slowly melted away from him, and now he seems lighter, happier. Still an asshole, but less of one, more willing to laugh.
He pays and we leave the bar together, walking back toward the hospital. “I live near here,” he says, glancing at me.
I look back. “I should get home. I have work in the morning.”
He nods once. “Yeah. I always have work.”
I laugh, although I’m not sure if he’s joking. We stop at the next corner and I face him, heart beating fast.
“I had fun.”
“Me too.” He steps closer to me. “I don’t normally take patients out like this.”
“It’s not some kind of ethics violation, is it?” I ask him, jokingly.
He smirks, moving closer. “It’s definitely an ethics violation,” he says softly. “Do you like that?”
I bite my lip. “No,” I say.
“Liar. You like a little bit of danger. That’s why you were running down those stairs.”
I stare back into his eyes. “I was late for work.”
“I’m sure you were.” He steps close, one hand on my hip, the other tilting my chin to look up at him.
He kisses me. I didn’t expect it, but it feels really good. I melt into that kiss, returning it with force, tasting him on my lips and tongue. I forget all about my
grandmother, all about the hospital.
There’s just Dr. Sexy, kissing me on a street corner.
He breaks it off a moment later. “I’ll see you soon,” he says, and strides away.
I stand there, a little stunned. What the hell just happened?
I finally gather myself and call an Uber to take me home. I don’t trust myself making the walk right now, not when I’m so high on that kiss.
I can still feel it on my lips the whole way home. All I can think about is that damn sexy doctor and his amazing hands and his incredible lips and all the awful, very unethical things I want him to do to me.
4
Aiden
Patient after patient rolls past all through the next morning.
Sore throat. Aching back. Broken arm. I feel like I’m just a fucking construction worker or something. Not like there’s anything wrong with working construction, but I got into medicine for a mental challenge.
I got into this for the puzzle.
Mostly though, being a doctor is about listening to people and prescribing the normal things. More rest, better diet, more exercise. It’s amazing how few people fucking exercise then wonder why their bodies are falling apart.
Patient after patient. I’m stuck in the damn clinic, wasting my damn talents, but it’s okay. It’s my fucking job, and I’m helping people.
Still, I wish I could help people that are a little more interesting.
I’m in a shit mood by the time I end my clinic shift. I head into the main hospital and start to check in on my patients. Mr. Gray has a rare form of cancer that I diagnosed based on the color of his stool. Mrs. Stevens has this insane autoimmune disease that most people thought only affected children. These are the kind of puzzles I love, although once the diagnosis is made, it becomes a lot less interesting.
Still, I do my thing. I go to their bedside, I check their chart, make sure they’re doing okay. It’s what I do. At the end of the day, I want to see these people leave this hospital alive.
By the time I get to Dot’s room, I’m fried. I can’t pretend otherwise. I’ve been working for eight hours now and I have at least another two before I can head home to unwind. And unfortunately for Dot, she’s not an interesting case, despite that other idiot being unable to figure her out.
I push open the door to her room and glance over at Ruby. For a second, I feel my day brighten, or at least I feel one single bright spot in an otherwise uninteresting world of gray.
This is how it goes for me sometimes. I can feel the darkness in this place, all the death and the sadness and the sickness, and sometimes it gets to me. I try and keep it at bay with the puzzles and saving lives, but it doesn’t always work out.
I pick up Dot’s chart and flip it open. I frown a little bit as I check her numbers.
“Been coughing more?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “Good evening to you too, Doctor.”
I frown a little, raising an eyebrow. “Hi, Dot.”
“No more than usual.”
“You sure?” I grunt.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” she says.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you sure, Dot?”
“I don’t think she’d lie to you,” Ruby says, but I just ignore her.
Patients lie. That’s what they do.
It’s my job to see through their bullshit.
“Dot,” I push.
She frowns a little. “Well, maybe…”
I sigh. “That’s the sort of thing you need to tell me.”
“Why? I feel so much better.”
“Everything is important,” I say to her, maybe harsher than I intended. “Keep nothing back from me. I want to see you get out of this place alive.”
She frowns at me. “Well, that’s a little much, isn’t it?”
“No,” I say, dropping her chart back in place. “A nurse will be with you shortly.”
I leave the room, bristling slightly. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s just the bad mood I’ve been in, or maybe it’s because I can see an inkling of trouble on the horizon.
I’ll admit it, I’m a little biased in this Dot case. I should be more impartial, more distant, but I can’t help it.
I want to make sure Dot survives this. I like her and I like Ruby. Hell, I like Ruby a lot.
I don’t make it very far down the hall before I hear footsteps behind me. “Hey, hold on a second.”
I turn back and spot Ruby coming at me. She doesn’t look happy.
“How’s your ankle?” I ask.
She hesitates a little, getting sidetracked. “It’s fine. Look, you can’t talk to my Grandmom like that.”
“Why not?” I arch an eyebrow at her.
“Because you’re being an asshole.”
I sense a few nurses look away, and at least one of them grins at that. I’m not surprised, most of these women hate me, when all I want is for them to do their damn jobs.
“I’m not being an asshole,” I say to Ruby. “I’m telling your grandmother what she needs to do to get better.”
Ruby crosses her arms. “You could be nicer about it.”
I turn to the girl and stare her down. She’s so fucking beautiful, for a second my anger almost completely evaporates. But just as I’m about to let it go, the anger flares back up.
I’m so tired of patients not trusting me. I’m tired of patients lying to me, pretending like their symptoms are worse than they are, misleading me. I’m trying to fucking help them, and yet all they do is make my job harder.
Of course, Ruby doesn’t know that. All she sees is me being short with her grandmother. She doesn’t stop to think that maybe I’m short because I care.
“No, I can’t,” I say softly, and turn away from her before I say something stupid.
She doesn’t let me go, though. She walks right alongside me, getting some looks from a few nurses.
“Bedside manner is important,” she says. “You’re supposed to make the patient feel comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” I snarl. “I’m supposed to make my patient feel alive. That’s all I care about.”
“These are people, Aiden. Not just numbers.”
I glance at her, frowning slightly. “I know that.”
“Do you? I think you just treat them like little puzzles or number games.”
“How the hell do you know?” I growl.
She shrugs. “The nurses talk. And I see how you are with my grandmother. She doesn’t mind it, but I do.”
“I don’t think I care if you mind.” We turn down another hallway into a relatively empty section of the hospital. We’re always saying how we don’t have any beds available, but that’s never true. There are always plenty of rooms.
We just never have the budget to staff them all. So there are constantly these empty wings with empty beds where sick people could be kept, but we never bother.
“You care,” she says. “Or at least I think you do.”
“I don’t.” I stop suddenly and turn to face her. “Don’t get me wrong, Ruby. You’re attractive and you make my dick hard, but I don’t care about anything.”
She stares at me, eyes wide. I start walking again, feeling fucking ashamed of myself, the self-loathing rising up all around me.
But she doesn’t let me go. I fully expect her to let me walk away, leave me alone, let me go back into my fucking self-loathing, but there she is, keeping pace again.
“You really are unbelievable,” she says, shaking her head. “Are you really such an asshole?”
I glare at her. “Probably.”
“Come on. I don’t buy it.”
I turn to her, but instead of stopping, I pull her forward and into a room. I push her toward the bed and slam the door shut behind me. I pull the curtain and stand over her as she leans back on the bed, staring up at me, lips parted slightly.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m angry, so fucking angry, and she looks… gorgeous. Sexy, unbelievable.
She should’ve let m
e walk away.
I loom over her for a moment. She doesn’t say a word. She’s breathing fast and her heart’s pounding. I can practically see it pulsing in her neck. I bend over her and she leans back on her elbows. I grab her hair, thick and full, pulling it into my fist.
“You don’t know me,” I whisper to her. “You don’t know anything at all.”
“You’re right,” she whispers. “But I don’t think you’re the asshole you pretend to be.”
I move to kiss her, but I don’t. Instead, I kiss her neck and she lets out this low, incredibly fucking sexy moan.
“I’m an asshole, don’t think otherwise,” I whisper into her ear. “I just happen to fucking want you.”
She gasps as I push her down onto the bed and grab her jeans. I unbutton and unzip her pants, pulling them off almost violently. She stares at me as I drop to my knees and pull her legs over my shoulders, getting her to the edge of the bed.
I push aside her panties. They’re black and frilly and useless based on how wet she is already. I kiss her inner thighs, above her cunt, around her belly button, before licking her top to bottom, tasting her juicy little pussy.
She groans, leaning back on her elbows. I start to suck and lick at her clit, completely losing myself. I shouldn’t be doing this, I know it’s fucked up. She’s a former patient and relative of a current patient, we’re in the damn hospital. If we get caught, I’ll lose my job or worse.
I don’t care. She tastes so fucking good and those moans in my ears keep driving me forward, desperate to hear more.
I suck and lick her clit, nibbling and biting and rolling my tongue all around her. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over my years as a doctor, it’s that I’m very good at manipulating the human body. Normally I use that skill for my job, but sometimes I can use it for things that are much more fun.
I hear her breathing, sense her heartbeat. I suck and lick her, moving my tongue all around her delicious little clit, based on what her body’s telling me. Her panting gets louder, deeper. I feel her push up onto one hand as her other digs into my hair.
I lick her deeper, slide my tongue inside, pull back out to lick her clit. She’s groaning now, but I know she needs more. I slide two fingers inside her pussy as she starts to move her hips.
