Under Her Skin

by Adriana Anders

  Oh. Oh, right. Glasses. Protective glasses. He blinked in the bright, sterile room and let it come back to him. Or rather let himself return. Shit. The doctor. Had he hurt her?

  “I’m…I’m sorry, Doc.”

  He should thank her.

  He would. In a second. Just as soon as he got out of this fuzz. He sat back on the table, sank down, heavy. Shit, he’d done it again, hadn’t he? Gone somewhere ugly, from the looks of it.

  “Did I…?” He closed his mouth, trying to get enough saliva to speak. “Are you okay?”

  “Am I…? Oh, I’m fine, Mr.… I’m fine.”

  The woman, clearly not in her right mind to trust him, reached out, and he caught those gloved fingers with his, almost brought them to his mouth, but saw the freakiness of that before it happened. The arm of his protective glasses snagged between them, hard edges pressing grooves into his flesh.

  “Thank you,” he said in a voice that wasn’t even remotely his. It was too low, too grainy, too breathy and bare.

  For a handful of seconds, she squeezed him back, and all he could see were the kaleidoscope layers of her eyes.

  It took some time for him to come out of his haze, the air still snapping with electricity.

  “You Irish?” he asked, and she squinted, not seeming to understand. “Green eyes,” he explained.

  “Oh. Right. Actually, yes. I’m half Irish,” she finally answered, and he nodded. And there were their hands again, still pressed together into a stark, spidery sculpture of black examination gloves, tattooed fingers, and dark glasses. The longer he looked, the less it felt like him. He squeezed and felt nothing. After a moment, she squeezed back, and that, that he felt, like a vise. A warm, solid vise. He let a finger loosen, ran it over hers, and shivered when she again tightened her hold. He moved his eyes back to her face, and she looked—what? Shocked? Scared?

  Don’t be scared.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Blane?”

  Blane? His mouth groggily attempted to correct her, but the woman talked right over him.

  “Is there someone I can call to come get you?”

  He chuckled at that. Just a half laugh, which eventually turned into a real one, strong enough to finally pop this goddamn bubble.

  Clay needed to stop this. Now. He considered calling the shrink, whose wrinkled card lay back in the motel, at the bottom of his duffel bag. He wondered if he should, in fact, be taking the meds that had been given to him—and then shook his head.

  “No. No, Doc. There’s nobody to call.” He had to smile then at the woman’s concerned expression. How was this person so nice? Couldn’t she see that he was absolutely the last person on earth she should be bothering with? Had she no survival instincts whatsoever?

  “Well, I could bring you—”

  He swung his legs over the side of the table, wincing as his thigh got to that crucial angle, and then covering up the expression as he realized what Dr. Do-Good’s reaction would be. He let go of her hand, immediately wanting to take it again, then hopped down, ready for the pain this time, and reached for his shirt, which he pulled over his head.

  “Oh. I haven’t applied the petroleum jelly. You need—”

  “I’m fine.”

  Her eyes roamed his chest in a way he could almost feel, and fuck, he hated slimy crap, but he wanted her to spread that shit all over him. “You should really let me…”

  Fuck yes, touch me.

  “No,” he heard himself say. Firm almost to the point of sounding mean. “I’m fine, Doc. Seriously. I got it.” He smiled at her again, made the expression hard and self-sufficient. “When can I come in again?”

  “Oh. I’d better look at the…” He caught her eyes, let his gaze take in the smooth skin of her face, broken only by the unnaturally rosy flush of her cheeks and that fucking bruise that made him want to kill.

  Farther down, her lab coat blocked his view of the rest of her, but he knew. He remembered, from those brief, stolen snatches, her pale legs in that dress and—

  He glanced back up and found her watching him watch her. Her words had trailed off, and there was awareness here between them. Awareness he might not have given her credit for before. She looked so innocent that he’d thought she might be oblivious, too. But the flush crept farther up her ears, and he knew she’d gotten at least a tiny bit of what his thoughts were.

  Clay considered stepping forward, doing something inappropriate. He considered it and then threw it away, because his track record with ladies was pretty grim. Not only that, but this woman was the only person he’d found who’d take care of him. And that was the priority.

  Priorities. Right.

  “Can you take me tomorrow? For my back?” he asked, cutting through this absurd fantasy they appeared to be sharing. Synchronized hallucinations. Folie à deux, he remembered a psychiatrist calling it once on the stand, and he’d gone and looked it up—shared insanity. That was what this shit felt like.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitating. And he liked that. He couldn’t help but enjoy that she wanted him to come back, but he also knew it was bad. Attachments were bad. Anything that distracted from his goal. Anything that risked his cover, his anonymity. “We’ll need to numb your back. You’ll need an injection.”

  “No.”

  “It’s too big a surface, Mr. Blane. The pain—”

  “It’ll be fine. No injections.”

  “Then we’ll do one section at a time.”

  “I want to get it out, Doc. All of it.”

  “There’s so much solid black. I really can’t…” She stopped, appearing to reevaluate. “Fine. We’ll use a numbing cream. The treatment won’t be as effective. The research proves it. But I won’t do it otherwise. Not with that much ink.”

  “Got it. You’re the expert.”

  “See you tomorrow, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Although”—he glanced at the door—“maybe I should wait for you to finish up here. Walk you to your car.”

  “Oh, no. I’ll be fine.”

  He wasn’t sure he agreed, but her expression didn’t leave much room for argument.

  “See you tomorrow, then. Same time” was all he said, before turning and limping out the door.

  As he made his way up the hall, through the waiting room, and out into the hot, humid evening, he considered, not for the first time, what his future consisted of.

  And, try as he might, he couldn’t get past the first few steps: federal court, testify, put those fuckers in prison for life. And then… Christ, he didn’t know. He tried to picture his next gig. Tried and tried and…nothing.

  There was nothing for him but empty road.

  * * *

  George didn’t follow him out, didn’t lock the door behind him. Hands shaking, she pulled the paper off the examination table, wiped everything down, and walked the trash straight out back, since everything had already been cleaned out once that evening.

  Outside, the air was rank with the stench of a week’s worth of summer sun beating on the Dumpster—and no rain. A glance farther down showed the lights on at the MMA school. Time to head home to her crew. Leonard would no doubt be angry.

  Still her pulse beat like a jackhammer, and she refused to think about why. Why did she feel so compelled to comfort that man? Why couldn’t she keep her damned hands to herself?

  She had no answers.

  George had hung up her lab coat, grabbed her keys and purse when her phone rang. She fumbled it out and to her ear, almost expecting… What? Him to be on the other end?

  “Hello?” she said, out of breath.

  “Dr. Hadley?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hi there,” replied the chirpy voice. “I’m calling from the Charlottesville Regional Reproductive Medicine Clinic.”

  “Oh.” She stopped, heart thumping a little harder. “Yes?”<
br />
  “Dr. Sternberg took a look at the ultrasound, and everything looks ready to go. He’d like to put you on the books for a week from Wednesday. The…uh…fifteenth.”

  “Oh. Wednesday the fifteenth. Okay, great.”

  “You’d mentioned evenings work. How does five sound?”

  “Wonderful. Five. Perfect.”

  “Did you have any questions about the intrauterine insemination procedure before you come in?”

  “No, no, I’m good.”

  “And you’ve got the HCG injection for Monday?”

  “Yes, I’ve got it ready to go.”

  “Great, well, we’ll see you next week, then.”

  A week from Wednesday. Somehow, through the ultrasounds and endless medications and self-administered shots, George had managed not to think about what she was preparing her body for.

  They’d take her dead husband’s sperm and put it inside her cervix, and she would, hopefully, get pregnant.

  Treatment. Pregnancy. Baby. Child.

  She should be excited, over the moon, but something was missing here. The husband, perhaps, to go with that vial of washed sperm the lab had kept on ice this past decade? A vial of sperm that she had to use or lose at this point? A daddy for the baby she planned on bringing into this world? Love for her?

  For almost a decade, she’d let that vial sit, an unexpected second chance left untouched in that sperm bank. A decade spent picking up the pieces of her shattered life, creating the perfect little nest for the baby she’d one day have, putting it off and putting it off. A decade spent eschewing fun in favor of responsibility. Because this was what she wanted: her clinic, her house, and now her baby.

  Why on earth didn’t it feel like enough anymore? She didn’t trust it—this feeling that suddenly there might be more to life, just out of reach—but she had no idea how to make it go away.

  * * *

  Clay let his eyes scan downtown Blackwood, taking in the cars parked nearby. The martial arts place next door to the skin clinic was holding a class for women. He squinted, watching the ladies go slowly through a series of defensive moves before practicing them on a couple of guys. He surveyed the rest of the block—it was quiet, so quiet he had a hard time trusting this place. Time and again since he’d gotten there, he’d had to remind himself that it was a small town. Quiet was the norm, not the other way around.

  Except it wasn’t like that, was it? There was bad everywhere, people like those junkies who’d attacked the doc. Because under the quiet, in every little bumfuck corner of this godforsaken country—probably the world—evil lurked.

  Back to the martial arts place, where the women were beating the hell out of the guys. Or pretending to, because Clay knew from experience that big guys like himself, like the giant inside, could take a woman down with one hand tied behind their backs. It wasn’t some half-assed little fist block that would make a difference.

  Cynical. So fucking cynical.

  Farther along, he spotted the sign for the town’s one and only bar. It looked kind of old-fashioned, with lettering that should read Ye Olde Pub. Instead, it read The Nook, which made him think of dim lights and knitting. He watched as a group of people pulled open the door and went inside, laughing.

  Minutes passed, and Clay’s pulse slowed to normal. As he watched the self-defense women, they wrapped up their class and started spilling out onto the sidewalk, which felt like his cue to leave—best not to be accused of being some kind of creep. Surefire way to get his ass kicked out of town.

  Just as he turned the ignition, the clinic lights went out, the door opened, and Dr. Hadley stepped outside. She locked the door without looking up once—Jesus, even after the other night, the woman had no sense of self-preservation, which drove him completely nuts. Didn’t she know she was a sitting duck for all kinds of predators?

  She needed to take that class. Because, although the moves were pretty Mickey Mouse, they’d at least teach her to look before heading out into this fucked-up world. He’d seen the shit people did to women. He knew.

  Clay watched as she stepped off the sidewalk, not appearing to even notice the women walking out next door, moved to her car—unlocked, which sent his blood pressure through the roof—and finally drove off.

  From somewhere close by, an engine fired up, and Clay almost jumped out of his skin.

  Breathing too hard, he waited a few seconds for his anxiety to dissipate and, when it didn’t appear to abate at all, put his truck into drive and followed the doctor at a respectful distance.

  Too many women had suffered because he’d given them space or looked the other way. He was done looking the other way. He didn’t care how small a town this was—there was evil everywhere, around every street corner. He’d seen it in guys he’d taken down; he’d seen it in the smiling eyes of psychopaths; he’d seen it in the eyes of men he’d called brother.

  And, God, he knew how fucking weird this was, following the doctor home, but he couldn’t let another woman be hurt on his watch. Especially one this soft, this caring.

  Creeped out, he decided, following her from a distance, was better than dead.

  * * *

  George wasn’t generally one to partake in excessive alcohol. Not that she hadn’t back in her wild days, when she’d let herself get coerced into situations by bad boys, done wild things, and gotten pregnant in the process. She regretted those times, the manic fun, the stupid decisions made out of sadness and desperation. Bad boys, tattoos, and all the rest of it, she reminded herself, were nothing compared to adult decisions and everything else that had eventually made partying seem not quite so fun anymore.

  Bad boys were a bad idea.

  Andrew Blane was a very bad idea.

  And so was stopping by the fancy little country store on the way home to buy herself a bottle of something. Anything would have satisfied her, but she wound up getting a six-pack of cider, because beer felt too casual and champagne too expensive, but she wanted a drink, something to mark this strange, strange night.

  What she really wanted was to call someone—a friend would be nice—and tell them what was going on. She wanted to spill everything. Her need to have a baby—a family. Someone to call her own. Her fears that she was doing something very wrong here. That this wasn’t how these things were meant to happen. And D-Day just a week away. It was all too much, this last-chance pressure.

  Added to that, the entire weird story about the big, broken man who had suddenly encroached on her every waking thought, his rough hands holding her so tightly, leaving her afraid for rather than of him. And she wanted that friend to understand. That was the toughest part, beyond obvious things like ethics and HIPAA violations. More than anything, she wanted to be told that she wasn’t absolutely out of her mind for feeling the way she did about him, which was…unclear.

  Pulling into her driveway, she glanced at the house next door—it had been empty for the past six months, but Jessie and her son appeared to have moved in yesterday, which was good. Neighbors were good. Someone she could count on when she ran out of sugar. Or whatever.

  She smiled at that. Sugar? No. She wouldn’t run out anytime soon. George didn’t run out of things.

  On her way inside, she cast another glance at the little cottage and thought about the six-pack of cider she held. She wouldn’t mind sharing…

  Down the relative coolness of the long hall, into the kitchen, six-pack in the fridge, then straight through the back door and out into the hot, hot humidity of a Virginia summer evening.

  The usual sounds of home greeted her: calm clucking, which meant her patching job on the fence had worked; lazy birdsong, gaining in intensity at this time of day—like children at bedtime, the creatures got a little worked up before the bats took over as kings of the night sky. Beyond that, she heard the far-off drone of a mower. Always mowing in Virginia. Lord, with the in-laws’ grass to do
every weekend, she had enough mowing to last her a lifetime. George preferred livelier plants, their bursts of color and meandering stalks much more her speed than flat, boring plains of green. And here was the sound of crickets. Loud and intense, but somehow always in the background. Although…no. She cocked her head.

  Not crickets. These were cicadas.

  She remembered a discussion she’d overheard that day in the office. Cindy and Purnima had come in from lunch talking about the insects’ seventeen-year cycle and the noise they’d make this year—not to mention the empty exoskeletons they’d leave behind. George hadn’t lived in the area for the last cicada visit, and she didn’t seem to have any around her place, so she could only guess how loud it would get.

  Someone had left a copy of the Gazette in the waiting room, and George had read through the feature, headlined CICADAS: SEVENTEEN-YEAR ITCH. She was fascinated. To live for such a short time, only to plant your seed for the next generation and die off…

  A wave of sadness overcame her, heavy and familiar. A glance at her watch showed it was too late to call the in-laws.

  Somewhere close by, a car door slammed, and she heard voices. Jessie and her son. It must be, since nobody else lived that close by.

  Behind her, Leonard announced his arrival with a trilling meow before butting his head against George’s leg. She bent to pick him up just as the cottage screen door squealed open, then slammed shut, only to open again before someone went barreling out into the yard next door.

  A second later, the door opened, and a woman’s voice called out. “Gabe! Put your shoes back on! The yard’s a mess!” George craned her neck to see past her landscaping and the tall wooden fence. There was no response. “Gabe Shifflett, you get in here right now, or I’ll… Oh, whatever.” The woman’s voice trailed off, and as she turned to go inside, she glanced at George’s place. Their eyes met with recognition. “George?”

  “Jessie!” George called. “You all moved in?”

  “Hey, yeah! Wait, this is your house? I thought you were farther down. I thought this place was—” The woman interrupted herself, and George wondered what she’d been about to say.