by Radclyffe
“No,” Wynter said immediately. “She’s not like that at all. She’s incredibly focused and very responsible about work. She’s not taking advantage of her position.”
“Sounds like you like her a little bit.”
“I…” Wynter stood and carried her mug to the sink. As she rinsed it out, she said with her back to Mina, “I don’t have to like her, I just have to work with her. And I’d rather not walk in on her when she’s feeling up some bimbo in the storage closet.”
“Uh-huh. I get that.” Mina pushed herself up with one hand on the edge of the table and released a soft groan. “Maybe I should let Ken take care of his urges at the hospital. I’m about done with this baby-making business.”
Laughing, Wynter turned and rested her hips against the sink. “Oh yeah, I can see that.” She reached out for Mina’s cup. “Here, let me take that.”
“So, is it the extracurricular activities that bother you or that she’s gay?” Mina asked casually.
“I don’t care that she’s gay,” Wynter said immediately. She frowned. “Why would you think I would?”
“I didn’t. I just wondered.”
“I couldn’t care less who Pearce Rifkin sleeps with,” Wynter said succinctly. “Man, woman, or beast.”
Mina laughed. “Well, sometimes they are hard to tell apart.”
“Oh, who cares who any of them sleep with.” Wynter linked her arm through Mina’s. “I’m going to go kiss my sleeping fairy princess good night.”
“Just be sure you don’t wake her up.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I have to be up at four and I’m ready to fall into bed.”
“Pleasant dreams,” Mina said as they parted just outside the kitchen.
Wynter hoped that she didn’t dream at all.
*
Pearce stretched out on the narrow bed in the small windowless on-call room. She’d shed her shoes and arranged her assorted equipment on the tiny bedside stand—beepers, cell phone, wallet, and keys. She folded her arms behind her head and stared at the ceiling. She didn’t expect to sleep, because she knew that within a few minutes—or certainly before an hour had passed—the phone would ring. Sometimes it would just be a question about medication or instructions for dressings, and she could take care of it without leaving the room. But her sleep would be interrupted nevertheless, and sometimes the frustration made it not worth going to sleep at all.
Other times, a nurse would call to report a change in a patient’s vital signs, and Pearce would need to get up to evaluate the situation. A temperature spike in the middle of the night could signal something as simple as incisional pain preventing the patient from taking a deep breath. Mucus and other secretions eventually accumulated in the lungs and produced a fever. The treatment was simple—voluntary coughing. At other times, however, a sudden fever indicated a severe wound infection or, worst-case scenario, a breakdown in the area of surgical repair. In those instances, a missed diagnosis or delay in treatment for even a few hours could seriously affect the patient’s well-being. Those were things she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, handle over the phone. Some residents tried, because night after night of no sleep and the unrelenting pace made cutting corners look inviting. But for the most part, the residents lived up to their responsibilities, and for Pearce there was never any question. She knew what needed to be done, and she did it.
She willed her body to relax, hoping that if she didn’t sleep, at least she could unwind. But she tossed and turned, more keyed up than usual. The day had been a roller-coaster ride of unexpected emotions, starting when she’d first seen Wynter in the hallway. Wynter had been on her mind ever since they had parted, and why she couldn’t just shrug off Wynter’s anger, she didn’t know. Sure, they had a little bit of history, but a lot less than she had with some women she saw every day. A few of the women she’d had short liaisons with made it pretty clear that they’d like to hook up again, but she had no problem sidestepping their attentions. She’d never even kissed Wynter, and she was totally off her stride around her. She made a disgruntled sound and squirmed around, trying to get comfortable.
“Horny,” she muttered, but she didn’t have the energy or inclination to do anything about it. She’d been keyed up all day, and she doubted it would take more than a minute or two, but somehow she knew that a quick orgasm was not going to settle her disquiet. She rolled onto her side and faced the wall, drawing her knees up and closing her eyes.
She must have drifted, because the soft kiss on her neck was completely unexpected. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. Blinking in the dark and trying to clear her fuzzy brain, she rolled onto her back. “Who?”
A warm wet mouth descended onto hers, a soft tongue tracing the outline of her lips. She tasted something sweet. Peppermint, maybe. The curve of full firm breasts pressed against her side and a hand tugged at the tie on her scrub pants. Pearce slapped her hand over the fingers working at her pants.
“Hey. Andrea?”
“You expecting someone else, baby?” Andrea murmured, nipping her way along Pearce’s jaw as she pushed her hand inside Pearce’s scrubs. “I couldn’t wait until I got off work tonight. I am so hot for you.”
“How about you slow down a lit—” Pearce gasped as Andrea’s fingers dove between her thighs. “Jesus!”
“I knew you’d be wet.” Andrea climbed onto the bed, her skirt hiked up to her hips, and threw one leg over Pearce’s thighs. She rocked hard against her leg. “I have been dying to do this. Oh, you feel so good.”
The shock of the sudden assault on her already overstimulated nerve endings catapulted Pearce’s body into overdrive. She wanted Andrea to stop and she wanted to come all at once. Panting, hips heaving, she groaned, “Let up on me for a minute. Just wait, will you.”
Andrea was moaning, pulling at her, writhing against her, already too far gone for reasoning. Pearce felt teeth against her neck, and before she had time to object or resist, she came in quick sharp spasms. She bit Andrea back, her mouth finding soft flesh, and Andrea screamed out in pleasure. Pearce’s mind went blank as another orgasm rocketed through her.
“Oh God, baby,” Andrea moaned, licking at the spot she had bruised on Pearce’s neck. “I needed that. And I could tell that you did too.” She squeezed between Pearce’s thighs. “Didn’t you.”
“Sure,” Pearce said tonelessly as Andrea sat up to rearrange her clothes. “That was just what I needed.”
“You should change your pants, baby,” Andrea said as she stood and fluffed her hair. “I left a wet spot on your leg.”
Pearce closed her eyes to the sound of Andrea’s laughter fading down the hall. When sleep eluded her, she got up and made her way to the roof. The sky was overcast, the night bitterly cold. The distant echoes of Andrea’s attentions still twisted through her, but there was no trace of warmth left by her touch.
Chapter Ten
Wynter arrived in the cafeteria the next morning ten minutes before rounds. She was slightly annoyed, but not surprised, to see Pearce there before her, slouched in a chair, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in her hand. She checked the table, half expecting to see evidence of street dog detritus, but there was none. She assumed that the street vendors hadn’t warmed the chili yet. She pulled out a chair next to Pearce. “Morning.”
“Looks like it,” Pearce grunted.
“Rough night?” Wynter sipped her own coffee and glanced at Pearce, then stared at her neck. A quarter-inch bruise marred the pale skin just above her collarbone. It was more than a hickey; it was an intentional bite mark. Someone had meant to mark her, and had succeeded. The idea that someone wanted to possess her that way, and that Pearce had allowed it, offended her. An image of the brunette in the utility room, crawling all over Pearce, flashed through her mind, and she reacted without thinking. “From the looks of things, I guess so.”
Pearce frowned at the sarcastic note in Wynter’s voice, then saw where her eyes were riveted. She rubbed her neck and felt the tenderness. Crap.
“I might have been on call,” Pearce said with an edge to her voice, “but what I do while I’m waiting for something to happen is no one’s business.”
“Has it occurred to you that it sets a lousy precedent for the other residents?”
“You think so?” Pearce leaned forward, her nerves jangling. Despite the fact that no emergencies had arisen after Andrea’s middle-of-the-night visit, she hadn’t slept. She’d spent an hour on the roof, despite the frigid temperatures, then been propelled inside by the urgent desire to shower. She felt soiled, and wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as if she’d never had a tryst in her on-call room before, and she usually enjoyed a woman who took what she wanted, because so did she. Plus, Andrea hadn’t done anything she hadn’t done half a dozen times in the last year. But for some reason, Pearce was angry. Angry that Andrea thought she could walk in uninvited and find Pearce willing. Angry that she hadn’t said no and meant it. Angry that when it was finished, she’d felt nothing. Wynter’s criticism now only underscored her own self-loathing, and that was more than she could handle after thirty hours of no sleep. “Has it occurred to you that your job is to take care of patients and not offer your opinions on things that don’t concern you?”
Wynter rocked back in her chair, stunned by the cutting tone of Pearce’s voice and the flat, hard fury in her eyes. Belatedly, she realized that she was out of line. Pearce was not only her senior, she was a virtual stranger. They’d shared a dinner, but that didn’t give her the right to pass judgment. Still, the anger—arising from where, she couldn’t be certain—simmered. It was all she could do not to snap back. Instead, she did what she always did when her back was against the wall. She grew very still, damping her emotions with iron control. In a voice that revealed none of her feelings, she said, “I’m quite prepared to take care of my patients. Thank you.”
Cursing under her breath, Pearce stood abruptly and walked back to the cafeteria line. When she returned with her second cup of coffee, the other members of the team were present. As she sat, she avoided Wynter’s eyes and said curtly, “Let’s take it from the top.”
In a studied voice, Wynter said, “1222, Arnold. Four days post…”
When they’d finished updating the patients’ status, Pearce gave everyone their instructions for the day. “Wynter, you’re with the chief on that splenectomy he’s doing later this morning.”
“Great case,” Bruce said enviously.
“Are you leaving?” Wynter asked Pearce as the junior residents left to take care of the work generated during rounds.
“In a while,” Pearce said vaguely. By rights, she should be off call now and could go home. Should go home. But she very rarely did.
Wynter gave her an appraising glance, but decided not to mention the fact that Pearce looked worn out. As the senior resident had just pointed out quite succinctly, it was none of her business. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Right,” Pearce replied, waiting for some indication that Wynter wanted company on the way to the operating room. When Wynter turned and walked away, Pearce shrugged and let her go. Watching her disappear up the stairs, she wondered how they had gone from their friendly and relaxed dinner the night before to this uncomfortable silence. She wondered, too, if she had been a guy whether Wynter would have minded that little scene with Andrea quite so much. She’d never been sensitive about being gay, because she didn’t care who had a problem with it. But it saddened her to think that Wynter might. Fuck.
With a sigh and a shake of her head, she tossed her empty coffee cup into the trash. She headed toward radiology to check on the X-rays that had not been officially read the night before. She wasn’t going home. She would have nothing to do except lie around and think, and that was exactly what she did not want to do.
*
“What changes can we expect to find in the patient’s peripheral blood following this procedure, Dr. Thompson?” Ambrose Rifkin asked Wynter as he made a midline incision in the abdomen of a twenty-three-year-old woman extending from the xiphoid at the lower end of the sternum, curving around the umbilicus, and stopping several inches below.
Wynter hadn’t known which case she would be assigned to scrub on when she’d left the hospital the night before. Even though she’d taken a copy of the OR schedule home with her to review the upcoming cases, she had never looked at it. She’d fallen asleep instantly and, despite her plans, slept through the alarm she had set an hour earlier than usual. She had awakened with barely enough time to shower and kiss her daughter goodbye.
Ronnie, wide awake, had greeted her with a smile and upheld arms. Despite the little time she had, Wynter sat on the side of the bed as the three-year-old clambered into her lap. They had an animated conversation about something the child had seen on a video that Mina had apparently played for the kids. Wynter didn’t recognize the names or the references, but she nodded excitedly and faked her way through the discourse. She scooped the little girl up and held her close, losing herself for a few moments in the unique smell of childhood, brushing away the sadness that consumed her when she realized how much of her daughter’s life she was likely to miss in the next two years.
Now, she scrambled through her memory for the answers to a fairly esoteric question. If the chairman had asked her about the blood supply to the spleen or the differential diagnosis of hemolytic anemia, she might have fared better. However, the adage Better wrong than uncertain played through her mind, and she said with conviction, “An elevated white count and megakaryocytosis.”
“Hmm. Pack that bleeder off back there, would you please,” Rifkin said to Wynter.
As Wynter carefully placed a surgical sponge behind the spleen, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw the OR door open. Pearce walked in. Surprised, Wynter quickly checked the plain-faced wall clock. It was almost 1:00 p.m.—Pearce should’ve been gone hours ago. Wynter looked back to the surgical field, peripherally aware of Pearce quietly approaching until she stood next to the anesthesiologist and looked over the top of the sterile sheet.
Without taking his eyes off what he was doing, Rifkin said, “What can we do for you, Dr. Rifkin?”
“There’s a patient in the emergency room with a dissecting abdominal aneurysm. He needs to come up right away.”
The chief continued to work, quickly and precisely. “How big is it?”
“Eleven centimeters. It involves the left common iliac too.”
“What’s your plan?” Rifkin held out his right hand and requested a vascular clamp. “Satinsky.”
“We can open the aneurysm and place the graft in situ, then jump to the femoral on the left,” Pearce replied immediately.
Rifkin straightened and looked across the table at Wynter, who raised her head at his movement. “Finish removing this spleen, Dr. Thompson. Dr. Rifkin will lend you a hand.”
With that, he stepped back from the table and indicated to the circulating nurse to untie the back of his gown. He stripped it off along with his gloves and tossed the bundle in the direction of the used linen container. It drifted to the floor several feet short of the bin.
For several heartbeats, Wynter was speechless; then she said, “Yes sir,” just as Ambrose Rifkin walked out. Wynter quickly moved around to the opposite side of the table where she would have the appropriate view and exposure to complete the procedure. Five minutes later, Pearce stepped up into the first assistant’s position.
“Hi,” Pearce said.
“Hi,” Wynter replied, gently palpating the posterior surface of the spleen. There did not appear to be any unusual adhesions that might tear and lead to hemorrhage. She opened her right hand, palm up, and extended it toward the scrub nurse, who stood so close to her right side that their shoulders brushed. “Metzenbaum scissors, please.”
Pearce lean
ed over and looked into the abdominal cavity. “Man, that really is big.”
“Mmm. Could you pull a little harder on that retractor.”
“Did he ask you about the peripheral blood tests after splenectomy?”
Wynter’s eyes flickered up quickly and then back to the field. “Is that one of the standard questions?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” Wynter muttered.
“How far did you get?” Pearce grinned behind her mask. It was a rite of passage, and although she would ordinarily have warned Wynter about the kinds of questions various attendings asked, everyone got caught on the splenectomy question.
“Leukocytosis and megakaryocytosis.”
Pearce whistled softly. “Very good. Did he ask you the follow-up?”
Wynter clipped and then divided the splenic artery and vein. Carefully, she removed the hugely engorged organ. “No. You walked in.”
“I saved you, then. He was going to ask you what distinguishes the red cells after splen—”
“Hal Jolle bodies,” Wynter said.
Pearce blinked. “Very impressive, Dr. Thompson.”
Pleased to hear the surprise and the grudging respect in Pearce’s voice, Wynter smiled to herself. She was even more relieved to see that the spleen had come out without inordinate bleeding. Now all she had to do was be sure that all of the major vessels were appropriately tied off, and then they could irrigate the abdomen, wash out any bits of debris, and close.
Forty minutes later Wynter and Pearce rolled the patient’s stretcher into the recovery room and turned her care over to the nurses. As they walked back toward the lounge, Wynter said, “What are you still doing here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re post-call. You’re supposed to go home right after rounds in the morning.”
For an instant, Pearce was genuinely confused. She never went home during the day, whether she’d been on call the night before or not. “Oh. Things got busy and I lost track of time.”
