Wicked Wild Fantasies

by Shiloh Walker

  When her supervisor approached her, Alison linked her hands behind her back, eyeing the other nurse who followed. Kate McCoy.

  Kate was her replacement, supposed to come on shift in approximately twenty minutes. But from the look in Kenneth’s eyes, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Kate’s got an emergency,” Kenneth started out.

  Alison could guess well enough what the emergency was. Her boss Kenneth had won tickets to a concert that night and he wanted to take his new girlfriend with him. Kate smiled, showing off her recently whitened teeth, pressing her augmented breasts up against Kenneth’s arm.

  “My mom fell earlier today. I need to get to the emergency room so I can take her home and sit with her.”

  Kate’s mom had taken off when Kate was just a kid. Alison remembered overhearing that. She overheard a lot of things. When you blended in with the wallpaper that happened quite often. But she didn’t call her on the lie, just apologetically said, “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Oh, sure, you can,” Kenneth said. “You don’t have a family at home, and it’s not like you’ve got a date waiting.”

  The words were true, but it made them no less painful.

  Carefully, not letting her feelings show, she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have plans for tonight that can’t be broken.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” Kenneth said, getting more irritated. Alison never said no. And damn it, nobody else would stay an extra eight hours, not on a Friday night. “Unless you want to lose your job for refusing mandatory overtime.”

  Slowly, Alison’s fingers loosened and came up to rest atop the medicine cart. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on calling the emergency department and verifying that Kate’s mom is actually there.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her body was shaking slightly and Alison had to force herself to continue.

  She hated confrontations. But taking a deep breath, she told him, “I can always go talk to Billie and ask her if she can look for ya’ll tonight at the concert. You think she’ll buy that emergency bit if she sees you two dancing down at Fourth Street? She’s been talking about that concert for weeks.”

  Billie Monroe, the Director of Nursing at Lindenwood Nursing Home, was a country music fanatic. And for some reason nobody could fathom, she liked Alison, not just casually, as a good employer likes a good employee, but nearly and dearly, the way a friend liked a friend.

  “Are you threatening me?” Kenneth asked, hardly able to believe his ears. This mouse didn’t stand up to a little old lady trying to filch cookies. And she was standing up to him, her boss? The little bitch was threatening him. “We don’t tolerate threats here.”

  Slowly, Alison nodded. “I realize that. As I said, I can’t work for you tonight, Kate.” Silently, she pushed her cart away, finished her medicine pass up and made a few necessary chart entries, all the while feeling two pairs of eyes drilling into her back. Well, actually more. Several people had overheard and were giving her surprised glances.

  She ignored them, finished her charting, turned her keys over to a very hostile Kate, and clocked out. Then she made her way to Billie’s office. Billie had just finished up the weekly administration meeting so she should be available now. If Kenneth hasn’t beat me to it already, Alison thought weakly, turning a pen over and over in her shaking hands.

  The tiny redhead looked up from her desk, the phone propped on her shoulder. Holding up one slim finger, she mouthed, “Give me a minute.”

  Alison lowered herself into a chair, slowly taking deep breaths and releasing them, concentrating on the flow of air in and out of her lungs.

  She had done it. She had stood up to her bully of a boss. She hadn’t let Miss Prom Queen intimidate her. Well, Kate and Kenneth did intimidate her. But she hadn’t shown it.

  And now she was sitting here in her director’s office.

  She was going to do it.

  She was really going to do it.

  Billie lowered the phone, flashed Alison a bright smile. “Change your mind, darlin’? Coming to the show tonight with me? We can get drunk, find us some rhinestone cowboys and you can loosen your strings and get laid, have some fun…”

  Her breathing grew shallow now and she turned her head away.

  Billie’s eyes darkened with concern. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Footsteps from down the hall grew nearer and from the corner of her eye, she saw Don. Straightening up in her chair, she laid her fisted hands in her lap, took a deep breath and said it.

  “I quit.”

  “Quit?”

  “I’ll work out my two weeks, but I quit,” she said, the words coming through her raw, tight throat.

  Billie nodded, slowly. “Okay. Okay, we’ll get to that.” Rising from her chair, she moved to the door and grasped the door knob. She saw Kenneth approaching and said formally, “Kenneth, if you need me, I’ll talk to you in a few minutes. I’m busy now.”

  Kenneth’s eyes narrowed on the skinny nurse seated in the chair and he started to seethe. “Billie, this is—”

  “Later, Kenneth.” Then she closed the door in the day shift supervisor’s face and turned back to Alison. “Okay, sweetie. Now you’re gonna tell me what’s got you so upset.”

  Alison’s face flushed and her hands were shaking but she repeated, “I quit.”

  “I heard you, and if you feel you need to do that, then you do it. But tell me what’s got you so upset,” Billie said, her voice level. Full of authority.

  Full of concern.

  It was just too much, Alison thought helplessly, listening to the retreating footsteps, the mumbling coming from outside the door. For some bizarre reason, she was also remembering the mugging, and Alex—that hot explosive sex, and that humiliating scene afterwards, when he had pulled away from her…oh, shit.

  It’s my fault.

  She’d wanted to yell at him.

  I don’t want it to be anybody’s fault! I want you to do it again!

  But he’d hid himself in the bathroom and at the party they had at Mike’s a week later for the big game, he’d couldn’t even seem to look at her. Then he’d left, barely thirty minutes after he’d arrived.

  It’s my fault.

  But it wasn’t. It was hers. A sharp, brutal pain slid through her gut, twisted and jerked and she gasped out loud from the intensity of it.

  The dull haze she had existed in for the past few weeks was disappearing—like a painkiller wearing off—and Alison was starting to hurt more than she had ever hurt in her life.

  Staring up at Billie, she whispered, “I just can’t do this anymore.”

  “Can’t do what, baby?” Billie stared at her, looking worried. “Now talk to me, Alison. You’re making me nervous.”

  Alison’s eyes closed as two tears escaped to slide down her cheeks. “Billie, I hate my life. I hate it.”

  Smoothing a gentle hand down her back, Billie murmured, “We all get that way from time to time, baby.”

  “No. I mean it, Billie. I hate my life.” Her voice shook. Rising to her feet, she paced the small confines of the office. “I hate seeing my reflection in the morning, knowing how other people see me. A doormat who will let anybody walk all over me. A mouse. A pushover.”

  Her voice breaking, she whirled and stared at Billie with hot, angry, hurting eyes. “Damn it, I haven’t had a date in nearly a year. Nobody wants to date somebody like me. I hide from my own shadow. Here, people treat me like a damned servant. Can’t work your shift? Call Alison. Don’t want to deal with that temperamental bear in 201A? Have Alison do it. Got a hot date and need to get out of work? Tell Alison there’s an emergency. She’ll never guess you’re lying; she’s too naive. And even if she does guess, she’s too chicken to say anything.”

  When Alison turned around to stare out the window, a bright wicked grin slashed across Billie’s face, but she subdued it and cleared her throat, forcing back the giggle of relief. “Honey, I don’t think yo
u’re a doormat. You’re dependable, honest, and kind. Those are good things.” Heaving a sigh, she added, “Maybe a little too kind for your own good.”

  Lowering herself to her chair, she thought of how many times she had seen Alison’s name appear on the work roster when it shouldn’t have been there. “And maybe some people here do take advantage of you.” Shoving her wild red curls back, she said, “But, baby, that’s going to happen until you learn how to say no. No matter where you work.”

  Slowly, a smile crept across Alison’s face and she turned around to face Billie. “I know. And I did.” Pressing a hand to her still jumping stomach, she said, “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”

  “Is that what all this is about?”

  Alison barely hesitated to relay what had happened to Billie. Before, she never would have dared. Now, it poured out of her. And other things. How Kate had been badgering her for weeks to swap shifts permanently, brushing aside the college courses that Alison attended three nights a week. How her aides went off to lunch right before her noon med pass, leaving bedridden patients unchanged and unfed.

  And then she told her about the attempted mugging.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Billie shouted as Alison blurted out what had happened. Billie narrowed her eyes, gaping for a moment before she finally asked, “Why didn’t you call me, honey?”

  “I wanted to forget about it. I can’t. The past two weeks, I keep thinking, if…if he had killed me, would my life have meant anything?” Billie started to speak, but Alison cut her off, her voice urgent. “Billie, I don’t think I’ve done a damn thing in my life that I’m proud of. I could see myself in his eyes, and I looked so pathetic. Felt so pathetic.”

  “Oh, honey.” Billie walked over to the taller woman and folding her arms around her.

  But Alison didn’t tell her about the worst of it. How she had gotten naked and sweating with the man of her dreams, only to have him pull away from her and then practically pat her head. It’s my fault. A week later, he wouldn’t even look at her.

  “Okay…so. Two weeks. You’ll work out your time,” Billie said once Alison’s storm of misery had passed. “And…you’re off tomorrow, right? Didn’t volunteer for anything extra?”

  Alison shook her head, mutely as she dashed tears from her face.

  “Okay. I’m picking you up at nine. Get some rest, because we are going to be busy.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  Billie smiled faintly. “You’ll see. So…two weeks. That leaves a day shift open. Hmm.” Sliding Alison a sly glance, she said, “I’m sure Kate would be happy with that. But Angie has been here longer. And she’s made some noises about getting off night shift. We’ll keep this thing quiet until I can talk to her. I’ll swing by here in the morning after her shift.”

  Guilt started to settle in. “Billie, I know how short staffed we’ve been-”

  Holding up her hand, Billie said, “Don’t worry about it, Alison. That’s my job, not yours.” She finally released a sigh of regret. “You don’t belong in a place like this, Alison. It’s breaking your heart. You get too close to these little old people, and your heart’s too soft. I love it here, and I love these people. But I’m cut out for this place. You are not. And I’ve always known you’d leave, sooner or later. This isn’t what you need.”

  ∞

  “Of course I have money,” Alison said as she followed Billie out to the car the following morning. The breeze from the river blew her hair into her face and she absently brushed it back before reaching into her pocket for a hairband. As she pulled her brown hair into a ponytail, she eyed Billie warily. “Why?”

  “Because you’re going to need it,” Billie said with relish, her eyes narrowed, an excited smile on her face. Shopping, in her opinion, took second place to two things—sex and chocolate.

  A half an hour later, Alison stared at the storefront. “Contacts? No way.”

  “Yes,” Billie said, herding her through the door and signing her in when Alison only stared dumbly at the clipboard.

  Two hours later, her contacts in place, she reached up, brushing a hand across her face. “It feels weird,” she said. The absence of the glasses she had worn since she was ten left her feeling naked somehow. She stared into the mirrored wall at her eyes, her face. The pale, skinny oval looked too pale and her green eyes looked lost in her face, in her hair. “I don’t know about this, Billie.”

  “You look great,” Billie said firmly. Then she steered her out of the shop and into the now bustling mall.

  They bypassed the clothing stores and boutiques and once more, Billie herded her into another shop. A salon.

  “Cut my hair?” Alison squeaked, one hand flying up to the heavy ponytail that fell half way down her back.

  “Your face isn’t right for all that hair,” Billie said. “A friend of mine works here and put you in for an appointment.”

  “I didn’t ask for an appointment.”

  “I did. Hey, Genni.”

  Genni was a massive black woman with braids wrapped around her head like a crown. She moved to greet Billie then turned her black eyes on Alison. “Layers. Short,” was all she said before taking Alison’s hand and gently but firmly guiding her across the salon to a chair.

  Alison touched one fearful hand to her head. “I’m not too sure about this.”

  Genni smiled, a blinding flash of teeth in her wide face. “Don’t worry, girl. You will be.”

  Alison just closed her eyes and silently promised retribution as Billie moved to stand behind her shoulder. “What about highlights?”

  “A rinse. I bet she’s got natural ones in her hair. I got something in the back that’ll bring ’em out,” Genni said, pursing her lips as she smoothed her long fingers through Alison’s hair—tugging the band from her hair and massaging her scalp as she went.

  Beauticians had to go to college, right? Surely this woman who looked like an Amazon knew what she was doing. Didn’t she? Alison, out of self-defense, tuned out the voices above and behind her, retreating into her mind.

  It was kind of relaxing, she thought a little later as strong hands worked lather through her thick heavy hair. “Good weight, Billie. Hair’s shiny and healthy. Just too much of it,” Genni said, talking to Billie as though Alison wasn’t even there.

  She jumped slightly when she heard the first snip-snip. Genni laughed behind her and said, “I was waiting for that. Now you got it out of your system, girl, you hold still.” And then, a ten-inch long hank of hair fell into Alison’s lap.

  Alison’s eyes closed and she whispered, “Shit.” Then she started to pray. She specifically prayed that Genni wasn’t going to leave her bald.

  Thirty minutes later, her hair chopped, clipped, rinsed, dried and combed, Alison stared at her reflection. “Oh,” she said, her voice faint.

  One hesitant hand reached up and touched her head. God, she felt so much lighter. And her hair was still long. In the back, it curved just past her shoulders, but around her face, it was cut in layers that curled and waved. She ran her hand over it, then through it, watched as it fell right back into place. And the color… “How did you get it to streak like that?” she asked, eyeing the random streaks of dark gold that mixed with the darker brown. “What did you do?”

  “Not much,” Genni said, pleased. “You got them highlights, all right. And to keep ’em, all you got to do is use this rinse I’m going to sell you about two or three times a week. You’re gonna use the stuff I send home with you. All that department store crap is building up on your hair, keeping it looking so blah. And you need monthly appointments to keep your hair in shape.”

  Billie opened her mouth to insist, certain Alison would squawk. Instead, the younger woman touched her hair again, and said, “All right.”

  She looked so different. Her face—she looked, well, pretty. Without the glasses hiding them, her eyes looked huge. And her face—which had always seemed too narrow and skinny—looked cute, elfin.

&
nbsp; Billie started to grin as she realized what Alison was thinking. “Not a mouse, honey. Definitely not a mouse.”

  ∞

  “Start working out?” Alison repeated, glancing down at her rail thin body. “I’ll fade away.”

  “You’re working out to put muscle on. Weight lifting, I think. About three times a week. Can you afford a gym?”

  Alison thought of the money left from her father’s pension, the money from her mother’s will, the money Mike had given her after she’d decided she didn’t want to live in the house. Mike had bought her half and she’d taken part of it, used it as a down payment on a house. Her weekly paychecks mostly went untouched now that her car was paid off.

  Smiling a little, she shrugged. “I can afford it.”

  “Good. You’ll join one, one that’s close to your home; otherwise you won’t ever use it. And maybe some aerobics, or something.”

  “Karate.”

  The word slipped out before Alison realized it and Billie’s eyes turned her way, brows arched nearly to her hair line.

  “I, uh, I took it for two years when I was younger. And Mike and…” She almost said Alex, but stopped herself. “Mike used to work with me on that kind of stuff. Insisted that I know how to protect myself if I had to.”

  “All right. Karate sounds good to me,” Billie said, grinning as she watched Alison’s hand once more go up to comb through her hair. Looping one arm through hers, Billie guided her away from the fountain and into a shop. “Now you need clothes. You ever think about getting your ears pierced?”

  Her fingers crept up to touch her lobes and Alison shook her head.

  Laughing, Billie seized a pale green spring sweater and held it up to Alison. “Think about it. You’ve gotta couple hours to get used to the idea.”

  Six exhausting hours—and nearly eight hundred dollars later—Alison walked through the door of her house, arms laden with bags. Dumping them on the floor next to the others, she walked across the room and flopped down on the wide sage green sofa, flinging an arm over her eyes. Small gold hoops sparkled at her ears and a delicate chain wrapped around the wrist she had lying on her belly.