Bad Case of Loving You

He was shouting, we both were, it felt so fucking good, and the bed thudded against the wall repeatedly, half a beat behind my thrusts. I wondered briefly what the harmonic frequency of Ikea furniture was, then he clutched at me with both hands, digging his nails into my back, and I felt come spreading hot and slippery between our bodies. I held still, hopefully with the bead in the right place, just to give him something to come around.

He collapsed back onto the bed and I began to fuck him slowly and gently, stretching each stroke out, sliding in all the way, following the rhythm inside my head. The pulse in Andrew’s neck was bounding when he turned his head to one side, his eyes half-closed.

I kissed his pulse, then his cheek, resting my head, my whole body, down on him. He wrapped his arms around me, hugged me, and kissed my lips. I groaned and drove into him as hard as I could, my entire body shaking and trembling as my orgasm uncurled inside me as I thrust into him over and over.

Staying conscious afterwards didn’t seem to be an option.

I was distantly aware of Andrew getting rid of the condom and dragging a quilt over me, but I couldn’t move enough to even go and brush my teeth. I’d have to apologise for my early morning breath tomorrow.

I woke once during the night and found I was curled up against Andrew’s back, one arm slung over him. I didn’t feel nervous anymore.

Chapter Twenty Six

The alarm woke Matthew briefly, just enough for him to peer at the clock and groan, “Why?”

I kissed him. “I have to do rounds before I go on strike.” I tucked the quilt around his shoulders. “Go back to sleep.”

It was three, not really morning at all, but I went through the motions, in the hope my brain would eventually catch up with my body and start working. Preferably before I got to the hospital and had to make any decisions.

I showered quickly, dressed in the clothes I’d left ready, and went downstairs to a beautifully warm house. Guess we’d left the heater on all night.

I turned it off, and put the coffee percolator on. There was leftover curry, which reheated very nicely in the microwave. I wasn’t sure that curry was a good option for breakfast, but this counted as a late night snack anyway.

I left my spare house key on the kitchen bench, along with a note and the alarm system code.

* * *

Rhonda yawned tiredly and looked at me in confusion when I poked my head around the staff room door.

“Dr. Maynard?” she said, sounding surprised. “Um, I haven’t paged you or anything. I paged the night reg about Mrs. Silva, but I thought it was Ghastly George this week.”

“It may well be Ghastly George; I just came in early to do rounds. Want to walk around the ward with me?”

Rhonda nodded, put her shoes back on, and we started out on rounds. Ghastly George was a plump, vivacious young woman, competent and cheerful, and no one was quite sure how she got her name, but it had stuck so firmly to her that even the patients called her that. I hadn’t known she was on nights; it was a subject I tried my hardest to remain oblivious to, just in case it happened to me.

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Silva?” I asked Rhonda, hand on the door of her room. “I mean, that wasn’t wrong on Saturday when I saw.”

“She’s Cheynes-Stoking,” Rhonda said. “That’s why I called George.”

I pushed open the door of Mrs. Silva’s room, lit by the subdued lighting that the nurses used on the critically ill. Kira, the other night nurse, was sitting quietly in the corner of the room, and Mrs. Silva’s brother was sitting beside the bed, holding his sister’s hand. Mrs. Silva’s breaths filled the room.

Each one shuddered in and rasped out, and the pauses were erratic. Her brother was in tears.

I touched his shoulder and said, “Come outside and we’ll talk.”

While I led Mrs. Silva’s brother to the staff room, which was the only private place on the ward, I searched my brain for his name. John, that was it.

We all sat around the stained table.

“She’s dying, isn’t she?” John said, his pale eyes weary.

I nodded. “She is.”

“Is there nothing you can do for her?”

This was the tricky part.

“There are interventions we can use that might extend her life, but they may be painful for her. What do you think she would want us to do? Keep her alive if she was going to suffer? Or let her as gently as we can?” I asked him.

A surprising number of people, when offered this choice, could put their own need to hold onto their loved one aside and make the right decision, and I didn’t doubt that John was one of them.

“She won’t suffer, will she?” he asked. “When she dies?”

I patted his hand. “No. We’ll make sure that she just slips away.”

Rhonda was studiously avoiding my line of sight, and I understood why. We were about to do a tricky and illegal thing, and we had to do it in such a way that there was no possibility of either of us being charged with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.