“Slash! Slash! Slash!” He made violent cuts back and forth with an invisible knife, crouching down like a street fighter. His hard penis shook like a diving board. “You know I can use a knife! Chris, you whore. For what you did to me…”
He stepped toward Cheryl Beth, but his effort to hold the door kept him just enough off balance.
Springing to the foot of the first bed, she slid the rolling table that usually held a patient’s dinner tray between them.
“Gary, I swear to God I’m going to start screaming.”
“You used to like this, Cheryl Beth.” He stroked himself. He had always been irrepressibly proud of his endowment, bragging about how difficult it was to find size thirteen shoes. Now the memory made her shudder.
“You’re acting like some kid resident, not a seasoned physician,” she said, making her voice sound a haughtiness she didn’t feel. “And I’m sure not a nurse looking for a doctor husband.”
“Oh, Cheryl Beth, we had such fun…”
There he was with his finely toned physique, but she felt nothing. It was just a body. Another fragile container of bone and muscle and tissue in the hospital. Nursing aides giving sponge baths often caused male patients to have erections. It wasn’t sexy. It was kind of sad. She felt all this, but only below the incoming waves of fear.
He could see her take a deep breath to call for help and began speaking rapidly.
“You’ve got to help me, Cheryl. The cops came to my apartment this morning, with a search warrant. That big black detective.” He held his hands in a pleading position. “He thinks I killed Chris. They took away things. Evidence. Please, please…” His chiseled, confident face dissolved into tears and he slid down against the wall sobbing. “Please, I need you.”
“Put your pants on or I’m out of here.” She squared her shoulders and gave him her nastiest look. She wouldn’t let herself show fear. “And step away from the door.”
“You’ll talk?”
“If you step away from the door.”
He pulled himself up and walked slowly to a chair that held his clothes. She saw the clothes only now-they might have been a clue to stay out if she had seen them earlier. As he moved, she kept the rolling table between them. With the door unguarded, she made two wide strides to it, threw it open, and started out.
“Please!”
She turned to face him. “I’ll stay for the moment, if you don’t piss me off or get weird. But get dressed. And don’t call me Cheryl. You know what my name is.”
