SICK: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 1 (3 page)

“Get up.” I wrapped his arms around me and readied to hoist him. There were some days when my reserves of patience were at a critical level. Today was one of those days when my thoughts dwelled on the negative, on the fact that all I did was work and live for him. I never dared to dream of anything for myself because I couldn’t. There were no options. There was no way out. My Bible-abiding parents would tell me to love in sickness, even if the sickness never passed. But after ten years, I sometimes wanted to scream. Somebody, something had to save us. “John, help me. I know you can.”

He sighed over me. His arms weighed heavily on my shoulders. “You’re mad at me.”

“No, I’m not. I just want to get you clean so we can eat and go to sleep.”

“You never call me ‘John.’ Only when you’re mad.”

“That’s not true.” 

He shook his head. His small, red lips parted in a smile. His teeth were small and slightly crooked, giving a childlike quality to his otherwise manly face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being a real bear, aren’t I, Suze?”

I wondered if this was a trap. If I said yes, I may be subjected to tenfold guilt trips. I decided not to reply and tried to arrange myself within his limbs so I would have the most leverage. Judy Garland was beating me down with her persistent, fake cheerfulness, and I was breaking into a sweat.

“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s take a shower.”

I examined his expression for any trace of spite, but there was none. He squeezed his arms around me and used his strength to help me lift him up.

I led him to the bathroom. The shower was neglected and covered in a layer of soapy slime. Body hairs lay deposited in the corners. I prayed he wouldn’t slip. We couldn’t afford another broken bone.

“You have to get in with me, you know.” The timbre of his voice lowered. I looked up and was startled by the change in his face. Dark and suggestive, it was as though I was being stared at by a stranger. His eyes were shadowed by his brow, and I only saw reflected light against their blackness. Those eyes were what had captivated me from the start. There was a keen intelligence behind them, a part of him that was beyond my comprehension or reach. With his Ivy-League education, his worldly confidence borne from being the progeny of old money, I was sure one day he would get tired of me, dull Susan, but he had done nothing but adore me. He acted like I was the most extraordinary woman in the world. That to me was priceless, and I spent every day repaying him with my care.

I undressed him slowly, carefully. His body was a landscape of scents: waxy at the ears, pungent in the crook of his neck, acrid at his armpits, and even more acrid near his pubic hair. I rarely saw him standing naked, and was awed at the amount of red and purple scars tracing his body. They stirred some repulsive curiosity within me. I wanted to trace them with my fingers.

I helped him to sit on the toilet seat and removed his socks, made of white cotton and stretched threadbare. His feet were large, smooth, and translucent with new skin. Their vinegary smell reached my nose. John rarely wore shoes because he rarely was out of bed, and being I dealt with the most disgusting podiatric conditions at work, I appreciated the beauty of John’s flawless, silky feet. “We have to cut those toenails, sweetie,” I said.

When I glanced upward, he was looking down on me with a rapt expression. I noticed that, between his legs, his naked penis was hardening.

In the shower, we made love. It was the first time in six months, maybe more. The tepid water glided over our skin in slick, shining sheets. His slashes of purple and red scars glistened with soap and water. I put my back to him, bent over, and braced my hands against the tile, feeling the chalky soap scum under my palms. John was a tall, long-legged man, and I stood on my toes so he could enter from behind without straining. My insides stretched to the point of feeling torn. It had been so long that I had returned to an almost virginal state.

John’s large hands closed around my hips. He pulled me against his pelvis with very small, slow movements.

I was frustrated. I needed more of him. Harder and deeper, but no. He couldn’t. He gently rocked me against his hips. Judy’s voice could be heard over the rush of the water, singing
Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart
. “Oh, sweetie,” he said. “Oh, sweetie.” Then he tensed up and, with a delicate sigh, pulled out and unloaded onto my lower back. He never ejaculated inside me, not since we married. He was terrified I would get pregnant, and I stopped bringing it up long ago. We both knew there was no room in our lives for children.

Still gripping my hips to support his weight, he caught his breath. I waited, wholly unsatisfied in a physical sense, but I was fulfilled because I pleased him. I turned around and reached up to kiss him. “Good boy,” I said.

“I’m sorry it was so fast … it’s been so long.”

“It’s okay. It was amazing.” I looked away from his face, reddened from exertion, the brace preventing the blood from draining back down.

I dried him off, gently patting his entire body. Now he smelled of clean, wet skin. I dressed him and tucked him into bed. Judy finally stopped her mad singing. The needle made its linty sound before the record mercifully ended. I pictured the arm of the record player quietly returning to its place. The turntable would silently spin throughout the night because I wasn’t going to go back downstairs to turn it off.

I gave John his shot of Demerol. He nodded out and snored in his collar. I was still aroused and restless, and while he was completely sedated I slipped my hand into his boxers and masturbated while holding his limp penis. This was something I did routinely. Sometimes I would also put his fingers to my lips or insert his fingertips into my mouth.

At first I felt like a degenerate and wondered what he’d do if he woke up, but it came to a point where I hoped he would catch me. The thought of him knowing my depravity excited me, and I sensed it would give me a power over him, but he never woke up. It wouldn’t happen tonight either, but this evening had been special. I knew he still wanted me, and I hoped, as I have often done, that maybe John would get better.

*

I
remembered the first day I saw him. I was a Certified Nursing Assistant then, working for an orthopedic surgeon. I was in charge of doing all the preliminary work for the patients before the doctor came in. I was saving up for my next round of schooling to become a Registered Nurse.

One day, I opened the door to find this man sitting on the table, swinging his long legs. His eyes were large, expressive, and closely set. The corners of his mouth seemed to strain against his cheeks, his smile almost too dainty to part his overly large face. He wasn’t an attractive man in the usual sense, but he had an aristocratic boyishness that was very appealing.

I checked the chart. He was in his mid-twenties, like me, but had the longest list of medical conditions I had ever seen. I was told he was there because of a broken elbow, but he looked too cheerful for someone suffering a fracture. “What are you here for?” I asked.

“He broke it.” I turned to see a silver-haired woman, dressed like the first lady in a navy skirt suit with a collar of white pearls around her sagging neck.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there,” I said.

“That’s my mother,” he said cheerfully.

“How nice,” I said. “Now, how did this happen?”

“He fell,” she said. “Again.”

“I slipped in the kitchen,” he said. “The servants spilled something on the floor, Mommy.”

The woman’s face was set in annoyance. “I saw nothing on the floor, John. I’m sick of your excuses. It was your clumsiness.”

I was shocked by her coldness. I flashed her a look, but she had folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. She stared at the wall to her right as if she couldn’t bear to lay eyes on her son.

Then I turned to approach him and was knocked off balance, like a blow, by his darling smile. He seemed so pleased despite his mother. His eyes sort of glittered beneath their depth. Mysterious they were, his eyes. There was something lurking within them, like a secret, the shiny object at the bottom of a lake, its image distorted by the waves on the surface of the water. I would never know their color until the first time he kissed me.

I am a plain person in looks and charm–short and bottom-heavy, with auburn hair that might be beautiful if it wasn’t so frizzy. My features are small and unremarkable. I was twenty-two then and lived with my parents, who were religious not from passion, but from habit. There was never any reason to stay with them, but there was never any reason to move out either. My life was a practical routine, but I didn’t think enough of myself to hope for more. I had no special talents, no aspirations greater than a steady nursing job, until I saw John’s smile.

He returned at least once a month after that first visit. The elbow never healed properly. The doctor had to perform extensive surgeries to repair the damage, and so he courted me like that, in the doctor’s office, for almost two years.

With each visit, I discovered more about him. He told me of his travels around the world. His family was very wealthy, and he was the only child to two self-absorbed parents who were far too busy avoiding each other to ever have paid him mind. He said the only time his mother turned his way was when he was deathly ill, and even then, she was reluctant. So after college, he roamed and did as he pleased, that is, whenever he was in a state of health.

Soon he came to his appointments without his mother. He said she had become ill, and I found myself gleeful if I spotted him in the waiting room. I hoped every time I opened the door he would be sitting there, in his carefree way, with a smile for me.

I knew by his chart he suffered from a blood disorder that caused him to bruise easily. He often came with purple contusions and bloody splotches that pooled beneath his skin. He tried to act as if they were nothing serious, but he always let me treat them, and I would catch him watching me with pointed fascination.

“How did you get these?” I’d ask. They looked too serious to have been gotten from a bump on the coffee table.

“I don’t even know,” he’d say and laugh.

He was big and bony and had an awkward way about him. His muscle tone was poor, and he had bad posture. I thought maybe his mother was right about him being terribly clumsy. “You must be more careful with your condition.” I pressed the bandage firmly. “How does that feel?”

“My mother died,” he said.

I looked up from the wound. He said it too casually. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not.” His voice trembled. He blinked his eyes repeatedly. The right corner of his mouth tugged downward.

“Oh, John. I’m so sorry.” I was caught off guard. I didn’t know what else to say.

Before I could prevent him, he wrapped heavy arms around my neck and wept. I’d never seen a man cry before. It was strangely awful. His tears soaked into my top. “At least I have you,” he said. “Nurse Suzie.”

The weight of his body pulled me down. I was trapped beneath his bony limbs. I broke away from him. His face was red and blotchy. I handed him a tissue. “The doctor is releasing you from his care,” I said.

“Releasing me? But he hasn’t finished the job.” He wiped his nose and flopped his arm. “This elbow is useless.”

“The doctor said there’s nothing more he can do. It’s as good as it will ever be. I’m sorry.”

John’s large face, shiny with tears, transformed into an ugly landscape of disgust. “He didn’t fix me? I will sue him for malpractice!”

The sudden change startled me. There was an anger hidden within him I had never seen in a person before. In my quiet, bland life, people didn’t have emotions that powerful.

“That dirty fucker. They’re all the same. It’s a business. It’s all a business!”

“I’m sorry, John.”

“Why are you sorry?” He hopped off the table with an agility I didn’t think he was capable of. I backed up against the wall, and he stared straight down at me. “Were you the one to tell him to let me go?”

“No, of course not. I don’t have a say in it.”

He looked murderously at his braced elbow, and then, as suddenly as his rage erupted, his face completely shifted its expression. His features relaxed. His voice became lighter, smoother. “Then why are you sorry?” he asked, reaching for an errant piece of my hair and put it behind my ear. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“The … the pain,” I stammered. “I’m sorry you’re in so much pain.”

“You’re sad for me?” He looked at me like no one had ever looked at me, like there was something special about me that only he could see and appreciate. I finally existed, and I didn’t know how to react to his attention.

He stood uncomfortably close. I felt a peculiar sensation inside my body–everything awake and humming. The feeling was unpleasant, nauseating, but I also felt a peculiar gratification–something like rubbing sore muscles after a workout, or pushing one’s thumb into a tender bruise.

Then I saw into John’s eyes. If ever the light found a way beneath the shadow of his brow bone, they were a deep blue-green. So dark, they almost looked black. They were fathomless, his eyes, a never-ending pelagic zone. Then he kissed me.

My life had meaning after that. I had a purpose. I would love him till all his pain went away.