Page 14 of Dying for the Doctor

“Sent them down to the cafeteria,” says Lenworth. He’s standing close to the side of my bed now, smiling down at me. He’s taking off his gloves, his creepy gray eyes bearing down on me, that tight-lipped smile fixed on his long face like it’s a plastic mask. “It’s just us now. Like it was just you and Doctor Drake before. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at him, you chubby little slut.”

“Um . . . what?” My eyelids flutter, my vision going blurry, my head feeing incredibly heavy, almost like I’ve been given anesthetic instead of a sedative. “What . . . what did you just say?”

Lenworth’s smile tightens. “You know what I said, you dirty girl. I smell the wetness from your pussy. Saw the way Drake was hard and erect. I know you spread those legs for Doctor Drake. And now you’re going to spread for Doctor Lenworth. It’s only fair, honey.” His tongue darts out as he licks his lips. “Consider it a second opinion, sweetie. Standard medical practice. Relax. You won’t feel a thing.” He grins. “I will, though. I’ll feel everything, baby. Oh, fuck, it’s been so long since I got to do this. So many years I’ve behaved myself. Thought I was cured, but you reawakened that dirty need in me. See, it’s your fault, not mine. Hush, sweetie. Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle. I never leave any marks.”

My mouth hangs open in disbelief. The drug he gave me must be causing auditory hallucinations, I decide. I don’t even understand what he’s saying.

I try to raise my head again but find that I can’t move. My vison is going in and out, mostly out, it seems. Lips are totally rubber now, two wriggling gummy worms without the sugar. My head feels heavy with the sedative, but it doesn’t compare to the weight of the dread suffocating me when I realize what’s happening, understand in a woozy moment of desperate clarity that I’m powerless right now, totally vulnerable, completely at this predator’s mercy.

I can’t even whisper, let alone scream for help. My legs are totally useless, my arms like dead tree-branches by my sides. Somehow I’m able to flick my gaze towards the camera, but my heart sinks again when Lenworth chuckles darkly and shakes his head.

“Cameras are being rebooted. Remind me to thank your boyfriend Drake for giving me an excuse to have the video feeds turned off for an hour.” Lenworth smiles, then hisses, his eyes flashing an ominous silver-gray. “That’s why I had to stop after that trouble a decade ago. They put cameras in all the rooms,and it got too risky for me. But today I get to indulge myself, just like the old days. Funny how fate plays out, isn’t it, sweetie?”

Again I try to fight, but I can’t even raise my head. That sedative is taking over, and I’m so close to passing out, just giving up, surrendering. Maybe I’ll pretend it’s a bad dream. Maybe when I wake up it’ll turn out to really be a dream, just a figment of my anxious imagination, perhaps a manifestation of repressed guilt for enjoying what Drake and I shared.

Now I’m thinking of Drake, about how he’d jealously guarded me from Lenworth, had snarled and growled at this snake. It had seemed crazy at the time, borderline unhinged, obsessive at best, psychotic at worst.

But now . . .

Oh, God, now it seems like I was the crazy one for sending Drake away!

The walls seem to be closing in as Lenworth slides the sheets off my trembling, paralyzed body. The room is dark, the curtains drawn shut, the warmth and safety of the sun far, far away. I feel the cold dry air swirl around my bare legs, sense Lenworth slowly raising my robe up past my knees. I can hear him groan softly above me as my thighs are exposed, that robe about to reveal my naked sex. I’m totally paralyzed by whatever Lenworth injected me with, but I’m still conscious, my thoughts still under my control—the only thing under my control right now.

So I try to direct those thoughts to a safe place.

And suddenly find that my safe place is Drake.

I want him here.

I need him here.

Drake said I was his, didn’t he?

So why isn’t Drake here to protect what’s his?

Blinking away tears, I close my eyes tight, shutting out the sickening sight of Lenworth leering down at me, his fingers drawing the hospital gown up past my hips, his other handmoving to his own crotch and undoing the drawstring on his scrubs.

But just as I feel the gown settle around my tummy, sense Lenworth’s gaze settle on my sex, I hear the loud crash of thunder, feel the hot rush of wind, smell the suddenly familiar musk of man, my man, my mate, my protector, my possessor.

It’s a dream, of course. A druggy delusion. An insane illusion. A holy hallucination. A mad manifestation.

But then why do I see splinters of wood flying through the air as a red-faced, blue-eyed, barrel-chested Doctor Drake smashes through the room door like a dragon in a jealous rage, lab-coat flying through the electric air like white wings of an avenging angel?!

“You motherfucking piece of shit!” roars Drake as he launches himself across the room like he really is a dragon, really can fly, really did hear my desperate call, really did sense my urgent need. “Get away from her! Get away from my Wanda!”

Still paralyzed, I stare aghast as Drake grabs Lenworth by the throat, yanks him away from the bed, then kicks him hard in the balls. Lenworth buckles forward screaming in agony, and Drake drives his knee upwards, smashing Lenworth’s nose, which seems to explode in the center of Lenworth’s face in an orgy of blood and snot.

Lenworth staggers upright, his face a bloody mess. With a roar Drake lowers his head and barrels into Lenworth’s midsection like a football player, pushing Lenworth back into the curtained window with incredible force.

Lenworth’s skull smashes through the curtains, cracking the window pane as Drake keeps going, ramming Lenworth against the shattered window glass again and again until suddenly there’s no Lenworth, just the empty curtains billowing in the breeze!

Now suddenly the room is dead quiet for a long moment. Then in the distance far below the smashed window I hear a thud and a crash, immediately followed by a car-alarm going crazy.

Somehow I turn my head just enough to see Drake leaning out through a jagged hole in what was once the window and is now an open space vaguely in the shape of Lenworth’s body. It’s almost cartoon-like, I think as my mind swirls wildly with a mix of relief, confusion, panic, and . . . love?

“I love you, Wanda.” Drake is suddenly by my side, covering my vulnerable, exposed body with my gown and now the bedsheet, wrapping me like a Twinkie in the blanket, now gently lifting me off the bed and into his arms. “And I’m never leaving your side again, baby. Because you’re mine, Wanda. You’re mine and I love you. I fucking love you, Wanda. You hear me? You understand me?”

Dumbly, I nod, then shake my head. Yes, I hear him. No, I don’t understand him.

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