Rhonda, the Night Nurse

The room was painted the same puke green as the ward, and contained a set of handrails about twenty feet long with mats underneath and on both sides. Along the wall were two walkers, like my great grandmother used to use, and some canes in a stand. There was a desk, and behind the desk was a chubby woman of about forty, with thick glasses and short, black hair. She rose, and walked over to us.

"Terry, this is Angie. Angie will be your therapist. She knows what she's doing, so pay attention to what she tells you, and try hard. I'll be back to get you in about half an hour."

Angie seemed really nice, almost like your sister would be, for about a minute and a half. We started simply enough, just supporting myself between the hand rails, and putting weight on my injured leg. Then she wanted me to take a step forward. After two minutes, I figured she was a sadist. After ten minutes, I realized she must have learned her trade from either the Gestapo or the Viet Cong. After twenty minutes, I was sweating like a pig, in pain, and thought she must have trained the Gestapo and the Viet Cong. She wasn't rude or loud, just insistent that I could and would walk down those handrails, and she wouldn't listen to how much I hurt or how I couldn't do it. She stayed right behind me, supporting me sometimes, and coaxing me to walk at others. I told her I was trying, but it wasn't working, but she didn't want to hear that. It was always, "Walk, one foot and then the other, one foot and then the other."

I made it about five feet down the handrails before she said, "OK, that's enough for today," and helped me back to the wheelchair. About that time, Rhonda came in to pick me up.

"So, Angie, how's this guy been doin'?

"Well, I don't want to say he did too well, because he'll think that's all he has to do tomorrow, but he did pretty good. He made it almost a fourth of the way down the rails, and that's better than most of them do. Lordy, you should have heard him whine about his leg, and how he couldn't do it," she laughed, "but he did, just like you said he would."

Angie turned to me and smiled. "You really did do very well for the first day. Tomorrow, we'll work on stretching the distance, and then do some exercises to get some strength back in that muscle. Terry, it's going to be hard, and it'll take a while, but today you showed me that you can do this. You'll be walking on your own sooner than you think, as long as you give me the effort that you did today."

So began my daily expeditions through the hell that Angie called rehabilitation. She was a driver who never let up on me, but she always told me when I had done well, and that helped, somehow. Rhonda always sat on my bed, afterwards, and praised my efforts as well, so I had to keep trying. You see, I was developing feelings for Rhonda that I'd never had before, for anyone. I didn't tell her, because I figured it was mostly the close relationship that had developed between us as nurse and patient, and my gratitude for all she had done for me, but the feelings made it impossible for me to fail in her expectations of me.

After two weeks, I had managed to travel the length of the rails, turn around, and come back. Angie informed me that I could now graduate to a walker, and I was soon able to move around the hospital, admittedly very slowly, but I was no longer confined to the ward and Angie's dungeon. The day I graduated to a cane, Rhonda told me it was time for her turn at the night shift, so another nurse would take care of me during the day. She said she'd still see me at night, but since I slept then, I didn't think we'd get to talk much, and I was going to miss that.

On the next Monday, I met Linda, the new nurse for the ward. Linda wasn't pretty, and her figure belonged on a man, but she was happy and efficient. She was so efficient that she hardly said anything to any of us, and by the time breakfast was over, I missed Rhonda a lot. By lunch time, I missed her more, and by evening, I was back to self-pity. At seven o'clock, Rhonda walked in the door, pushing the cart with evening medications. She took care of everybody, and then came to sit on my bed.

"Well, Terry, how did you do today?"

"Oh, OK I guess, at least Angie said I did well. I can get around with my cane now, and my leg hardly ever hurts. I walked outside for a while, and that felt good."

"Hey, that's great. You'll be going home soon. I'll bet that makes you happy, doesn't it?"

"Well, I suppose so. I'm a little worried at what my Mom and Dad are going to think about the cripple they not have for a son."

"Nonsense, you aren't a cripple. Before you know it, you'll be able to throw away that cane, and anyway, I don't think that's going to make any difference to them. They'll just be glad that you're home. "

On Friday, Rhonda came in at the same time, but that night, I could tell something was wrong. As usual, she gave everybody their medicine, and then came to sit with me. She looked sad, and I asked her why. She just smiled and said, "Feel up to a walk?"

We walked down the corridor to the rehab room I had grown to hate, and then to love. Rhonda produced a key from her pocket, and unlocked the door. Other than the desk lamp, the room was unlit, and I hobbled inside trying to find the light switch. Rhonda followed me into the room, and then turned and re-locked the door. She quickly caught up with me, and said, "Please don't turn on the lights." She smiled and lead me to one of the floor mats beside the handrails I had hated so much that first day, and then helped me sit down. She took the cane from my hand, and placed it on the desk, and then came to sit beside me. She took a deep breath, as if getting ready for something she wasn't going to enjoy.

"Terry, a lot of guys come to this hospital, and I have to take care of them. Some of them don't make it, so I always try to stay a little distant. We all do, because if we let ourselves get too close, and the guy doesn't live, the pain can be terrible. The person you see in your doctor or in the nurses is not the real person. It's a person we invent to help us get through the days, and to help the patients get through theirs. I've always held firmly to that unwritten policy...until you. Something attracted me to you that first day, when you were raving away at me. I don't know what it was, but as I got to know you better, I started to care more than I should have. That's why I had myself transferred to nights; I thought I wouldn't have to be with you so much, and I could get back to normal, but it didn't work."

I started to speak, but she pressed her fingertip to my lips. "Don't say anything yet, I have to get this all out at once."

"Terry, I only know one way to say this. I've fallen in love with you. At first, I thought it was just that it made me feel good to see you getting better, and to know that I had helped, but then I realized that I feel that way about all the guys who come through here. You were different, and it was a little scary, at first. The other day, when you came back with your cane, I saw a man, not my patient, walk into the ward. I found myself thinking about being with you somewhere besides the hospital, and realized I was also feeling warm and, well..., I wanted to be close to you. I wanted you to hold me, and I wanted to feel your arms around me. I've never felt that way about anyone before, and I knew then that I loved you. I knew I was just your nurse, so I tried to stop being around you, but every time I came into the ward, I had to come sit on your bed, just so I could be with you. I couldn't say anything, and decided it would be best for both of us if I put myself on nights. I thought I would be all right, but after not seeing you much this week, I'm going crazy, and I had to tell you how I feel."

She stopped, and stared at me with those deep eyes.

"Rhonda, I don't know what to say. I care for you in a way I've never felt before. I didn't say anything because I didn't know if I was inventing the feelings, or if they were real. I also didn't think you could ever feel anything for me; I'm still not right, and won't be for a long time, if I ever am."

She took my hand and held it tightly in her slender fingers. "Terry, I love you, and I want you. I don't care about your leg, or if you can walk. I care about you."

.Our first kiss was a little uncoordinated, but we made up for it with the second. As our lips met for the third time, Rhonda pushed me back onto the mat. She broke the kiss, and sat up. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the passion there as she unbuttoned the front of her uniform and then slipped it off her shoulders. The pants followed, and she sat there, illuminated by the desk lamp on the other side of the room, in her white bra and panties. She smiled as she reached behind her back for the bra clasp, and I caught my breath as the white cotton cups released her breasts. She slipped the straps off her arms, tossed the bra aside, and laid down beside me. With a trembling hand, she opened the hospital robe, and traced her fingertips across my chest before she pushed the robe to my sides. She raised to rest her breasts on my chest, and as her parted lips found mine, I felt the wonderful softness of her body against me. I held her close, and gently stroked the satin skin of her back as her tongue probed for and then found mine. My fingers found the waistband of the panties, and she stopped kissing long enough to help me slip them from her hips. Then, throwing her leg across mine, she snuggled her breasts against my chest and kissed me again.

I felt the soft, downy hair on her mound pushing against my thigh, and slipped my hand between us to caress the silky curls. As my fingertips slipped lower, Rhonda raised her hips to give me access, and I felt the soft lips that lay beneath the concealing hair. When I stroked down the silken inner surface, a small cry escaped from her lips, and she pushed back against my caressing fingers. I felt the moisture of her arousal on my fingertips, and as my fingertips glided across the inner folds of her sex, she broke the kiss with a sigh. She rose to straddle my thighs, being careful not to put her weight on my injury, and I felt slender fingers reaching for, then finding, and then caressing my rapidly growing manhood. She looked at me and giggled, "And you were so modest the first time I changed your dressing. It's a good thing you didn't swell up like this then. I wouldn't have known what to do then..., but I do now. I need you, Terry, I need you now."

She raised her body, and positioned my manhood at her entrance. She began to lower herself, a little at a time, and I marveled the sensation of her body enveloping me. In the dim light, I could see the small, soft lips of her sex sliding down my shaft, and it looked almost as if they were pulling me inside her. Whenever I felt resistance, she raised up to allow her body's natural nectar to ease the way, and then began the slow descent over my shaft anew. At one point, I felt resistance that could only be the guardian of her virginity. I touched her soft thigh, and when she opened her eyes, I looked at her questioningly. She smiled, and a look of concentration swept over her beautiful face. I felt her bearing down, gently but firmly, again and again, until the filmy wisp of her womanhood yielded to her efforts. She gasped and cried out, but continued to sink over my hard shaft, finally settling with her soft lips pressing against my belly. We lay there for a while as she leaned down to kiss me, long and passionately. Her nipples were firm as she settled her weight over me, flattening her large yielding breasts against my chest.

Her passage rippled over me in tiny, uncontrolled contractions, and the sensation of the oily soft, satiny surface was exquisite. She was making small rocking motions now, gradually increasing her movements until she raised herself once again to sit astride my hips. Her large, sensuous breasts beckoned, and I lifted them and caressed the soft skin as she rocked up and down. As I gently stroked her nipples, she sighed again and closed her eyes, and when I gently tugged on one, she moaned in ecstasy.

She gently guided my right hand to her soft belly, and I slipped my fingertip between us to find her little throbbing button. I gently rubbed beside it, then around it, and then chanced a gentle touch on the little bud itself. My caress was rewarded by the sound of her tiny cry, and by an increase in the speed of her rocking motions. The sight of this beautiful woman making love to me, and the soft, sensual sounds that escaped her lips were driving me rapidly to the edge of passion. Rhonda was so wonderful, and as she began uncontrollably thrusting her body over mine, I allowed myself to become lost in her beauty, in her soft body, and in her passion. She shook, slightly, and then continued to rock as the first wave of pleasure swept over her, and only moments later, Rhonda cried out as her body convulsed in the throes of release. I groaned as her body beckoned for, and then received the seed boiling from my loins in a rush of screaming colors and sensations. She collapsed on top of me, smothering me with her soft lips as she ground her body into mine. We lay there, together in the most intimate of embraces, and she continued to gently caress my shaft with her body, and to rock slightly against me. As I slipped, spent but satiated, from the warm confines of her belly, she rested her cheek on my chest.

I don't know how long we lay there in each other's arms, but I know that I wanted her to never leave. We couldn't say anything; words would have been useless to describe the feelings between us. We spoke to each other with our lips, with our fingertips, with our bodies. Then, kissing me one last time, she rose and dressed. She took my hand, and helped me to my feet, retrieved my cane, and walked me back down the hall to my bed. She helped me slip between the sheets, kissed me gently, and whispered in my ear, "Terry, just remember that I love you," and was gone. I fell into the sleep of one who has found a great treasure, a treasure meant only for him, and woke only when hands shook me the next morning. Through sleepy eyes, I looked up, expecting to see Rhonda, and was disappointed to see Linda's plain face. The disappointment must have been apparent, because she laughed and said, "I'm not all that bad, now am I?"

I made some wise crack about having a bad night, and raised to a sitting position so she could take my pulse. It was then that I saw the envelope on the small table beside the bed. After Linda moved to the next bed, I anxiously picked it up, opened it and began to read.

"Terry, I couldn't tell you last night because it would have ruined the most wonderful evening of my life. You are going home on Monday. Doctor Mills will tell you today, but your orders came through Friday afternoon, and I had to get your file ready to send with you.

I knew we wouldn't have much time, and I had to tell you that I love you, that I love you so very much. What happened last night was not something I planned; it just happened, but it was more than I had ever hoped to be able to share with you. I know now that I was right to try to separate myself from you, because now I have to try somehow to get over these feelings, and I don't know if I can. I should have just stopped seeing you, or become just one of your nurses again, but I couldn't, and now I have to live with the pain of losing you.

Terry, I have to stay here for another six months, and I don't know where they will send me next, so I will probably never see you again. Just know that for one short moment in time, I loved you very much. I will always love you, I know now, but everything is pulling us apart, and there's no way to stop it. Please don't write, because reading your words will open my heart again, and I can't take the agony of knowing you are out there when I can't get to you.

I won't see you again before you leave; the tears would do neither of us any good, and would only make it harder for both of us to part. I hope you loved me as you said, because that does help, and I want you to know that you were the first. They say a girl always remembers her first lover, and that will be both good and bad, I'm afraid.

Terry, take care of yourself, and don't worry about me. I've learned to be tough, and I will learn to live without you, somehow. Go home and find a nice girl who will love you like life itself, who can give you a home and children, and forget this nurse who can't be with you. You have a wonderful life ahead of you, so make the most of the second chance that has been given you.

With all my love,

Rhonda

I sat on the bed for hours, reading and re-reading the short letter. I walked the grounds. I asked the other nurses how to contact her, but they said she had told them she was going away and didn't say where.

Monday arrived, and Doctor Mills told me the news that I already knew. I had to feign being happy, because I was not. That morning, I was issued new uniforms and got my orders. In the afternoon, the bus came to take me and a few others to the airport. I boarded the jet, knowing it was taking me away from the woman I loved, and in agony because I could do nothing about it. After hours of endless thoughts of how to find Rhonda again, the jet landed in Seattle, and by that afternoon, I was discharged from the Army and on another jet back to Tennessee.

I felt relieved when I walked up the ramp to the terminal in Nashville and saw Mom and Dad waiting for me. For a few minutes of tearful hugs from both of them, I forgot about the little red haired nurse who was so far away. When I arrived at home, the rest of the family was there, and it wasn't until I went to bed that night that she came back. For the first time since I left Japan, the full feeling of never seeing Rhonda again hit me. I lay awake, thinking of her, until the first glints of sunlight peeped through the window shade. I finally slept, but fitfully, and only for two hours.

Mom knew something was wrong, something more than my injury. She asked, and suddenly I was her little boy again, spilling out the story of the wonderful nurse who made me a man again when I was just a broken body, and about how I had grown to love her. She cried for me, and tried to help, but in the end, I was still the same, lost and full of sorrow.

I managed to find a job, so I was now financially independent again, and the work took my mind off Rhonda, at least during the day. The nights were hell at first, then slowly the memory receded to unexpected visions of her face accompanies by tremendous bursts of emotion, late a night when I woke from sleep. After six months, these too mostly went away, and her memory became a picture out of focus, and carried only occasional twinges of longing.

I still had to go to the VA Hospital to continue my therapy. The nurses there were nice, and tried to help. I also had to see a psychiatrist, to make sure my injury had not affected me mentally. I could have told the fool that my injury didn't bother me anymore, but he had his agenda to complete. He ultimately certified me cured, but I wasn't cured of the little red haired beauty that captured my heart only to be parted by things out of our control.

I had gone to the hospital to get the last checkup before they released me. The doctor examined my leg and the X-rays, and watched as I paraded up and down the short length of the examining room. He pronounced me well, and explained that as time went on, most of the limp would go away. We were walking to the waiting room when I saw a red haired nurse walking ahead of us. I felt the twinge of sadness hit me again, and must have stopped walking, because the doctor touched my shoulder and asked if I was feeling all right. I said that I was, and was making some excuse about daydreaming, when the nurse turned around.