Cursed Ch. 09

Cursed: Chapter 9: A Rush to the Hospital

CONTENT WARNING: This dark story is pure fantasy. Be warned. It contains strong Non-Consent / Reluctance content.

All characters depicted in sexual scenes or referred to in a sexual context are over 18.

Note: Since it has been over a year since I posted Chapter 8, I reread the previous chapters before proceeding with this one. As is inevitable in a long story, I found errors. One inconsistency concerns Tiffany's birth control prescription. Once she earned enough money stripping, she renewed her prescription. However, the pharmacist told her she had to wait until the start of her next cycle before taking it. As Chapter 9 begins, Tiffany is somewhere in the middle of one of her irregular periods and is uncertain about her fertility.

***

Steve

I was roused from a fitful sleep by my vibrating cell phone. It took me several shaky breaths before realizing that I was living a nightmare. I was in the ICU, where Tiffany's daughter, Amber, fought for her life against a multiple drug-resistant streptococcus infection.

Her regular babysitter had called shortly after eleven PM with the news that the young girl was running a high fever. She said she couldn't reach Amber's mother. It had just started snowing hard when I drove Amber to the Rivervale Hospital. By two in the morning, a team of doctors had done everything they could. I was allowed to keep watch as she fought for her life. I wanted to cry when I saw her frail body connected to a battery of machines struggling to keep her alive.

It had already been the most stressful week I'd experienced since I'd been in command of an outpost located in a remote Afghanistan valley. The fortified position-controlled a crossroad used by opium farmers and the rebels. Taliban had surrounded my platoon in the hills around us. We were just outside a small village filled with locals who remained loyal as long as we paid them more than they could earn selling opium from the poppies that the Air Force regularly sprayed with herbicide. Sniper fire rained down on us all hours of the day and night. At least I had an experienced Sargeant and a disciplined platoon to carry out the mission of stopping weapons and drug shipments from moving through the village. Somehow, Sarge managed to keep a rookie Lieutenant alive.

Last Friday, my life changed. I went to a strip club to attend a bachelor party for my best engineer and got talked into getting a lap dance from a charming, curvaceous young waitress wearing form-fitting yoga pants. After leaving the party, I saw a man assault her in the parking lot and rushed to rescue the gorgeous redhead from his clutches. The Russian debt collector beat the crap out of me. Luckily, the young woman saved my ass from a more severe beating. When I found out she and her young daughter were homeless, I gave them a room in my home and promised to help with her payday loan problem.

I sought out my old Sargeant, and we organized a team to confront the loan company that employed the Russian. When we visited the payday loan company on Tuesday night, we learned that the debt was fully paid, and the debt collector had gone rogue. My team and the payday loan company's enforcers looked for the Russian, but we never found him. He had either skipped town or been killed by his employer.

Thursday night, Sarge had talked me into attending his combatics class after work. It had been nearly eleven years since I left the Army, and I mistakenly thought that I no longer needed to keep up my fighting skills. I go to the gym a couple of times a week, but jogging and lifting weights aren't sufficient preparation for hand-to-hand combat. When the Russian loan collector beat my ass, I accepted Sarge's invitation to join his class.

Of course, this all happened the week I had a critical program review at work. By Friday, I was physically and mentally exhausted. Every muscle and tendon in my body was aching. I definitely needed some downtime. Still, I felt more alive than I had since my wife died of cancer a year ago.

I had fallen asleep in a chair by the young girl's bed, wondering where the child's mother was on a snowy Saturday morning. I should have paid more attention when Tiffany said she was dropping her daughter off with the babysitter so she could go to work. I had no idea where she was working after the Pink Pussycat closed. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have asked for a number where I could contact her.

I knew Amber couldn't afford a cellphone, so I'd left a note on the door from the garage at my house. I pulled out my cellphone when it continued to vibrate. The call was from my home phone. My throat was dry, and my voice was raspy when I answered.

"Tiffany?"

"Please tell me Amber is all right."

I thought for a moment before replying. "She's getting the best care available. We're at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. She's in the intensive care unit. The doctors are encouraging."

I heard Tiffany begin sobbing.

I said, "Stay right there. I'll come and pick you up. The streets are in bad shape, and I have a four-wheel drive. I don't want you getting into an accident because you're worried about Amber."

#

It was snowing hard when I drove home. Gusty winds whipped up the snow producing blinding whiteouts. The roads were in a lot worse condition than when I rushed Amber to the hospital. The car tracks in the deep snow covering my driveway were already half-buried when I arrived.

I found Tiffany curled up on the floor next to the kitchen telephone. I thanked my late wife for insisting we keep the landline. Otherwise, Tiffany would have tried driving to the hospital after reading my note. Since the hospital was located in the hills overlooking the river valley, the road to get there got a lot more snow than the town of Rivervale.

I shook her awake. "Tiffany, Tiffany, wake up. I'm here to take you to the hospital."

Tiffany's eyes flew open, and she flailed her arms as she attempted to push me away.

"No more. Please, no more. I can't do it anymore. You've broken me."

"Easy, Tiffany, easy. It's just me, Steve. I'm going to take you to the hospital to see Amber."

She stopped hitting me and grabbed my arm. Her eyes were wild as she searched my face for an answer to her despair. Her dark pupils were far too large for the bright kitchen lights.

"Oh God, Steve, please tell me Amber is all right."

She seemed dazed and confused as I helped her to her feet.

"Amber is in good hands. They're treating her with monoclonal antibodies specifically designed to combat this streptococcus infection. All we can do now is wait. They'll run blood tests in a few hours to see if it's working."

It took longer to drive up the long hill to the hospital than it had to reach my house. Tiffany was falling apart and needed my help walking to the ICU. I berated myself for my strong physical reaction as I supported her with my arm around her trim waist. My feeling of arousal was totally inappropriate.

She stifled a cry when she saw her tiny daughter lying unconscious on a hospital bed designed to handle an adult. I stood in the doorway and watched her bend over her daughter with tears streaming down her face. After a moment, I made myself useful. I went to the nurse's station to see if there were any updates.

The nurse put on her bravest face. "Mr. Wilson, we collected a blood sample from your daughter an hour ago. The lab results are encouraging, but it's too early to know anything definite. We'll know more when we check the next sample at noon."

I welcomed her report, but I wasn't convinced Amber was out of the woods. The head of infectious diseases talked to me after the team had done everything they could at the moment. He explained that the fatality rate for patients given the standard treatment regime was over 80%. He claimed that if treatment was begun early enough, the experimental monoclonal antibody drug reduced the death rate to around 40%. He didn't have to mention that Amber had been sick for weeks. After the second antibiotic had wiped out the susceptible bacteria, it left room for the resistant streptococcus to grow. The doctor cautioned that most of the patients who had been treated with the experimental monoclonal antibodies were middle-aged men. He didn't know if Amber's young immune system would respond differently. We would just have to wait and see. Patience was not one of my strong traits.

When I returned to Amber's room, Tiffany had pulled a chair up to the head of the bed. She was sitting on the edge of the chair and leaning forward to hold her daughter's hand. Tears were running down her pale, freckled cheeks. She looked lost when she raised her eyes to my face, pleading for any sign of hope.

I told her more about the experimental treatment explicitly developed for this strain of staph infection. A few cases had presented locally, and the big pharmaceutical company had sent a small quantity of the scarce drug as part of their phase II tests. I said we were fortunate that the hospital had enough to treat Amber.

Tiffany stared at me as I repeated what the nurse had told me. She looked like the whole Russian Army had used her before marching over her bedraggled body. She was so exhausted that I'm not sure how much she understood. I didn't repeat the grim statistics the doctor had coldly relayed. She nodded when I said that all we could do was pray and wait.

I think she lasted five minutes before she fell asleep. I waited until she began snoring softly to ease her back in the chair and cover her with a couple of hospital blankets. Since I was feeling useless, I went searching for a cup of coffee. In the Army, I'd learned to fight fatigue by walking. In the unlikely event that Amber woke up any time soon, the first thing the young girl would see was her loving mother.

***

Tiffany

"Please, no more. Oh God, please, I can't handle anymore."

I woke up in a panic from a terrifying nightmare. I had been naked and running as fast as possible from a pack of screaming men sporting massive erections. Waking brought me back to an even more terrifying reality. I was in a dimly lit room hospital room. Several pieces of illuminated electronic equipment beeped and hummed. I looked around in confusion. My beautiful little girl was lying on a hospital bed, connected by wires and tubes to strange devices. I prayed that I was asleep and this was just a nightmare.

I began to cry when it all came back. I knew that Steve had tried to hide from me that my daughter was close to death. The only thing standing between Amber and heaven was an unproven medication that I couldn't afford anyway. I reached out for my daughter's limp hand and prayed for a miracle.

After watching Amber for an eternity, I got to my feet. I bent over and kissed her cheek before leaving the room to find someone who could tell me my daughter would recover.

I waited at the nursing station while the staff scurried around performing tasks whose purpose I couldn't fathom. Most of what they were doing was entering data into the hospital record system. What little time they had free was devoted to patient care. The second hand on the wall clock kept inching its way around the dial as I waited, hopefully. It was hard to believe it was almost eleven in the morning. Had I slept that long?

Finally, someone looked up at me. "Can I help you?"

"I was hoping you could tell me how my daughter, Amber Wells, is doing."

The nurse looked down at his computer screen and typed in the name. After a minute, he looked up and frowned. "We don't have anyone by that name in the hospital."

"Of course you do. She's the little girl in room 314."

His frown deepened as he pointed to a whiteboard behind me. "Oh, you mean Amber Wilson. I'm sorry you'll have to wait for the doctor leading her team."

"Where can I find him?"

"He's making his rounds, but you can't disturb him. I wouldn't expect to see him back here until the lab work is completed sometime this afternoon. There is a waiting area down the hall. If you're hungry, you might want to catch some lunch before the crowd hits the cafeteria."

I was too upset to consider eating, so I went back to Amber's room. I was startled to see a strange man sitting in the chair next to my daughter's bed. His expression was determined. There wasn't a soft line to his body. I sensed a threat, and my heart began pounding. My first thought was that he was another collector for the payday loan company. I shuddered when I remembered pumping slugs into the Russian bastard who had threatened my daughter and me. I wouldn't be a murderess if I'd only waited a day for Steve to fix my problem with the rogue collector.

My second thought was that Carmen had sent the goon to torment us. The owner of The Dollhouse had a contract that said he owned my body, and last night, he had taken delight in humiliating me at every opportunity. I'd accepted the abuse to save my daughter, but I wouldn't let anyone threaten Amber.

My voice was shaky as I forced myself to speak. I didn't want to give the powerfully built stranger an excuse to pick a fight. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my daughter's room?"

I was surprised to see the big man blush as he unwound his massive frame from the chair. He spread his hands out at his side and spoke softly.

"I'm sorry. I'm a friend of Steve's. He's been up for hours, so I sent him home to sleep."

I managed to take a breath. "Well, Steve's friend, do you have a name?"

"Oh, sorry, Tiffany. I'm Wessel Schermer. I served under Steve in Afghanistan. Everyone calls me 'Sarge.' It's easier than Wessel. Maybe he's mentioned me. He asked me for help with your payday loan problem earlier."

I relaxed a bit more. However, I was still on my guard because he was still too close to my daughter.

I forced a smile and held out my hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Sarge. I owe you one for clearing up the trouble with my loan."

Sarge wrapped my hand in both of his while locking his gaze on my eyes. I had the feeling he was examining my soul. I hoped he couldn't see the disgusting person I had become. Mary Beth had been right when she cursed me. I had become a stupid, drug-addicted stripper and prostitute.

"Well, I'm just sorry that we didn't catch the bastard. I hope the loan company took care of the Russian. Otherwise, he's still out there taking advantage of other desperate people."

I wasn't about to tell him his search had failed because I had already stuffed his bleeding body in the dumpster behind The Pink Pussycat. So, I smiled.

"I bet you and Steve scared him off."

Sarge moved away from the bed and said, "Please sit down. I'll get myself another chair. I hope you don't mind, but Steve asked me to stay with you. I can't imagine how terrible this is for you."

I sat in his warm seat and took Amber's hand. Nothing had changed. I heard a chair squeak as Sarge sat down, and I looked back at him hopefully. Maybe he could answer my questions that the nurse had declined to discuss?

"I was too tired last night to understand everything Steve told me. He said something about Amber's treatment, but it went in one ear and out the other. Do you know what they're doing for her? I thought they'd already tried everything."

Sarge wrinkled his forehead and rubbed his unshaven face. "Well, what I know is second-hand from Steve. The doctors are trying an experimental treatment based on monoclonal antibodies. Please don't ask what they are, but Steve said the early research is very encouraging."

"Oh God, Amber's doctor mentioned that as an option, but there is no way I can afford a drug that costs nearly one hundred thousand dollars a dose. The young doctor thought if the treatment was successful, it could take five or six doses. My employer considers me a private contractor, so I don't have insurance at work, and I can't afford Obamacare."

Sarge looked down at his folded hands and said, "Don't worry. Your daughter is getting the treatment she needs."

Sarge told me not to worry, but his face betrayed his deep unease.

"There must be a mistake. The hospital doesn't give anything away for free. What aren't you telling me?

Sarge slowly shook his head while taking a deep breath. He looked up at me as he let it out.

"Steve told the hospital that Amber was his daughter, so his employee insurance policy would cover her. He's an engineer, so it's a platinum policy. Since it's the weekend, the hospital business office is closed. By the time they realize the deception, Amber will be well on her way to recovery."

"Oh dear God, what will happen to Steve when they find out?"

Sarge looked down at his feet and wrung his hands. "They'll bill him for the full amount. If he can't pay, they'll seize his assets, including his home and retirement fund. If that's not enough, they'll garnish a big chunk of his salary. Hopefully, they won't press criminal charges."

I'd felt terrible before hearing Sarge's news. My head had felt like it was stuffed with cotton rags ever since Steve woke me up in his kitchen. It was the worst hangover I'd ever had. Now, Steve's friend had told me the sweet man had sacrificed his future for my daughter. I felt sick as I hunched over and clutched my stomach. I began sobbing uncontrollably.

"Oh God, it's all my fault. Poor Steve is a saint. He shouldn't suffer to fix my problems. There must be something I can do to help."

I shuddered as Sarge wrapped his muscular arm around my shoulders and held me while I cried. His kindness only made me cry harder. It was bad enough that I'd made a mess out of my life, but I was hurting everyone around me. Sarge let me cry myself out. He handed me some wipes, and I blew my nose.

Sarge said, "I've been thinking about how to get Steve out of this mess ever since he told me what he'd done. The only solution I came up with is presenting a marriage certificate to his insurance company that states that you've been married to Steve for the last week or two."

"You're talking about cheating the insurance company?"

"Why not? Those blood-sucking bastards spend tons of money looking for ways to deny legitimate claims. They have doctors working in their claims department who should be caring for patients instead of screwing them."

I stared at Sarge for a moment and realized he was right. "How would we manage to do it? I'm willing to do whatever it takes to save Steve."

"I know some veterans from Afghanistan who can help bring it off. One of them works in the Town Clerk's office, and I think I can talk him into filing a marriage certificate that has been predated, but the certificate will have to be legal. My other friend is a Unitarian minister who can perform a legitimate marriage ceremony.

"Are you willing to marry Steve to save him from himself? You'll have to maintain the charade for months, probably half a year. Thankfully, you're already living with him if anyone checks."

"Of course, I'll do whatever it takes. Steve was willing to sacrifice everything for Amber, but I doubt he'd be willing to marry a dumb stripper even if it's the only way to save himself."

I wasn't surprised when Sarge laughed. By now, everyone who had been in The Dollhouse last night knew that I was a whore. Once Carmen had the videos posted online, everyone in the world would be able to witness my depravity.

"Tiffany, you're a lot more than a beautiful exotic dancer. Steve told me what a devoted mother you are. He also said he was impressed with your hard work and intelligence. That's something coming from a diligent engineer like Steve."