Slowly Moving On Ch. 04

Chapter 4: Medically Necessary?

I woke up the next morning all kinds of confused. I know that Grant and Justine were trying to help. They were also in need of help. Christ, they had really been there for me since Jenn died. They just went along with my charade of saying the right things all the time to not worry them, when they knew the whole time that I was hurting. They didn't call me on it, they just supported me the best they could.

My head was spinning now. I should support them in their time of need as they supported me. I just couldn't figure out how fucking J was going to help. I mean what the fuck would that do to a relationship. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to fuck my wife. I'm sure I'd be thinking about if that person was better than me, or if she was thinking about that other person every time we had sex for the rest of our lives.

I pulled out the card with the on-call number Dr. Atkins had given me yesterday, grabbed my phone and called. The call service operator took my number, after repeatedly asking me if this was an emergency, and if it was, I should call 911. They eventually said that someone would call me back within thirty minutes.

I immediately started to panic about talking to someone other than Dr. Atkins and hadn't considered that it was going to be an on-call doctor and not her. I hadn't thought that through before I called. I also hadn't thought through how she was going to treat me after what had happened in her office yesterday. I shouldn't have called at all. No more than five minutes after the call, my phone started buzzing and my stomach sank.

"Hi Matt, it's Amanda. Is everything OK?" She seemed genuinely concerned. I was genuinely relieved to hear her voice and not to have to explain the situation to someone new.

"I'm fine. Really conflicted, but I'm fine." I was trying to play this down a little, but I needed to talk it through. "Before I get to that, I'm sorry for the way I acted yesterday. I burst out and said some personal things I shouldn't have and that wasn't fair to you in any way. You've done nothing but try to help me and I lashed out at you. I'm sorry." So spontaneous, but so true.

"Matt, you are not the first, and will not be the last patient to react like that. I appreciate the apology but it isn't necessary. What's going on?"

I spent the next five minutes recounting the interaction with Justine the night before and as I got to the part about the hug, she started asking questions.

"So you didn't act on any of this, Matt?" she asked.

"No. I was embarrassed, weirdly turned on, and generally confused. I knew better than not to act on an impulse. I love my friends and can't imagine ruining that." I'd been bullshitting her for a year, and now I was, all of a sudden, just straight honest with her.

"Are you really not planning on acting on any of this?" she followed up.

"I'm not sure yet. They need help, but I'm not sure this is the help they need from me." I was still not fully comfortable being fully on the level with her yet.

"Alright. Matt, can I assume you are not going to act on this right now? I think the fact you have not already told me that you know the right and wrong of this. I completely get that this is more complex than that, but for right now just be supportive to them in a non-physical way. We can talk about the details and some strategies around this when we meet next week. If this comes up again, try to get as much detail from their end to better understand where they are coming from. I'll also give you a reference for them to a colleague that specializes in this specifically."

"Sure, Amanda, that would be great," I said and she quickly relayed the information.

"Dr. Samantha Tucker, 555-893-0023 and they can tell the office that I referred them. Let's keep our normal appointment next week, but if you need to talk again, call the on-call number and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

"Matt, I'm glad you are finally being honest with me and sharing all of this. This will go a long way towards recovery for you. See you next week, I believe it is your last scheduled visit as well?"

"Yeah, just one more. See you then," I said as she hung up.

*****

The rest of the weekend and most of the following week was uneventful. Thoughts of what had transpired that Friday had started to fade and I went back to the routine of daily life.

I was picking up groceries at Whole Foods down the street when I ran into one of Justine's work friends, Renee. We had met a couple of times at Justine and Grant's house for different events over the years. She was nice enough and had her young toddler daughter in tow today.

"Hi, Matt!" Renee said enthusiastically as she stopped the cart abruptly.

"I haven't seen you in ages," she continued.

"Well, I haven't been in the social scene much since well, you know..." Always awkward getting past this point. Her daughter was orbiting around her, and her shopping cart, which made for a nice segway out of this conversational track.

"And who is this?" I said as I knelt down and looked at the little girl changing the focus completely.

"This is Angela. Say hi to Mr. Matt young lady," the little one shied away with that.

"Hello, Angela! She's very cute, Renee. How are things with you and the family?" I'm not a big fan of the small talk, but here we were.

"Things are good. Funny I should run into you. Have you seen Justine lately? I worked a couple of overnights with her over the weekend and she seems a bit off," She said looking at me curiously. I stood there wondering what she might know about this whole situation.

"We get together every Friday night for dinner, and I haven't seen her since. She was fine then," I lied.

"Everything OK at the hospital?" I asked. Both Renee and Justine were nurses on the same floor at one of the big teaching hospitals in town.

"Mmm, things are fine there, you know night shifts grind you down. She was just acting funny. You sure everything was fine? She hasn't been returning my texts," she asked.

"Yeah Renee, but you know I'll try to catch up with her later today. She can't avoid me since I live right up the street." I was trying to keep this upbeat.

"Thanks, Matt. Could you let me know that she's OK if you catch up to her? I think you have my info from coordinating Grant's birthday party a couple of years ago. Just get in touch to let me know she's fine?"

"Sure, no problem," I replied.

"Look, Josh and I should have you over soon and catch up. We miss seeing you around!" I could see the look of concern on her face.

"Just let me know, I'd be happy to stop by," and with that, we parted ways.

That was worrisome. I drove home and put away the groceries and when I was done, I set out for a run planning to end at Grant and Justine's house.

A number of things were floating through my head on my run. I was running through every possible scenario and every way a conversation could go. I was hoping for the best and trying to plan for the worst, but what was the worst? Well, I was about to find out one way or another.

Still out of breath from the run and sweating from the combination of the late summer heat and exercise, I rang the doorbell. I heard footsteps of someone coming down the stairs and Justine answered the door. She must have been getting back from the hospital as she wore a navy blue scrub top with a white shirt underneath with matching navy pants tight enough to show a hint of her toned body underneath.

"Hi, Matt," she said without a hint of anything wrong or anything different. "Come in. Are you just finishing a run or something? Do you want something to drink?"

"Sure, cold water would be great."

"So, what's up?" she asked as we walked towards the kitchen.

"Well, I haven't talked to you or Grant since Friday, and I just wanted to make sure everything was OK. Where is Grant?" I asked.

"He's at a meeting in DC for work. He's heading back tomorrow," she said matter-of-factly.

"As for us, we're fine. More than fine in fact," she said with a curious smirk. "I know it was a lot all at once, but it doesn't change us or anything. Right?" Was she looking for some validation here?

"Uh, I guess. Like you said, it's a lot. You've both been there for me in what has been the bottom of the barrel in my life the last year. I just want to be supportive. I got really concerned when I ran into Renee at Whole Foods this afternoon. She said she was worried about you and that you weren't returning her texts. I thought I might have precipitated that?" I questioned, and she suddenly turned a bright shade of red and quickly looked away from me.

"Look J. I'm not mad, I'm not upset. I care about you guys and want the best for you. I..." she quickly cut me off.

"This has nothing to do with you, Matt. Well, maybe just a little bit I guess. What the hell did Renee tell you?" She asked in a very annoyed and urgent tone.

"Uh, just what I said, that she was concerned and you weren't yourself. She was with little Angela so we didn't have an in-depth conversation," I said wondering where this was going.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"I've been trying to avoid her," she said still flushed. "And she sure as hell knows it."

"OK, I think I'll take the water for the road. I was just concerned I had done something." I didn't want to get in the middle of something else at this point.

"No, It's not you. It kind of relates to you, and what we talked about the other night though. You have to hear what happened. It's kind of crazy."

"I'm not sure I want to get involved in this J." Honestly, I was kind of curious now.

"You'll see how it relates. Let's take this into the living room," she said as she handed me the glass of ice water.

"J, I can see that you're fine and we're fine. I'm soaked through my shirt from the run, and I must smell like hot garbage. Let's do this at dinner instead?" I felt disgusting and didn't want to sit on anyone's furniture.

"How about you go home and take a shower and come back for dinner? I was going to have the leftover lasagna from the other night?" She finished the sentence and her phone suddenly started to ring.

She pulled it out of the side thigh pocket of her tighter than they should be scrub pants, and answered it.

"Hey, babe. I got a hot and sweaty Matt in our kitchen and I can't talk right now!" She was laughing now. "No, he stopped by after his run. He's just leaving to go get a shower and then he's going to come for dinner, then he's going to cook me one of his delicious mushroom omelets!" She said looking and smiling at me the whole time.

"He ran into Renee today so I'm going to fill him in on that whole thing." There was a long pause as Grant was talking.

"Who knows, babe? We'll play it by ear." Her smile got bigger. "Like I said, Matt was just leaving," she said as she pointed towards the door.

I was dumbfounded and just let myself out without arguing as she continued to talk to Grant. I was worried about what kind of situation I would be walking back into later, but I was more curious about the story behind what was going on with Renee now.

******

I took my time showering and headed back to Justine's house. As I walked back to her house, I wish I had driven. Even though the sun was just setting, it was still hot and I was already sweating again. Not knowing what was ahead of me tonight probably didn't help that either.

Justine answered the door and ushered me inside. She was still wearing her scrub pants from work and the tight white t-shirt that she had on underneath earlier today, minus the bra, great.

The smell of bacon hit me first thing as I went inside. "Something smells good, J."

"I figured if I was having breakfast for dinner, I'd have bacon with my omelet! I cut up the mushrooms and onions for you. All you have to do is whip it up, right? Isn't this great how I invite you over to cook me dinner?" She asked with a chuckle.

"I think I'll pass on the lasagna and make myself one as well. Someone ate mine the other night..." I gave her a smirk with that remark.

"Drinks?"

"Sure, what do you have?" I replied.

"I'm making vodka tonics. I believe I remember you drinking quite a few of these on more than one occasion?"

"Sure, I'll take one but take it easy on me. Vodka and eggs don't exactly go together."

We spent the next few minutes making small talk, sipping from my drink and I was asking how Grant's conference was going. I had sautéed the mushrooms and onions and added them with a little cheese into two expertly done French omelets. I plated them right at the kitchen island. Justine took the bacon out of the oven and dinner was had.

"So Justine, are you going to fill me in or what? Renee got me worried, and now I feel there is a pretty good story to go with it. I'm not sure how it involves me though."

"Ha, you'll piece it together pretty quickly I think. Let me freshen these up first though."

She grabbed my almost empty glass and her empty glass and went about making another round. She hadn't listened to me about going easy this round, and she looked to be a bit heavier handed on the vodka with both of our drinks. As she handed me back my glass she started in.

"So, Friday night after our conversation, I went to work. Typical 11:00-7:00 overnight shift. Most of my patients were asleep, so there was not a heck of a lot I needed to do. Renee asked me if I'd cover her patients while she headed down to the hospital coffee shop. She told me she was going to be a little while as she needed to hit the ATM, and kill some time off the floor. I told her it was fine and she went on her way."

"Well, forty-five minutes later I realized she wasn't back and Laura, our floor secretary, had been down and back to get coffee in about five minutes, and that was thirty minutes ago."

I interrupted, "So if this is going to be a catty story about pawning her patients on you for half the night, I think we can just get to the endpoint here, as I don't see how this has anything to do with me." I was being a little impatient, but she had told these types of stories before. I was thinking about how disappointing the story was about to be.

"Look, buddy. This story is nothing like that, so take another pull off that drink and shut-up and let me talk," she said rather seriously.

"Anyway," she continued. "I asked Laura if she had seen Renee when she was down there. Laura told me she saw her on the way back, talking to Kyle by the on-call lounge."

"Who's Kyle?" I interrupted her again.

"Are you going to let me get through this or what?" She asked, again a bit miffed.

"Kyle was the on-call fellow for general medicine that night. I figured at this point she had stopped to talk to him to get orders for something a patient needed, but I didn't remember her telling me about anything any of her patients needed when she left."

She continued, "The on-call lounge, which is just a fancy name for a couch they crash on and a desk with a computer to write notes, was at the far end of the floor, so I headed off to find her. I walked down the hall and the lounge door was ajar and I couldn't make out the sounds coming from there."

She started to squirm in her high chair tucked against the kitchen island as she stopped to take a big gulp of her drink. She was getting drunk and her face was a bit flushed, or that's what I thought was going on.

"I get to the door and I'm just about to open it and as I peek in, Kyle has got his scrub pants around his ankles with his back to me on top of a spread-eagle Renee on her back facing me on the lounge couch."

I almost spat the sip of the drink out as I heard this.

"Oh my god J. What did you do? Wait, Renee, she's still married to Josh, right? Christ, I met one of their kids today!" My head was spinning from all of this.

"Uh-huh, she's still married," she replied with an awkward smile.

"And then what happened? Did you freak out?" I asked.

"No. Matt, I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't move. Kyle's tight young ass was right in front of me as he was just pounding away on Renee. It was just so... so... intoxicating. I mean his muscles in his ass and back just rippled with each thrust. That guy is an absolute specimen. Like, he has always had that, I do CrossFit thing that's a bit off-putting, but my god it works for him and he is chiseled!" She was reveling a bit too much on those points for my liking.

"Renee's huge tits were flopping back and forth on her chest in tune with each thrust. She had one hand on his ass giving a playful slap and the other was clenched on the arm of the couch behind her holding on for dear life. I stood there and..."

She was even more flushed now. I knew it was from much more than the drink as she continued to squirm in the chair.

"And what, J?" I asked pulling her out of a temporary daze.

"And I got so hot. I mean you and I had just talked about the night in the ski condo a few hours before which brought back some, eh, exciting memories and this just sent me over the edge. I didn't know what I was doing and next thing I know I was, uh... touching myself. Right there in the alcove next to the lounge door."

She wasn't looking at me know and she was obviously quite worked up recounting the story. I was starting to feel a little warm as well, as my cock started to stir in my shorts.

"I don't know how long I stood there, but at some point, Renee noticed me. I didn't move. It was just like when you caught me that night with Jenn. There Renee was getting the absolute stuffing pounded out of her and I'm sitting there watching with my hand down my panties using myself like an amusement park."

I had to smile that only J would put a Seinfeld reference in recounting a story like this to me. It broke the tiniest amount of the immense tension in the room, and I softly hid a chuckle within a smile.

She continued, "Yeah, well I was on fire and I couldn't stop. Renee saw it and all of the sudden started to get more vocal with him. I mean really nasty stuff. Like degrading herself and her husband stuff. She was telling Kyle how much of a better fuck he was than Josh. How much better his cock was. I mean really, dirty shit was just spewing out of her mouth."

"Eventually, all of this started to send him over the edge. That made her even more vocal, but this time about cumming inside her! He lost it almost immediately after that and turned into a jackhammer of young muscle for what seemed like forever."

"She was unintelligibly moaning and gasping at this point. It looked like she had just lost all control of her body. It was fucking hot, Matt. I was absolutely enthralled. He finally plunged into her without pulling back out. I saw his balls jump from behind and quiver. He fucking just came inside my friend right there in front of me! I had to shake myself out of a daze and slowly snuck off."

"Wow," that was about all I could muster. This was so hot to hear, but this was not the conversation I should be having with Justine at this particular moment. Somehow, I couldn't stop myself from prodding her on.

"So, did you just go back to your shift?" I asked hoping this might end the tale.

"Eh, no. I, uh. I, em. I went to the bathroom for some, uh, relief."

She was again not looking at me as she was telling me this. Her face now fully flushed in pink and she was sitting awkwardly in her chair with her legs tightly crossed.

"I eventually pulled myself back together and headed back to the nurse's station. When I got back there, Renee had the balls to ask me where I was. Wasn't I supposed to be covering her patients? Like really, Renee? I didn't know what to say and avoided her most of the rest of the shift. That was until I was getting my patient's medications in the locked med room and she corners me."