Sweetness

Sweetness

Chapter 1

(1)

It started with an accident. I mean that; I did not want one of my many secrets getting out, but you can't plan everything. In my case, I didn't plan on rolling my SUV. It was a Thursday and it was early, too early. I had just left the golden arches and with a fresh cup of piping-hot coffee, I was ready to start my work day. The sun wouldn't make an appearance for a while yet; when you own your own company, you start early and stay late, and I almost always started early.

I took a sip of my coffee, enjoying the smell of it more than the taste. There is something about the smell of coffee that wakes me up. I took a sniff, smiled, took a sip, and just as I was putting the steaming cup of black coffee into its cupholder, that's when it happened. And it was bad.

I entered the intersection, the light in front of me glowing a bright green in the predawn hours of that Thursday morning. Too late I saw the car coming my way. I swerved from the right lane into the left, trying to avoid what I knew was coming, but it didn't help. The car, some older model I couldn't quite place in the dark, hit my Explorer on the right-hand side, plowing into the passenger's side door with the powering force of an angry bull. My SUV lurched, wobbled and then went onto its side. My coffee toppled, spilling onto my legs. I could feel the heat of the liquid through my pants and winced in pain, sucking in an angry, wet breath.

The car that hit me kept moving, pushing my SUV forward and finally onto my side. The car kept going, finally swerving, but it was far too late. I was upside down now, staring in some weird way at the back of my head. It was an eerily odd out-of-body experience. For the life of me I would swear that I was watching the action from the back seat. I could see out the windshield at the ground now inches from my cracked windshield. I could see the hair on my head hanging straight down and I could see that coffee cup sitting on the roof of my car that was now sliding noisily against the cracked, gray hardtop.

My SUV toppled again, leaving me lying sideways in my seat. I returned to my body as my vehicle righted itself. I stopped moving, taking stock of where I was. I was sitting upright, which was a plus, but my vision was blurred and had taken on an odd pink hue. Blood. There was blood in my eyes. My legs throbbed from where my McDonald's coffee had burned me. My left arm hung limply, resting in my coffee stained lap. I reached down, searching for something, anything and found a t-shirt that read "Bazinga!" It would do. Keeping my head perfectly straight and pressed against the backrest of my seat, I brought the t-shirt up to my forehead, using it to stop the flow of blood.

My head hurt, my left arm throbbed, my legs felt like they were on fire. Through the broken windshield I could see a few stopped cars. I heard a voice, low and muffled, like it was coming to me from under water. "Mister? Are you okay? I saw everything. I've called for an ambulance." Ambulance? Did I need an ambulance? I think I nodded, but I can't really be sure. The headlights from about a half dozen stopped cars, stuck now because of the accident, becoming blurry. I used the t-shirt, now stained with blood, to wipe my eyes but those headlights still retained that hazy, out-of-focus look.

I heard a siren. That wasn't good. Someone needed help. I hoped they were okay.

The siren grew closer. The windshield was cracked, and it bothered me that I was going to have to get it fixed. Why couldn't anything be easy? I had so much work to do that I really didn't have time to get my windshield fixed. How did it get broken in the first place?

"Sir? Sir?"

Was someone talking to me? That's odd. I'm sitting in my car by myself. Why would anyone be talking to me.

"Sir?"

The windshield bothered me. Why was it broken?

"Sir, do you know where you are?"

Accident. I was in an accident. It came back to me; the car sideswiping me, pushing me as I was changing lanes to avoid the collision that I could not avoid. I remembered seeing the back of my head as I seemingly sat in the back seat taking in a violent movie that was all too real. I recalled the smell of coffee and how the pleasant smell and acrid taste had started to wake up my groggy brain. I could still smell the coffee, most of it on my pants and dripping onto my head as I sat, unmoving, in front of the steering wheel.

Anger flared in me. I couldn't help it. "Who hit me!" I hissed, holding my head still. I knew that much. Don't move. Don't do any more damage.

"We'll get you out of there in no time. Do you know what day it is?"

I did. "Thursday," I replied, still not turning to face whoever was speaking.

"What would you say if I told you it was Sunday?"

"That it took you guys a long time to get here."

I could hear him smile, even if I couldn't see it fully from the corner of my eye, "You're going to be okay."

That was a relief. Was that ever in question? His final sentence seemed to hit me in some deep part of my mind. How bad was the accident? I had rolled my car, sure, but I was awake and even though I was hurting, my left arm throbbing with each beat of my heart, I didn't feel like I was in grave danger, but was I? 'You're going to be okay.' Kind words but words that scared me more than they should. "Thanks," I said. The anger was still there, I could hear it as I hissed out that lone word. 'You're going to be okay.' Was that for me or for the paramedic that was now reaching in through the broken window to put a brace on my neck.

"Try not to move."

I didn't move.

"You're doing great," he told me. "The door is jammed. We'll have to get the Jaws-of-Life to cut it free. Don't worry. You're going to be fine."

Was fine better than okay? I thought to ask him but then it dawned on me that my windshield was broken, and I was going to have to get it fixed. How did my windshield get broken? It wasn't just cracked, it was shattered. What happened? Did I get behind one of those horrible trucks carrying a load of rocks? Did the rocks bubble out of the truck like popcorn spilling from a pot of oil? God, I hated those trucks. "Stupid truck." I was angry at that truck and at how inconsiderate the driver of that truck had to be. Why did the driver not put on that shredded tarp to prevent at least some of the rocks from pounding my windshield?

To my left the door was pulled open. "Keep still, sir," someone said as I reached over to try and shut the door that was no longer there. You can't drive with the door open.

Oh, I spilled my coffee. I must have. I could smell it everywhere.

Hands grabbed me and eased me from the car. The world looked so much clearer when you weren't seeing it through a broken windshield. I shut my eyes. That was better. My head didn't hurt as much. I felt my t-shirt being pulled out of my hand. "That's mine," I said, opening my eyes briefly before shutting them again. My head hurt so much less with them shut.

"It sure is, sir," someone said. Next to that voice a different voice said, "We'll give it back."

"Good." And it was good.

I felt a pinch in my arm and a few moments later everything felt better.

(2)

"We're going to send you up for a CT scan," some young intern said. "Once we get the results back we should be able to remove that neck brace. We'll keep in on for now. Any questions?"

"No, doc, I got it. Thanks." I gave him a smile.

"Good."

I watched him leave the curtained off section of the ER where they'd brought me following a brief ride in an ambulance, pulling the curtain shut as he left. The accident had to be bad if they brought me there in that portable doctors office. No waiting. That was good. Your own personal doc-in-a-box, and a mobile box at that. Nice to have, but if you needed one then it really was bad.

My memory stopped doing its weird topsy-turvy thing, coming in and out like an old AM radio station just out of reach. I recalled the accident and everything leading up to it. I no longer questioned why my windshield was broken. Rolling your car tends to do that. Still, the mild concussion I had seemed to be fading somewhat as my mind was fully lucid and the only thing left was anger at the other driver, and the thought of how busy work was going to be when I returned to it. Work was busy. Hell, work was always busy and running your own company, with nineteen people working under you, made that work somehow harder. All those people relying on you to lead them down the proper path was at times daunting. I was good at it, even if I sometimes wanted a break. Rolling your car and spending a day in the hospital was not the kind of break I wanted.

An orderly came in. A big, black guy with one golden tooth. "Good morning, Mister Sweet. How are you today?"

"Fine," I said, unable to nod thanks to the brace around my throat, but trying anyway.

"I'm gonna wheel you up for your CT scan, okay?"

Consent was a big thing in the hospital. After wheeling me into this little curtained oasis, a woman had come in and had me sign about half a dozen documents, insurance information and consent forms and that was before a doctor ever came in. "That's fine. Thanks."

The orderly helped me into the wheelchair and chatted about the Utah Jazz and how silly they were for trading away some player that I'd never heard of. I knew about Shaquille O'Neil and Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but I had no idea who the orderly was talking about. I nodded as best as I could with the brace holding my head in place, but truthfully, my head didn't move that much. He wheeled me to the room with a large medical device. I'd seen them on television shows, but this was the first time I'd ever seen one up close. It was big and bulky with a long table sitting in front of some deep bore. A woman helped the orderly lead me from the wheelchair and onto the platform that sat in front of the scanner itself. The orderly left, "Be back soon, Mister Sweet."

The tech that ran the machine was older than I was, with gray hair that perfectly matched her gray scrubs. "This won't hurt," she said. "Have you had a CT before?"

"No, ma'am."

She swatted my shoulder, "no need to call me ma'am. It's Cathy."

Another nod that wasn't a nod. "Okay."

She explained what was going to happen and it pretty much happened exactly that way. I went into the bore, feeling a bit confined, and watched as something big spun around my head. Cathy told me to hold still and I held still, not realizing I had been fidgeting until she scolded me. The table I was lying on moved at a slow, almost glacial pace as that big contraption spun around my head. And it lasted about thirty seconds. Zip, zip, zip. The table moved out and mister gold tooth was back to help Cathy put me back in the wheelchair. "All done," she said. "I hope you feel better, Mister Sweet."

All-in-all, Cathy was very nice. "Thanks."

I was brought back to the Emergency Room and put in a room without curtains. A room all to myself. A little block was affixed to my finger to record my pulse and another was wrapped around my arm to record my blood pressure. Some news show was playing on the television set mounted in the corner, showing the weekend weather. Outside my room, people walked by, some in scrubs, some in jeans. Visitors and nurses, patients and doctors. I just lay there, noting that warmer weather would be moving in over the weekend and how it would be close to a record high. They seemed to say that a lot.

It was twenty minutes later when I met her. Peyton.

"Hello, Sweetness," she said, smiling at me. It was a warm smile and it lit her pretty face. She had dark skin, not exactly tan, but darker than my own. Her black hair was pulled up into a ponytail. She was wearing green scrubs that hid her figure, but that seemed to somehow make her even more appealing. Or maybe it was that smile. That smile that both kept and told secrets at the exact same time. "How are you today?" Her voice held a little mirth in it, like she was playing a game that only she knew the rules to. A game that she was winning.

"Fine, thanks."

"I'm Peyton and I'll be taking care of you until we let you go home. If we let you," she added, smiling, her face somehow lighting up with the size of her grin.

"If?" I didn't like the sound of that. "Am I okay?"

She laughed, a light, happy sound that was both musical and full of mirth, "I'm just toying with you," she smiled, saying something more with her eyes that I couldn't read. "You'll be fine." She crossed the room to take the readings off the machines hooked to my body. She bent low and whispered, "We're going to have such fun together."

I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. What did that mean? Maybe my concussion hadn't quite cleared up. "I'm sorry?"

She stood and said, "The doctor will be in soon." She walked towards the door and stopped. She looked at me and smiled, "Yellow. Nice."

I wondered what that meant - until I didn't. Then my face turned red, damned near scarlet. You see it, don't you? Why I was embarrassed. We've all heard the saying to wear clean underwear in case you get into and accident, and I was in an accident and I had been wearing clean underwear. Yellow ones. Panties to be exact. You see, I like panties. It's sexual, sure, but it's more than that. They calm me; they make me feel more like me. They're softer and, well, prettier than men's underwear. I've been wearing them for years. It was one of the reasons my ex-wife and I separated. She had said so many times, "I hate that you wear panties." Then her voice would grow colder, "And I hate that they're more feminine than mine."

I could still hear my response, "Then wear sexier ones!" I never offered not to wear them. Not once.

She had groaned or grunted or cussed me. It was an argument we had had more than once. I tried to explain how much I liked them, but she didn't want to her it. In her mind, men did not wear panties and since I did then I simply wasn't a man. It was a tired argument in a tired marriage. She couldn't accept that I liked panties and at the end she couldn't accept me.

So, living alone, I no longer gave it any thought what I wore under my pants. I wore panties. The more feminine the better. Silky lace panties in pastels with little bows. Blues and greens, pinks and purples. And, of course, yellow. And I had been wearing yellow panties with a scalloped lace waistband. I was wearing them now. The back was sheer and full. They felt sexy and I enjoyed them. They were one of my favorite pairs. I had been wearing them when some idiot driver had crashed into my car, sending me along on a horrid E-Ticket ride straight to the hospital. I'd been hazy and drugged, suffering from a concussion, and didn't think about the nurses cutting my clothes away to dress me in a hospital gown. How many people had seen my panties? Peyton obviously had.

"Yellow. Nice." I recalled what she had said. "We're going to have such fun together." What did that mean?

I lay on my bed, the TV in the corner now playing a rerun of Family Feud. Steve Harvey was asking a homely black woman some question that I couldn't exactly hear. Not that it mattered. I kept replaying what Peyton had said. "We're going to have such fun together." I was worried, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe it would be okay.

I thought about Peyton. She was pretty. Dangerously so. I was still thinking about her when she came strutting back into the room. She had an air of authority about her. Which made sense; at least she was wearing pants. I couldn't help it, but I wondered what color panties she was wearing. I had that thought about every woman I found attractive.

Peyton came in, flashing me a smile that said I know something you don't know. I could almost hear her singing it. Of course, she knew. Everyone that worked on me following the accident knew, but she was the only one that had the temerity to comment on it. Maybe temerity isn't the right word. Maybe I should call it what it is. She had the balls to say it. Still smiling she asked, "Do you always wear panties?"

I tried to swallow but couldn't find the spit. Her voice wasn't heavy with malice. There was a gentle playfulness in it. And something else. Something I couldn't place.

"Oh, don't be shy," she wasn't trying to hide what she was saying. Me, I always hid the fact that I not only wore panties but loved them. She spoke with a subtle strength. She was smiling as she continued, "I asked you a simple question and I expect an answer, Sweetness. Do you always wear panties?"

I licked my lips, found my spit so that I could swallow, but I still couldn't find the words. I thought of denying it but what could I say. I was still wearing them, and Peyton had obviously seen them. Too many people had. Why had I worn panties? But the answer to that was simple. I wore them because I loved them. Finally, with Peyton standing at the end of my bed watching my struggling debate, I nodded.

She smiled, her whole lovely face somehow becoming even prettier. "Lovely. Simply lovely. Do you wear anything else? Anything naughty?"

"I don't think that's..."

She interrupted me, "That's right!"

"Huh?"

She smiled, "You leave the thinking to me. You've said enough." She checked the machines hooked to me and waggled her fingers at me as she left.

I watched her go. What was going on? Once again it felt like I was playing a game where I didn't fully understand the rules. Somehow Peyton had me flustered. Was it because of her knowing my secret or was it because she was so damned pretty? She had black hair that when pulled from her ponytail would surely hang to her shoulders and deep brown eyes, the color of the rich soil, painted with some soft subtle hue. Her figure, hidden by her scrubs, seemed to reveal itself tantalizingly so and when she moved it was fluid and graceful, like a figure-skater sailing over ice.

Another episode of Family Feud came on. That homely black woman and her family had joyously won a new car and two new families were battling on the television while I lay there wondering what game Peyton was playing. The one with Steve Harvey would be so much easier. At least I understood the rules of Family Feud. Peyton was toying with me. That much I understood, but I didn't know why. It didn't seem like she was being cruel. She seemed accepting of my panty fetish. More than accepting. She seemed to like it. "Anything naughty?" she had asked, and that last word had been elongated into a sensual sound that gave me chills I hadn't felt in a long time. Back when my ex-wife and I had been happy.

The doctor came in, told me that I was okay and that he'd be sending me home as soon as the paperwork was done. My left arm had a slight sprain that would resolve itself with ice and my concussion had been mild enough not to cause too much problems. I no longer needed to be kept awake and under observation. I had four stitches in my head. They'd have to be removed in ten days. My legs were barely pink from where the hot coffee had soaked my slacks. It could have been much worse.

"Thanks, Doc," I said. I guess I was okay after all.

He left and not thirty seconds later Peyton came strolling back in.

"Well?"

I knew what she wanted. I had been thinking about nothing else, but I didn't want to admit it. I'd grown very good at hiding my fetishes. I kept my mouth shut.

She raised her eyebrows, waiting on me to answer her question. I couldn't do it. She caved first but when she spoke she did not say what I expected. What she said gave me chills. "I guess you want me to punish you. You won't like my punishments."

What did that mean? She kept making me ask that question.

She waited a moment longer. "A punishment then. We'll get that out of the way soon enough."

"What do you mean?"