The New Patient

He backed slowly away from her, frantically trying to remember: what happened?? His thoughts chased each other through his mind: he'd be fired. Worse than that – he would be arrested, his wife would leave him, his life would be over! What had he done? And this poor girl, this poor little girl, what he done to her?

He needed to see if she was okay. Taking a deep breath, he turned back round to face her. She lay quite still on the sofa. She had tugged her clothes back into place and was lying still, her eyes on him.

Dan swallowed hard, then took another deep breath. "Claudia?"

She smiled a slow, lazy smile, "Yes, Doc?"

"Claudia, what just happened... uh..."

"Aww, are you scared, Doc? Don't worry, I'm not going to tell on you."

"Tell on me? You're not? Claudia, what just happened?"

She laughed maliciously. "Oh, nothing. Don't worry about it. I'll see you for my appointment tomorrow." She stood up and put her shoes on, and as he stood, speechless, staring at her, he heard the ward aide's footsteps in the hallway. Claudia walked to the door and turned and waved at him, wiggling her fingers and with no expression on her face. Then she opened the door and he heard the two sets of footsteps heading down the hall.

Dan collapsed into the chair behind his desk. Fervently he hoped that he had been dreaming, the most amazing dream of his life, surely, but please let it be a dream. He looked down at the large wet spot on the front of his tan trousers. Shit. What was he going to do?