We Need to Talk Ch. 07

"But...why?" I asked.

"Rich likes to play power games, role play, that sort of thing. Haven't you and Myra ever done that?"

"Well, no...not like that. She looks hurt!" I said. Myra smiled and shook her head.

"No, she's not really hurt. See? She's smiling, so she had fun. She's marked, but those marks will be gone in a day. No, they played some kinky power games, BDSM stuff. Probably a lot of other things, too. Rich likes to dominate and evidently Myra has a submissive side Rich can bring out in her. He's not cruel, not really, but he likes to explore boundaries. I'll bet he and Mitch had her dancing a jig! I can hardly wait to get the details!"

I didn't know what to think. Myra a submissive? I couldn't imagine that. But she likes it? If that was something she liked, how would I ever provide it?

"What does she mean, penance?" I asked.

Claire cocked her head and gave me a funny look.

"Do I have to spell it out, Dell? Use your head. What do you think two horny guys would have a woman do? I'll give you a hint. She was very penitential, she was on her knees, and Rich and Mitch were very much in charge."

"Oh. Ohhh, yeah. Jeez, I hope they weren't too rough with her."

Claire sighed and said, "No, not too rough. Rich is very good at reading people and he's a natural dominant, so you can bet Mitch followed his lead. Rich kept it challenging for Myra, but fun and sexy, too. Look closely, she's smiling, so she had a good time. He pushed her limits, but not too far. Just by looking at the pictures, I'd say she really enjoyed it."

My head was spinning and I had to go to work later in the morning. I was anxious about my wife but I trusted Rich to keep her safe. After all, we'd all grown up together and we'd been friends since childhood. We'd had our ups and downs but we'd always come through together. I should calm down and just let events play out. Myra was getting exactly what she wanted. Claire and I went to bed like a long married couple and we slept all night in each others arms. I missed my wife.

*****

The next morning was strange. Instead of Myra, I awoke with with Claire. We kissed and briefly held each other but neither of us was horny enough for intercourse. One night of passion and already we'd fallen into a domestic routine! I wondered what Myra was doing this morning. I tried not to think about it.

Work was miserable, perfectly wretched. The other physician scheduled to work was ill and I was pulling the entire shift myself. I was busy! The waiting room was full and ambulances were sometimes stacked up three deep. I was on the phone trying to get some extra help, not easy on a weekend. Sharon, my trusty sidekick RN who always had my back, came to me with a worried look on her face.

"There's a guy out there asking for you by name. He looks like a homeless dude. Could this be the guy you've been worried about?" Sharon said.

Homeless dude? David Newton, the defrocked lawyer?

My antenna were up but not high enough. Instead of hiding, I walked toward the front desk to take a look for myself.

Big Mistake.

Events unfolded at lightening speed, but to me it seemed like slow motion. My life did not pass before my eyes, but I didn't have time to get frightened, much less feel fear. I just reacted. Thank God for muscle memory! All those things I'd practiced with Rich and Kyle payed off, big time, and so did all our sparring practice.

And thank-you Sharon! She'd spent a year over in the sandbox working in field hospitals doing battle triage and things civilian nurses can hardly imagine.

It was like a dream. David Newton did look like a scruffy homeless dude and it was no act. We recognized each other at the same time and I watched him take two steps toward me and I watched his right arm come up. His right hand held a Glock pistol, probably a Model 19, same as mine I stupidly thought, but I was already moving toward him, rapidly closing the distance. The gun went off once, then twice, and I felt the bullets hit my chest. The impact wasn't bad at all, not like the movies where the gunshot victim flies through the air. The noise, on the other hand, was terrifically loud and I wondered if my hearing had been damaged. Oh, well. And the smoke? Isn't that shit supposed to be smokeless powder? Apparently not.

Newton's arm was extended out toward me and I flashed on the famous 1963 photo of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Only this time I was Oswald. Telling the story now, I can't be sure if I had all those crazy thoughts at the time or if I made them up later. That's how unreal it was.

I was reaching for the gun...THE GUN!...when a blur came from my left and suddenly Sharon descended full force on Newton's extended gun arm, driving it and him toward the ground. By now my momentum was carrying me toward him and I thought perfect set-up, Sharon, thanks, Doll, and then the gun went off twice more and FUCK IS THAT THING LOUD UP CLOSE!

But no matter. My right arm was behind me and driving forward fast. David Newton's face was looking down at the floor and with just a slight mid-course correction I made a ballet-perfect space docking and felt something in his face collapse under my fist. And then time returned to normal and I heard screaming and shouting and I was pummeling Newton like a heavy bag and he was up against the wall motherfucker and I was in close and holding him up and landing punch after punch after punch. His head snapped to and fro and I didn't let up until strong arms come from behind and pulled me off.

I was breathing hard and my brain was on fire and I didn't want to stop but I was on my back on the hard floor and someone was holding pressure on my right groin and I thought WHAT THE FUCK?

I heard Sharon shouting HE'S BEEN SHOT HE'S BEEN SHOT! and I thought WHO'S BEEN SHOT? ME? NO! I'M WEARING A FUCKING BULLET PROOF VEST GODDAMMIT!

But it was me. I'd been shot. By a ricochet off the concrete floor. Right into my right groin, just like Officer Kyle Kennedy. I lifted my head and looked down and saw blood spurting a foot in the air.

GODDAMMIT, THERE'S NO TIME FOR THIS SHIT! I'VE GOT PATIENTS TO SEE!

Then Sharon started cutting away my scrubs and I calmed down. Sharon was on the case and I should just relax. She'd done it all and seen it twice so I was in good hands. I didn't feel a thing, just a general sense of total body numbness and I was glad because I don't like pain, not one bit. There was more fussing and shouting and I thought this is a terrible place to explore a gunshot wound, on a filthy hospital floor, but...oh, well.

I was loaded on a clamshell and hoisted up onto a gurney, big IVs were started, and I thought I'm glad I worked through lunch because I've been NPO since an early breakfast so I'm unlikely to aspirate and then...nothing.

*****

I was swimming through a warm dark ocean, trying to get my bearings, trying to reach the surface. I could hear voices! I must be close!

I opened my eyes and there was Myra. She was smiling and holding my hand. And there was Rich and Claire. They were holding each other's hands.

*****

I took three months off work. Turned out, I was suffering from burnout and PTSD and just general pissed off at the world-ness, and my time off work put me right with the world again. Plus, I got to heal physically. When I started working again, it was only 40 hours a week on the day shift with very few weekends. It was a breeze; I could work at this pace for years.

There was lots of publicity and naturally Winston Butler, hospital CEO, basked in the limelight. Well, Sharon was the real hero. She'd forced Newton's gun-hand down and saved me from a headshot. She'd also set up Newton to catch my vicious, bone-smashing uppercut. Our ER stabilized Newton and shipped him off to the university hospital where surgery residents and plastics fellows could patch him up. He'll go on trial, eventually. I'd like to see him sentenced to two weeks...in the electric chair.

Oh, well. That's not how the world works, anymore.

Sharon had clamped my lacerated femoral artery and stopped my blood loss, about like I did for Kyle. She's my personal heroine.

Claire and Rich are getting married. I'll be Best Man and Myra will be Matron of Honor. We did the same at Rich and Helen's wedding all those years ago; some things keep coming around. Jillian and all our children will be there, a real blended family.

Myra and I never much talked about her decadent overnight stay with Rich and Mitch at the lake house. It hasn't been repeated and I'm not saying never again, but so far, never again. Rich later told me it was the single hottest thing he'd ever done and Myra had been superb. Mitchie fell in love with Myra and Rich and I had to chase him away. Myra was annoyed like an angry cat but I thought it was funny. Serves her right.

On a more somber note, Myra fell pregnant. She was still having occasional, irregular periods but at 52, no one gave pregnancy a serious thought. Uh-oh. A few weeks after her lake house orgy she noticed her breasts becoming tender, and she began having morning sickness. A Wal-Mart home pregnancy test kit showed positive. Like the mature lovers we are, we took it in stride. Inconvenient, sure, but we could deal with it. We didn't even raise our voices at each other.

The fearful symmetry of Rich, or more likely Mitch, impregnating MY wife was not lost on me. After what we'd been through over the years, a late-life pregnancy seemed trivial, or even a blessing. I was looking forward to becoming a new father again and Myra was about to make a prenatal appointment with her gynecologist, when she began a heavy, crampy, menstrual period. She miscarried, and we both felt an acute sense of loss. So far, it's just our secret, but we mourn the child we lost.

I'm still in love with Claire but with the perspective of age I recognize it for what it is. It's a complex mix of fraternal love, lust, and longtime friendship. Our relationship is frozen in amber because she is the mother of my daughter Jillian, and Jillian's soon-to-be step-father is my best friend Rich. As they say, it's complicated.

As far as I know, Jillian and our other adult children are innocent of any of our lake house doings, or Claire's and my latter day one-night stand. We intend to keep it that way.

*****

That's the end of this story and I hope you've enjoyed it. It was fun to write and it more or less turned out like I'd planned, but I've learned fictional characters can take on a life of their own and start calling the shots, so what's an author to do? I've got other stories with new characters in the works. Thanks for reading. Your comments are gratefully received but remember, it's just amateur fiction.

Thanks to those who have written and offered suggestions. If you write me, include your email address and I'll answer back.