Chapter 1
Except for the occasional gush of flushing water in the bathrooms beyond, the sterile white walls of Washington Memorial Rehabilitation Ward echoed nothing. The cries of mental anguish had silenced after eight o'clock medication. The janitor had long since left after having buffed the hallway to a mirror glass polish as if no one had ever scuffed that dreary stretch from the patients' lounge to the sleeping wards beyond.
To the right of the deserted game tables and silent television a diffused light yellowed the nurses' station, safely encased in a glass cage with a sliding reception window to restrict face-to-face communication with the patients. At the desk sat Amy Hanson, night nurse, flipping through a dog-eared Vogue magazine. Usually two nurses sat out the night watch, but Mill Dobson had telephoned in ill and night shift replacements on short notice was delicate choosing. That dreary solitary vigil might have irked other nurses, but not Amy. She was inured to being alone.
A few doors beyond the nurses' station and down the darkened hall in the employees' lounge, snoring interspersed with little bird whistles added its own sleepy rhythm to the night. The darkened shadows hid the coal blackness of Satchmo Jones slumped against the wall, a half empty pint of whiskey adding weight to his dragging coat pocket. A jazz musician from New Orleans, he'd come north to Chicago during the Depression to find work, but his gutsy horn didn't match Old Town's svelte style. Everybody knew Satchmo took to the bottle, but he'd been in the rehabilitation ward so long story had it he'd once been a patient there himself. Only Satchmo knew the truth, and he was seldom sober enough to tell.
The patients in Ward B warmed to the man, something about his soft-shoed shuffle and Cajun wit added a sparkle to the gloom of endless white and endless time, marked only by meals and medications. For some that slender demarcation was of little consequence-one routine traded for another-but no home bodies, these. Criminals, convicted of sex crimes-rape, incest, pathological homosexuals who added color (shady though it was) to these sterile surrounds.
All of the male patients in Ward B had been sent here under judge's order for psychological testing to ascertain whether their anti-social behavior was permanent or a temporary kink in their psyche. A raucous, foul-mouthed bunch they were, playing poker, gambling for cigarettes, driving the nurses to tears with their disgusting, filthy talk. A few knife fights had erupted here, and the day guard bore a scar on his forehead to prove it. Satchmo's shift was respected as reverently as mass to an Irish Catholic; they treated that old drunkard like the Pope himself.
The clock's hand slithered up to the three and Amy Hanson lifted her lithe arms above her head, stretching the crimped muscles in her slender neck, the full weight of her melonous bosom stretching the tight nylon of her white nurse's uniform popping the top button. The shadowy valley of her creamy cleavage opened to the night and the white lace of her brassiere that cupped her puffy nipples peeked out. Quickly, her clearly lacquered nails closeted those milky mounds. God knew she had enough problems trying to keep these dirty animals in line without flaunting her bosom!
Her delicate fist cupped a yawn as she rose from the chair, poured herself a cup of coffee and dumped in a teaspoon of sugar stirring it. The old saying that people who craved sweets craved affection ran through her head; maybe true of others, but not Amy. Her freckled nose wrinkled as she took the first acrid sip and, with a sigh that hinted at weariness, she settled back in the chair and rummaged through the magazine rack for something unread ... a near impossibility. She perused the New Yorker, reading the jokes with tight-lipped humor.
Tonight was unusually peaceful. Nobody woke up screaming and Butch wasn't walking in his sleep. Even Josh, the six foot three Black man arrested for his ponderous and physically abusing his working girls, was causing no ruckus.
A good night for magazines and coffee.
Had Amy been outside of her cage she might have noticed the little bird whistles had been replaced by the shuffling footsteps of Satchmo Jones lumbering down the hallway, his black eyes shot through with red as he made his nightly raid of the employee's communal refrigerator. He neared the nurse's station, paused and peered within, making certain that Nurse Hanson had her nose buried in a magazine. A strange woman, that one.
Satchmo scratched the white wool of his hair and shook his head. When God passed out the looks, he sure as hell gave Miss Amy her share. Skin so creamy and white you wanted to dip a spoon into it. Tiny brown freckles splattered over her arms with a few scarce ones on her cheeks. Why she wore those strawberry curls up in an old maid's pug, pulled back tight as her cracked smile, he couldn't understand. And those silver grey eyes that never smiled. What a sorry waste! Satchmo snickered to himself. Ah, the stories he'd heard about that woman would make a nun's ears burn. The ward had taken bets on whether those breasts were all Miss Amy ... and by God, he'd like to be the one who ran the test! Satchmo's shoulders rounded and he slouched on by, moving rhythmically as if to the tune of an old Dixie beat. He disappeared into the refreshment room beyond her station, rubbing his stomach with a gnarled hand. Maybe Nurse Henshaw had left half a sandwich ...
Out of the corner of one silver eye, Amy noticed the dark shadow of Satchmo making his nightly raid on the refrigerator. Nobody cared, really. If the old man could get his kicks out of eating somebody's stale sandwich, let him have his fun.
Fun ...? She smiled bitterly. What was that?
Amy glanced up at the institutional clock and sighed heavily. This crazy schedule of staying up all night and sleeping all day jumbled things up, but was not without compensations. Night had turned into a black stretch of bad memories and cold sheets. Not since Joe had she ...
Joe ... Her throat constricted dryly. The empty pit in her stomach knotted at the thought of him. Two years should have been enough time to ease the pain. Not so. Fate had shorted her of happiness, lending her Joe for five measly years ... five years of frivolity, arguments and making up afterwards, tears and laughter, love and ... sex.
She ached for the essence of him. The way he threw his clothes in a corner and doused himself with too much cologne ... the motorcycle rides in the country. A stifled moan escaped her reddened lips. That damned motorcycle. She choked up. A Sunday afternoon ride on Highway One ... fallen dirt eroded from the cliffs muddied with early morning fog ... a hairpin turn ... the gust of wind ... and he was gone. Poof. Dream ended. Sorry lady.
Two years of celibacy droned on. Time to take a lover? Oh, there had been one or two ... Dr. Kildran from Ward C and, another man ... a renter in her apartment building, but all they wanted was sex, minus love and commitment. In the interim, her hand had sufficed, sorry substitute that it was. That weakness in herself disgusted her.
Amy set down her magazine and stared silently into space, her body suddenly coming alive from caffeine and the sodden memory of being a woman in love ... sexually vibrant and wanting. Her sweating palms clasped onto the chair's arms, as she recalled how those same hands had lovingly grasped Joe's long hard penis, pumping it until it pulsed with life, brushing its shiny naked head against the moistly swollen lips of her hungry vagina. Poising it there, teasing. OH, how he loved that ... the way she grabbed his hot maledom and stuck it up inside herself. That was the beauty of it, Joe always revved her into a wild mood; sometimes he used his fingers, sometimes his mouth, tasting her, sampling her femininity as if it were a delicate appetizer.
Oh, and the gasp of pleasure he gave out when he levered his fuzzy chest over her soft breasts and dove into her, thundering his cock into her vagina, making her squeal with delight and blush with shame at her own lewdness! He would plumb into the center of her womanhood until she felt his rubbery crown flick past her cervix while his bloated testicles spanked hard into the soft, hairless cleft between her upturned buttocks cheeks. What woman could ask for more from a man?
Joe was a man who could turn a lady, a feminine, frail being, into a jungle lioness, making her mouth four-letter words and think nasty thoughts. Oh, and he would shove his finger into her puckered rectum, bringing another squeal of pain that time turned into a squeal of ecstasy ... in that shattering moment right before she climaxed with him ... always cumming together. "I love you, I love you, I love you ... " the endless mantra of orgasm chimed on, bells dying in Amy's ringing ears as she glared into space, gently shaking her head to abjure it of palling memories too sweet for reality and too quickly embittered with age.
Amy gulped down a swig of coffee, pulling herself free of memories, but the uncomfortable fullness in her loins and the slipperiness that seeped out of her hungry, neglected vagina didn't listen to the dictates of time. She roused herself, thinking:
Not again! I can't let myself get morose and all worked up ... there's nothing I can do about it ... Joe's dead. Dead! But she needed a man's body rubbing up against her own. She winced at the paltry substitute, staring down at her own fingers. She blushed even as she thought about what they had done. It seemed so artificial, so deliberate, to just go ahead and use her hand for relief every time she felt herself feeling empty and hot.
The morning inched on and when the sun hung vibrant in the gray sky, Amy tided up the desk, washed out her coffee cup and headed down the hallway, Satchmo Jones trailing behind her, his reddened eyes locked on the nylon shimmer of Amy Hanson's fabulous legs. He wiped away a thread of spittle with the back of his aged hand and licked his lips.
Jesus, to have those sexy legs locked around his neck while his rejuvenated black cock pounded into her pussy ... or maybe he'd take her from behind. Naw, Nurse Amy wasn't liberated enough for that.
"Mornin' Miss Amy," he tipped his hat and left her at the exit door.