Chapter 9
The Nurse and the 'veteran
Josie B. is a nurse in a large veteran's hospital. She engaged in her first act of coition at the age of 20, while employed at the hospital. The unique situation surrounding Josie's first sexual intercourse were revealed when a check was made on one of the patients in a ward served by Josie's workshift.
The following transcription is taken from a tape recording supplied to us by the chief staff psychiatrist, who was responsible for conducting the original investigation.
My name is Josie B. I am 20 years of age, Negro, 5 feet 7 inches tall and weigh 120 pounds. I attended college for two years before beginning my career as a nurse. I have been employed at this hospital for one year. I understand that the information that I am about to give is completely private, and that it will not be used for any purpose except scientific research, and that if the information is utilized in that manner, I am guaranteed complete anonymity. (Note: This was done-the name "Josie B." is a pseudonym).
I shall first admit to having had sexual relations with a patient of this hospital. I am aware that this was strictly against the policy of this hospital as well as against the basic precepts of nursing. I hope, however, that before any punitive action is taken I will be granted the right to tell my story from beginning to end.
Last winter a patient was assigned to the third floor, eighth ward, room seven. His name is Roger (surname deleted to protect the identity of the patient). He was at that time a member of the U.S. Army, although he has been awarded a medical discharge since that time. Roger is a Negro, age 23.
Now that I'm through rattling off the bare facts, Doctor, I'd like to get down to the real nitty-gritty of it. Then, after you hear my story, if you honestly feel that I should be dismissed from my job, I'll gladly accept your decision.
When Roger was shipped in here last winter he had just returned from an extended tour of duty in Viet Nam. He was assigned to this particular ward because of the kind of injury he had. Do you know what kind of injury Roger has, Doctor? Well he's a paraplegic. He has certain peculiarities connected with his injury that make his physical disability a little different from the average paraplegic, but I'll get into that matter later. First I want you to know about how Roger felt emotionally and mentally.
For the first week Roger was here in my ward, he did not have one word to say to anybody. He did what was asked of him. But he never initiated any conversation with either the other patients or with the staff, and he asked for no favors.
The first time I ever saw him display any emotion was one morning when he was reading the newspaper after breakfast. He held it in front of his eyes for a short period of time, then broke into tears. I knew that it might embarrass him, but I felt it was my duty to help him in any way that I could. I went to his bedside and asked if he would tell me what was wrong. He looked up at me with tired, sad eyes and said, "The war's wrong, that's what's wrong. I guess you think maybe a man like me, he's pretty bad off, huh? Well, I think so too, sometimes. Look here, you see that poor boy's picture in the paper here? This paper's from my home town, Detroit. You know why this boy have his picture in the paper? 'Cause he ain't comin' back, that's why."
I could see that Roger was very disturbed about the picture in the paper, but since he was at least talking-something he had not done any time before-I thought that it might better to just let him talk. And as I stood and watched him speak, Doctor, I'll admit that I felt a certain attraction for him. He was a good-looking man. Big, wide shoulders and regular features. I don't know whether you could have called the first attraction I felt for Roger a physical attraction or not Maybe so. I'm not denying it I'm only saying I don't know for sure.
Roger went on talking about the war. "This boy," he continued, "is a boy I know for somethin' on to eight or ten year. He two or three years younger than me. I don't know for sure. What I do know, though, that his daddy before him was killed in World War II. Now he the only man left in the family. The law say no boy go into service if he be last survivin' member of the family. But when this boy get his draft notice, he and his mammy they go up to the big office and wait about three hour just to get in an' talk to the man, you understand what I mean? Then they is told some kind of shit 'bout, 'yeah, that the way the rule generally is, but this time they some kind of exemption to the law.
"Yeah, some kind of exemption, the man says. Well, it don't make no sense, but they know they got to do what the law say, so this boy, he go straight out o' boot camp right up to the front line. Now I find out he got killed. Now you know how he got killed?"
Suddenly Roger interrupted himself and asked me, "What your name, nurse? Here I am fillin' your ear fulla this bullshit and I don't even know your name."
I told Roger my name and he nodded acknowledgment with a worn smile, then went on. "Now the way this boy got killed is, he got his head blowed off by some Viet Cong, they calls 'em. But you know who these Viet Cong is? Well, they boys been pulled out o' their house and been given a gun just like this boy here with his picture in the paper. And may be that this Viet Cong, his old man been killed in a war too, right? And his mammy, she ain't got no other men folks 'round to help her out any more than this boy's mammy in Detroit. Yet they out there shootin' at one 'nother. So this time it turn out to be the 'merican boy, next time it turn out to be the Cong boy. But they ain't no difference, you see? These boys all the same out there on the battlefield. They don't know one 'nother. They ain't got no scrap with one 'nother."
Then Roger put the paper down. "But they out there killin' each other, anyways. So I guess I don't have no beef just 'cause I never be able to walk the rest of my life. I alive, anyways. Now what more a man ought to expect than be alive, huh?"
That's the first and last time I ever heard Roger mention the war in any way. I could never even get him to tell me how he had been injured. But I'll never forget the words he had to say about the Detroit boy. During that short conversation, I think I grew to love Roger right there on the spot. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I think maybe I just fell in love with him right there. He seemed so gentle and so concerned about other people. If I had never seen him again I don't think I ever would have forgotten him But, of course I did see him again. And that's why I'm in your office now.
I guess from what I just told you about falling in love with Roger, I'd better tell you about my earlier life. Well, I grew up in the slums, but I made it out, and I got me an education and a job. Take Roger. Now, he doesn't have any education to speak of, but I don't hold that against him, because I know how hard it is to get out of the slums once you're born there. Inside, where it counts, Roger has a heart of gold. That's what counts.
I was used to rough living all my life at home. My daddy beat my momma up a lot, and we always had three or four relatives living with us. The cops were always coming around to bug us about something we never knew anything about. The doorway was always full of bill collectors and such.
When I was a girl, men were nothing but trouble. Most of them were living off their wives because they couldn't get a decent job, and all that kind of stuff. If my daddy or my brothers ever called me, I knew it was to be whipped, because that's all I ever got from them. Oh, I had a few boyfriends from time to time, but I could tell I was going to have to pick up and get out of the slums before I could ever make anything of myself.
Now, I know you think I'm getting longwinded, Doctor, but please hear me out. I swear that every thing I'm saying to you has a bearing on my case. I know about some of what you al ready heard, and I want to make sure that you hear it my way too.
They told you I had sex with a patient. Well, that's true. I'm not denying it. It was Roger. That's why I'm telling you so much about both our backgrounds. But the main thing, I guess, was Roger's injury. You know how paraplegics can be affected in different ways? Well, Roger's affliction is a fairly unusual kind of paraplegia. He can't ever expect to move his legs again, of course. But that's all that's messed up on him below the belt, Doctor, if you understand what I mean.
I'll tell you how I first found it out. You see, Roger, he never knew any difference either until we accidentally discovered it one day. I was re-making the beds in Roger's room. Well, when I rolled Roger over to make one side of his bed, I naturally had to bend down over him.
You know what happened then? Roger got a big erection on him. And him a paraplegic! It was a surprise for both of us, because afterward Roger said he thought his penis would never be any good, any more than his legs would. I would never have noticed it if it hadn't been for the way he acted. I don't want you to think that I was just standing there staring at his hard penis, because I wasn't. But as I was putting the last tuck into his bed clothes, I noticed Roger was looking down toward his waist with his eyes as big as a silver dollar.
I asked him what was the matter-I thought maybe I left a pin in his bed or something. Who knows? He looked at me like it was Christmas morning under the big tree and he said, "Ain't nothin' the matter. Everything just right!" Then I saw where he was looking and realized what had happened because his penis was still hard. It wasn't sticking out of his pajamas or anything like that, but it was big enough that I could see the outline of it through his pajamas.
I'm sure that normally Roger would have been very embarrassed about getting an erection right in front of me, Doctor, but under the circumstances, he was too happy to be embarrassed. Besides, he knew I was a nurse and everything. He knew I'd seen everything there was to see before he ever came along. He told me, "I ain't had me a hard on since way before my last operation!" Said he was so dejected about it that he never even asked the doctors who operated on him about it. Claimed he could just tell by how it felt to him that it never would be no good for him, and didn't feel like asking the doc to tell him something he already knew.
Well, it made me feel so proud-after all, I was the one that made him get his erection-that I just up and kissed on the head out of pure joy for him and I said, "you're going to be all right! You hear me, you're going to be all right. You may not ever have any use of your legs, but you got something back you didn't know you could get, now didn't you?" And I slapped him on the shoulder. Now, I want you to know, Doctor, that when I kissed him it wasn't any mad, passionate love kiss. It was just a friendly thing to do, you understand?
Every day after that Roger would call me his "angel of mercy" and joke with me about it. It really made me feel good to see him change his outlook. He was usually awfully quiet, but after that happened, he started talking a lot more. Not just to me, but to everybody. Everybody in the room noticed the change in him. Of course, there weren't many who knew the reason for it, but I figured that it was his own business.
The next thing that happened was when they opened up the new hospital wing and made that place to put all diabetics together in the same ward. It happened that all the other patients in Roger's room were diabetics so the first thing Roger knew, he had the whole room to himself.
From then on whenever I went into Roger's room, no one could see me except some other nurse who happened by. And I always knew where all of them were. I don't want you to think that I was planning anything, Doctor, because I wasn't. It was just that the situation was a lot freer. If I had wanted to plan something, I could have done it.
One night I had the late night shift and all the patients were asleep, including Roger. Once, as I went past his room, I thought I heard a groaning noise coming from there, so I stopped in to check on him. When I walked in, he was lying on his back with a big smile on his face and he was moving his lips. You know how people do when they're dreaming. He wasn't saying anything out loud, just moving his lips.
When I went over closer I could see Roger's penis sticking all the way out through his fly! I would have just gone on out, Doctor, really I would have. But then, I noticed something else. Roger was beginning to move his upper body in a kind of rhythm. Of course, he couldn't move the lower part of his body, because it was paralyzed. The more I stood there and looked at him, the sorrier I felt for him. Finally he was almost crying in his sleep for need of relief, but his lower body just refused to .cooperate. Yet his big penis-his hard on-was standing up there trying its best to make something happen. It was heartbreaking to watch a man. suffer like that, awake or asleep. That's when I knew I had to do it, Doctor. I walked out in the lobby to make sure no one was coming, then I went back into his room and walked right over and took hold of his big black penis. You may not believe this, doctor, but I don't care whether you do or not, because it's true. The fact is that I was still a virgin at 20 years old. Oh, I'd necked a lot with guys while I was growing up, but I had been sure never to let them go all the way. I wanted to save myself for the man I married.
I'd never had a man's penis in my hands before in my life. Seen them, yes-had a hold of them, no. As soon as I took Roger's penis in my hand I was afraid he might wake up, but he didn't. When I saw that he wouldn't wake up, I felt a little more confident. I started giving him the business. I slipped my hand up and down his penis. And I kept doing it until he spurted. I didn't mind cleaning it up, it was so good for me to see him relaxed and breathing easy again.
Next morning he said to me, "Angle of mercy, I had one hell of a dream last night."
I didn't say a word.
He continued, "I dreamed you and me was up on a big ferris wheel goin' roun' and roun' in the sky."
When he mentioned me and him being in the same dream, I was worried that maybe he hadn't been quite asleep when I'd been playing with his penis. But then when we said the part about the ferris wheel, I felt relieved. It was just any old dream, after all.
Then Roger said, "I dreamed we had a big box of popcorn, and I was holding it for you in my lap. You were eating out of it while we went around the bottom of the ferris wheel. Then we started on the upswing, and you started grabbing yourself more and more of that old popcorn, until you were reaching and getting it out of the box in my lap just as fast as you could."
He started laughing. "You know what I dreamed then, angel of mercy? Know what I dreamed then?" He was laughing as hard as he could. By that time I had an idea of what must have happened.
"No, I don't know," I said. I couldn't help smiling he was having such an obviously good time.
"If you don't know what happened then, angel of mercy, I can't tell you. I sure can't tell you!" he chortled out loud.
I was pleased to see him in such good spirits. I joshed him, saying, "Excuse me, but I have to go and see what kind of pills that day nurse has been giving you. Whatever they are, they're the wrong kind!"
During the day I had occasion to pass his door several times and each time he saw me he would call out some joke to me. All during the week he seemed to stay in good spirits. I asked the other nurses on other shifts, and they all said that he was behaving the same way during the time that they observed him too.
The next night shift that I had, I went past and found him asleep with a big black hard on again. I didn't even hesitate this time. I had already checked the nurses' positions on the floor, and was satisfied that they wouldn't be near his room. I started sliding my hand up and down his penis and his face started to light up again. Soon he was lying there with a big smile on his face just as he had done the first night I did it for him.
All the rest of the week I did the same thing for him every night, and the day nurses said he was chipper as could be. Finally, I began really getting bold. The next night I went in to his room, I decided I'd do something that I'd been thinking about doing for a long time. I checked the halls again to see how safe they were, then dashed into his room and lifted his penis out of his pajamas. By then I knew what a heavy sleeper he must be, so I'd already given up on him ever waking up in the middle of what I was doing for him. So I took his penis out of his pajamas and stuck it right into my mouth. Now maybe you'll say that isn't any way for a virgin to act, Doctor, but I did it anyway.
Well, before I left that night I had sucked him dry. And I think I enjoyed it as much as he did in his dreams. Although I knew it would be curtains for me if I ever got caught, I was beginning to make quite a habit of servicing him every night I had the chance. The reason, Doctor, was that I loved him, and wanted to make him happy, whether he knew about it or not. I figured a man in his position could not afford to have to think about a wife and kids, because of his disability. I thought that if we did anything in the way of discussing any kind of future, that he'd be bound to get very dejected. And I didn't want to put more troubles on him than he already had. So masturbating him and performing fella-what is that word, Doctor-well, sucking him off, anyway, whatever you call it, was the perfect way to see that my man got what he needed and at the same time to keep him from worrying.
Finally one night something I thought would never happen, did happen. I was in his room sucking him off to beat the band, when a car screeched its tires outside the hospital window and woke him up. Well, he looked down at me with my mouth around his penis and I stared back at him without ever taking my mouth off his penis. I was so surprised and shocked that I didn't know whether to jump or shit. Finally I got control enough to tear my mouth away. I guess he had been about as surprised as I was, because he didn't say a word until I started running for the door of his room.
Then he came to his senses, and he yelled, "Come back here, you beautiful angel. You're not through yet!"
I barely had time to yell as I went out the door, "Don't let it go to your head, you bastard!" and I shot down the hall thanking my stars that ho one saw or heard me. I was so embarrassed I was afraid I'd never be able to face him again.
The next day there was a box of candy on the top of my locker with a note attached. He had evidently had one of the nurses buy it for him, then he had written the note and had someone place it on my locker for me so I'd be sure to find it. All the note said was, in big printed letters, "WE WILL BOTH BE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE IF YOU DON'T COME BACK TO SEE ME." At the bottom he had scrawled his signature, and at the top of the note was, "To my sweet angel."
I thought about it for a while and decided, "Well, what the hell. What do you want for a nickel, anyway?" So I went right in to see him the very next night and I closed the door and locked it that time. I know I was getting awfully saucy, Doctor, to do something like that. But really, what would you have done? We were in love, Doctor. I couldn't just go on living my life as though he didn't exist when all I had to do was walk into a room and find him buck naked with a five-pound hard on!
Okay, so I closed the door. And I locked it. Then I laid it on the line to Roger. I told him that if he meant he loved me when he wrote that note, then that was fine, and if that wasn't what he meant, then he had some explaining to do. He just held out his hands and said, "I knew my angel of mercy would be back!" I ran over to him. I don't know what made me do such a thing, Doctor, but I started stripping off my clothes right down to the bare skin, and he just sat there and grinned. When I had thrown my stockings into the corner, I jumped right up on the bed and neither of us said a word. He had that big old black thing ready for me and I just went right ahead with it like I knew what I was doing. It sure did feel good for me to rub the end of his prick around the front of my vagina. Pretty soon I was so hot that I was all wet and steamy down there.
I reached down and found his hands already at work stuffing his prick into me. His legs might have been shot, but he sure did do good things with his hands. As soon as he was inside me I started rocking back and forth on it, and he started sucking my breasts, first one then another, like he'd never be able to get enough. When he realized he had broken my cherry, he couldn't believe it. He thought I must be sick. When I told him I had been a virgin, he almost cried with joy. I guess he didn't believe me at first. Anyway, that's the way the head nurse found us when she opened the door with the master key. I was stripped naked going up and down on top of Roger and he had a handful of my ass and a mouthful of titty.
So that's all there is to tell, Doctor. I haven't left out a thing and everything I've told you has been the truth. I'd sure like to stay on here, but if you honestly think I've committed an unpardonable sin by doing what I did with Roger, then I'm ready to start packing.
There's just one thing more I want you to know before you make up your mind one way or the other. Roger's been offered a job at an electrical plant splicing wire together. He wouldn't have to use his legs, and he could make pretty good money, considering. I've been scouting around the neighborhood and I've found an apartment we can afford only two blocks from here. And it'd be only four blocks from his work.
PSYCHIATRIST'S ANALYSIS
The very fact that Josie was still a virgin at the age of 20 is in itself rather phenomenal. The best sociological reports available at the present time would indicate odds of approximately 650 to 1 against a girl with Josie's background having remained a virgin that long.
But Josie presents many factors that might account for her virginal status. It seems clear that she is an uncommonly bright girl, and equally clear that she tends to be more candid than many people of whatever socio-economic bracket. Further, it appears that her life before moving out of the slums was so sordid that she may well have developed a reaction complex against bowing to the same fate that everywhere seemed to control the destinies of her friends and neighbors. This drive to better herself may be indirectly responsible for her never having engaged in coitus until later.
Yet, when her intellectual and emotional needs are found to exist side by side with her physical needs, in the crippled Roger, she is not the least bit awkward about taking the bull by the horns and acting in what proved to be her best interests.
Roger's own experience would make him appear to be an unlikely prospect for Josie's affection at first consideration, but he is so quickly and definitely accepted as her lover, that inherent emotional factors below the level of consciousness cannot be discounted. An early indication of possible mutual similarities is seen when Jose is held in such rapt attention by Roger's tirade against the war, and his friend from Detroit who has been killed. Both Josie and Roger seem to be preoccupied with emotional needs as well as material needs.
Statistics are once more in their favor with regard to the matter of Roger's serious malady, paraplegia. The odds are staggering against a paraplegic being able to enjoy penile erection while yet exhibiting all the other symptoms of paraplegia. Yet this is what Roger accomplished, albeit accidentally discovered after he had already given up hope.
A word is in order at this point regarding the dynamics of the couple's sexual involvement. Note that Josie sees Roger's paraplegia not primarily as a physical defect, but rather as a reason for lavishing increased attentions upon him. One gets the impression from Josie's statements that their discovery of Roger's potency was nothing more than a happy accident, and that marriage might have conceivably ensued even if the discovery had not been made ... at least from Josie's point of view. Roger's thoughts on the subject are another matter, for until Josie begins to perform sexual intimacies upon his sleeping body, Roger is extremely morose and despondent.
And the fact that the security-seeking Josie is willing to risk her job in order to participate in sexual activities with Roger is even more difficult to explain. On the one hand she desperately requires the security of her job in order to keep from having to return to the hated slums of her childhood, but on the other hand she is ready to gamble her hard-won employment on a sex episode with Roger.
As for her job being saved for her, it was up to me to decide whether to retain her services or to dispense with them. After taking all the facts into consideration-including some pretty conclusive reasons for firing her, I had little difficulty in arriving at an affirmative decision. The fact that she could have risen so far above her origins, and yet have retained many of the fundamental tenets of her earlier life in the ghetto meant to me that she possessed an uncommon amount of versatility. And that is a quality which every employer seeks. Yet it is illuminating to reflect upon the fact that all these many conjectures are based, directly or indirectly, upon the initial sexual intercourse participated in by the subject.