Chapter 3
Roger Harper closed the textbook and placed it on the small table next to his bed. Then he clicked off the bed lamp. He sighed, hoping that sleep, which he badly needed, might come to him now. He stretched his long, hard, naked body, then relaxed it and locked his hands behind his head. There was only darkness in the intern's room that he shared with Jack Belton. Only darkness, and the deeper darkness of his own thoughts.
Immediately after finishing the duty shift that ended at midnight, Roger had gone to his room. He had tried to sleep. It was impossible. Then he had read for hours, shifting his interest to a variety of books, all of which concerned medicine, a few of which teased his mind toward a decision on the specialization he would pursue. But this, as most of his life had been lately, was undecided, in limbo, it seemed, until he had tasted more of the various departments of an intern's training.
Rog lifted one bare foot. He curled his toes around the sheet that lay rumpled at the foot of his bed, then he carefully drew it upward until he could grasp it with his hand and adjust it over his waist. Now, he was only partially nude, he thought, not raw and open to every temptation, every inducement of the many that were always available in a hospital. Now he thought about that, about temptations and what they meant to his career as a doctor. He didn't like the thoughts. Always, they were in too much conflict with the other things of himself, the things of life and living that he, like a priest taking his vows, had cast aside in order to face his chosen profession.
But it didn't have to be that way, he thought. It wasn't for the others, not Jack Belton or any of the interns he knew. Why him? Why this devotion to duty? Was it phony, meant to cover up something of his life that needed hiding? Was it? What about that?
No, Rog decided, it was not this or any of these things. It was a simple matter of energy. He didn't have enough of it for both a life of personal living and a life of medical service. And this was why the restlessness had been with him from the beginning of his internship, the restlessness that was a natural occurrence after years of college and medical school, after study and examinations and waiting for results, after sleepless nights and sleep-drugged days, after the constant struggle for tuition and fees and laboratory charges.
Yet, it was natural to feel restless and letdown he told himself. And if it affected him more than others, if he bounded back from fatigue slower than the others, well, that was his problem, it had nothing to do with medicine.
Or did it? he corrected his thought. Was medicine concerned with the way he had been feeling, for the restlessness and flightiness, the tiredness and not give-a-damness-anymore that he had been experiencing? Then he was sure that it was this.
Roger sighed and remembered his enthusiasm when he had started his internship. But enthusiasm, for him, for many of the others, had been short-lived when they found Amos Fiken and his niece, Mona, in charge of a hospital which was in turn charged with the health responsibilities of thousands. They were too odd for medicine, for hospitals, for the care of infants and the aged and for all those in between who might be sick or hurt or hopeless. They seemed too secretive, too politically alert, too concerned with each other to allow them concern for the strangers who filled the wards.
Rog held this thought for a long time. From it, bad as it was, he found a little hope and felt better for having found it. Everyone, and all the hospitals, were not like Riverdale and its personnel, he decided. But then he chided himself for rationalizing and was reminded of his own harsh principles that demanded that no hospital should be like Riverdale, that no administrators should be like Amos and Mona Fiken.
The darkness of the night seemed to close around him as he continued to stare straight ahead through the darkened room. But there, very suddenly, it was no longer dark. A flash of light sliced its way through the room as the door opened a bit and closed quickly and silently.
For a moment, Roger thought that he had been dreaming, that he had finally drifted off, but just as quickly as he thought of it he banished it from his mind. It had been too quick. He had not been sleeping. Or dreaming. He had been thinking.
"That you, Jack?" Rog called.
There was no answer. But there was the very decided shuffle of movement and it headed in the direction of his bed. And with it there was the scent of hospital and perfume, that combination of seduction and antiseptic that seemed a part of every female who had anything to do with a hospital.
"Hey, what the hell?" he called, and started to push up from the bed.
"Shhhhhh," a soft, feminine voice cautioned.
Roger would not be shushed. He pushed up and was just reaching for the switch of the bed lamp when the crush of a starched, crinkly uniform pressed against his bare chest.
Then he lay back on the bed. Then he knew who it was that had broken the solitude of his lonely room.
There was a giggle, then the soft words and sweet breath of Susan Crisp whispering an inch from his mouth.
"Hi," she said. "Surprised?"
"I'm always surprised by things that happen around this damn place," he answered gruffly.
She giggled again, then said, "and to think you thought I was Jack."
"Haven't you ever heard of knocking on a man's door, before you enter."
"Never."
"Well, get some manners."
"Jeeps, what a grouch tonight." she said. "And it's not very flattering, Dr. Harper. Heavens, after the other day in the exam room I figured you'd be over all this crab you've had on lately."
"I'm not."
"So I see."
Roger turned toward her but could not see her clearly in the darkness. But he felt her presence, the reality of the contact her body made with his, and the sense of its outline so close to him. He breathed deeply, taking in the scent of her and enjoying it even as he questioned his own responses to her sudden appearance in his room. And again he wondered about the confused matters of his life; again he wondered why he should restrain himself from anyone, or anything, because of medicine or anything else in the world. Then he turned and faced the darkened outline of Susan's face.
The form moved close and he felt her lips search, then find his. He responded to it, even raised one hand and stretched the fingers around her head in order to pressure her kiss closer and hotter to his lips.
But the kiss lasted less than a second. Then Susan drew back, sighed, and the rustle of her uniform became a little distant from him.
"Just a sec, darling," she said, the words strained from her heavy and quickened breathing. "I want to check the door."
Roger felt the form draw further away, then rise, then turn and move across the room. He heard the lock click then click again as it was tried. Then he heard the rustle of starched cloth again, but this time it did not come close to him. It seemed to remain by the door, pausing, perhaps looking in his direction. It seemed eerie.
"Susan," he called.
There was no answer.
"Susan, what the hell, why don't you answer?"
"I'm right here, darling," she said a little breathlessly.
"What the devil are you doing anyway?"
"Just-waiting. Enjoying waiting for a moment."
Roger pushed more upright in the bed. He strained his eyes to see across the pitch dark room, but he could not. And again he had a sense of mystery, the feeling that there was something more peculiar about Susan Crisp than her racing promiscuity.
The spell was broken bv the sound of rustling material again. It was different, but still unmistakably that of Susan's uniform. And it did not come near him. Instead, it remained by the door. But then, suddenly, at exactly the same time that Susan sighed, the sound moved near him, still different and lighter sounding.
When Susan reached the side of Roger's bed, he knew that she had undressed, that she had carried her clothing across the room. And then the sound ceased altogether when he heard it fall to the floor, crinkle a last time, then go silent. And then he was not concerned with noises, with mysteries. Then he was aware only that Susan Crisp was again kneeling at the side of his bed. He felt the jolt of his aroused masculinity beneath the sheet that covered him. It shocked him a little. He was tired, disinclined for Susan, or anyone, detached even from the sex she offered. But still he had reacted immediately and hotly to her presence.
Susan's hand reached out and cupped his cheek.
"Darling," she softly breathed. "Turn to me, darling." He did.
"Now let me have your mouth, darling," she whispered. "Come close and give me your mouth-everything-as much as you can give me of every part of you."
It seemed strange to be kissing her in the dark, Roger thought. Strange, and more stimulating than when he had blazed his manhood into her in the cool and clinical examination room. Maybe that was why he seemed more ready for her now. Perhaps it was because here in the darkness she could be removed from his profession, set aside from pain and sorrow.
Susan gave a little cry and pulled her mouth away from Roger's. Then she moved up from where she was kneeling at the side of the bed. In a second, Roger knew the impact of her naked body as it lowered next to him on the bed, as it lengthened, remained apart from him for an instant-an instant that intensified his desire for her-then crushed close to all of his flesh.
"Ummmm, that's good, darling," Susan whispered. "It's so good to be close to you-to feel your body close to mine-to be able to have all of you like this."
She turned her face toward him. There was a moment's confusion when their readjusted kiss missed lips, but they recovered quickly and crushed their mouths together. And then, for Roger, there was the sensation of her body burrowing against him, nuzzling and busy in its effort to make contact with every part of him, all at the same time. Roger felt her breasts crushing against his chest, her round belly rippling against his, and he felt her thighs-her anxious, wanton thighs, coming close to him until that throbbing strength of him soared and probed and touched at her at that downy apex.
Susan's body began to shake with anxiety. Her tongue began to shoot deeper into his mouth. Her hands went around his back and began to massage at the small of it. touching him at places that he didn't know existed, at places that charged him with the fluidity of energy which seemed meant for extraction. And Rog found his arms around Susan too as they pressed their bodies close together. He touched at her back, then lowered his hands and gripped her buttocks. He pinched and kneaded them and rotated them in opposite directions, in circles that seemed to excite her very much, that caused her to writhe and torture her body even closer to him.
When their mouths again parted, Roger felt Susan's right hand come away from his back, creep over his hip, then squeeze its way between their bodies. It paused. The fingers tapped a little movement, then darted low, paused, and finally reached out and grasped his now-frenzied masculinity.
"Ummmm!" Rog could not help replying to her touch.
"Do you like that, darling?" Susan asked, whispering still, saying it as if she had no concern for herself but wanted only to please him.
"Yes," he sighed.
"And this, do you like this, too, Rog?" She circled him for a moment, then paused and squeezed hard, biting her fingernails into his flesh, then holding them there.
He did not answer her with words. Instead, he brought his own hand from her back and worked it over her breasts, first one, then the other, kneading each of them, pinching a bit, too, and brushing against the nipples until they grew hard and very hot and seemed to throb in identical unity with the rest of her body.
As their hands played and their mouths re-met for new kisses and the sweep of tongues they implored to each other, as Roger felt himself gripped and caressed and stimulated at the same time that he sought to draw the optimum of thrill for Susan by his play upon her breasts, he had a semi-awareness of the things outside their small world of darkness and thrill. He heard the public address system cackle its announcements. He heard the movement of bodies as they passed outside the door. He heard the soft roll of emergency stretchers as wheels moved to the speed of the orderly who pushed them. Occasionally, there was a voice, or sometimes laughter, and very often the muted conversation of several people. And all of it transferred an attitude of activity, rush, intense interest and response to the call of the sick and injured and hopeless.
Susan sneaked her hand higher upon Roger. She stopped at the very base of him, then stretched her fingers long and caught him in a longer, full-fisted grip. He returned the touch, moved his hand from her breasts to her belly to her thighs where they delayed while she moved, then darted within her womanly softness.
Susan moaned. The sound was heady and far away although her mouth was clamped to Roger's as she breathed it. And immediately, she began a new, stretching motion upon his body, one that he answered at once by a quick flutter of fingers that delicately indented at the same time that they circled upon a higher, more intense plateau of feminine response.
But Roger could not keep the rest of the world away from their room, from the darkness, from the thrill of their hands moving, their bodies pressing together, their mouths trading tongue-kisses their teeth occasionally clicking as they moved to a new position of giving. He could not keep the world, or the hospital world, out of his room, his mind, or even clear of the contact his body made with Susan's. And it seemed cruel and unfair. It seemed a conspiracy by the world to thwart his attempts at satisfaction and excitement.
And then he made a mighty and harsh effort to subdue all the rest to know the individuality of Susan Crisp. He growled a mean sound, pulled his mouth away from hers, then with a hunger and anger that had never before been a part of him, he forced her to her back. Her arms shot around his neck. He raised a bit. He shifted. He knocked his knees against hers in the scramble that their legs made as they fought for the adjustment that was necessary for greater closeness, ultimate unity of their bodies. And then, as if by magic, as if he had traveled through a period of no-feeling, he was there, above her, touching, finding, adjusting again, feeling her own adjustment, feeling the quiver of her thighs as they sought both to hold him and free him for movement, hearing her harsh, anxious breathing, thinking that it was different, that it had changed, then realizing that this was not so, that the changed sound was only his own exerted breathing sounds mixing with those of Susan's.
Susan's hands shifted to his hips. They were gentle, but firm for guiding. And then he was drawing back, pausing, then slowly lowering, descending, moving closer and closer and closer to that warm, comforting cradle of femininity that Susan raised to meet him. And then, miraculously, it seemed to Roger, they were touching, pausing a moment to know the ignited thrill of contact before a greater, more thorough, and dynamically descending contact was made. Then he was making it, touching and beginning to lower, feeling the clutch of her moist warmth that held him fully, that caressed every part of him as they came together. Sudden joy ripped through Roger's body and for that scant instant the world and the hospital blacked-out of his being. But then, tragically, it was returned to him again as a scrape and click sounded at the door.
Their bodies tensed, then shot away from each other as a slice of hall light split the room.
Roger caught only a glimpse of his roommate's face. It was enough to reveal the shock that coursed through all of Jack Belton's body. The young intern's body stiffened. The keys he held froze midway in their downward path to his pocket. His mouth hung open. His eyes darted from Susan to Roger, then smiled at their naked bodies.
"Well I'll be goddamned," Jack whispered.
Then he closed the door and Roger knew that he was moving toward Susan and himself. And then there was his friend's voice again, closer this time.
"Why, Rog, you old son-of-a-gun, I wouldn't have believed it. Of this little chick here, yes, but you-man-never. But I'm glad to see it-honest I am-glad as all get out."
Roger wanted to reply to his roommate's words, but he could not. He was beyond words, too far gone along the path of erotic endeavor to find any words that might answer the things his mind wanted to shout. He felt lost and hopeless and a little frightened. Not of Jack Belton, but of himself, frightened of the quick change that had come over him, of that switch that had been so easily made between two opposite poles. Roger had become afraid of himself, for within seconds he had lost principles, shunned conscientiousness, laughed at conventions and morality and had traded them all for the things of the flesh.
Jack laughed softly. Then there was the noise that Roger had heard when Susan had entered the room; the sound of starched uniform being removed. He didn't care now. He even welcomed it with a new tremor of thrill that shot throughout his body.
"Well, ole' buddy," Jack said. "If you don't mind-and if little ole' Susan here doesn't mind, I just think I might avail myself of this fifteen minute break I'm on."
Roger straightened in the bed. Then he heard himself saying words that were foreign and not a part of himself, words that had somehow become a part of him.
"Sure, Jack, join the grab, what the hell, there's enough for everybody."
Roger felt Susan alert next to him. He sensed her head turning to look at him, to express the shock she felt. And at the same time Rog sensed Jack staring at him with a new expression of awe. And then, in the very next second, he knew that both Susan and Jack had relaxed their expressions, that they had turned hapny and gay and had accepted the changed Roger Harper with enthusiasm.
In a moment, Jack, too, was nude. He moved around the bed and climbed in on the side next to Susan, placing her in the middle of the interns, like meat in a sandwich.
"Hey, what the hell, this is going to be more complicated than I thought," Jack said.
"No it isn't," Roger assured him, the words still sounding foreign.
"Of course not," Susan said, suddenly coming to life, speaking for the first time since Jack had entered the room.
There was a pause. There was silence. Then there was the sound and feeling of movement as Susan turned her back to Roger, scooted down in the bed a bit, jutted her hips upward to him as she dipped her head toward the prone Jack Belton.
"I'll be goddamned," Jack said. "Man-am I ever goddamned."
"Me too," Roger said as he gripped Susan's buttocks, raised her, lurched forward, attained her and continued his onward drive at the exact time that the front of her bobbed in oral giving to the other intern.