Zoey yawned and stretched in her bed, then
sat up with a sigh. The room was pitch black, but it usually was when she
wakened for her overnight shift, especially after one of her twelve hour
shifts. She reached out to the bedside table and turned on the light there. It
was only twenty five watts but she still had to shield her eyes and look away
as her pupils adjusted.
She dressed quickly and quietly, then left
her room, noting the closed door to Beth's room as she went down the hall and
then downstairs to the kitchen. Beth worked days, and usually their time in the
house overlapped in the evening, but that was when she was doing a normal eight
hour shift, like tonight. When she did twelve hour shifts they hardly even saw
each other.
Coffee. She needed coffee. The machine was
already bubbling, and she silently thanked Beth for setting it up for her. She
got her coffee, then trotted back upstairs to the main bathroom.
She stripped and quickly showered, dried
herself, then worked on her hair. At twenty three she didn't need a lot of
makeup, and the ER wasn't really the place to pretty herself up for anyway.
Though there was always the occasional hot doctor...
Not so much on the overnight shift, though.
Tonight it would be Michaels, who was okay, but already balding at thirty, and
married as well, and Sikh, so stern and businesslike. He looked at her weird
sometimes, too. She had her suspicions about those Indians and what they
thought about blondes. She hadn't read anything good.
She allowed herself some bangs, then drew her
shoulder length hair smoothly back along her ears to tie into a loose braid
hanging behind her. She pulled on a pair of blue flowered scrubs, checked her
watch, then grabbed her lunch from the fridge (thanking Beth again) and hurried
outside, locking the door behind her.
It was dead quiet at this hour, save for
crickets, and the street was empty and lit only by an occasional streetlamp.
She walked to the eight year old Kia subcompact, got in, and started its little
engine. Next to it sat Beth's nearly new Buck, but Beth had been a teacher for
three years, and hadn't had the student loan Zoey had needed to get through
college.
Zoey had only been working at Midland
Hospital's ER for eleven months now, and most of her salary still went to
paying down her loan. That was one of the reasons she was so grateful to have
found the room at Beth's house close to the hospital. It was way cheaper than
an apartment, and besides, Beth was very sweet and helpful.
The drive was short, and since she was on the
overnight shift parking was free. It was chilly out, though, and she wished
she'd brought a sweater along. She hurried into the building and felt the instant
silence and comfort of the quiet hospital settle around her as she moved
through its halls.
The big waiting room didn't seem to have much
of a crowd as they approached midnight, which was fine by her. There were only
four people waiting on the four rows of heavily padded seats, and two of them
were together.
“Hey, Allie,” she said as she passed the
admitting nurse's station.
“Hi,” the older woman replied, waving
casually.
She went around the corner, past the empty
security desk to the urgent care counter. Heidi there, pressed the button that
unlocked the door and she pushed through into the urgent care center. Heidi was
on the left, while the nurses’ stations and desks were on the right.
The narrow corridor stretched straight ahead,
with exam rooms along it on either side and chairs all
along the walls. There were three people on the chairs; a thin, middle aged
man, a frail looking older woman, and a black woman in a hat reading an
e-reader.
“Hey, handsome,” she said to doctor Michaels.
“Morning, Zoey,” he replied with a grin.
“Easy night tonight.”
“Let's hope, huh.”
“I've already called Housekeeping,” Tracy
said. “It's freaking cold in here.”
“It is kind of coolish,” Zoey observed, going
over to examine the files on the patients waiting.
Tracy was a brown haired girl, shorter than
Zoey, with a boyish haircut which brushed her collar, and a very businesslike
attitude. She was senior ER nurse, though she'd only been there four years.
Then again, almost everyone was senior to Zoey, who was still officially on
probation for another two months.
There were four more patients, according to
the files and the electronic board. One was having a CT scan for an undiagnosed
abdominal problem. The other three were in exam rooms. Michaels left to join
one as she signed herself into the system and took over from Shannon, who was
on her way home.
It was a routine night. As they moved through
patients, new ones drifted in. At Twelve AM she went out front and ushered the
two people there at the moment into the back as they dimmed the lights in the
front room. The info desk woman went home, leaving just Allie behind her
counter. Everyone else retreated into Urgent Care.
The hospital got even quieter now, and she
knew almost the only people active would be the nurses at their inpatient floor
stations upstairs, and some of the techs in places like Radiology and the lab,
which never closed.
“I've called Doctor Brandt for a consult on
Ferguson,” Michaels said as he came back from seeing a patient.
Tracy sighed audibly but made no comment.
Zoey smiled lightly. No one liked Brandt. Surgeons were supposed to be assholes
but Brandt took it to extremes. Or maybe it was his culture. He was from
Germany, and while his English was precise it was clear he hadn't been here
more than a few years.
“Maybe in Germany surgeons are used to people
bowing when they walk by,” Zoey said with a smirk.
Tracy rolled her eyes.
It was almost Two AM but Brandt looked both
fully awake and in perfect condition, his dark hair exactly in place, his jaw
set, his suit and tie unwrinkled below his perfectly white medical jacket.
There was no way he was going to be wandering around in scrubs simply because
they were more comfortable. Not him.
He ignored the nurses, of course, making a
beeline for Michaels. Nurses were servants, as far as he was concerned, not
humans to talk to. Zoey pursed her lips, eyeing him surreptitiously. He was
awfully good looking, and she was fairly sure he was single.
With good reason!
No one talked to him socially. He'd made it
clear doing so was impertinent on the part of anyone other than a doctor, and
intrusive from even doctors. He was the stuffiest man under forty she'd ever
met.
“You wonder if he ever unwinds with a drink
and parties.” Tracy asked as the two disappeared up the hall.
“Hard to imagine,” she replied.
“Imagine him dancing,” Tracy said with a
grin.
Zoey laughed. “I don't think Germans dance.”
“Well, they do that polka stuff, don't they?”
“I think those are the lower class Germans.”
The station buzzed and she looked up and saw it
was Exam 4, where Michaels and Brandt were. She strode up the hall and knocked
once before opening the door and leaning in.
Brandt turned to her. “Nurse. Get me 30 cc of
Kasiven,” he said.
She nodded and withdrew. Brandt didn't say
please or thank you. It was one of the reasons he was so unadmired. He also
didn't bother to learn the names of nurses. She went to the local supply
cupboard and took down the bottle, noting it on the record, got a fresh needle,
and put them both on a tray, returning to the room.
He took them from her without a word, ripped
the plastic off the disposable needle, drew out the medication carefully, then turned to give it to the patient, an elderly man who
blinked tiredly.
She started to back out again.
“I want a CT scan of his abdomen,” he said.
“Get him a chair. I don't want him walking.”
“Yes, doctor.”
She got a wheelchair and brought it in, then
wheeled the man down the hall, around the corner and up that hall to the CT
room, where she handed him over to the tech. When she returned he was on the
phone. He held up his hand to signal her to wait, and she pursed her lips and
did so.
He put down the phone.
“Let me know as soon as the images are
ready.”
“Yes, doctor,” she said.
She went back to the nurses' station.
“God, he's such a big dick,” she said in a
low voice.
“Did you mean he has such a big dick?” she
asked with a smirk.
“No, I meant he IS a giant dick.”
“From what I hear he HAS a giant dick.”
Zoey stared at her and leaned in. “Who would
possibly know that!?”
She laughed. “I'm not sure. I think it came
from one of the male doctors who saw him as he was getting out of the shower
down in the operating theaters.”
“I doubt any woman has much interest in it,”
she replied.
“I don't know, Zoey. You look like a nice
Aryan girl,” Tracy teased.
“My Norwegian parents would not be amused!”
Brandt came out of the examining room and
back to the nurses' station.
“Where is Doctor Michaels?” he asked.
“He's with a patient in Exam 2, Doctor,”
Tracy said.
Zoey did her best not to drop her eyes to his
crotch. Then, when he turned and headed back up the hall she turned and scowled
at Tracy, who smirked at her, knowing full well she'd glanced down.
She sighed and took the next patient file,
then went up the hall.
“Mrs. Hanson?” she called.
A middle aged woman stood up and Zoey led her
into Exam 1.
“The doctor will be with you shortly,” she
said.
She went back to the nurse's station just as
Brandt showed up again. He went past them and found the forms for blood work,
then scrawled his signature on one, checked off several boxes, and thrust it at
Tracy.
“As quickly as possible,” he said.
“Yes, doctor,” she replied.
She rolled her eyes at Zoey as he departed,
then handed her the form. She sighed, examined it, and then went to Exam 4 to
take more blood from the patient there for the requested tests.
At two-thirty she took a walk. She stayed
within the quieter areas of the hospital. Of course, that was almost
everywhere. But below the third floor, where there were patient rooms, most
offices were closed. There were shops in the large main lobby, including a
coffee shop, a flower shop, and another for a variety of books, puzzles and
magazines. There was even a beauty shop for longer term patients to visit to
have their hair done.
All were closed, of course, but the chairs
set out in front of the coffee shop were still there and she could relax, get a
drink from one of the machines along the wall, and catch up on Facebook.
She looked up briefly at a motion and sound,
then again, surprised to see Doctor Brandt walking slowly up the hall, with an
elderly man in pajamas and a housecoat on his arm. The old man was stick thin
and looked to be about a hundred years old.
That, of course, wasn't what surprised her.
The proportion of elderly people who showed up at hospital was far higher than
in the general population, after all. What surprised her was how kindly Brandt
looked as he ever so slowly walked the shuffling old man along the hall,
occasionally speaking in a low voice as the old man babbled about life in his youth,
the way people dressed properly, and how everything cost so much now.
“You are absolutely correct, Mister Harris,”
he said as they walked.
“Young people now don't think they need to
earn anything,” the old man said in a wheezy voice.
“Yes, I know.”
“They think the world owes them a living.”
Zoey didn't roll her eyes, except mentally.
She'd heard such opinions many, many times. Usually they weren't directed at
her, of course, since people tended to respect her profession. But the generic
dismissal of young people as self-involved, entitled airheads seemed to be
shared by almost everyone over forty.
She wasn't sure where the old man was from
since he hadn't come through ER, at least not on one of her shifts. He was
obviously from one of the inpatient floors. And since Brandt was with him that
would make him a surgical patient, except to her eyes he looked far too frail
to have surgery.
Doctors, even residents, had much more
wide-ranging duties on the overnight shift, of course, so he could be from
almost anywhere that Brandt was covering.
They stopped and Brandt helped lower the man
into a chair next to a plastic table, then went to a machine.
“This?” he asked, pointing a finger.
“No, the one under it and two over. No,
there!” the old man said, waving his hand and pointing a finger.
Brandt took some coins from his white jacket
pocket and popped them into the machine, pressed the appropriate buttons, and
the machine pushed forward what looked to her like a muffin of some kind. He
bent and took it from the opening and brought it back to the old man.
“Ah,” the man said. “Thank you, Doctor!”
“You are most welcome, Mister Harris,” Brandt
said.
Zoey snorted softly. So he did know the word!
They were across the lobby from her and she
kept her eyes down towards her smartphone, afraid Brandt would try to pawn the
man off on her, but he sat and helped the man open his muffin and then listened
to his muffled words as the old man ate.
It surprised her that Brandt would devote all
this time to a patient for other than diagnostic reasons. Even the nurses
didn't have time to walk patients around and let them buy themselves treats. Of
course, on the overnight shift Brandt had nothing to do – unlike the nurses –
unless someone called him for a consult or a patient needed emergency surgery.
But most doctors liked to catch up on their sleep in that case.
He wasn't nearly as stiff with the old man,
she noted in approval. He didn't exactly have the most charming and sweet
manner, but he was much more human than she'd ever noticed.
The old man ate half the muffin, then put the
rest back into its plastic container to eat later as Brandt helped him to his
feet and started back the way he'd come. The old man stumbled then. Brandt
caught him, but the man half collapsed to his knees as Brandt let him down
slowly.
Zoey jumped up, thrust her smartphone into
her pocket and ran over to help.
“Get a wheelchair,” Brandt barked.
She skidded to a stop, then turned and ran
towards the entrance doors, where a number of them were kept. She grabbed one
and quickly wheeled it back beside them as the old man sat on the floor with
Brandt squatting beside him.
“... just feel a little weak,” the man said.
“That's quite all right, Mister Harris,”
Brandt said.
Zoey took his other arm as she and Brandt
helped him into the chair. Brandt ignored him, all his attention on the patient
as he settled him in place as Brandt fit his stethoscope into his ears then
placed the diaphragm against the man's chest.
“I'm all right. Quit fussing!” the old man
said.
“Shh,” Zoey said softly.
The old man seemed to look at her for the
first time.
“Well, for you, honey,” he said with a weak
grin.
Brandt listened a moment longer, then took
the earpieces out of his ears.
“We had best return to your room now, Mister
Harris,” he said.
“What's the hurry? I just found something
more interesting than a muffin. This cute little cupcake here,” he said,
grinning at Zoey.
Zoey smiled back tolerantly.
“Call me Dave,” he said, holding out a frail
hand.
“Hi, Dave. I'm Zoey,” she said, taking his hand
and squeezing it lightly.
“Are you a nurse? You're awful pretty to be a
nurse.”
“Why thank you. Yes, I'm an ER nurse.”
“Can't always tell these days. You girls
don't wear your caps no more.”
“No, they went out of fashion,” she said.
“Well, those outfits you wear now are
probably a lot more comfortable than the starched whites they used to wear. But
we could always tell right away who was a nurse.”
“We know who we are,” she said with a smile.
“Nurse Larsen must return to her post, Mister
Harris,” Brandt said soothingly.
“You should come up to Geriatrics, Zoey,”
Harris said, looking at her chest. “You can give me a sponge bath any time.”
Zoey laughed in amusement.
“That is not respectful, Mister Harris,”
Brandt said a little sternly.
“That's okay. I can get away with it at my
age,” Harris replied as Brandt started to wheel him away.
“Do you need any help with ...”
“No,” Brandt said, pushing him off.
Dick, she thought as she watched them depart.
Big dick.
She wondered how big as she headed back for
the ER. Maybe he was only an asshole around nurses for some reason. God, she
hoped she never got as old as that, that she could
hardly even walk! Then again, the alternatives were all generally worse!
She felt like doing a cartwheel in the empty
hall to reassure herself that she was still young and healthy and agile, but
refrained. God only knew what would happen if anyone saw her. She'd probably
have to take a drug test!
The old man, like a lot of them in her
experience, did indeed say things which a younger man would get into trouble
for, but he was right in that people tended to excuse it in the elderly. And
anyway, he was more respectful
than Brandt!
She returned to the ER, and found a new
patient. She immediately had to take the blood pressure, then draw blood for
tests and start a saline IV for them. It was another elderly patient, a woman
who needed a lot of soothing.
She was bent over in the exam room, taping
the needle in place against her thin arm, and didn't notice the door opening
behind her as she talked with the elderly patient. Then she backed up – into
someone. Into someone most definitely and most noticeably male!
She jerked upright, spinning around as Doctor
Brandt jumped back himself, his face flushed.
He glared, turned and hurried out.
Zoey stared at after him, her mouth open. Had
she really felt... but what else could it be!? She'd felt a hard erection
pressed into her rear before and the sensation was fairly unmistakable!
Especially one as large as that had felt!
She continued to stare at the closed door for
long seconds while the old woman muttered to herself, plucking at the tape.
Then she hurriedly turned and warned her not to touch it, making sure the tape
was in place before opening the door.
She looked around warily, her cheeks a little
flushed now as her mind sifted through the implications.
Brandt had opened the door, seen her bent
over and... instantly gotten a huge erection?! Seriously?! Guys had been
remarking on her great ass for almost a decade now but she would have thought
Brandt would be too disciplined, too filled with stern self-restraint to be so
quickly affected.
The man wasn't an adolescent, after all! He
was probably over thirty!
Of course, I do have a great ass, she
thought, feeling a little vain about it. Imagine her ass melting the
notoriously cold Doctor Brandt! She ought to tell everyone! But no way was she
going to do so! It would be a great story, of course, but it could cause all
kinds of trouble, not the least of which was people looking at her ass all the
time!
The scrubs she wore weren't very thick, and
weren't very tight, and the blouse hung over them, well, except when she bent
over.
That had felt like a really big cock, she
thought in no small amazement. That would be painful! Of course, it could also
be... amazing, if enough lubrication was around. She was fully aware of the
clinical facts, that larger penises produced no more pleasurable physical
sensation than any other.
But the emotional, the psychological element,
of course, was what counted. The brain was the most important sexual organ,
after all, and the thought of being so completely... filled, was enough to
tighten her chest and make her swallow several times.
Of course, there was no way anything was
going to happen with Brandt! He was an asshole! Even if he was good looking and
had a big dick.