The Old Familiar Sting

The needle tore a hole, I didn’t bleed, but it still hurt.

I didn’t let myself flinch. Mostly.

Biting my lip, I focused on the ceiling, looking at one spot, a stain where some water had leaked, down all the way from the roof, maybe. It looked like a lizard and a wizard. The wizard was eating the lizard, he must have been hungry. Desperately hungry. Or maybe it was a bird.

Weren’t chickens related to lizards? I swear I heard they were little stupid dinosaurs somewhere.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” asked the doctor working his suturing skills on me. He didn’t like what he was doing. What he was fixing. He was old enough, he had to see things like this before. Lots of times.

At least he seemed to have a nice hand with the stitches. Lots of experience sewing

people up over the years.

“Do you want to tell me how this happened?” he asked, just before he finished.

“I would have thought you learned about this kind of thing in Medical school, if nowhere else. You must have lived a sheltered life. Choir-boy, maybe?”

He did have a voice that was close to a tenor, I could imagine him singing sweet music in the church pews.

Listening to him offer praises, blessings, thanks for all that is good in the world.

Not the kind of lyrics in my ballad. Mine’s more like angry screaming with a side of pyrotechnics.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he said as he pulled a final knot tight. Probably a little quicker than he needed. I was getting to him.

“Ow. Ow. Ow. You really want the gory details?”

He held my gaze for longer than I thought he would. A whole second and a half.

“We can help you if there’s someone hurting you. There are people who can make sure you’re safe, you don’t need to stay with somebody who treats you”

“You’re the one hurting me,” I told him as he pulled off his gloves.

He had nice fingers, the long kind, he probably could do things that didn’t quite hurt.

Not the same way anyhow. I wonder if he’d be up for a neck rub.

That could be pleasant. Better than what he had been doing. Mine was getting sore, the way he had me laying on his exam table. His might be too, the way he had to bend down to work on me.

“That’s only because you won’t let me give you anything for the pain,” he said with a hint of frustration as he wrote a note on his folder.

The name wasn’t mine, I knew that. He knew it. But he had to have records. The details were true, but the innocent were protected. Long after I needed it, but that wasn’t his fault.

“So you’re blaming me, huh? That really hurts, doc, it stings. You know that’s why I’m here, somebody blamed me for what happened. But it took two to tango.”

I put my hands to my chest, holding them together, wiggling the fingers, suggestively.

It had been more than two, actually, a lot of people got me here, a lot of actions. Only some I regretted.

He took a deep breath.

“You know I am not blaming you, it’s just you, well, you seem to be in a bad situation, and I’d like to get you out. If you’re willing to take some help.”

He was very nice, the way he kept trying with me.

“You got me out of the bad situation, the problem is solved, I’ll go on my way as soon as you let me, and nobody will even know, just me and you. You won’t tell anybody will you, it’ll be our secret? I can make it special nice for you if it’ll help. I could show my appreciation, thank you for what you’ve done for me. I know you’d like it.”

I batted my eyes, extra flourishes.

He flinched away. Put a couple of more feet between us. He probably shouldn’t have let me talk him into getting us alone. But I wanted to be cozy. Just the two of us. Alone.

Together.

I couldn’t stand for anybody else to see me like this, not even a nurse.

“That’ll be enough of that,” he had a stern look on his face, “you know better, I know you don’t have to act as if you were…”

He knew the words. He didn’t want to finish the sentence.

“But I like how I act, doc,” I smiled at him, “it’s so much better this way.”

“Is it really? I don’t think you’re happy with your choices, with the way things have gone.”

“I’m happy that it’s an act. Don’t you think it’s better than being real and authentic? I love the fakeness, it’s the best part.”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He just huffed and puffed.

“You know how to keep the sutures clean, and to come back if there’s any sign of infection?”

“Not my first rodeo, wasn’t my first ride on a bucking bronco either. I’ve had some experience, beginning around three years ago. Met a real cowboy, took me around, showed me the sights.”

He blinked at that. Did the math in his head.

“I didn’t realize, you would have been...I thought you were...”

He knew the fancy word he wanted to use. I did too. I’ve done a crossword puzzle too, and I didn’t even have to take my clothes off for it.

“That isn’t right,” he said. As if I didn’t know that already.

Dirty world some of us live in, not at all clean.

“It’s ok, doc, it was in another life. You know, the kind you only think you live, the kind you remember like it was a dream.”

That’s the way I try to handle it anyway. Bundle it up like a ball of clothes, and toss it away, believing it happened to another person, somebody else, who just shared everything with me.

Sometimes I even believe the lie.