Prescription for Ruin

“You’re still standing there?” Marisol’s voice cuts through the hum of the night shift. I glance up from the chart. She’s holding coffee in one hand, a chart in the other, eyes fixed on me. “Trying not to freeze,” I mutter, taking the coffee she hands me without thanks. “Bed four’s post-op won’t stop bleeding,” I add. “And Mrs. Caldwell keeps calling me by her daughter’s name.” “I wasn’t asking about Caldwell,” Marisol says, leaning on the counter. Her gaze lands on me with that mix of concern and insistence she’s perfected over the past three weeks. “Is this about Leo?” I sip my coffee and say nothing. Which is an answer. “You need to eat,” she says. “Even if it’s just that granola bar.” “I’m fine,” I reply, though the wrapper in my hand tells a different story. Marisol shrugs, like she’s used to it. “Fine,” she says. “But don’t come crying to me when you pass out over bed nine.” “I won’t,” I mutter, but I don’t move. We stand there a moment longer, the night humming around us, before she sighs and walks back to her station. I finish the coffee, toss the wrapper, and steel myself for the rest of the shift. The truth is I haven’t been sleeping. Not since I told myself , told him that it was done. That I was going to start making better decisions. I lasted four days the first time, two the second. This is the third attempt and it's been seven days and I've been surviving on bad coffee and the specific discipline of someone who knows that the moment she stops moving, she will have to sit with what she actually wants, which is the one thing I cannot afford. —————————————————— At 11:43, I'm restocking the medication cart at the end of the corridor when the ward doors open. I don't turn around, there are always doors opening on a night shift. But then I hear those particular footsteps unhurried and deliberate, the footsteps of a man who has never once in his life been in a genuine rush and the back of my neck goes warm. Dr. Leo Vasquez is at the nurses’ station, holding a chart, looking like he’s used to handling everything that comes his way. He's talking to an intern, even from here I can see the intern slowly coming apart under whatever Leo is saying. Leo has that effect on people. He glances up. Our eyes meet across the corridor and something in my lower belly pulls tight and in a way that seven days of distance has done absolutely nothing to fix. He holds my gaze a moment too long, then lets his eyes travel down and back up, slow and deliberate, almost like no one would notice. I feel it like a hand on my skin. I turn back to the medication cart. "He's on tonight," Marisol says, from somewhere behind me. "I noticed." "Do you want me to take his Ward C orders?" “That’s not necessary.” I slam the cart drawer more than I intend. “I said I’m fine.” ——————————— The next three hours move the way hours do when you're trying to stay inside your own head. I change dressings. I catch a discrepancy in a chart that earns me a nod from the attending. I sit with Mrs. Caldwell while she holds my hand and calls me Sarah and I do not correct her because what would be the point. I am very good at my job. I am considerably less good at any other thing. At two-fifteen, the corridor outside the supply room is empty. I'm in there refiling incident reports I misfiled an hour ago when the door opens behind me. I freeze, recognizing the scent. "You've been avoiding me," Leo says. "I've been working." "For seven days." "I'm always working." Then he crosses the room slowly, without hesitation, and stops just behind my left shoulder. Close enough that I can feel his heat and catch his scent, clean over something darker. My body reacts before I even realize it. It has never waited for my permission when Leo’s around. "Alice." His hand comes to the shelf beside me, caging me without touching me. "Turn around." I do. The moment I look at him closely, his eyes doing what they always do ,the seven days collapse like they were made of paper. "We said we were done," I manage to speak. "You said that." He tilts his head slightly. "I didn't agree." "Leo…" He kisses me before I finish. His hand at the back of my neck tilts my head exactly where he wants it, and within seconds my hands have fisted in the front of his scrubs and my body has made the decision my brain is still arguing about. He walks me backward until my back meets the shelves, his hands slide under the hem of my scrub top and his palms are warm against my skin and I have missed this. The precise catastrophe of his hands on me in ways I do not have the vocabulary for. "We're at work," I breathe. "I know where we are." His mouth drags down my throat, teeth grazing just enough, and I bite back the sound that tries to escape. His fingers work the drawstring of my scrubs and I let him, because there is no version of me in this supply room that is going to stop him, and we both know it. When his hand pushes between my thighs and finds how wet I am, he makes a low sound against my neck that is equal part satisfaction, part claiming me. "Seven days," he says, against my skin. "And you're this wet for me." "Shut up," I breathe. His fingers part me with deliberate slowness, two of them sliding inside while his thumb settles over my c**t in the exact pressure and circle rhythm he discovered months ago , the one that makes my thighs tremble within thirty seconds no matter how hard I try to stay composed. He curls those fingers forward, stroking the front wall in short drags that send sharp bursts of pleasure and pain spiking up my spine. My hips jerk once, involuntarily, and he presses his forearm across my lower stomach to pin me still against the shelf. “Stay,” he murmurs to my ears. “Let it build.” I hate how well he reads me. He knew the precise second my body started climbing and then held me exactly there, not letting me tip, not letting me retreat until my breathing turned shallow and ragged and I’m gripping the metal shelf so hard my knuckles ache. Then he speeds up just enough, thumb pressing harder, fingers curling deeper, until the orgasm rips through me like something torn open. I bury my face in his shoulder, teeth sinking into the fabric of his scrubs to muffle the broken sound that escapes anyway. My inner walls pulse around his fingers in long helpless contractions, he keeps moving through every single one, drawing it out until my legs threaten to give. He gives me approximately four seconds. Then he turns me gently, hand at my back bending me forward. I brace both forearms on the shelf, ass presented, thighs still shaking. The sound of his scrub pants sliding down, I feel the blunt head of him nudge once, coating himself in how slick I am, before he pushes inside in one long unhurried thrusts that stretches me open and fills me so completely my breath stops for a second. He doesn’t rush, he sets a pace with deep strokes that drag almost all the way out before sliding home again, the thick ridge of him catching every sensitive place inside on the way in and on the way out. One hand stays at my hip, fingers digging in hard enough , the other slides around to the front, middle finger returning to my c**t with the same merciless patience. Every time I start to clench around him he slows down, holding himself buried to the hilt until I whimper, then resumes that devastating rhythm. "You feel like you were made for this," he says quietly, against the back of my neck, I don’t answer. My forehead presses to the cool metal shelf; my body rocks forward with each thrust, n*****s dragging against my bra with every movement, adding another layer of sensation I can’t escape. He angles his hips slightly and hits that spot inside that makes white sparks burst behind my eyelids. The second orgasm builds slower but deeper , a heavy coiling pressure that spreads from my core outward until my whole body is trembling. He follows not long after with three more deep, deliberate thrusts before he stops, buried completely, he exhales warmly at my temple, his grip tight enough to leave prints I’ll feel tomorrow. Then my pager goes off. Bed four, the post-op is crashing. We are both moving before either of us says a word. I straighten my scrubs. He is already at the door. By the time we hit the corridor we are two different things entirely: a nurse and doctor, and the supply room does not exist.We save the patient like always. ———————- At 6:00 in the morning I find a text from his number on my phone. Come over, let’s pick up where we left off . I stand in the parking lot in the grey morning light for a long time contemplating, then I get in my car and I don't go home.