With a sigh, Anne Evans stepped into the duty room and looked at the journal on the desk. Mr. Gondorf was running a mild fever she learned, Mrs. Lansing’s blood pressure was 167 over 102, with her heart rate at 106, and Dr. Childers would look at both on the next morning. The rest of her patients were not showing any changes. That was not surprising since Anne was a nurse in a hospice specialised in caring for comatose people. Some of them had been there from before Anne had joined the staff eight years ago. Others had come in as recently as two weeks ago. In her experience, the average staying time was a little over five years from transfer to their eventual demise. It was a depressing job if she thought about it.

There were no miracles either. Nobody waking up after ten years of coma, like in the movies. Yet, Anne took her job and responsibilities seriously. Those people were entrusted to her, and she cared for them meticulously. She never, ever, made snide remarks, even when she had to handle overweight or very old patients. She operated strictly on the premise that one or two of them might just hear her words and she did not want to add hurt to their desperate existence. It would be a gross sin in the eyes of the Moon Goddess to hurt those who were already halfway in the afterworld.

Anne came from a long line of Wiccans on her mother’s side, going back at least four generations of which she knew. She could not claim magick powers, she knew no enchantments, but she lived in the tradition of her ancestry. She never missed adding the people in her care into the prayers to her Goddess, and deep inside she knew that the Goddess was giving her the strength to endure her work.

Anne was now 33 years old and divorced. The many night shifts at the hospice had been too much for her husband Jerry. They parted as friends and she had even attended his second wedding, but she was still feeling a deep sadness over her failed marriage and also about being childless. She yearned for a child, a daughter to continue her line, but it was not going to happen. Who would marry a woman at her age and in her line of work? How would she meet anybody in the first place? The few relatives who visited the patients were either old or married, or both. The staff was mostly female, and Dr. Childers, their attending physician, was gay and living openly with his partner.

She tore herself from the fruitless musings and stretched a little before getting up. She locked the duty room and started on her first rounds of the night. The hospice had 22 rooms with two beds apiece, meaning almost 40 patients to check on. Like most such places, the Lester Horton Hospice was understaffed and almost filled to capacity. The pay was decent and they were not church-affiliated, big points in their favor in Anne’s opinion.

It took her two hours to finish the rounds. Mrs. Lansing’s blood pressure was slightly lower now, but not significantly so, but Mr. Gondorf’s temperature was now at 102°. Conscientious as ever, Anne sent a text message with her observations to Dr. Childers. Five minutes later, her smart phone chimed, and she read Childer’s message that he would come in by 11 p.m. to look at Mr. Gondorf.

Finally, Anne was finished. For a few precious minutes, she could put her feet up while sitting in her chair in the duty room, and she enjoyed a cup of strong coffee from her Thermos. She checked on a news site with her smart phone, confirming that the world was still the same mess it had been in the afternoon. She then entered all the patient data into the duty journal in preparation for Dr. Childer’s visit, before she inventoried the drug cabinet, another important task for the night shift. During the day shifts, visitors, deliveries and other tasks took up all the available time, but during the night hours, things were more quiet.

Dr. Childers arrived shortly after 11. He was just looking at the journal when Anne’s smartphone began to vibrate and chime and a light blinked on the control panel. One of the ECG monitors was giving alarm. Anne quickly confirmed that it was Mr. Gondorf’s. She grabbed his patient file before she followed Childers as he was already walking briskly along the corridor. Anne checked the patient file for instructions and when she arrived at the room, she put her hand on Childer’s arm.

“No reanimation!” she said, showing him the instruuctions in the file.

Childers nodded and checked the patient for a pulse, finding none. The ECG showed a flatline too, and his pupils were unresponsive to light. Childers nodded sadly.

“Time of death 11:12 p.m. Let’s wheel him downstairs and then call his next of kin.”

Together, they unhooked Mr. Gondorf from the ECG, disconnected the oxygen line and unplugged the bed from the wall outlet. Releasing the brakes, they then wheeled the bed out of the room and to the large elevator. One flight down, they pushed the bed into a basement room that was kept at 50° where they left the body for the day shift.

In sombre mood, they tried to call the next of kin, but their call went to voicemail. Childers then filled out the Death Certificate and left for the night. Once she was along in the duty room, Anne spoke a short prayer to the Goddess, asking her to protect poor old Mr. Gondorf, before she started on her second round of the night.

Anne had the next day off and she used the free day for grocery shopping and for a thorough cleaning of her small apartment. The day was rainy, overcast, but the temperatures were in the upper 70s, ideal for her other plans. Taking her small Korean-made compact car, she drove out of the city and to a nearby state park. When she parked her car at five p.m., there was no other car in the parking lot as expected. She entered the wooded area of the park but quickly left the footpath, carefully walking through the underbrush so as not to leave an obvious trail.

She found the small clearing, her favorite spot in the park, easily enough. She quickly shed the raincoat and the light sweats she wore underneath. Wristwatch, billfold and car keys were left in the pockets of the raincoat, and she opened her hair, now standing completely nude in the steady rain. With a sigh of relief, she squatted down behind a bush to void her bladder before she lay down on her back on the wet grass and moss of the clearing. Concentrating on the feel of the small raindrops on her skin, she strove to become one with the surrounding nature.

As always, she lost track of the time while her mind wandered and she felt the life force seeping into her from all sides. This was what she needed once in a while, and in particular after one of her charges had been taken to another plane. She needed to affirm being human, and lying there being pelted by the small drops she slowly felt the hurt and chagrin leave her. It felt like hours to her, but when she slowly rose from the grass and retrieved her wristwatch from the raincoat, it had only been a little over an hour.

Anne did not bother with the sweats, but rather pulled on the raincoat over her naked body. Holding the clothes and her shoes in her hands, she walked back through the underbrush to reach the footpath, and from there to where her small car was waiting for her, still sitting alone in the large parking lot. Making certain that she was alone, she took off the raincoat and toweled herself dry. Minutes later and clothed in her sweats again, she started the engine and drove back into the city, recharged and refreshed.

Anne had the morning shift in the next week, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. It was her least favorite shift since it involved most of the paperwork that needed to be done. At least, all their patients appeared to have had a quiet night, to guess from the duty journal. At 8 o’clock, Dr. Childers dropped by on the way to his office and he looked over the entries of the night and of Anne’s first round of the morning.

“Looks like everything is unchanged, for what it’s worth,” he commented. “By the way, we’re getting a new patient today.”

“Oh,” Anne said. “I didn’t see any note in the journal.”

“They just called me from County General this morning before I left. It’s a bit early for him to be moved here, but they’re swamped with summer flu cases and don’t want him to catch any of those nasty bugs. Name’s Peter Morgan, 33, a chemistry professor at the college. Suffered severe food poisoning in their cafeteria. Barely made it, but he hasn’t woken from the coma in which he fell. That was 6 months ago and they think it’ll be permanent. I’m not so sure about that. From what they told me, his EEG shows cerebral activity, so let’s keep a good eye on him. He may just come out of it one of these days.

“That would be a change,” Anne smiled. “Maybe I can move Mr. Willis to Mr. Gondorf’s spot and put this Mr. Morgan right next to the duty room, in Room 2?”

“Sounds like a plan, Anne. You be extra nice to him; he might just hear you,” he smiled, knowing of Anne’s way to deal with their patients. She blushed a little.

“You know I’m always nice to them.”

“That’s why they all love you!”

When Childers was gone, Anne shook her head and sighed. Such a nice man, Dr. Childers, but he was the proverbial three-dollar bill.

By 10:30 a.m. an ambulance pulled up at the entrance and two EMTs wheeled in their new patient. Anne took one look at the man and felt her gut wrench.

“Godd ... Lord,” she exclaimed, catching herself in the nick of time. “Are the nurses on strike over at County?”

Her new patient was wearing a well-worn paper gown, his hair was oily, and the stubble in his face was at least a week old.

The EMT handed over the file. “Don’t ask me! The man smells bad too. Well, not his fault.”

“That’s just plain indecent!” Anne said with indignation in her voice. “Look, I’m alone right now. Can you give me a hand to shift him into a bed?”

“Sure, Nurse. You gonna get him clean, won’t you?”

“Of course! It’ll be the first thing I’ll do. The poor man!”

The EMTs pushed the gurney to the room next to the duty room where Anne had already cleared the space by the window. She quickly spread a rubber sheet on the bed and then directed the two EMTs to lay Mr. Morgan into the center.

“Thanks, guys,” she said nicely. “Eeew! I better wash him. Can you guys find your way out?”

“Sure, Nurse. You’re one of the good ones.”

“Well, I try, and so do my colleagues. Have a good day and drive safely!”

Ove the next hour and with dogged determination, Anne made her new patient presentable. First, she removed the catheter from his urethra. They used diapers in the hospice, even if it meant more work. Then she took off the paper gown and gently washed his front from head to toes, using a wash cloth and scented soap. As usual, she talked to her patient, explaining what she did and why. She could not help but notice that Peter Morgan’s body was slender and had likely been well muscled. She also noted that his penis, even in its flaccid state, was almost four inches long. When she washed his pubes and parted his legs to clean his scrotum, perineum and anal reagion, she had to revise that estimate, for Peter Morgan was clearly sprouting wood.

“Oh my,” she giggled. “Thanks for the salute, Mr. Morgan. At least that still seems to work. Sorry, but I don’t provide happy endings.”

His front done, she rolled him over, first to the left and then to the right, to clean his back, buttocks and the back of his thighs and calves. Next she used shaving creme and a razor to remove the stubble on his face before she used a flat basin for washing his hair. That done, she combed the long blond hair and used an electric cutter to give him a crew cut.

With her patient clean, shaved and groomed, she put him into a diaper and a hospital gown of soft flannel and stood back to admire her handiwork. Not too shabby, she thought. She had to giggle again, for Mr. Morgan was tenting the front of his diaper, having developed another erection.

“Oh dear, Mr. Morgan. You make a woman blush. Whatever did I do to merit such a sign of admiration? I better put the blanket over you now and get you some yummy infusion for breakfast.”

Then she did something she had never done before with a patient: she bent over and kissed Mr. Morgan’s forehead.

“Get well, Mr. Morgan. If you still find me attractive when you’re awake again, you can invite me to dinner,” she joked before leaving the room to attend to her numerous other tasks.

It was after noon before she checked on her newest patient again. The heart monitor was beeping steadily at 52 per minute, indicating a strong cardiovascular system, and this was supported by a 125/75 blood pressure reading.

“Hey there, Mr. Morgan,” Anne chirped cheerfully. “Let me check on your diaper. I know it’s intrusive to touch your privates without permission, but it’s part of my job.”

She lifted the cover and the hospital gown and removed the diaper. She then washed her hands, gloved up and proceeded to insert the feeding tube into his oesophagus, something she had done numerous times, and connected the small pump that would keep the nutrients flowing.

“Bon appetit!” she quipped. “If you want something more tangible, you must open those big blue eyes – do you have blue eyes? – and wake up. That’s it for now. I’ll check on you once more before my shift ends. See ya!”

Somehow, the care for Peter Morgan was lifting Anne’s spirits and she was uncharacteristically cheerful when the afternoon shift arrived.

“We have a new tenant in Nº 2, Penny,” she told her colleague, 53 year-old Penelope White, who in spite of her surname was African American. “He’s a doll, and I saw him first!”

“Wow, you’re kinda upbeat today, Hon,” Penny smiled indulgently. “I’ve got to check on that new hunk right away. What’s his story?”

“Fell into a coma after a food poisoning. He’s a chemistry professor at the college and only 32, the poor man. You’ll like him. He grows wood when you change him.”

“Oh, dear! That happens sometimes with the younger patients. I guess that part of men dies last.”

The two colleagues laughed knowingly, and then Anne said her good-byes. It had been a busy morning for her.

As summer ended, the number of visitors in the hospice increased. Having returned from their respective vacations, the patients’ relatives followed their bad conscience and turned up in numbers to visit their kinfolks. Flower vases were in short supply on the weekends, and the corridors were filled with juveniles who had spent the minimum required time at their grandparents’ beds and were now waiting for their parents to finish their visit. It filled Anne with sadness to realized how little the youngsters cared for their elders once those were not able anymore to hand out twenties to their visiting grandchildren, grandnieces and -nephews. Meanwhile, daughters and sons, but even more so the in-law variants, while standing and sitting dutifully at the bedsides, openly discussed how long their elders might still last and deplete what they themselves hoped to inherit eventually.

No kin of Peter Morgan ever showed, but one Sunday, two of his colleagues from the college came to visit. At least they showed manners, asking if there was any improvement to his prognosis and if there was anything he might need. They even stuffed twenties in the staff’s tip jar, thanking Anne and her colleagues for their care. This started a small trickle of college professors, staff and even three students who visited their unfortunate colleague and teacher.

One Saturday while Anne was on duty, another vistor arrived for Peter Morgan and Anne looked into the familiar face of one of the local coven members. Anne was not a regular attendant at their meetings due to working frequent night or weekend shifts, but she knew Brenda Phillips.

“Hi, Anne,” Brenda greeted her with a smile. “Still working here?”

“Yes, for the last eight years,” Anne supplied. “And you?”

“I’m a librarian now, over at the college. I came to see Peter, Peter Morgan.”

“Oh, is he a friends of yours?” Anne asked curiously.

“No, but a nice colleague. He only joined the teaching staff last summer. We all feel terrible about him. It could have happened to any of us, you know. Peter was just unlucky to grab a contaminated tiramisu bowl.”

“It was botulism, right?”

“That’s what we were told. It’s horrible!”

“Has he no kin?”

Brenda shrugged. “Maggie in personnel told me that nobody’s listed. Dean Walker had himself appointed Peter’s guardian. They’re suing the catering company for damages.”

Anne lowered her voice. “I have been praying to the Goddess for him.”

Brenda nodded unhappily. “I suggested it at the last congregation, but it was nixed. He’s not one of us.”

Anne shook her head. “My Goddess is a merciful one and does not care about membership cards.”

Brenda gave her a spontaneous hug. “You have the right spirit, Anne. I wish there were more like you. Where can I find him?”

“Room Nº 2. He’s alone in there, so take your time.”

“Thanks, Anne. Take care!”

Knowing now that no relatives of Peter would ever show, Anne started to spend some extra time with him whenever possible. She talked to him like one might talk to a sick child, inconsequential stuff aimed as easing fear and loneliness. She followed a schedule visiting him after the first round of a shift and then once again, an hour before she was relieved.

She began to observe a strange pattern: when she arrived in his room, his blood pressure was always a bit elevated, going down while she stayed, and going back up when she was about to leave. That had never happend with any patient before she was certain, and she told Dr. Childers about it. He took her serious and on his next visit he hooked up a portable EEG machine that had been sitting in an equipment room and recorded his brain activity before, during and after Anne’s stay. He then let her say different things, inconsequential gossip or personal facts, and again recorded brain activity.

He then took Anne to the duty room. “He clearly gets stimulated in your presence. That means, he knows when you’re there, and he can even distinguish between idle talk and serious information. I’ll talk to the neurologist at the hospital.”

The next day, Childers told Anne of his consultation. “I can’t say that he was impressed. ‘My dear colleague, wishing doesn’t make it so.’ That’s what he said, the pompous fool. You see, I’m just a GP, and he’s a specialist, so what the fuck do I know? Sorry. Let’s just keep making those EEG recordings. I’ll see another neurologist when I’ll be in New York in three weeks.”

Strangely, Anne felt no anger and no dejection hearing about the neurologist’s opinion. To her, the tests had shown that Peter could indeed hear her, even recognize her. During the next week, while she was on night shift again, she retrieved the EEG from the storage, placed the electrodes on Peter’s head, and recorded his brain activity while talking to him. She read to him from books and newspapers and saw changed activities depending on the subject.

It was a strange dichotomy of Anne’s character that while she was able to think and act scientifically, she was highly spiritual as well. Therefore, she took to praying to the Goddess before each session, asking for her blessing and for a sign. She was heard.

Two nights later, it was Peter’s turn for a cat-lick bath. The EEG was in the room, and she planned to hook him up later. With her usual gentle touch, she removed the hospital gown before she manoeuvred him on top of the plastic sheet she used for washing the patients. That night, she did his hair first, then shaved him, before she started on his torso with the wash cloth. As usual, she talked to him easily while perfoming her task, when she bumped against something with her elbow. Looking down on his body, she saw his penis standing up proudly and did a double take.

“Oh my, Peter! May I call you Peter? Sure I can, can’t I? You seem to be excited. Is it the washing? You like it? You’re not going to make a mess, are you?” His erection did not abate. “You’re a very bad boy! What am I going to do with you? I need to clean you down there. I can’t ... Oh, Goddess! I’ll be in so much trouble!”

Biting her lips, she rinsed the wash cloth in the warm water and then wrapped it around the turgid member, rubbing the shaft up and down with the soft fabric. She almost jerked her hand back when she felt the pulsing of the penis and wrapped it tightly in the cloth.

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Now you made a mess, Peter. I guess I have the right to call you Peter now.”

A giggle forced its way up from her belly, increasing into a full belly laugh.

“Oh dear! Now I really have to clean you, or I’ll be in terrible trouble. You have to promise me that you’ll not tell anybody about this when you’ll wake up. They’ll sack me in a New York minute if they find out. Here, let me rinse the cloth and then clean you again, and I want you to behave now! Oh, my! I guess you saved up for a half year. Let me get a fresh cloth!”

Hastily but gently she wiped the evidence of Peter’s orgasm off his penis which was softer now if still turgid. The semen-filled cloth was rinsed throughly in the sink before she quickly finished the washing and hooked him up to the monitor again. She was terribly flustered and silent until she noticed that his heart rate and blood pressure were up, and she interpreted that as stress.

“Peter, calm down. There is nothing you did wrong. It was me who screwed up. I shouldn’t have done this, you poor man. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry!” Unconsciously, she put a cool, soothing hand on his arm, and his heart rate slowed after a minute. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry!”

Anne was still shaken when she ended her shift at 7 a.m. In the end, Peter had been calm again and as far as she knew, she had cleared any evidence of her wrongdoing. Yet, if anything of this came out, she would not only be fired, but she would face criminal charges. Peter was unconscious and unable to consent to any form of sex, and she would be lucky to be charged only with sexual assault.

This was one side. The other thing that shook her up was the rush of excitement she had felt when the shaft in her hand pulsed. She had gone without sex herself for over two years now, in fact since her ex-husband asked her for the divorce. Seeing and feeling an erect male member had aroused her considerably. She decided that she had to clear her mind.

The day was nice, and after having breakfast in her small apartment, she set out for the state park again. She would have to be more careful, since no rain could be expected, and more people were likely to be around, but her special spot was out of the way, and she had never seen anybody near it.

Twenty minutes later, she was walking along the path, making certain that nobody was behind her or approaching her. At the usual spot, she used a few flat rocks to leave the path without leaving footprints and disappeared between the bushes. Another 500 yards brought her to “her” small clearing in the woods where she carefully undressed before she lay down in the grass.

Yet, the exposure to the elements did not soothe her mind as usual. She fidgeted on the soft grass and moss trying to find a more comfortable and relaxing position, but to no avail. Peter’s pulsing member kept popping up before her inner eye, making it impossible to concentrate on anything else. A cool breeze was adding to her distraction, blowing over her bare chest and causing her nipples to stand up almost painfully. Covering them with her hands brought no relief. On the contrary, the touch made the nipples ever stiffer. She moaned in frustration. Worse, she felt a chill on her pussy lips as the breeze blew over her. Probing with her finger, it came away wet and sticky, and she shuddered from her own touch.

“Oh, Goddess! What’s wrong with me?” she groaned. “He’s a patient. I can’t think of him like that!”

Her nipples crinkled even further and in a spur-of-the-moment decision, she decided to get the sexual tension out of the way. She did not masturbate often, perhaps once every three to four weeks, but when she did, she used only her fingers. While driving index and middle finger of her left hand into her opening, going as deep as possible, she used three fingers of her right hand to rub the top of her pussy lips with the hooded clit. Mentally giving in to the inevitable, she consciously pictured the naked Peter Morgan and his stiff member in her head, and in no time at all, she crashed over the edge.

She kept her hands in place in and on her pussy and once the spasms resided, started a gentle stimulation again. She knew that she was multiorgasmic, and for the second round she imagined herself sitting astride Peter and impaling herself on his erection. This one was even better and she took longer until her breathing returned to somewhat normal. Then, feeling entirely wicked, she retracted her left hand from her pussy and stuck the gooey fingers in her mouth. Sucking her own juices and rubbing her now prominant clitoris while fantasizing about sucking Peter’s dick, she soon had the third peak, less intense physically, but giving her a sort of emotional closure.

She lay motionless in the grass for the next half hour or so, basking in the afterglow, but also processing what had happened. She realized that for some reason she lusted after Peter Morgan. Examining her feelings, she also knew that it was not his helpless state that excited her (much to her relief). On the contrary, in her fantasies he actively and consciously participated. She needed him to wake from his coma, for his own sake and hers.

What puzzled her was the strong feeling that it was in her hands whether he would recover. How could that be? She was no witch, had no magick, no healing powers. She was a mere follower of the Goddess, possessed only of the life force inherent in all her children.

Peter also had a strong life force. That was evident from his strong erection and his copious seed. How could such a strong life force be suppressed? She knew the answer to that – the toxins of the botulism had caused neurological damage. Yet, he was not brain-dead. His EEG showed his reaction to external stimuli, even to her own voice and her touch.

Lying there on the grass in the sunshine, Anne suddenly knew her role. She was able to reach him. She had to keep interacting with him, talking to him, touching him, caring for him. Even if it never availed anything more, it might help him cope with his fate. So what if he ejaculated? She could clean that up in a jiffy, and nobody would know. Perhaps, the ejaculations – powerful manifestations of his life force – might jolt him out of his state?

There was one more possibility, but she forbade herself to think of that. The Great Rite, these days the ritual joining of Athame and Chalice, had once been done by the sexual joining of witch and wizard, symbolizing the congress of Moon Goddess and Horned God, and some of their followers still held that it was far more powerful than the symbolistic ritual. Yet, the local coven would never go for it, not even on Beltane, and Peter was no member anyway.

Although she had not been able to clear her head of the inappropriate infatuation with Peter, Anne felt calmer and more balanced on the way home. Her sense of humor even asserted itself on the drive home.

“Maybe, I just needed a good come myself,” she giggled to herself.

A week later, Anne was back on the morning shift. With all the business involved in that, she had not the time to continue her interaction with Peter quite the way she wanted, but it also gave her a chance to cool her jets a little. She did however have the chance to talk to Dr. Childers, and together they performed a few more tests on Peter Morgan.

By interviewing Peter’s colleagues at the college, Childers had found out about his musical tastes. He was quite fond of Celtic music, but also of classic Blues music, ambivalent about Country and Western, but hated “easy listening” pop music with fervor. Therefore, they tested his responses to either types of music using his blood pressure, pulse and EEG activity as read out. To both Anne and Dr. Childers the results supported their belief that Peter had at least partial awareness.

Armed with their results, Childers flew to New York in the next week to attend a congress where he hoped to find a sympathetic neurologist. Meanwhile, Anne was holding the fort, doing a week of afternoon shifts. She also talked to Penny White about Peter when her friend arrived for night shift, and her older colleague agreed that Peter reacted to stimuli.

Childers returned by the end of the week. He had met a Dr. Barney, a neurologist from Buffalo, who was interested in Peter’s case. He would study the file and then recommend either more tests or certain treatments. That, in both their views, was encouraging. With her night shift coming up in the next week, Anne would continue to perform a regimen of tests under Childers’s planning.

It was rare for Anne to have a whole weekend off, but the vagaries of scheduling had made it so. She made good use of the two days off, doing all the cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping to last her a week, but also getting out into the nature. It was early October now, and the leaves were changing colors. Anne drove to her favorite nature reserve, but this time she did not meditate, but rather spent three hours of brisk walking, breathing the fresh air and watching the small animals collect food for the coming winter. She met quite a number of people on her march along the footpaths, most of them walking their dogs or letting their children roam the underbrush.