Chapter 6

Time didn't exist. I didn't exist. All that existed was pain; constant, dull, inescapable pain. Muffled voices; some worried, some resolute ... a sudden cry of relief. Someone was stroking my arm ... a soft voice whispered in my ear ... expressions of love ... assurances that I was going to be okay ... but there was nothing else ... just constant dull pain and brief moments of respite from angelic whispered voices.

When I awoke in my hospital bed, there was a feeding tube in my nose, IV tubes in my arms, and my hands were cuffed to the rails of the bed. "At least I won't break my nose this time", I thought to myself. I remembered the dead biker's lifeless eyes and wondered how much trouble I was in. I looked over and saw Samantha dozing in a chair next to me.

"Hey!", I squawked. My throat was so dry that it hurt when I spoke. Samantha started awake, looked at me and then her face beamed as if she'd just seen the sun come up after a very long and very dark night.

"You're awake!"

"Water!" I croaked

Samantha shook her head. "I can't just yet. Ice chips?"

I nodded

Samantha pressed the nurse call button, grabbed a styrofoam cup full of ice chips and spooned a few past my dry, cracked lips.

"I kept a cup of these around for when you'd wake up", she explained.

I closed my eyes and let the delicious ice melt in my mouth and cool water trickle down my parched throat. Samantha had given me hundreds if not thousands of blow jobs, rim jobs, hand jobs, and fucked me in every way imaginable and this was the best she'd ever made me feel ... God how I love that woman!

"Thank you", I whispered

"More?"

I shook my head and tried to wet my dry lips. "Kiss", I croaked

Samantha teared up and bent her head down to mine giving me the softest, sweetest kiss I'd ever had.

She straightened up and began spooning more ice into me.

"You were shot with a 22 pistol. Subsonic round meant to kill as quietly as possible from a close range. Not a hollow point but it did a lot of damage to your shoulder. The good news is that it missed your lung. It broke your shoulder blade and so you had to have a plate and some screws in there"

More ice

"You'll need to go to rehab but you should be back to normal in a month or two. You'll feel it when it rains"

"I was stabbed too?" I asked

Samantha nodded

"The blade skimmed across your ribs. Two of them were pretty badly nicked and a chunk of the blade broke off. They removed that in surgery"

Jane walked in, came over to the other side of the bed, kissed my face, stroked my arm and just stood there quietly while Samantha and I chatted.

More ice

"He cut my face?" I asked

Samantha spooned another few chunks of ice in my mouth

"Eight stitches across your left cheek. You have a duelling scar. He missed your eye by less than an inch"

"Would you still marry me now that I'm scarred?" I joked

"Are you kidding me? You looked so handsome and dangerous before ... now with that scar? You ... You're so ... I ... I just..."

Samantha searched for the right words, Jane spoke up for her

"That slapping sound you keep hearing is my mistress' panties falling to the floor"

I looked at Jane and smiled. She wrinkled up her nose and smiled back. "Mine too, she added"

"Am I under arrest?", I asked jiggling the handcuffs

"Technically, yes" but it's a bit complicated. Everyone agrees that what you did was self defense although the District Attorney had a hard time swallowing self defense since you basically ran AT the guy that was shooting you. I convinced him that it was a no win for him. You're a promising young architect that's never been in trouble and were protecting your fiancee from the advances of a biker that's been in prison longer than he's been out"

"So why the handcuffs?" I asked.

"Those belong to the FBI. It seems that the biker you killed was also an informant and so they'd like to ask you a few questions before you're allowed to leave"

"When can I leave?"

"Couple of days. Basically, you could go home now except you lost a lot of blood and they want to keep you for observation"

"Okay", I settled back down into bed."I'm going to go to sleep now. You go home and get cleaned up. Both of you"

"But"

"But nothing!" I barked causing Samantha to jump. "You do what I tell you to do, I'm fine. There are nurses here to look after me. You need sleep; so do I. Kiss me and go!"

Samantha clammed up, looked at Jane with an expression of helplessness I'd never seen before, kissed me and then left. Jane kissed me and followed her out. When she got to the door, Jane turned, gave me a thumbs up and whispered, "way to go sir".

"Sir? that's the first time she's called me sir", I mused.

I was just nodding off to sleep when a nurse came through the door. I wish I could recount a tale about a beautiful nurse who falls in love with me while giving me a sponge bath but this particular nurse was a sixty year old man, bald with a short white beard and built like he'd spent the first thirty-five years of his working life as an oilfield roughneck ... which, coincidentally, he had. He fluffed up my pillow, pulled the feeding tube out of my nose and told me that there were two FBI agents outside and that wanted to ask me a few questions. I regretted, for a moment, letting Samantha leave so early but, knowing Samantha, she'd already determined I wasn't in any real trouble from the law so I nodded my assent.