Commitment Issues (15 page)

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"I'm Wyatt. Wyatt Nelson."

"What do you do, Mr. Nelson, and what is your relationship to Mr. Roberts?"

"Mr. Roberts? I sleep with him."

"I see. I'm going to need you to step outside for a moment."

"Why?” Wyatt asked innocently.

"I need to work with Mr. Roberts for a moment. Please, it's just standard hospital procedure. Only actual relatives can be in the room during procedures."

"Who are you?” Wyatt asked.

"Dr. Jones, Dr. Samuel Jones."

"And you're a staff doctor here?"

"I am an intern."

"Fascinating. An intern? And the intern is instructing me on what is and is not an ‘actual relative'?"

"Sir, I must—"

"What you must do is run along,” Wyatt said. “What you need to do is send an actual doctor to see Mr. Roberts. Feel free to quote me, but make sure you tell the whole story. If you don't, you can count on me filling in what you leave out. Tell them that I won't be lectured by somebody who isn't an actual doctor. Learn some manners, but do it on your own time. My husband will only be touched by an actual doctor. Now, scoot."

Goooooooooooooooooal. Wyatt shoots and scores!

"But,” the intern said as he looked my way. He assumed that I would control Wyatt. He was wrong.

"Bye bye,” I mouthed. “Bye bye."

Wyatt blew on the end of a finger like he was holding a pistol, and then he put his imaginary pistol into his waist.

"I can get that pesky tube out, you know,” Wyatt grinned.

I shook my head and tried to say no. Nothing came out of my mouth. I squinted my eyes until I saw the edge of his lips turn upward.

They made me wait until the next day to get the catheter out. My regular doctor was angry when he found that it was still in place. He read the chart to see what was wrong.

"Oh, you did not,” he chuckled.

"He did,” I whispered.

"You did? You really did? Oh, for crying out loud... I may want to hire you someday,” the doctor laughed. “I can't wait to hear the story. I'm sure it's been embellished a few times in the doctor's lounge. Wyatt, if anybody else gives you trouble about being here, let me know. We have so many patients who have nobody that it makes me really pissed to see an intern try to run you off. Stand your ground, boy. I got your back."

The doctor left, and a male nurse came in. He seemed to know Wyatt.

"You want to help?” the nurse asked. I growled, but the boys ignored me.

"Don't harm my man,” Wyatt said. “You're working on a sensitive area."

"I promise. Catheters are my specialty, you know. I take great—” and then he started pulling.
Oh my God, that burns.
No warning. No anything. Fortunately, it didn't last long, but holy shit, that was real, honest-to-gosh pain.

"Specialty indeed,” I whispered. “Hit the button first. I need morphine. Wyatt, dear, did you bring my pepper spray or anthrax aerosol?"

"Oh, thanks for taking Dr. Jones down a peg or two,” the nurse said with a big grin. “The staff can't stand him. You go, girl."

The staff put me in a really long canvas belt. It was supposed to be the way they kept me from falling. My first trip to the bathroom was really shaky. It took three of them to keep me on my feet. Wyatt was there to help with the wires and tubes, but I was really glad that the hospital had some beefy guys on staff.

Part of me never wanted to leave the hospital because I could lie back and look at Wyatt for hours. He was still the most wonderful man that I had ever seen. Wyatt was always in the room. If he minded me staring at him, he never said anything. Maybe he just thought it was part of me being a near-invalid. Maybe it was.
Wink
.

Wyatt practiced with the canvas belt. He got me wrapped and balanced. He steered me to a walker. He was quite a bit smaller than me, so he wouldn't have been able to keep me up. I was steady enough that I could just about do that myself. We almost went sprawling once or twice, but that was partly because of my missing toe. Maybe it was partly because of the morphine. I knew that I was seriously addicted. If I didn't know, my sponsor was quick to point it out.

"Can you see what it's doing to you?"

I nodded, and I knew that I was going to have to start weaning myself off the dope. I was beginning to time my pain to the dispenser. They set up those drip systems to give me dope when I pushed the button, but there was a timer to keep me from overdosing. The good little addict inside me kept the timer maxed out. I tried working the doctor for an increase in his prescription.

"I've worked with addicts before,” he said. “You're not my first one, and you all try the same tired tricks."

"Not working?"

"Not even close, sorry,” he told me. “Not even close."

I decided that I needed to turn the morphine button over to Wyatt. Before I could have my dope, I would have to convince him that my pain was real and so bad that only a strong addictive drug would help. We talked about using the Twelve Steps for my morphine. He understood that I needed some of it, but he also knew how an addict's mind worked. It took about a week, but he gradually weaned me down to nothing.

We surprised the doctor, and he said as much. What didn't surprise anybody was that my detox week had really turned up the heat on my grumpy engine. Grrrr. Getting off an addictive substance is nowhere on my list of favorite pastimes.

Wyatt pushed me to get out of bed. Walking without a toe sounds like a minor thing, but it was a big deal. First of all, it hurt. The toe hurt even though I knew it wasn't on my foot. I couldn't explain that, but the doctor told me it is common. And I found that I used my little toe for balance. Yeah, I could compensate, but you never appreciate something as dinky as a little toe until it's gone.

When the doctor removed the bandage for the first time, I saw there was more than just the toe missing. The blast had taken half of the outer side of my foot off. No wonder they couldn't reattach my toe. There was nothing left to sew the damn thing on to.

The doctor said he was worried about a hole in one of my lungs and some internal bruising. I had some internal bleeding, but they had fixed that with surgery. My chest hurt when I moved, but the doctor said that was from having all the ribs on one side cracked. He told me a couple of the ribs had been compound fractures, meaning the bone was sticking out of my chest.

I must really look stunning in a bathing suit now.
Maybe Wyatt hadn't seen my wounds. He has such a perfect body that he might not want somebody who carried around scars.

"I did my fifth step,” Wyatt told me in the hospital's cafeteria. We had taken longer and longer walks, and I was just pressuring the doctor to let me go home. The fifth step is where—no, wait, back up a step. On the fourth step in AA, you do a searching and fearless moral inventory. It's all the shit you've done that you shouldn't have done, and all the shit you didn't do but were supposed to. The fifth step is when you go through your inventory three times: with yourself, with God (as you understand him), and with another human being. Most people say it is the most difficult step because you have to come face-to-face with your demons, and you have to acknowledge each and every one of them.

When we walked, Wyatt always had a wheelchair with him. I sometimes needed to sit if we were on a long walk, and he never minded pushing me.

It had taken me two years to get the guts to do my fourth and fifth steps. Wyatt was taking AA really seriously. He said that his sponsor had told him to make a list of everybody he needed to visit. We're supposed to make amends to those we've harmed.

"I took my fourth step and erased all the words in lowercase,” I said. “Every word with a capital letter was a name, and I probably needed to make amends."

"Even the word ‘I',” he said.

"Starting with Wyatt,” I said. “Lot of guys forget about that. You got a good sponsor."

"It's Sharon, doofus,” he laughed. “Same as you."

I wasn't sure that could work out, but I didn't say anything. If Wyatt and I got into a fight, we both might try to talk with our sponsor. If she was sponsor to both of us, it would be like she was a kind of counselor instead of a sponsor. We'd see.

Wyatt would sometimes disappear for a few hours during the day. He said he was running errands. He told me one time that he was helping the police go through my apartment. They wanted somebody to take whatever wasn't part of the crime scene. It was all part of the crime scene at first, but Wyatt was able to collect more and more of my stuff.

"Pieces and bits here and there,” he said. Apparently there had been a fire that destroyed almost everything that hadn't been blown up by the bomb.

"Fresh start,” I said, and I meant it.

After one of his afternoon outings, Wyatt came into the hospital room with candles and several bags. He turned off the overhead light and put a chair in front of the door.

Without asking, he propped up my head with a few pillows. He pulled the long bed table in front of me and put the candles on the table. He opened up a package. It was a cloth napkin that he used as a tablecloth. He spread it out on the bed table with great ceremony.

He reached into one of the other bags to bring out china or food or something. No, that was Wyatt. What he brought out was a little bottle of lube.

"You little...."

"Hush, babe,” he said. “The officer at the door has guaranteed our privacy."

I just rolled my eyes. Wyatt was standing and looking at me. He had the bed controller with him and was moving me back down. As soon as we were down, he got me to move to one side of the bed, while he stretched out on the other side. He moved my shoulder.
Okay, he wants me to lie on my side.
I get it
. I wasn't about to stop him. I had told him no once before, and it almost killed me.

"You sure we're private here?"

"Absolutely. The cop is family,” Wyatt whispered. “Yeah, I'm sure. He asked why it took me so long to ask."

He kissed the back of my neck as he ran his fingers down my back. I felt his hand on my butt, and that made me hum.
That's why hospital gowns open in the back. Very clever of somebody. They were thinking ahead, they were.

Wyatt was so smooth. He just touched my back and ass cheeks. He was so gentle with me. I knew he was letting his fingernails drift up and down. His finger traced its way down past my crack. When he touched my top leg, I raised it as a kind of invitation. I moved my knee up to the top of the guard on my side of the bed. He had just enough space to work. His palm was on my inner thigh. To a bottom, the inner thigh is one of the best places to be.

Wow, I had wanted him so much. He kissed my shoulders and let his tongue find its way to my waist.

"I love you so much,” he said to me as he crawled onto the bed. He moved slowly and tentatively. Wyatt was afraid of hurting me, and that was so sweet. There wasn't anything he could do that would hurt me, but he showed me that he cared about me. I knew that he was looking at my ass. I felt his palm explore me.

It was a tight fit on the bed, but there was just enough room. The guard on my side was in place, so I could push up against it without falling out of the bed. He reached around to my nipples. He didn't want to pinch my tits but just hold them. He pulled himself close. He was nude behind me. I hadn't seen his clothes come off, but they did. His chest was against my back. His rod was against my crack, and he used his hips to move against my ass as he kissed my shoulder. I felt his teeth against my neck. It wasn't a bite, but I knew his mouth was open.

"I want you,” he said, and I nodded as he put his right arm up on the pillow. His right hand was near my head, and he pulled me closer with his left arm. His left hand slowly moved toward my waist. I could feel his breath at my neck and his finger drawing a line down my chest and stomach.

Ugggh
—he slowly put his hand over my cock. Oh, man.

Ugggh
, I groaned.

He already had a condom on. Damn, Wyatt could move quickly. Maybe he already had it on before he came into the room. All I knew was that he was wearing a rubber, and I hadn't seen him put it on. I reached out to the table and got the bottle of lube. I handed it back to Wyatt.

He stopped moving for a minute as he—
oh
, as he—I mean,
ugggh
.... His fingers were slick as they found their mark. I felt one finger slide into my hole, and I pushed on it. Two fingers, and I just moaned. My sounds of pleasure told him that I was ready for him. He knew that he didn't need to stretch me out. He knew that I was ready for him.

I felt the tip of his dick slide down my crack. He pulled up on my left ass cheek to make room. He just let his tool find its mark. He was so slow and gentle. When he was right at my entrance, he moved his arm back to my waist. I felt him push gently. His tip parted my muscles, and he entered me. Wyatt was inside of me. The man of my dreams was about to make love to me, and he was so tender. His left arm was around my stomach, and his right arm was above my head on the pillow. Wyatt entered me without needing to guide his dick. It knew where it wanted to be. He was so hard and didn't need any hand to help. Wyatt took me for the first time, and he was so soothing. He was so warm and soft against my back. I knew that I wanted him to be in me. I needed him.

"Ohhh, Wyatt,” I said softly. He pushed himself.
Wow.
I tried to pull my knees up, but he wouldn't let me. Wyatt wanted to be in control, and that was fine with me.

Within a few minutes, I was more on my stomach than my side, and Wyatt was on top. He continued to be tender and loving, maybe because he was afraid of hurting me. Maybe he liked it gentle. If he was doing it because of me, I needed him to know that I was okay. I reached around to pull him faster and tighter, and he took the hint.

"You sure?"

"I love you, Wyatt,” I said, and he really went to work on my ass. It might have been rougher in a full bed, but he gave me some really strong thrusts. He wasn't the longest man I had been with, but he was the thickest. It was enough to make me see stars as he brushed against my prostate.