'Casualty Ward'

by Danny Rhodes

W

hite light, white pain.

Nothing else.

Then voices at the edges.

"This one's a priority…"

"Take him right through to theatre…"

More voices. Blurred faces. A sharp pricking sensation in the forearm and then a feeling of relief coursing through the body.

The lights go out.

October 17th. Ten AM on Sunday morning. The best time to be driving a Ferrari. Coke still in the veins, prick satisfied from all night fucking, and pre-breakfast fucking too. The girl, whoever she was, long gone now, miles away, still in the hotel room, under the sheets, most probably dreaming about him, unaware the bill had been paid, unaware he was gone from there.

Tonight another party.

There was success and there was real success. This was real. This was living. How many people had he fucked over to get to this place, to be on the open road on a Sunday morning in a Ferrari Spider, £200,000 worth of hot metal? There was the girl for a start, but she hardly counted. There had been too many to remember, would be so many more. There were the whores. He supposed they counted for something. He'd smacked some around. Well, that was what you paid for wasn't it? To be able to do what you wanted? They hardly complained. Not with the pile of notes already sitting on the table. That was the trick. Show them the money at the beginning. They'd do anything then. If they complained, if they even dared to raise an eyebrow, he showed them the door. He did that from time to time anyway, so word got out. If a girl didn't want to know, she didn't put herself in the frame. And there was always another who would.

Always.

He'd fucked the industry over too, used his muscle wherever he could. That was the art of business. The only way to get to the top was to stamp on your competitors, or if they were tougher than the rest, buy them out. He'd done that a few times even though it had pained him.

Some cunt in a red Porsche 911 at the traffic lights. He slipped alongside, dipped his shades, stared ahead, pretending not to notice. He could see the guy looking from behind his own set of shades, a cheaper pair, lacking style, lacking chic. The guy was looking at the lights too though, waiting for the green, waiting to floor it. The blonde beside him was cute. She was wearing bonnet, looking like a modern day Audrey Hepburn, bleached of course. She was trying not to look, he could sense it straight away, but her eyes were sliding in their sockets behind those shades, secretly yearning to look without letting the driver know. Would she swap the seat in the Porsche for the seat in the Spider? Of course she would. They always did.

The Porsche driver revved his engine. Pulse quickening, palms sweating, he did the same. The thick purr of the Spider made the Porsche sound sick. His baby was ready and he was ready, ready for anything, even asshole journalists, like the one he'd been forced to meet yesterday.

'What about the asylum seekers, the refugees, the women from the east? What about those women? Could he live with the way he treated them?'

Of course he could. He paid them didn't he? He paid them more than they would earn in a whole lifetime in their own backward, two bit cheap countries. He paid them more for one fucking session perhaps. How people could argue that he was persecuting them, taking advantage, fucking them over, he'd never understand. They were cheaper, better at the job, not so worried what their mother's might think. They didn't even have mothers. They didn't have anything. All they had to do was strip, play with things, play to the camera and look like they were enjoying it. The punters didn't care what fucking country they came from, just what their cunts looked like with a vibrator or a wine bottle shoved up them. As long as they moaned and wiggled their asses around on the sheets, they got their money, got to feed their fucking babies. If anything he was a fucking hero, a God even. How many other people had invested so much in the destitute? How many other people had asked for so little back, just the odd pound of flesh.

There was a trick with lights. If you knew the sequence you could pre-empt them when they changed. Well, he had a surprise for the 911 driver. He knew the fucking sequence. He'd used the fucking hotel enough times. He'd even fucked the barmaid one Saturday after she'd closed up. Over the fucking bar no less. He'd watched himself in the mirror, and she'd looked at him in the mirror, met his eyes. That had done it for him. He'd come too fucking soon that time, but so what?

And the sequence was clockwise changes. The line of traffic opposite, the line of traffic to the right and then when the driver in the yellow Skoda with his mutt of a wife sitting next to him started to brake, that was the time to GO!

What he actually saw was his mother shaking her head, just like she had when he'd told her the line of business he was in, just like she had when she refused the money he'd offered her so that she could pay off her fucking mortgage.

"It's just a career," he'd said. "It's just a way to make a living."

"But it's not right Michael. It's just not right. What would your father have said?"

He hadn't answered that one. She'd been blind to the box full of videos and magazines his father kept in the attic room, just like she'd been blind to his womanising. If anything, his father was to blame for the whole fucking obsession, for getting him into something that he realised was a potential gold mine. All because of that box in the attic room.

Thirteen years old. The envy of all his friends.

"Can I come over Mike? When your mum and dad are out? Can I?"

What he saw next was the word 'SCANIA' in big letters, just like that, and a blue tarpaulin, huge wheels, the 911 in his mirror, still at the lights. It was the wrong fucking hotel, the wrong fucking sequence. It wasn't the barmaid, it was the shift supervisor and it wasn't the bar and the mirror, it was the lift and she'd been on her knees sucking on him.

Then there was the white light and the white heat, the feeling of relief as they pumped him full of morphine and switched the lights out.

The Doctor standing over him was not white. That was the first thing that registered. Oh no, he wasn't white at all.

"Mr. Daawsan," the doctor was saying. "Mr. Daawsan are yo wit us."

'It's fucking Dawson, you prick. D-a-w-s-o-n. Are you with us? Fucking Oriental prick. I pay £20,000 a year for private medical care and I still get Dr fucking Chinese slant eyes.'

If only he could speak. He managed a movement all the same, just the slightest nod. His neck felt ten times heavier than it should.

"Yo a vewy lucky man, Mr. Daawsan. Vewy lucky. I am Dr. Lee. You have one fit body Mr. Daawsan, or yo not be here now."

'Because I work out, Dr. Lee. Everyday, for two hours. Keep the body trim, keep it supple, keep it all in working order. And then I fuck every night too.'

"Yo nearly lost legs, but okay. Very damaged but okay. Deep lacerations. Lots of blood lust.

'He said lost. Of course he said lost…learn to fucking speak why don't you!'

'You at Manor View now. Moved yesterday. Two weeks since accident. This nurse Ologevic. She assigned to you. Will change your bandages, look after you."

Two weeks? Manor View? Ologevic? Another fucking eastern European, but this time the right sort, the sort his fucking punters were crying out for. And in a nurses uniform too. Blonde, tight, thick lipped. He imagined those lips circumnavigating a thick courgette, her baring her teeth, looking at the camera, and running it down her body, over her chest, scratching a nipple, lower, pierced belly (they were always pierced these days…or tattooed…it was a little boring…). Perhaps she wouldn't be pierced. And on and on…

Nurse 'O' for your pleasure. Only £1.50 a minute. Guaranteed XXX rated.

'How fucking weird,' he thought. 'I should be dead now. I should be fucking history. People should be dancing on my fucking grave and the first thing I think when I regain the power of cognitive processing is how I'd love to see the nurse in front of me stick a courgette up her twat.'

There was something about Nurse Ologevic. Something about the way she looked at him, especially when she was changing the bandages. Her eyes held him in check. When he looked at her he felt as though he were floating above himself, a bit like fucking on cocaine. In another situation he would have revelled in the feeling but lying on a hospital bed, each time it happened he simply thought he was dying, that his soul was rising to heaven.

'Heaven! Are you kidding?'

Three times she came in and changed the bandages. The blood just kept on oozing. Dr. Lee was in and out all of the time, with his aggravating speech impediment. He expected Nurse Ologevic to leave, wondered what her replacement would be like, but Nurse Ologevic didn't seem to be going anywhere. Dr. Lee gave her instructions, three more changes in the night. When they assigned somebody to a patient they really meant it. Was this how they made their money?

'Maximising profits,' he thought. 'Jesus, they criticise my profession and here they are paying eastern European nurses some fucking paltry sum no doubt, to work all fucking hours while they rake in the profits from over charging suckers like me.'

Thoughts whirred through his mind. Something about getting into a lift. A set of traffic lights. A purple 911. Or was it red? Huge black wheels rushing at him.

When he woke it was dark in the room. He reached for the buzzer and pressed it. It took so much out of him. Two weeks. How the fuck had he been out of it for two weeks? What was happening to the business? Were they coping without him? Of course they were fucking coping. He'd not exactly been Mr. Hands on. Not unless there was something in it for him of course. Not unless there was a new model on set. Then he'd be there, dangling his wallet, playing with his dick in his pocket, not caring who saw, knowing that as soon as the stunt prick was finished the next deposit into the model's account would be his own.

There was a click and a chink of light in the corner. It grew as Nurse Ologevic stepped into the room. Then she closed the door behind her and it was dark again. She stood in the shadows for a moment, looking at him. Despite the darkness, he could still see those eyes. Did she know who he was? Porn entrepreneur, Michael Dawson. The saviour of Soho. The English Larry Flint. Did she know he could get her whatever she wanted? That English passport perhaps. Did she know he was actually her fucking passport out of this place? Did she know he hadn't had sex in two weeks?

'Fuck,' he thought. 'When was the last time…?'

'The lift. No, the bedroom. No, the barstool.'

"The bandages," he mouthed. "The top ones. Very sticky."

She went out and was gone too long. He had visions of some other person arriving to carry out this most delicate of tasks. A fucking male nurse. A fucking Chinese male nurse. But she came back and this time, before circling the bed, she locked the door behind her.

'She does know who I am,' he thought. 'Oh yes she does. They're all the same. All prepared to let go of their fucking moral principles if the price is right.'

He almost laughed, but it hurt too much.

'How come I'm horny then?' he asked himself. 'How come I want this fucking Russian whore to suck my cock dry if I'm in so much pain?'

He let the thought go. It didn't matter.

She was looking at him again, not so much at him as at the bandages. She leaned forward at his waist and, with her beautiful fingers, started to undo them from around his right thigh. Every now and then she looked up at him, and each time she did he felt the curious floating sensation, but for the most part she stared at the blood soaked bandages. He could feel his cock beginning to stiffen and his balls tighten, but nothing else, not his legs, not the cool sensation that must be there on the inside of his thigh now, because it was exposed to the air in the room and the air conditioning was on and it was cool because through the warmth of the bandages around his crotch he could feel a coolness on his balls, just nowhere else.

She started on his left thigh. As the bandage came away, so his balls were released. His cock too. It was sticking straight up towards his belly, pulsating softly with each heart beat. He should have felt the pain in his legs. His thighs were almost cut to ribbons. They were red raw, a bloody mess. He supposed it was the painkillers. And yet he could feel her fingernails as they scratched the taught skin on his shaft. Accidentally? He wasn't to know, but he could feel the warmth of her breath on his balls. He strained his neck. It took all his effort to lift his chin forwards and look down towards her. She was leaning over him. Two buttons on her uniform were open. He could see the glowing white V of her cleavage, the whitest skin he'd ever seen on a woman. God how he wanted to reach down and feel her tits, grab a nipple, pull her up towards him even, feel her cunt, her wetness, get her on top of him on the bed here. He'd make movies about this. It was one situation he'd actually never fantasised about, but he would one day, remembering this. He couldn't move though. He simply had to look at her as she looked back at him, as she gave him the look, as he felt himself rising once more.

'That's the look," he said. 'That's the look I've been telling the girls to put on their faces, the one that says "I am so into this moment that nothing else in the world matters. I'm hungry for what you have." That's the look the punters want.'

His neck was beginning to fail him. There was some pain, a dull aching sensation. Still he had to look for another second or two if he could, as she let her tongue protrude from behind those perfect red lips and white teeth, as she started to lick his balls, roll them around her tongue, lick up his shaft, surround the tip of his cock with her lips, let it drop again, lick down past his balls to his thighs, to his blood clotted thighs, lick more fervently now, lick hard at his engorged thigh muscles, and then bury her nose and tongue inside him.

He screamed. Not from pain, because there was still no pain, only pleasure. It was simply the awareness of what she was doing that made him scream. And as he screamed he felt her mouth surround his cock again and begin to bite on it. He came then, a torrent of spunk that shot into her mouth, drizzled though her teeth. His stomach pitched and his back arched and then there was the warm feeling of blood on his cock, his own blood and still he felt no pain, only pleasure and still he screamed at what was happening to him but could do nothing because the ache in his back was ferocious now. Why in his back and neck, in his arms but not in his genitals? What was happening to him? He forced his head up one more time. Her mouth was dark with wetness. It was running down her chin, running down her throat too. She was swallowing it all, sperm, blood, flesh, the lot and she was drinking it down, this thing from the fucking balkans was drinking him dry, of thoughts, of feelings, of spunk, of blood, of life itself.

A chill came over Michael Dawson then, and this he could feel for sure. It started in his toes and coursed up through his legs, up and up it came until he felt it behind his eyes. There was nothing to replace it. That 911 at the lights, the guy in the driver's seat goading him to take him on. Wasn't he Asian? Searching for some clearer image, wasn't he looking at Dr. Fucking Lee? The blonde in the passenger seat? Did she look over just once, right before the lights changed? Wasn't he looking into those eyes now? The same eyes? Eyes that were full of hunger? Hadn't he been transfixed in that instant, unable to look at the road ahead, focussed only on her eyes? Hadn't he started to float? What the fuck was Manor View anyway? Those teeth of hers. He'd done the vampire stuff. The punters loved it but come on. Was it really fucking Halloween? Who had convinced him to go private? Some guy on set once. Some guy who brought the women in from the east? Some loose talk about keeping the industry clean. And the life insurance. Where was that heading? What was her name? All those years ago. The one he'd fallen for, the only one. The one he couldn't forget. The one with the power. More flashes now, cold and empty. Little things. The sequence of lights. The hotel. The girl under the covers in that big warm bed. The buzzing sound of an internet connection, twenty four hour porn at the press of a key. The buzzing of vibrators. The buzz of life in the fastest lane of all, where Ferrari Spiders jostled for lane space with Porsche 911s and always won. Always. The buzz of it all fading.

Fading to nothing.

(c) Danny Rhodes, All Rights Reserved

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