After I had watched my classmate Randall fuck my girlfriend Denise while she was passed out, I thought it would be a long time until I was able to setup the scenario again. But another opportunity would occur only a few weeks later. This time I would have to sink a bit lower than I had before. Perhaps I wouldn't have taken advantage of the depressing situation that was to come if I hadn't still been riding the high from the success of my previous experience. I'd been able to successfully manipulate Randall into fucking Denise. I had drugged her. I had planted the suggestion into his head. Then I had watched and masturbated as I watched him take her. It had been my most explosive experience at the time. I had seen Denise taken twice before, but neither had been the result of my own successful planning. The third time I had manipulated everything.
I often played out the memories of that experience in my head. I had to force myself to focus on my studies, but my mind often slipped back to that night. Because of this my arousal was the greatest it had ever been and I practically attacked Denise every day. As an accommodating lover she accepted most of my advances with just a mention of my increased lust and rougher handling of her. She didn't complain because she enjoyed it herself. She took me inside of her and came all the harder for my own urgent thrusting, our violent sex resulting in scratches and bite marks that we laughed about later as we found clothing that would cover them.
I was still immersed in this almost constant state of arousal when Denise received a call from her sister informing her that her parents had been in a car accident. Her father was dead and her mother was in the hospital dying. We notified our professors that we'd be gone for family business and left later that day. Her family didn't live far away, only a four hour drive, so I drove us.
About halfway into the drive Denise had calmed down enough that I was no longer consoling her, so my mind began to wander, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had packed the sleeping pills I had used to drug her. I had packed them without thinking like it was as normal to pack as my toothbrush, something I carried with me and expected to use. My right hand was lying in her lap, holding both of her hands, and I squeezed her hands tightly, flinching at my own coldness.
The pills had become a regular part of my life like my daily hygiene products. Such a development should have been a shock, that pills used to drug the woman who loved and trusted me had become an essential part of my life, but I only wondered that not only wasn't it a shock, I wasn't ashamed of myself. It was yet another reminder that I had moved past emotions such as shame and disgust about myself and my actions.
I pushed such thoughts from my head and held her hand tightly. I would be there for her during this tragedy in her life. I would show to myself that I could be a caring and strong partner. I couldn't undo the wrongs I had done in the past, but I could regain a portion of my humanity by putting aside my own perversion and caring for the woman I love, the woman who needed me.
Those were my thoughts at the time, but my good intentions would unravel as my perversity found another opportunity.
When we arrived in her home town I drove directly to the hospital. There we met her older sister Rebecca and her husband Jordan waiting for us in the intensive care waiting room.
The two sisters hugged tightly, causing them both to cry. Awkwardly, Jordan and I shook hands, expressing greetings and sorrow, and I asked him for the latest news. Their mother had been stabilized but had suffered enough brain damage that only the lower functions still survived and she was being kept alive on machines. Her living will stated that she wasn't to be kept alive in such a state so they were about to take her off of the machines. They were just waiting for us to arrive.
We went to the room to watch them remove her from the machines. I held Denise as she pressed her face to my shoulder, alternately watching and then turning away to wipe away tears. It was the saddest and most oppressive scene I had experienced to that point in my life. I tried to put myself in her place, imagine the thoughts and feelings, but was unable. I couldn't imagine it. My own parents had died when I was very young, young enough that my memories of them are more so sensations than images. I was raised by a series of relatives that all seemed to be angry that I had been thrust upon them. To say I was not close to my family was an understatement. To say I had no family was more accurate.
But one does not need to be able to empathize with another human being or have to understand their pain to care for them and try to help them. So I did what I could, which at such moments isn't much. I would learn this later as a doctor, watching many people die and knowing there was no way to soothe those left behind. Grief is very personal.
Other relatives eventually filtered into the room, aunts and uncles and cousins, family that still lived in the area and had come to pay final respects. It was too many people for me to remember and there was only a minimum of conversation with condolences and updates on the mother's condition. She did not die after being removed from the machines.
The hospital staff then moved her out of intensive care and to a normal room where she could die and not take up space for those whose lives were to be saved. Thus began a weeklong vigil. There's nothing like waiting for someone to die. Death does not come easy. I've seen it many times now and it is never like in the movies. The body is designed to keep itself alive, it will shut down everything nonessential to supply energy to the essentials for maintaining life. It's a brutal process. The body breaks itself down, shutting down anything it doesn't need, and destroys itself in an effort to thrive. Death is almost always slow and if not painful to the person dying than at least painful to those watching it.
I have no need to describe that week in detail. It's obvious that it was a drain on Denise. She slept very little, staying at the hospital as much as she could. I drove her around, brought her food, and tried my best to respond to her needs. I let her do what she needed to do and tried to support her. We stayed at her parents' house with Jordan and Rebecca. We all felt uncomfortable there without her parents and stayed out as much as possible.
I spent a lot of time with Jordan. The two sisters would sit in their mother's room, waiting, and he and I would wander at times, talking about things not having to do with death. I had never talked to him much and at that time found him to be pleasant enough company. He was intelligent and funny and seemed to want to alleviate the mood as much as I did when we were alone.
About five days into the vigil he surprised me with a discussion more private than we'd had previously. By that time we'd talked enough to be very comfortable around each other and in fact established a friendship not based purely on circumstances but from a commonality in interests, humor, and intellect. On that particular day we were driving to a local deli to buy lunch for the relatives that were currently sitting in the hospital room. I was driving and noticed that Jordan was shaking his leg and tapping on the dashboard.
"How are you doing?" I asked him.
"Fine as can be," he replied, staring out the side window.
"I don't mean that," I said. "You seem particularly agitated today."
"Oh, sorry," he said, stopped his leg from shaking, and folded his arms across his chest.
I smiled and brushed it off. "It's fine. You weren't bothering me. I was just wondering what's going on."
"Maybe all this sitting around and waiting," he replied. "I'm not good at doing nothing. I need to be doing something."
"We are doing something," I said. "We're getting lunch. The most exciting thing we'll do all day." I laughed to myself.
He smiled at me and sighed deeply. "I don't know. I'm just being a selfish ass of a husband."
"No. I don't think so. You're here with your wife when she needs you. She appreciates it and appreciates you."
"I'm not talking about that." He shifted in his seat like he was struggling with some thought, trying to decide what to say and what not to say.
"Then what are you talking about," I said, "If there's something you want to get off your chest then tell me. I'm probably the least judgmental person you're ever going to meet." I tried to subdue my laugh, knowing that between the two of us I'd be the one that could be the most easily judged for my actions.
"What makes you think there's something I want to get off my chest?" he asked, looking directly at me, but not accusatory, just questioning.
"Your body language," I replied. "You're fidgeting and when I ask you about it you stop and wrap up like you're trying to hold onto something."
"Are you studying to be a doctor or a psychologist?" he joked.
