The Matrons of Regal Bay
Chapter 14
Valerie's Tales -- Part 2
It had been nearly two weeks since she'd enjoyed a fantasy encounter with her son. Valerie understood the reasons well enough. Peter had gone through a series of mid-terms and his attention was where it should have been. His class-work was entirely more important than her sinful fulfillments, after all. Besides, her work-load had greatly increased over the last month with two of her floor nurses taking time off, and one of the Hospice RN's now on maternity leave. Valerie had been asked to help pick up the load, and as a woman who seldom said no to a request when it involved helping others, she had ended up working seven straight days, ten or twelve hours each, with only a single day off to recover before starting a fresh seven.
So it was that even though she was quite tired after yet another long day, capping off her second seven in a row, Valerie felt herself revived by a jolt of excitement when she discovered an e-mail in her in-box tagged simply, "Instructions". She guiltily looked up and glanced around the nurse's station to insure that none of her colleagues were nearby before clicking on the line.
The instructions were as follows: "When you leave work, go to room 613, take a quick shower, dress in the surgical gown only, and get into the bed. Put on the blindfold you will find in the serving table. Once prepared, ring for the nurse."
Valerie realized that this time she was to be taken in the hospital, and although it would not be the first time, it was the first time she was to present herself as a patient. Her excitement built quickly as her last hour slowed to a crawl, but even as she began to gather her things and pass on the floor instructions to her relief, Valerie was finding it difficult to think about anything else.
"You seem distracted, Val," her friend Connie Holmes observed as she also began to gather up he own items. Both women had been on duty since six a.m. and were exhausted. Connie however was due back on duty in twelve hours, whereas Valerie was off for twenty-four.
"I guess so," she replied with a hint of a smile. "I've got plans tonight, is all," she added.
"I wish I had that kind of energy. This is only my third day and I'm so tired I'm going straight to bed when I get home. If Charlie want's any dinner, he'll have to make it himself." Charlie was Connie's husband. Valerie and Connie were very similar women in that they were both middle-aged mothers. Connie, unlike Valerie, was still happily married and enjoyed a warm relationship with her husband. She also enjoyed reminding the other nurses she worked with of this fact, many of whom were in a similar situation to Valerie. But Valerie didn't grudge her co-worker at all. She was happy that Connie was happy. Of course, Connie was completely unaware that Valerie was enjoying a secretive, fantasy relationship with her own son.
"I'll see you Friday morning," Valerie waved as she headed for the elevator. She had to go up, instead of down to the lobby, from the third floor wards she worked. Room 613, where she had been instructed to go, was not in this wing, but in the North wing. Valerie stepped off of the elevator into the fifth floor reception area and tried not to look at the nurses seated in the centralized station. This was the children's ward, and she seldom ventured up here. Valerie worked almost exclusively with older, geriatric patients, many well over the age of eighty, and in need of almost complete care. Her duties required her to pay special visits to the Majestic Hospice Center across the hospital campus to visit with the men and women she had cared for in the hospital. For Valerie it was at times very sad work, watching as people she had come to know and care for grew ever frailer as their particular conditions overwhelmed them. Years ago, she would pay her respects at their funerals, but she'd long stopped going. She realized that she had begun living in a state of perpetual grief. That had stopped when she had first opened a letter, slipped under the door to her apartment, and followed its instructions.
Now Valerie was once again following her instructions. She'd discovered just recently that it had been her youngest son, Peter, all along who had been fulfilling her need as a fantasy lover. She should have been appalled and put a stop to it at the time. Instead, she gave herself to Peter and his own desires, and in return she was herself fulfilled.
Not stopping as she passed through, Valerie stopped at the far end of the hallway and called for the elevator. Taking this elevator up one floor, Valerie stepped out onto a floor that was used mostly for overflow of other floors. There was rarely more than two of the rooms in use. The last time more than that had been used was when a mumps outbreak on the university campus laid up nearly a dozen students and faculty. Six-North, as the floor was often referred to around the hospital, had been nick-named "The Plague Zone" after that. So it was that the lights had been dimmed and the nurse's station shut down. None of the rooms would be in use, she recognized. Whatever her son had in mind for her, odds were that they would not be disturbed.
Her heart began to race as she walked along the dimly lit hallway to room 613. All of the doors were closed, and this one was not different. She pushed the door open and stepped into the room. The light was off so she found the switch and turned them on. The room was empty except for the usual furnishings. A large hospital bed was centered on the far wall. Three uncomfortable leather-bound chairs and a small table sat along the outer wall, beneath two large windows that faced East and the Majestic Mountain Range in the near distance. Deep shadows cast by the big hospital buildings stretched up the foothills as the late autumn sun settled in the West. Valerie found the gown, laid across the foot of the bed, ready for her. She checked the wheeled table used for bed-ridden patients and beneath the lid she found the pink eye mask. Valerie took it and laid it out with the gown.
