"He won't even look at me anymore," Suzy sobbed into the phone.
"Oh, stop it. You just delivered and you're hormonal. He's probably afraid you'll bite his head off."
"Gee, thanks."
"Oh, hell. Look, I'm at work. Freddy hasn't exactly been the man of steel of late, and I know where you're coming from. When I delivered Fred Jr., I put my teenage daughter to shame. And you know what a cock hound Rachel is."
"I'm dying, Brenda. I'm in such need of a good....fucking."
"Christ, Suze, what do you want me to do? Lez out on you or something?"
"No, I just wanted some sympathy, damn it!"
"Look, we got ten admissions going on, Doc Ritigliano is cursing me in Italian, the nurse just ran out in tears. The trash hasn't been emptied in a week. I can't spare you any sympathy right now. It's not that I don't care, but I'm not in a position where I can play girlfriend right now."
"All right."
"Oh, fuck, don't even give me that wounded puppy voice. I know Freddy and Steve are off to Lake Pickwick for a weekend fishing trip. I get off at ten, if I'm lucky. What say I grab a bag and I'll spend the weekend with you and the baby?"
"Mom has little Jimmy."
"Even better, I'll bring a fifth with me."
"I can't drink."
"Of course you can. You aren't pregnant any more."
"But I'm still breast feeding."
"So what? You got a pump. It'll all be out of your system before the rugrat is back."
"Brenda!"
"Oh, fuck. Look, I gotta go. See you around eleven."
Brenda Miles hung up and let out a big sigh. Being the admissions nurse at Baptist was bad enough, but on a Friday night, with a gang war going on and the janitorial staff on strike, it was sheer hell. She just didn't have time to stroke Suzy's ego tonight. Not that she felt bad about blowing her off, Suzy could be a real pain in the ass when she was in JAP mode. Which was all too often since she got pregnant.
Actually, Suzy was a high maintenance pain in the ass most of the time. She could also be the most kind, considerate and generous of friends. The problem was, she was strung tighter than a wasp waist corset. Brenda kept up the hope that she would eventually let her hair down and learn to enjoy life. It was a fading hope, as Suzy had become insufferable after the kid was born, obsessing over her weight, the kid, the house and Steve's seeming disinterest. Brenda hated to admit it, but she had been avoiding her friend. Suzy was just more emotionally draining than Brenda could handle at the moment.
She knew from Freddy that Steve was having his own problems with his wife. Brenda had coaxed Freddy into taking Steve out and giving him a talking to. The boy was getting desperate, and she couldn't deal with Suzy going through a divorce. But if the girl didn't lighten up, she was gonna drive Steve to it.
Brenda laughed out loud, causing several people to stare.
Good old Freddy. King of the horn dogs. His solution had been they try wife swapping. She wasn't that into Steve, but she had to admit, if anything would loosen Suze up, Freddy's cock would do it. Not only was he fantastically hung, but he knew how to use it, and imagining little Suzy with Freddy's black dick slamming her pussy was about the funniest thing she had thought of in a long time.
Actually, it wasn't just funny, it was kind of hot. Suze was a dish, even if she didn't know it. Back in their early swinging days, Brenda had been pretty naïve. Once she got started though, she had gone a little cunt crazy. She told herself it was just a passing thing, she hadn't been with another woman in a couple of years. The couples they regularly partnered with were pretty much straight. And none of the wives really did much for her anyway, but Suze? She had to admit, she could get into that.
Of course, it was all the more funny because Suze would never go for it. Steve would, Brenda had seen him surreptitiously checking out her tits and ass when they had pool parties. But Suze? Not with all the rum in Jamaica in her.
Brenda paused in the middle of her admission paper work and frowned. No, you couldn't get Suze liquored up enough. But what about drugged up? She pushed the thought from her mind and went back to her paper work, but it kept coming back. On her break, Brenda slipped into the pharmacy and perused the shelves.
Most of the tranquilizers were just too strong. And she wasn't real knowledgeable about the psychoactives. Several painkillers might work, but they might also make her sick. Brenda had only entered on a lark and was about to leave, chalking the whole crazy thought up to the bad idea column, when she saw the bottle of Cainockflorin. It was a new drug, and only Doc Ritigliano used it. He was still heavily loyal to the old country and the fact that an Italian firm had developed it made it good enough in his estimation.
He only gave it to the real whackos, but it really seemed to work on them. She had seen him calm a Schizoid-affective down from homicidal rage to sleepy and fuzzy with a single shot of the stuff. Curious, she grabbed the work up on it and took it back to the break room.
She read through all the cautions first and was surprised to find there were very few. She noted pregnant or nursing women wasn't among the proscribed patients list. The side effects were interesting as well.
Common side effects include: Drowsiness, dizziness, weakness, impaired judgment, impaired vision, confusion/disorientation, short term memory loss and impaired concentration.
Rare Side effects: Enhanced Tactile sensation (particularly in the extremities), Muscle soreness, breathing difficulty, Somnambulism, Hallucinations, Incontinence
In clinical trials one patient in 100,000 experienced an allergic reaction, which resulted in coma. Of these reactions .001 percent resulted in death. This side effect must be treated immediately with epinephrine delivered intravenously as well as antihistamines and oxygen.
Cainockflorin should not be administered to patients with Asthma or other breathing difficulty, taking Corticoid-steroids or opiate painkillers as either could result in breathing arrest.
Pretty powerful stuff. Brenda immediately discounted the coma and death warning. She had come to realize that was more legalese then medicalese. All the big pharmaceutical outfits were covering their asses now with such disclaimers. Even her birth control pills had such a warning, but when she asked, Dr. Palmer told her no one had ever died from them that he knew of. Suzy didn't have any breathing problems she was aware of, but it wasn't like Brenda knew her full medical history.
Brenda decided it was just a nutty idea and on her way back to the nurse's station, she stopped into the Pharmacy to return the paperwork to its cubby. She had intended to just leave, but she found herself alone and eyeing the two bottles of Cainockflorin. It only came in two oral doses, a .25 mg maintenance dose and a .5 mg intervention dosage. Anything more had to be given intravenously under a physician's supervision. The Doc eschewed the .5 mg dose, preferring to give the .25 incrementally until his patients calmed. Thus the .25 bottle was three quarters empty, but the .5 mg bottle was almost full.
Brenda found herself doing some quick arithmetic. Five hundred tablets, of which, maybe twenty were gone. That was over the roughly six months it had been available. Last inventory had been in April, so...roughly five more months till the admins got their panties in a wad or the state came in, necessitating a new inventory. Her hand was on the bottle and she was spilling two tabs out before she even really realized it. Stashing them in her coat pocket, she returned to the admissions desk and spent the rest of her shift debating the consequences of her crazy plan.
***
"Hey babe, miss you," Freddy's voice came over the line.
Brenda had just gotten in and was still half dressed when the phone rang. "Yeah, like I'm buying that. A weekend of fishing, lying and getting drunk is your idea of paradise," she replied, but there was no venom in her voice.
"Damn, woman, I can't even try to be nice to you, can I?" he chuckled.
"Sure you can, if Viagra is on sale."
"Ouch. Low blow there."
"You know I'm full of shit, babe."
"Yeah, but the dick jokes gotta stop. A man has his pride."
"So how's it going?" Brenda asked, as she tossed her eighteen-hour bra into the hamper.
"I....Look, I know she's your friend and all, but Stevie's mine. She's killing him, babe. She can't even loosen up a little bit. Even when he can get it, the sex is missionary only and she acts like it's a chore. It's just destroying his self-esteem. He loves her, but he's at the end of his rope."
"Damn."
"I even approached him about some swappin', but while he was hot as hell to get into your pants, he said there was no way she'd try it. I don't think this marriage is going to make it, babe. I'm sorry for that, she's a sweet girl sometimes, but I can't try to convince him to stay. Not after all he told me on the trip up."
Freddy..." she said, her tone turning icy.
"Awww, shit, don't do that, babe. I'm not gonna egg him on to leave her, but I just can't lean on him to stay. I know I'd be outta there in a heartbeat."
"If she loosened up some, do you think they would make it?" she said after a deep sigh.
"Sure. He's still in love with her, and he's about the proudest papa I ever did see. If she dropped the Princess crap and was even close to normal, he'd gut it out."
"All right, you tell Steve to hang in."
"I've heard that voice before. You about to read her the riot act?"
"No. I'm going to cut some corset strings and see what busts loose."
"Uh oh."
"What?"
