Copyright 1999 Del Edwards (a nom de plume)
Winter nights in the north central states may as well be hibernation. Nothing happens...except at the community hospital when the deputy sheriff comes in for a cup of coffee and that is sometimes the highlight of his shift.
The nearly unbearable silence and boredom are broken only by the rustle of paper as the night shift nurse in the emergency room turned the page of her magazine. She had made the midnight round quickly since there were only three patients in the hospital at the moment. She would make another round at two and one at four. That was part of her duties in addition to staying awake in the unlikely event that a case came through the ER doors unannounced. A doctor is always available, sleeping in the room that is the second door to the left down the hall. He is being paid to sleep there rather than at home in the marriage bed with his wife. Mostly they are young doctors who drive a good distance to earn the extra money or old doctors who have no interest in sleeping with their wives.
A quarter mile away two firefighter/paramedics are sleeping in a two-bay firehouse. Depending on the nature of the emergency they will make a run to the scene in either a rescue van or the big diesel-powered pumper. Both units are housed in a heated station so they will start easily and both are 'chained up' with tire chains on the rear wheels. The roads have been plowed clear but it's easier and quicker to drop a set of chains than to install them. The dispatcher will tell them of the road conditions to the scene, that's part of the chatter with the highway patrolmen and deputies that goes on twenty four hours a day. The dispatchers faithfully enter the information into the computer knowing that it will be used less than one percent of the time but that one percent could mean the difference between life an death to the innocent victim of an accident somewhere out on the frozen strips of asphalt that lead from one town to the next.
If she and the doctor needed extra trained help to deal with a case all she had to do was pick up the red phone hanging on the wall and the ring-down line would connect her directly to the guys at the firehouse.
Annie, the night shift nurse in the ER, was so bored that she spent three hours at the beginning of her shift reviewing procedural checklists and memorizing them. Then as a mental exercise she overlaid protocols and invented little hiccups of medical ethics just to hold the boredom at bay. Halfway through her shift when nearly everyone within three hundred miles was asleep, she stood in the middle of the ER and announced her boredom and unhappiness to the world with a loud growl followed by a grunt. Then she went to the ladies room off the ER entrance, pushed her scrub pants down her legs followed by her panties Sitting on the closed toilet seat lid she masturbated for a half hour having five or six orgasms. During one episode of ecstasy she either had two or maybe it was one long one. She wasn't sure.
Young deputy sheriff Ethan Neilsen had returned from nearly four months at the state-run police academy full of purpose and purity. He could shoot. He could find the right code to cite a violator for a traffic offense in less than thirty seconds using the 'cheat sheet' taped inside his citation book. He had perfected control holds to use on combative prisoners and handcuffing techniques to keep them under control. He could make the 400 cubic-inch engine marked patrol car do exactly what he wanted it to do. There was a thirty caliber carbine in the boot under his knees and a twelve-gage pump in the trunk if he needed to clear a path for himself or engage multiple suspects who were bent on killing him. His instructors with short cropped hair and clipped voices, muscular and confident in their tennis shirts with their names embroidered above the right breast had taught him absolutely nothing about how to deal with a twenty-three year old nurse who was totally bored and very horny.
Just before zero three hundred he had keyed his mike and asked for a radio check. She came right back at him saying, "Read you ten two, Four Sierra Foxtrot." In the soft glow of the lights that illuminated the instrument panel and radio console he wondered what kind of a woman, what kind of a body, what kind of a soul had just spoken to him.
The headlights of the cruiser, this powerful steed that would take him onto missions of good, showed four feet of plowed snow beside the road. Nothing but the flakes moved as they drifted down to add yet another layer of white to the landscape. He was alone in the cold whiteness knowing that he yearned to connect with the comfort and warmth of another soul.
More immediately to the point he knew he wanted a cup of coffee and had to take a piss. Carefully but expertly he executed a U turn on the cold, frozen highway and set his auto-pilot for the bright warmth of the very small community hospital. It was the only thing that was not locked and dark at that hour. Even the dispatcher he had just connected to momentarily was more than a hundred miles away. She might have thirty units showing green on her computer screen. And those thirty unit numbers were about half of the cops on duty in the state at the moment. He was Four Sierra Foxtrot...that meant he was the fourth deputy sheriff who had checked on the radio net to work the night shift in Frey county.
He thumbed the release button on the radio console and the portable popped out of its nest. He visually and tactually checked the second set of keys for the cruiser hanging from his Sam Brown belt. With the portable in his right hand he opened the door of the cruiser with his left hand and flicked the lock button down. He pushed the door closed, key in the ignition, engine running. 'Burn the gas, don't let the beast go cold on you,' his training officer had told him.
It was very cold. The snow squeaked under his thermal boots as he walked toward the double doors of the emergency room. His first order of business was to use the john. That always took longer in the winter because of the number of layers of clothing. And those same layers were what caused him to leave the ER sooner than he really wanted. He had to dress so he could stay out in the cold for extended periods such as accidents. He rarely used the heater in the car, just the defrost system to keep the windshield clear.
Annie heard the double doors open. She was ninety nine percent sure it was the young deputy sheriff making a pit stop. Putting down the woman's magazine she was reading, she walked to the double doors between the ER and the reception area. Pushing it open, she scanned the reception area to make sure some poor soul hadn't staggered in and collapsed on the floor. The reception area was empty. Ethan was already in the men's john. He was a bright, polite and clean-cut young man. From their conversations over the past months she knew he was raised on a farm about thirty five miles away, had played football and basketball in high school and then got his associate's degree in criminal justice. He still helped his parents on the farm during peak periods but did not want to be a farmer himself.
She was interested in him if for no other reason than he was one of the few single men of her age in the area. He might even be a virgin she figured and was romantically naïve. He had never volunteered any information about dating or involvements with women and she hadn't had the guts to ask.. She realized that she had never mentioned her romantic/sex life to him but that was because there wasn't much of anything for her to talk about. She wondered if that might be his reason too. He probably wouldn't be interested in hearing about her masturbation sessions and the fantasy visits of Mister Magic. She wondered if he masturbated and how much. It was unlikely that he had a Miss Magic in his head. Probably just used a girlie magazine she thought.
A sudden sourness descended on her just as Deputy Nielsen pushed open one of the double doors and clomped into the room.. "I wish you'd yell it's you so I don't have to get up and look in the lobby when you come in," she heard herself say.
"Oh my, that time of the month huh?' he replied with a wry smile at the corners of his mouth. It was the first reference to anything sexual that had ever gone between them.
Annie thought for a few seconds. "You're right. I'm sorry," she said.
"It's okay. Sometimes Mom gets that way with Dad and I. She explained it to me. It'll pass. Then it'll happen again...and again...and again," he chuckled bobbing his head forward with each 'again.'.
