Page 3 of Keeping Her Under (Deranged Highway, #1)

Three

In the privacy of a hospital bathroom, I take off my boxers and toss them in the bin. Then I throw some crumpled hand towels on top of them. I don’t clean the cum off me though. I like the reminder of what I did. As I stride out of the bathroom, the mess on my thighs pulls deliciously at my hairs.

Glancing down, I see my cock pushing against my dark-teal scrubs again. Fuck. I can’t get caught with a semi.

A row of gurneys lines the far side of the long room, each bed divided by white curtains to give them a bit of privacy. My last patient of the day is on the bed furthest on the right.

“Hello, Mr. Astley,” I say warmly as I approach the foot of his bed.

I sit down on it so he doesn’t have to peer up at me.

This will relax his neck muscles and give his body one less thing to stress over.

I smile at him, completely wearing the mask I show my patients.

“My name is Rath Slader, and I will be your anesthesiologist for your laparoscopic cholecystectomy today.”

“Hi,” he says nervously, though he’s trying to hide it. He’s built of solid muscle – a gymbro rather than a MMA fighter like Nurse Grayson. Showing weakness isn’t ‘in his DNA,’ no doubt. “You look too young to be a doctor.”

I smile, having heard this a million times before. I’m forty-seven, but I don’t look much older than twenty-three to white people. “You can thank my heritage for that. I’m Korean, so we don’t age until we’re eighty.”

He laughs, his nervous energy dying a little. “North or South?” Yet another joke I’ve heard a million times before.

“South.” I turn the conversation towards his heritage, then lead it into more present-day waters.

I want to get him comfortable so he sees me as just another man rather than a doctor.

People lie to their doctors, and I need him to tell me the truth.

I can’t have two mistakes on my record today; otherwise, my superiors might force me to take leave.

“Have you eaten or drunk anything today?” I ask quickly so my dick doesn’t have time to stand up.

“Just the water and black coffee I was told I was allowed,” he says.

“How long ago was your last drink?”

He pauses for a few seconds. “About four hours ago.”

“Have you eaten anything?” Men have a tendency to lie about this more – thinking they know better than the person who’s gone to medical school.

They think they can sneak a couple slices of bacon in and be fine.

But they’re not the ones who have to stop themselves from dying when they start to vomit and aspirate on the table because their muscles are paralyzed and unable to clear the sick out themselves.

They’re not the ones who have to tell their loved ones that their surgery would’ve been a success, but they’re dead because they couldn’t go a few hours without eating.

“I said I only had liquids, didn’t I?” Mr. Astley’s tone has changed, going on the defensive, and now I know he’s eaten.

You don’t get defensive that quickly if you’re innocent.

But I’m not annoyed like I usually am when a patient of mine doesn’t listen to me and thus takes the spot of someone else who could’ve had a surgery today.

Because if I cancel his op, then I can leave early. I can go to Summer’s house and become familiar with it. Familiar with her. Then I can learn how to manipulate her after she wakes if I don’t get the time to fuck her before then.

“Mr. Astley,” I say sharply. “It’s important for me to know if you’ve consumed anything you weren’t supposed to.

If you have anything in your bowels, you could throw up on the table.

Now, normally, you’d be able to roll over and let it out, but you can’t do that when you’re under anesthesia.

It’ll go into your lungs, and you’ll start to choke to death.

Can you think of how we’d be able to do a Heimlich maneuver while your chest is open for surgery?

” I don’t tell him that’s not how aspiration is actually treated while on the table or that he’ll most likely have a reaction before the surgeon even scrubs in.

The danger is still there, and just two years ago, in this very hospital, a mother of two girls aspirated on scrambled eggs and orange juice because her youngest had made her breakfast and she couldn’t find it in her to say no.

She died a few days later, having never left the hospital after what should’ve been a simple surgery. Her kids went into custody because they didn’t have anyone else. No family or godparents to take them. I doubt they have stayed together; the system has a tendency to break up siblings.

The patient’s face turns red, embarrassment flaming his cheeks.

But there is also a stubborn set to his jaw that tells me he has ‘researched’ this.

Meaning, he either Googled it until he got the conclusion he wanted, or he listened to an idiot who thinks just because she ate and survived, he’ll be fine too because “all bodies are the same.”

Fucking idiots.

“The percentage of –” he starts.

“If you have two options for birth control,” I cut in, “where one has a 95% rate of success and the other has a 99% chance, which one would you choose?”

He looks at me flustered. “The 99% –”

“Exactly, Mr. Astley. But the worst case there is you get a kid; worst case here is you die. So I will ask you again. Have you eaten or drunk anything in the last twelve hours that you were not supposed to?”

I stare at him, no longer a friend who sits at his bedside but a doctor who is holding his life and death in my hands. The power of that is fucking heady. Almost as much as the knowledge that I will be in Summer’s home within a couple hours. Almost, but not quite.

The man in front of me opens his mouth, flustering a few times. Then he glances away. “I had a granola bar or two for breakfast.” He looks back at me. “But my mother said she ate a full meal before her surgery and –”

I stand. “Not all bodies are the same, Mr. Astley. I will be canceling your surgery. You can see the receptionist to reschedule it.”

“Now hold on a minute,” he starts angrily. “I’ve been waiting here forever. Do the fucking surgery, or I’ll –”

“Threaten the man who’s responsible for you waking back up?” I ask calmly.

He sputters, and it takes everything in me not to laugh at how pathetic he is. All those muscles, and he’s been forced to listen to someone half his size.

Leaving the room, I find the surgeon and tell him I’ve cancelled the op. Normally, he’s annoyed if I do this, but today, he looks at me in understanding and concern.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. I cut off my usual nod of arrogance and replace it with a downward glance of guilt. He eats it up like I want him to, but I don’t lay it on any thicker than that.

Lying is a skill; manipulation is an art.

“Yeah,” I say, clipped and flat, making it sound like a lie. Like I’m really torn apart inside, but I’m just too proud to say it.

“We all make mistakes,” he says.

I don’t say anything. Manipulation is all about letting people draw their own conclusions. If a person puts in the work to come to a decision, they’re more likely to believe it – even if future evidence says otherwise.

So I let him think whatever he wants to when it comes to my guilt. It would never cross his mind that I don’t feel such things.

Or that it wasn’t an accident at all.

Turning away from the surgeon, I seek out my superiors to see if I can leave early due to the cancelled op. They hear it as me asking for a bit of time after my ‘accident’ with Summer, and I don’t correct them. I merely tell them thank you, then make my way to the locker room.

With every step, my thoughts quicken.

When I get to my patient’s house, will I find it empty?

Or will I get caught by her boyfriend?