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"He was a bit out of practice. Like twenty years out of practice."
"I'll be back in a bit to stitch that up," she said and left us alone.
Drake continued to examine me, his hand on my shoulder, smiling at me. He'd hurt his wrist trying to break the fall, and cradled it, a tensor bandage on it.
"I'm so sorry, he said. "I'm really not usually so clumsy." He grinned at me. "Kind of ruined the mood I was going for…"
I laughed and squeezed his good hand. "At least I was in the best hands. I mean, if you’re going to fall and crack your head, who better than a neurosurgeon to look after you?"
The young doctor came back in.
"Can you excuse us, Dr. Morgan?" she said to Drake. "I'd like to speak with Kate alone for a moment."
Drake's mouth went hard at that. "Certainly." He leaned over to me and kissed me briefly where I sat on the examining table. "I'll be right back. You'll be fine."
I nodded. When we were alone, the physician turned to me.
"I just wanted to give you the opportunity to tell me if you're concerned at all about anything."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"If there's anything happening in your life that frightens you. If you've been harmed in any way that led to that injury. I'm obliged to ask about this any time a woman comes in with her partner, injured in a domestic accident."
"You think he did this on purpose?" I said, aghast. "No, it was just as we told you. He was showing me how to do the Jitterbug and tripped on a carpet on the floor. We fell and I hit my head on the sideboard. That's it. End of story. He hurt his wrist trying to stop the fall."
She looked down at my wrists, which were bare, my sweater rolled up. There were chafing marks where the leather edge of my restraints rubbed my skin from our last session. Just a slight red mark on the back of my hands. It didn’t hurt, but I could see that she was worried.
"Just role playing," I said, smiling. My face turned bright red. "You know. We read those books, and like to try things out."
"As long as you're safe and this is your choice…"
"I'm fine," I said. "We're lovers. We got a little… enthusiastic the other night."
She nodded, a somewhat judgmental expression on her face. Then, she had me lie down and after preparing me, putting a sterile field over my eye and brow, she injected me with a local anesthetic and proceeded to stitch me up.
"Drake might want to be here for this," I said.
"Sorry about that," she said. "I can't stop now. Have to maintain sterile procedure."
Finally, Drake came back and pushed the door open to check on how I was. He stood watching the physician as she stitched me, examining each stitch carefully, holding my hand on the other side of the gurney.
When she was done, I sat back up and she gave me instructions about aftercare. Drake seemed a bit impatient with her, as if he didn’t know proper procedure. Finally, we left the hospital and went back to the apartment.
"You're staying here tonight," he said when we were back inside. He brought me a glass of milk instead of Anisovaya and motioned to the couch.
"No bondage tonight?" I said, disappointed. "No Anisovaya?"
"No alcohol for you, just in case. No bondage because of my wrist," he said, holding it up. "I'm useless. Not in fighting form and neither are you."
I sighed and after he shot back his vodka and I my milk, we nestled on the couch.
He'd put on some music, something old, folksy.
"What's this?" I asked. It was a solo singer accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.
"A Canadian musician, Gordon Lightfoot. One of my dad's favorites. He had every single album. He was a big fan of Canada, raving about their health care system and welfare safety net. He almost wanted to move there after the war, but he was accepted to Columbia and wanted to go study medicine."
"If he was such a socialist, why did he go to war? Couldn't he get an exemption?"
