So I went downtown, looking plain and feeling wrung out, to make a round of the club. It was Friday and the place was packed, everyone ready to get their groove on but me. I looked everywhere but the men’s restroom and was about to give up. It’d been a stupid idea to begin with. I wove for the door around the edge of the dance floor, envious of the people dancing upon it like they had no cares.

“Well, hello there,” said an achingly familiar British voice from behind me. I turned.

It was him! I’d almost physically run into him. It’d have been cosmically laughable if I’d seen it on TV. As it was, I exhaled in deep relief.

“You’re not a dragon!” Sure, I might have other STDs—bad Edie, impulsive Edie—but at least I could scratch were-syphilis off the list.

“Not last I checked, no.” His eyebrows rose. I looked past him at the glamorous woman standing behind him. I couldn’t tell if she’d come in with him or was just making time, but she seemed distinctly peeved.

“Um, anyhow, nice to see you again,” I said, waving from the hip. I tried to walk backward, but found myself trapped by the crowd.

“Hey—” He reached out and caught my hand again, and again seemed surprised by the skin-on-skin contact. I could almost see the emotions flicker over his face as he tried to figure out what to say next. “I still owe you.”

“What?” I pulled my hand back a little, but not much.

He took a step nearer to me, taller, the scent of vetiver strong between us, even here. He bent his head down to put his lips by my ear. “I owe you,” he enunciated, with his lovely accent, his breath warm against my skin.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I told him. The woman behind him, blond, lean, high-breasted—the look on her face said she was going to owe me an eye-gouging in a second, if I didn’t get the hell away.

He pulled his head away from my ear, and addressed me directly. “The other night. I owe you. And I don’t like having debts.”

“Oh? Oh!” Light finally dawned, and I flushed red, from my head to my toes, glad for the camouflage of the club’s surreal light show all around me. I’d never had a man try to cash in on an orgasm debt before.

“So, may I repay you?” he asked, a light smile playing on his lips. It became a wolfish leer that was not at all unattractive.

“Thanks, but—” I glanced over his shoulder.

He turned toward the woman. I didn’t hear what he said, or see what expression he’d said it with, but almost instantly she bowed her head and melted away into the crowd. The brief noninstant part was occupied with staring daggers at me.

“I’m Edie,” I said, putting out my other hand when he returned his attention to me. He released my hand and shook the other.

“I’m Asher.”

“Nice to meet you, Asher.” I smiled and gave a goofy curtsy. With his accent, it seemed appropriate, after all.

Asher returned with a slight bow and offered me his hand. “Dearest Edie,” he said with exaggerated formality, “it will be lovely to take you home.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I made sure I got some sleep before getting up for my employee health clinic appointment the next morning, sitting with others in the drab waiting room on a hard plastic chair. I was the only employee I recognized, and I hoped it stayed that way.

Obviously Asher hadn’t been the were-dragon, and obviously a lot of things that I might have gotten from him wouldn’t be testable yet, but I felt compelled to keep the appointment anyhow. It was always good to know your baseline. We’d used condoms the night before and Asher hadn’t questioned me about the change.

He’d also made sure I’d been repaid. With interest. Which was nice. But really, it was one thing to go home with a girl like me on a Wednesday, and something entirely other to choose me over that woman on a Friday night. It didn’t feel right. I hadn’t expressed this to him, as I did have some pride that even my occasionally scrupulous honesty could not cure me of, but I’d made it clear to him that I didn’t believe in an orgasm credit plan. Asher had foisted his phone number onto me regardless. The responsible nurse in me had felt compelled to take it, just in case anything came back positive today.

Trapped in the waiting room, I could see his number in my mind’s eye, pinned to my fridge with a magnet. I tried to imagine having a good reason to call, one that didn’t involve reporting test results to him, one that somehow resolved into us going on an actual date.

The door to the back office opened, and thankfully a nurse I didn’t know leaned out. “Edie Spence?” she read from a folder in front of her.

“That’s me.” I stood, straightened my shirt, and followed her in.

* * *

I spent the rest of the day in bed, trying to sleep up ahead of my night. As I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, it should have been easy, but anytime I slept I had nightmares about oceans, either real ones or ones made of tarry black. And when I was awake in between dreams I kept thinking about Asher’s number, and when and/or if I ought to call. Minnie wasn’t helping—her paws seemed to have organ-seeking powers and she paced across me at least once an hour. Like so many afternoons/evenings before, right after I began to feel like I was getting real sleep at last, my alarm went off, and it was time to go in.

“You’re extra help tonight,” Meaty said as I walked in the door.

“Really?” I said, surprised. “I mean—sure thing!”

Meaty grinned at me. “The action’s in room four. Hold down the fort out here, and we’ll call you when we need you.”

I stood a bit taller behind the nursing station. This was an amazing turn of events. I was being trusted with the entire floor. You didn’t get to be extra help nurse without actually being known as helpful. Meaty was in room four with Charles doing something—most likely talking to all the visitors that I could see in the room from here—and Gina was around the corner with her patients. It was just me and the charge desk. I sat down and felt downright official.

“I’m in charge, I’m in charge,” I sang to myself. “Meaty’s goooone, so I’m in charrrrge.” I heard a snicker from the were-corrals. “I’m in charge of Gina tooooo,” I continued, and there was an outright laugh.

There were labs to be ordered, and carts to be refilled—I tried to do whatever I remembered seeing Meaty do, industriously. This took about thirty minutes. “Need any help, Gina?” I called out, when all the carts were full.

“Not yet. Thanks!” she called back.

“Well, then.” I straightened my lanyard like a tie. And then my badge began to glow.

Oh, no. I looked around.

There was a kid in the doorway of room four, staring at me like a creepy kid from any number of Japanese horror films. He had a dark suit on, cut perfectly for his four-foot-nothing form, shined shoes, and a bow tie. I waved. “Did you need something?” I asked, hopefully. He continued to stare.

A Persian woman poked her head out, luscious dark hair bound up high atop her head. She looked at the boy, then me, and then smiled.

“Gaius, she is protected, she cannot hear you.” The boy stared up at her and she patted his shoulder. “Go on, tell her what you want.”

He—Gaius—opened up his mouth to speak, with no sound. How long had it been since he’d had to talk? “I—I would like a glass of water,” he stammered.

I grinned at him, and rose. “Ice, or no ice?”

“Ice. Please.”

“No problem.” I went to go get ice water, and when I came back I peeked into room four.

Room four was one of the bigger rooms, by about a ten-by-ten area—our ward was curved, and it was on the bend. There was a crowd in the room, milling quietly between several gleaming IV poles. All of them were dressed upscale casual, like they’d just stepped away from business lunches that might have taken place at a luxury golf course. All of them were also completely ignoring me. I’d have said something, about them or to them—visitors were supposed to be only two at a time—but I could hear the whoosh-click, whoosh-click of all the IV pumps strapped onto their poles running at full blast.

Overhead—dear God. We did tons of transfusions here, our patients being who they were. But I’d never seen a transfusion of such magnitude. There were twenty blood bags hanging from sky hooks on the ceiling, the pumps shuttling their contents at full speed into the patient on the bed. I couldn’t see the recipient yet through the crowd but it looked serious. I knocked on the door for attention— “Should I call the doctor?”

The visitors nearest me started visibly. Meaty looked over to me from the patient’s shoulder where he was starting a fresh line. “Gown up, and start more peripherals.” I hopped out of the room to do as I was told, then rushed back in and pushed my way through all the people wearing Armani.

The man was already a maze of IV tubing—like a plastic spider had descended from the ceiling and started to wrap him up. Hands, forearms, elbows, jugulars, feet—I couldn’t see a single place to start a line that didn’t already have one going. For needing this much blood, he had to have an internal bleed, a huge one—but his stomach beneath the gown was soft to touch.

“Where?” I asked, finally giving up.

One of the men behind me started talking in a language I’d never heard before. Charles gestured to me from the head of the bed, after setting another IV pump to high flow. He made a zippering gesture across his lips, and pushed his hands out at me. I took a corresponding step back.

The patient seized. I hadn’t noticed the restraints before. He was in four point, but not tethered too tightly. His hands thrashed against cuffs and his tied legs kicked in the bed, before his entire back spasmed, bowing him up before dropping back down.

The visitor who’d begun speaking continued. I looked around the room—their clothing matched one another, but not much else did. They were attractive, one and all, and some appeared Latino, or other variants of non-European. One was black, three were elderly, and the woman who’d spoken to me earlier kept a hand tight on Gaius’s—the only child present—shoulder.