Nina

Chapter 3


At eight PM I let Nina go. My hands had wandered over her back and shoulders and arms and her hands had done the same to me. Neither of us had teased or attempted to touch skin that was covered by clothing. Chaste. It was little wonder that after seeing her out the front door, I was in the shower easing the pressures that had built all evening.

I wasn't a constant masturbator. I wasn't asexual, it's just that I didn't do fantasies very well. I didn't have a fantasy in mind on this night. I saw blue eyes and almost ebony brown hair and that outrageous blonde fringe and laughter and I squirted for relief, not lust.

At twenty minutes after noon the next day I was at the local high school, in the office, asking for Miss Nina Sayers. The middle-aged lady at the office counter sent a student assistant away to get the guidance counselor. I met him in a couple of minutes, a balding, fifty-ish man of husky build.

"Hi! I'm Jim Simpson. Guidance counselor. You're getting one of my prize students."

"I'm Dan Gleason. Electrical Engineer. I promised her a plant tour."

"Ah," he grinned. "Electrical engineer. So THAT'S the connection."

"Yessir," I said. "She indicated an interest, and I let her talk me into an afternoon of wandering around a smelly old chemical plant."

He laughed. "She's a joy. A student who wants to get it. Who works to get it. Gosh, I wish I saw more of 'em."

"Hi, Mister Dan," came a chirpy voice.

I looked to the door and saw Nina, jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, sensible leather shoes, her backpack slung over her left shoulder.

"You ready to go?" I asked her.

"Yessir. Sign me out!"

"Mister Jim, here's my card. Maybe we can get together a program for other interested students."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll call you."

"Okay, do that. We'll see you later." I signed the proper forms and walked out with Nina at my side. We got in my SUV.

She poked me. "Just remember, mister, that this "interested student" LOVES you."

"I will not forget that, baby. This old engineer loves you too."

The ride to the plant was twenty minutes, followed by signing her in the security gate, giving her a visitor's hard hat and safety glasses, and then hopping in the golf cart that was my personal in-plant transport. Somehow, the idea that I had a golf-cart to run around in all day was impressive.

"My time's a bit too important to waste walking back and forth," I said. We did the grand circle around the place as I showed her the production units and the shops and my pet, the powerhouse where two big generators converted steam to electricity. "Wanna see my office?"

"Sure," she beamed.

I pulled up and parked.

"You have your own parking spot."

"Yep. And my own office." We walked in the door and I started introducing her to my co-workers.

Old guy, Harvey. "So this is the one you've been telling us about? Nina, is it?"

"Yessir," Nina said.

"And you're wanting to be an electrical engineer?"

"Yessir."

He laughed. "I wish my daughter'd want to be an engineer. I'm paying out the nose so she can go into marketing. Hah! Miss Nina, you're too pretty to be an ELECTRICAL engineer. You ought to do mechanical."

Nina laughed. "Oh, no sir! Mister Dan says they're all knuckle-draggers!"

Harvey guffawed. "That's what I expected him to say."

I showed Nina my office, the piles of books and prints, the big monitor for the computer, and the unit clerk, thirtyish, plump, smiling Jannie.

"Jannie," I said, "This is Nina Sayers. Soon to be an engineering student."

"Hi, Mizz Jannie," said Nina.

"Hi, Nina," said Jannie. "Don't let him fill your head with ideas. I run this place."

"She's right, you know," I laughed. I guided her to my office.

"Hmph! The one at your house is neater," she observed.

I showed her some artifacts of some notorious equipment failures, a few pictures, a few examples of our drawings, and then we went back out into the loud, smelly world I worked in. The tour took us in the noise and heat and humidity of steam powerhouses and clean, cool, high-tech of modern control facilities. We peeked at the maze of wires that did the control, and at the arm-thick cables that moved huge amounts of electrical power, and the odd-looking apparatus of high voltage substations, and she drank it in.

We caught a crew of electricians at work pulling in a new set of cables and she pretty much shut the job down by showing up. Pretty young girls with striking hair showing underneath their hard hats can do that. And I really flustered the crew leader by asking HIM to explain a bit about what they were doing. And she smiled and thanked him.

We toured a couple of production units and I took her to the quality control lab so she could see chemists testing the final products. And I introduced her to the plant's engineering manager and told him that Nina would be lining up for a summer internship a year hence.

Four o'clock saw us pulling my golf cart into its slot so we could walk together to the parking lot. I signed my fledgling out of the plant and then scanned my own badge to end my day, and we got in my car to head home. As soon as we cleared the boundary fence she grabbed my free hand, hauled it to her lips and kissed it.

"'Cuz I can't crawl over the console and kiss YOU!" she cooed. "That's all so wonderful, Dan!"

I shook my head, almost disbelieving. "It's WORK, doll!"

"I know, but EVERYBODY'S got to work at something, and that's INTERESTING!"

"It is," I admitted. "It's what I like to do. Well, maybe not the paperwork, but the technology, the constant mental challenges of making things work better, helping people learn to do things, that's what I like."

"I saw that, baby," she said. "Those guys we talked to, you could see it in their faces, that they thought a lot of you."

"I don't know about all that," I said. "I've pissed 'em all off at one time or another."

"That happens between people," she said. "If you're put together, there's always going to be times when you don't necessarily want the same thing at the same time. But there's always somebody who's right, and somebody who's boss. You have to hope those two belong to the same person at the end of the day, and that everybody is mature enough to get past getting told "no" and go on."

"You're a wise young lady." I took my eyes off traffic long enough to regard her pretty face.

"You don't live with my mom without getting crash courses in human relations, Dan."

"I suppose. And you seem to apply them yourself. The right way."

"I try. But you know, I know other people who try sometimes, and things just go wrong. Like I said, one person's right, and one person's going to win, and you hope those are both the same person. Because if the one who's right, loses, well..."

"But sometimes that's the way life is, babe," I said. "sometimes being right is a matter of life or death. Sometimes being right is choosing the entertainment for the evening. One battle is worth pulling out all the stops. The other is worth a shrug and eating spaghetti because that's what your partner wanted instead of schnitzel."

"Don't sweat the small stuff, huh?" She giggled. "And most of it IS small stuff."

"Yeah, like dinner tonight. I drop you off at your house, you clean up and get a little bit dressed up while I go to MY house and do the same, and then I pick you up for dinner and I'm thinking rib-eyes and you're thinking enchiladas..."

"Actually, I was thinking of calling Grandma and seeing if she wants to go out to eat with us. She's got this friend..."

"Boyfriend?"

Giggle. "If you want to call a sixty-something guy "boy", I guess so. But we could ALL go out and eat."

"That would be nice. Makes us look respectable."

"Hah! Babe, we ARE respectable." She smiled.

"Yeah, once you get past the part where a seventeen year old girl is running the roads with a thirty-eight year old guy."

"Where the guy is an engineer who just took a high school student on a field trip. And helps her with calculus and trig and physics." She sighed, sounding a bit exasperated. "Besides, I'm a week shy of being eighteen, and at eighteen if I want to go out and get MARRIED, I can, with nobody's permission..."

"Except maybe the guy you're marrying..."

She laughed, "Yeah, there is THAT. But what I'm saying is that there's nothing illegal."

These conversations were what I liked about Nina. She let her mind roll around a subject, as much to see what SHE thought as what I thought. "Nina, punkin, " I said. "There's a huge difference between what's legal and what's considered proper."

"Believe me, babe, I know that," she continued. "And sometimes," she continued, "that's good. And sometimes it makes NO sense at all. Like, I'm seventeen. D'you KNOW how many seventeen year old girls I know of who are still VIRGINS?"

"Uh..." I had no idea.

"I'll tell you. One. ME! But I don't know everybody. But the girls I hear, they've ALL done it. Some of 'em do it a LOT. With a lot of different guys. I'm sorry. I had a mom like that. I don't EVEN want to be like Mom."

"But just because a lot of people do something doesn't make it right. Stupidity can flourish in large groups."

Giggle. "I saw that on a sign in your office!" I had a poster that said "Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups."

She kept on. "But what irks me, Dan Gleason, is getting lumped into the group. Like my hair. Until I did this blonde tipping thing, I looked pretty conservative. I don't do fashion trends. But do something striking to my hair, and then I was lumped in with a group. Just because of how I look." She sighed. "That was a revelation. Even some of my teachers..."

"You learned a lesson."

"Yeah. I should've gotten it trimmed off for my birthday."

"You do what you want. I have to admit, though, the first day I met you, I saw the hair and the first thought was "Goth chick". Until I looked closer and saw dark brown, not black, and the only piercings were one in each ear. And then you started talking, and that erased any preconceptions I might have entertained."

"See," she said. We turned on the street of her grandma's house. "Anyway, what I'm saying is that in some cases it's okay to go counter to the accepted norms. Sometimes the norms are good. Sometimes they're stereotypes. And eighteen and thirty-eight..."

We pulled into her driveway. This time she did climb halfway over the console and deliver a chaste kiss. "I'll call you after I talk to Grandma ... See ya, babe!"

I smiled. "See you in a bit, angel." I wanted, almost blurted, "I love you..." but how stupid could I be, three weeks into knowing her. But then I remembered already crossing THAT line. I drove home, silently thinking. At the house, I met the cat at the door, gave him a perfunctory scratching behind his ears, then stripped, showered, shaved, and the phone rang. Nina.

"Hello, little girl."

"Hello, old man," she giggled. "Can you come get me in forty-five minutes? Grandma's gonna ride with Ed. That's her guy. And I wanted to ride with you."

"Where are we going?"

"I hope you're up for that Italian place again..."

"Good memories there. Most wonderful first date in my whole life took place there. With a girl you'd think was a Goth until you found out different..."

Her voice was lower, almost a whisper... "Dan, you say sweet things to me..."

"You mean sweet things to me."

Her sigh was audible over the phone. "See you in forty-five minutes, okay..."

"I'll be there, babe!"

Dinner was an enjoyable time. Nina's grandmother, Helen, was an interesting person in her own right, and her "friend" Ed was a business man, semi-retired, and a funny guy, smart, acerbic wit, and Nina, was, well, in conversation, capable beyond her years. Salads came and went. Entrees. Desserts. Coffee.

In the parking lot, we split up into two couples again. I promised to have Nina home by nine, it being a school night. That gave us an hour alone together and Nina's comment: "let's go to your house."

Twenty minutes later we were there. In my recliner. With Nina in my lap, and we were kissing and caressing one another, each keeping hands strictly limited to no private areas. The only feel of her perky, smallish (now that I'd seen her in something other than over-sized shirts) breasts was the feel of them pressed against my chest or arm. The only feel of her softly curved, shapely butt was it pressed against my lap.

Her lips melted me, though. Except for one particular part, and I knew she HAD to feel it pressing against her from inside my trousers, but she never acted as though it was of concern to her.

"I know we don't have a lot of time, tonight, Dan, but I just needed you to kiss me and hold me." We kissed. I lead the way at first, but her own mouth was ranging around my neck and face now, and I said NOTHING about her use of her teeth but she had a habit of attaching herself to my neck and sucking and biting.

I loved it, although I cautioned her about visible marks. We kissed and caressed. "Dan," she said, "I ... Uh ... You make me feel ... Uh..." Her voice fell to a whisper. "I love you. You make me love you."

"I love you too, Nina..."

She turned her head. The clock was clearly visible. And our evening was almost at its end.

"Dan," she said, preparatory to dropping a bomb, "I wish I didn't have to go home..."

I took a deep breath, knowing that the response to this simple statement was of monumental importance to the future of Dan and Nina. "I think that would be wonderful. I love having you near me."

Kiss. She said, "I mean, like "together", Dan ... I've thought about it."

"I have, too, Nina..."

She burrowed into my chest. "You have? Really? Me?"

"Who else? You're my everything ... If you want to be."

"I do, you know. I've thought about it."

"And..."

And then my Nina shifted from hormonal teen to Little Miss Logical. "And I think we might ... It just could be..." She sighed. "Dan, I love you. Very much. You're the first guy I ever loved..."

"I feel quite privileged to have that distinction bestowed on me, sweetness," I said.

Kiss. "Mmmmm..." sigh. "You've been ... Uh ... Is this the way it is?"

"No," I said truthfully. "It isn't."

That answer caused her to raise herself to look into my face. "No?" Her eyes looked concerned.

"No. Never has been. This," I said, "is the way I WANTED it to be."

"Really? Because it's important to me..."

"Babe," I said, "I look at how we are, three weeks together, and I'm amazed. You walk in here, pull a CD from my collection, and it's Boccherini. We talk, and it's about science and news and philosophy. We kiss, and..."

"I know," she said," finishing my sentence for me. "I know ... You've always let me be myself." Another sigh. "I guess I need to go ... home."

We untangled, my body aching for her continued presence, and then entwined ourselves together, standing, kissing, and I felt her hand slide downward past my belt and over my butt. And then pull away. Her eyes surveyed mine but she said nothing.

A short while later we were at her house and I walked her to the door. Ah, the "door kiss". Chastely, she tiptoed and planted and kiss on my lips, short, oh so sweet. "Dan, this has been a wonderful day. We'll have more. And better."

And I went home.

Thursday. Friday. Less than a week to her birthday. A week until her high school graduation. Despite her grades, she wasn't valedictorian. She'd only maintained the high average for the past two years. The kid who got the honors had been pumping out straight A's for four. And wasn't doing four maths and four sciences and was likely headed into liberal arts instead of engineering. Nina's commentary on this fact was wry and laconic. "He played the game for points. I'm after knowledge."

Saturday was her babysitting job. We did meet at the park and sat together while her charges worked themselves to exhaustion, and I retired to spend Saturday night accompanied by my cat. And the cat missed Nina.

Sunday I got Nina after church and we did the classic drive in the country. Monday was the last of her final exams. Grades were Wednesday, and Friday night I was in the stadium watching my love receive her diploma, along with five hundred other kids. I knew that many of them were headed off to parties afterward. Nina'd told me that she'd been invited.

"Babe, go if you want to. This is your only high school graduation."

"Yes it is, Dan," she'd said while holding onto me with her arms around my neck. "Let's see. What should I do? Choices ... I could go to a social event with the same kids who used to give me pure hell, and where there will be drinking and drugs and loud music that I fail to appreciate, or I can come here, have a quiet dinner with a man whom I adore, and listen to the masters ... Oh, such a difficult choice..."

"Did I mention that you have a sarcastic streak?"

"Me?!??!" she squealed in mock indignation.

"Yes, you." I kissed her on her nose. "And I find it delightful."

And that's why, after her graduation ceremony, we ended up at my house.

But her birthday was two days before. And we celebrated with a quiet party for four, me, her, her grandmother, and her grandmother's beau, at a nice restaurant. And I presented her with a ring. No, not an engagement ring. Just a, as I said at the dinner table, "friendship" ring. With a sapphire, because I remembered her telling me that she liked the blue color.

But back to that post-graduation thing. She was eighteen years and three days old now. And our post-graduation dinner was the standard foursome, late in the evening, courtesy of reservations. And after a surreptitious conversation with her grandmother beforehand to make sure I wasn't violating HER wishes, I asked Nina if she'd like to try a glass of wine with the meal.

And Ed proposed a toast: "To Nina, who's like a grand-daughter (he cocked an eye towards Helen and winked) to me. Young lady, may this page in your life turn and find you in a new and wonderful chapter!"

And we clinked glasses and enjoyed our meal.

And in the car after the meal, we headed back to my house, because, she said, "Every place we go will be full of graduating kids. It'll be a madhouse." So we turned towards the house and in twenty minutes I was in the driveway. We walked inside.

After the door closed behind us, I faced a very pretty eighteen year old girl who wanted a kiss. And when she wrapped her arms around my neck to get that kiss, her body formed against me and I felt myself getting hard. I'm sure she did, too, but she made no notice except to merge into my arms. After the first kiss broke, she said, "I told Grandma I'd be home at midnight. She said that was reasonable, considering that it was my graduation."

"That is reasonable, babe." I kissed her again. And when this one broke, she took me by the hand into the living room.

"Sit," she commanded. I sat while she picked music for the evening and loaded the CD player. When she got the music started, she came to sit on my lap. Together we rocked the recliner back and she eased into her snuggle mode, semi-sideways, the soft roundness of her hip pressing into my crotch, her torso twisted to let us kiss and cuddle, and my hands, one cradled her head, the other softly stroked her shoulder and back, never straying lower than her waist, never to the soft, waiting breasts. Her lips, her neck, her ears, those were a playground for my mouth, and she took equal liberties with me, although she did give herself free reign over my chest.

Her hundred and thirty pounds was never the problem. There was a problem. My dick. I learned early in these exercises that I needed to make sure it was pointed in the right direction before we began our marathon cuddling, because the smell, the feel, the taste of her lips, the feel of her skin, I got hard and stayed hard. Was it torture? Yes. And no. I told myself that here was this delightful creature who wanted to be held and caressed and kissed, and I decided that I would do just that until doomsday because of the riches of her smile, her laugh, the joy I got from seeing twinkling eyes and that lop-sided smirk when she dropped a horrible pun into conversations or laughed at our jokes together.

And she said she loved me. In my mind that put me in a different position. Love. Not lust. At least not the lust that put us in bed together. I figured that if she wished that at some time in the future, I would accede to her desires. But that would be at her pace.

We listened to the music for a while then flipped on the TV and watched a bit, talking about what we saw in the middle of some fairly recent chick flick.

"Dan, baby," she said, "is it wrong to want the fairy tale?"

"Fairy tale? Like in "happily ever after?"

"Yes," she sighed.

"I dunno, sweetness. I guess. But I think you have to define your own happiness, and know that pieces of it come up after some tough things. Some people never learn that."

"Do YOU know how to do that, Dan?"

"I was doing pretty good, babe," I said. "You know I love my profession. I enjoy the people I work with. Yeah, I was being pretty happy until about a month ago."

"And then I came along and made you unhappy?" Her face took a sad look.

"No, babe, not a bit unhappy, every day that I have you. I'm just fitting you into my new definition of happy. It's dangerous."

"How's it dangerous?"

"Because I've been hurt before by women I thought I was happy with. And they were happy with me. Until they weren't. Hurts..."

"Oh, baby, I didn't mean to make you sad." Her eyes were moist, on the verge of tears.

"Oh, please, Nina, don't even think that you make me sad. You're the thing in my life that makes me happiest." I kissed her, brushing her bangs aside with my lips so I could reach her forehead. "But you brought the subject up. What's on YOUR mind, babe? Hmmm?"

And a first happened. She rolled her hips to place her body full length on mine. And she propped her face in her hands, looking at me.

"Me. And you."

"Us?"

"D'ya think of it as "us"?"

"Yes, pretty much. Let's see. Since I met you a month ago, the only place I go by myself is to work and to the grocery store. And the park. But when I get there, you're there."

The cat jumped up on the arm of the recliner. Nina stroked him, starting his loudest purrs.

"So, yes," I continued, "it's "us". At least in my mind. But what do you think?"

"Us. But I thought I was being presumptuous."

"Presuming what?"

She had an incredible shyness at times. This was one of those times. "That you could love me. Like, love, not sex."

"You, dearest, are smart, funny, and in my eyes, incredibly pretty. You have a quick wit and you apparently read books without pictures. Your vocabulary includes words like "presumptuous" and others with more than two syllables. If I was a quadriplegic and could never hope to do any more than just see you and listen to you and talk with you, I'd love you."

She smiled.

"But here you are in my arms and I breathe deep when you're around, just to add the happy scent of you to the happiness I get from seeing you and hearing you, and you're in my arms, and I just as well have had my first kiss a month ago when your lips first touched mine, for the way I feel when we kiss. Yeah. Love. Not sex."

"Dan," she said, "Love is ... Is ... forever. I think."

"I thought so, too, babe. But some people don't. I've fallen in love, forever, before. Had it shoved up my nose."

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I kinda know..."

"How, babe? You've..."

She put her index finger against my lips. "Shhhh! I paid attention. Mom. And had long talks with Grandma about what I saw. I don't want that done to me, like Mom did, guy after guy, getting dumped on because she didn't know the difference between sex and love at first, then later when she just didn't care, and she dished out as good as she got. But you know, somewhere deep inside, I think she was still hoping..."

"It's my turn to say I'm sorry, babe." I kissed her gently. Her lips melded into mine.

"But some people get it, huh, babe?"

"Yeah, sweetie, some do. That old guy who told you to be a mechanical engineer, he's been married forty years. Has pictures of his wife and kids and grandkids. Some do."

Another sigh. "'It's what I want, Dan."

I sighed. We'd had parts of this conversation before ... Gently I said, "Sweetie, we've talked about this. I'm afraid. You're eighteen. Pretty. Getting ready to start college. And every class you go to is going to be filled with kids your age, some of them guys, and you're taking engineering courses, so that screens out a lot of the run of the mill jocks and dumbasses. You'll meet some guy and the two of you will click and then you'll decide to start off your careers together."

This time there WERE tears. "Dan, do you still TRUST people? Me?"

"I want to, baby..."

There was a new insistence in her next kiss. "You'll see." She pushed up from my chest. "Babe, it's time to go. Almost midnight. 'Kay?"

"Okay..." came from my lips. "One of these days ... uh, make that "nights"," was in my head, running around, screaming.

We kissed long and hard, standing. In the car she said, "Babysitting tomorrow, sugar. Meet me at the park?"

"I'll be there. To see my dream in the sunlight, taking care of kids..."

"Brats..." she laughed. "Well, they ARE getting better."

"Yeah," I said. "You said you won't be babysitting all summer?"

"Nope!" she giggled. "This is the last weekend. They're going somewhere for the summer. I won't know WHAT to do with myself on Saturdays after this weekend..."

"I can think of a million things..."

"Me too, love," and she giggled. And I was glad. I loved her when she was giggly. We pulled into the drive at her house and I walked her to her door and kissed her.

By seven AM Saturday morning I was running a fever. I don't know ... some kind of virus, I thought. I took my own temperature and it was 101. I couldn't see straight. Every muscle in my body ached. I tried eating breakfast and it came back up faster than it went down. I staggered back to bed and lay down and passed out.

In the dim spaces of my head, I heard ringing. Insistent ringing. It went away. Came back. Finally, in my fever I deciphered that it was my phone. I picked up.

Nina's voice. "Dan, I'm at the park. Where are you?"

I croaked, "Home. Sick. Fever. Can't move. Throwing up."

"Baby..." she gasped. "I'm coming..."

"No, not with the kids. Don't come here. I don't want to expose you..."

"Grandma will watch the kids. I'm coming over!"

The exertion drained what little energy I had and I flopped back down and in a second I was back out of it.

The next time I awoke, a cool, moist cloth was soothingly wiping my face. "Nina..." I croaked. My throat felt like nails were driven into the back of it.

"Babe, you're SICK! I've been wiping your face for an hour. You've been out of it."

"Uhhh" was all I could get out.

She picked up the electronic thermometer from bedside and stuck it in my mouth for a minute, then read it.

"102," she said. She flipped open her cellphone. "Grandma. He's 102. NO. Semi-conscious. No. I can take him if I can get him to the car." She looked at me. "Babe. Can you walk? We're going to the emergency room."

I tried several times to turn and rise to a sitting position; oblivious to the fact that I was wearing only a t-shirt and tightie-whities. As I was gathering strength, she rummaged through my dresser to find a pair of shorts and knelt in front of my legs as they dangled off the side of the bed. She picked up one foot at a time and put my feet into the pants legs, then pulled them up as high as she could with me sitting. As I tried to stand, she helped steady me and knelt down again, pulling my shorts up, reaching around the back to pull them up to my waist, then tugging up the front. Disastrously, there was a bulge that just didn't fit easily. She looked up at me and saw me dazed and shaking from the effort of standing, and she shrugged and her fingers pushed on the bulge in my drawers and pulled my shorts up. She snapped them then pulled the zipper up, her fingers pushing gently to keep that pesky bulge out of the way. She stuffed my wallet into my back pocket.

She supported me to the front door.

"My car," I said hoarsely, my throat a mass of pain.

"You sure, babe?"

""Sure..."

She picked the keys off the board by the front door and we left the house. She opened the passenger door and pushed me to get me inside and then buckled my seatbelt. "I do this for my kids all the time, she said, trying to make me feel better. She returned to the front door and locked it, then got in my SUV and cranked it up. Fifteen minutes later I was a dazed mess under the awning at the emergency room and Nina was haranguing the staff to get a gurney out to unload me. As the orderlies rolled me inside, Nina recovered my wallet from my pocket and attended to the registration.

Twenty minutes later I was being poked and prodded and stuck and Nina was at my side, fretting, holding my hand in hers. The doctor came in, left, came back.

"Miss Gleason," he said, "He's got bad strep throat. We're going to keep him overnight and put some antibiotics in him."

"It's serious?" Nina asked in a small voice.

"It could've gotten worse and we'd have been in trouble, but he's gonna be okay. This nurse is going to give him a couple of shots. One for the pain, the other is a quick-acting antibiotic. And he's going upstairs."

I was in and out. Swallowing was like having a red-hot poker driven into the back of my throat. The pain-killer was blessed relief, and as I drifted off, Nina patted my arm. "Babe," she said, "I'm gonna go home and get you some things. I'll be back." And she kissed my cheek and left.

Some hours alter I woke up in a hospital room, dimly lit, and there at my bedside was Nina.

"Babe," I said.

"Hi, baby. I'm worried."

I looked at the IV dripping into my arm, big bag of fluid, little piggyback of IV antibiotics which were apparently kicking streptococcus ass in my body. I could almost swallow without wincing.

"I'm gonna be okay. I can swallow now."

"Good." She rubbed my arm gently.

There was a knock at the door and the voice of a staff nurse.

"Come in," said Nina. "He's awake now."

The hefty nurse came in with her instrument cart. "Well hello," Mister Gleason," she said. "Good to see you awake." She stuck an infrared thermometer in my ear. "Fever's coming way down. You were over a hundred and two when you came in. Have you tried drinking."

"No, not yet."

"Can you give it a try for me," she smiled. Nina handed me a waterglass with a straw. I sucked at the straw, wincing first from the movement of my throat as I tried to suck then again as the ice water hit it. But that felt GOOD. I drank a bit.

"Very good!" chirped the nurse. "I've got another round of Demerol on the chart for you."

"Uh..." I said.

The nurse said, "You ought to take it. You're still running on the last dose and you're gonna hurt when it wears off."

"Do it, then," I said.

The nurse injected the painkiller into my IV line and I started drifting off.

"He's going to sleep some more," she told Nina. "If you need to go home and rest..."

"I'm not leaving his side," Nina said, determinedly.