Sleeper Page 3

  She looked up, and her jaw hit the floor. “Doctor Fischer?”

  “Skillman,” I said automatically, holding my hand out for her to shake. “Doctor Fischer Skillman.”

  Wren

  Paige and I spent hours going between the mother and the sister and the recovery room the little boy had been in. Trying to convince the mother to go to Paige’s “Holier Than Thou” domestic violence shelter, while trying to make sure that the little boy would have all the coverage he needed for recovery.

  It had been a nightmare. The mother was telling us the whole thing had been an accident, the father had turned at the wrong moment and sent him flying into the edge of a sharp table. The simplicity of that story had rung all the wrong bells on my radar and it took me sending Paige to get water for the little girl to finally get the truth out of the mother.

  The father had used the base of the lamp to hit the kid right in his temple because he’d asked for a glass of water. But it wasn’t the request that set the father off—it was that he had come into the bedroom while her husband had been ‘doing sex to her.’

  Also known as marital rape.

  He hadn’t let her call 9-1-1. He had finished what he was doing before he let her up to check on the kid. And then they drove the kid there.

  Thankfully, as soon as the officers had seen the wound on the kid, they had hauled the father off.

  In the end, though, the mother didn’t want to press charges. She just shook her head when the detective came to talk to her. Despite everything she had told me, she just didn’t know how to get out of the situation.

  And Paige was no help in that regard. At all.

  She was a shining example of how not to handle domestic violence. Her Northeast shelter was for the wealthy woman who had some money, who didn’t understand relying completely on their husband for everything. She didn’t understand the psychological and economic links between abuser and abused. She just thought that these women could walk as they pleased.

  It was nothing like that for the inner-city victims. They were probably in the same cycle their parents had been in, or worse. Some of these women, like the mother last night, could barely write and read. They survived. Because that’s what they knew how to do. And if their partner hit them once in a while, well…they’d try to do better next time.

  And Paige’s pitch for her shelter was entirely too forceful. Had I know Gutierrez was going to call her in, I would have told him not to. Not until I could get there and assess the situation.

  I stood in the bay doors as the father jerked the car to the curb and shoved the door open. The mother had held the door open until the little girl had buckled her booster seat, and then she climbed in, slamming the back door first, and then her door.

  The car had peeled away as the mother desperately buckled her belt.

  I sincerely hoped no one in that car came back in a body bag. I also hoped that she found the strength and support to break away from him. To my way of thinking, even abject poverty was better than being controlled and beaten. But that was me. Wealthy and privileged. I didn’t pretend it was anything else.

  Paige liked to pretend she knew.

  I shook my head walking back to my car as the sun started to brighten the horizon over New Jersey. Paige was the perfect example of someone who was absolutely one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen—and her soul was just shallow. She was so proud of that shelter and her work that there was no way she really understood what she was doing. I didn’t wish her ill, but I wished she wouldn’t hang around all of the doctors, extolling her virtues.

  I’d be roped into her Liberty Daughters fundraiser in a few months—only because that would fully fund her shelter for the year, and the overflow would go to the other shelters around the city. Especially WomenTogether, a favorite of mine and Miriam’s for the network of unmarked houses that shuttled the women out of the city and into truly safe situations.

  She made my job with these kids so fucking hard.

  “You okay, Warner?” Gutierrez asked.

  “I’m fine, but this situation is bullshit. What happened with the surgeon?”

  He shook his head and walked away from me. “He’s a dick. That’s all. Lazy, entitled dick.”

  I pulled up to my house, with the sun already in the sky. I pulled up behind Miriam’s car and sat there for a moment. That poor kid. I wanted to do so much more than just hope she’d be okay. I wanted to make sure that she and her brother were far away from that useless thing that called itself their father.

  The flash of black and white across my vision and the sudden crack of my neck warned me there was a migraine coming, and it was time for some good drugs.

  The migraines had become more frequent with the insomnia, which had kicked into high gear after the freak accident. I was pretty sure that they were all interconnected, but there was no way to prove it. I took supplements, which kept most of them at bay, but after a night like last night, I would need the prescription and about six hours.

  Would it be sleep? Who the fuck knew, but it would be in my dark bedroom with a cool jell mask. For sure.

  Swinging the door open, I trudged up to the front door and let myself in. I tried to remember what day it was, and the word ‘Saturday’ kept knocking around my brain. That meant Miriam would be home.

  The purse and messenger bag got dropped on to my part of the table there, and I kicked off my shoes. I was still wearing the damn outfit from my date and I wasn’t ready to crawl into bed yet.

  My pills were in the kitchen, as was a toaster Eggo and a glass of cranberry juice. My stomach grumbled in agreement and I trudged into the kitchen.

  My brain took a second to process what I was seeing. For some reason, Miriam’s head was hanging off the end of the table, her eyes closed, moans escaping her mouth. Her robe was wide open and there was a hand on her breast, playing with her nipple. There was something on the other end of the table moving around…

  Frankly, I didn’t care. Not really. I walked around the table to the cabinet that held my medicine. I opened it, and pulled out the blister pack that held the sanity saving Maxalt. Walking back to the fridge, the moaning stopped behind me while I pulled out my cranberry juice and poured some into a glass I had snagged from the dish drain. The pill pushed out through the back of the foil, I chucked it in my mouth and washed it down with the juice.

  It could be twenty minutes, or it could be an hour before it kicked in.

  Rubbing my forehead, I turned and was treated to the whole scene on the table, and it finally started to congeal in my brain what was going on.

  Sex. Sex was happening on my kitchen table.

  Or it had been moments before. Now, Miriam and Laxmi were looking at me, horrified and contrite.

  Laxmi?

  I blinked a few times and cocked my head. I considered them, then grabbed my glass and walked out of the kitchen toward my room. “No Eggos for me this morning.”

  I closed the door, and pulled out a washcloth, dampening it with cool water. I dropped it in the cheap plastic bag I kept in the cabinet and slopped it across my forehead as I laid down on the bed.

  There was a tap on the door.

  “I hope you at least made her come!” I yelled.

  Without my permission the door creaked open. I managed to lift my head enough to see the dark, warm features of Laxmi framed below the cool, bright colors of my housemate and best friend.

  I dropped my head back. “I can’t stop you from coming in. Just don’t be naked, okay?”

  The two of them snaked into the room and walked to the side of the bed. Miriam sat, and Laxmi stood, both of them looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.

  I burst out laughing when my brain spit out that analogy, and saw the two of them exchange a glance. I lowered the washcloth over my eyes again as the pain from the laugh slashed through my head.

  “I don’t care, you two.”

  “Can we explain?”

  Peeking out, I giggled. “
Explain what? Laxi’s head was in your pussy on the kitchen table. I don’t think there’s a lot to be explained there.”

  “I’m sorry?” Miriam said.

  “For?”

  Miriam looked confused. “For fucking your date?”

  Laxmi’s blush was visible. I looked between them, and dropped the cloth again. “I have a migraine coming on. Did you at least have fun with each other?” I peeked again. “Did you know she was a virgin?”

  “I found out pretty quick,” she answered.

  “We tried not to,” Laxmi added.

  “We really really tried not to.”

  I chuckled in the cool darkness. “Didn’t work, eh?”

  Even though I finally didn’t lift the washcloth, I could feel the look they shared. That was interesting.

  “When I went to shake her hand to say goodnight, we just…connected,” Laxmi said. Her hand landed on my ankle and a tingle traveled through me. “If you want me to go, I will.”

  “No, for fuck’s sake no. I’m fine with this. Miriam needed a little kitty in her life, it’s been a long time. I’m not mad. I’m tired. Go have fun. The world is an oyster, and I’ll find another one to suck out.”

  “Holy shit.” Laxmi laughed.

  Miriam chuckled, and I felt her lift off the bed. “You’ll get used to her humor after a while. We’re going to Amy’s Omelet House for too much for breakfast. Coming?”

  “I could swear you just ate.”

  “Oh, migod!” Laxmi laughed again.

  “True story.” They drifted toward the door. “I plan on eating all day.” I almost heard her waggle her eyebrows and Laxmi’s cry of embarrassment again.

  “I gotta sleep this shit off,” I answered. “But have a few strips of bacon for me.”

  About an hour and at least two screaming orgasms later, my former date and my best friend walked out the front door, leaving me in silence for about five minutes.

  The jangle of the phone in my pants was deafening as the migraine really started to kick in. I pulled it out and thumbed it to answer. “What?”

  “Temperance Warner?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Doctor Skillman’s office. He’d like to know if you could come in this morning.”

  I squinted. “It’s Saturday, right?”

  “Yes, but he has Saturday hours every other week.”

  “Oh. Uh, sure. But can I have the last appointment of the day? I need to get some rest.”

  “Ironic, from an insomniac.”

  “Last appointment. What time?”

  “One-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there at two.” I swiped the connection closed, set an alarm for one in the afternoon, and waited for the drugs to kick in.

  Instead of waiting for the alarm to go off, I crawled off the bed and showered. I needed to just try and feel a little more human. I slapped on a pair of jeans and headed down to the PATCO station. It might run less often, but I could sit there and enjoy my damn Wawa coffee and just zone out instead of trying to play dodge’em with the weekend drivers in the city.

  The PATCO line wasn’t the most robust public transportation system as it only had one line. But that line let me off at 10th and Locust and walk to Jefferson station, and take the Septa trains to University City. The office building with Dr. Skillman’s main office was just outside Penn Med’s main campus in University City.

  The bloodstained zebra hell wasn’t any better today when I walked in. It could have been even a little worse because I was so exhausted. I tried the same trick again, with the magazine and the hand and blocking out the riotous hell. I was honestly afraid it was going to counteract the migraine meds.

  “Excuse me, Wren?”

  I’d been so distracted by trying not to vomit and get a headache again, I hadn’t heard the man walk across the room and get within just two feet of me. And when I looked up, I nearly swallowed my own tongue. “Doctor Fischer?”

  He nodded and held out his hand. “Skillman. Doctor Fischer Skillman.”

  “Holy shit, you’re Doctor Skillman?”

  Perhaps not my finest professional introduction, but Paige the Prick had gone on about him for hours the night before. Whenever she had a chance to bend my ear, she started going off on the guy. He was entitled, lazy, good for nothing, ignorant, selfish.

  He was also the extremely sexy, exquisitely handsome, almost Raphaelite beauty who had been ogling my ass the night before in the locker room. In the light of day in his waiting room, I could see the black, black eastern Mediterranean hair with the contrasting shocking light blue Norwegian eyes, and the warm, soft glow of Spanish skin. He was not overly tall, but no one would mistake him for short, at all. His shoulders were broad enough to pull lightly at the button down he was wearing, and his contours ran down to a trim waist.

  This guy was the stuff of very, very dirty dreams.

  And, apparently, my sleep doctor.

  Fabulous.

  “Doctor Wren Warner.” I finally managed to cough out the words and grasp the hand he had held out.

  —his hips thrust again and again, driving his massive cock deep inside me. The fine sheen of sweat made him glow almost gold in the setting sun.

  “Anything for you, Temperance. If I have to kill a thousand demons and fight the armies of El, we will do anything for you.”

  Fingers ran gently down my cheek, and his lips pressed to mine as he stole into my mouth. A hand found my clit and teased me indelicately, drawing out a scream of pleasure from my body—

  We both leapt back, and I ran an exhausted hand over my face. The medicine got rid of the pain, by it didn’t always get rid of everything else, including flash hallucinations and blackouts.

  This time, apparently my brain couldn’t wait for the dirty dreams until I actually fell asleep.

  “What the fuck was that?” he whispered harshly.

  I shrugged. “Just a…” My voice trailed off. Wait. Wait. “You saw that too?”

  “Saw? I felt it in my whole body.”

  I stared at his hand, still in the position I’d yanked away from. “I get weird hallucinations because of the insomnia and migraines. But they’re always mine. Just mine. You can’t see my mind, only my brain…”

  He stared down at his hand as well. “That was raucously filthy and intimate.”

  “They’re just hallucinations.” I heard the quiver in my voice.

  Doctor Skillman dropped his hand and shoved it into his pocket. “Come on back, and let’s get going on this. Doctor Rana gave me a lot of information from your interview yesterday, but I need more information.”

  He walked over and held the door open.

  I tripped. Halfway across the psychedelic zebra meltdown that was the rug, I tripped and fell.

  Doctor Skillman was over to me in an instant. “Are you okay?”

  I looked up at him. “Do you have any idea how fucking stupid it is to have this print in a waiting room that services people who have neurological and sleep disorders?! I’m already fucked up in the head, and then I have to deal with zebra vomit between the chair and the door!”

  He was shocked, but it didn’t stop him from helping me to my feet. “I…trusted Skylar to…”

  “Your idiot receptionist? Did you even walk in here after it was decorated? Did you even look at the designs?”

  “I’m busy…”

  “You’re a fucking doctor and you’d better pay attention to whole patient care, not just what’s in the file.”

  What the hell was wrong with me? I never treated colleagues like this. Then again, this was the second time I was in his office and I’d tripped on nothing.

  “You definitely need sleep,” he nodded, brushing off my rudeness.

  I might sleep better if you joined me in the bed.

  Oh, come on. I really had to have a talk with my libido. Just because it felt like that cock was cleaving me in two in that hallucination, didn’t mean that was reality.

  He pulled the door open motioni
ng me through and I could see that Skylar had left for the day. When? I hadn’t been there that long. Just distracted by the carpet.

  God, he was so right. I need sleep. So much sleep.

  Leading me to his office, which was plush and comfortable looking, he motioned me to the couch. Sitting behind the desk, he flipped my massive file open and pulled out Laxmi’s…Doctor Rana’s notes.

  “I’ve read your whole file from front to back, Doctor Warner. I apologize that I didn’t realize it was you last night. I wouldn’t have tried to rush away.”

  I gave a snort. “Paige does that to people.”

  His smirk was panty-melting. I didn’t need any more melted panties courtesy of this office. “She does, doesn’t she? Have you been roped into her charity balls?”

  “I’m a social worker, Doctor Skillman. I am one of the few and only practicing doctors in social work. I was the first person she tossed the lasso at,” I answered. “I’m an ‘ooh, shiny!’ for her.”

  He chuckled and nodded and made my skin tingle delightfully. “So, I have a few additional questions that Doctor Rana may not have thought to ask, and we’ll see what we can do about this intractable insomnia.” He pulled out a recorder, just like Lax—Doctor Rana’s and a legal pad. “Physiologically, you’re sound. Menses?”

  A favorite question when asked from a very hot doctor who wanted to get to know me and was making my nipples tingles. “Regular, and regulated.”

  “How?”

  “Pill.”

  He scribbled. “The migraines?”

  “Two, three times a week. I can usually catch them and medicate them away. Also on preventatives of vitamin B and magnesium. I hallucinate from them, because I can’t sleep. It’s like a waking dream.”

  A waking filthy dream, because Jesus Christ.

  “Have you always had the migraines?”

  “Since I was six. They pick up and slack off in waves. Or they did. They’re pretty regular now.”

  “Sleep aids?”

  “Do you want the list, or just the side effects that have me off them in weeks?”

  After another quick doodle, he shook his head. “Side effect of sleep medication is insomnia. I know.” Running his finger down the page in front of him, my stupid libido coming up with other better things for his finger to run down, he hmm’ed and mm’ed, and stopped near the bottom. “You’re on Singulair, but I don’t see anything about allergies or asthma.”