Recovery (Doctor Dom Volume 5) (A BDSM & Medical Play Novella) (4 page)

Patrick:

At eight in the morning, a few minutes after I’d made my way to the kitchen and put the coffee pot on, I got a call from Petra Janakovich, the neurosurgeon who was in charge of Andrea’s case.

“Patrick, she’s awake,”
Petra said without preamble. Her voice was tired. She’d probably been in the hospital the entire night.

I’d been expecting the call
any day now. Petra had been texting me updates on Andrea’s condition, and when I was in the hospital doing my rounds, I checked up on her myself. For days now, Andrea had been showing signs of improvement. Unlike what’s shown on TV, most patients awaken gradually from comas, showing increasing signs of awareness.

Andrea had been showing these signs all week. And she was fully awake now.

“How is she?” I was worried. With a head injury, Andrea’s speech could have been impacted, or her ability to eat, speak or walk.

“Surprisingly good,” Petra said. “Her speech is fine. Some minor loss of mobility. She’ll need physical therapy, but there’s no reason
why she shouldn’t make a full recovery.” She cleared her throat. “You did great work, Patrick.”

I shrugged the compliment aside. Not that it didn’t matter, because Petra Janakovich was a fantastic surgeon, and
I valued her opinion. But for the moment, I was more concerned with Andrea.

“
I’ll be over this morning,” I told her.

***

I’m a guy. I’m not particularly in touch with my feelings. But even I knew to wait for Lisa to wake up. She had a thing about Andrea. I understood it. Even though her relationship with Nick O’Malley was thirteen years ago, and ended in disaster, I still felt impacted by it in some strange way.

W
hen two people love each other, we stake our claim, and in the togetherness that we make, just between each other, we think we are special and unique. But someone’s walked that path before. Someone’s shaped that path. And just as much as Nick shaped who Lisa was, Andrea did that to me.

I could understand
Lisa’s insecurity, because I felt a version of it myself.

I cooked breakfast and waited. I
did want to go to the hospital, but there was no particular need to hurry. I didn’t need to be at Andrea’s bedside when her eyes fluttered open or some other kind of movie bullshit.

Also,
Andrea’s awakening just emphasised that Liam Henderson, the guy who had beaten Andrea up badly enough to put her in a coma, was still out there. Toronto police had no clues about where he was. Liam was an ex-cop; it was enough for me to lose faith in the system, to wonder if the police were protecting their own. I didn’t want to leave Lisa alone in my house, asleep, unaware.

***

She eventually wakened at nine, and wandered down, her eyes sleepy.

“
You wake up too early,” she accused me, coming into my arms like she belonged there, and laying her head on my shoulder. I grinned at the sleepy bundle in front of me, and I kissed her hair. Lisa was adorable when she was half-awake.

“
Guilty,” I said. “Coffee?”

I waited for her to sip her coffee, and I slid some toast and eggs in front of her.
She looked at me and smiled. “You spoil me,” she said.

I made a face
at her. “I’m not exactly bribing you,” I started, “but Andrea’s awake, and I’d like to go check on her.”

Her expression softened
immediately. “For fuck’s sake, Patrick, I’m not entirely insensitive,” she scolded. “Of course you need to go to the hospital.” She leaned forward and kissed me. “I trust you not to be charmed by her bedside wiles.” Her tone was wry. She was joking.

I could have quipped something back. But
instead, I spoke true words from my heart. “There’s only one woman I want to be with, and she’s wondering if she can have more sugar in her coffee.”

She gazed at me, her
eyes startled. “How did you know?”

“You gave the sugar dish a discreet look of longing,” I replied, laughing. “
I’m a little offended you don’t check me out the same way.”

“Well, y
eah,” she replied, with that sweet, sweet sass in her voice. “It’s because there’s nothing discreet about the way I check you out, baby.” Then she pinched my ass as I got up and brushed past her to get the sugar.

I laughed aloud, and kissed the top of her head.
I promised her I’d join her friends at their usual Saturday night gathering, and then I left for the hospital.

***

I walked into the middle of an all-out yelling match between John, Andrea’s father, and a guy in Toronto PD uniform.

“You guys have done fucking nothing for weeks now,” John roared. “My daughter just woke up from a coma. You cannot see her
right now.”

I didn’t have particularly sympathetic thoughts about Toronto PD myself, and I inwardly agreed with John. The
cop turned to me, and I recognized him. He’d interviewed me when Andrea had first been admitted to the hospital. Asked where I had been the night Andrea had been attacked, that kind of thing. John had gone ballistic then, but the guy hadn’t backed off until the security footage from Andrea’s apartment was found and it showed Liam Henderson beating the crap out of my ex-wife.

I had really regretted watching that footage.

“Dr. Anderson,” the cop greeted me in relief. No doubt he was happy to stop being yelled at for a while. I searched my mind for his name. Luke Wade. That was it.

“Mr. Wade,” I replied. He was a detective, but I’d be fucked if I was going to use his title. Lisa and I had round-the-clock security because of his incompetence
in finding Liam Henderson.

“Perhaps you can convince Mr. Matherson here that I really do
need to talk to his daughter.”

“I’m not Andrea’s doctor,” I replied. “John is Andrea’s representative. I have no standing here.” It was a non-answer. Had I genuinely supported Luke Wade’s point of view, I would have agreed with him.

“She’s asking for you, Patrick.” John looked at me.

I sighed inwardly. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize Andrea’s recovery. On the other hand, I was dating Lisa, and it was serious. I didn’t want to play any games with Andrea.

“I’ll head in then,” I replied, knocked on the closed door, and entered.

***

“Patrick.”

“Andrea,” I replied. I looked at her carefully. Gave her the physician’s once-over. Her colour was as good as could be expected, and she was half-sitting, propped up with a couple of pillows behind her back. “Petra’s checked you out then?” Not a real question. John wouldn’t have gotten in to see Andrea had Petra ruled it contrary to the interests of her patient.

She nodded. “I can have two hours of visitors,” she replied. “Dad’s been here for an hour.”

“Am I the next hour then?” I joked.

She smiled at me briefly, and for an instant, I saw the girl I had fallen in love with and married far sooner than I should have. But only for an instant. Lisa was real and vibrant and warm, and she was my present and my future.

“I owe you an apology, Patrick,” she said. I looked at her with
mild shock. “I should have never come to your house that day,” she continued. “You were seeing someone else, and I had no right.”

Her fingers played with the edge of her sheet. I opened my mouth to tell her not to worry about it, or something along those lines, but she knew me well. “Let me finish, please,” she said.

I nodded. “I don’t want you to upset yourself,” I said.

She grinned. “No, you did do such an excellent job with the surgery, after all.” She looked at me directly. “Liam was everything
I thought I had wanted my entire life. He demanded unstinting obedience from me. He treated me like a possession, not a person. Like the slave I’d sworn I had wanted to be. And I hated it.”

Her voice was flat; her eyes without emotion. “With you,” she said. “I could be weak. You were strong enough for me. With Liam, it wasn’t the same. I just felt unsafe.”

I waited for her to finish. She spoke her words quickly. Almost a rehearsed speech, but no less sincere for it. After eight years, I knew when Andrea was lying, and when she was telling the truth.

“That day, at the AGO, we’d just had a huge fight. And I was there, wondering why yet another relationship was failing, and I saw you and that girl there.”

“Lisa,” I said. “Her name is Lisa.”

She nodded. “I don’t want you back, Patrick. I was wrong to interfere with what you had with Lisa. I used you as a crutch our entire marriage, and I used Liam as a crutch until that backfired in my face rather spectacularly. All my life, I’ve leaned on someone, instead of learning to stand on my own two feet. It’s time I changed who I am.”

I tried not to gape at her. For the longest time, I’d questioned my judgement after Andrea. Wondered how I could have been so wrong about the girl I’d fallen in love with.

The inner strength evidently needed a near-death experience to emerge.

“What next then?” I asked her.

“Rehab, from what Petra said,” she said. She knew Petra well. “But then? The world’s my oyster, isn’t it?” She smiled sadly. “I could go to Italy to eat, or to India to meditate, or some such thing.”

“I think they already made that movie,” I replied automatically. “Andrea,” I said, working through the words in my head so they wouldn’t sound glib or superficial. “You aren’t alone. We will never be a couple again, but you have people that care about you here. And though you drive me insane most of the time, that includes me.”

“Funny, that’s
almost exactly what my dad said,” she responded with a short laugh. “I don’t deserve your understanding, Patrick,” she added softly. “But I do appreciate it. You still seeing Lisa?”

I nodded. “It’s long-term,” I told her, just so there would be no misunderstandings.

She smiled at me again. “I’m glad,” she said. “I look forward to seeing more of her.”

We talked some more, about nothing v
ery important, and then her eyelids started to droop, and as if on cue, Petra appeared and ordered me out.

***

In the hospital corridor, just outside Andrea’s room, I took a long, deep breath. I had the feeling I’d finally gotten closure on my difficult relationship with Andrea. And I was filled with a sense of promise about the future.

Lisa:

I really like reading advice columns. It’s one of my gu
ilty pleasures. My favourite letters are the kind where you want to smack the letter writer for being all kinds of an idiot.

Dear Ann,

My boyfriend is perfect. He’s smart and funny and kind. Except, we have this one problem. I really can’t stand the way he loads the dishwasher! He doesn’t pre-rinse. Even though our dishwasher is new, and all the glasses come out sparkling, I still think he should do it my way.

I know this seems trivial, but it’s starting to become a major annoyance. Is this a deal-breaker?

Sincerely, ‘I need good sense slapped into me’.

I was becoming that crazy woman wh
o needed sense slapped into me. I was the one focusing on one thing so much that I was starting to lose any sense of perspective. I could have been that letter writer, if you substituted ‘dominating me during sex’ for ‘loading the dishwasher’.

Three
weeks had gone by, and Patrick and I were spending a lot of time together, and really enjoying ourselves. We ate out. We watched movies and argued about Netflix queues. We drove down to Buffalo to watch the Bills lose in glorious fashion to the Patriots. We took turns cooking for each other. We hung out with each other’s friends.

In short, everything was perfect. Except, of course, the
lack of BDSM sex.

At first,
I had thought that Patrick’s reluctance to jump back into a D/s relationship with me would dissipate quickly. But it hadn’t. I understood that three weeks wasn’t a lot of time, and I wasn’t exactly being patient. But the connection between us had been so perfect. So easy, yet so trusting.

He had said repeatedly
that his issues about BDSM weren’t about me. Intellectually, I understood that. But viscerally? I blamed myself. Had I been a better submissive and taken more responsibility for my safety, this wouldn’t have come to pass.

I didn’t think that what I’d done – my reluctance to use my safe word the one session when I felt I needed to atone for my wrongs – I didn’t thi
nk it was an unforgivable sin. But yet, we couldn’t move past it.

I l
oved Patrick. The way I felt about him was nothing like the way I’d felt about Nick. With Nick, I’d hated myself for wanting him. With each day Nick and I were together, I felt my respect for myself steadily erode.

Patrick was good for me. My head and my heart were aligned. When I was with him, I felt like the best version of myself.

But I missed his dominance so much that it was a physical pain. I needed him to possess me completely. And having been exposed to the sensually addictive sex, I wasn’t sure if I could live without it.