“Hello baby” Danforth said to his nurse.
He was sitting on a chair and merely looking out at the hospital courtyard.
“How's my favourite patient today?”
Danforth smiled.
She was wearing atight white nursing uniform and a small hat on her head. Her hair was shiny, brown and held up with a hairpin so her neck was showing.
“I missed you, honey. Did you change your hair colour?”
“Come on silly, stop it”
She got closer to him and started undoing his bandages.
Behind her a black guy lying in a nearby bed made a series of obscene gestures to Danforth. There was nothing like a grown man trying to cheer you up by shaking his whip, sticking his tongue out and stuff like that.
Danforth did his best to ignore him.
“You haven’t told me your name yet, baby”
“Because you’ve never asked. It’s Shelley”
“Shelley what?”
“Shelley Suarez”
“I like it, Shelley Suarez. That's a double S, just like D.D. as in Donald Duck, or M.M. like Mickey Mouse.”
“Oh stop it, silly. You’re going to make me mess up. You don't want me to take out your eye by mistake after everything you’ve been through to keep it, do you?”
“No of course not honey. But if I lose it now, maybe Imma gonna get to stay a week longer just so you can take care of me”
“You do always make me laugh and you know what? I’d like to see your face without this beard”
“I can't shave, honey. If they recognize me, I’ll end up in jail”
The black guy behind her was now pretending to howl at the moon and this time Danforth couldn’t help laughing.
“Okay now seriously, my dear: be quiet and stay still, or this time it's going to really hurt”
After she was done she smiled and left without saying a word.
“She's yours, man. Trust me” said the black guy.
“I understand women, especially the white ones. Their expression changes when they want someone”
“What's your name, buddy?” said Danforth still looking in Shelley's direction.
“Mitchell, Roger. Sir”
“You are a funny guy, Mitchell. What do you think, should I give it a go?”
“Go for it man. Between you and me, you’re the only one who can walk so just give it a go. Go and do her for me too, but only if you promise to tell me everything afterwards”
“Well, that depends on how it ends”
Danforth got up off the chair and left.
***
Three hours later, Danforth and Shelley were alone together in a dark storage room. She touched his face, felt the roughness of his beard and then kissed him.
It was a hard kiss, almost violent like. They barely missed knocking heads and for a second, Danforth was even worried something would happen to his eye.
Once they got over the initial reservations, nothing else seemed to exist.
Danforth felt a shiver go from the back of his head right along his spine all the way down to his feet.
Afterwards, her kiss became tender and warm recalling a warm bath towel wrapped around yourself after having a cold shower or even similar to being hugged tight by someone who really cares about you.
Kissing and caressing her made him feel like they’d know each other forever.
When they stopped to catch their breath, they stayed close and simply gazed into each other eyes.
Very little light was getting into the storage room owing to all the shutters being left half-closed. This was meant to keep snipers from shooting at the American patients through them if open wide.
“I like you, Shelley” Danforth said.
“I like you too, Joseph. Where are you posted?”
“Oh, well we move a lot” he answered softly to her while gently stroking her hair.
“Kiss me again,” she said in a hushed voice to him and naturally, he did.
Kissing her gave him that shiver again and gave him such a feeling of wellbeing. It brought you to a parallel world with doors leading to other downy, warm and dreamy places.
It left you feeling regenerated the same as you would from a long sleep and he’d never felt as refreshed or relaxed his entire life.
Whoever that woman was, he needed her like no other woman ever before.
He kissed her again, pulling her closer even tighter than before, until he could feel her breasts pushing up against him.
Danforth had been with many women in his life, especially back when he used to deal drugs.
Most of them were whores who let guys fuck them in exchange for drugs, but obviously with Shelley it was an entirely different story.
She made him remember his first kiss at sixteen and still a good boy. Well, sort of good, more or less.
Truth be told, it was more like his second kiss because the first had been an experience too new for him to really enjoy at that time.
Shelley's eyes had become teary like she’d been crying or something, but that had in no way been the case.
He’d never seen that look or expression on any girl’s face after a kiss before.
“Don’t vanish into thin air, Joseph Danforth. Okay?”
“No Shelley. We can stay in touch. Would you like that?”
“Of course I would”
While Barry, Danforth and Rambo continued to get better, Jorgenson refused to die.
For some odd reason, he kept going in and out of coma, but kept on living.
His agony seemed to become more atrocious as each day passed, and even if the doctors wouldn’t change their diagnosis, he was, in any case, resolutely alive.
His chances of one day actually getting back on the field were zero of course, but the idea that he could actually survive no longer seemed impossible.
Anyway, no matter what Jorgenson's destiny would be, the war would go on.
And it did.