Sleeping Beauty A Novelette Page 2

  “Hey, Addalee, what’s up?”

  Really? These were the first words he was going to say to me? I didn’t answer as I devoured him with my eyes. How had I never noticed how smart his glasses made him look? And his hair was just the right shade of brown to go with his eyes. It was like I was seeing him for the first time, and I liked what I saw.

  He walked over to the bed and gave me a one-armed buddy hug before sitting down on the chair. “You’re looking well rested.” He cracked a smile at his own lame joke and I tried to smile back through the flood of disappointment.

  I hadn’t been expecting him to look into my eyes and snatch me up, pledging his eternal love. Well, maybe a part of me did, but the part that didn’t take romance novels at face value knew that things like that didn’t happen in real life. Sure, it was a let down, but he was finally here, so there was still a chance that I’d get my fairytale.

  Having Kyle right here after weeks of longing was already driving me nuts. It was like an itch that you can’t scratch no matter how hard you try. It had passed the point of being a bother, and now I was in full on distress. I couldn’t think of anything else; it was always right there, a throbbing reminder of something that I couldn’t do anything about.

  “Where have you been?” Yep, I led off with an accusation. I blame it on the sexual frustration. Or maybe I had lost my social graces with the coma.

  “It’s only six o’clock. I’ve just now finished up in the office.”

  There was no time for pussy-footing around the subject. Something profound had happened while I was sleeping and I had to get to the bottom of it.

  “You came to visit me.” I knew it wasn’t my imagination. He came too many times for me to have dreamt it up. I didn’t think he was going to answer me for a second and I cursed myself for not being more polite when he came in.

  “Yes.”

  If I had the strength to do it, I would throw a fist into the air for this tiny victory, but I didn’t even have the muscle to hold my tiny container of orange juice.

  “You read to me.” Again, I was just testing the waters of his truthfulness. It would blow if he turned out to be a liar.

  “Yes.” His face colored in a blush.

  “What made you read me word porn?” He didn’t answer for a beat, but then he surprised me.

  “That’s what you like to read.”

  “You kissed me.” Every night before he left—on the lips and not a “friendly” kind of kiss.

  His open expression immediately closed to me. Dammit, he had only been here for a minute and I was already turning him off. Shut up, Addalee.

  “I should be going. You need your rest.” He pushed himself out of the chair.

  “No! Please don’t leave. Can you just sit with me a while?”

  He nodded and sat back down. He didn’t say anything, and we were locked into the kind of silence that makes everything tense.

  I decided to talk about something that he was comfortable with. “How’s the patient with the addiction to chemical peels?”

  He looked surprised again, as if he still couldn’t believe that I had listened to him all of those weeks. “Still peeling too much.” He smiled at me. He smiled at me! Now we were getting somewhere. I didn’t even want to mention the fact that my private parts were screaming for attention, but unfortunately, that problem, my main problem, was still as prominent as it had been.

  “Kyle, I can’t believe what I’m about to say, but I need your help.”

  “What’s wrong?” He sat forward in full doctor mode.

  “I need to have an orgasm before I lose my mind.” Whew. Saying it wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined.

  He jerked backwards as if I just poked him with a stick. Mmm, I wish he would poke me with his stick.

  “What am I supposed to do about that?” He looked like he’d rather be anywhere but this room.

  “I need you to help me.”

  He got my meaning, but by the look on his face, he probably wished he hadn’t.

  “Oh god. I can’t do that. Is there someone else I can call for you?”

  “What? No! How can you say such a thing? What kind of a person do you think I am?” The insult of his words made me want to tell him to get the hell out of my room. “Asshole.” I mumbled the last part, but apparently it wasn’t quiet enough.

  “There’s no need for name-calling, Addalee, but I can’t help you with this.”

  “This is all your fault in the first place. If you wouldn’t have been coming in here and talking to me, I would never have gotten all hot and bothered, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be having the female equivalent of blue balls. It’s your duty as a physician to fix the problem that you created.” So he wasn’t really my doctor. I didn’t care. There was no way I was going to let him leave the room without something.

  We hadn’t even been able to talk. I had jumped on him the second he walked in, and I didn’t even get to tell him how grateful I was for his visits. I sucked. He stood up and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” He walked toward the door.

  “Don’t go.” It was barely a whisper but he heard me.

  “This is all wrong.” He might have thought it was wrong, but he turned around and walked back to the side of my bed. He looked me in the eyes, and I swear he could read my thoughts. My stomach tightened as he stood there staring at me, and I wanted to kick myself for being such a dumbass. Kyle was my friend. He didn’t deserve this kind of behavior from me.

  I tried to school my features, but I was on a razor’s edge. Realizing that I might get some relief was actually making me more jittery.

  He took off his jacket and set it down on the chair before leaning close to my head. I could smell the clean perfume of soap and shampoo that clung to him. It was a scent that I remembered well from every time he had come to my room while I was trapped, unmoving in this bed. Several times he had come in so quietly that I only knew he was close from his aroma. Was I intoxicated on his pheromones? But why did I still feel such a high level of sex drive when he wasn’t even here?

  “Stop thinking so loudly.” His whisper in my ear shocked my senses.

  I waited for Kyle to touch his lips to mine; I could already feel them tingle, but he bypassed my face entirely and placed his mouth on the spot below my ear, trailing light kisses down the column of my throat. My body broke out in goosebumps as he worked his way down to the edge of my collarbone while he used his hand to trace the lines of my breast. I wanted his fingers to caress my nipple, and I barely had the thought before his lips left my throat and captured it through the fabric of my nightshirt. I think he might really be a mind reader! If I wasn’t already flat on my ass, I probably would have fallen onto the floor.

  I could feel his tongue as it grazed my supersensitive flesh through the damp fabric. A second later I felt his hand on my thigh, inching up towards my panties. I held my breath as his finger slipped under the elastic and across my mound. I could feel the warmth of his fingertip as it slid between my folds. Yes! A whimper escaped before I could hold it back. The sound seemed to jolt him, and he jerked back into an upright position.

  “Oh fuck. What am I doing?” He ran a hand over his face and grabbed his jacket. “I apologize, Addalee. That shouldn’t have happened.”

  I was still inside my haze of lust, so he was already at the door when I realized what was happening.

  “You can’t leave.” But he was already gone. He hadn’t been here for five minutes, and it was the first time I’d been able to talk to him in two weeks. I was a shitty friend. If I had been ambulatory, I might have actually forced myself on him, and we were definitely not the kind of friends with benefits. God, I didn’t even recognize myself.

  I honestly couldn’t blame him for leaving me here in a state worse than when he came in. My pussy was throbbing and I tried to press my thighs together, hoping that I could get some kind of friction to finally push me over the edge, but it was useless and I gave up when I recognized t
he horrible feeling of sexual frustration settle back over me.

  I was so disappointed that I started crying. I thought it was going to be one of those tiny cries. You know the kind you get when you’re watching a sad movie? It started out that way, but within a couple of breaths I was sobbing. I actually started wailing, which is why my night nurse, Roseanne, burst in a few moments later.

  “Addalee, what’s wrong?”

  “Everything! My life is crap and I can barely move my arms.” The words came out sounding like a pubescent boy’s whining.

  She walked up to my bedside and dabbed my face with a tissue. I was still wracked with sobs, but I tried to reign myself in. It wasn’t Roseanne’s fault that I was in this predicament. It was one hundred percent Dr. Griffin (he lost his chance to be called Kyle). What kind of a dick would leave a desperate woman in this condition? And he calls himself a doctor.

  “Thanks. I guess I had a lot of tears built up over the past few weeks.”

  “It’s okay. You’ve got to let it out sometimes.” She didn’t know the half of it. I wanted to tell her about my problem, but I didn’t want her to know it had anything to do with Kyle. It was too personal.

  Roseanne left after helping me to the bathroom to pee (by some miracle my legs seemed to be working okay, unlike my arms), then told me the good news that my IV was coming out in the morning, and I’d probably be able to go home if I had someone to take care of me. I was excited, and I sat up a little longer, half hoping that Kyle would come back. He didn’t and I ended up falling asleep watching the true crime channel.

  Chapter Two

  I woke up feeling horrible, my nose was stopped up and my eyes felt raw and grainy but I was able to gather the strength to rub them before I used up my energy stores. I could tell that my arms were already stronger, and I wiggled my feet to make sure I could still move them. I was relieved to see the blanket undulate at my command. It was weird how thankful I was for the little things these days.

  As I sat up in my bed, I realized I needed a plan of action. I needed to make Kyle see me as more than a friend. First, though, I had to apologize to him for yesterday. I was ashamed of myself and the position that I had put him in. I figured it was almost like asking Lola to take care of my “problem.” She would have flipped out, and I wouldn’t have blamed her for it. I knew it was messed up to have laid that on Kyle.

  How did one transition from friend to lover? I had no experience with this situation. I had to make him see me as a desirable woman, and if that didn’t work, at least make him see what he was missing. How strange that I had never seen the appeal of all of the girly stuff before, when I was carefree and physically capable of doing something to attract a man. I would have pondered life’s twists of fate, but my mother came in with my laptop bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Baby, what’s happened? You look horrible!”

  “Thanks Mom, that’s just what I needed to hear.” I couldn’t stop the flood of tears that started and my mother gathered me up in her arms like she had when I was a child.

  “What is it, Addalee? How can I help you?”

  “I just want to leave this place.”

  “Well, I can’t do anything about that, but I brought your computer. I’ll set it up for you.”

  I nodded and she busied herself with it while I thought about what I would say to Kyle when I saw him next. Unfortunately, his abrupt departure wasn’t enough of an incentive for my body to table the lusty feelings or my tender thoughts of him. I had listened to him night after night and I knew that he cared about me. It was just my feelings that had changed, and there was no putting that genie back in the bottle.

  Mom poured me a cup of water, and I surprised her by reaching up and lifting it to my mouth.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Your arms are working!” She sounded as excited as when I learned to write my name in preschool. At least I knew she would always be on side. I was about to tell her about Kyle’s visit, but my hand suddenly loosened on the cup and the water poured down the front of my shirt.

  “Shit!”

  “Watch your mouth.” My mother’s automatic scolding had me feeling like a child.

  “Sorry.” I wasn’t sorry, though. I felt like cussing the air blue, but I knew that I needed something stronger than foul language. I needed serious, professional help to make me feel better. I needed to entice a man, and luckily, my mother was just the woman to help me. I didn’t have much experience in alluring behavior, and it was time to call in the professional.

  “Mom, could you help me do something with my hair? I’m sick of the ponytail and now is as good a time as any.” My mother owned a hair salon but had long since given up on me and my lack of interest in the beauty sciences.

  She looked surprised for a moment before absolute joy took over.

  “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this day to come!”

  Geez. It wasn’t like I was getting married.

  “You’ve got such thick and shiny hair, and your bone structure is so delicate.”

  She kept talking about my natural attributes, but I tuned her out. It wasn’t nearly as interesting to me as thinking about looking my absolute best the next time Kyle came into this room.

  “I’m going to go to the shop and pick up some things; do you want me to paint your nails? I looked down and noticed for the first time that I had neatly manicured hands that were tipped with a pearly pink. She must have been taking care of that for me during my coma.

  “That would be great.” My voice was choked with tears of gratitude for having such a wonderful mother.

  “I’ll bring a few colors for you to choose from. This will be such fun girl time.”

  She left and the nurse came and removed my IV. I felt like this whole episode was coming to a close. As excited as I was to go home, I knew that if it hadn’t happened, I would never have realized my feelings for Kyle, so in a weird way, I had to be thankful for it.

  I was even able to go to the bathroom by myself; it seemed as if I had gained all of my strength back overnight. When I went to take a shower, the nurse stepped out to give me some privacy and I took advantage of the opportunity that had been so elusive for weeks. I imagined it was Kyle’s tongue stroking my pussy as I rubbed myself. It was over almost instantly, and I found myself dropping into the shower chair inside the cubicle. The relief I felt was so intense that I moaned.

  “Do you need my help?” Fuck. I forgot that I wasn’t alone.

  “I’m okay.” I was better than okay. Amazingly, I felt liberated. I would never have imagined any scenario in which I masturbated two feet away from a nurse, but for some reason I just didn’t care. I soaped up and rinsed off, feeling as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of me. I was no longer going to be the repressed woman who only had sex a handful of times a year. If being comatose had taught me anything, it was that life was unpredictable. I wasn’t going to waste another minute being that girl. I wanted Kyle, and I was determined to make him see me as a desirable woman.

  After I dried off, I dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a tee shirt, not sexy by any stretch of imagination, but since my mother was coming back to do my hair, toned down was the only way to go. Plus, I didn’t own anything sexy except for the see through nightie I bought when the lingerie store at the mall was having a clearance sale after Valentine’s Day. I hadn’t had a date in months, so it was still hanging in my closet, unused.

  My mother’s beauty treatments had kept my mind off of sex for the morning. Mostly. My thoughts kept trying to work back around to Kyle, sex with Kyle, and what Kyle would think of my new look. I was pathetic. I should have been focusing on the fact that I was about to leave the hospital bed and resume my life, but instead I was moping like a teenager with her first crush. This wasn’t even a crush. I saw Kyle in a way I had never appreciated before. He wasn’t just my “guy” friend, the only other person who got my obscure Star Trek dialogue references, my Thai cookbook recipe guinea pig, and the muscle when I got th
e urge to move the furniture in my bedroom. He was the only man I’d ever felt truly comfortable with. Maybe, in the back of my mind I had always known that he was the “one.” Now, I just had to make him see me that way.

  Mom cut my hair into thick layers and I even let her give me some long bangs. I looked pretty hot, so I chose a deep red nail polish to go with my new attitude. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt sexy.

  Some time after lunch, Dr. Ryan came by, and I wanted to crawl into a hole, embarrassed by my clumsy attempt at seductiveness yesterday. Thankfully, he just stopped in to give me the green light to leave, so I thanked him and let my mother gather up my things before being wheeled out to the car. I was free!

  All I wanted was to go home, but my mother insisted that I go to her house. I called Lola and told her I was on the way to Mom’s, and then I gathered up the courage to dial Kyle. I wasn’t all that surprised when it went straight to voicemail, but it hurt nonetheless. I was embarrassed by putting him in such an awkward position, but I was also a little upset. Kyle was my friend, first and foremost, and I had just come out of a coma. He had found the time to see me before, when I couldn’t talk, and he wasn’t even sure I could hear him. I stewed all the way to the house, but when I realized that it was a Thursday, I felt better; he had a pretty busy practice, and he didn’t answer his cell when he was with a patient.

  I settled on the couch and idly flipped through the channels. Every once in a while I’d glance over and admire my hair in the mirror. I looked awesome. I could hardly wait to show my new look off to Lola. And Kyle.

  Before I knew it, it was dark outside and I made my way to my old room and flopped down on the bed. I was still pretty exhausted, but I didn’t want to tell my mother; I was going back to my own apartment tomorrow, and I was already formulating a plan to capture Kyle’s interest.