Chapter Thirty

Karl dreamed he was sitting on the toilet in the house he grew up in. He had to take the most enormous shit of his entire life. Yet no matter how much he pushed and strained it just… wouldn’t… come! Crazed with desperation he sobbed hard and the sob woke him up.

It was the damn vibrator of course. Even dead it was an agony to contain and no wonder: it must be eighteen hours since it was slid into him. Nor was that his only misery. His back and buttocks hurt from being in the wheelchair so long and inside the condom he was burned and whipped raw and inflamed from hours of jerking. Still, being in physical pain was such a constant these days that Karl managed to look past it all as soon as he perceived two things. Doreen was still asleep and the roar of wind and rain was gone. The storm had passed.

Guilt settled in. He had promised to stay awake. Next came the temptation to wake Nurse Drake. Surely she would make getting him out of this chair and that monstrosity out of his ass her first priority. Despite his suffering however he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her. Instead he contented himself listening to the radio.

Diana had moved further inland and been downgraded, she was now a tropical storm. Power was out over a wide area and there was no telling when it would be restored. Tornadoes had been reported – tell us something we don’t know, please. Okay, the time was nine-fifteen.

Overseas, Muslims were killing Jews and Jews killing Muslims. Muslims were butchering each other over thousand year-old succession squabbles or obscure doctrinal differences and gleefully targeting the ‘infidel’ as well. Floods, earthquakes, plagues, tribalism: it was all America’s fault. Karl sighed and tuned out the rest.

The smell of grilled steak lingered, as did the taste of whiskey. Karl peered down at Doreen snuggled against his chest and saw that her eyes were open.

“Peek-a-boo, baby. Are we still alive?”

‘I don’t know. Is heaven lying in your arms? Is hell having your ass stuffed around the clock? Or are both just part and parcel of living with Doreen Drake?”

“Let’s go with all of the above.”

Doreen cast back the blanket, sat up and stretched.

“Boy am I hungry! Eating right before bed always does that. But I suppose my darling little slut would rather get off his butt than eat breakfast.”

“You are perceptive, ma’am.”

“Yes, and conscientious too. I need to examine your backside for pressure sores. I believe I might even find time to pull that vibrator out.”

“That would be heavenly.”

“Okay then, it’s transfer time! Let me just empty this collection bag first.”

With no lift handy Karl got a hug and a groping of his buttocks as he was moved onto the bed. Doreen rolled him onto his side.

“See? I told you the batteries would die, just as the storm would end and we wouldn’t.”

“My beloved is wise.”

Doreen pulled the vibrator from him. The relief was so overwhelming it felt like it just kept coming, as though it was two or three times its one-by-six inches. The smell hit him just as Nurse Drake clucked her tongue.

“Well, the good news is we won’t have to do the bowel routine. Looks like your body insisted on unloading not just the vibrator but everything else that wasn’t nailed down. You weren’t kidding about wanting it out of you. Hold on little slut, and I’ll get you cleaned up.”

Embarrassment competed with relief momentary. Then relief won hands down. There was nothing to be ashamed of: shit happens, as he’d said. His back and butt ached on, and then Doreen was there with rubber gloves and disposable wipes. Once he was tidied up she pulled a pillow under his head and the blanket over him.

“You need to stay on your side for a little while at least. I didn’t see any redness, but you still need pressure relief. I’m going to go upstairs and clean up the glass, check for other damage, see how the pond is, et cetera. I’ll be back in under an hour and we’ll get our day underway.”

Karl closed his eyes. The enormity of his relief carried him back into unconsciousness immediately. When he came awake again Doreen had returned, all washed up and dressed in her daytime spandex. She had a basin full of steaming water she must have heated on the stove, soap and the sponge-mitt, lotion and razor.

“It’s time for the old-fashioned bed bath darling. I haven’t given one of these in quite a while. Let’s see if the old girl’s any good at it still.”

“This is a bit below your pay grade, isn’t it?”

“In a typical hospital or home care setting, it would be – especially the hauling and heating water part. At the clinic, not so much. Here, where I’m being paid in only personal, professional and sexual satisfaction, everything is included at one low-low price.”

“Or high-high price, depending on one’s perspective.”

“Oh, now that’s naughty, little slut. There are guys out there who would pay out the ass for the kind of treatment you’re getting gratis. At the very least it should be covered by the government.” Doreen rolled Karl deftly over onto his belly. “Are you trying to tempt me into taking that paddle off the wall?”

“You know me too well, mistress.”

Bantering and flirting as always, they worked their way through a modified morning routine. Karl got his usual bathing, shaving and monster-baiting, and was returned to the wheelchair. Doreen pushed him up to the table and began making eggs and pork chops for breakfast – more perishables that needed to be eaten before they perished. After that she pushed him upstairs for a look around before they sat down to discuss things.

Other than the lack of power and that single glassless window there was little evidence of disturbance. Doreen opened the shutters that had taken the hit. She craned to see the outside. Then she cast a look around the sullen drizzle of the day.

“The old girl’s got a battle scar, but nothing serious.”

“What hit us?”

“Looks like a little metal table, a piece of lawn or patio furniture. It’s all bent to hell.”

“I don’t remember any lawn furniture.”

“ I don’t have any, except for the dock chairs now floating around my lake. I’ve never seen it before. The tornado picked it up somewhere, and as it passed near here it flung it out again. If it was iron instead of aluminum it would have crashed right through.”

Doreen closed the shutters and they pushed on into ink. She opened other shutters as they went, letting in the daylight. There was nothing to be done about the shutter over the skylight until the power was on however, and the master suite was without other windows. She hung the Coleman lantern from the useless lift to throw its harsh, silvery light against the black. As she sat on the edge of the bed to face Karl she cast another glance at it.

“Not very romantic, is it? Good thing I have a ton of candles. Something tells me we’ll be using a lot of them before the power comes back. So let’s talk about that.

“The whole coast is shut down, and I have no way of getting in touch with my superiors. I’m sure they have more pressing concerns at the moment, but eventually they are going to want to know we are unaffected. If we still have no phone, power or internet access in say three or four days, I’m going to have to risk driving into the city before they send someone out to check on us, some sheriff’s deputy who might not understand what we’re doing here. In the meantime we shall carry on as normal, if a bit laboriously. Agreed?”

“You know it!”

With the manual lift she’d used on their holiday Nurse Drake transferred Karl to the therapy mat. They did the usual stretches and as vigorous a PT session as they could without the FNS. Likewise they had to revert to traditional atonement tools for that part of his treatment, beginning with the commemorative paddle from downstairs. Later Karl was clothes-pinned, titty-twisted and panty-masked again while she straightened up both outside and downstairs. At least she took pity and limited the vibrators to the one she always collared about his balls.

The candles made their simple, protein-heavy dinner another romantic affair, and during and after they drank more wine than usual and made love with an extra thrill of fervor. Sleeping hogtied and cuddled up with his lover in the middle of that big king-size again, a single distant flame holding back the abyssal black, Karl considered roughing it to have its advantages.

The following days proceeded similarly.

They slept and lived in the master suite as before, though Doreen either cooked on the big brick grill pit outside or used the propane stove in the cellar. They also returned to the cellar for waste disposal, though Nurse Drake kept a bucket far back in the bathroom to empty his collection bag into until it was convenient to carry downstairs. One time she squatted quite unconcernedly in front of him and arced her own glittering contribution into this, and he was aware of her doing so just out of view on other occasions too.

Diana had returned them to the time of chamber-pots, and Karl didn’t really mind. If it was up to him, he’d just dump the bucket out a window each time and be done with it.

What harm could it do? What man can raise his hand and swear he’s never pissed against the side of his own house? Marking your territory is as old as the animal kingdom!

This was a guy talking though, and worse a teenager. Karl kept his suggestions to himself. In any event, by the third day after the hurricane they were ready for a diversion again. Doreen’s birthday had arrived, and though her original plans were wrecked by the storm, they seized on the chance for another memorable celebration.

The best wine in the cellar was broached, and the best meat in the slowly thawing freezer grilled outside under a cloudless blue sky. Doreen broke out her stash and they even toasted her nativity with shots of the Wild Turkey, as long as it was open.

Like sex, boozing is another traditional American pastime when the power goes out. In any case they partied and played long into the night again, with the birthday girl repeatedly doling out the thirty-one spankings rather than suffering them.

Finally she rode herself to exhaustion and they slept intertwined. Meanwhile, conditions continued to improve outside. And finally the day arrived when Nurse Drake decided her need to check in outweighed the dangers of travel.