Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

He replied, "No, your pager is not broken. I didn't call you." Only now did she notice that he held a scalpel in his gloved hand. Devilishly sharp. Dangerous. "I didn't want to … bother you." These were the words he spoke, but it was not the message carried in his voice. This contradiction confused her. "Bother me? You never bother me. I'm always available for you. For any reason. Anything at all."

She strained again to see the patient on the table, but he stepped into her line of sight and placed the scalpel flatly against her cheek. He clearly didn't want her looking.

She glanced into his familiar eyes and saw something new there.

Her legs trembled. She felt herself flush a crimson red as sexual excitement rushed through her. Here? Now?

He stepped closer to her and ran the scalpel down her neck to between her breasts. "Elden?" she asked, her heart racing furiously.

One by one, he cut free the buttons. "Is this all right?" he asked.

She nodded. "I guess so." Keeping his mask on, he kissed her then for the first time. He took her pouty lips between his masked teeth and bit down hard in a way that both thrilled and terrified her. She felt powerless next to him. "Is it all right?" he asked again. "Hmm?

She hesitated. "You want this, don't you, Pamela? I know you do. Tell me you do."

Her shirt fell open. He pulled it back and studied the long scar below her rib cage. He touched it and hummed softly. "Tell me," he repeated. She thought she might faint. He used the scalpel to cut her bra. it too fell open, exposing her. He didn't look. He held her eyes. He said, "This is what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Good." He ran the flat of the blade over her breasts. A penetrating, exhilarating chill raced through her. The danger that blade represented … He then held out his empty hand and offered it to her. She kissed his gloved fingers then, one by one. She drew each of his fingers into her mouth, suckling them and curling her warm tongue around them, ignoring the odd odor of the latex. All the I while, Tegg continued to stare into her eyes. What did he see? What was he after? He withdrew his fingers from her mouth, glanced once quickly nervously? — over his shoulder at his patient, then quickly back at her and said, "You won't need these." He tugged her jeans away from her soft middle and drew the scalpel all the way down one pant leg, then the other. Her jeans came off like a pair of chaps. Her head swam, feeling his hand touch her there.

All at once she could smell her own excitement, and it embarrassed her. It mixed with the musty and medicinal odors of the cellar. "You'll like it," he said, reading her thoughts. He pulled the severed blouse from her and left it on the floor. He led her-underwear, running shoes and peds-to the end of the operating table.

He positioned her facing him with her back to the patient, standing between the unconscious woman's bare feet. She resisted the urge to cover her tried not to think of the way her flesh must belly, look in the glaring light. His eyes glowed behind the operating mask. She could hear his coarse, exciting breathing.

She felt dizzy, almost drunk. This wasn't how she had imagined it. He was scarcely himself. is this how men were? She ached with longing and fear. He reached past her and moved the patient's feet out of Pamela's way, clearing a small space between them on the operating table.

Suddenly, he scooped Pamela up and planted her sitting in this space on the end of the high operating table, centered between the patient's ankles. He took one of her hands and placed it on her raised knee, then the other, so she held herself open for him. He spun the scalpel before her eyes. Light glinted from its edges. He lowered it. He nicked the waistline of her underwear, and then threw the scalpel to the floor. He placed both hands on her underpants, and tore them open.

He asked, "Are you sure?" She nodded, unable to speak. "We can stop," he offered. "No." He touched her with his gloved hands. She rocked her head back and stared open-eyed into the harsh, sterile light. Her left leg cramped; she wanted to let go of her knee, but she didn't dare do anything. This was all so new to her, not at all what she had imagined. Better in some ways. Worse in others. He felt removed and distant, and yet his touch was intense and knowledgeable. She wanted him to want her.

He unfastened his belt. She grew light-headed. He took her legs and pulled them toward him, drew her to him, causing her to plant her arms and lean back, her head nearly touching the patient, her legs wrapped around him, her body half on, half off the metal table. The farther back she leaned, the easier it was to support herself, but the more contact she made with the woman behind and beneath her. Humming one of the operas that he played during their surgery, he penetrated her. A sharp pain. She cried out. She could tell by his reaction that he liked it, so she didn't try to stifle the sounds that shuddered through her with each of his thrusts. He went after her with a frenzy.

Her body went numb as all of her senses focused, instead of on herself, on him. His eyes closed. He smiled! He liked this!

Then nothing. He stopped. Was it over? He withdrew and shoved her away from him, back onto the table.

She was filled with a vague longing for something soft-muted light, a pillow, a kind word. "Was it any good?" she asked. "You can't answer that yourself?"

"It was wonderful!"

"There, you see?" Then he said mechanically and without emotion, "Now put on a smockthere's work to be done. She won't stay under forever."

Pamela went into the adjacent storage room, cleaned herself off and changed into a smock, remaining naked underneath. The sensation thrilled her. Everything about this night thrilled her. With her clothes as they were, she would have nothing but the smock to wear for her drive home. Wild! She giggled with the thought.

When she returned, he seemed nervous, almost frantic, not at all himself. He kept checking his watch. She joined him at the table alongside the patient and the stainless steel tray of hemostats, scalpels, and needles.

Only then did she notice: "She's not prepped!" She blurted this out without thinking. "She isn't shaved." Their eyes met then, and she saw panic in his, so foreign a sight that it was made all the more obvious, like a virtuoso missing a note, or an actor forgetting a line. He had neglected to prep her. Inconceivable! Elden Tegg? He never forgot a single detail of any operation, large or small. Had the sex been that good? She didn't know this man. He had treated her so differently this evening, done things she had always wanted but had never dared ask for, that it was almost as if she was with someone else. "You're right," he conceded, "she's not properly prepped."

Elden Tegg admit a mistake? He never made a mistake! What was happening?

He instructed her, "Get what you need and prep her." When she failed to respond, he commanded harshly, "Go on!"

She didn't like that voice. It wounded her. A few minutes later, as she was soaping the patient's side and abdomen, she noticed that the surgical cloth covering the patient was damp in the center of her chest. It had been dry earlier, when Pamela had left the room. She shaved the woman, but her eyes wandered the room curiously and she spotted a surgical sponge stained with Betadyne resting on the edge of the sink. This too was new since she had been out of the room. She put the two together: The Betadyne had earlier been used to prep the epidermal for surgery, and then the patient's chest had been washed clean of it while she was out of the room.

A heart? Impossible! He wouldn't do that. They had talked about that recently. A lung perhaps. "All set," she said to him. All set? Her hands were shaking, her knees weak. Her eyes fell upon that sponge across the room. She thought about the sex, what he had done to her: Out of desire? Or had it been to distract her? To keep her attention off this patient. She glanced over at him. She felt a distance between them. If this was a scheduled harvest, why hadn't she been notified? Who was the courier if not her?