The Patient Is a Shark [Shape-Shifter Clinic 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (2 page)

The nursing staff had been wonderful—helpful, caring, and polite. She’d been pumped full of painkillers, antibiotics, and fluids, her wound stitched, had been given a bunch of injections, and had more blood than she thought she could spare taken from her for various tests. So she’d expected that would be the end of the adventure.

But no. A doctor had sat beside her bed and explained clearly and succinctly that whatever piece of metal she’d caught her leg on had “considerably damaged” her knee and she needed a full knee reconstruction.

“What we’re talking about here is an anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. We should be able to use your own tendons to replace the damaged one which has to be removed, which in turn means there’s minimal chance of rejection. It’s a complex procedure, I won’t try to deny that, but twelve months after the operation more than eighty percent of patients report a favorable result.”

“Twelve months?”

“You’ll most likely be on your feet in two weeks and back at work in twelve weeks, but it usually takes about twelve months for complete recovery. You’ll be hopping and jumping with equal hamstring strength on the injured leg as the uninjured one by then.”

Wynter wanted to ask about swimming but decided not to. There was a much more important question to ask first. “Roughly how much will it cost?”

“Assuming your insurance covers anesthesia and postoperative physical therapy and rehabilitation, on the order of three, three and half thousand dollars.”

Wynter gulped. Three thousand? She was going to be really struggling to pay the three hundred she already owed. She was on minimum wage with no insurance.

“And if I don’t have the surgery?” she asked.

He shook his head at her. “A torn anterior cruciate ligament will not repair itself. With careful management and pain relief you’ll be able to get by for some months, while the pain will gradually get worse and the limb less mobile. Once you start walking off balance to minimize the pain to your knee, you will start putting additional stress on other areas of your body such as your hip and your back, which will then begin to ache. I wouldn’t recommend delaying the surgery. If you wish, I can ask the hospital social worker to drop by and see you. There are organizations that will help you get a loan to pay for the surgery.”

“No, that’s fine, thank you. Everyone here has been most kind. It’s just a bit of a shock. Yesterday morning I was fine. Now, not so much.”

“Of course, and you’re in pain. Take things easy. Rest. But don’t delay the surgery more than a few weeks if you can avoid it,” the doctor said. He stood up, nodded to her, and left.

Wynter took an Instagram picture of her medical certificate and e-mailed it to her boss. She received a very terse text message back saying he was sorry she’d been in an accident and, “if she wanted to,” to come and see him when she was recovered.

“My chance of getting that job back again? Basically zero.” Wynter slouched on her couch, her leg resting on the soft velvet cushions and the bills she needed to pay in a pile on her lap. With the help of her phone she worked out she could pay them all, and her rent, as long as no utility bills arrived this fortnight and she didn’t buy any food. She didn’t go and look in her refrigerator, but she knew there wasn’t enough food there to last her two weeks unless she began a really strict diet instantly.

Wynter laid her head back on the couch. It wasn’t even comfortable to do that sitting sideways. “Well, get used to it. Nothing’s going to be comfortable until you’re better.” The pep talk to herself didn’t help. She wished she was still a child and could run home to Mom and be cuddled, but the last time she’d heard from her parents they were in Florida and that was six or seven weeks ago. They could be anywhere now. Her father’s short temper hadn’t suddenly improved as he’d aged and they still moved from place to place as often as they’d always done.

Wynter pulled out her cell phone. That was something else she wasn’t going to be able to afford much longer, but she still had plenty of credit on it for the current month so she might as well find out how she could get better without the surgery. Maybe shape-shifters were different. Maybe she could regrow or repair her ligament naturally.

* * * *

Quinn Johnson had been working as a handyman at Thorne House Clinic, a clinic that helped shape-shifters heal at their own pace, which was usually considerably faster than humans, for a couple of months now. It was his idea of heaven. He loved fixing things and he loved animals. Of course, shape-shifters were actually people, but they were animals, too. He got a burst of pleasure watching a person limp out past the barn and maintenance shed to the small gazebo he’d helped the clinic carpenter, Danny Davies, construct. A few minutes later a wolf would emerge from the gazebo and begin to run toward the lake.

The lake was at the far corner of the property, likely half a mile from the house, and it was Dr. Oscar Thorne’s personal test to see if a patient was well yet. They had to shift and run to the lake, circle it, and run back, without breaking into a sweat or panting. Only when they could do that were they able to be released from the clinic.

This one Quinn was watching now had no hope. He was still limping quite noticeably in shifted form. But the run would encourage him and he’d get stronger.

Quinn owned a rather rundown farm a half-hour drive from the clinic. He’d been gradually renovating it himself, but he’d really bought it so his ever-growing menagerie of animals would have space to stretch their limbs and exercise. At last count he had eleven dogs, four cats, two horses, a goat, rabbits, chickens, and fish, but he never knew when another animal might turn up at his back door looking for a place to rest. He welcomed them all.

He’d even hired a Bobcat machine to dig his small lake deeper and longer so the animals could swim there on hot days.

Quinn shook his head. This wasn’t getting his work done.

But he still stood and watched the wolf run back toward the clinic. His lope was no longer smooth and even. The wolf slowed to a walk. “You overestimated your strength, my friend, but keep trying. You’ll heal soon. The nursing staff here is the best anywhere,” he told the empty air around him, before walking into the maintenance shed.

As well as being an animal lover, Quinn was a Dom in the BDSM scene. From time to time he worked a few shifts at the BDSM club in town, but he was very picky about the clients he took. No one who wanted him to be their permanent Dom. No one looking for a relationship. No one who wanted sex.

Quinn was happy to punish a lonely sub in the manner they needed, but he wasn’t looking for any strings or attachments. He had his animals, and now he had a good job as well. That would have to be enough for him until he found the right sub.

He watched as Rainer King came out the back door of the clinic, pushing a wheelchair. The personal care attendant was a human, like Quinn, with black hair and dark-brown eyes. Rainer was a deeply caring and perceptive man, and Quinn guessed he’d been hidden from view waiting to see how the patient was coping with the run. Now it was obvious the wolf wasn’t yet ready for so much exercise, Rainer had come out to help him back to his room.

Quinn nodded. Rainer had gotten it exactly right. Well, in his opinion, as a person with no medical skills at all, that was. But Rainer’d allowed the wolf to have a fair attempt at the challenge, and he’d never hinted the wolf wouldn’t be able to achieve it, but Rainer wasn’t going to let the patient hurt himself any more either.

Rainer waited with the wheelchair beside the gazebo, and when the man limped back out, dressed again, and sank into the chair gratefully, Quinn nodded to himself again. “You timed that perfectly, Rainer. Good work.”

Quinn sighed. None of this was getting his own tasks done.

He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been able to concentrate today. He loved his job and enjoyed being with the people here. He was just a bit—oh, not discontented really, perhaps unsettled? He’d better make a trip into town to the BDSM club soon and sort himself out again. He had everything he needed with his farm and his employment. What more could he want in life?

* * * *

“Quinn, are you available to come in on Saturday night and work? Dom Augustus is still getting over the flu and we’ve accepted two bookings for him thinking he’d be better by then.”

Quinn knew Augustus, a burly blond man in his early forties who played by the same rules as he did. This could work out well. He’d just been thinking it was time he visited the BDSM club again. Besides, a little extra money was always welcome. Feeding so many animals was quite a drain on his salary.

“Sure I can. What time?”

“The first booking is at seven thirty.”

“All right. I’ll arrive about seven.”

Quinn liked to sit and watch the people he was to work with before the session began. He needed to see their body language. Were there hidden reasons why they’d come to the club? Did they only need the release of the punishment or were there other problems in their life, other demons they were trying not to face?

Quinn had a pair of tight black jeans which he wore with an equally tight black T-shirt and a black button-down shirt over it. With a pair of polished black boots, the outfit was usually adequate to gain him entry to clubs that followed the “smart black” policy, and it was clothing he felt comfortable wearing. A couple of times when he’d had to wear costumes, he’d hired Navy officer’s dress whites. The high mandarin collar and shiny gold buttons on the jacket very much looked the part of a Dom, but he was definitely a jeans man at heart.

On Saturday evening he put his toy box in his blue pickup truck and headed into town. He’d built the box himself to his own design, with neat racks for his canes, floggers, and whips, and clips that locked trays holding small things into place. That meant that nothing could fall to the bottom of the toy box and spoil a scene for him while he was trying to find it. He didn’t have a lot of toys, but everything he owned was both carefully chosen and well looked after. He considered his BDSM equipment just as important to care for properly as his woodworking tools.

Quinn’s first sub that evening seemed to have no inner torment. He was simply a man who found pleasure and release in punishment. He’d asked to be handcuffed, blindfolded, and paddled. Quinn did his utmost to bring the man to the place of mental fulfillment he needed, and it seemed to him he succeeded.

He waited in the dungeon for ten minutes after the sub left, to give him some privacy, then went back upstairs to find out about his second client for the evening.

“Black hair, blue jeans, blue button-down shirt, sitting at the bar, second stool from the left.”

“That’s Rainer. He works at the clinic with me.” Quinn was surprised. He’d guessed the man was into the lifestyle from a few conversations they’d had, but it’d never crossed his mind they might meet here at the club.

“Is that going to be a problem for you? I can tell him he’ll have to wait until Dom Augustus is well again,” said the manager.

“It’s not a problem for me. I can be perfectly professional about this. But it may not suit him. I’ll wait in the dungeon while you tell him. If he doesn’t arrive I’ll understand,” said Quinn.

Nevertheless Quinn found himself pacing up and down in the dungeon and had to force himself to stand still. He respected Rainer. The man was a good personal care attendant who genuinely put his patients first and looked out for their interests. Quinn didn’t know much about him outside their work, and right now that was likely a good thing. It gave them that bit of mental distance they might need to keep this encounter purely professional. Quinn was sure he could concentrate on fulfilling the man’s needs, but he knew they might look at each other differently on Monday at work. He wouldn’t be upset if Rainer chose to cancel the session.

Rainer arrived so silently that if Quinn hadn’t been concentrating he wouldn’t have heard him. Rainer locked the door behind him, went over to a chair by the wall, and got undressed, placing his clothes neatly over the chair. Then, naked, he walked into the center of the room, kneeled down, and placed his forehead on the floor.

“Welcome, sub. Stand up and tell me what you require from this session.”

Rainer kept his gaze on the floor but did as he was asked. “I want to be punished so severely I enter subspace. I have tomorrow to recover but need to able to work on Monday.”

Quinn was surprised. Usually casual encounters like this didn’t involve such extreme punishments.

“Why?”

“It frees my mind and my spirit completely. It’s the only way I can obtain such perfect freedom and happiness.”

“Very well.”

First, a little added stimulation might be good.
Quinn went to his toy box and found his set of three cock crushers. He placed one either side of Rainer’s penis and the third one behind the scrotum, holding them in place with a couple of neoprene tabs. That should give the sub something to think about until the caning began.

In order to cane the sub’s back as well as his shoulders and ass, which would be more likely to send him to subspace, the sub’s back needed to be straight. Quinn took Rainer to the side wall of the dungeon and chained him to hooks from the ceiling, making sure his body was at full stretch when his feet were flat on the floor. Then Quinn sorted through his canes, finding his longest and heaviest cane, a thirty-inch Thunderbolt.