Authors: Michelle Love
MERCY
A week has passed and I’ve spent every day with Jude. Everything is healing well and there are no setbacks which is great. The kids are sitting on the bed as his doctors have yet to let him get up and into a wheelchair.
He’s been scheduled for an MRI today to see how he’s looking from the inside and he seems apprehensive about it. I think because the nurse told him a couple of the male nurses would be by to help him get into a wheelchair and position him for the procedure.
I can see it written all over his handsome face that he’s not looking forward to it at all. To top things off, I keep seeing him glance at the black box that’s still sitting on the table where I placed it the night he got here.
I know it’s an engagement ring and I’m not about to bring anything up about it to him. It doesn’t take a mind-reader to know he must think if he asks me that all important question that I’ll simply accept because of his current situation. Which isn’t true.
I would’ve accepted the proposal before the accident so why wouldn’t I accept it now?
“Unkie, Jude, when will you be home?” Mia asks him.
“I hope soon. This MRI will help the doctors decided if I’m stable enough to be moved.” He looks up at me and then back at Mia. “And a bedroom has to be all set up for me at my parents’ estate.”
I can literally feel my stomach drop. “Why not come home to our place, Jude?” I ask him.
He just shakes his head. “Can’t.”
I’m not about to let him stay anywhere but with me so I say, “There’s that large bedroom downstairs that’s completely empty. It wouldn’t be hard to get that set up. Plus, it’s closer to the hospital. Just in case something happens and you need to get here for any reason.”
He looks at me as he bites his lip then looks at Carter. “Hey, buddy, can you get me that bottle of water on the table? I can’t reach it.”
I get up and grab the bottle. “I got it. Here you go, baby.” As I hand it to him our fingers touch and he moves them back very quickly.
He’s told me to keep my hands to myself. He’s said the way it used to make him feel is now bothersome. I’m not in his shoes to know exactly what that means so I’ve kept my hands to myself.
It’s been a week since my lips have touched him and, to be honest, it’s hurting me more than I knew it would. As I watch him coloring with the kids, I can see how this is weighing on him. He feels so much less than he is.
The door opens and a couple of burly men in blue scrubs come in. One is pushing a wheelchair and I see sweat form on Jude’s brow. He looks at me. “Get the kids and go, Mercy.”
The men stand there, waiting in silence. I suppose they’ve done this many times and know the psychological effect it will have on Jude. Men don’t do well with accepting their body has limits. Jude especially doesn’t like the fact he can’t walk on his own.
To be lifted up by some men isn’t a thing he wants anyone to see. So I take the kids and leave the room. “I’m taking them home to stay with Becky then I’ll be back, Jude.”
“Okay. Whatever you want. You don’t have to come back if you don’t want to,” he says the way he says every time I leave his hospital room.
“I am coming right back. And I’m bringing some of the shampoo you like. I’m going to wash your hair with that instead of this cheap stuff the hospital has,” I tell him then leave the room.
As we walk out of the hospital, I see his mother and father getting out of his truck. They wave and we go over to them. “Hi, kids,” his mother says. She reaches into her purse and pulls out two boxes of raisins. “Look what, Mawmaw has for you two.”
She and Jim have decided the kids need to call them Mawmaw and Pawpaw. I think it’s a good idea too. But Jude frowned when his mother asked the kids to call them that the other day in front of him. He didn’t say anything, though.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Jim asks me.
“Of course,” I say and follow them over to a small picnic table under a large oak tree.
The kids are busy with their raisins as I take a seat on one side with them. Jim and Loretta sit down and he says, “It’s about Jude and when he gets to go home. We’ve been talking as a family and he’s told us he wants to be taken out to our estate. But we think that would be a bad idea for him.”
“First of all, we have my puppies roaming everywhere and the environment isn’t sterile. And you know how they bark when strangers come around. The nurses and doctors coming and going would create chaos in our home,” Loretta says.
Jim adds, “But the biggest, most important thing is, he’d be secluding himself from you and the kids. We think that’s a terrible idea.”
“I was just talking to him about that. I told him there’s a place we could easily make for him and he wasn’t agreeing to anything I said. So how do you think we can get him to agree?” I ask.
Jim smiles. “I’ll come up with a list of reasons he has to make a place there or stay in the hospital. You and I both know he’ll want to get the hell out of here as soon as he can.”
My stomach flips and flops and I burp. “Oh! Excuse me! I’ve had terrible tummy problems lately. I know it’s stress about Jude. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” his mother says. “I’m sure you’re feeling tons of stress.”
“Do you think you can handle Jude coming home with you?” Jim asks me.
“I can. What I can’t handle is him not coming home with me,” I say as I run my hand over my stomach that’s really churning. “Um, I better go now. I have to get the kids some lunch and get them home then come back up here to find out the results of the MRI he’s getting right now.”
“Oh good!” Loretta says. “I can’t wait to see how he’s progressing.”
Getting up, I feel a little light-headed and stop for a second to steady myself. Jim’s arm goes around my shoulders as he asks, “Are you okay?”
“I haven’t eaten anything today,” I say. “I’ll eat and be fine.”
“Okay,” he says as he lets me go. “Now, you take care of yourself, Mercy. We can’t have you getting hurt or sick.”
“I know,” I say as I shake my head and start walking toward the car.
I can’t get sick now!
JUDE
Being picked up isn’t a thing I ever saw coming my way. I’m helpless and I really can’t stand this feeling. My body is slumping in the chair and I try to straighten up, using my hands and arms to do it. But I can’t pick my ass up.
“I need to get back to my weights. I used to work out daily,” I say as I try to have some self-esteem but I’m losing what’s left of it very quickly.
The two men give me a nod but say nothing. Their silence is somewhat appreciated as what good can be said about such a thing as being nearly completely helpless?
The room where the MRI machine is a relatively small and when we get inside of it, I notice there’s a slender table I’m guessing my body is going to be placed on.
With no mention of anything, the men wheel me up next to it and one takes my feet as the other my shoulders and I’m laid out on the thing before I realize what’s happened.
Another man comes to me and pulls my arms over my head. “Hi, I’m Bob. I’ll be doing your MRI. You’re going to hear some loud beeping sounds and I’m going to ask you to take in breaths and hold them. It’s important that you keep it held until I tell you to let it out or this will take much longer.”
“Okay,” I say as I lie perfectly still and feel a terrible feeling. Fear is coursing through me for some reason. It’s stupid to be afraid of this painless procedure but I feel it nonetheless.
“I’m going to be putting a nuclear dye into your IV to check for any blood clots. It’s going to cause an odd sensation in your lower regions. You’ll feel as if you’re actually peeing but don’t.”
One of the nurses who brought me in interrupts him as he says, “He’s not feeling anything from the waist down.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that,” the guy named Bob says. “Sorry about that. Okay, just lie still and this will be over soon and you can get back into your bed.”
Back in bed is the last place I want to get back to. I want to get the hell up and walk the fuck out of here. I’m so tired of this and it’s only been a damn week. I’m not sure how long I can take this.
The table I’m on begins to rise up and the donut hole contraption is coming closer to my body. The table moves my body back and forth as the machine makes beeps and then I’m up very close to it as the man tells me to hold my breath and my entire body gets scanned.
It’s over in no time and wasn’t bad at all. Yet, I still feel nervous and anxious. How I wish I was a year down the road already and used to shit. This is terrible and I keep thinking that it would’ve been better if I died in that fucking wreck.
My body is lifted again by the men and placed in the chair and I’m going back down the hallway toward my room. I pass an old man in a hospital bed who’s being moved and he looks tired, depressed, and hopeless.
We just look at each other as we pass. No nod, no wave, nothing but two men who know this is the worst time in their lives.
I see Mom as I’m brought back into the room. “Where’s Dad?” I ask.
I hear the toilet flush and water running in the sink then he steps out of the bathroom. “There he is! How’d it go, son?”
One of the men move to take my feet and I stop them. “Wait! Mom, Dad, can you get out while they do this?”
They leave quickly then the men move me back to my bed. “Your doctor will be here soon to discuss your results,” one of them tells me then they both leave.
Mom and Dad come back in, along with a nurse. “Hello, Jude. Let me get you all situated again,” she says with a pleasant smile.
She moves my IV stand around and fixes the tubes again. Then she throws the blankets back and moves my hospital gown around to make me more comfortable I assume. “You know I can’t tell if it’s all bunched up or not so it makes no difference if you fix it or not.”
“Well, to me it does. I like my patients to look well cared for, Jude. You know that. So how did that MRI go for you?”
“It was okay,” I say as she pulls the gown up and runs her hand over the bandage that’s wrapped around my dick.
I watch her hand move over the white bandage that resembles a hard dick and hate it that I feel nothing. Then her hand disappears underneath it and I know she’s checking the bandage around my balls.
“When the results come back and the doctor approves it, we’re going to take the bandages off and see how the healing is going. Won’t that be exciting?” she asks me.
Mercy walks in just as the nurse is moving her hand over my bandaged cock again and her mouth drops open. She clamps it closed quickly and I have to laugh.
The nurse turns to look at Mercy and smiles at her. “Good, you’re here. We’re going to get to check out how he’s healing in just a little while when the doctor gets here. That’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?”
Mercy nods and then I notice my mother is looking out the window like there’s a parade out there or something. I guess women don’t like watching men get physically inspected.
The nurse pulls the gown back down and the blanket back up to cover me. Then she excuses herself and Mercy can’t seem to meet my eyes as she asks, “Are you feeling okay, Jude?”
“As okay as I can get.” I look at her for a second and see a thin sheen of sweat covering her face. “Are you hot?”
“Huh?” she asks as she takes a seat in one of the extra chairs they’ve brought into the room since I always seem to have more than one visitor.
“You’re kind of pale and sweating,” I say. “Are you feeling okay?”
She nods. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Dad looks at her then says, “Come on Loretta, let’s go get something to drink. I think Mercy could use a nice glass of iced tea. We’ll bring you one, honey. You sit tight.”
Mom and Dad leave the room and I’m left alone with Mercy. I hate being left alone with her now. I can’t stop looking at her long blonde hair as it’s pulled back in a ponytail and I want to pull that rubber band out of it and run my hands all through it and kiss the hell out of her plump red lips.
She licks them and I move my eyes up to find her looking at me. “You seem nervous,” I say. “Are your worried about the MRI results? Because what else could go wrong with me? No reason to worry.”
“No, I’m pretty sure the results are going to be good. I guess just watching another woman handling you sent something uneasy through me. I can’t say I enjoyed that at all.” She looks away from me and out the window.
“Well, you better get used to it as I’d guess it’s really about to get handled as they check it all out and change the bandages. If you can’t handle it, you can leave. But I can’t feel anything if that makes you feel any better about it,” I say.
It secretly thrills me that she’s not happy seeing another woman fondling me. It proves she still sees me as a man.
And that makes me very happy to know!
MERCY
Yet another doctor comes into Jude’s room just an hour after the MRI was done and he introduces himself to Jude, his parents, and me. “I’m Doctor Padron. I specialize in back injuries and I was asked to come look at your MRI results.”
Jude pulls himself up a bit and I go to move the pillow behind him and realize my breasts are all up in his face as he pushes at me. “For Christ’s sake, Mercy!”
“Oh! Sorry, Jude,” I say as I back away from him.
The nurse who was in the room earlier, checking his bandages, comes in and goes to the other side of him, lifting him some to position the pillow for him. She has obviously been trained how to do that without getting her tits all up in people’s faces as she does it.
The doctor waits for Jude to get all settled then continues, “So, as I was saying, the results I’ve seen let me know there is a good chance I can do surgery to give you a chance at mobility again. With the improved mobility, the nerves may repair themselves as they will be realigned again and it could occur. You could regain feeling, control, everything.”
“I could go back to normal?” Jude asks as he looks at his father then his mother then me.
His eyes linger on mine then he looks back at the doctor as the doctor says, “I don’t like to make any promises to my patients. But I have had success with this type of injury in other people. Especially people who are physically fit. The recovery period is relatively shorter when the patient has the ability to rehabilitate the muscles by exercising according to our guidelines.”
Jude’s face splits into a grin. “I don’t know why I haven’t thought about this at all. I know most everything about the human body and the muscle systems. I could make sure I exercise what needs to be built back up in order to regain everything.”
The nurse smiles at him and pats him on the shoulder. “Some good news, for you, Jude!”
The doctor turns what looks like a picture of bones toward us. There are two places where the bones look pulverized and he points them out. “I can replace these sections of destroyed bones with a new technology. We use the bones of pigs to make a fusion between the existing healthy bone. The pieces usually adhere to each end they’re joined to and mesh well with the human bones, creating a healthy structure once more.”
“This is amazing,” I say as I look at the picture and can easily picture the smashed bones being taken out and a whole bone being placed in the spot that would be left open.
Jude looks at me with the first real smile I’ve seen from him since this happened. “It is, isn’t it?”
Another doctor enters the room and introduces himself. “I’m the urologist who’s been assigned to your case. Doctor Wieland. I’m here to examine you, Mr. Hurst.”
Doctor Padron gives Jude a nod. “I’ll get the paperwork going for the surgery and have it given to you by the end of today. Then I’ll set up the operating room date and we’ll have everything scheduled. If you have any questions about anything, my personal cell number will be on the papers and you can call to ask me anything.”
Jude waves at the man. “Thanks, Doctor Padron! See you soon!” With a glance at his mother, he says, “Mom, could you and Dad leaves us while he does the personal area exam?”
His mother and father hurry out of the room, and I kind of feel like I should go too. I get up out of the chair. “I guess I’ll get out of here too.”
Jude holds out his hand and gestures to me. “I’d really like it if you stayed.”
A lump forms in my throat and all I can do is nod and go to his side and take his hand. I watch as the doctor comes and pulls back the blanket then the gown and the nurse goes to take some bandages and antiseptic out from underneath a cabinet in the room.
She hands the doctor a little pair of scissors and Jude turns his face toward me. “I can’t watch a pair of scissors down there. Hide my eyes, Mercy.”
I nod and pull his head in between my breasts as the doctor cuts the white bandage along the top of his penis. He pulls the sides of the bandage back as the nurse takes a cotton swab she’s doused with alcohol all over the red skin if the top part of his penis that looks wrinkled but fine. There are no cuts on it.
Then the bandage is completely pulled off and the doctor pulls the catheter out of the end. I grit my teeth as it looks painful but thankfully Jude can’t feel anything.
Jude looks up at me. “How’s it looking?”
“Pretty good,” I say. “You want to look?”
“Should I?”
I nod and he pulls his head away from my chest and looks down. “That doesn’t look so bad to me,” the doctor says as he lifts his penis and looks underneath it.
The nurse looks around and nods. “Looks great.”
I step over so I can see what they see and see two places where there are about five stitches each and the area looks to be healing well. “Are those going to dissolve or have to be pulled out?” I ask.
“They’ll dissolve,” the nurse says.
The doctor nods and smiles. “That looks good. Now for the scrotum.”
Jude looks up at me. “That’s where the fish swim.”
I smile at him. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
The doctor and nurse work together to get the bandage off that area and his facial expression is hard to read so I step back over and see what he’s uncovered. I try to hide my surprise from Jude as I see three lines of stitches that travel around his entire ball sack.
“The stitches look good,” the doctor says. “No signs of infection at all. When the stitches have all dissolved, which will be in about a week, I’ll need to get a semen sample from you to see if those fish are swimming. And in the meantime, I’ll be leaving the catheter out to see if you can urinate on your own.”
“I can’t feel when I need to go, doc,” Jude says.
“I know that,” he says. “You’ll have on an adult diaper. Your body can still function, you just can’t feel it. Even the semen I will get will come from stimulating your penis to produce it.”
“How can it work with no feelings?” he asks.
“Because it doesn’t have to have feelings to work. You are aware that a woman can get pregnant without experiencing an orgasm, right?” the doctor asks.
I nod and Jude seems to be getting excited about things for the first time since the accident. “So, sex is not out of my future? Babies are not out either?”
The doctor looks at Jude with concern. “Jude, your injuries have to heal. So don’t go trying anything. But sex in some form will be in your future. And even if ejaculation cannot occur and you have viable sperm, we can harvest it through an incision in the scrotum to get it.”
Jude’s face is speaking to me even if his mouth isn’t.
I think we’ve reached a turning point!