Chapter 14 - Surgery
Richard tried to hide his fear over the operation the best he could, especially because Dorothy had insisted on coming with him to the Medical Pavilion. It was what good wives did, she argued, and they had a great marriage as far as the rest of the city was concerned. He would have thought – would have hoped – that loudly pleasuring Lupe several nights ago would have driven a wedge between them, but apparently he miscalculated. Dorothy's determination to have the appearance of a loving marriage was stronger than he suspected. The specter of divorce had cowed her in a way that years of begging and pleading for decency had.
She even held his hand as they sat in Doctor Ashland's office for the intake discussion. It was soft and warm but he garnered no affection from it. It was like holding a hot mug of coffee. No, worse, because a hot mug of coffee was fortifying. Richard was so distracted by her performative display of affection he had trouble paying attention to Doctor Ashland.
"You will remain in observation for thirty-six hours following the surgery," he explained. "This is to ensure that your new partner likes the arrangement. There will also be some tests to determine the potential for other patients."
"What sort of tests?" Dorothy asked, really putting her heart and soul into pretending that she gave a darn about Richard's wellbeing.
"They will be looking for a chemical or hormone, I don't know exactly how to classify it, not my field of study. It's called ADAM and it's the miracle goo that's made your husband's body rebuild itself. However, it's in short supply, if this slug lives in there he can get enough of the ADAM to really fix it for good."
"Wouldn't it just be easier to give him more shots?" Dorothy asked. "Surely I'd be easier to save up some of this ADAM and give him enough to restore his hip and legs. I don't want my husband to die from having a slug living in him."
I didn't know you cared so much Dorothy. Richard shifted in his seat. She did raise a good point though, he had been so stunned by the idea of having a sea slug grafted into his stomach lining that he hadn't thought to ask.
"Ah, well, we won't know what will happen if we take the ADAM away from him suddenly," Doctor Ashland hurriedly said. "His muscles could relapse, or the growth could with, or-"
"Or lots of things," Dorothy finished for him. "But lots of things could happen if your surgery goes wrong. Or Richard's body doesn't like the slug.
You lose your meal ticket, that's what happens, Richard angrily thought. When he had told Lupe about the surgery she had been concerned as well, but after telling her he wanted to be whole again so badly she understood. She had even told him that she wished churches were allowed in Rapture as she'd like to go and light some candles and pray for a successful and safe surgery.
"Dorothy, it'll be fine. Others have had the procedure and they're okay, right?" Richard said while lighting a cigarette. Right?
Doctor Ashland nodded. "Eight others so far and the ADAM's fixed everything from a club foot to a stroke to chemical burns. All eight are healthy."
"For now, but-"
"This is happening," Richard firmly said. "I appreciate your concern, but I trust Doctor Ashland." In a few short hours he'd have the slug in him.
Dorothy frowned but said nothing further.
Richard feared for Lupe's safety if something went wrong, which was why he had altered his will yesterday morning when he took her to his lawyers to sort out her problem with Van De Graf. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that he died in the next few days Lupe would receive all his assets. He also spoke with Rollie, who promised on the grave of their still-living mother that he'd shelter Lupe from Dorothy. He hadn't really told Rollie much about Lupe, and he'd hadn't met her yet, but Richard impressed onto him that he would haunt the ever living daylights out of him if he failed to look after Lupe.
A nurse showed Richard to his room. Dorothy had vowed to stay near him the whole time so she accompanied him. She watched him undress to change and stared at the half-healed scar on his hip.
"I can't wait until that is fixed," she sniffed in disgust. "What a boon it will be to have a proper man again."
"It won't be for you," he curtly replied.
"You've taken that whore into your bed, haven't you?" Dorothy contemptuously accused him.
"Yes, I like having a loving and warm presence in my life," he honestly answered without a hint of sarcasm. But despite sleeping with Lupe he hadn't properly fucked her yet. He was saving that for when he was completely able-bodied again.
"I can't believe all it took was a young lady in the house for you to forget your marital vows," Dorothy began to lecture him. "I would have hoped that you would have had enough moral fortitude to weather such temptation."
"I would have hoped that you could have brought yourself to continue to love me after I got shot repeatedly in the legs," Richard just as honestly answered as he slipped into the shapeless hospital gown they had provided him with.
Dorothy rolled her eyes. "Marriage isn't about love, it's an arrangement. I uphold my end of the deal by managing the house and providing some refinement to your new money way of life. Your carnal needs are secondary to the domestic unit that we form."
"None of that means a damned thing to me Dorothy. It never has."
"I am a sophisticated lady, Richard, not that low-class 'artist' that you decided to entertain yourself with," she huffed in indignation. "My ancestors came over on the Mayflower, I am part of the foundation of America."
Richard couldn't help but laugh. "You always say that like it means something. Besides, we aren't in America anymore. Nothing means anything down here except for cold card cash. Your Mayflower ancestors can suck my cock for all that I care. It would certainly be more useful to me than you picking out China patterns or whatever it is you think sophistication means."
"How dare you speak that way about my forebears!" Dorothy gasped at him.
"How dare you call me a 'pathetic mangled mess'? Or a 'literal nightmare'? Or a 'disgusting damaged husk of the man you married'? Or all the other things you've so easily called me. Perhaps we are bold people who deserve each other in that regard. Or perhaps I should just fuck each and every one of your precious Mayflower ancestors in the mouth," he drolly told her.
Dorothy's mouth fell open in shock at his swipe at her illustrious ancestors. "Your mind is muddied by the drugs you inject. Once you stop taking them you'll become the man I married."
"You married a teenager who was so excited by the fact that the pretty girl from the cotillion had sex with him he married her right away." Richard had come to suspect that his mother-in-law had instructed Dorothy to target and seduce the vulnerable but also up and coming Stone boy. His father had already proven his worth and Rollie was the talk of the industrial world so it stood to reason that Richard had considerable potential. "You didn't marry a man. A man came back to you though, and you didn't want him. And now he no longer wants you."
"You'll come around. Your mind will clear and those nasty scars will be gone and you won't need that dreadful cane. And you'll get bored of your new toy and you'll come crawling back to me," Dorothy confidently predicted.
"Leave," Richard countered. "Leave now. You can wait outside or at home or at a bar, but you absolutely cannot be with me in this room any longer." The undercurrent of seething rage that had lain dormant for years had been brought to the surface by the revitalization that Lupe's terrific fellatio had given him.
"Make me," Dorothy defiantly responded. "Get over here and forcibly remove me."
Richard sighed and sat down on the bed. The only sound was the ticking second hand from the clock bouncing off the tiled walls. It's a maddening sound and Richard couldn't see how he would sleep in such an environment, but then he remembered he'd be drugged up to the gills.
He was very apprehensive about being put under anesthesia. After he got shot he had been pumped full of morphine and chloroform but it hadn't been enough to completely suppress the terror and panic. Visions and emotions and hallucinations formed his memory of his experience. He had perceived himself as a rabbit - a defenseless soft rabbit – hiding in a burrow. A snake was after him, or what it a wolf? It had teeth, whatever it was, and it had already bitten him and done serious damage to his little rabbit body. His soft fur was saturated in sticky blood and he shivered with horror, horror so powerful he froze, and he knew his little fragile body was seconds away from death, and he didn't know how to die, he was just a little rabbit.
Richard couldn't let anyone know his fear. Especially not Dorothy. She reviled his physical weakness. How would she react to an emotional one?
After twenty silent minutes a nurse came to escort to pre-op. Everyone else so far has survived, Richard told himself as he laid on the wheeled operating table. He laid as perfectly still as he could as they put the mask over his face. The gas mask was strapped onto his face by a person unseen as he was too busy staring at the ceiling in total not-paralyzing fear. He heard the click of the gas turn on.
"Where were you born?" The question came from a voice attached to no one.
"New York," he answered.
"What year?" The voice was businesslike but polite.
"1926," Richard said, much more slowly this time.
"What's your wife's maiden name?"
"Cameron," Richard said. Or at least he tried to say it. Nothingness overtook him.
Richard awoke suddenly to bright lights and confusion. An excruciating pain blazed from his abdomen and he instinctively tried to flee. The walls of his burrow started to close in on him. The snake had its fangs in his body, and it wasn't just his legs this time, it was his innards.
"Doctor, he's awake! His eyes are open!"
"Damnation, this little bastard's woken him up as well," swore a male voice. "Hold him down, get the mask back on and gas him again. Gas him double dosage, his new friend will see to his survival."
"No, let me go, let me down," Richard mumbled as he tried to free himself from the table.
Strong hands pushed him down onto the table and the mask was pushed back onto his face. The lights faded.
Richard awoke again, weaker this time. He was being pushed down a hall on the operating table. His head was titled to the side and he watched the walls roll past in a haze. There was no pain. There should be pain. He had enough of his senses to know there should be pain. There had been so much visceral pain for months after getting shot.
A vague recollection of awakening on the operating table floated back to him. There had been pain then, incredible pain. He was cut open, of course there was pain, but why did he wake? But where had the pain gone now?
Why is there no pain?
Would you kindly imagine a page break here?
Much like kindness, faith had no place in Rapture. Although technically permitted, Lupe found it unlikely that Ryan Security would tolerate any competition on the deity front. That the great chain should be enough spiritual sustenance for the citizens of Rapture seemed to be the prevalent attitude of the public, but Lupe was certain that others, probably also maids and cleaners and other low-level workers, had slowly begun to drift back into organized religion.
Lupe had drawn what she hoped was a pleasing image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child with the last nubs of her colored pencils, albeit sans red and yellow as she had run out of those months ago. Wood was scarce but metal was obtainable enough. Lupe fashioned a cross from two nails and lashed them together with an old shoelace. She had arranged these items into a makeshift shrine in her closet, and, after locking the door as Dorothy was wont to startle her and search her room on a daily basis for anything that could be used against her, Lupe lit a candle and prayed that Richard wouldn't die during surgery.
She had been so frightened when he told her about it yesterday evening. He had been holding her tightly after she had drained him with her mouth again and he said he wanted to be whole again for her and that he was going to get a surgery tomorrow to do it. Lupe could see in his eyes that he was determined and that arguing with him would be fruitless. She could only imagine his frustration and discontent at being crippled as a teenager and his desire to be healed. So she had kissed him and said it was going to go well, she knew it would, but inside a dark fear nested in her heart and pecked at her stomach all sleepless night long.
"Please don't let Richard die," she whispered softly, fearful that someone other than God may hear. "He's so kind to me, and if I must be in this awful place don't take away my protector and my lover."
Lupe was well aware that she was asking to continue to have an affair with a married man, but God must be understanding of such circumstances. Otherwise why would Richard have been placed in her path? She decided to mitigate her request, however, and added an addendum prayer that Dorothy find someone else who suited her better and move out of the home of their own accord. Then she and Richard could get married and have children, which was something God would certainly approve of.
Once she was finished Lupe quickly blew out the candle, disassembled the cross and put the nails under the nightstand, and placed the picture back into her portfolio where it wouldn't be out of place with her drawings of landscapes and children playing in a park and farm life. She then smoothed out her utilitarian gray uniform and went to clean the oven, which was powerful filthy.
The front door opened halfway through the job and Lupe was so eager for news she banged her head on the oven and swore loudly. Annoyed with herself she crawled out of the oven and hastened to the front room where Dorothy dropped her coat on the floor and kicked her enviable cute little green shoes halfway across the room.
"Oh, you are filthy! What are you covered in?" Dorothy spat at her.
"I was cleaning the oven," Lupe rushed to answer. "How did the surgery go?"
"You're on your way out, you little whore," Dorothy replied as an answer. "I wouldn't get too comfortable in your uniform, because I'll remind you that I own it."
A chill went down Lupe's spine. He's died and she's inherited everything and she's kicking me out right now! But reason stayed her fear. No, if that was true she'd kick me out this moment. "What do you mean?" Lupe tentatively asked.
"Don't play stupid with me. I know you're sleeping with my husband, I know you're doing utterly unspeakable acts of depravity with him. You're nothing to him, do you understand? No matter what he may tell you you're trash to him, trash to be taken out sooner or later. Why do you think he's stuck with me for so long?"
Lupe shrugged. "Inertia?"
Dorothy struck Lupe across the face with all her force with the back of her hand, which wasn't much force but still stung as Dorothy wore several heavy rings. "Don't you talk back to me," she ordered Lupe. "You're going to end up on your back servicing cruel men in Apollo Square before the month is out." Dorothy looked at the back of her hand, which had picked up some grime from the oven. She wiped it on Lupe's shoulder. "The surgery was a success and the doctor said he'll be able to walk again in no time. And you know what else he can do again? Have relations in a proper, respectable way. With his wife. Not with whores."
Lupe didn't know what to say to that. Obviously she was relieved that Richard had survived but she hadn't considered that possibility that he'd start having sex with Dorothy again. She rubbed her cheek and felt that Dorothy had drawn blood.
"Are you going to go tattle to my husband?" Dorothy mocked her. "Are you going to tell on me? Like a stupid little child?"
Lupe pressed her lips together and tried not to cry. She had always thought herself so courageous and strong but she felt her inner fire waver in the face of Dorothy's anger and assertions. What if she's right? Maybe he is just interested in sex and now that he can have regular relations with his wife he's going to put me out? Despite her better judgment she had developed genuine feelings for Richard and the prospect of him callously turning her out was heartrending.
Dorothy laughed as she noticed the tears of shock and dread gathering in Lupe's eyes. "Oh no, you didn't actually think Richard cares for you, do you? You're just a toy to him, a diversion, and once he realizes he doesn't need you anymore he'll give you the boot. Successful wealthy men don't fall in love with the help."
"I, I," Lupe stumbled over her words. "I never said that" she tried to salvage her dignity.
"You think it though," Dorothy condescended to her. "I know you do. You have tricked yourself, you vapid slut. Do you think he's going to divorce me and marry you?" Dorothy laughed again.
Lupe wiped her eyes with her sleeve. May as well go for the neck, what do I have to lose if she's right? "Maybe. It happens. Didn't it happen to your friend Muriel?"
Lupe had wiped the grin off Dorothy's face much faster than she was able to wipe grime from the oven. "You don't know what you're talking about," Dorothy icily replied.
"It's not complicated," Lupe countered. "Maybe you'll be the one who ends up…what was it you said? Something about working on your back in Apollo Square?"
There was a crack as Dorothy slapped Lupe on the face again. This time it was much harder and Lupe shrieked as she felt the rings cut into her skin. "Watch your mouth, you filthy slut," Dorothy hissed at her. She strode off, leaving Lupe crying from pain instead of fear in the foyer.
"I'm picking up some things for Richard and then I'm going back to the Medical Pavilion. Don't bother going to visit him, by the way, I'm not leaving his side."