Chapter 26 – Oh, this bloody phobia!

The next morning, Martin woke up very early. Martin very quietly left the bed to use the bathroom and there he peeked out of the window. It wasn't even five thirty and the dark night outside slowly turned into shades of violet and blue. The coming day promised to be a beautiful one. However, it was far too early, so he decided to go back to bed and rest a little longer.

It felt strange, the room without James' cot and toys. He missed him and hoped that he would see his son before the seminar would start.

The room was dark, but Martin could see the contours of Louisa's beautiful body. Trying not to wake her up, he lay down beside her. Carefully, he shifted closer to her in bed, until her body touched his right side. He couldn't refrain himself from softly caressing her bum, he enjoyed the warm softness of her skin and thought back of the wonderful evening that had ended only a few hours ago.

In the taxi to the hotel, they sat side by side very closely, holding hands. It felt much better than the disastrous taxi ride home to Portwenn after the splenectomy of Peter Cronk. Martin wiped away the unpleasant memories and concentrated on the more recent, much nicer ones. The ride back to the hotel was short and Martin and Louisa hurried to the elevator, both looking forward to the promising night to come. Once in their room, Louisa had said

'Care for unwrapping a parcel, Martin?

'Hmm, NOW?, he had answered, quizzically. Frankly, he had other things in mind..'

'Hmm, hmm, yes, now, Martin', Louisa confirmed, broadly smiling. She stood right in front of him, only 2 feet away from her. He could smell her favourite perfume, Kenzo Flowers and he couldn't get his eyes off of her.

'Come on, go ahead, she motivated him. And then, finally, the penny dropped..

Martin still blushed at the idea of Louisa as a package. When he "unwrapped" the "parcel" by taking off her jacket and unzipping her dress, he was speechless. Louisa wore the most beautiful lingerie he'd ever seen on her.

Words weren't necessary, Louisa would see the look in his eyes. His eyes showed more love than any word could ever express.

Still fully dressed himself, he simply took her in his arms and started to kiss her passionately. The sensual and slow lovemaking that followed would stay in his memory for ever.

Martin tried to keep thinking of the romantic events of the evening before, but at a certain moment it popped up in his head and it stayed there: today was the haemophobia day of the congress.

So far, he had only spoken about it with very few persons. He had told about his problem in public only once and he preferred not to think about the very unpleasant trick Bert Large had set up when the news of his phobia had be brought in the open by that stupid little twit called Pits. The local radio had made a mountain of a molehill and he had made a furious phone call explaining he just had a minor blood issue.

Which wasn't true of course, he'd had to quit his job as the head of vascular. He still got chills down his spine when he thought of the woman he had to operate – a simple procedure, nothing special. But seeing the woman and her family, that had clung together as if the poor woman wouldn't ever wake up from the procedure did it for him. Since that very moment he couldn't see or smell blood without sweating, getting nauseous, vomiting.

He had spoken about his blood phobia with Louisa, when they were in the ambulance together heading to the hospital after Peter Cronk's nasty fall rupturing his spleen. A rather funny thing was that when he actually had to operate on Peter in that ambulance, he hadn't felt the need of vomiting, he had only thought about the boy, he had to safe the boy's life.

As a matter of fact, in most really urgent emergency situations, he hadn't vomited, or not much. Only in less urgent cases, or in cases where he'd have to draw blood, he usually had to empty his stomach in the waste bin.

Anyway, when Louisa had gone to London, he'd felt really motivated to conquer the phobia. He believed that when they'd both be in London, there would be a chance to see her again. And at that moment, Edith did find the job for him, to become head of vascular again. And.. she came up with Dr. Milligan. He was not much of help, but his CD-roms were… He really progressed and was able to draw blood from his patients again without running to the lavatory or vomiting in the bin. He himself, tried to belief that he was ready for the theatre again. But life changing events had prevented that he went back to London.

He admitted to himself that he was glad now that it turned out the way it did.

Maybe he should thank that woman, Dr. Dibbs now nurse Dibbs again, for making a mess of the surgery in less than two days. The reason why he stayed in Portwenn… He'd have to ask Chris Parsons to trace her for him, he thought. Maybe he'd send her some flowers. No.. he'd ask Louisa what to do to thank that woman for being such a bad doctor.

He looked at his lightly snoring wife and a hint of a smile curled at a corner of his mouth. It sounded so reassuring. How on earth had it been possible that he'd wanted to use those bloody nose strips..

His mind wandered back to that horrible blood phobia. Of course he had studied all articles on the subject. And today it would be treated at the conference. He thought of the first day of the congress, the day they had to dress the list with all the phobias they knew… He realized that he hadn't even mention haemophobia on his own list, which was a bit unusual, since it was part of the program. On the list of Martinus Elzenbosch it hadn't figured either… Could it be that he also… Nooo, that would be too conincidental…. Wouldn't it?

Finally, the alarm went off. Time to get ready for the things to come..

To be continued

Dear readers and followers, I owed you a new chapter, albeit a rather short one. My RL and my coming trip to PI, make it hard for me to write on a regular basis at the moment. Sorry for making you wait so long. Next part will be difficult, so it will most certainly take some time again before posting chapter 27.

I hope you enjoy this one.