Damon was pleased when he noticed the sedative he had mixed into the antibiotic was starting to take effect, Mimi was pale, losing weight again, and chronically tired. Rest would do her good. He'd gotten the smell of false heat dissipated and Adam and Charles had come to the medbay after he'd told them what he'd found.
Bran had come to the door and said Mimi was pretending again to get attention. Charles had told him that Mimi hadn't fucked Bran at all and refused outright if anyone suggested it. Within a day, the blood culture bottles were positively gushing with bacteria.
A strong antibiotic would work on at least some of them but all three were baffled as to where the infection had started and why it was mimicking heat. Now he knew the purpose of the substance, those herbs weakened Mimi's immune system and made her vulnerable to bacteria.
They began to examine the wing. Mimi had spent almost six months in this house now, and Damon was convinced that someone here was the pathogen. Eventually, they ended up at the spa. Damon tested everything and was surprised when Mimi's body wash was the culprit, no one else's, no bacteria in Mirella's or Mimosa's body wash, but Mimi's stuff was heaving.
Damon checked the other bottles in the cupboard, they would be the same batch. There were no bacteria in them. Damon threw away the product, he thought and thought and couldn't figure out how the detergent could even have that much bacteria in it. He knew Mirella had something to do with it but was it just that Mirella was jealous of Mimi's lust?
Mirella was seething with rage, the detergent was yet to be discovered. Master would not be pleased. Master had been planning everything so carefully for millennia. Mirella only wanted to serve her Master and now this fucking Salvatore had ruined everything. Master had convinced Mirella that he would have Damon for himself in the end. "Damon is my mate, my husband, my slave. " Mirella thought to herself.
Mirella wondered, though, what the little bitch's face would be like when it all came out. How stupid the little bitch had been. How the Master and Mirella had manipulated her for so long. Master had told her to make sure that the little bitch was regularly in heat, and only Master's care was supposed to be good, but the little bitch was such a freak that nothing was quite working. She had developed a substance for the bitch after the Master had done his thing that messed up her heat, the bitch was not supposed to fuck, she had made the bitch susceptible to uterine infection and was happy with every infection, she never put silver clips on the bitch, the bitch just had to grow a new uterus and a new heat.
The bitch would then at some point realize that the Master would be the best heat nurse. She really enjoyed it when the little bitch started to suffer pain months before the heat and no one could find the cause. She just gave a little something that guaranteed an inflammation of the uterus or such a difficult heat that no one wanted to fuck her even after that.
Master was patient, he had to learn to be patient because some things just take time. Manipulating Salvatore had been surprisingly easy, perhaps because he could talk in a way that at least part of Salvatore would listen, the part that enjoyed the torture, the pain. That part was good to talk to and control. Mimi, on the other hand, was a challenge, how had he ever gained Mimi's trust, but Mimi somehow knew how to get on his nerves so that more than once he was about to reveal his cards.
Over the years he had been forced to develop a thicker skin for Mimi. He was far from being directly responsible for all the evil Mimi had suffered over the years, sure he had carefully steered Salvatore in the right direction but when it came to pharmaceutical companies, Europe gigs, fight clubs and even witches he was far from being directly responsible.
But then the little bitch had decided that she wasn't going to take all the men. The Master didn't like it and had ordered the little bitch to learn her place and told Mirella to expose the little bitch to germs so the Master could help and the little bitch would be grateful.
I woke up feeling cold. I fumbled for blankets and found annoying tubes sticking out of myself. I tore them all off and carefully bowled them over. Then I decided to go to the bathroom. I managed to sit up and pushed myself to stand, my head was spinning quite a bit. I was cold and the light was yellowish, feverish, I decided I still had quite a bit of fever.
I tried to walk and for some reason, I found myself on the floor. I stared at the floor quite closely. Oh yes, I was going to the toilet, I got myself on all fours and started to crawl into the toilet. It was a long journey and I didn't seem to have any time to get there.
Finally, I reached my destination and it felt like I had been through Mount Everest, as I managed to pull myself onto the toilet, still with the hem of my robe up. Then I checked I wasn't wearing any underwear, I wasn't. So I let the piss flow. "Oh shit coming too" I made the observation and produced the stuff. I took some paper and wiped what I could because it was a pain in the ass. I got off the toilet and held onto the sink with both hands.
Eventually, I quickly got one hand untied so that the toilet flushed. However, my legs bent under me like a house of cards and I wobbled gracefully to the ground. And no time to crawl back.
Damon sighed. He'd been out to eat. He'd been out of the medbay for 20 minutes, and when he came back Mimi was gone from her bed. All the tubes had been neatly crimped and the cannulas ripped out with little spurts of blood. Damon patiently fetched new tubes and cannulas from the cupboard, prepared them, and took a good dose of strong anesthetic into the syringe already ready. He was sitting in a chair when the bathroom door opened and Mimi hauled herself out. "Where you going, Baby?" he asked patiently.
I answered as normally as I could, "To bed, I just went to the bathroom and thanks for asking,I did both." I continued to crawl, although I wanted to take a break so I didn't want to show anyone how weak I was. As if it wasn't obvious if I couldn't move otherwise than by crawling. But it's so ingrained in me that no weakness can or should be shown because there's always someone who will pick up on it and exploit it.
Damon got up from his chair. Went and picked his wife up off the floor in his arms and carried her back to bed. He'd seen how Mimi's arms were shaking with exertion and from the look on Mimi's face you could tell that full exhaustion was not far off.
First, he put in a new central venous catheter. Then he took a good dose of fever medicine and put it directly into the central line. The drug would take effect in just 10 minutes. Damon lifted up the side of Mimi's bed and said. "That was a fever medicine and a strong one, you know what that does."
Yes, I did. I'd been in this same state so many times in my life, I knew it outright. When my fever started to go down, I got hot, and sweat started to flow, and as the sweat flowed what little strength I had had disappeared. Within ten minutes I would be wet and completely powerless, usually, I couldn't even lift my arm and I knew that my fever was hovering at lord knows where, so bringing it down would be hard. And it was.
I felt like even blinking my eyes was an effort. Damon, meanwhile, had put big white towels on the bed next to me and had stocked up on warm water for the sink and a washcloth. He had put clean bed linen on the chair next to my bed and had reserved a new robe for me. I was done. Sweat was pouring off me and I couldn't even speak. I just felt stinky, and dirty, my hair felt greasy and my scalp was all wet.
Damon informed Adam and Charles what the young lady had done. Charles laughed, they wouldn't get to nurse Mimi because two days after Damon had put Mimi to sleep Mimosa had gotten in heat and it took Samuel Bran and both Adam and Charles.
Mimosa was very hormonal, volatile, and demanding when in heat. This time Mimosa demanded that Mirella be fucked all the time, as she was. For some reason, Mirella was not happy about this, but when Mimosa's lust threatened to knot, the men more or less raped Mirella too.
Ten minutes later Damon took Mimi's heat to 40.2, normal. Excellent, the fever medicine had worked once again. The infection had thankfully turned from sepsis and Mimi's own body was trying to help, but for some reason, Mimi always got a wicked fever, this time the high had been 49.8. Such a reading messed up Mimi's metabolism, enzymes absorption everything and it was consuming calories at a furious rate.
Mimi now weighed an estimated 42 kilos. Alarmingly low, and if the fever lasted for several more days, the weight would easily drop to under 40 kilos, Damon would push Mimi's nutrition, no matter how much. Fortunately, the antibiotic had worked and the bacteria count was down to 10% of what it had been. Even that number caused a pretty good infection and fever, and Damon did everything he could to stop the disease.
He went over to Mimi's bed and lifted his sweaty and limp wife onto the towels on the other bed. He took all the wet bed sheets off the bed and took them to the laundry hamper. Then he wiped the bed mattress with a disinfectant that would freshen it up. He left the bed to dry for a while. He moved to the other bed.
Efficiently but gently, he removed the robe from Mimi and took a washcloth, and began to wash his wife. He did not count the time he had given her dental care on the island. It wasn't such a miraculous rescue, but now he felt he was doing something he should be doing.
In fact, it was almost a year ago, Mimi had been on the island for another three months and here in the house for at least six months. Nine months at least. It was literally almost another year since he had last been this close to Mimi. He turned Mimi and wiped everywhere, and also took care of the holes. Then he got a hair wash dish and put it under Mimi's head and carefully washed her hair and scalp.
Damon wrapped Mimi's hair in a super absorbent towel as he took the washing utensils away. He then laid out on the bed with clean sheets and pillows. Finally, he helped Mimi into her now nightgown and then lifted his still limp wife back to her bed.
The washing was wonderful. I don't know what it is about it, but somehow when the sweat from a fever, at least for me, is such that it makes me feel super dirty, a bed wash like this feels like heaven and a hair wash.
I looked at Damon as he lifted me back into bed and said " Thank you, thank you for being there. That's wonderful of you to bother to wash me, I know I'm the most difficult patient in the universe." Damon looked at me for a moment and said "You're welcome, remember Baby, in sickness and in health."
I was surprised. Damon very rarely quotes the wedding vows and in fact, he has at every wedding claimed this particular vow. He covered me up and grabbed a syringe from the table after he had another thousand bags attached to me to drip. I said, "No, not that, no no." Damon looked me straight in the eye as he shoved the syringe into my drip tube and pressed the plunger. "sleepy time, baby, sleep well."
As Mimi's eyes closed, however, Damon emptied the syringe all the way. This dose should keep Mimi down for at least 24 hours and the sedative drip would maintain the level. Likewise, the fever medicine would hopefully keep the fever down.
Damon watched his sleeping wife for a while. If only he could tell Mimi sometime that he has blackouts and the last one was just five years ago when he supposedly killed Mimi. He had kidnapped Mimi at the hospital opening, threatened her, and taken her to a French chateau where he had tried to get her pregnant, held her captive for six months and she had finally died under his care. And he remembered nothing about it at first, then flashes, emotions that made his self-loathing rise like a tidal wave.
The memories that had surfaced were enough for him to run away, somewhere, when Mimi had a European adventure, he had watched her for a while and then he went to South America and when he heard that she was back he went wandering in Asia, to find something.
His mind was blown when he had gone to Dresden and demanded it. But it didn't help. He had found a monastery in Bhutan with vampire monks. There he had become acquainted with their sacred texts on Mimi. It was hard to believe that he was the monks' glorified protector of Mimi. There had been a language barrier between them and the monks had shown all sorts of pictures of two becoming one and then one leaving the other.
Damon had interpreted the pictures to mean that he would probably have a baby with Mimi one day. He tried not to overthink it and knew that there always have been and always will be prophecies and they are complicated to interpret and can be misinterpreted in so many ways.
Damon went outside to sit and talk to himself he didn't think anyone would hear. "My mind is blown and it doesn't help. I'm trying to control myself and the next thing I know, Mimi's in the medbay at almost death's door and I'm to blame and I refuse to even immediately remember what I've done to her. Why do I always do this? Right now I just want to wrap myself around Mimi and keep her safe from everything. Why do I do shed sessions? Why do I feel like I'm made of more than one piece and everyone is arguing? I know there's a part of me that gets pleasure from a shed session, but I don't. I know I can do a session for Mimi, but it has a purpose, a lesson. This volcano, whatever it is, just wants to destroy, torture. Why?"
God was eating shrimp when he heard the genuine pain in Damon's voice. The big white cat god looked closer and listened. He wanted to understand too. Damon had no one to talk to. Not really, not Mimi, well Mimi was Damon's victim and Mimi might judge and try to understand or accept but it wouldn't help Damon.
God was thinking about it, when the Chaoskitty came alongside him "Oh that, pyh. That was supposed to be something, you know, I had high expectations, but look at it now. Pyh I say. That was supposed to be a protector of Mimi, not a destroyer."
The chaos cat got up and went off to play chess again. God sighed and said quietly. "No, that's not pyh, it's definitely not, but there's something that still needs to happen. I just can't quite figure it out yet."
When I finally woke up I was actually in bed. I was still a little tired but not as endlessly lethargic as I had been during my illness. I got up and went in search of something to eat. There was no one in the kitchen, there was a note on the table that said "There's food in the fridge, Baby, you heat it up and eat it. I have to go to a gig, I'll see you later. Damon ."