Once Upon A Gurney

Once Upon A Gurney

"Remember the first time I blew you? You looked so surprized."

"I thought you were still asleep."

"Remember my hand slipping over, pulling down your scrubs, grabbing your cock and pulling it to my mouth?"

There was a salacious smile. "Yes, yes I do remember. Do you remember in your enthusiasm you didn't just pull down my scrubs, you ripped them.....and I was commando that day."

"You're always in commando in surgery, hell, most of them are unless they've got one who's rolled in kicking and screaming and then it's jocks all around."

"You rolled in, all prepped, that beautiful smile, your hair in a paper hood......"

"And the rest of me, once they pulled the gown off, just like a Smorgasbord of man flesh and parts."

"Did you know that during surgery while we waited for hematology to come back to be read I jerked you off?"

I smiled at him, my own Jeremy, my own surgeon, my own fuck buddy, bed buddy, chief cook and bottle washer. But when I think of him....I think of those surgeon's hands. Not, of course in surgery but moving about my body, a twist here, a deep massage there....his lips that started on the outside and mated with my tongue. His ability to stand for hours and not have to take a dump or piss, his solid, muscular body, particularly his biceps and chest, so necessary for an Orthopaedic surgeon. So useful when there's no surgery at all, just two men in bed, naked, fighting for top or bottom place-depending on the coin toss-and something never taught in med school, a prehensile tongue, not quite as long as that of an anteater but one that would cause Gene Simmons to commit suicide- some artists just don't take competition well.

"You thought I was asleep didn't you. Admit it."

"Uhm, I was of two minds about that, one said yes and one said....maybe he'll know what he's doing."

"Solved that one."

"Gave a whole new meaning to 'Recovery Room'...."

" I remember your leaning over me, checking around and then kissing me. Not to mention cracking a tooth when that medal clonked me in the jaw; I've never had it fixed, sort of a permanent souvenir of ' Our First Time'. Did you think about moving me to a quiet corner, telling the duty nurses you wanted to do some close observation, pull the curtains around our cubicle and fuck me? I was hoping...."

"I was hoping the prostate massage would hold you until we could get you into a private room."

"I never knew, when you had to remove your hands, the orderlies were there to take me upstairs to my temporary home, what did you stick in my ass when you removed your hand? Just to 'play along' with the situation I made it seem that while I was conscious I was just on the ragged edge...."

"That why you groped one of them?"

"My hand was hanging down from the gurney and...his package came to the attention of my hand and, as is my habit, I tried to open it. You'll notice he didn't put it back and as soon as they transferred me to bed, he shot into the bathroom and it was impossible not to hear certain sounds that did not suggest he was constipated. Nice guy, he came back several times to see if there was anything I wanted."

"Was there?"

"Nothing you couldn't have done better but just then you were wrist deep in someone's gut so that took you off the score card. Nice guy, too; Always gave me great massages...."

"It was a hospital, for God's sake, I couldn't just run to you every time I wanted you and that's where the orderly came in."

" You can tell me now, did you part send him or was he working wholly on his own initiative?"

You could not suppress a smile that would quickly lead to laughter. I raised myself to be on one elbow and enjoyed the performance. You are one of those few people who, when they laugh, it's all gone, no restrictions, I've seen you put your face in a plate of food, you have no autonomic control, you're just out there. That's always a good time to let you fall on the floor-no point pushing you-and getting it on. Watching your laughter turn to lust and finally desire for what is there....you on the floor, me on my knees above your waist, slowly pulling off my clothes, punctuating each garment with a deep, sexual kiss, making you undo my pants and tear off my underwear-if I forgot and wore some- with your teeth. And then we get down to business.

I don't know about others but....to be picked up by a man who loves me, rolled into bed, have my clothes, if there are any left, ripped away and then jumped upon suggests there's good times here tonight. Or today or noon or morning. We're not picky and not at all like those strange people to whom sex is only good if you can't see it. I want to see you sweat and buck and heave. I want to see my sweat start at the bridge of my nose, slid down my cheek, through my dimple, on to my chest and hang from my nipple catching the light, enticing you to taste it. You're so easy, thank God, not only do you taste it but follow the course right back up to my face, licking the path the sweat took and is taking. You're body is drooling on me and my tongue isn't long enough or quick enough to catch all the hot sex water you are exuding.

Calm, such as it is, finally comes and we are merely locked in the arms of the other, not to kiss but to feel the whole of our bodies, naked, pressed against one another. The illicit thrill of genitals on legs, balls first expanding and then loading the cannon. Jesus, you taste good. Slipping down to your tail, wide, hard, hot nipple, running my tongue all along you...slowly, seeing the target, making circles around your breast, ever smaller circles until you cross the line and can sink you teeth, subtly, into my fevered point, waiting just for you, for the hot sense of your mouth, wanting my tit to be able to deep throat itself. I squirm to get a better position to try and let your mouth have access to whatever it will take while I use one of my hands to draw up the inside of your thigh, toward your nuts...and I get there.

For those fools who forget the whole body is a sexual playground, they've never had a surgeon as a lover. Also, they've never had access to the many, many devices he uses in surgery that, as it turns out, can be brought into the home for other purposes. A doctor can start a line in your arm and through various fluids, take you not only down the yellow brick road in terms of pleasure, but can keep you there. It goes without saying his magic needles can give you hard on that redefines the word "hard". Sometimes, just to give me something to do with myself, before he left for the hospital, he'd shoot me up and I could enjoy edging myself with no concern that, after the first shot, my dick would retire. Nope, depending on how much of the pleasurable pain that comes with that sport, I was set up for, well, hours. Admittedly, this did sort of wreck the day in terms of accomplishment but....squirting six times over four hours must be seen as some sort of accomplishment. Of course then I'd be too tired to even make a fist, just lay there while visions of bottles of clotted cream danced in my head.

And, really, I think the triumph of his re-purposing was the machine he brought from Intensive care. No idea what it's stated purpose was but, after he reconfigured it, it could suck everything at once on both of us. Tits, cocks, balls, asses, even fingers and the perineum were all hooked up and once he flicked the on switch......well, it was a good thing he'd set it for an automatic turn off after some little while. I've always liked really good nipples on a man and this machine not only widened them, made them hard but grew a sizable projection in the middle that did not deflate. He pierced mine-both laterally and vertically-so no matter what I wore, short of an overcoat, you knew I had TITS.

The drawback to having a surgeon as your man is that they work, and work hard for very long hours. Not only that but there's no such thing as "off duty". In theory he was only on call certain days of the month but if one of his patients crashed, then he was called and....days later he'd come home. I loved him and admired him for all the good he did. That said, I resented every single patient who stood between my own pleasure and him. We never discussed that but he knew and went out of his way to try and make it up to me and, fortunately, he knew how. Again, medical science gave him access to things that ordinary mortals don't have....like a suspensory bed. Designed for burn patients, it supported one in the air with almost no sensation of being touched or held. Suspended in this contraption he'd roll me out on to the terrace for some good old fashioned naked sun bathing. Having first spelt out his initials in adhesive tape so when it was removed...I was marked. What says I love you more than a sun burn surrounding very white initials? Oh, and he would take retractors or whatever and make sure my cock and balls were spread out to get the full benefit of the sun. No tan lines for me. Unless you count the initials.

My colleagues were damn nice about saying nothing when, clearly, there was a lot that could have been said. It fell to one supercilious general surgeon-who was reckoned to be one level above a Vet-to feel he had to, just was empowered to say "something". In a semi-private moment in the surgeons locker room and lounge he cleared his throat-sounded more like he was hacking up a Ford Pick Up with a busted manifold-and put an unfriendly hand on my should and let fly. "Doctor, everyone has been quiet about this but....I feel I speak for all of us. Your private life is, of course, your own but when it transitions to hospital affairs (what a fucking poor choice of words) it cannot go unnoticed. I must ask you, directly, do you think it's wise to not only have sexual relations with your patient but have him living with you? After all, there's only one possible assumption that can be drawn." He stopped having made, he felt, his point and was relying on every other surgeon who had credentials to operate there to agree with his position.

Normally I would have just cold cocked him but that helps no one (except me and, oh, about forty other guys who, coming to my aid, would have stomped on him) There is only one way to handle this and that's what I did. "Doctor, thank you for your overwhelming interest in my personal life. I quite agree that IF the situation you cite were correct then....I would be very much in the wrong...however, he's not a patient, was released from this hospital and to my specific care some while ago. I asked if he'd like to live at my home, we all know he needed somewhere to recuperate, and he accepted. Now, since you'll want the whole story, yep, it's true that he and I fuck and suck and play with each other, lay nude on the lawn, tie each other up, get into edging contests, save our sperm to be used as dressing for salad.....of course we sleep in the same bed as often as I can get home to sleep in it. And, since you may wonder, I love him. That answer your prurient question? but if there's more, I'm here, I'm broad minded and I'll tell you the pleasures of having a man sized dick diddle your prostate while, with the other hand, he's make a tour of your corona while moving the sound in your cock up and down. That something you'd like to know, Doctor?"

He stood there, his hypocrisy fallen on the floor like a stripper's last bit of clothing. From all over, showers, lockers, lounge, there were hoots and hollers and attaboys of all sorts. I was slapped on the butt-in friendship-so often I wondered about driving home. Invitations were extended for us to visit and, equally, I asked some of the guys to visit us, immediately accepted. He had done for you and me that which would have been impossible; He'd exposed what everybody knew but now that it was public, all bets and being very careful were off. Just that day, one of our favourite interns from Iran sank to his knees and blew me surrounded by a group of naked doctors and surgeons who applauded and, when he finished, found himself being carried off by a friendly pair of Cardiologists to some purpose or another.

Oh, the doctor who pounced on me learned a lesson; If you're going to pull a stunt like that, make very certain it's on someone who's reputation is already in the trash, not one of the more popular men and, this was a HUGE oversight on his part, a surgeon who sat on the credentials committee for two hospitals. Were his credentials pulled? Does a wild bear shit in the woods?

That evening, when some of us figured we could get away from St. Hell, they insisted on going home with me and welcoming you to a very elite medical circle. It had no name, wasn't exactly like the Rotary Club or the Shriners. En route booze and food were acquired and when we got home, there was the pounding of many feet and legs-as well as some smashing as wet cans slipped from cold hands-and it was into our room.

You looked up, your half glasses sliding onto your bare chest. I could see there was a question, probably lots of them but the initial surprize shorted them out at the fuse box.

So many smiles, so many guys in scrubs or looking like a golf pro minus spikes and all of them stripping-as was I. Syd Deyer, the strongest surgeon, and possibly strongest man, I've ever known, reached in, dragged you out and held you aloft. Remember? Remember his telling you that you were the sword that had been pulled from the stone and all these guys were here to thank you and fuck each other or whatever came to mind. He handed you to me and I not only put you back in bed, but hopped in after you. A series of twelve packs were scattered about the room not to mention some of the hard stuff.....but then....the room full of happy men faded and all I could see was you and your big, slow blinking eyes. Only one thing to do, lay you down and kiss the shit out of you-to great cheering. I think I tried to make some sort of speech of gratitude but you grabbed my dick, pulled me down and made your own concise, well considered talk.

"Guys there's plenty of everything so go do it. For those who want toys that do all sorts of things, try the closet, some of it may look familiar but they've been adapted for more personal pleasure and, of course, each of you is here for your own personal pleasure and I don't need to tell you what to do. So, now if you'll excuse us, this doctor and I have an appointment; I believe I'm scheduled for exploratory."

I slid onto my belly, putting a few pillows there, while you had your tongue start on the periphery of my male cunt but with an interior target in mind. It was hard to squirm and be kissed by other guys, some of whom got kissed back in a way they probably hadn't expected. Intentionally I left all the covers off the bed, just you and me fucking, I wanted them to watch, to see how much we loved each other. To see the care and determination that went into a good, deep, long fuck. The sibilance of moans, the gentleness of your arms as you grew closer and deeper and the goal, when we only looked like a log of flesh animated by something that could not be seen. The movements, the urges of the body to press up or down, the sweat that began to be apparent-and I don't know who did it, but whoever licked it up, thanks! Then the slow roll when the purpose of each of us changed. How I wanted you, needed you, wanted you to know that right then, if life ended, there could be no better way and place. Purrs of pleasure marked by sharp outcries that faded to the languid moan....we were happy.

This proved to be a good thing for a great many people, persons I would never have known had it not been for Dr. Shit Head-since thrown out of the hospital and, for all I knew, the country. Every day some guy came up, shook my hand and said how much they admired my honesty and strength....it had made some personal things....well..... easier for them. I was pleased and, each time it happened, thanked you as without your acceptance and participation, nothing could have happened. For that, I knew that almost hourly you were holding court for refugees from the hospital who wanted to "drop in" say "Howdy", see if there was anything you needed....but mainly to see the place where, if they wished to come with a "friend" they could do so.

You and I talked about this and how there was a line between friends meeting and fucking and friends meeting friends and making plans for later. Or, sometimes, they might be invited to stay here, just depended. Two of our regulars-I don't know what else to call them-were a pair of Interns who were actually doctors but, as they were from Jordan, had to go through a process before their licenses were issued. We both liked them and I could see a reason that I didn't discuss with you to have them around and so they were invited to live in the pool house. Just right for two guys, two beds, that turned into one, one bath, galley kitchen and, just what you'd expect, access to the swimming pool. Having been raised on the shores of the Mediterranean, they were only slightly less aquatic than harbour seals and I grew accustomed to coming home, night or day, and finding the three of you floating about. In winter, clever lad, you'd deflated rafts so that if you lay on them, they wouldn't keep you above water, just under it but still "float" in that the rafts had just enough air to keep them up.

I don't know who loved you more, me or them. At first I resented coming home late and finding three bodies in a bed where I expected one and a reservation for another. What I do know is with them hovering around, I worried less about you. And if nothing else, they proved to be an endless source of diversion just when I thought that wasn't possible. Example; I came home, found you and them-where else?-in bed. Okay, I've seen that before but you seemed to be involved in showing them how to really get a lot out of 69 beyond just a shot in the mouth. You had them almost curled together, arms clasped around each other, their mouths full of cock but...not aggressively. You were telling them to breath and move their hands, try and find their asses, breath, feel the body part they were by, lick the cock, breath....You know I had to ask a questions; What in God's good name in are you doing?

Bright as a button, you explained that you'd found them laid out, almost painfully so, and sucking one another without any massage or enjoying their bodies. And all this while, behind you, two guys are getting into it, really into it. We both stopped for a moment while they shot. You smiled and they seemed to relax and stretch, like two Boa Constrictors having just shared a feral pig. But that wasn't the only news of the day. It seemed the guys wanted more American sounding names and so they'd applied to you for help. While I have little doubt that Buzz and Rusty do sound typically American, they don't sound typically American when applied to our two Jordanian friends. Quite good looking, but not quite looking like "Buzz" and "Rusty". I suppose it could have been worse, Billie Bob and Bubba.....

That was a moment when I loved you. Holding a seminar to give two men greater pleasure, helping them become Americanized and....learn how to do a really good 69. My only comment to you was that as we went further along toward sexual perdition, you keep your lessons verbal and not as a participant coach while "things" were occurring.

One day I came home when it was still light. To be candid, the patient I was scheduled to work on died and that left a hole in my afternoon so before I could get nailed to do something else, I shot through the surgeons locker room, didn't even bother to change, grabbed my duffel bag and left. There may have been a cry of, "Oh, Doctor, Doctor...." but I decided it was for someone else. Home when it's light. I actually got to see the garage door go up and, regrettably, the trash that had accumulated. Just to make it special, I used the bathroom on the first floor, showered, shaved and, leaving my clothes on the floor, went upstairs to you. You'd been lightly oiled and with the sun coming in on your naked body, you glowed, Apollo and the sun. One hand was under your head and the other was down the side of the bed, the brightest glow coming from it; As if gold were being poured into our home. I couldn't wake you but went to the bed, knelt down and watched the sun change your colour until you were a deep gray on top of dark sheets. That's when you opened your eyes, saw me, smiled, reached for a thick pillow, slid it under you, found my cock with your hand and drew me toward you.

I know you so well, in this moment you wanted more than me, you wanted the deep slow thrusts that almost binds two people as there seems no way out. Your muffled sighs and whimperings drove me on, deeper. I slid my hands under your chest first rubbing and then squeezing your nipples. I knew I felt your body spasm as your spunk came out. I felt underneath and found my fingers in a slippery pool that in the rapidly descending dark looked no more like your gift of life than a dim pattern on a sheet. Rolling us on our sides, and with some care, I leaned down and ate then tried, but failed to eat you. You stroked my head and shoved your ass harder on my spike as if to impale yourself and let me run my hard shaft right through you, coming out your mouth where it erupted in sperm which slid down into your mouth, your milk of man, this man, your man.

And then we were both quiet not wanted to move, enjoying our drifting into darkness with each other. Both feeling our fine muscles, kissing, holding the other close. It is dark, maybe a moon will come out but I know your exhaustion has come to you and so gently I put you under the covers, you are asleep in seconds, while I lay there, fondling my cock and needing only one way to count my blessings.

It was winter. Some say the cruelest months but, to you, the best time of the year. It was dark until late in the morning and got dark well before dinner. And, you admitted, you liked to be in bed with me as the sun gave way to dusk and then to evening, finally night. You liked sex in the dark but better if we could start at dusk and as the room got steadily darker, increase the tension, the heat of our actions. Although I knew I was much stronger-a side effect of surgery-you knew when I held back and would swat my balls or bite my cock to "remind" me that I was dealing with a man, not a boy. When you collapsed after sex, even though it frightened me it also created a situation in which I protected you, held you close, curled myself around you....no harm could come. You responded by being pliant, clearly desirous of my body if only to surround yours. However I got us arranged, you found a way to my lips...and often went to sleep with my tongue in your mouth. So beautiful, so silent and, if we had a moon, a full one, you became alabaster white, the statue over the capital welcoming one to the entrance of a mausoleum.

And then, fuck it, I'd hear the alarm meaning I was needed for, at minimum, a telephone conference about something and, the more usual, that I come to whichever hospital and hold anxious intern hands while they did something they had just learned how to do. Buzz and Rusty, if they were there, were superb; Quietly confident, but also knowing that not every patient will make it. Sometimes our patients just showed up so squashed and battered or deeply knifed that it was too much to try and do anything save let them drift off without ever gaining consciousness so they never felt the agony of death that was waiting for them like a trap. Dealing with the families of the dying and the dead wasn't easy as they believed if they got whoever to the hospital, they would live. That's all it would take, just get them to the hospital.

Those days or nights, whenever I got home I went through the motions, showered, shaved crawled in bed beside you. No words, no noise, my feeling of failure was palpable and all you could do was lay your head on my chest and, I don't know how you did it, help me regulate my heart and my breathing. So quiet and following quiet, peace. You knew when you heard a certain sigh that what was needed was sleep. A pleasure of a male not known to women, is to squirm around, bat pillows off the bed, pull sheets from where they were tucked in, making a winding shroud of covers leaving only a nose and, sometimes, a foot out. Hours later I'd wake and find you asleep beside me, you'd given me the way and the place to be my selfish self and forget you until the pain of yesterday was gone. Do you know what pleasure I took in opening my cocoon, taking you in with me, rolling us back up, two noses and two pairs of feet showing followed by the long silence that brings rest. Waking with your hand on one breast and your head on another.....that was when love lost dimension, it just was love.

Rusty and Dusty, as I took to calling them, seemed to withdraw from hospital work even though it would postpone their achieving their licenses. Their answer was....they'd seen in this home an example of a doctor and a surgeon who had so little time that the thing he loved most had to be turned away in favour of work. Certainly they would finish out what they needed to do but....just now, their last hurrah, their last time to be a little bit young, the three of you played and did God only knows what. No one ever explained a toilet bowl full of chopped carrots or the glycerin in the swimming pools that allowed all of you to make huge bubbles. There was some talk of a "bubble dance" but I chose to ignore that as ridiculous. Until I got home a few minutes early and found Rusty putting Dusty inside a huge bubble and then trying not to break it as he stuck he cock throught. You were laying on a chaise balancing another whopper of a bubble on your stiff dick, working on jerking off so the semen stayed inside the bubble. Or the cold winter days when the three of you were in front of the fire, stark naked, dressed as Indians having appropriated a suede leather jacket of mine to cut into loin cloths. Good thing we didn't have clippers, I'm sure one-or all-of you would have had Mohawk haircuts. Atypical of Indians, each of you were holding a steak on a long fork and cooking it-which must of hurt when all that fat spat out and lit on naked faux Indian flesh. The war paint took a week or two to wear off.

The times I came home, no matter when, and found you asleep, grew more more frequent and you slept longer. In a reversal of sorts I asked either Rusty or Dusty to be in the room and, if they wanted, in the bed; They already were but I was yet to find that out. Yet those days when I came home late and found all three of them in bed asleep, I had to stop and smile. Whatever they'd been doing, part of it was in bed and they looked like three very tired puppies, curled up together. It was after this that I did something that amused me; I acquired three fake tails that could be stuffed in their butts so they could play puppy even more. I am not a fan of puppy play or pony play but they seemed to get off on it. Dusty even made a hole in a pair of jeans through which his tail could be pulled. Not only, and this was him, did the plug in his butt feel good, but it made him feel more like he was mine. I never knew how he meant that for it was never pursued. What I did notice is that when they had on their tails, and nothing else, they constantly wanted to get to my cock and suck it. Sometimes I'd permit this but other times, I'd take a rolled up newspaper swat their bottoms and say, "bad dog, bad". Finally thinking, oh the hell with it, I bought matching collars and leashes and a gadget that adhered their cocks to their abdomens so, if they had to pee, they had to go outside and raise their leg against a tree. There was also discussion of "taking them to the Vet to have them, fixed"; Momentarily they returned to being men.

On occasion I'd leave the leashes and their collared selves with you for your amusement and, I gather, they'd been very bad dogs for when I got home, their rumps were cherry red and they were really, really docile. Guess I shouldn't have given you the dog quirt...That was also the day you used surgical glue to make sure the tails wouldn't come out so easily. Dusty and Rusty should have known and resisted this but....I finally had to take each of them and using some solvents-that hurt-got their tails pried out but suggested, to minimize their pain, if they could shit through their nose for a few days....might be a good idea.

How I loved you. Your languorous body and eyes, always ready for me, desiring me; Sometimes in surgery I could see you on our bed, moaning in desire and ecstasy even though all you could do was jerk yourself off and wait for me to come home. Your eager arms reaching for me even if you were half asleep. Holding on, so tight that it was a question of falling on top of you or picking you up. For all your sleek, toned muscles, how little you seemed to weigh. Of course, when you've had a day cutting into patients that more reminded you of using a flensing knife on a whale, anything short of a Ford 250-with dual-lies-was going to seem almost weightless. It was fun picking you up, that generous cock, already rising for me to at once hold you and suck you. Some people are not satisfying when it comes to sex, you can tell they like it, enjoyed it but you have to know that or you have to be told. Not you; Just running a finger across your piss hole took all the muscles from your body as you started to moan. Those were the moments when getting surgically built muscles helped; Not only did you moan but writhed and bucked, your abdomen turning your six pack into something that more resembled a xylophone or a marimba, one that, like bouncing your tits, could alternately seem to run a scale starting at the bottom and going on up. That was one way of telling me you were ready. To carry that thought just a bit further, ready for anything, I fuck you, you suck me, you fuck me, 69, 33, 54, 40 or fight. You were better than any work out machine, doing squats with my cock stuck in your ass produced hard, large calves and thighs not to mention the definition when I did them one footed. I've never decided whether you liked sucking tit or cock better, your only regret was that you couldn't do them both at the same time. And, frankly, I was sorry you couldn't.

On some of the coldest days I'd find you with the Jordanians dressed like Mushers in the Iditarod Contest and laying outside on furniture that had been dusted of eight inches of snow. In the direct sun, with no wind, it was surprisingly warm and, as the time went on, all three stripped naked. As a doctor I didn't think this was the best of plans but as your lover, peeling down and snuggling next to you, made the chill a good reason to be very close together. Dusty and Rusty, unaccustomed to snow-although it did snow in the mountains in the East of Jordan-could not resist risking severe lung infection and were running around the lawn like fools. Finally I closed down the Winter Wonder Land and made every one go back inside. You looked flushed, happy and weak. Still there was enough strength in your arms to draw me to you, start kissing my face and, dammit, I'm weak where it comes to you, naked and in bed getting myself ready to be mounted. Such good sex. Across the room, thanks to your tutelage, the two guys were indulging in some of the more acrobatic sexual positions things they could not have learned in Amman but could have learned in this very room. Looking over, I could see they'd passed the course on double sounding and had the rings in their nipples clipped together. I returned to you only to see you smile, run your hand across my chest and genitals before going to sleep.

Thanks to our Jordanian residents, we had an Arab/ American Christmas. Hard to explain that as they were Christians but the foods they ate, the way of giving gifts, the colours the used, gave it a dimension that was truly splendid. I don't know where you found them but, one day, I came home to discover a florist setting up and decorating ten Christmas trees, one for every room in the house not to mention one thirty feet tall on the front lawn plus one in the pool house. It was then that I remembered that pine set my allergies on full alert and though I tried, there's a difference between getting spittle on the cock of one you love and mucous. Two days later all the indoor trees were gone and now we had a Jardin d'hiver done in Christmas colours. Guys who dropped by were surprized, to say the least, but everyone admired it. And, in our bedroom, which had an arbour instead of a tree, presents for you and us stacked up. I looked at the cards and had to find a quiet place to contain myself; They were all from hospital personnel with an emphasis on surgeons. Syd Dryer sent a gift certificate to take you, not me, you, to the woods for a week end of camping and fishing although, he conceded, he knew how to do neither. Some were gag gifts, a box of latex gloves with all the tips of the fingers cut off, scalpels with simple cards that said, "For when you get tired of the old fart...." But the most amazing thing was that virtually every gift was a personal one, no ordered from a catalog, someone put some time into it. I had to laugh when, one day, I came home and found our bedroom looking more like surgery with you all in scrubs, booties, masks, paper cap, all with your initials.

We had a Christmas party, everyone came at one point the question was would everyone go home. Each of them had the ugliest Christmas sweater imaginable and you were stark naked with only two red balls hanging from your nipples. Rusty and Dusty were two of the three wise men, saying number three had caught a charge of camel molestation and wouldn't be available.

There was good food, liquor, music but it was restrained. Guys sat on the bed or in chairs or on the floor and just talked until some started to neck. Probably with hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. The Jordanians moved those couples who were too involved to leave to one of the guest rooms or some place where they could have some privacy. And, I believe I can say, a good time was had by all.

As men left, they made a point of not just making their farewells but adding something a big more personal, perhaps a kiss a stroking of your chest or shoulders but even before they had all gone you were asleep.

Christmas came and so did an urgent call from the hospital. I was single, they knew it, so I got the call. And it was serious. The body, as it was presented, had formerly been a good looking young man, about 25, good confirmation but one who had a truck dropped on him. One half of a leg would need to be amputated, some serious internal hemorrhaging, blunt skull fracture; In the end it took us nearly ten hours as we had to work in rotation. It wasn't the sort of surgery that made you proud, just left you drained that there was nothing more to be done.

In the shower Syd and I just stood there, stared at each other and spontaneously reached out to take the cock of the other and slowly jerk it. To forget, to debase ourselves for what we couldn't do, we squatted down, got on the floor and sucked each other off and then we just lay there, endless warm water cascading over us. Why we weren't caught or even noticed....or maybe we were but sympathy can close eyes. What I did know was that I'd liked him, his muscularity, the underlying brutality of the man, the implication that he could take me and do what he wanted with me. He wouldn't but...I wondered what I would do if he did? He was a nice guy, good surgeon, good colleague, probably even a friend. All he said as he rose was...."I've wanted you ever since that day...." and I knew the day. I could see his shadow distorted by the water as he walked away from me.

Back home all was quiet. As often happens after marathon surgeries, although we'd had to call our times, it wasn't relevant to reality. In our bedroom, Dusty was sleeping with you, that beautiful olive skin against your lustrous white, it was almost something in chiaroscuro save that everything was live. I elected not to disturb the two of you but, not wanting to be along, wandered off until I found Rusty in a guest room, nude as his covers had slid from him. I showered quickly, made sure I was dry then, collecting his bed things, slipped in beside him, covering us as I did. A friendly arm reached out and went around my chest, drew me to him. Said nothing but rolled on his stomach and elevated his ass. I'd never fucked either of them but now....well, it was Christmas.

Surgeons and Doctors hate Christmas or, more accurately, hate the days after Christmas because, private practice or in the ER, you get the sick, the puzzled, the weary, the hungover and all in equal parts. Women come in claiming they're in the final stages of labour although they look more like the tenth trimester when, in reality, they're barely in their third month. What they need is a good laxative and something to hold down the gas. My heart goes out to Dads who show up wounded in the effort to put together a child's toy; A guy lost two fingers in the spokes of a bicycle and another cracked his Ilium when he fell on the flat bed of a miniature earth hauler. Not to mention those who had simply over eaten, had too much to drink or both. Not willing to face the fact that they were their own product of too much of everything, they came to us hoping against hope that their headaches, belly aches and other aches if they had deep tissue bruises if they'd fallen would have a diagnosis that took the blame from them but, of course, one did not exist. We were almost grateful to see a patient who was genuinely ill, did need our help and, leaping over the waiting room filled with their being punished for greed, gluttony and poorly cooked food, we attended the person who needed up. Some actually required surgery, usually nothing major but something that needed to be done and rather soon. We flipped coins to do those; It got you out of the ER and left it to interns who, on the moment, were reconsidering their uncle's offer to come in on his hog slaughtering business.

I'd won the last toss and was carefully removing an appendix long before it would burst but, to extend my time away from hell, was doing my finest stitching, determined that, in two or three months, you'd never know where the incision was. Tollie Greenburg was sliding up on my side, gloved, ready to slide in. He said I was needed in the ER and quickly. Not changing anything I headed down there trying to thing what......

They were quickly isolating a corner with sheets and in the center, there you were. Saline drips, Oxygen, Dusty and Rusty and I knew you were dying. All I wanted was for you to know I was there, you weren't alone and, when I put my face on yours, said something, kissed you, your hand squeezed mine and just then, you were gone. I didn't see him, but Syd was there. The moccasin telegraph in a hospital is amazingly fast. He held me, knew I wouldn't faint, doctors don't, but just held me and then moved me away. What happens after death was of no interest.

We had a service-in the hospital chapel-which was filled to capacity. No one spoke, I'd asked there not be a eulogy. Your favourite hymn was played then it was over and I was surrounded by guys who could do more than try and smile or pat me on the back. Eventually it thinned out, Syd and me, in the distance Dusty and Rusty doing something or other.

"I'm guessing you don't want to go back to work, at least not here, not for a while." We sat in silence. "You should get away.....someplace where there's no canned entertainment, just an Am/FM radio, a squeaky mattress and a wood burning fireplace."

I looked at him.

His eyes searched the floor trying to come back up to mine. "I, uh, guess I might as well tell you. Longest time, I wanted you, not what you had cause there was no way of replacing that but you and me, sitting on a stoop, drinking a beer, listening to the trees rattle......I got a cabin....."

"Does it have a bathroom? Electricity, indoor plumbing."

"Uh, no, not quite."

"You wanna take me there...."

"...and fuck you like you haven't been in a while. Straight sex."

"Do I have to fish or trap or shoot bear or track animals, deal with the Indians?"

"I'm a quarter Cree."

"Take it back, the part about the Indians."

There was a pause while we looked in each others eyes and that's when it hit me and I almost collapsed. Syd, of course, grabbed me and made it look like we were two surgeons who hadn't bother to change leaving the hospital.

I looked at Rusty and Dusty over Syd's shoulder. They had learned an Americanism and gave me an OK sign. "Gotta stop and pick up my clothes...."

"Why? All the things I wanta do don't need clothes. Just stay in bed all day-no heat-and play with each other. Okay?"

"Okay."

Behind us I heard the gurney with your body headed for the morgue.