"It's time for your enema, Mr. Smith."

Yeah, right. "The other nurse already--"

"I'm your nurse tonight, Mr. Smith." She waves a folder at me. "Your chart shows the orderly shaved you this afternoon, but that was too early to empty your bowel before the surgery."

"Listen, Nurse--Kerry, is it?" I squint; the glasses I can't wear in public are around here somewhere, but without them I can't see to find them. "The other nurse took care of it."

She eyes me with suspicion. "Which nurse was that?"

"I don't know her name. Tall, maybe thirty, thirty-five, with brown hair in a braid?" And about a hundred times friendlier than you, I think, but I don't say it.

"We don't have a nurse like that on this service. On your left side, please."

"But nurse, I really don't need--"

She's probably as sick of the oh-please-no-enema routine as I am of All Day Sucker, our first mega-hit I'd just as soon never perform again.

"I know you don't want an enema, Mr. Smith. I also know your doctor reviewed the entire procedure with you, from preparation to recovery, so you knew this was coming. I'm sorry there isn't an orderly available, but believe me, it makes no difference. Please roll onto your left side."

"No. The other nurse gave me an enema. You can check."

"With whom? Mr. Smith, please believe me when I tell you that you need an enema."

"I already had one, damn it!"

She crosses her big arms over her bigger breasts. "When did this nurse come to your room?" Her face already says she doesn't believe me.

Great. "Maybe a half hour after visiting hours were over--sorry about the noise. I only told the guys in the band, but they told their wives and girlfriends and the roadies, and my ex flew in, in case I needed someone, and wham! I'm hosting a party." I shake my head, watching my long hair sway for a second before I look up. "It was pretty damned depressing. Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow I may die."

Her stern face softens. "Mr. Smith, all patients feel some apprehension before surgery, even something as routine as yours."

"Damned straight. Some guy I've seen for--what, an hour total?--is cutting me open. At dawn, no less. Frankly, I'm scared shitless."

"Don't think that's going to get you out of your enema," she teases. Not so unattractive after all.

"Damn!" I say, faking anger.

"If you weren't worried about tomorrow, I'd get you transferred to the psychiatric service," Nurse Kerry tells me. "There's always a small risk, Mr. Smith, but you're young and healthy, you have a large support network, and the entire medical community stands in awe of your surgeon. You're going to be just fine. Now tell me about this nurse. Did she wear a uniform, or scrubs?"

"This pink and white smock-thing on top. White pants, running shoes. A uniform, right? With a stethoscope in her pocket, same as you. She had the chart, and a little cart-thing."

She picks up on that. "Did you see a label on it? Something like 'Four West'?"

"Sorry, I didn't notice. Because when she said it was time for my enema, man, that was all I could think about! I bet a lot of patients freak out, huh?"

"Some. It isn't worthy of their upset."

"Easy for you to say."

"What did she say to you? Did she use your name?"

"You think it was a mix-up, like she's in the wrong room? Nah, she called me Mr. Smith. Said it was time for my enema, same as you did when you came in. Since my doctor told me to expect it, I rolled over like she said to."

"Before you turned away from her, did you happen to notice whether she wore a hospital name tag?" She holds the laminated picture ID clipped to her own smock.

"She had one, but I couldn't read it without my glasses. You know, the first day I was here I was paranoid, checked out who was coming in. I guess security's pretty tight, because everybody was legit. Had the ID. Lab technicians, food service, cleaning people, more lab people--I feel like a pin cushion!--some social worker seeing if I had help at home for after I get out, a volunteer lady with magazines and books, a guy to fix the TV, my doctor, the anesthesia doctor, of course the surgeon, lots of nurses... Lots of name tags, and way too many names. I stopped paying attention."

"I suppose that makes sense." She hasn't budged her disbelief an inch.

Big hospital, probably some kind of overlap. When All Day Sucker meant we filled arenas instead of clubs and bars, we had organizational headaches, too. Now we operate like any large corporation, with work teams that don't always communicate with each other like they should.

"What, exactly, did she do?" Nurse Kerry asks.

"I told you. Gave me an enema."

"Can you tell me in more detail?"

"I guess. She washed her hands--man, I never saw so much hand-washing in my life as in here--and told me I was her last patient, so she could take extra time if I needed her to. I figured she must cruise the hospital giving enemas to whoever, you know? Some specialty."

"It would be," Nurse Kerry says dryly.

"So she fills this big plastic thing at the sink, stirs something in, then hangs it on that chrome stand." I gesture. "Then she pushes the covers down and moves my gown out of her way. She tells me to relax, that she's gonna lube my assho--lubricate my anus real good before anything goes in except her finger. I remember I looked back when she was putting on gloves, and she smiled at me and said to just take it easy."

"And she touched you?"

"Yeah, rubbed the outside for a couple minutes with this slippery stuff, then worked it inside, real slow. Gentle. She's a good nurse, whoever she is. She warned me that the next part might be uncomfortable because she was gonna stick in this inflatable nozzle-thing--Bartok?"

"inflatable retention nozzle," Nurse Kerry corrects.

"Yeah, that's what she called it. Bartok's the composer, I remember that was the first thing I thought of. So she takes her time wiggling this thing up my butt. Excuse me, into my rectum. It felt really weird."

"Did she hurt you?"

"No. I'm just not used to anything going the other direction, you know? Anyway, finally the thing's in, and she says she's going to inflate it, like a little ball, because once the enema's inside, it'll press the Bar--what was it again?"

"inflatable retention nozzle," she repeats.

"The inflatable retention nozzle will get pressed up against my anus from the inside, and I can't mess the bed."

"Those were her exact words?"

"No, she talked like a medical person. I think she said 'premature expulsion,' Something like that. So anyway, she pumps up the ball and I tell her it hurts a little so she lets out some of the air and asks me if it's okay now, which it is."

"We'll have to get you examined," Nurse Kerry says. "She could have injured you."

"It only hurt a little, and not for very long. So she asks if I'm ready, and when I say I am, she starts the enema going in. 'This may be uncomfortable,' she says, 'so let me know when the pressure gets bad. We can stop it until it's better.'"

"And you're on your left side for this?"

"Yeah, most of it. She calls it the Sims position. Man, the enema going in feels totally unlike anything else, but it doesn't hurt, so I tell her I'm okay so far. After that, she asks me if I'd mind talking about my music. Which of course I don't. I'm glad to have the distraction. So we're talking about the creative process, like where the ideas come from and how complete they are before I start working with them, and how I compose on a piano, not guitar, and how I didn't learn musical notation until after our second CD went platinum. Once I ask her to stop it, the enema I mean, because I feel too full, like after Thanksgiving dinner."

"How much was in the container, Mr. Smith? Did you notice?"

"I asked her if I had to take it all, and she said yes, the whole two liters. It's a lot!"

"Yes, it is. Did she force you to take the entire amount?"

"I don't know about 'force,' but yeah, she said we weren't done until I took two liters all at once. She said if I had to expel, I could, but that we'd start over again with two more liters. She was real encouraging, kept telling me to take just a little more. Toward the end I was so full I couldn't even think about music, totally lost the thread of what we were talking about. She stopped it so I could change positions. To the knee-chest. Real dignified."

"It works," Nurse Kerry says. "Gravity moves the solution higher into the bowel. Were you able to hold the two liters?"

"The inflatable retention nozzle didn't give me any choice, but I had cramps like you wouldn't believe, and this--" I stop myself from saying it, but I can't stop the flush I feel creeping across my face.

"An enema puts pressure on the prostate, Mr. Smith, and under that kind of stimulation many men develop an erection."

"Yeah, whatever," I say.

"Did your nurse notice?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Did she touch your penis?"

"Listen, I don't want to get anybody in trouble."

"Did she, Mr. Smith? I need to know."

I exhale through my nose. "Yeah. Stroked it once, asked if that was all right. I said it was better than all right. I mean, she had my consent. I'll sign some form if it keeps her from getting fired."

"I wouldn't know what form that would be." Nurse Kerry smiles grimly. "So she administered a two-liter enema and stroked your penis. Is that all?"

"Once I had the whole enema inside, she said I should hold it. I said I didn't want to, but she was, ah, handling me and I shut up." I remember moaning and groaning so loud I worried somebody'd hear, but I couldn't say if it was from holding this big enema or from what the nurse was doing. Nurse Kerry doesn't need to know that.

"I assume you ejaculated after a time, then expelled the enema?"

I nod, my face growing hotter. "I was so full I had to walk kind of hunched over. She helped me into position over the toilet, thanking me for cooperating and wishing me luck with the surgery tomorrow. Then she deflated the inflatable retention nozzle and pulled it out, fast. I couldn't, ah, contain myself. At least she left me alone to get rid of it."

"When you came out, was she still in your room?"

"No. Gone, along with the cart."

"And you haven't seen her again?"

"No."

She peers into my wastebasket. "No gloves. No paper towels from drying her hands."

I shrug. "So she carried out her trash."

Nurse Kerry takes my hand and holds it firmly. "Mr. Smith, this story you've concocted shows me how desperate you are to skip your enema."

"But it's true!" I insist.

She rolls right over it. "I'm sorry that something you obviously dread is medically necessary, but it is. I'll be as gentle and slow as I can be, I promise, but if you find yourself unable to cooperate, I'll get you into restraints and give it to you that way. Because you absolutely have to have it."

"But I had one, two liters!" I protest.

She squeezes my hand. "Perhaps you're recalling some previous enema at another facility, hoping to evade this one?"

"No," I say miserably. "It happened. Tonight."

"It's about to," Nurse Kerry says, releasing my hand. "Please roll on your left side, Mr. Smith. Or if you don't think you can cooperate even though you know you should, I can put on the restraints first. No one needs to know."

"No restraints." I turn on my side.

Nurse Kerry slathers on the lube. "When we finish, I'm going to call the head of security at home and tell him what you told me. We'll let him go through the personnel files to identify this so-called nurse." Something slithers into my asshole and keeps going, deep. "If she's on staff, we'll find out what she was doing administering treatment to a patient not on her service. And in case she's not on staff or even a real R.N., after your enema I'll find the resident and a sigmoidoscope, to be sure she didn't injure you."

"Please, it's really not necessary." And I don't want anything else shoved up my ass, nothing. I'm fighting tears of frustration as it is.

Because now I get it.

L.A. is a city of celebrities and when they get sick, hospitals here know how to protect their privacy. Even so, an inventive fan can find the crack in any security system--and stick a nozzle in it.

"Mr. Smith," Nurse Kerry says, "I've done this a thousand times. Not only will you not mind the enema I'm giving you, but you'll enjoy it."

At the precise moment I feel warm water flowing into me, her warm mouth engulfs me...

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