What She Did for Love
The following is based on a true story.
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…the straight razor pierced her right wrist length-wise, guaranteeing the doctors could not suture the wound when they found her.
She was a bookish nurse at the local hospital. Well-built. Curvaceous (some might say “a Coke bottle figure”). Busty. Brunette. She was the type who had the looks but didn’t own it nor realize it. Modest. Way too modest. Even when a man she found somewhat attractive complimented her.
…the warm water cradled the meridians of her body like being swaddled in the womb as the crimson polluted it’s color…
Until she met a new Doctor at the hospital. Doctor Hilton. Like the newly-minted hotel chain, she thought. He had such a sweet bedside manner, especially with the aged dementia patients and their distraught and tired families.
He charmed her so. Yet she lacked the gumption to act on her feelings.
…she began a repeat of the procedure down her other wrist… she found she enjoyed the pain.
It was the Age of Spiritualism and Prohibition. Séances, psychics, medicine men, and the mob dominated the culture. All while famous men of the world like Harry Houdini were busy busting the charlatans.
Even the smartest people have their pet beliefs, no matter how irrational they may appear.
…she was fading slowly…
She had heard of a medicine man of some renown who had come up the Mississippi from New Orleans to their river town in Illinois. A voodoo priest? She overheard various groups in town call him a mad Creole and others a miracle worker who cured them of some non-specific ailment.
Could he help her find love with Dr. Hilton? Could it be worth a try? She was raised a strict Baptist in this very Catholic town.
Her family could not know.
…she felt she was flying. Looking down the landscape below she saw Doctor Hilton’s chiseled face…
She approached the tiny house on Adams Street with a great deal of apprehension. Is this right? Should I go in? Thinking of Doctor Hilton holding her in his powerful, gentle arms made her trepidation melt away into a fugue intoxicated by love.
