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I was again surprised when instead of merely thrusting inside me, she swam within me and touched me, really touched me, like no one ever had—and I loved it, loved the way she stirred me. She took my body and my mind places they had never been, and I was continually stunned by just how much her responses sharpened mine.

“Feel that, baby?” she asked as I felt her cunt tighten on my fingers. “You’re gonna make me come…I wanna show you…”

My body reacted so intensely to hers, to her voice, that when she moved in me, I experienced her feelings not just in my cunt, but in my chest, in my throat. We met each other stroke for stroke, and when her body pulsed around me and she sang my name into my ear, I was floored by the intensity of feeling her come, the flame that shot through my veins and burst through my skin almost deafening me to her name on my lips in that final fusion.

*

I met Trace at the entrance to the nearly empty cafeteria with its view of the ER bay, and as we settled down with our coffees, I didn’t waste time; I cut to the heart of it immediately. “Trace…I can’t do this between us anymore, the casual thing. And…I know me too well, I can’t, uh…I can’t sleep with you and date someone else.” It was a little embarrassing to say, but at least I had finally said it.

“We’re just friends, Tori, friends with fringe benefits. What…are you in love or something?” Her expression was friendly, maybe even slightly smug.

It had been just under thirty-six hours since I’d seen Jean, and it would probably be at least another six before I saw her again…and I missed her. I could still feel her in me, on me, the taste of her breath on my lips and the rhythm of her life a haze that rode just over my skin. I felt like I was missing something—an arm, a leg, my head—until I could feel her next to me again, and I wanted her so much my entire body ached.

“I don’t know…maybe. Could be the flu.” I didn’t want to discuss it, not with anyone really, not while this was so new, so
us
, ours alone, and especially not with Trace, because we’d slept together, because I knew she and Jean had…been involved.

And besides, my mother had been, probably still
was
, in love with my dad, and
that
had been a disaster that had left a lot of damage, damage she was still recovering from. On the other hand, when I looked at Nina and Samantha, I couldn’t help but see how much they loved each other, it was a palpable aura that surrounded them, and if that was “in love” then maybe, just maybe…if I discussed Jean with anyone, it would be my cousin. I trusted her.

“Have you ever been in love?” I asked Trace, out of curiosity.

She stared down at the table and played with her napkin. “Almost. Once,” she said with a little sigh. She folded the napkin flat and smoothed it. “She told me I couldn’t handle her—she was right.” Trace gave me a smile, the one I liked so much, though her eyes shone too brightly. “I…I wasn’t really comfortable with…things…yet, and she’s, well, she’s always been out, and that’s really that. So…anyone I know?”

I hesitated, but the medical community was a small one, and it was better if she found out from me than from someone else. Besides, I had nothing to hide. I’d certainly done nothing wrong, not by Trace, not by myself, and not by Jean. Not telling Trace felt like I’d betray all of us, which was dishonest. I didn’t want to be that.

“Uh…you probably do.” I temporized a bit, because I didn’t know how to make this any less awkward. “Her name’s Jean. She’s a paramedic, worked the privates for a while, has a per diem at Saint Vin’s, and at University South, so—”

“Jean Scanlon?” If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “She’s a beautiful girl. I can see where you’d suit each other.” Her eyes shaded to a deeper gray. “It’s funny,” she commented, with the tiniest twist to the corner of her mouth, “you never, ever, know what life is going to bring.”

I agreed and we finished our coffee with the promise to keep in touch from time to time. After all, we’d surely run into each other, and we
were
still friends, albeit without the fringe benefits.

“Well,” Trace smirked at me as I got up to leave, “if things change, you know where to find me.”

“I’ll remember that.” I had nothing else to say.

*

My rotations as vacation relief weren’t terrible at all. I liked the shift, I liked the different people I worked with, and soon I was settled into a unit of my own. The schedule suited me fine; I had five days off out of every fifteen.

Despite our determination not to rush things, Jean and I spent quite a bit of our free time together, but not in a crazy way; she had her apartment, and Dusty, and her family, whereas I had my place and my family too, but we had this unspoken knowing that sooner or later things would change.

However, I was finally able to spend more time with my family, with my mother and sister, whom I’d drop in on in the early afternoon before I left for work. My mother might not have been pleased with my job, but she didn’t mention that; she’d instead ask me if I was “being careful.” On one of my visits she insisted I bring my dress uniform, then sewed on not only the patches and insignia, but also had it tailored.

She surprised me with my uniform when I came back from a food shopping expedition with Elena, and I have to admit, my dress blues looked super sharp. Elena then showed me her new favorite T-shirt. “An EMT loves me,” it stated in an arch above a star of life with its caduceus emblazoned in the center. I gave her a big hug.

I also spent more time with Nina and Samantha. Samantha and I hadn’t stopped our sparring lessons yet, and as Nina grew more and more obviously pregnant, I didn’t want to stray too far.

Jean understood, and she probably visited Staten Island more than I did Brooklyn, for which I was thankful.

Staten Island celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day with a huge parade on the second Sunday of March so that it wouldn’t interfere with the “real” day, or the larger parade in Manhattan, and I thought Jean might enjoy watching it.

Besides, it took place maybe three whole blocks from the house, and Nina and Samantha were going, a tradition they’d enjoyed for several years, and we customarily said hello to all of the neighbors who’d been sequestered during the cold and snow of winter.

That, and the bars offered free drinks on the sidewalks, while the bakeries handed out all sorts of great pastries. The entire thing was just plain fun, and Jean’s heritage—from the claddagh ring she wore on a chain around her neck and under her shirt on the job, or on her right hand as soon as she was off duty, to the funny and fierce arguments around her parents’ table as to whether or not the Irish really had tartans—was evidently very important to her.

Combine that with the fact that Sunday would be exactly one month since we’d started dating, and it just seemed like a perfect combination. Besides, I thought she might enjoy the local experience, especially since I suspected her family would have some sort of tremendous cultural celebration that Wednesday, March 17.

“Can I wear a kilt?” Jean asked me when I called during our last shift before a three-day weekend to make plans.

“Sure.”

“Can I wear one of those huge foam leprechaun hats?”

“Fine.” I started to laugh at the image that arose in my mind.

“Can I wear just that to bed?” she asked in a throaty purr.

The radio went off in the cab of my rig. “I’ve got to run—I’ll see you at end of shift, and we can debate the hat thing later.”

“Okay, later, then.” I heard her laugh as we hung up.

I’d been moved from a line unit that generally responded in a particular area, to a tactical one that roamed wherever we were needed; we spent about half of our calls backing up medics. My rig was call-signed “Ten David,” or “One-oh David,” but my partners, Janet Diaz, a pretty Puerto Rican girl with a ready laugh and sharper wit, and Isbjorn Rygh, who told us all repeatedly that
isbjorn
meant “polar bear” in Norwegian, and occupied over six feet of deceptively soft-looking solidity—we called him “Izzy”—had nicknamed our bus “One Over Dose.”

It was a rough night. We’d finally had a few warmer days, and for whatever reason, this hint of spring and the warmer weather that would inevitably follow meant that weapons got…exotic. Not one, but two patients had been shot with crossbow bolts, the first in what had appeared to be a random incident on the West Side, and the second almost an hour later on the East Side.

Actually, we had three patients on the East Side: The first was a seventeen-year-old male who’d been grazed across the scalp with an arrow tip as he crossed the parking lot we were in. The head wound was bloody, but not deadly, and he was already being packaged and about to be transported for stitches by Bennie’s crew. Another patient, a male approximately the same age, had received a bolt through his left thigh and was already being stabilized by another crew on scene.

The police were there, searching for the perpetrator, and our own supervisory patrol was present as well. Diaz and I eyed each other and the area warily as we slipped our gloves on. We’d pointed out to each other the three or so loose arrows that littered the ground and were both aware that if the cops were still there, so was the psycho William Tell. Neither of us felt particularly secure.

“You’ve got medic backup coming,” our supervisor said as he directed us to the third patient, also male, of similar approximate age, who’d moments ago received a bolt through the chest, just above the first floating rib.

Each shaft we’d seen previously had been at least fifteen inches long, and a good six inches of this one were lodged in the patient’s thorax.

He was conscious, aware, and understandably panicked as we went through the drill and evaluated him while he received supplemental oxygen. Next we stabilized the penetrating object. We absolutely wouldn’t remove it in the field because such an attempt could cause further damage to the nerves, blood vessels, or muscles, as well as result in uncontrollable bleeding.

Besides, his breaths were fast and shallow, his pulse was weak, and what alarmed me most as his eyes fluttered open and closed were the muffled heart sounds and the distended veins in his neck, combined with the diminished lung sounds on the penetrative side of the injury. I was certain the patient had a pneumothorax, which was causing his lung to collapse, but I didn’t know if the muffled heart sounds were from the increased pressure in the chest cavity or, and this is what had me really worried, a pericardial tamponade—blood filling the sac surrounding the heart—if the tip of the arrow had penetrated it.

Either way, as soon as the patient could be moved, he would be. There was no way we could wait for the medics—seconds counted and they were fast flying by. Diaz and I decided to load and go. Everything this guy needed, namely a sterile field and a surgeon, was in the hospital, not out here on the dirty asphalt.

Additionally, another patrol car had arrived while we worked, and shouts had gone up as another arrow had come flying by; we could hear the smash of a cruiser’s window as the bolt found its mark not ten feet away from us. Still, Diaz and I did what we had to before we could take our patient to the relative safety of the emergency room.

Just as we had settled back into the rig and were trying to decide on whether we wanted pizza or fried chicken, “One-oh David, what’s your twenty? Over.”

“This is one-overdose. We are exiting Bellevue and proceeding to our COR. Over.”

“We have a call for a male, approximately twenty years old, unresponsive, located at…”

I wrote down the information as Diaz flipped on the lights.

“Do you copy?” the anonymous voice asked.

“Ten-four, dispatch, we copy. One-oh David en route. Over.”

The moment I clicked the mic and entered our status into the computer console, Diaz flipped the sirens.

We didn’t have a lot of information to go on, and when we got to the location, an old brownstone that was probably the local “shooting gallery,” as the addicts called them, as we radioed in our status I noted another rig parked out front.

It had rained lightly while we’d taken care of our last call, and the ground shone back up at us, almost reflecting the streetlights.

“Must be another patient,” Diaz said, hefting the O
₂
bag as we walked up the crumbling steps.

“At least it’s on the first floor.” I shrugged nonchalantly, but I had a bad feeling about this call—maybe it was the street, which was quiet, too quiet, like the bricks and the cement were holding their breath, as if something more than the rain had subdued them. That strange sense didn’t ease as I shifted my bag over my shoulder and my fingers grazed the radio clipped to my waist.

The front door had been left open, either to let in air or by the last entering crew, and we walked down a dim hallway to find the apartment we’d been sent to.

Light flooded out into a narrow beam as a door opened, and the looming figure of a member of service—Lukaski, one of Jean’s partners—ran out, waving a hand at us.

“Go!” he shouted as he ran. “Get out of the building—call PD, call patrol! Go!” He grabbed Diaz by the shoulder and was about to grab me too.

“Where’s Scanlon?” I asked through dry lips as a band tightened around my chest.

“Right here,” she said from behind his arm as they both rushed us out.

“Supposed to be an OD, but we’ve got a shooter too,” Jean said, her hand firmly on my shoulder, but that band around my chest wouldn’t ease as we almost tripped down the steps.