A Victorian Virgin?

"I've only four women to look after tonight, any road," Patricia said. She got up and left her open novel lying face down upon her desk.

Victoria Buckley passed through the door, down a flight of stairs, and then turned to enter the ward for rooms twenty to twenty-nine. There she found two nurses, Colleen Anderson and Mary Durham, talking in low whispers. When Victoria arrived, they ceased talking and looked up. Colleen was a thirty-two year old woman with pinched cheeks and wrinkled eyelids. She wore a wedding band, so Victoria assumed that there had been a husband somewhere along the way. Mary was twenty-one, with blonde curls and acne scars; a spinster as far as Victoria knew.

"Which rooms are the interns in?" Nurse Buckley snapped. She was shocked that these men were allowed to sleep in such close proximity to female patients, not to mention the husbandless nurses, such as Mary Durham.

Mary frowned, and then said, "Ned Hawke's in twenny-one and Ronald Selby's in twenny-eight."

"Why do you want them?" Colleen asked.

"One of my patients is playing up." Victoria Buckley said hurriedly. She felt slightly intimidated by the two women sitting in front of her. She crossed her arms in front of her chest as if to protect herself.

"Which one?" Colleen queried.

Victoria rolled her blue eyes to the ceiling. "Patient forty-six, Mrs. Gore."

"Really?" Mary asked. She ran her hand down her cratered and pitted face. Her skin was pale and milky, the sort that would become pasty with age but at the moment was as fine and sculptured as china, apart from the scars. "I've never had any trouble with 'er. She's very quiet, very gentle. What's she done?"

Both Colleen and Victoria frowned at this statement. "She's a murderer, that's enough for me," Colleen said. "It doesn't matter how she behaves now, she's already damned herself to hell. I treat her with the respect I give any other patient, but I don't let her draw me into conversation and I don't let her touch me."

"That's the first I 'eard of it," Mary said. Her green eyes seemed to widen in horror. "Who'd she kill? Her 'usband? Why's she 'ere? Why didn't they 'ang her?"

"We're not allowed to talk of it. The last nurse that did lost her place," Colleen replied. "All you need to know is that she's done some pretty horrific things, not just murder but adultery too. I don't know why she's here. She's not even English. I presume that she got away with it because she's rich enough to leave America and come here. It's not cheap to stay at this hospital, you know. Why else are there so many empty beds?"

Victoria Buckley ceased to listen and wandered over to door twenty-one. She rapped cautiously on the door and waited to hear movement within. She heard nothing except heavy snoring. She rapped harder. "Mr. Hawke, are you in there?" she asked. Still there was no reply. She literally pounded the door. Why wouldn't he wake up?

"'E was pretty damned tired." And drunk, Mary thought. "The both of them were. If you wan' 'im that much you'll 'ave to go in and wake 'im up. 'E won't be too 'appy wit' that either."

"Go in there?" Victoria asked. "I don't think so." She was appalled that Mary could even suggest that she go in and wake a sleeping man. He might not be wearing a shirt, let alone the bottom half.

"Well I'm not going in there," Colleen said. "I don't want him yelling at me for waking him up." That was only a minor reason; the major one was that most of the nurses knew that Ned Hawke was as horny as a rabbit. Why else would there be two nurses on this floor instead of one?

"She's your patient," Mary added. "Can it wait 'til the mornin'?"

Nurse Buckley thought back to Genevieve Gore, with her bloody face and wrists. What infuriated Victoria Buckley the most was that Gore had defied her when she was told to stand. Buckley wanted to make sure she was punished for this behavior most of all. She thought that the woman had injured herself on purpose and was not worried about it causing any serious damage. Dr Stephen Hawke may not see it in such a light, owing to the way that woman had him wrapped around her little finger. Buckley had to be seen to be doing everything in her power to 'help' the woman. She had to obtain all the help available for her patient, which included fetching a doctor. No doctors were available, and Buckley would not dream of awakening Dr Stephen Hawke himself, so the interns were her next best option.

"No, it can't," Victoria Buckley said. "The woman's injured herself on purpose."

"Attempted to top herself?" Colleen asked.

"No," Buckley replied with an aggressive jut of her chin. "She's just messed herself up, made her lips and nose bleed. I had to restrain her earlier in the evening and she has damaged herself in breaking the bonds." She turned back to door twenty-one and thumped on it loudly with her fists. Still she heard no movement within.

Victoria Buckley took a deep breath and tried the handle. The door was unlocked. She slowly turned the handle and heard the door wheeze open. Immediately she seemed to be plunged into darkness, apart from the chink of light supplied by the door, which had swung to. This room had no windows. The gas-lamps were turned off. "Mr. Hawke," she said, loudly from the doorway. Her voice sounded shaky and came out in a squeaky-off-pitch sound. The mound on the bed grunted but did not move. Heartened, Victoria repeated herself. The reply was another grunt, followed by a loud snore.

Oh dear, Victoria thought. She slowly felt up the wall for the control for the gas, but could not find it, nor could she see it illuminated by the hall light. "Mr. Hawke, wake up," she said again and received no conscious response. She could smell him from where she stood; that strange, unique man scent that disgusted her brain but caused strange bodily responses. Even now, she felt her heart beating on every bodily surface. She told herself it was fear, not excitement. Slowly she tiptoed further into the room, almost tripping over a puddle of fabric that must have been some large item of clothing. She was nearly at his bedside now. His snorts and snores seemed ever so loud now that she was within a yard of him. "Mr. Hawke," she almost yelled. He stopped snoring and rolled over. She thought that he had finally awoken, "I'm so sorry to awaken you but-" his snore interrupted her. She nearly screamed in exasperation. Perhaps if she had he may have woken up.

Victoria couldn't see his face, but she knew it was facing her when she reached over to shake him and contacted the sandpaper stubble of his chin. Quickly she pulled her hand away. "Mr. Hawke," she said, but her voice was only a whisper. She reached for him again and contacted his open mouth. This time she didn't flinch away; instead she let her hand stray up his cheek to the soft skin of his eyelid. She encountered the brush border of his eyelash and then his sleek eyebrow. She quite liked this touching, she admitted to herself, as long as the man was not aware of what she was doing. Realizing this thought sent her jolt to her brain. The man had stopped snoring. She quickly retracted her hand.

"Mr. Hawke," Nurse Buckley said. "I apologize for awakening you but there is a medical emergency." She received a snore as a reply. She felt herself grow hot in the face, which her brain interpreted as anger. "Mr. Hawke!" she finally shouted. Would this man never wake up?

She reached both hands forward this time and, avoiding his face, gripped the exposed shoulder of Dr Hawke's nephew and shook it vigorously. "Mr. Hawke, wake up please. Wake up!"

At last, she got a response, perhaps not the desired one, but a response nevertheless. "What?" Ned Hawke blared in a sleep and alcohol fogged voice. "Who the hell are you?"

Nurse Buckley did not know what to reply to this question. The man was very coarse and vulgar.

Ned sat up slightly in his bed. Surprisingly, at least to him, he did not have the aching head characteristic of excess. Then... who was...? He regarded the figure standing next to the bed; he could tell by her silhouette that she was a woman. This didn't seem to be his room either. Where the hell was he? "Fuck, I didn't think I'd drunk that much," he said more to himself than the woman standing beside the bed. "I s'pose you've already gone through my pockets; I don't have nought to give you, I spent it all."

Victoria Buckley had no idea what the man was talking about, other than the fact that he was cussing in the crudest manner at her. Suddenly she found her tongue. "Mr. Hawke, I'm sorry to awaken you, but there is a medical emergency that I need you to investigate."

"Fuck." Abruptly it all came flooding back to Ned. The beer, the women, the loud music, all still slightly blurred together. The carriage ride from London that should have been sobering had Ron not had that hipflask of absynithe. The hospital at which they would start work once more in the morning looming into view. Not being able to get into the wing where their bedrooms were. Being let into the hospital by the pretty nurse with the dimples, and finally staggering along the ward (Ron with the nurse giggling under his arm) until somebody told them which rooms were empty.

"Can you get up, please?" Nurse Buckley asked.

Ned thought he'd heard that voice somewhere before. Maybe it was the dimpled nurse. "Who are you?" He reached over to touch her breast, but she stepped back from his touch.

"I hardly think it matters, can you just get up, please. It's an emergency."

"If it's such a big deal, why don't you go bug my uncle's bedside?" Ned lay back down and cocooned himself in blankets. "I'm tired, go away." He rolled away from her.

That was the problem, Victoria realized. Stephen Hawke could not see Genevieve in that state. He would instantly blame the nurse looking after her for her injuries, regardless of the fact that the woman had done it to herself. He would say that Nurse Buckley should have been keeping a better eye on her and should not have turned the light off in the room. The woman was trying to spite her at every turn. "Dr Hawke has been on duty all day, unlike you. You're near the patient, while Dr Hawke is in the other wing. Get up. Get up, now."

Why wouldn't she just go away? Ned was getting irritated now. His Hippocratic oath was never strong on nights like this. "Just fuck off, I'm tired."

Nurse Buckley knew the word was bad, but hardly knew what it meant. She was shocked that a man from such a good family could use that sort of language. Shocked was only a small portion of what she felt. Mostly it was anger. Anger that this man could talk down to her in such a grotesque manner like some low class villain when he clearly was not. It appalled her sense of social values. "There is a medical emergency, get up, please," she hissed. She was very close to stripping the bedclothes from the bed, as she would do to a naughty child; only the knowledge that he was at least partially naked underneath stopped her.

"Fuck, you're annoying. You don't give up, do you?" Ned groaned.

"Please, Mr. Hawke. I would prefer that you did not use that word." Victoria said. What was it going to take to make him see patient forty-six?

Ned sat up quickly. He was going to have to go; he knew it. "I tell you what, if I do you a favor now, you have to do me a favor later."

Before she realized she had opened her mouth, the following sentence shot out. "This isn't a favor, it's your job."

"It's not my job. I'm not on duty 'til tomorrow morning. So this is a favor. If you make me get up in the night, you do something for me in return. Now pass me my trousers. They're on the floor somewhere. Don't worry about my underpants, I'll just hang loose for the moment," Ned Hawke commanded.

"You can dress yourself," Buckley snapped. "I'll wait outside in the hall for you."

"If you're not with me I might decide to go back to sleep. Now, why don't you shut the door?"

"I don't think so." Victoria Buckley told the doctor.

Ned was starting to enjoy himself now. He had always liked nurses. In his opinion, most of them were very accommodating, but you got the occasional prig. Prigs were the best. Uptight virgins who thought that they were the morality police were the greatest challenge of all and provided the best rewards. What was the point of having a woman if everything was offered on a plate? There had to be a hunt, a chase, a capture to keep him interested. His uncle's clinic was the ideal net to catch such beauties; the nurses would never say a word to his uncle if they wanted to keep their jobs (which they did). He never touched patients.

Now he spoke to Nurse Buckley with added vigor. "You're a dirty one, aren't you? Do you want to see my manhood?" Just to horrify her a little more, he started to inch his out from beneath the sheets.

"I beg your pardon. I most certainly do not!"

"Then shut the door," Ned told her, quietly. "If there's no light you won't be able to see it." He could not risk anybody in the hallway interrupting his fun. He watched her figure as she walked over to the door and slowly shut it. The nurse was tall and thin, but had sizeable breasts, he decided. The hall-light half lit her face as she closed the door, revealing pale skin, high cheekbones and a cleft chin. A sweet enough girl; he had probably seen her before but couldn't remember doing so. Virgins like her had a way of making themselves invisible.

"Good," Ned Hawke said. "Now come back over here."

Reluctantly, Victoria Buckley obeyed. She felt disgusted and angry that she was driven to do these things just for that loathsome Mrs. Gore, not that she was exactly aware of the things Ned Hawke had in mind. It was bad enough that she had to be in the same room as him without a chaperone, much worse that she had to help him dress. She told herself that this was her retribution for the two culpable acts she had committed that night; turning Genevieve's light off, and touching Ned Hawke's face whilst he slept. Both had given her guilty pleasures. Ned slowly pulled the bedclothes away from his body. He heard the nurse take a sharp intake of breath. He liked to have that affect on women, even if they couldn't see his body in the dark. "Hand me my trousers, please," he told her. Ah, the hunt had begun; the trophy prize a blood wound. He would treat her politely, and make her think that she was special. He would use her and discard her, just as he had used so many other girls. He was twenty-eight years of age. He had been playing the game for thirteen years.

Nurse Buckley retrieved what she took to be his trousers from one of several puddles of fabric on the floor. The belt was still attached, and jangled when she shook the fabric. Instead of handing the trousers to him, she threw them his way. "Please hurry, it is an emergency," she said.

"Is anybody going to die if I'm a few minutes late?" Ned asked. He already knew the answer.

"No," Buckley replied. "But all the same, the patient needs to be dealt with. She is being completely defiant."

"Is there someone with her?"

"Yes, Nurse Ramsey is." Ramsey, what fond memories he had of her.

"Then we have plenty of time," Ned Hawke told the nurse. "Why don't you come and help me dress myself?"

Victoria struggled to keep her voice even. For some reason her heart was beating at a very rapid rate and her face felt ember-hot. She told herself that it was anger and disgust. "I'm sure that you can manage on your own, Mr. Hawke."

"Please, call me Ned. What's your name?"

"Miss Buckley," Victoria replied. "Would you please dress yourself? I should not have left Miss Ramsey so long. She has her own patients to see to."

Ned still held his trousers across his lap. He was completely naked apart from his partially unfastened shirt and the socks upon his feet. Sometimes he ached just to take the extra stubborn ones without the chase, but that would downplay the action and remove most of the fun. She wouldn't be giving herself to him out of love. She would be stiff and unmoving beneath him. He liked to teach them how to enjoy themselves and please him first. Otherwise, he might as well find a mortuary, for all the pleasure he got from screwing an unready virgin.

"Your first name is as much Miss as mine is Mister. Come on, what is it? Is it something ugly like Blanche? Is that why you will not tell me?" Heaven forbid her mother or grandmother's name be Blanche, he thought.

"My name's Victoria. Now will you please dress yourself?"

"What a beautiful name for a beautiful lady," Ned Hawke told the nurse. He had yet to meet a girl that did not blush at that line. "And as for dressing myself, why don't you help me? I'm a little incapacitated at the moment."

"I'm sure that you can manage," Victoria Buckley said, coldly. She could have run out of the room, at any time, but some strange, irrational feeling was making her stay. "Why don't you hurry up?"

"Maybe I won't go at all, I'm quite tired." Ned made as if to lie down on the bed once more.

"Oh, very well," Nurse Buckley snapped. "Just make haste."

Ned Hawke smiled. The chase had begun. He stood up and slowly inserted his legs into his trousers. He pulled them up and held them, unbuttoned and unbelted, at his waist. Then he slowly advanced on the pensive figure of Victoria Buckley. "Do up my trousers," he told her, knowing that she was unfamiliar and frightened and was bound to fumble.

Victoria's heart jolted up to her throat. She felt bizarrely light-headed and weightless. "I really don't think..."

"Please," Ned said. "I won't bite." He was so close to her now that he felt her hot breath on his face. The anticipation of touching her was trilling through his blood; not yet, he told himself.

Nurse Buckley took a deep breath. "Very well." She ran her hands down to where his waistband was (Thank goodness he was wearing a shirt, she thought, even if it was undone). She was glad it was dark and she could not see much.

Ned Hawke felt those fingers fumble with the first button. She had decided to do it from the top downwards, the crafty girl. He felt every flick and light touch as she tried desperately to avoid touching him any more than she had to. Judging by the quickening of hot breath now directed against his chest, he knew she was feeling some unusual physical effects. A girl like her would probably be disgusted by her body's behavior. That conflict of interests within his prey thrilled him even more.

Victoria finished the buttons and moved onto the belt, still attached to the trousers from the night before. Just as she were about to insert the strip of leather through the buckle, Ned Hawke said, "Aren't you going to tuck me in?"

She shut her eyes in anger and humiliation. "I'm sure that you're perfectly capable of doing so."

"Yes, but I asked you to do it. Do you want me to come and see to this patient or not?" Ned asked. He didn't touch her, even though he longed to do so. "You'll have to button up my shirt first."

"Very well," Buckley hissed. She could have left now. For some reason she wanted to stay, not just because of the patient she did not even like but because somehow this excited her. She quickly buttoned his shirt up all the way to his neck.

"Now tuck me in."

He felt the tips of her cold fingers pass below the hem of his shirt as she inserted the fabric into the back of his trousers. Slowly, she brought her hands around to the front of his body, flinching away as they drifted close to his groin. Now, he thought. Now. Suddenly he brought his hand down to grip hers. He forced her hand down his trousers and held it against his stiffening manhood. She took an abrupt wavering breath. He felt her fingers squirm and flex in their haste to get away. Suddenly she was pushing him, fighting against him. Then she dashed from the room.