Page 3 of Riot Rules
Wren thumps Pax on the upper arm. “Not helping, man. He’s in a lot of pain. His cock might fall off. You’re scaring hi—”
“You’re both fucking scaring me! My cock is not gonna fall off! Oh my god, just drive, for the love of all that’s holy. I’m dizzy as fuck.”
“What did I say. Too much blood.” Pax announces this in a pointed manner, like he’s just won a very important argument. “Looks like your banjo playing days are over, brother. That string has well and trulysnapped.”
“Don’t stress, man. They’ll be able to stitch you back together.” Wren imparts this over his shoulder, but he doesn’t say it with much conviction. He’s smirking like the very devil himself.
“I cannot have a fucked-up dick, guys. I cannotbe walking around with a franken-frank in my pants. If they can’t make it look beautiful again, tell ’em to just let me go. I don’t want any drastic measures. Sign a DNR if you hav—”
Both guys in the front of the car start to howl with laughter, and I realize that Imightbe overreacting a little. Still. They could be a little more supportive. “Assholes. Neither of you fuckers know what it’s like to have a vital piece of your manhood just…just…just fuckingsnap!”
Pax howls even harder. “God, the accent just makes it funnier.”
Wren covers his mouth with a hand, trying to hide his smile and master himself. He makes a valiant attempt to marshal his features into a straight face, but he might as well not fucking bother; his eyes are still dancing with amusement. “Relax, dude. We’re pulling into the parking lot now. We’ll get this taken care of in no time.”
Mountain Lakes, New Hampshire, is a tiny town, perched high in the hills of the Black Mountain State Forest. In light of the settlement’s tiny stature and it’s dwindling population, its hospital is also tiny. Honestly, it’s a miracle the place even has a hospital. An urgent care facility would have been more likely, or a glorified GP’s office, but it seems as though lady luck is smiling on me and my broken dick today. I’ll get to see a proper doctor, and they’ll be able to fix this terrible genital injustice.
Once Pax has parked, Wren helps me out of the car. Pax stands well back with his hands in his pockets, face contorted into a rictus of pain. That’s the thing about a dick injury—all men sympathize and groan in agony when something like this happens, because it’s so easy to imagine that it’syourjunk that’s been mangled. One guy on a football team gets accidentally kicked in the balls and the whole team fucking feels it.
It occurs to me that I’m hobbling across a parking lot in my boxers, clutching a tea towel to my crotch—very undignified, completely lacking in decorum—but propriety is the least of my concerns right now.
Through the sliding doors.
Across a yawning expanse of linoleum.
Around the obstacle course of wobbly, mismatched wooden chairs that constitute the waiting room.
Then, all three of us are standing in front of a wide-eyed, unimpressed looking nurse. The little plastic tag pinned to her pale blue scrubs reveals her name to be Tara.
She arches an eyebrow at Wren. They always do that—assumehe’sthe one in charge of our mismatched, bizarre outfit. They’re not wrong, per se. It’s just that they’re also not right. Her eyes dart down to the wadded up, bloody tea towel I’m still holding against my injury. “Vacuum cleaner?”
“No! No vacuum cleaner! What the hell, lady!” If I sound a little indignant, it’s because I am. This is already humiliating enough. Now there are middle-aged women thinking I’m some sort of deviant who sticks his cock into electrical appliances? Fuck’s sake, somebody shoot me now.
Like a predatory cat, Pax leans against the nurse’s station, resting one elbow on top of the counter. People recognize him when we’re out in public sometimes. He’s been modelling for the biggest fashion houses recently, and most of his editorials are international campaigns. This nurse doesn’t seem to know him, though. She barely looks at him, and he barely looks at her. He inspects the stack of paperwork and the calculator in front of the woman’s computer screen. The collection of pens beside her keyboard. The empty Bolognese-stained Tupperware abandoned by the phone. He smirks at the photo of the puffball cat that’s pinned under the clamp of the woman’s clipboard. “We have ourselves a bit of a dilemma,” he purrs. “Our friend, here, was…”—he looks up at the ceiling— “washinghimself, and he tore something vital. And now, as you see, he’s leaking his life blood out of his favorite organ. We were hoping you guys would be able to do something about that.”
Tara slowly tugs the photo of the hideously fluffy cat out from underneath the clipboard clamp and slips it into a drawer, out of sight. Later, she’ll wonder why she did that. It won’t make a lick of sense to her.Iknow why she did it, though. She loves that cat. Would do anything to protect it. That cat, for all intents and purposes, is as important to this nurse as a flesh and blood child. The primitive, animal part of her brain recognized Pax for the dangerous creature that he is, and her first instinct was to protect her baby lest this sharp-fanged monster try and eat him.
She scowls. Shoves a stapled document toward me across the counter. “Fill this out and bring it back up here when you’re done.”
On my right, Wren shakes his head. “Treatment first. Paperwork after, lady.”
A certain amount of charm wouldn’t go amiss right now. A warm smile and some lingering eye contact would likely have me in front of a doctor right away. Pax wouldn’t know how to charm someone if his life depended on it, though. Wren is perfectly capable of affecting charisma when the mood takes him, but that’s just it. The mood rarely takes him. He’s the most obstinate, confrontational person I’ve ever met, more likely to try and terrify this woman into submission rather than take an easier, nicer route. Unfortunately for me,Ihappen to be the charming member of our three-strong society, and I’m in no position to flirt with Tara. Not with my dick’s imaginary voice screaming at the top of its high-pitched imaginary lungs for help. It’s a goddamn miracle that I’m even still standing.
Tara fixes Wren with a baleful glare. “We need to know about his medical history. Allergies. Past injuries. That kind of thing.” She enunciates each word slowly, as if she thinks he’s a little slow and might not be able to comprehend what she’s saying. “We also need to make sure he has insura—”
“If you sayinsurance, so help me god I will smash every stick of furniture in this place,” Pax growls. “If someone’s hurt and in pain, they should be helped before you vultures make sure your pockets are gonna be lined.”
Tara sighs; the rush of air sounds like it’s come all the way up from the basement of her weary soul. “Look. I’m an RN. I’m not lining my pockets with anything but unpaid bills, buddy. Now. You wanna stand here, arguing about a corrupt healthcare system thatIhave absolutely no power to fix? Or do you wanna go sit down over there and help fill out those forms so we can get your friend’s penis reattached?” She stares him dead in the eye, grim and hatchet-faced.
Pax flashes her his teeth as he grabs the papers and leans over the counter, snaking one of her pens—a flashy gold number with a pink-haired troll glued on the end of it. “Two minutes. Takes any longer than that and we’re storming the place.”
“You do you, kid.”
I sit on a rickety chair with my eyes closed, sweating, bare-chested and mortified, while my friends argue over the answers on the form. I provide information when prodded, but I let them get on with it otherwise. All I can think of is the heavy, wet, pulsing sensation between my legs, and the way the room seems to be see-sawing.
Eventually, the boys finish the paperwork and take it up to Tara, leaving me sprawled out on the chair, groaning miserably like a wounded animal. I descend into a weird trance state, only this trance isn’t the peaceful, relaxing kind. It’s more of a mental paralysis, where I’m walled in by endless panic and it feels like the world is about to end but my body is completely frozen and there’s nothing I can do about it.
“Wow. You look like you’re having yourself a day.”
