The Devil in Silver

They both wanted to kiss, but Sue had her head arched too far backward. The muscles of his right arm were already sore but he kept at it. Sue huffed, hissed really, through her clenched teeth.

Pepper closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch her, but to feel her. And he didn’t want to get all aware of the three other people in the room; folks who couldn’t help but understand what was going on ten feet from them. If Pepper started thinking of them, he couldn’t keep rubbing Sue. It was just so ridiculous. Like all good public sex.

Sue had been louder in the buildup than in the finale. Maybe this is because she had opened her eyes. She’d seen her two friends (Rachel and Marjolein) so focused on their newspapers that they could only be listening to her and Pepper. What would they think if she really let it out, like she wanted to, at the end? This was already embarrassing enough! So when Sue came, she cut the sound off, as best she could, in her throat.

Sue had sweated across her neck and chin. The top of her nightdress showed the wetness. Pepper slipped his sore hand back into his own lap and kneaded the palm with his other hand. The top of his shoulder ached and burned, but he refused to show the pain.

Sue leaned in to him and smiled. Without self-consciousness. She was hardly there, at the table, in Northwest. She was just, momentarily, relaxed. It had been a looooong time since she’d been with a man. Most women appreciate busting a good nut, too (so to speak!).

Sue returned to her body. Returned to the television lounge. And this chair. Where this man sat beside her. She kissed Pepper absently. She huffed through her nose, one long breath. If she wasn’t smiling, she sure felt like smiling. She tugged at Pepper’s zipper.

There is a lot of sex going on in the nation’s psychiatric units. (Not to mention the adult homes and residential units that also cater to, and care for, the mentally ill in the United States.) Adults cooped up for weeks and months and years (and sometimes decades). What do you think will result from being so tightly packed? Friction.

(We’re not counting the sexual abuse that goes largely unreported, because that’s abuse not sex. The horrible stuff happens, too: patient on patient, staff on patient, even patient on staff.)

We’re focused, here, on the consensual business—a.k.a. affection; dating; courting. Hell, even just hooking up. The niceness. Because, ladies and gentlemen, despite the perceived differences between them and you, the mentally ill like jooking, too!

Unfortunately, actual intercourse is about the hardest thing to achieve on the unit. The staff might huff and shout about kissing and fondling, but they’d often let the couple be. They will dole out discipline for more, though. A patient will be likely to get his butt in restraints, at the very least. There’s even a chance they’ll transfer him to another hospital, and how good would that be for the budding romance?

So second-tier sex becomes king. A little bit of sucking in the phone alcove, or maybe a handjob in the blind spot of the television lounge. Occasionally, very occasionally, a woman might sneak into a man’s room. That’s rare, though, because even if the staff doesn’t catch you, there’s your roommate to contend with. He isn’t necessarily overjoyed that you’re getting a little play and he’s left cuddling his antidepressants. Some grouchy patient will snitch in record time. It’s a real feat—let’s go ahead and say it’s a miracle—if two people sneak some actual lovemaking inside the psych unit’s walls.

Which is why we might marvel, offer our fair share of respect to the powers of Providence. (Or Plotting?) The confluences of life. Because the very next night, Pepper snuck Sue into his room. She stayed with him until dawn. An actual sleepover. The kind of delight most folks take so for granted that they denigrate it with the term “one-night stand.” But it’s hard to dismiss a whole night when your trysts don’t usually last an hour.

Pepper didn’t manage this alone however. He had help.

From Loochie and Dorry.

Pepper hoped to have Sue over to his place. All their groping in front of others struck him as embarrassingly juvenile. Two people over forty should not be wrasslin’ in ways that invite maximum humiliation unless they’re in a Nancy Meyers film.

Pepper knew he had to get Sue back to his room. Not just so they could make love, but so they could be alone. As soon as she said she’d be gone in less than a week—as soon as Pepper realized she was serious—he began thinking about how he might yank her from the jaws of doom and deportation. The news had tickled that heroic nerve of his.