This fictional story is a work of complete fiction. Any resemblance to living persons or the departed is a coincidence. This story eventually includes descriptions of sex between adult males. If you are a minor or if this material is illegal where you live, or if this material offends you, do not read it. Please donate to Nifty. Find the donation button on the Nifty web site to help you to pay your share of their expenses to provide these stories for you. Remember that authors depend on feedback for improvement and encouragement. All rights reserved.
James Robert Nolgren MD: Nolgren MD, Intern-4
Three gin and tonics later, he felt a little buzzed and tired. He forced himself to walk back to his room on campus and fell into bed, still dressed.
The alarm woke him at 5 am. His mouth was dry; the gin's alcohol and sugar in the tonic had caused his body to lose fluid, he thought. Sure enough, his bladder was full, and he drank two glasses of lukewarm water, looked in the mirror at deep unhappiness, and knew not to take that to work. Cold water on his face, then hot water and a shave, then he combed his hair, found clothes and a clean white coat, and was on the ward at 5:30 am.
That day was long. It wasn't hard from a work point of view, but just getting interested in putting one foot in front of another and answering questions and being exact about details and reports and making sense of workups and labs was both healing and exhausting.
He ate lunch in the cafeteria and knew he should not have. He ate dinner in the cafeteria and felt the same way. James pondered bringing sack lunches to work and promptly dropped the idea.
If he didn't have Lawrence...he trembled a moment, he would need comfort food which meant he would need to exercise more but he needed that too. For the first time, he wondered if there was a way to salvage...no, there wasn't. He didn't have money to chase Lawrence. His now ex-lover had planned his move without discussing it with him and he was beginning to resent that. He had escaped a relationship with this guy to his own good, but it didn't feel like that yet.
He would just keep working and studying and learning. If Lawrence called, he would be polite but keep his boundaries very high. He wasn't into pain, certainly not recurrent pain. Damn it, he had tried to talk with Lawrence about this before, but, oh no, ' if stuff happens, then we figure it out' came out of Lawrence's mouth. He was getting pretty worked up now, angry as hell.
Downstairs in the cafeteria the lines were long. The geeky chief of biomedical engineering was at the table next to James, conversing animatedly with the nurse in charge of the OR supply room about a problem with a piece of equipment at the top of his voice, at a pitch everyone was accustomed to hearing and a volume which happened to carry a block or two...and without thinking struck his chest with his fingers bunched together... "and I think that if we just moved the nipples back about 2 centimeters...".
The chief looked around as the cafeteria erupted in applause and laughter, a puzzled look on his face. The supply nurse's red face didn't provide him with any clues as she was busy digging a hole in the floor in which to pitch herself.
Upstairs in room 9C an attending and a senior resident were standing by the bedside of a man whose wife was sitting in a chair beside the head of the bed. "I asked you here, Mrs. Beasley, to talk to you and Jim about the findings of our tests. I'm afraid I have bad news to give you."
The attending physician paused. "I wish it was anything else but what it is." He took Mr. Beasley's hand and looked at him. "Jim, the tests show a pancreatic tumor, a lump in the pancreas just behind the stomach. That's the cause of your back pain and other symptoms. The biopsy is back from the pathologist and it... Jim, it shows a cancer. I'm so very sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
"How far along is it." This question, asked a dozen different ways, was always one of the first on the family's mind.
"I don't know for sure. There's no way to know that precisely. I've seen tumors of this variety kill within two months and others that lasted over a year. If one looks at a hundred people who have this same tumor without treatment, one can come up with an average number of months to years, usually months."
"The important thing is that no study anywhere has looked at you, Jim, and your future, so I can't give you your specific prognosis. I can tell you that without treatment Jim is in danger of dying within months. With treatment your life can be extended some months. I have some patients who have been cured of their pancreatic cancer."
"We always present these cases to a group of cancer specialists after diagnosis, experts in radiology and chemotherapy and surgery, who can give us the latest news, recommendations, and any experimental treatments or trials, as we call them, to present to you for more information. Jim, it is important that you know all of your options before accepting or rejecting a treatment."
"Your case isn't like anyone else. When and if you share this with family and friends you will have no end of people coming out of the woodwork to tell you of their cousin Harry's miraculous cure with lemon juice or their aunt Martha's horrible experience with chemotherapy treatment."
"My advice is to keep an open mind, read all you can on the internet about the disease, believe some of it but not all of it and I'll see you in a week after Tumor Board meets."
"In the meantime, here are some things to do to help your symptoms, medication for pain which has a list of known side effects. Read them and be frightened for about three minutes and then take the pills anyway. They won't damage you and will make your life much easier. In addition, I'm writing the prescription for nausea which should decrease or eliminate that symptom."
"For now, please eat a wide variety of foods because you need good nutrition. I'm aware that your digestion has been a real issue for you and I'm sending a nutritionist up with great suggestions before you go home tomorrow."
"Here is my cell phone number. Call me day or night. Day is best, but if you can't sleep because you have a burning question, call me. I mean that. You're a decent guy, Jim and the least we can do this week is be available for you and your wife."
"Please don't share that number with anyone else. I need rest too."
Jim's wife sat silently weeping. She wasn't a widow yet, but already was wondering how she could possibly manage without the love and caring presence of the guy who after senior prom had taken her home, knelt on her parent's front porch, and told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and that he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. She worried more about her ability to support him through all of this.
The attending used his other hand to grasp Jim's hand, so he was holding Jim's hand with both of his and was silent for a minute or two. He had, like many physicians, learned the power of silence.
Up campus at the anatomy building, the first years were busy dissecting cadavers. The study of normal structures provided light to the study of abnormal structure and function. The cadavers came from a variety of sources, often deaths that occurred in situations where funds were not available to bury these dead, sometimes from donations in a will, however these weren't a majority anymore. Medical schools were overrun in some areas and needed more in other areas.
The bodies were stored in giant vats of formaldehyde and moved in and out of the dissecting rooms by dieners, those who directly cared for these bodies. The medical students were given a lecture about respect and handling of bodies on day one prior to starting their study.
They were told to purchase a dissecting kit which had a scalpel, 'tweezers' or forceps, a retracting hook to hold nerves and other structures aside, and a pair of scissors.
The anatomy lectures were given by the anatomic pathologists, experts in anatomy, in a very large amphitheater in the same building. All of the students would be given their goals for the day and would troop up to the lab where many metal tables with slightly indented centers and a drain were located.
On each table was a cadaver covered with a large felt cloth soaked in formaldehyde. At the end of the room was an enormous vat of the chemical which looked for all the world like a metal juice dispenser at a picnic, complete with a spigot at the bottom.
Each table had a metal can with a spout that resembled nothing so much as a watering pot for flowers. The top was open, the spout had holes and a student would fill their table's 'watering pot' at the end of the day and sometimes at the beginning and 'water' the felt, thus moistening the cadaver for easier dissection. After the felt was removed in the morning, four students per body began the examination and dissection.
James could just see it now. A call from Lawrence would come and he would say that he was at home packing for England and James would break down sobbing or something.
"Not happening, James," he told himself. He began to rehearse exactly what he would say if that call came. It didn't... life went on.
His next rotation was delivering babies at a large county hospital in a large city in the Southwest. He knew precious little Spanish but learned quickly. Many of the delivery moms came up across the border to deliver so their babies would be American citizens. "More power to them," he thought. "It's not a crime to want a better life for your family."
He delivered 450 babies in the next four months. The deliveries taught him that he never wanted to do that himself, first and foremost. There was nothing difficult about delivery for the doctor or midwife, if they paid attention to details and took good care of the mother.
He enjoyed watching the fathers that attended their wives or girl-friends, sometimes wondering about the experience that began the pregnancy, mostly not.
The next four months was an endocrine rotation in the office and on the wards on occasion. He learned how to workup hormone problems and infertility issues and genetic disorders involving X and Y chromosomes, their diagnosis and management.
There wasn't much surgery, but what there was...was painstaking and careful work, thoroughly planned in advance and executed with precision.
The internship year was over. He hadn't built a relationship to replace his ex, he had not had much time nor inclination as it happened. Not a word, not a call, not an email, nothing from Cambridge. "What's done is done, I guess."
He thought about the stages of grief and wondered if Lawrence had grieved for him or their time together. He thought back to the surgical excision of the relationship and how it resembled physical surgery. Sometimes just 'taking the damn thing out' was quicker but not necessarily easier and still produced a scar.
A senior resident by the name of Charles Rivers had asked him to go bowling during his endocrine rotation. They had fun running the bowling ball into gutters and sometimes hitting a pin or two, drinking beer and slapping each other on the back when they actually got a strike.
Afterward, Charles had asked him if his girl-friend cared if he was out without her and without thinking particularly, James had told him his ex-boyfriend had absconded some months ago to Cambridge.
Charles had sat with him in the back of the bowling alley and listened carefully. "That must have been a blow, your lover off with a 'Dear James' letter." James smiled a bit and said he didn't want to go through that again.
"You must have invested a good deal in that relationship to be wounded that badly. Most gay guys have more than one man in their life at some time or other. What would you say if I asked you to my apartment tonight to play?"
Surprised, James replied that it had been a long time and he missed being close to a man. He told Charles he would say "yes."
"James, would you come to my apartment and play for a while tonight? No pain, no whips or chains, nothing kinky, just some old-fashioned 'get-physical-together' stuff."
"I'm a top usually but have been known to bottom for a guy who insisted. I hope you are into safe play. I am."
"I've been on PREP to prevent HIV infection for months, Charles." The AIDS project has funding for some men who are without insurance to get the meds.
"All the better, I'd guess."
"My test two weeks ago was negative. I have the lab result in my apartment to show you."
"Thanks, Charles."
That evening was a lot of fun. After a quick shower and some frisky behavior there, they did the mouthwash thing and toweled off and jumped into bed.
Charles loved to rim and James loved getting it, a match lit in both their brains.
Charles took his time opening him up, working the tissue to ease his entry, a good thing since he possessed substantial equipment with a big head.
James felt a brief jolt of discomfort, then a wonderful fullness and exquisite pleasure from the vicinity of the prostate gland.
James felt a heat deep to the perineal body under the bladder and his cock stayed hard right through until both men came to their natural conclusion, coming hard.
Charles loved cum and when James was ready, he put his head down and caught his load, swallowed it, then kissed James and transferred a little of it back to him.
Charles turned him over and spanked him on his ass one time, a light blow. "There you go, friend. Let's do it again one day soon, you and me. That was fun." He held up James' clothes up and helped him dress, like a daddy helping his son get dressed.
He knelt and put James' socks on. "I like you on a whole bunch of levels," he said, kissing the palm of James' hands. "You're an intelligent, sexy, energetic stud. I'm glad you said 'yes'."
James could have skipped all the way home. He drove instead, feeling like the famine was over after a long fast.
The second year of his residency was predictable. He knew what 2nd Years did. They supervised interns and students and protected the Seniors and attendings from disasters. They tended to ignore the 3rd Years except for casual exchanges of patient-related conversation.
He went through the first two four-month rotations with students and found him on the last four-month rotation.
'Him' was a dark-haired, green-eyed, trim student of the male persuasion, one Benjamin Cook by name, bright on rounds, who watched James' every movement on rounds as if not to lose him or something. The constant attention and listening skills attracted James.
There wasn't a rule about dating students except as it might interfere with patient care or grading students, which wasn't a formal thing on the wards.
The 3rd and Senior years passed quickly, flirting with Ben, dating sometimes, movies, dinner.
In the cafeteria, eating with the medical students one day, Ben spoke to James on a personal level. "Please pass the salt," said Ben. James heard something else entirely.
"Come to my house for dinner tonight and I'll give you some salt." Horrified, James prayed for a hole to fall into and once again wished his mouth would listen to his brain, just once, before he spoke.
"You're on, doc," said Ben. "What time is dinner being served at your house tonight?"
"We dine at 6 pm."
"Who is 'we'?"
"You and I, of course."
"Oh. What can I bring?"
"Bring yourself, of course. Bring dessert."
"That would be," Ben leaned over and whispered into James' ear, "me."
"Oh God," replied James. "Bring that."
That evening was but the beginning of a 3-year affair which lasted through James' next two years and his first year of fellowship which coincided with Ben's internship year. It was apparent to both of them each of them served as Mr. Right Now. Neither spoke of love or 'steady' or anything but a monogamous hookup.
Match day came, and Ben was notified that his '1' choice, a neurology residency in New Orleans had matched. They both knew their paths would part amicably since Ben had a residency elsewhere and James' fellowship in gyn oncology continued where he was.
They wrote back and forth for a year, then less frequently and when Ben wrote that he had met a guy who had become a friend, James knew it was over.
James' fellowship took him to Oxford for further study of metastatic ovarian cancer surgical techniques. A month passed, his tutors were impressed and delighted that James seemed to soak up information like a sponge.
In his rooms one evening, a knock sounded, and he opened the door to find an older Lawrence, looking serious. James quietly greeted him and invited him in.
"Hello, Lawrence. This is a surprise. How have you been at Cambridge?"
"I'm taking an anesthesia fellowship here at Oxford. I finished my dental studies and exams and took a First at Cambridge. Saw your name on the surgery schedule and figured it had to be the James I once knew and thought I'd knock..."
"Glad you did, glad you did." James thought he'd play the 'hale and hearty' approach to keep his sanity and his cool. He'd rehearsed for this moment for years.
"Will you be at Oxford long?"
"That depends."
"Of course, there are a lot of factors..."
"No, James, there's only one."
"That should make it easier, then, right?"
"I would think so. The factor is you."
"Me? What are you talking about?"
"James, I treated you badly and I admit it. That decision nearly killed me...I was frightened, too weak, to find out how much, if any, I had hurt you. I've had a million opportunities to compare you to a million people and..."
"Lawrence, it was hard. I'll tell you that. I grieved for you, then I picked up my life and went on. I didn't have the funds to chase after you and didn't know what you would say if I had done so. At one point I would have cheerfully killed..., then I accepted that you had made a decision that worked for you."
"It didn't work for me. Any place without you doesn't work."
James said, "Lawrence, I appreciate your letting me know that I was in your mind. It's too late of course to resume what we had. I don't love you now, but we can be friends, for sure. One can't have too many friends, regardless of past history."
"I like you but am pretty sure I don't know you well enough to say 'love you'. I thought I did, and I thought you loved me. Take some comfort in knowing that we were young and didn't know much about how life works then."
Lawrence rose, put out his hand, thought better of it and asked James if he could embrace him. "Sure, I could use a hug right now."
The hug brought back a lot. Lawrence's confident embrace, his face in James' neck, the scent of Lawrence bringing back good times, the powerful urge to throw him on the bed and show him what a real man was like, along with a renewed urge to throttle him, all this together was nearly overwhelming, but James had the advantage of years of thought about this very moment and finally restrained himself.
"See you around the hospital, I hope." James shut the door after Lawrence left, hoping he hadn't overthought things. The battle to seem nonchalant and carefree took more energy than simply being nonchalant and carefree. He felt exhausted. He knew he wasn't desperate to have Lawrence back exactly. Letting Lawrence dangle by a thread ran the very real risk of that thread snapping and he, his own worst enemy in heart matters, didn't do threads well.
During the next few weeks, their paths crossed in the hospital a few times, James lighting up inside then, but solemn as a judge on the outside; they ate together a time or two, the food not tasted or remembered. The chemistry they once enjoyed wasn't there. Instead, they took the time to get to know each other in a mature, steady, electrifying way.
They rode bicycles around the universities waving their fists at speeding autos, they punted on the Cherwell, dripping as much water onto their raft as back in the river, attended an organ concert at Jesus college in Cambridge, Lawrence's hand finding his to touch, not hold, eating at a restaurant on the way back, waving breadsticks and laughing at the oysters sliding down their throats, not alive but raw enough.
Both were careful to avoid mention of their past, sex of any kind, their previous loves, and to some extent their work.
Instead they focused on their interests and hobbies, art and music, discussed the great Art masters, talked about the flow of history, the great philosophers, male fashions, their tutors, the Queen and Royal family, their rooms, food...anything to avoid the elephant in the room.
Both Lawrence and James came to the point where they lighted up in smiles when they happened on each other in the hospital or on campus.
They became recognized on the campuses as friends, nearly a couple, platonic, cheerful, exchanging ideas and wants, family and weather.
That is, until the day James decided that enough was enough.
James' rooms smelled like Thanksgiving. He had cooked dinner in his rooms.
It was November, late November, and he had ordered cranberry sauce on Amazon, and driven to a local farm to get a small fresh turkey.
The farmer had offered to kill and dress it out, a gesture James accepted hastily. He assembled sage dressing to cook separately and made mashed potatoes from scratch. The scent of roasting turkey filled the room.
He had scrounged for a few sweet potatoes for which he planned a quick end, roast, mashed and twice baked with butter and brown sugar, arranged for some blanched, small slivers of haricot verts with sliced almonds on top and baked a pumpkin pie with a tin of pumpkin also obtained on Amazon, 'cheating' with a purchased crust.
Fragrant pie spices of nutmeg and cloves and ginger also scented his rooms. The whipped cream he made himself from cream he bought at a dairy and scented with peppermint.
Lawrence had agreed to come to dinner.
When Lawrence walked in the door, he fell to his knees.
The sight of Thanksgiving food and the smells of pumpkin pie overwhelmed him along with the knowledge that James had done this as a surprise for him.
When James came out of his bedroom, he had on an apron.
Only an apron.
His magnificent chest, a few hairs proudly curling, totally erect nipples, his firm, perky rounded ass, long splendid legs with proportional calves, the apron tented by a large, tubular organ that moved around freely when he walked...Lawrence was overwhelmed.
Lawrence began to cry and found a chair.
He looked up at James who also had tears in his eyes. James lifted him up, took him in his arms and kissed him.
"I've always loved you, Lawrence, and I always will. Can we try this again?"
They ate every bite in sight slowly, with deliberation, as if Thanksgiving wasn't coming next year.
James stood up and walked around to Lawrence, who ripped off his apron and asked James if there was another dessert planned.
Lawrence's clothes seemed to fly off; he took James' cock into his mouth turning to receive James' tongue in his ass and on his cock, saying what needed to be said; doing what both needed, wanted, both happy to be pleasuring the other...
"You are still my first and only man, James. I didn't ask you to avoid other guys. I have to tell you, you're the only guy for me. I want to come inside of you."
"I have a present for you; you know, the one that keeps on coming?"
James giggled. "I'm an experienced stud now, man. My ass is reserved for you from now on, however. I don't want anybody else ever again."
Near the last, Lawrence entered into his favorite place, the warm, wet, tight tunnel that contracted around his cock with each long, slow stroke. The cosmic, physical duet began then; James accepting the past hurts, Lawrence kissing them away, both sharing their physical and emotional affection. It was a start to rebuilding trust. Lawrence dug deep, and both came together once again.