Misted Facets
Chapter 1: Mystery and Mist
It’s been a slow day, which should have me feeling happy but instead just leaves me feeling bored. Nothing has been all that exciting since I met that girl anyway. I still wish I’d gotten a chance to see the real color of her eyes, or find out more than just her first name. After she left, Gale seemed like she was keeping something from me, but I can’t be sure.
I want to name the condition after her, but Sarah’s right atrial supervacaneous valvae just doesn’t sound right. Naming a condition like that after a first name would be like naming Typhoid Mary’s Fever!
If that happened I don’t think that the name Mary would be as prevalent as it has been!
I step over to the computer in my office and start to click through my most recent patients. The Midas Touch was the first hospital built in all of Midas City. All of its architecture is the same as when it was first built, and while the technology has advanced, we’re not a priority.
Every time I look over the old UNIX based system we run all of our programs on I worry back to when I first came to Midas three years ago. Vicky always told me not to fret about the past, but sometimes it’s all I can do.
Losing Vicky made it a lot harder not to think about the past . . .
Fractures, influenza, vaccinations . . . All of my patients for the last nine months have done nothing but . . . bore me. It makes me feel so guilty. I became a doctor to heal the sick and the wounded. Countless professors I had along the way to becoming a doctor tried to sway me to research instead of healing, and I turned them all down. One pretty black haired woman shouldn’t make me completely reconsider my life.
“Doctor Raine!” Gale’s voice breaks my focus better than anything else ever has. When the most experienced nurse in my hospital runs into my office, I know it’s serious. “A girl just came in, she was in some kind of wreck . . . I can’t explain it. We’re trying to treat her wounds but . . . she’s not . . . Come on, you’re the best we’ve got, hurry your contemplative ass up!”
“After you!” I lock my computer and run after her. When I was a resident it was in interventional cardiology, but since, I’ve done everything from pulling glass shards out of tracheas to delivering conjoined twins.
Midas City is expansive, full of all sorts of wonders. Some people call it the city of a thousand heroes. I hate how people put so much focus on those super powered vigilantes, and not on the ones who keep them alive. There are a few out there worth caring about, but in the end, most are just glorified parodies of heroics and wouldn’t be alive without the help of a good medical staff.
“Doctor, keep your mind on the moment!” She didn’t even look back, but Gale knew I was lost somewhere in my own head again. If I’m predictable, then Gale is intuitive—something that has been invaluable with all of the strange situations we wind up in.
I’m not a member of the ER staff, but we’re sorely understaffed. Three of our best doctors got pregnant, and we haven’t been able to get replacements. Double shifts does not begin to cover it.
When Gale’s brown hair disappears behind a quickly shutting door, it’s only a moment before I slam through the same door. The patient looks to be in her mid twenties, Caucasian, and she literally looks like she fell through an airplane.
“Gale, gloves, cap, mask, now!” Our patient is bruised, battered, and covered with lacerations. Every time I’ve seen someone like this, they already looked dead. This woman looks like she’s actually fighting to stay alive. I can’t imagine what she went through, but she’s still got the will to live, and if I have anything to say about it, she’ll be up on her feet in no time.
Somehow, even though it’s erratic, her heart monitor looks . . . standard. It’s like a broken record—it plays the right notes crystal clear but then it jumps for that moment and starts right back over again.
The shrapnel sticking out of the patient, glass, metal, and maybe some of it is plastic . . . The pattern seems so random but the bruising screams that whatever happened to her was brutal. “All right Gale, we’re going to need to get all of this out of her, probably dig out some internal shrapnel, and suture her wounds as quick as we can as well as treat any internal bleeding and . . . Do you have any idea why her vitals are looking like that?”
“You’re the cardiologist! The readings scream something artificial is in there tocking with her ticker. I’d say a pacemaker, but that doesn’t seem right.” Whenever I run into something new, Gale somehow always has an answer. She might be the nurse, but I would never underestimate her for it.
“Well . . . there’s only one way to find out. Scalpel, forceps . . . miracle.” The worst thing that could happen to our patient already has, at this point it’s not a matter of helping her or failing her—it’s a matter of making sure it’s not the last thing that ever happens to her.
“That, was a lot of blood.” Gale smiles as we both wash up, and our relief takes over the post-crisis care. “I know I’m always yelling at you Val, but it’s only because whenever I do you pull through with flying colors. I’d hate to jinx you.”
Even through gloves my hands feel caked in blood, and the hottest water the hospital has feels like saline. “I appreciate it Gale, you know that. She made it, but not because of us. She only made it because . . .”
“—Because of whoever did that to her?”
“Yes.” The image hasn’t left my head for a moment. Her heart was cybernetically augmented. The only other word I can think of to describe it is . . . roboticized. The thought shouldn’t send shudders through my body but it does. The valves of her heart were all enhanced. There was a pacemaker among the augmentations, but it was a side note. The only things in her heart that were still made of living tissue were the parts that needed to be the most dexterous, and even they seemed somehow upgraded.
I’ve written papers on my own theories for cybernetic augmentation, and seeing her heart felt like looking at 3-d models of some of those concepts. Whoever did that to her had to be well beyond the level of medical science I’ve heard of being in prototype stages.
Even if the rest of her body were dead, her heart would still have been beating succinctly with perfect clockwork precision. Her heart would be unaffected by adverse weight, stress, and it could probably be modulated to accommodate for blood conditions.
Saying that I would want that heart in my own chest or that I would love to study it would be an understatement. Saying that it turns me on would be a touch too close to frightening honesty.
“Well, it wasn’t perfect. It did need a little bit of a kick. I’ve just never seen a heart take so much of a beating, and then be so easily fixed, and I have seen miracles happen.” Hearing Gale mystified is a rare occurrence, and it’s not one I feel comfortable with.
“Yeah, me neither. You know, right before that woman came in here, all I could think about was that since I found that woman—Sarah—with the broken heart nothing’s been as thrilling. Maybe I should stop tempting fate—it’s not fair to my patients!” We share a laugh, but I know Gale can tell that my laugh is only half sincere. A robot heart—it just shouldn’t be possible. I wanted to take more time to examine it, but even the lingering time I took with it as it was put her life in jeopardy and if she’d died because of my harmless little fetish then I would never forgive myself.
When Doctor McFadden left The Midas Touch she told me that Gale was the most valuable resource she’d ever had, and that while she knew other doctors and their patients made use of her, Gale had always felt like her nurse. If I left right now, I would tell my replacement the same thing.
Rolling her gray eyes, my nurse wraps an arm around me and stares into my eyes in the mirror. “Come on doctor, you need to relax. It won’t kill your liver or your heart to take a little bit of time and red wine down the hatch.”
“Thanks, but no thanks Gale. You know me better than that.” We share a purposeful grin before she pulls away, and though the water might not have felt hot enough my hands feel infinitely cleaner. “I want to go and read up on the most up to date information I can find on prosthetic heart technology and just prosthetic organs in general. This woman is important, there’s no way she was just some throw away . . . It’s not my place to find out what happened, but if I’m going to treat her it’s my business to know what I should do next.”
“Suit yourself, but I’m going to go and indulge in some healthy moderation. Even the fine ladies and gentlemen of the American Heart Association won’t fault me for that. I’ll be back as soon as my BAC isn’t m-a-l!” She might be in her forties, but you’d never know it to look at her. If we didn’t work together, sometimes I think . . .
But we do work together, and she’s the best nurse I’ve ever even heard of. Every time I’ve doubted her I’ve wound up embarrassed, and I swear any wounds I have her treat end up healing in record time. She attributes that to my skills and knowledge, but no other doctor has ever reported less out of her.
As she walks off, all I can do is wave and smile, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else. She needs a break. A break is the last thing on my mind. What I want, are answers.
I pull my laptop out of my bag and hook it into the network before clicking it on, just to minimize any roadblocks. I don’t know why the hospital even bothers to have a high speed internet connection when their computers could barely handle dial-up. Besides, if I can find some high quality JPEGs of the heart I just operated on, that would be amazing.
After the familiar chime of my operating system booting up goes away, I open up Firefox and proceed to open two tabs at once. One of them is a link to my theories on my personal server, and the other . . . one that I shouldn’t be opening at work.
I type in my password and start to skim through the theories, but the other tab keeps begging for my attention, and with the positioning of my desk I know I can get away with it. Besides, being caught looking at that with a hand between my legs might get me off before I lost my job.
And if it really came down to that, well . . . I hate doing it but . . . a little mist can go a long way in a tight pinch.
Giving into temptation I click over and stare at the words, a story I’ve read a million times but it never loses its strength. A story about a strong willed doctor who winds up as an experiment, being filled with wires, metal, strapped down to a cool, metal operating table, being turned from woman to helplessly obedient machine . . .
Just the description makes me drenched and misting. Arousal always makes me mist, just a little . . . Vicky told me once that it makes my eyes glow, and I’ve never seen it, but I definitely believe her.
The descriptions of the apparatus that conditioned her have always made me feel so misty and slick, and that mist when it forms between my thighs always makes me feel more slack and sweet . . . Over her face was a sort of mask, filling her nose with conditioning drugs, and filling her eyes with her only thoughts of the future, to obey, to be commanded, to be a good slick little machine.
All that flashes in front of her eyes are colors, symbols, letters and numbers . . . but to the machinery inside of her, they are orders, programs, drivers to control every part of her body and mind. Just like a computer being upgraded to a new operating system, her mind’s control is usurped by her controller.
The controller isn’t a person, it’s a computer. All the computer desires is her obedience, her openness, her helplessness, and it is all she is capable of giving with all that’s been installed inside of her. Every small part of her body is mechanized, and linking the woman’s libido with the idea of servitude made her mind all the more ready to jump through any hoops her new owner desired.
Every process that ran in the background of her mind was the strongest of sexual thrills. Every new driver that was installed to make her more compliant and subjugated was a new fetish. Every little suggestion . . . it was beyond physical pleasure.
The control stimulated the part of her mind that felt pleasure, and filled her memory with so many ones and zeroes that there was no room for her personal troubles or worries. There was no room for the past. Every command was the most important thing in her life. Moving one leg forward to move closer to the computer so she could program it with her medical knowledge was beyond any pleasure in itself . . .
I would give so much just to feel that for one minute, to feel, to feel, to feel . . .
“Doctor Raine?” Doctor Combs, a woman who joined The Midas Touch right when I did is standing just inches away from me. She can see my hand under the waistline of my pants, and my fingers still moving from the last of what I read.
Laying awake in bed, just about ready to fall asleep, I can recite any part of that story from memory. I can recite each new level of sensations the woman went through. Each time that she went deeper, every time a new system of her body was tested and changed. Each of those thoughts only pushes me closer and closer to the edge, and misty fingers are barely needed to reach that peak.
Kelly Combs . . . is a very sweet woman, but her understanding can’t possibly stretch far enough to make what I’m doing look good. At least she can’t see what I’m reading, but that is the smallest of blessings. She’s staring at me like a deer in the headlights, but it only makes me feel better.
“Doctor Raine . . .!” I can’t lose everything now, not now. There’s a patient in the ICU who can link me to my greatest fantasy, and The Midas Touch is more my life than anything outside of it. Taking this position was half to deny the temptations of what I need to do, but I need to do it.
“Kelly . . .” I stand up, and close my laptop with the already exposed hand. “I know what this looks like, but we’ve all been working really, really hard. That can make someone prone to lapses in judgment, and lapses in perception. There was an itch that needed scratching, that’s all . . .” Slowly moving towards her, my hidden hand starts to mist more and more, which does make my knees shake, and that dampness even worse . . . and probably my eyes glow . . . but the confusion should trap her.
Confusion, curiosity, cravings, all of them are things that can override a human’s good sense. I think that the only reason this situation is happening is a good amount of all three. “Valerie . . .! Yes, over working can lead to all of that, but you’re masturbating at your desk, and why are you . . . I just wanted to know what you thought about the Jane Doe you worked on earlier, that’s all . . .”
Nodding, my free hand covers the other with my lab coat just enough to obscure it. Timing is key. Every last little movement needs to be precise. “It was interesting. I was doing some research.”
My voice can’t quiver. If it does, she’ll know something is wrong. If she knows that she might scream. “Research . . .? You know I respect you, and that I . . . understand you’re not the most normal doctor in the world, purple hair, eyes glowing all the time, wouldn’t leave the hospital if nobody forced you . . . but . . . you’re masturbating. I can over look this, if you just . . . get back to work . . .?”
“Sure.” My smile disarms her, and that’s all I need. No body ever expects a doctor to be swift and agile, especially not to be hiding a surprise in her pants. As soon as I’m right in front of her I pull my hand out from my lower lips and clasp it over her nose and mouth in one swift gesture.
Her muffled voice, and muted screams just make her need to breathe in deeper, which is just what I need her to do. Breathe deep, Kelly. Take in my mist.
The insides of her eyes start to swirl with violet, filling her eyes, smoothing over them, glazing and widening those pretty black pupils over her hazel irises. There’s no rational scientific explanation for what I can do—and no doctor has ever been able to puzzle out just how it works. My mist doesn’t need to be inhaled, but it makes it so much stronger.
Right now her lungs are taking as deep of panicked breaths as they can, and the struggle of her arms to tear my hand away is only making that worse. The more she struggles, the more my mist slides in, and the less she can struggle. Her muscles are slowly being soothed, not paralyzed as much as sedated, and as if her mind was a muscle, it will be doing much the same thing and when it does, her pupils will fill with that mist.
Every time I do this it gives me such a deep, sick thrill. This woman’s will is in my hands. If I keep this up, it might neutralize all cerebral activity. I might be able to make her into my robot, and reprogram her to shudder and whine with each step of obedience . . .
Her body slouches, and I have to reach out to hold her soft, warm body against me. Her eyes are hooded, her face relaxed, and she looks like she could be asleep with her eyes open. Her breathing slows, and she looks so docile, so gorgeous.
Every time I do this it’s harder to convince myself I shouldn’t do it again.
“Doctor Combs . . . Kelly . . . You don’t want to get anyone in trouble over this, do you . . .?” The scent of just where my fingers were playing only enhances the feeling, I’ve drifted off from just suckling and inhaling the scent from my own fingers before . . . explaining that even to myself was a bit difficult.
“N . . . no . . .” Her voice sounds like its being beckoned rather than she’s expelling it, and that only makes the mist flow easier from my fingers after they pull back from obscuring her mouth. It still flows right up into her nose, and from there around her mind, so that’s all that matters. “Don’t . . . want anything like that . . .” As my finger traces over her lips for just a moment she tries to suckle, but her lips just don’t work like that right now.
If they did, I’d need to lean her against my desk anyway, or put her in my chair, which is too tempting an idea anyway. “You had a little daydream, you’ve been working too hard, and you’ve heard the rumors, that’s all . . . You snapped out of it, we talked, and you went on with your day, isn’t that right . . .?”
“Day . . .” The very middle of her pupils start to turn purple, and then the mist unfurls, coiling around, and shrouding all of her eyes so gorgeously. “Went about my day . . . Been thinking about Doctor Raine too much . . . the rumors . . . dreams at night . . . curiosity about those glowy eyes . . .”
What the rumors actually consist of, I have absolutely no idea. It would be unreasonable to be strange as I am without any rumors circulating. Especially when this isn’t the first time I’ve ever done this. “All you need now is just a kiss, a sweet little kiss from the woman you had a naughty daydream about . . .”
“Yesss . . .” Coming this far and then stopping without a little indulgence just somehow seems wrong. If I’m going to use my mist for more than a playful touch, I may as well enjoy myself.
The guilt will make up for it later, and that thought makes it impossible not to smirk.
Our lips melt into each other and the moan flows through both of us as the mist fully envelops her, wrapping around and through her. In this perfect moment, I can feel the single track I’ve railed her mind to, the openness, and the vulnerability that is her mind. I can feel how each small part of her is only filled with craving and desire for this kiss, a need to live out dreams she has been having . . . dreams of me . . . She’s a gorgeous woman, lovely blonde hair, and she looks so good in scrubs, but . . .
They’re just dreams, and Kelly is a married woman . . . Slowly I break the kiss, and limp as she is I know I have to set her in the chair in front of my desk till she comes to. It’ll take awhile, but long enough for me to finish the orgasm she’s driven me right to the edge of.
Yellow hair, hazel eyes, tan skin . . . does she have tan lines . . .?
No, I just can’t go down that route no matter how tempting it is. I’m a healer, a healer who uses questionable methods to protect her less than lovely habits, but even still that’s not too bad. Self preservation when no one remembers being hurt is okay compared to what I could be using these powers for. With all of the media attention that Chronos received, I have to be extra careful to make sure no one even knows I could use my abilities like this.
As much as I would like to just spread my legs and make my violet mist pull her in like scent in a cartoon, even using it this much has me as afraid as I am aroused. If Gale walked in, I don’t know if I could do this to her, and if she told anyone I don’t know what would happen.
The thought of tearing open Gale’s clothes while Kelly was helplessly trapped flicking her tongue between my legs makes me clench and mewl, but I can’t do that. No, I can’t turn The Midas Touch into one huge orgy. It wouldn’t be right, but oh goddess would it be so damned hot!