As part of their training, the student nurses had to shadow older, seasoned nurses as they worked their shift at the hospital. Betty liked it. It was real. She was thorough and capable and listened to all her guides’ suggestions. She admired the older nurses and hoped to be independent like them some day. She didn’t want to fail them.
Betty was a night owl so she chose to work the overnight shift. Unlike her other job at Razzles, after dark the hospital was calming and quiet. She liked her role as a nurse. People still wanted her, and she cared for them in a different way. There was a line of respect that people wouldn't cross and for the most part, patients appreciated her being at their bedside. She didn’t mind that her work in the ward took away time from Razzles. But she was realistic. She didn’t get paid for her internship and she still had to save her family.
Aware of her father's repeated admissions to the hospital, Betty would check up on him during her breaks. She would peek in on him, and if he was unconscious, she'd slip in to watch him sleep. His familiar snoring was an assurance that some things about the man who loved and raised her never changed.
One night while Betty was standing at the foot of his bed, her fathers eyes popped open and looked right into hers. The hairs on her neck stood on end. Reflexively, she pivoted to another part of the small room and feigned a supply check.
Randall called out to her, "Nurse. Can you get me another pillow?"
Betty avoided eye contact and disguised her voice to reply. "Of course. Would you like it under you head, or your back, or your knees…"
"Under my head. My fat head is smashing these other ones down like flap jacks."
She laughed, fetched a pillow and walked the long way around the bed hiding her face as she maneuvered. "I see. Well, turn your head away from me and I will tuck it under for you."
He complied and she moved in close to position the pillow. Her heart was pounding. "Can you lift your head a smidge so I can get in there?"
He complied.
She was so close. His scent was so familiar. She thought of all his hugs and times she rode on his shoulders. She remembered all the times he came to her to fight off terrible imagined monsters under her bed and how he would read her bedtime stories until he fell asleep next to her.
She wanted to kiss him, but resisted the temptation. She placed the pillow then turned and headed for the door.
"Thanks. What’s your name?” he asked.
She said the first name that popped in her mind. Her voice cracked, "Madge."
"What do you know? That’s my wife’s name. Small world, huh?"
Betty exited without responding. Normally she was adept at divorcing her feelings from her actions, but she couldn't keep up the act that time. It was too real. She ran to the nearest washroom and cried in the stall. She used to be better at separating her life from her lies. Lying was hard when the truth was so important.
Day by day she saw the men of Razzles for what they really were; monsters on top of beds. She despised them. Her customer’s appetites expanded. Betty changed too. She couldn’t think of a definitive moment when it happened but she felt a difference. She stopped enjoying sex.
On the surface Betty was soft, smooth and warm and gentle. She was sweet scented and caressed with loving lips. But inside she had turned to stone. She suffered while her clients moaned in ecstasy. She had become the consummate actress. When her clients mounted her, she wanted to shrink back into the bed and disappear into her own selfish fantasies.
In her fantasy she wanted them all dead. She cleverly took all she learned from her intimate studies of the Silver Spoons and turned it against them. She imagined invading their mansions during private galas. She would create the perfect disguise and blend into the necklace and tiara crowd undetected. Since she knew all of the host weaknesses. She would lure them away from the crowd and coax the location and combination of a hidden safe, waiting to be cracked, out of them. She would tie them up, rob them and burn the mansion to the ground. Then warm her body in the glow of the flames.
The Spoons had it too easy. Betty wanted to hurt them, to make them squirm. Better yet, she wanted to punish, no, destroy them! She imagined murdering those monsters every night. She learned how frail the human body was in school. She could apply her knowledge in a way her instructors never expected. She could avenge everyone they had wronged.
While working at the hospital one night, Betty went to check on her father like she had done twenty or so times before. It was the highlight of her day. The desk nurse in his ward stood and filled out paperwork on a clipboard. She ignored the young woman as she happily strolled down the corridor.
Betty turned to find that his room was empty. His bed was made. The space was cleaned and ready for a new patient.
Innocently, Betty asked the desk nurse. "Where did they move the guy from room 113?"