Bloody Hands

part 2

                Stopping at the empty nurse’s office, she rinsed and then bandaged her pinky before leaving school.

                Brad was a manager at an upscale furniture store and was blessed with a dependable staff that worked for him.  He was able to take nearly every weekend off and not be bothered with calls from work.  The assistant manager was competent and could practically run the place as well as Brad.  She was an intelligent blond with legs that went on forever but Stephanie could care less.  Brad was faithful and the assistant manager let him have his weekends off.

                Stephanie came home a solid three hours before Brad, giving her time to shower and change.  The scratches stung in the shower which brought back intense, unpleasant memories of the itching on her pinky back that occurred in the classroom.  Shuddering, she closed her eyes and pushed the thought away.  Why should something as simple as an itch bring such an extreme feeling of revulsion?  Stephanie had suffered chicken pox as a teenager and a bought with poison ivy just last year.  It had been irritating and uncomfortable but that was all.  The feeling of extreme dread had not been present with them as it was now for the simple itch on her pinky.  “Doesn’t matter,” Stephanie spoke, looking into the mirror that Brad had hung in the shower for shaving.  “It’s over now.”  With that, she finished washing up and left the shower to dress.

                By six o’clock, Brad was home with two grease spotted bags of aromic and delicious Chinese food.   Stephanie listened patiently while Brad went on and on about the dull happenings of his day.  She then went through a brief description of her own.  She didn’t linger on details.  Having drudged through her day once had been enough.   She mentioned the “shit” and his adventures in hair pulling and another suspension.  Then, in passing, she told of her itching episode.  What should have been laughable still resembled a recollection from hell.  An involuntary tremble crept across her shoulders as she completed her tale.

                “Should you see a doctor about it?” Brad had asked.

                Clearly Stephanie had been unsuccessful at underplaying the incident when she saw the worry in Brad’s face.  The last thing she wanted to do was to go to a doctor.  More than anything, she just wanted to put the terrible incident behind her.

                “No, no, it is okay.  I’m fine now, really.”

                That was that.  The paper plates were thrown away after the meal and a night of movies and cuddling followed.  That was Friday.

Saturday, Brad had wanted to go out and do something.  But every suggestion, which included the movies and a walk in the park, had all been quickly turned down by Stephanie.  Reluctantly, Brad then suggested renting a movie and bringing home Italian food.  That option was happily agreed upon.  The day had gone well.  Stephanie had not thought of the terrible itching incident at all that day.  Everything was perfect until the phone call.

                At 10:30 that night, the phone rang.  Blondie with the long legs needed Brad to come down to the store right away.  Apparently, a pipe had burst and two of the three bathrooms and half of the back store room were two inches beneath water.  Brad apologized and quickly rushed out the door to the furniture store.  Stephanie sat quietly, refusing to say “goodbye” or even “drive safely” as was her custom when he was leaving the house.  She would not clean up the mess left from the Italian food.  “Let that garbage sit and if it attracts ants; that will be more for him to clean up!” she shouted at the empty living room.  Quietly she sat on the couch and quietly she became angrier and angrier.  He would never actually cheat…would he?  Stephanie looked down at her body.  She was about twenty pounds over- weight and the pajamas she wore were thick and shapeless.  It could have been a chubby boy under all that if someone hadn’t known better.  “No,” she muttered to herself.  “He wouldn’t dare.”

                Then, with the abruptness of being set on fire, the itching returned.  This time it was her entire right hand that was afflicted.  She gasped and for a moment, could only stare at her hand in mute horror.  Aside from the bandaged right pinky, her hand looked completely normal.  What the hell?!  The itching twisted and ate deep into the flesh.  It was excruciating.  That was when she screamed.  She clawed at her skin.  Almost immediately, drawing blood.  She could feel bits of her own skin underneath her fingernails.  Still, it brought no relief!  This was ridiculous; the scratching simply wasn’t working.  Jumping up from the couch, she ran to the bathroom.  Bottles of aspirin, cough syrup and saline solution for Brad’s contact lenses were all thrown to the floor as she searched through the medicine cabinet.  They bounced and rattled but none of this mattered to Stephanie.  Then she found what she had been looking for.  Folded in the back of the medicine cabinet, still half full, was a bottle of prescription strength hydrocortisone cream.  She had bought it when she had gotten poison ivy the previous year. 

                “Poison ivy,” she laughed, in a voice laced with hysteria,” that was a cake walk!”

                Not bothering to clean off the blood, she squeezed a fair amount of the cream all over her hand.  Tears spilled from her eyes as the intensity of the itching eased slightly.  It was still there.  It was still burrowing through the entirety of her right hand but at least the edge had been taken off.  She closed her eyes and welcomed sleep when it came.  Any time away from this new and terrible hell was a relief.