Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

It Never Washes Off

War Fighter Tunnels
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area
Western Germany
07 November, 1987
0900 Hours

I set down the log book on the table, leaning on the table and closing my eyes. Behind me Beach was getting dressed, her baby fussing slightly on the scale after being weighed and measured. The baby was healthy, a nine on the scales, with good lungs clear of fluid and a healthy appetite. Beach was doing well. Her incision was healing well at the top of her vaginal canal, she'd stopped passing large clots, and she was producing plenty of milk. No fever, no discoloration, no abnormal discharge.

God, pregnant and just delivered women were gross.

"Can I go lay down?" Beach asked.

"Yeah, sure," I told her, taking off the rubber gloves with a snap and pushing them under the sink. I stepped on the pedal, nudging the soap into my hands and then pushing my hands under the water.

Five of the women I had to check daily. I'd had my fingers in more pussy than I had ever before.

The smell of it wouldn't wash off my hands.

"You all right?" Sergeant Basset asked me as I turned around. She was pulling down the paper and tearing it off so that the examination table was covered in clean unused paper.

"Yeah, fine," I told her, reaching out for the rubber gloves. She dropped her pants and I pulled on gloves again. She dropped her panties too and jumped up to sit down on the table.

"You all right with sitting on that?" I asked her gently, moving up next to her.

She nodded, biting her lip. Tears shown in her eyes as she leaned back and I took her hand in mine, waiting for her breathing to steady. It took a few moments, but eventually the tears receded unshed and she stared at me.

"The Valium working?" I asked.

She nodded. "Dreams have eased up, but I've been having new ones."

"Not the rapes?" I asked gently. All of the surviving women of the Rear-D unit had been repeatedly raped over a long period and I'd been helping them deal with the trauma.

The fact that Special Weapons medical training covered rape trauma counseling was something I was glad for now.

"No," she shuddered and I watched goosebumps cover her exposed skin.

"Stillwater," I guessed. She nodded and I chuckled, "Yeah, I have them too."

"The way he killed those men?" She asked.

I just grinned at her, moving to the bottom of the table. "Honey, I'm the primary medical NCOIC for his work site. I've known him for over two years and have accompanied him on several combat missions," I lifted her feet into the stirrups, ignoring her sudden tenseness as her legs were spread open. "I've received counseling to deal with repeating nightmares centering around him," I knelt down, picking up the tube of lubrication and squirting it on my fingers, "He's a great person, an amazing friend, but he's the type that gives normal people nightmares."

She inhaled sharply as I spread open the lips of her vagina to examine the opening and internal lips. The bruising and swelling had faded.

"But no matter how bad it gets, no matter how terrible it is, he won't leave you behind, won't abandon you, and is fiercely loyal to his subordinates and friends," I told her.

Keep her talking about anything but this, I thought to myself.

She inhaled sharply when I slid a finger inside of her, checking her stitches from where I had repaired her vaginal canal once she admitted she had been bleeding steadily for several days.