Hillary_Tail of the Dog by Angel Gelique Page A

stay in here with me?” Hillary asked, in a waif-like, frightened voice.
    “No, I—”
    “Please,” Hillary begged, “then he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”
    “I’ll be home now,” Monica said, “he wouldn’t dare—”
    “He touched me when you were home before.”
    “But now you’ve brought it to my attention and he knows that I’m aware of your allega—he knows I know what he did.”
    “What if he comes in here while you’re asleep?”
    “He wouldn’t take that chance now...I could wake up and find him in here.”
    “What if he sedated you like he sedates me?”
    “I would know.”
    “Maybe not, you might think it was a dream.”
    “I don’t think he’d go to such extreme measures,” Monica said.
    “Why can’t you just stay in here? There’s room for another bed.”
    “It’s not a good idea.”
    “What about a camera? A surveillance camera?”
    Not a bad idea , Monica thought to herself. She would remember to look into that.
    “You’ll be fine now Hillary...I’m staying in a room that’s closer to you now, and I’m a very light sleeper. If Dr. Morrison enters your room at night, you yell for me and I’ll be here in less than a minute.”
    “What if I’m asleep?”
    “When you wake up and see him here, yell for me.”
    “But what if he sedates me and—”
    “It’ll be fine,” Monica said abruptly, growing agitated by Hillary’s persistence. She picked up the lotion and finished moisturizing Hillary’s skin. Hillary was at last silent. She was content that at the very least, Monica seemed to finally believe her.
    “Goodnight,” Monica said when she was done. “I’ll see you in the morning. Call out for me if you need me.” Hillary didn’t reply. Monica gathered up the lotion, nail clippers, deodorant and body wash and shoved them in a small plastic tote. She picked up the small pail that was now partially full of brownish-tinged water and a dirty washcloth. She walked out of the room without looking back. Normally she would have headed for the bathroom to discard the water and put away the other items. Today, however, she walked straight down to the laundry room. There was something she needed to check.
    She turned on the light and walked past the pile of laundry that fell from a chute above. Fortunately, there was a sink in the laundry room. Monica placed the plastic tote down on the floor, poured the dirty water out of the pail and rinsed it with water. She rinsed the washcloth using a squirt of body wash. She knew that she would wash it again anyway—she was just stalling. She finally wrung it out and set it upon the sink. She slowly walked over to the pile of laundry on the right, only it wasn’t much of a pile. She was the one who had always handled the laundry. In her absence, the pile should have been overflowing. Instead, there were only a few changes of Dr. Morrison’s clothes. There were no sheets, no bedding within the pile.
    Monica felt nauseous as anxiety produced a sick feeling down in the pit of her stomach. Patrick Morrison was not one to do laundry and very seldom did so. It was a victory getting him to pick his clothes off the bedroom floor and throw them down the laundry chute, let alone wash them.
    Monica could count the number of times she had remembered him doing so on one hand—actually on just two fingers. Once when she was angry at him at a comment he made and she was teaching him a lesson, and the second time when she had the flu and was bedridden. That time, he had only done so because his “lucky” shirt was dirty and he was performing a new surgical procedure the next day in front of the Chief of Neurology from a specialized hospital he wanted to transfer to. That had been over four years ago. What urgency had compelled him to do laundry now, Monica wondered, but feared she knew the answer.
    Leaving the plastic tote, pail and washcloth behind, Monica hurried out of the laundry room and walked up to the linen closet. She held her breath