Montega's Mistress Read Free

in her stepmother’s bathroom, looking for supplies. Adrienne was more into fifty dollar an ounce wrinkle cream than gauze bandages, but Helen did manage to find some peroxide and large sterile pads that would have to do until she was able to get out to a pharmacy. What she really needed was an antibiotic. Since Adrienne was something of a hypochondriac, with a coterie of doctors and no shortage of cash to command their attention, she had a separate glass cabinet stocked with little plastic vials of prescription medicines. Helen had never looked in it, but she did so now, passing over the many bottles she was unable to identify until she came to one labeled “erythrocin stearate.” She had taken that once herself for a strep throat, so she set it aside, hoping that its time of potency had not expired and that Matteo was not allergic to it. The date on the label was obscured, but there were ten tablets left, enough to help if he responded to it. Helen also found a half empty container of Percocet, with directions indicating that Adrienne had taken it for an abscessed tooth. It had to be a pretty powerful painkiller because her stepmother raised the roof if she got a hangnail. Helen put the two bottles in the pockets of her robe and rapidly replaced everything else, then went back to the vanity and assembled what she thought she would need to dress the wound.
    When she returned to Matteo’s bedside she tried to slip the sleeve off his injured arm, but he fought her hands, twisting away, seemingly slipping further into delirium. Taking an alternative tactic, Helen picked up a pair of shears and began to cut away the sodden material around the wound. But once she uncovered it she wished she hadn’t.
    It was a jagged mass of torn flesh, carbon stained and flayed raw, with the reddish streaks that indicated infection already radiating out from the bloody center. Helen stuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth, fingers busy, muttering a prayer under her breath. When she realized she was reciting the Girl Scout oath, she stopped short and began again, encouraged by the familiar words as she washed away the coagulated blood, splashed the gaping wound with antiseptic and covered it with sterile pads. She hadn’t been able to feel anything under the skin, and she could see the bullet had passed clean through the meat of his upper arm, exiting out the back. She finished by tearing ah old pillowcase into strips and tying them around the dressing to hold it in place, securing them just above Matteo’s bicep. Her handiwork, when complete, looked like a neat little package, but the patient did not seem improved.  
    He was still mumbling incoherently, his skin fiery, and she didn’t know how she was going to get him to take the pills in her pocket. Finally she crushed them up in a glass of water and forced the liquid down his throat a little at a time, tilting his head back and dribbling it between his lips. It was a tedious and exhausting process for both of them. When the glass was empty she didn’t feel like struggling with him any further, but she knew that the rest of his damp shirt had to come off. She peeled it from his body by inches, noticing the foreign label inside the collar. She also noticed that his torso was beautiful, the dusky skin flowing silkily over his well developed arms and chest. A spray of dark hair spread over his breast and formed a line down his abdomen to his belt. She paused to wipe his face, heavily beaded with perspiration, studying his long, spiky lashes, the heavy shadow of beard on his upper lip and chin. His thick, wavy hair was damp and matted, and she brushed it back from his forehead, wondering whether it was black or dark brown; in its current state it was impossible to tell. When she was finished she tidied the bed and got up to wash the instruments she had used. On her way out the bedroom door the telephone rang, and Helen glanced at the clock on the dresser as she went to answer it. The