Somebody Up There Hates You Read Online Free PDF Page A

résumé—to know: I only like Edward to give me my shower. And, yes, he’s gay. (No, he never told me this—it’s just pretty obvious.) So what does that mean? I could worry, I suppose, about this showering preference, but I don’t. Because I know exactly where it comes from.
    See, back in one of the other hospitals when I was about fifteen, I got bed-bathed once by the prettiest nurse on the onco-surgo floor. One of the 18 percent of non-fat nurses. Young. Cute little freckles on her nose and a body that strained against that polyester uniform material in all the right places. And she was sweet. Anybody can guess where this is leading, for sure. Humiliation nation, that’s where. Seems a bit funny, now. Seemed like absolute end-of-the-world then. Anyway, I’m lying on my back, tied down by IVs and chest drains and all kinds of hospital bondage devices, and there she is, running a warm soapy washcloth over my feet and calves. And she’s just chattering away like they do to keep you from being embarrassed—telling me some silly story about her best friend’s baby shower where there was the cutest set of onesies and the most adorable teddy bear. And her hair is kind of honey-brown, long and curly, and she keeps having to push a strand behind one ear. (“Why don’t nurses wear caps anymore?” my mom asked once, pointing at all that gorgeous hair. “Isn’t that unsanitary?” Who cares? I thought. I crave her bacteria.) Now usually, the nurses stop the washcloth just above the knees or so and ask if you want to wash your own private parts—or they just ignore that whole area. But this is one thorough bather. Some head nurse has told her to wash me up, and by jiminy, this girl is going to wash, bless her.
    So she keeps on chatting—“there were the sweetest bouncy seats and little blue blankets,” blah de blah—and that washcloth is climbing up my thighs like a warm tongue. Or what I imagine one of those would feel like—imagination being all I’ve got to go on. And, of course, I get a boner like the Washington Monument, and that stops the nurse flat. She can’t help but let out one totally unprofessional giggle and a nicely complimentary (I like to think) “Whoa there!” And then she steps back, puts the washcloth very gently into my hand, and she says, soft as she can, eyes down on the floor, trying not to smile, you can tell, “Well then, Richard. Tell you what. I think I’ll leave you to finish up here alone.” She closes the bed curtains really tight behind her as she flees my little hormonally charged tent. “You just ring when you’re done.”
    Well, what are you going to do? I’ll tell you what I wanted to do. I wanted to beg and plead and bribe her to come back. I wanted to ring the emergency buzzer and force her to come back. I wanted her to understand that this was a medical emergency, by all that’s holy. Take care of me, nurse, please.
    But, no. Wasn’t going to happen, I knew that. So I did what she told me. I finished up alone.
    So now I try to avoid all such incidents. Although I don’t even know, really, how well ole Bingo works anymore. I mean, I was relatively strong, even post-op, at fifteen. Now, at the advanced age of seventeen-going-on-eighteen, I’m a mere ghost of my former horny self. Still, I think it’s wise to only let guy nurses bathe me. It’s better, all around. And Edward is usually the only guy on mornings. But that’s cool, because he’s about 6'4" and probably goes close to three hundred pounds: another strong one. And he’s fast and gentle and he doesn’t chatter at you. Gives a nice efficient, no-fuss shower.
    Anyway, I’ll skip the stupid problems of even getting into the shower when you’re all weak and wobbly and the horrors of sitting your bare ass on one of those little white plastic bathing stools where your