Free Die Once Live Twice by Lawrence Dorr Page A

his letter from Katherine.
Dearest Patrick,
    I have been notified by the Department of the Army that I will be allowed to travel to you on an Army train, which will be well guarded. So soon we will be together. I can’t believe it is six months since we last embraced. I must tell you I ache for you. I can’t wait to be Mrs. Patrick Sullivan.
    Love, Katherine
    Patricia did not come around until evening. The moon was covered by clouds so the room was dark but for a few candles. She knew he had received mail that day and that he had been more proper with her recently. She wanted this man and now her passion and competitive spirit consumed her. She would make his desire rise for her.
    “I’m sorry I’m late tonight, Captain. Do you still want your bath?” She opened his mouth and put opium tincture on his tongue.
    “Yes Patricia, yes, I do.” Patricia chatted away for ten minutes, then began to wash him. She leaned down to scrub his arm so her perfumed hair, which she had let down tonight, crossed his face. She felt his chest heave as he inhaled her.
    His resolve was awash in opium.
    “Patricia,” he said quietly, gazing into her eyes, “I expect to accomplish great things.”
    She rubbed her soapy hand lower on his abdomen. “In business?”
    “Fie, business.” The opium was in full effect. “Pushing paper. Counting coins. Not yet.” She rubbed his nipples with her right hand while her left crossed down to his inner thigh. “In...war.” He was breathing more heavily.
    “I can feel the power in you. I’m sure you will be famous. You just need someone at your side, someone whose hand is always there—” and she moved her hand onto his penis, which instantly stiffened—“You are like a giant,” she whispered wetly into his ear.
    “A giant. Yes, that’s me.” He was trying to conceal his excitement from his roommates. He slid his hand under her apron and felt her breast through her bodice. Her touch was like a drug, better than the finest whiskey. Patricia stroked him faster and faster. Patrick pictured her without clothes and between his legs, but uttered not a sound to betray her. It was over quickly. “Thank you so much,” he whispered hoarsely afterward. “I haven’t had a woman touch me since I left home.”
    “Soon we’ll figure out how to have the full measure,” she whispered in his ear as she pushed the basin under the bed and walked away. In the dark, one of the other men gasped twice.
    “Ah, Miller,” Abel said, “I see you’ve become engaged to Mistress Hand.” He sniggered a bit and then said, “Captain! Who you think has softer hands—Miller over there or Nurse O’Reilly?”
    “I wouldn’t know, Abel,” Patrick murmured. “I just couldn’t say.”

    A week later, Doctor Franklin stopped at Patrick’s bedside and inspected Patrick’s leg. “Nurse O’Reilly said you’d closed the wound in nicely and there is no longer a hole to pack.”
    “Doctor, you’ve got to tell me the honest truth,” Patrick said in his officer’s voice. Franklin raised one eyebrow but said nothing. “Will I be a cripple?”
    Franklin pursed his lips. “Captain, your leg...The bones are healing, but I suspect they have not aligned perfectly.”
    Patrick waited, but the doctor said nothing more. “But I’ll be able to walk, won’t I? Ride a horse? I’ll be able to resume my command, won’t I?”
    “That is not up to me. Your commanding officer will make that decision. All I can tell you is that, at six weeks after your injury, your leg is healing as well as can be expected and you can be moved from this hospital. Tomorrow I am sending you to the Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington.”
    Patrick felt a moment of panic. He was not going home. “I want to go home to Philadelphia to recover, Doc.”
    “I know that. Nurse O’Reilly told me. But she is being transferred to Washington and she wants to oversee your recovery.”
    “Oh.” He suddenly felt uncomfortable. In Philadelphia he