Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,91
if that will make you feel more at ease.”
“Then please call me Niane. When will I get out of here?”
Niane was uncertain, but she guessed she had been on the locked psychiatric ward for about a month. Suicide precautions had been dropped. She had been weaned from her witch’s brew of medications and was now coasting along on a minor dose of Mellaril. Someone still seemed to think she needed medication of some sort. She didn’t know why.
“I’ve arranged for a sort of halfway house in the mountains,” said Dr Ashford. “It’s a sort of old resort hotel, nothing fancy, built in the 20s, and usually rented out to church groups. It’s quiet there, and I’ve already convinced a number of recovering addicts and other patients to spend the week there, sharing experiences, undergoing counseling, before taking the step back to the real world. I feel that this is an excellent therapy opportunity, and, in view of your excellent progress here, I consider you an excellent candidate. This is completely voluntary, of course. What do you say?”
“Excellent,” said Niane. She’d kill to get out of this prison.
“Excellent,” agreed Dr Ashford.
He was thirty-something, tall and very good looking, with wavy brown hair and neatly trimmed beard. Behind his faux tortoise-rimmed glasses, his eyes were a mild hazel. He wore a loose linen jacket, beige, no tie on a blue button-down collar shirt, and beige cotton Dockers with neat Reeboks. Niane guessed he drove a BMW. She guessed right.
“Can my roommate come along? She’s come to visit nearly every day. I don’t know how I’d have made it without her.”
“Close friends?”
“Very close.”
“Then I don’t see why not. Others are bringing family members. Perhaps she’d like to participate in group, or just take in the view.” Dr Ashford leaned forward in his chair. “I understand you’ve had two near-death experiences.”
“How did you know that?”
“From your charts, of course. After all, I am a consulting psychiatrist with full hospital privileges. It was by my advice that you weren’t given ECT—that shock treatment. Totally uncalled for.”
“Just get me out of here.”
“I’ll see to all the arrangements.”
It was a decaying 1920s resort hotel currently named The Brookstone Haven. Staff were minimal—this was off-season and the place had gone to seed. Sprawling pine logs and cement-chinked construction, bathrooms down the hall. Mountain stream flowing beneath double overhanging verandas. Stream-fed pool that no one would want to jump into even in summer. Just now it was spitting snow.
Niane thought of her mountain home in Campbell County.
Navonna was having a blast. She bounced up and down on their creaky bed. “Hey, we’re in a Boris Karloff movie, baby! Just send Bela Lugosi in for me. Man, it’s so good to see you out of that place and feeling better. We’re going to party here, honey. Then back to work at Kim’s Klub until we find something better. We’ll do it, girl!”
Navonna usually wore a wig and had a very short Afro, and that night Niane clung to her hair as best she could, driving Navonna’s mouth deep between her thighs. Once she had climaxed, she buried her face between Navonna’s legs, loving her frantically. The antique bed creaked and rattled awfully, and they were probably keeping whoever was next door awake, but neither cared. It had been a long time apart.
It was still spitting snow the next morning when Dr Ashford greeted them at breakfast. Scrambled eggs, country ham, red-eye gravy, grits. If you don’t want grits, why’d you order breakfast, as the saying goes.
There were Niane and Navonna, somewhat red-eyed as well. Dr Ashford and Dr Greenfeld, both looking cheerful. Niane hadn’t realized that Dr Greenfeld was a psychiatrist until several days after her dimly remembered overdose.
The coffee was good. It smelled like Navonna.
There were about a dozen others in the group, some of whom had brought along spouses or friends for support.
Darla King was a burnt-out punker, hostile attitude, who had recently nearly overdosed on smack. Dressed in black, hennaed hair, cute, looked ten years older than she was.
Nathan Morheim was here with his wife. A stroke had left him in a coma for weeks, and his mind had never really recovered. He was a pudgy old man with a happy smile.
Janet Dickson was a chronic schizophrenic, now maintained on Prolixin. When off her medication, she liked to slash her wrists—once nearly fatally. She looked like an aging diner waitress.