Beverley, Helga, Sadie, Justine
‘I'm old school,’ Helga said, lighting up a cigarette in the staff waiting room. 'Nitrous gets me, every time.'
‘Okay,’ Justine said, sitting back in the comfy chair and crossing her legs. Helga sat back, blowing a smoke ring at the ceiling. Justine was a shorter, more stocky Afro-British woman with hair styled in cornrow braids and sparkling dark eyes, vaguely reminiscent of that woman presenter on Channel Four.
‘Have you tried it, Sadie?’ asked Helga. Across from her, seated on Justine’s right, sat Sadie, a sultry, olive – skinned brunette with shoulder length black hair and a graceful oval face.
‘I hear it's an interesting experience,’ Sadie said. ‘I always wanted to try it out.’
‘It's fun,’ Justine said.
‘You know they're stopping use of gas in dentists' practices soon,’ Beverley said. She was sitting the furthest from the group. Beverley was fair skinned, red haired and almost as tall as Helga.
‘What?’
‘Yeah,’ Beverley said. ‘Dr Tilley says it's going to be banned soon. So no more little bottles of fun and late night giggles.’
‘Can they do that?’ asked Sadie, mildly surprised.
‘He says they're rushing the legislation through,’ Beverley said. ‘Something about a string of deaths this year and back in 2001, last year. It's bad. Unqualified staff, patients having bad reactions to the gas.’
‘I had no idea of that,’ Justine said ...
As the nurses sat in the staff room, Dr Tilley was already busy outside. The corridor was dark, the waiting room well lit, so they could not see Dr Tilley through the frosted glass pane of the closed waiting room door.
They couldn’t see that he was naked, and carrying a couple of bottles of gas with him, along with a medical bag.
Dr Tilley lay bottles and bag down in the corridor, as he’d practised. The gas feed from both bottles were connected to a mixer wheel, which controlled the flow of the mixed gas: each bottle had its own flow, preset to the strength Dr Tilley had established as the most efficient ratio of Batch 19 : N2O to induce rapid onset of euphoria and hilarity, followed by equally rapid anaesthesia after a short, but deliciously happy, interval.
The feed hose from the mixer tap ended in a medical anaesthetic mask. Dr Tilley placed the mask over a large keyhole in the doorway before taking out a gas mask. Among other little touches he’d prepared, Dr Tilley had spent good money making the room as airtight as possible, and fitted a special trick lock to the door, which would lock at the touch of a remote control, overriding any key placed in the lock. The old fashioned keyhole was a fake, installed simply so that Dr Tilley could have a vent to feed the hose into.
He’d practised doing this so many times; now, with his new Batch 19, he was ready to begin testing. And his test subjects were these four women ...
The gas cylinders were ready; the feed was in place; the door was locked. Dr Tilley paused, ready to turn on the gas and show the nurses what anaesthesia truly felt like.
Helga got up, crossed the room to go for the tea things. She stood leaning against the sink unit, waiting for the kettle to boil, facing the door. Dr Tilley froze, praying the shadows in the corridor would conceal him.
After a moment, he heard the sound of the kettle boiling. Helga turned, began to get the tea ready, her back turned away from the door.
Dr Tilley breathed a sigh of relief, but he didn’t move until Helga’d returned to her seat. If any of them got up and wanted to come to the door ... if any of them needed the toilet, came to the door and tried it ... even if they managed to open the door, how could he explain what he was doing naked in the corridor, with two bottles of gas and a feed into the room?
Dr Tilley’s heart was pounding, as much from excitement and the thrill of being caught as from the fear of prosecution. Finally, Helga took her seat, and the nurses resumed their chat.
Presently, Dr Tilley watched Beverley lean down, take something out of her bag. A cigarette and a lighter. Through the ribbed glass of the door pane, he could see her light up, lean back in the chair and smoke the cigarette.
After a while, Beverley put out the cigarette; the moment, Dr Tilley realised, was upon him. Slowly, gently, he turned on the little silver mixer tap that connected both cylinders. A mixture of nitrous oxide and Batch 19 streamed through the feed, through the fake keyhole and into the room.
Hissssss ...
Dr Tilley crouched low over the bottles, checking the mix was correct. The gas, filling the room slowly, had yet to reach the nurses. It would, in time.
Hissssss ...
He stood up, now, still concealed in the shadows of the corridor, and waited. Any minute now, the gas entering the room would be filling their lungs, growing stronger with each passing second, with every breath they took.
Hissssss ...
* * *
Justine was closest to the door, so she began to feel the effects first.
‘Is it me,’ she said, ‘or does this room get really stuffy when someone’s been smoking in here?’ She smiled, despite herself. For some reason, all she wanted to do was laugh. She had no idea why. Justine didn’t like smoking.
‘You know I hate the smell of smoke,’ she said, grinning. ‘I wish you guys wouldn’t,’ she said to Helga and Beverley. ‘It’s a filthy habit -’ she said, the words ending in a chuckle.
‘We’ve got a right,’ Beverley said.
‘We won’t next month,’ Sadie replied. ‘Not if the partners make this place non-smoking.’ She too began grinning.
So did Beverley. And Helga, last of all.
‘What are you laughing at?’ Helga asked Justine.
‘I dunno -’ Justine said, chuckling again. ‘It’s just something -’ the chuckle returned, this time developing into a giggle. ‘something -’
‘Whatever it is,’ Beverley said, ‘Sadie thinks it’s funny as hell!’ Sadie was indeed already giggling. Justine was creasing up with laughter as Beverley began to chuckle herself.
‘Hey look!’ Helga cried, giggling as she pointed to the door. ‘Is that -’
Beverley turned round, looked at the shape in the corridor. She saw what looked like Mr Tilley, standing in the doorway, naked, visible through the glass. She and Helga gave out a loud whoop of laughter before dissolving into hysterics.
Beside them Justine and Sadie were already there, the nitrous hitting them with much greater efficiency on the back of the Batch 19 gas.
All four nurses giggled and whooped as the door opened, and Dr Tilley walked into the room carrying the bottle of Batch 19, the open feed hose in his hand, pointing it at each in turn until, gradually, their laughter subsided and all four began to lapse into the half consciousness of the hypnotic gas.
‘Nitrous oxide,’ he said, through the mask. ‘Nitrous, combined with nicotine and Batch 19. Seems to work okay. Nice.’
Shutting off the gas flow, he bent low over each nurse, whispering the Asimov into each one in turn ...
Copyright © Alex Greene, 2012.
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