Erogenous Zone - Chapter 1

She merely stands there. Her eyes are glazed with tears. How could this happen? Especially now? Juniper Colton has seen her reasonable share of dreadful fortune recently. That’s for certain. Just yesterday she was terminated from her modest clerk job in aged clothing establishment downtown. Granted, the job sucked, the pay sucked but she had managed somehow to hang on to this gig for a few months. This could have been a record for her. Juni has a problem with authority. The problem is…she thinks she’s the authority. Last week, not that it is her fault, her boyfriend of two years dumped her and her car is repossessed. Gabriel was a jerk. A con. He’s always chasing the next big scam. Greed rules his world and when Juni can’t give it to him every single instance when he demands it…he’s gone. Being dumped by Gabe was no immense surprise though. He ditched her maybe once in every three months since they’d started dating a few years ago. The car? She hadn’t been driving it lately because Gabe always had it. Juni takes the bus to work. She didn’t miss the car.

To add to all the previous bad luck, here she is, watching the one thing she absolutely thought couldn’t be taken away from her just vanish. Her home. It had been handed to her when her grandmother died. Her grandmother’s house. Up in flames. Taking away the only thing she has left. Juni loses what little composure she has in reserve and drops to the ground with her legs folded. She looks around and sees a handful of people standing around littering each side of the street to watch her life burn away. What did she expect? An audience at three in the morning? There was no one to console her either. Her family is gone. Her parent’s died several years ago and she’s an only child. She doesn’t really know any of these people. She’s not especially social – no friends, nothing or no one to take the pain away. She absently wonders if would have made a difference if she hadn’t woke up. Juni takes a deep breath and exhales. She wipes her eyes. I can’t start over. I never got started.

Out of the corner of her left eye she notices movement and turns her head to get a better view. It’s the fire truck. Finally. The lights are almost blinding, the flashing causing spots to accumulate in her vision. Odd. The truck. She doesn’t hear it. She doesn’t really hear anything. Juni raises her hand to her ear and attempts to pop it with the palm of her hand. Nothing. She tries the other ear. Same thing. Nothing. What the fuck? She shakes her head furiously and still…nothing. Why can’t I hear anything? Frustrated, she scrambles to her feet and shakes her head once more. Juni looks up to see more emergency vehicles arrive including an ambulance. She rushes for the still moving ambulance and approaches the paramedic getting out of the van.

“I can’t hear anything. Why can’t I hear?” Juni screams or she thinks she does. She can feel her throat moving as she speaks, but nevertheless hears nothing. Not even her own voice.

The paramedic’s stunned look prompts her to repeat what she already said. The man motions to another paramedic getting out of the van and gently takes Juni’s arm and leads her to the back of the ambulance. She can see his lips moving, but can’t make out the words. Did I not just tell him? I can’t hear a fucking thing! Juni moves her palms to both sides of her head and covers her ears.

“I can’t hear. I don’t know what happened.” she tries to say. Oh shit. What if I have no voice either? That’s why he’s not understanding. Juni’s eyes pool with more tears as they threaten to slide down her cheeks. She simply drops her arms and offers surrender to the paramedics. They guide her into the van and sit her down. She can see their mouths moving, but…

The paramedic places a blood pressure cuff around her right arm as the other man examines her left arm. Juni looks down to watch him when horror strikes and she tries to jerk away. Her arm is scattered with moist fleshy scars, burns. She’s not bleeding. At least not that she can tell, but the panic in her chest swells. Juni starts to disrobe, searching for more wounds. The two men attempt to hold her still, but she fights. Half-naked and being wrestled by two uniformed men. This is not how she envisioned her night ending. She thought she would be sleeping now. Preparing to get up around six and get ready for work. Yet, here she was causing her very own personal smack-down in the back of an ambulance fighting it out with The Resuscitators.

She sees that the men are screaming something to her. She stills and watches the man in front her closely. He’s talking...urging. Juni’s chest feels like it’s going to explode. Her breathing is heavy and ragged. Okay. Just calm down. What is he saying? Juni watches the man’s mouth. Nothing. The man reaches behind him, he opens a drawer and pulls out a pad of paper and grabs a pen from his shirt pocket. He quickly scribbles on the pad and turns it around and holds it in front of her face. It reads…

Please calm down. We only want to help you.

Juni swallows and nods. Her body is still tense as she tries to sit up. Tears cascade down the frightened girls face. The man behind her relaxes his grip and helps her to sit back down. The paramedic in front of her tosses the pad to a near-by seat and jabs the pen back into his pocket. He reaches for the blood pressure cuff and re-wraps it around her right arm, just as before. Juni feels something cold on the side of her cheek and realizes that an oxygen mask is being placed over her nose and mouth. The man removes his hand from the mask and places it on her chest, right below her throat. Startled, she glares at him. He smiles and says something. Calm. He said calm. I read his lips! Juni smiles back and nods her head. The man winks and continues inspecting her left arm as he did before. I know this guy? Don’t I?

He’s handsome. She recalls the way he squinted his eyes when he smiled at her before. Juni had also remembered the dimples on each side of his smile. There was just something about the way he carried himself and it told her he cared. Perhaps that’s what had prompted her to relax. I think he picked the right profession. Juni watches as he moves his sizeable hands up and down her arm, tenderly flipping it over to look underneath and back again. Tiny goose bumps form all over her skin. Everywhere. She can literally feel the hair rising on her body. She gasps and tries to pull her arm away, but he tightens his grip. The pain floors her.

She watches his lips as he says “I’m sorry” then releases her arm. Juni cuts her attention to the pained area just above her elbow on the back side of her arm. Twisting it to where she can see -- she accidentally hits the man in the face. Terrified, Juni pulls her arm back in embarrassment and says “Oh my god! I’m so sorry” she attempts to hide her face with her arm. He just chuckles.

The sting is overwhelming. Why did I not feel pain before now? Oh my god. I’m in shock or something. That’s why I can’t hear. That’s why I freaked out. That’s why I fought these guys when I clearly have no battle skills. Fuck. She looks to each man as they talk to each other. Their mouths are moving so fast she can’t catch a single word. They then turn to her and place their hands on her at the same time, trying to guide her to lie down. Juni doesn’t resist this time. She knows she needs help. Scared, yes, but the fact that she can’t hear, or maybe these guys can’t comprehend her, her arm is on fire and now her whole body is shaking. That fact kind of takes precedence at the moment.

The cute guy maneuvers himself beside her to strap her down. He smiles and winks at her, as he secures her belts. The other paramedic leaves the van and closes the back doors. While Mr. Cutie Man writes things on a clipboard full of paper. Within moments they are mobile. Sirens? How would she know? Juni can see the flash of lights in the darkness through the back windows of the van. She tries to turn her head to see what Mr. Hotness was doing, but can’t. When the hell did they put this thing on my neck? Juni sucks in a sharp breath that nearly causes her to pass out with the intensity of the oxygen. She acknowledges that some of her memory seems to be missing. The godly man next to her -- the one with the dimples, the one with the thick arms and big hands reads over material on the clipboard. Juni’s eyes and neck strain to look him over. Her attention catches on the man’s name tag on the front of his uniform. Ridley Stern, EMT. She unsteadily moves her head back stares blankly at the ceiling of the van. Just my luck. That’s when the world goes black.