My phone ringing woke me. I blinked into the darkness and picked up the noise maker. The club symbol for Satirical Madness blinking back at me. I looked at the time and noted it was nearly eleven. "Yes?"

"Wednesday," the manager greeted. "I've had a call from your favourite client. He needs his monthly fix. Are you available tomorrow night?"

I wanted to cry. "Damn, Judy, I'm not. I probably won't be available for a few months."

"Are you seeing someone?" Judy asked. A lot of the girls took vacation when a new relationship didn't approve of the job.

"No, I had a car accident," I admitted. "I'm going to need a bit of time to recover. Broken bones and all that."

"Damn," Judy cursed. "Okay, I'll try and get him to accept another. I hope you get better soon. Call me when you are available again." She hung up. I understood why Judy was cut up. Aries - that was the name the club assigned him - was one of the top paying clients. I don't know how much the club charged him for the privilege to abuse me, but I know I walked away with close to five grand, after tax, for a few hours of pain once a month.

I put the phone aside and rested my head back. I'd just had the best four hours of sleep I'd had in weeks. I felt better. I was still in pain, a lot of pain, but it was more bearable. I made my way to the bathroom again.

I was bummed on turning away Aries. I'd only stayed on at S and M for our monthly sessions. All the other clients I'd had over the years were try hards or sadistic assholes who didn't know the meaning of safe word, let alone stopped for it. Those ones quickly got blacklisted.

There was an art to hurting someone pleasurably, an art Aries had perfected. I sighed just thinking about him. I worried he'd take his business elsewhere, or find another girl at the club who could handle his idea of pleasure.

At the mirror I assessed myself. My face was bruised, but it remained in tact. My first rib had dislocated from the sternum. My collarbone was cracked. The injuries to my body followed the line of my seat belt, the purple bruise across my chest a marker of impact. I had a lot of internal damage that couldn't be see from outside.

I lifted my singlet and gently peeled back the nonstick wound dressing. It was going to scar. Nothing would stop that from happening. I was going to look like I'd had a caesarean and never given birth. At the top of each thigh, where the sash belt curled around to anchor, I had second degree friction burns. Yes, the seat belt saved me. But it broke me to do it.

The other car was bigger and with its increasing speed and my breaking speed, it was the equivalent of hitting a brick wall at a hundred and eighty kilometres and hour. At least, that's what the police forensics had determined. I should be dead. I was dead. Until Bree told me she wouldn't let me.

I couldn't tell her about the peace I found, the feeling of home that I experienced for mere moments. She found me and pulled me back, and I knew then, she was right. It's the afterlife, because this is hell. That's what it felt like when I came back to the pain and agony of my broken body. I'd been taken to hell. I still wasn't convinced I wasn't in hell. All I know is I'd experienced peace for the first time, and been dragged away from it against my will.

I looked in the mirror. Unsure for the first time in my life. There girl looking back at me - I didn't know her. She was a stranger to me. I was stuck in a strange body that existed in pain and misery. Every breath, every step, every second was agony. My career hung in limbo. Everything I'd worked for all my life, was shattered, and I didn't know if I had the ability to stick it all back together.

My life as I knew it was gone. All because a woman droveher car into mine to end her life. Do you want to know the definition of irony? She didn't die. She suffered a broken arm and some head lacerations. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt you see, but instead of being thrown out the windscreen, her airbag went off and put her back in her seat. She wanted to die, but instead, she killed me.

Exhaling and swiping at the tears in my eyes, I went out on the balcony and looked up at the sky. There were too many lights to see the stars. I had to drive out of the city to see them. But the moon hung bright and full like a night light.

I heard the hooting of an owl. I turned my head to find a masked owl sitting on the other end of the railing. It considered me. I considered it. It looked back up at the moon, so did I. "Living is so much harder, when you know how easy death is," I murmured to the moon.

I wasn't religious. I didn't necessarily believe in god, but I did believe there was something greater watching over us, shuffling the deck occasionally to change the game up. My mother used to tell me we all had a lesson to learn in life. That if we got of course, the fates would shove us back on track, and sometimes, that hurt. It hurt a lot.

I wonder if I had gone off track somewhere to where I was meant to be. I'd always known I wanted to be a doctor. When my mother died, I was more determined than ever. It wasn't till I started my degree and became fascinated with what the cadavers told me about their lives, that I knew where I wanted to specialise. So where did I get lost.

The owl hooted again. I turned to meet its eyes. It had a love heart shaped face. I sighed. Him! I'd boxed myself up after he broke my heart. It was all his doing, I was sure of it. Indirectly as it may be. He couldn't exactly be blamed because I wouldn't date anymore, but it was still his fault. Of course, I blamed him for random unforecasted storms, so I could be over exaggerating things.

"Goodnight. Happy hunting," I farewelled my feathered visitor. I turned and went back inside to bed. Mersydol forte had been left on the table for me. Deciding they were the better option over the heavier stuff, I threw the tablets down. I climbed into bed and watched the room spin, a fog clouding me my brain. I was still in pain, but I didn't care anymore.

The door to my room opened and a very good looking man in his mid thirties made his entrance. He wore slacks and a button down but was sans tie or jacket. His blond hair was styled, his blue eyes well rested, and he looked just as fit as the last time I'd seen him naked, with that nurse in the storage closet. How long was too long to hold a grudge?

"You gave us quite a scare, Poss," he gave me his best bedside sympathy look.

"What do you want?" I grouched at him. My head was still fuzzy from the pain tablets last night, but they'd at least allowed me to sleep.

"I'm your neurologist," he smiled. Gleaming teeth, dimples, chiseled jaw. Fuck face!

"What idiot made you my neurologist?" I scowled. "And why haven't I seen you for two weeks?"

"Paul wanted the best for you," Liam shrugged. "I saw you in Emergency, I was on the team that kept you with us," he informed me, like I should be grateful to him. "Paul thought it best if I waited till I had good news to come see you."

"If he wanted the best, how'd I get you?" I ignored his question.

"Come on, Poss-"

"Don't call me that!"

"-you know I'm the best. As much as you hate me, you can't deny that," he answered smugly. He picked up my chart. "I have good news. Your spine is stable. It's going to be long and hard, Poss, I won't lie. You need six weeks of bed rest to let all those fractures heal, after that, you're looking at a year of physio, minimum." He was kind of somber giving me that news.

"I know you like to push yourself to be the best you can be, Poss. Take it easy and give your body time to get over this before you start driving it hard. Ease your way back into life." His eyes flicked down to avoid meeting mine. Yeah, he was a good doctor, I couldn't deny it. He was still a fuck face.

He read the notes from last night. "You've been walking on a broken ankle?" His face lifted, unhappy. "Seriously, Poss? Do you want it to heal wrong? You know better."

"It's not that bad. It hurts more sitting still then walking," I argued. "Anyway, the fracture was actually at the tibial head, so it shouldn't be badly affected."

"The forensic pathologist who performs your autopsy is going to have a field day," Liam muttered.

"It'll probably be Paul."

"So, are you fucking him?" He asked casually as he added a note to my chart.

This again? "He's your best friend, don't the two of you talk about who's on your dick? He certainly knew you were cheating on me before I did."

"For the last time, I wasn't cheating on you. We weren't in a serious relationship."

"We were engaged, asshole!"

"That's not married."

"We were about to move in together."

Liam shrugged. "Still, not married."

"Oh my god! How did I never realise what an asshat you were?" I gritted.

Liam just smirked. "Are you still in love with me, Poss? It's been a year."

I exhaled annoyed. Any answer now would just feed his ego. "When can I go home?"

This surprised Liam. "You want to go home? There's no one to take care of you there."

"I can take care of myself," I breathed. "At least I'll be away from you."

Liam rolled his eyes and put the chart down. "Poss, we have the same circle of friends. My sister wants you in her wedding party when she gets married next year. You're never going to be away from me. The sooner you just accept you're still in love with me, let me put that ring back on your finger, and get back to planning our wedding, the better for everyone."

"Liam, you need a psyche consult," I advised. "I'm not marrying you. You are a good for nothing megalomaniac who doesn't know the definition of monogamy or love. Get the fuck out of my room."

Liam shook his head and smiled. "You still love me," he chirped. "You can go home tomorrow if Patrick signs off on it. I'll come by and see you in a few days," he decided as he left.

"Argh!" I yelled at the ceiling. I had spent the last twelve months wondering how I didn't see what an asshole he was when we met.

I'd been an intern, fresh from medical school when we met. I'd befriended Paul immediately because he was the forensic pathologist and I knew where I wanted to specialise already. Paul started inviting me to the pub with him and Liam, his best friend from med school, and a few other doctors from the hospital.

Both of them had been the older, good looking men who appealed to all the new female interns. When Liam started paying me extra attention, I'd been flattered, and he woo'd me wonderfully. I fell for him hook line and sinker. We were together all through my residency and three of my four years of specialist pathology training.

It took me four years to figure out what and asshole Liam was. Bree had told me the minute after she met him. I should have listened to her advice.

Bree and I met in my third year of medicine when I started my attachments. She had just finished residency and been invited to anaesthetics. He was so serious and sarcastic, it was funny. All the other students were terrified of her. She made me laugh and she liked that.

We started catching up for coffee and lunch and Bree mentored me through my next three years of Med school. I don't know when she noticed my high pain tolerance, but when I needed money to pay my student loans off faster, it was Bree who took me to meet Judy. Hours of negotiations to set my limits later, I had a job as a submissive at Satirical Madness or S and M to those in the know.

No, I never cheated on Liam. I never had sex of any sort with a client, ever. Did I tell Liam what I did on the side for money? No. I'd felt guilty about that until we broke up. I was very glad now that he didn't have that to hold against me.

I closed my eyes as misery crept in. I was twenty six and my entire life had been wiped clean by one woman's selfishness. I felt lost at sea with no direction.

******

The Edited version of this story is now available on my Radish account. https://radish.app.link/xTdaKbnExQ