The Hennepin Healthcare Worker

The emergency room at Hennepin is quiet tonight.

Three AM. The drunks have been processed. The accidents have been stitched. I sit in a curtained bay, waiting for someone to look at my hand—a stupid kitchen injury, a knife slipping while I made dinner.

"Warya—let me see."

She pulls back the curtain. My breath catches.

Hodan is her name—according to the badge. Forty-eight years old, maybe fifty. A night shift nurse with twenty years of experience. Her skin is dark as midnight, ebony that gleams under the fluorescent lights. Her scrubs strain against her body—massive breasts, wide hips, a belly that speaks of good cooking and comfortable living.

She takes my hand. Examines the cut.

"Not deep. You'll live." Her accent is thick—Mogadishu mixed with Minneapolis. "Hold still."

She cleans the wound. Wraps it. Her fingers are gentle despite their thickness.

"What were you cooking at three AM?"

"Couldn't sleep."

"Ilaahay." She shakes her head. "Young men and their insomnia. My son is the same."

"You have a son?"

"Three. All grown. All moved away." She finishes the bandage. "Leaving me alone in that big house."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." She looks at me—really looks. "I keep busy. Work. Cook. Try not to think about how quiet the nights are."

Something passes between us.

"You're done," she says. "But..."

"But?"

"My shift ends in thirty minutes. There's a diner down the street. Open all night." She meets my eyes. "I could use company."

"Company?"

"Haa." Yes. "Unless you have somewhere to be at four AM."

I don't.

The diner is empty except for us.

She orders coffee. I order tea. We talk—about Somalia, about nursing, about the loneliness of night shifts.

"My husband died eight years ago," she says quietly. "Heart attack. Right in front of me, and I couldn't save him."

"That's not your fault."

"I know. But knowing and feeling are different things." She wraps her hands around her mug. "I threw myself into work. Raised my boys. Forgot what it felt like to be anything but a mother and a nurse."

"What did it feel like?"

"To be a woman?" She smiles—sad and beautiful. "I don't remember."

"Maybe you should remember."

Her eyes meet mine.

"My house is ten minutes away," she says.

"Hodan—"

"I'm not asking for forever." Her hand finds mine across the table. "I'm asking for tonight. One night where I remember what it feels like to be touched."

"You're sure?"

"Wallahi." She squeezes my hand. "I've been sure since I saw you in that bed. Young. Handsome. Looking at me like I wasn't invisible."

"You're not invisible."

"Prove it."

Her house is warm.

African art on the walls. The smell of uunsi in the air. Photos of her sons on every surface.

"They don't visit enough," she says, leading me to the bedroom. "But tonight, I don't want to think about them."

She turns to face me.

Pulls her scrubs over her head.

Her body is magnificent.

Ebony skin that gleams in the lamplight. Breasts that hang heavy, nipples dark as her complexion. Her belly cascades in soft rolls, a lifetime of Somali cooking written on her flesh. Her hips flare wide, and between her thick thighs, gray curls frame her mound.

"Eight years," she whispers. "Eight years since a man has seen me like this."

"Their loss."

I cross to her.

I worship the nurse.

My mouth traces her body—kissing her neck, her collarbone, her heavy breasts. She moans as I take her nipple between my lips.

"Alla—" Her hands grab my head. "No one has—not since—"

I suck harder. My hands grip her wide hips.

"The bed," she gasps. "Take me to bed."

I lay her down on sheets that smell like her—lavender and something spicy.

Spread her thick thighs.

Bury my face between them.

"ILAAHAY!" She screams as my tongue finds her. "Eight years—eight years—"

I lick her slowly. Learn her taste—sweet and musky, the flavor of a woman who's been waiting too long.

"More—" She's grinding against my face. "Dhakhso—faster—"

I slide two fingers inside her.

She comes apart.

"Inside me—" She's pulling at my shoulders. "I need to feel a man inside me—"

I strip. She watches, her eyes widening.

"Subhanallah." Her hand wraps around my cock. "I forgot what they looked like."

"Let me remind you."

I position myself at her entrance.

I push inside.

She screams—eight years of celibacy stretching around me.

"So big—" She's clawing at my back. "You're filling me—dhammaan—"

I start to move.

Slow at first. Letting her adjust. But her legs wrap around me, pull me deeper.

"Dhakhso—faster—" She's begging. "Make me feel alive—"

I pound her.

The bed shakes. Her massive body bounces beneath me—ebony flesh rippling with every thrust. She screams into the pillow, eight years of loneliness pouring out.

"Coming—" Her walls clamp down. "Ku shub—fill me—"

I let go.

I flood the nurse.

Pump her full while she moans and shakes. She comes again as she feels it—hot and thick, filling the emptiness she's carried for eight years.

We lie tangled together.

"Macaan," she breathes. Sweet. "Stay until morning."

"And then?"

"And then we see." She kisses me softly. "But for now—just hold me."

I hold her.

Until the sun rises over Minneapolis.

Six Months Later

I'm at every night shift change.

Waiting with coffee. Driving her home. Filling the silence in that big house.

"My sons think I'm crazy," she says one night, riding me slow. "Dating a younger man."

"What do you think?"

"I think—" She gasps as I thrust up. "I think I'm finally alive again."

The nurse who healed my hand.

The woman who healed my loneliness.

Macaan.