"So, are you excited?" the young nurse asked, her voice muffled through the double-layer mask, while she vigorously rubbed Kathryn''s bicep with an iodine swab to ensure that it was thoroughly sterilized before injecting the tiny volume of clear medication.
Kathryn nodded and smiled - a bit nervously - behind her own mask. Excited, yes. It''d be nice, so nice to stop worrying quite so much about sanitizing her hands after touching every surface outside of her house, great to stop worrying about whether she''d be one of the unlucky ones that she read about in the Facebook posts, the otherwise young-and-healthy adults suddenly and inexplicably confined to an ICU bed. But also exhausted. The last eleven months had been an endless grind of juggling work and keeping the girls engaged with their schoolwork on Zoom, scrambling to keep the fridge full with items from the virtual grocery store shelves constantly rotating in and out of stock. Exhausted from working late nights and feeling like there wouldn''t ever be catching up, wouldn''t ever be time to really be the wife, mom, and college instructor that she really wanted to be.
Too many muddled thoughts to possibly share in a fleeting moment. As the nurse picked up the syringe and gently squeezed her upper arm, Kathryn settled on "Relieved" as her response, gritting her teeth just a bit as the tiny needle bit into her arm. A fleeting pinch, gone in an instant and followed by a gentle, coolness as the medicine spread slowly around her muscle.
The nurse smiled again; the crinkles around her young eyes revealing the expression hidden behind the mask. "You''re not the first one, believe me. Congratulations on finishing your COVID vaccine series! The ladies on the other side of the screen will update your vaccination card and keep an eye on you to make sure there aren''t any unexpected side effects."
Kathryn thanked the nurse, untangled her sleeve from around her shoulder, grabbed her small tote bag and fleece sweater, and ducked out of the tiny cubicle, rubbing her arm a bit absent-mindedly as she felt the coolness slowly ebb away, replaced by a vague soreness. The three older women behind the worn folding table - retirees volunteering at the pop-up health clinic, likely - shuffled through their paperwork and produced a card showing that she''d received both vaccines, directing her to a row of plastic chairs against the far wall of windows. "Please have a seat for at least fifteen minutes - your time is written here in the corner of your form," the kindly older woman with the shiny, gold-rimmed glasses and faded blue scrubs gestured to the number scrawled on the top right corner of the document. "Did you have any adverse reactions for the first shot?"
"No, not really. A bit of all-around achy-ness on the second day." Kathryn thought back to the days following that first vaccination - days filled with an even stronger sense of relief and elation that the end of the endless quarantine might, in fact, be finally coming into view. "I felt clammy for a few days following," she recalled, "but never had a measurable fever or anything."
"Well, do take extra care for the next couple of days," the woman admonished her. "Folks report feeling a lot less normal after their second shot, especially with this particular vaccine formula."
Kathryn nodded and gave a quiet laugh. "Even feeling like I''m fighting off the flu for a few days is fine with me as long as this does its job." She gestured to her arm and both of the women chuckled.
She took a seat and thumbed through the packet of additional information the women had handed her along with her vaccination card. Disclaimers, warnings about the potential of flu-like symptoms or other temporary side-effects ("Consider postponing high-risk or public activities for the next 48 hours!"), and contact information for reporting unusual reactions to public health authorities. All the same information Kathryn had been the month previous, at the conclusion of her initial appointment. She set the papers on her lap and thumbed distractedly through her social media feed, waiting for the minute hand on the analog wall clock to sweep its quarter arc so that she could get back to the house.
She arrived back at home to a burst of noise - kids'' boisterous voices and the cheery music of the video game console - a pile of discarded toys and dress-ups scattered down the hallway, and the kind but tired faces of her in-laws, who''d been tasked with keeping an eye on the kiddos while she and Scott had headed out separately for their vaccination appointments. Both her and her husband had had their numbers come up at the same time, but at different clinics in different corners of town. His parents had traveled up from their home in a nearby city to provide an extra set of hands - just in case she and Scott both developed the worst of the flu-like side-effects that others had been reporting online.
She was grateful for the help, but even more thankful that getting this second shot was her ticket to breaking free of the claustrophobia and the tedious routine-ness that being at home 24/7 with her husband and two kids for the last year had entailed. She loved the extra time with the kids and enjoyed the company of Scott in the small moments throughout the day, but she longed for some space of her own, a quiet dinner-date with Scott out at a restaurant, an in-person visit to the corner grocery, and just simply a change of scenery and a break from the chaos of school-aged kids being under foot all day long. She knew that her relationship with Scott had become a bit strained over the last few months - whose wouldn''t have under these circumstances? - and it was just such a relief to begin thinking about the small ways that life could change now that the risk to her and her family of catching the disease was finally receding into the background.
Kathryn hung her tote bag back on the hook by the front door and tossed her car keys into the bowl on the nearby table, rubbed her arm absent-mindedly again ("Does my arm feel more or less sore than last time? Is that throbbing in my fingertips normal? Does it feel a bit cold in here?"), picked up a stray dress-up to hang on the coat rack on her way through the living room, and then headed to the kitchen to start dinner.
She shivered a bit as she stepped up to the kitchen sink to scrub the trip off of her hands and felt a ripple of goosebumps race across her shoulders, her nipples jumping to attention inside her fleece sweater. Kathryn swore under her breath, certain that she''d be one of the unlucky ones who''d get the full-blown stomach flu experience for the two days following the shot. "Of course," she muttered, reaching for the thermometer in the corner cupboard. "It fucking figures."
Over baked ziti, garlic toast, and a small glass of wine that evening at dinner, Scott shared his experience getting vaccinated with the rest of the family. His appointment had been at the large, regional hospital, and his experience couldn''t have been more different than Kathryn''s - a long line of people waiting to check in and submit their paperwork, the hospital''s canteen turned into a makeshift dosing center, with each table converted into a nurse''s station.
"It was a madhouse!" he exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with his garlic toast as he explained how hospital staff had to scramble among the tables to deliver trays of syringes from the corner of the room where the ultra-cold freezers containing the temperature-sensitive vials of medicine were being kept, weaving in and out of the masses of people who''d come to be vaccinated that afternoon. His youngest daughter giggled as his toast emitted a shower of crumbs across the table, and he grinned and ruffled her hair once he''d popped the slice into his grinning mouth.
"He certainly seems fine," Kathryn thought, just a bit darkly, as she sipped her glass and shivered again. She was surprised what a contrast their appointments had been - his in a huge hospital, hers in a tiny, local health clinic; the bustle of distributing the thawed virus around his canteen table, no indication at all that her syringe had even been refrigerated prior to her injection. She suspected that this was one of the advantages of the newer, more stable vaccine medication that she''d been given. Although it had only been approved by the government a few days prior, Kathryn''s medication had been deemed to be as safe and nearly as effective as the one that Scott had been given. There were still some rumblings that its side-effects in certain populations weren''t as well understood, but the overall urgency of getting the medicines out and into people''s arms had taken precedence. She was glad to have been bumped up in line as far as she had, in any case, and having to solider through a few days of feeling less-than-perfect would still be totally worthwhile if it got her out of the house a bit more and back to something even partly resembling "normal." She swallowed her sip of wine and mentally cursed his good luck in apparently feeling just fine as she tried to ignore the continued chill - no, maybe more accurately "tingling" - playing across her skin, and the subtle but persistent rhythmic throbbing emanating from her upper arm and radiating to her fingertips, the top of her scalp, the still-annoyingly-erect points of her nipples, and fluttering through her lower belly.
Kathryn''s phone chirped as she pulled the baggy hoodie sweatshirt that served as her pajama top over her head and plopped down on her side of the bed. She pulled her glasses back on and peered at the green notification bubble on the phone''s home screen: "Text message from 32-163 - Time for today''s Safe Vaccination check in!"
She unlocked the phone and clicked through to the web form linked in the text message to submit her daily health report. As she scrolled through the short questionnaire, she was dismayed at how many of the items she had to check "yes" or "some" for on the survey based on her afternoon - fever, dizzyness, ache at the injection site. Yup, if these were the questions they were asking, then she was definitely going to be in for it when she woke up in the morning. And that''s if she managed to get any sleep at all.
Kathryn frowned as she reached the last two rating scales on the survey. The first: "Sexual side-effects" What? What in the world was that supposed to mean? She''d heard nothing about this in the multitude of news reports that she''d been following in the months-long run-up to her vaccination appointments, and she was sure that something like this would''ve grabbed at least one headline on her phone''s news feed app. What kind of "sexual side effects" would she even be able to report on, anyway? She was worn down from months of being trapped at home, so sex with Scott hadn''t been at the top of her list for quite some time. And if she was in the midst of developing flu symptoms... well, that certainly wouldn''t lend itself to much "sexy time," would it? She intuitively reached for the "None" option in the response list, but just as she did so, she shivered again. No, she corrected herself - she experienced another increasingly intense wave of tingles coursing through her body, starting from her bicep and radiating to every part of her.
She hesitated for a fraction of a second - was there something to report, ridiculous as it seemed? Sure, her breasts felt just a bit swollen and achy, but that clearly couldn''t be related. Her nipples were still tight crinkles as they had been since she arrived back home, rubbing sensitively against the inside of her hoodie, but that was just a result of the chills she''d been feeling all afternoon, right? Before climbing into bed, she''d found herself moist and her lips a bit swollen when she''d wiped after peeing, but that couldn''t mean anything - just where she was in her monthly cycle. She frowned. Definitely not. Ridiculous. She pressed the "None" button.
The last question made even less sense to her: "Inability to focus on routine activities or tasks?" Kathryn knew that if she was going to be confined to bed with flu symptoms, it would likely mean that she wouldn''t be particularly focused on routine activities - who can think with a fever, body aches, and waves of nausea? - but it still seemed like an odd question to ask on its own. She wrinkled her nose, checked "None," and submitted the health report.
She was plugging in the phone for the night when Scott came wandering in from the en suite bathroom, shirtless, still a bit damp from his shower, and brushing his teeth with one hand while thumbing through something on his phone with the other. He looked up, pulling the toothbrush out of his mouth for a moment. "Did you get this Safe Vaccination thing, too?" he said around his mouthful of toothpaste, indicating his phone with a tip of his head.
Kathryn nodded. "Just finished mine." She said, falling into bed and closing her eyes, trying to will the subtle throbbing throughout her body away.
Scott chuckled. "They''re not going to get much from me today, I''m afraid." He mashed a button on his phone and then turned back into the bathroom to spit his toothpaste into the sink and drop his toothbrush back into the charger. Kathryn opened her eyes and turned to look at his back as he walked away. Droplets of water sparkled on his shoulders as he stepped back into the light of the bathroom, and she watched the muscles ripple in his back. He was looking pretty OK for being a dad in a pandemic, she thought to herself, just as another wave of tingles caused her to squeeze her thighs together in surprise. "Sexual side-effects, indeed," she groaned to herself. Ridiculous.
Kathryn''s dreams that night were unsettling. They were unlike any dreams that she''d had for a very, very long time. And much more visceral than usual.
She dreamt that she was walking through a department store in the local mall. She passed an electronics display with all of the TVs tuned to a Breaking News report predicting dire consequences from a critical miscalculation about the country''s vaccine response. Her mind reeled; was she part of the miscalculation? She broke into a sweat as she moved more quickly to find an exit, to get back to her car to find someone to help. She raced out of the store and into the mall - when was the last time she''d actually been in a mall, anyway? - and looked left and right, trying to remember which way she''d come, trying to figure out which way to go. She took a tentative step towards the center court with the escalators and the small waterfalls, but quickly forgot why it was important for her to find her way there after weaving her way around several families walking through the surprisingly crowded space.
She needed to focus and figure out where she was supposed to go, she thought to herself, as her senses, already on high alert from being thrown back into a space that she''d avoided for nearly a year, jumped into high gear. The smell of popcorn from a cart off to her left. The shrieks of children running along the pathway above her on the mall''s second floor. The feeling of her breasts bouncing freely under her hoodie sweater as she stepped right to avoid a group of college-aged boys. Wait - that wasn''t right... when in the world would she visit a mall without a bra? And in her pajamas? She blinked and tried to focus. Focus!
Kathryn needed something here, she needed to be at the center of the mall to find help, she thought as she stepped into a shaft of sunlight in the huge central atrium. This place was important for some reason, but she just couldn''t focus. She spun around, feeling adrift. Maybe the elevators? she thought, her eyes landing on the bank of glass elevators rising up behind the water feature. She hurried over to the base of the elevators and pressed the button to summon one.
She felt the tingling again - a pulsing feeling that seemed to ricochet between the injection site in her upper arm and every extremity of her body - as she stepped into the elevator and gazed out the glass window across the center court of the mall. She''d thought she was alone as the doors whirred closed behind her, but as she turned to press the button for the second floor, a set of strong hands grabbed her wrists and forced her open palms back to the glass. Kathryn''s breath caught in her throat as she whipped her head around to determine the identity of this stranger - her captor. She relaxed a bit when she discovered that it was Scott, her Scott, smiling down at her. He was bare-chested and still a bit damp, as if he''d just stepped out of the shower. A strange outfit for the shopping mall, she thought. She shivered again (a side-effect of the vaccine? something else?) and felt a rush of moisture between her legs (definitely something else!) when she saw the glint in his eye and felt him lean in close to her ear to whisper "Don''t move. Just look straight ahead."
The tingling became a steady throb as Kathryn closed her eyes, swallowed, and turned her head forward, opening her eyes again to look out over the mall through the elevator''s glass wall. Although Scott''s hands hadn''t moved from her wrists, she felt the elevator begin to silently rise. Her perspective slowly changed as the car emerged from behind the cluster of manicured trees ringing the waterfall pool; she could see out over the crowds of people as they fell away below. She also knew that they''d now be able to see her pressed up against the window if they happened to look skyward. Her breath caught as she felt Scott''s warm breath against her ear once again: "Don''t move."
She shuddered as she felt his hands relax and begin to slowly slide up her arms. The throbbing in her body grew more intense - vaccination site! fingertips! temples! breasts! toes! clit? oh, yes! her clit, too! - as his hands lingered on her shoulders, squeezing and kneading them, before proceeding down her sides, dragging the loose fabric of the hoodie in wrinkled ripples over the sides of her breasts. She tried to focus - focus! - as the elevator car slowed to a stop as it reached the second floor. She had a panoramic vantage point over the mall as she rested her forehead against the cool glass, and she knew - focus! - that the mall would have a fantastic view of her, as well. Scott''s hands reached the bottom of her top and began to draw the fabric upwards over her body. This wasn''t her fantasy, was it? This was unlike any dream that Kathryn could remember having...
She could feel every muscle straining in anticipation - pulse! - as Scott''s motions pulled the hoodie up, up, up, its hem catching on her - terribly erect! - nipples for only a moment before exposing her breasts, her aching, throbbing breasts to anybody who cared to look. Her palms, now coated in a sheen of sweat, began to flutter against the glass, her embarrassment - pulse! - at being so wantonly exposed like this overwhelming her willingness and ability - focus! - to follow the direction that was being repeated again - more urgently, breathier this time - into her ear: "Don''t move."
Despite having arrived at its destination moments before, the elevator doors didn''t seem to open... strange? Focus! In the stillness, she could hear her breath becoming shallow and hot and her heartbeat ringing in her ears - Pulse! - as Scott draped the hem of her hoodie over her shoulders and leaned the weight of his smooth, still damp chest into her bare back as his hands descended again to brazenly cradle and knead her breasts - Pulse! She felt the condensation of her breath clouding the glass in front of her face as she squeezed her eyes shut ("Please don''t look up here"), and then she felt Scott''s tongue trace a line down the back of her ear, felt him pinch her turgid nipple, and felt his other hand snake down her belly and work its way into the waistline of her pajama pants, plunging into the wetness between her legs and causing her hips to jerk forwards, seeking more ("Oh, fuck, who cares, let them look as long as I cum!") She gasped - Pulse! - and tried, tried to remember - Focus! - the last time she''d felt so exposed, so wanton, so animalistic...
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