summer kind of sickness

“This is shaping up to be a wonderful Christmas,” Linda muttered as she put one cup of hot steaming tea down on the couch table in front of her wife.

“AaaISSSHHHoo! Huhhh…aaESSSHHH! Hah-ERSSCHEW!”

Savannah was bundled up in a plaid flannel PJs and wrapped in a blanket, and she was sneezing forcefully into several Kleenexes at once, only too aware that just one wasn’t enough for the heavy, juicy outbursts that the cold forced out of her.

It was Savannah who had dragged this miserable illness home from work a couple of days earlier. Before meeting Savannah, Linda had just assumed that surgeons did surgery, and maybe some paperwork surrounding the surgery, but didn’t have much patient contact. Savannah had explained that surgeons do plenty of consultations with patients, as well as aftercare, and while she didn’t say the next part out loud, she didn’t have to. Linda knew that she probably had a lovely bedside manner too, which meant that she would take her time with her patients even when they were not in surgery. And she was absolutely the kind of doctor who would also take her time to answer any questions and offer explanations and comfort to family members as well, which meant she was probably statistically more likely to drag home more colds than Linda.

“Huh? What did you say? I was sneezing, I didn’t hear you,” Savannah said and shuddered as she dabbed the soggy tissues against her chapped, sore nostrils.

“I said this is shaping up to be a wonderful Christmas,” Linda replied and sat down next to her, clutching her own tea mug in both hands.

“Sorry,” Savannah said, and she looked it.

“It’s not your fault, baby,” Linda said. “But it’s really just our luck, isn’t it?”

Savannah made a suffering grimace that wordlessly conveyed the sentiment ‘oh God I’m drowning in snot’ and blew her nose harshly before answering.

“I don’t know, we usually stay healthy over Christmas and then catch something by New Year’s,” she said and started coughing instead, shivering in her pile of blankets and warm PJs.

“Oh good, so if we’re sick now, you think maybe this will be the New Year we toast in champagne and not NyQuil?”

Savannah laughed until the laugh turned into a rattling, chesty cough, then she sneezed, coughed again, and took several deep breaths.

“Please don’t make me laugh, honey, it feels like I have an entire cold season’s worth of mucus in my chest.”

“Huhh-AASSCCHHew! Ugh, and I have it on my hands,” Linda groaned, staring down at her palms which she had used to cover.

“Bless you… tissues are your friends, you know.”

“Not when my nose feels like it’s been rubbed raw already, they’re not,” Linda replied, but when Savannah took two clean tissues from the box, which was two-thirds empty already and was the second box they’d opened today, and handed them to her wife, Linda accepted them. She wiped her hands, then reluctantly dabbed at her nose.

“Listen to this,” she said, entertained by her own misery in spite of it all, “when I sniffle, it kind of sounds like a whistle.”

She proceeded to demonstrate.

“You sound more like a scared mouse, in my opinion,” Savannah said after a few moments of contemplative silence, and pulled her blankets even tighter around her shivering body. “God, I’m so cold!”

“Come on,” Linda said.

“What?”

“Shower. Hot shower.”

Too tired to feel like getting up from her comfortable-ish blanket nest to walk all the way to the upstairs bathroom, Savannah groaned, and the groan morphed into a raspy cough. Linda waited for it to subside, sneezing twice herself in the meantime.

“Then we have to go upstairs…”

“Nah, we can just put the kitchen tap on and flood the first floor,” Linda said without blinking, and Savannah wheezed, trying not to laugh or cough but ending up doing both anyway. “Of course we have to walk upstairs, but it’ll be worth it. Hot water for the chills and steam for the congestion.”

“… that does sound nice… aaGDSCHHuh! Ugh…”

“Nice enough to brave Mount Staircase with me?”

Savannah gave her a half-smile. Linda would most likely crash sooner or later too, unable to keep up her easy-going façade through the miserable cold that Savannah had given her. But Savannah loved her immensely for trying to keep that smile on her face. It was for Savannah’s sake, and she knew that. The way she had been fussing over Savannah the past few days had been a bit embarrassing – Savannah still wasn’t someone who liked to show weakness, even in front of Linda – but it had also been wonderful. She had felt so loved. Not that she didn’t always feel loved by Linda, but she felt… nurtured. Maybe that was the word. She was the one who nurtured, she was the doctor, the caretaker, the protector. That was who she was. That was a role that had either been placed upon her or that she had willingly taken her whole life, and she was good at it. She wasn’t as good at being on the other side. She wasn’t sure who she was when she wasn’t the fixer and helper. Linda didn’t care; she loved her anyway.

Savannah supposed that trust was why giving up control to Linda was appealing sometimes. Even if Linda still usually had to wrestle her for it, metaphorically speaking.

“Hello, did you fall asleep and forgot to close your eyes?” Linda asked.

“No,” Savannah replied with a hint of sarcasm in her drenched voice, “just g-gathering strength… heh… ehh-yISSCHHhew! Ugh… for the long and arduous journey.”

She was still shivering despite the layers of warm clothes and blankets, and she really did have to steel herself to get out of her blanket nest, but eventually she did, following her sniffling wife upstairs.

***

The water was indeed wonderfully hot as it washed down over her shivering body. Normally if they showered together, Linda would wince at the temperature, Savannah always wanted warmer than she did, but today it was Linda who turned the water to the hottest they could tolerate, one notch below scalding. This told Savannah in no uncertain terms that no matter how much Linda tried to downplay her own cold for the benefit of taking care of Savannah, she was both chilled and miserable herself.

The tension in Savannah’s body, from having the chills all day, began to melt away, washed off with the hot water streaming down on her, enveloping her in an embrace of steamy warmth. Washing each other’s hair and bodies with lathering shampoo and shower gel also made her feel much…

“Better?” Linda asked.

Instead of answering with words, Savannah simply leaned in and gave her wife a kiss. Linda responded to it, then finished with a soft kiss on the tip of Savannah’s pink nose.

“You complain about being so cold, but I think you’re remarkably hot,” Linda said.

“It’s the fever,” Savannah replied.

“Ah. That explains it,” Linda said, running her hands along Savannah’s wet skin and then coming to rest on her hips, then gently turning her around so Savannah’s back was turned towards Linda. Kissing her neck, Linda let her hands wander upwards again, then cupping Savannah’s small but wonderfully rounded breasts. “I somehow doubt that fever is responsible for these lovely curves, though,” she mumbled into her ear, barely audible above the sound of the rushing water.

Savannah was about to tell her that she wasn’t in the mood for anything other than a shower and maybe some snuggling, but before the words came out she reconsidered. She had been miserably sick for quite some time; she was pretty sure she had turned a corner by now but she had been sick for almost a week and the week before that she’d had her period. So it was at least two weeks since last time she’d let Linda touch her, and her body was starved for it.

“Ah… well…” Savannah replied, reaching up to put her own hands on top of Linda’s, lacing their fingers together. “I think another part of biology is responsible for that…”

“Do you want to fool around?” Linda said, but before Savannah could respond, Linda continued in a wavering voice, “oh God, hold on…” and then leaned out of the shower, sneezing freely and forcefully into the cooler air outside of their warmwater embrace.

“HuhhISSSHHHoo! AaETSSCHHuh!” Her body involuntarily pushed up against Savannah’s, and her hands, still resting on her wife’s breasts, squeezed a little firmer. Not hard enough to hurt, only hard enough to really elicit a response out of Savannah’s body.

The redhead moaned slightly, but the sound drowned in the sound of the water and Linda’s exhausted groan as she leaned her head against Savannah’s shoulder instead of out into the bathroom.

“Oh God,” she said hoarsely. “That was intense.”

“What were you doing?” Savannah chuckled, trying not to have it end in a cough, and then, naturally, finished with a cough.

“Trying not to sneeze on you,” Linda said.

“Honey, we’re in the shower. Everything washes right off anyway… besides, we’ve already exchanged body fluids. We’re both ill. And we’re probably coughing all over each other all nighhh-uhhh…” the prickly sensation in her sinuses, all too familiar the past few days, teased her, and she ended up stifling hands-free.

“-hhNNGTT! Ugh… ahhhNGXThh!”

The two first stifles were reasonably well bottled up within her battered nasal passages, but the third, coming out as an afterthought almost, wasn’t as successful.

“HnnGTSSCHHkk!” Mess shot out of her nose, and she cringed. “I’b so sorry, that was disgusting!”

“What did you just say to me?” Linda sighed. “Also don’t stifle. You’re about as far from public as you can get, in the shower in your own house with your own wife.”

“Yeah… yeah, okay, point taken… huhhhERSSSHHHOOO!”

“Oh my God, I didn’t mean you had to channel the big bad wolf,” Linda laughed, holding her arms around Savannah’s waist to keep her steady. “Bless you, Red,” she murmured and nuzzled her wife’s neck, kissing the delicate curve between her neck and shoulder, one hand on Savannah’s waist and the other tracing invisible trails on the inside of her thigh. “What did you think about fooling around?”

“Mmm… that should warm me up sufficiently…”

“My thoughts exactly,” Linda replied, her fingers moving higher, fingertips lightly brushing against her wife’s pussy. Savannah shivered at the touch and leaned back into Linda’s arms, hips moving in response to skilful fingers fucking her, gently but fiercely at the same time, how that was even possible. But anything was possible with Linda. She had learned that early on.

“Oh honey,” Savannah moaned as Linda kept caressing her while kissing her neck and shoulder, maybe lightly biting her too, perhaps marking her skin a little bit, but who cared, she wasn’t going to work in several days… and the hand between her legs, rhythmically stroking her like she was a finely tuned instrument that only Linda knew how to play.

She was so caught up in the intensifying pleasure that she hardly noticed the peppery sensation in her sinuses before it had already blossomed into a sneeze. Her body shook as several paroxysmal sneezes exploded out of her, wet, drawn-out and breathy, spraying all over herself, only to be washed clean by the water a moment later, just like she had told Linda earlier.

“EeeeISSSHHHEW! Ohh… hahh-ahhh… eeeyISSSSSSCHHHIEW! OhhGohhd… aaayISSSSHHHIEW! Uhhh… aaaaSSSCCHHHUUH!”

“Bless you, Red,” Linda said, and her voice was breathy too. She felt Savannah’s body starting to tense up, felt the muscles contract around her fingers. “There we go, baby, come now… come for me…”

She lightly ran her teeth against the tender skin of Savannah’s neck, and then followed up with a soothing (or was it egging? Savannah’s senses were so overworked now that she could hardly tell one sensation from another) lick across the patch where teeth had grazed delicately sensitive skin. While she did this, Linda moved her fingers slightly inside her wife, just a little bit, while pressing her thumb against Savannah’s clit.

“… come,” Linda said again and this time Savannah’s body could do nothing but following command. Her body convulsed violently as she reached her climax, but she knew she could trust Linda to hold her, not let her fall, so she only melted deeper into her wife’s arms, riding the wave of the orgasm until only ripples remained.

Afterwards, she was panting, a rasp audible in her breathing but she hadn’t yet launched into another coughing fit. Maybe her body was too exhausted for it.

“Oh dear Lord,” she croaked.

“Feeling any warmer?” Linda asked, and Savannah turned around in her arms so they faced each other, and gave her another deep, feverish kiss.

“I do,” she said, “and I want to reciprocate, but I think my legs will give out any moment.”

“Taking this to bed?” Linda asked.

“You read my mind,” Savannah replied and kissed her again. “But I need to blow my nose before I go down on you, or I’m going to drip all over you.”

“I don’t mind, I think I’ll be pretty wet myself, but thanks for the consideration,” Linda chuckled.

They finished up in the shower and brought their passion to bed, and once Savannah had taken as good care of Linda as Linda had her, they were so exhausted that they fell asleep almost immediately.  

Though deep asleep throughout the night, it certainly was no silent night. Coughing, sniffling, and snoring disturbed the Christmas stillness all through to the morning hours of Christmas Day.

***

The next morning Savannah woke up, feeling decidedly better. Maybe Christmas wouldn’t be so bad after all. She rolled over and nuzzled the back of Linda’s neck.

“Morning honey,” she whispered. “Merry Christmas…”

“Doh,” Linda groaned thickly into her pillow. Her voice was at least a full octave lower than yesterday and completely waterlogged. “There’s dothig berry about today. I feel like sobethig the reideer shat out bid-flight. A big fat splat. UuhhAERRGSSCHhhugh! Oh by throat…” The last sentence was spoken through a rough, wheezy cough.

Savannah bit her cheeks hard trying not to laugh. She felt terrible about Linda being so much worse today, but oh, the drama, the show this woman could put on when she was sick. Savannah was aware of the concept ‘man flu’, but in their household, it was more known as ‘Lin flu’.

“Bless you, honey. I think you’re hitting the peak of it today,” Savannah said in an apologetic tone. “Impeccable timing, honey. Should I bring things upstairs and we can open the presents in bed?”

“Kill be dow, that’s the dicest Christbas presedt you could give be… Huh-uhhaarscchhuh! Huhh-errscchhooo!”

“I think we’re starting with some tea and meds,” Savannah said, leaned over Linda and kissed a fever-hot cheek. “Stay right there.”

“I couldn’t bove if ad earthquake hit,” Linda declared dramatically and sneezed into her pillow again.

“Oh I think you’d move very fast if that happened,” Savannah said, smiling. “You have a cold, Lin, you can still move your limbs.”

Linda grumbled.

“You wered’t exactly ruddig a barathod the day before yesterday yourself,” she groused. It took Savannah several seconds to decipher her congested, hoarse grumbling; you weren’t exactly running a marathon the day before yesterday yourself.

“Yeah, okay, fair enough,” she said, running her fingers through Linda’s short black hair. “I’ll make some tea.”

Linda sneezed messily into the blanket, groaned, and then wiped her nose on the blanket too.

“Eww, Lin,” Savannah chuckled. Little by little, the chuckle turned into a chesty cough, shaking her whole body and not stopping until she was red in the face, with tears welling up in her eyes and mess leaking out of her nose. “I’ll get you some tissues too. I’ll probably need some myself.”

“Ugh,” Linda groaned and launched into a thick coughing fit of her own.

Savannah winced at the intensity; that was not Linda exaggerating for dramatic effect, that was a genuine symptom. She put a hand on Linda’s shuddering back, gently rubbing it to offer some comfort.

“Sorry I got you sick. I mean that. I feel really bad; not just because I love you and I don’t want to hurt you… but I’m a doctor, I’m supposed to make people better, not make them sick.”

Linda’s coughing fit tapered off and she rolled over to face her wife. She even managed a smile.

“It’s dot your fault. Colds are everywhere this tibe of year. I’ll get over it. I just deed to be drabatic about it first.”

“Dramatic, huh?” Savannah grinned and gave her cheek a gentle pat. “Well, mission accomplished.”

“You thigk so?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Savannah gave her a kiss, unfazed by the fact that Linda was a drippy mess. She wasn’t looking much better herself, of that, she was sure.

Linda suddenly pulled away.

“I’b gohhddahhh sdeeze agaihhhhHEH-ERGSSCHHHOO! UhhhESSCHHUH!

She sneezed so violently she choked on her own sneezes and launched into an even more violent coughing fit.

“Oh my God,” Savannah said, “bless you. If we put theatrics aside, how are you feeling?”

“I’b dot dead yet. As far as I kdow, corpses don’t sdeeze,” Linda groaned.

“Well, proof that you’re still among the living is good enough, I’ll take it,” Savannah joked and caressed Linda’s sweaty forehead again. “I’ll get the thermometer as well.”

She left the bedroom and closed the door behind her… then doubled over with a harsh coughing fit that shook her whole body. She straightened up, putting a hand to her chest, shaking her head. This cold clearly wasn’t going to let her off the hook anytime soon, even if Linda was sicker than she was right now.

But she was well enough to reciprocate the care and comfort that Linda had given her the past week, and that was precisely what she planned on doing. Returning all the tender loving care.

Money or not, Valentine’s Day or not, the waiter thinks this woman has no business going out tonight, for her own sake and for everyone else’s. But he works at a high-end restaurant and insulting the patrons is not something he wants to be accused of doing, so he shows her to her table, pretending not to notice the droplets of spray that hits him when she sneezes twice in rapid succession without covering.

“Hehh-ITSSSHHuh! EhhhISSSHHew!”

“Bless you, ma’am,” he says in an impeccably polite tone, to which she gives no response whatsoever. She doesn’t apologise either, she merely sits down with a blocked-up sniff. He hands her the drink menu and she takes it just as she sneezes again, spraying the air between them with more virus-filled droplets. Some land on her own chest, some on the menu, and some remain airborne, floating in the dim light like a bad omen. The waiter keeps his poker face, but this time he refrains from blessing her. It doesn’t seem to faze her. She swipes a finger underneath her inflamed, damp nostrils before flicking the drink menu open and giving it a cursory glance.

“Dry Martini,” she says. The thick, wet congestion aside, her voice is several octaves lower than usual and has a rather sexy rasp. The waiter of course can’t know if this is due to her very obvious cold or if it’s authentic, but it’s a very distinct and very sensual voice.

“Excellent,” he says, and leaves. Her lipstick-coated lips form a smirk as she crosses her legs and leans back. Oh yeah, she bets he thinks it’s excellent, to get to put some distance between himself and her visibly contagious person. Not that she can blame him, but if she must be out dragging this cold around, then she doesn’t care who catches it.

She wants to light a cigarette, but the cold has left her throat so raw and irritated that she decides against it.

While she waits for the cocktail, she surveys the area discreetly, as is her habit. The prickle in her nose, a persistent sensation that began as a feathery tickle two day earlier, becomes stronger, and for a moment she thinks she’s about to sneeze again, but then it backs down.

She sniffles thickly. On one hand she needs to blow her nose, on the other, she has attempted it several times today and the congestion is like a brick wall deep within her sinuses, with nothing coming out no matter how hard she blows, which makes it a waste of time and effort.

She is not a woman who likes to waste her time and effort.

The waiter returns with the Martini and asks if she would like to see the menu. She replies that she’s waiting for her husband to join her.

She hopes that the man she’s waiting for isn’t going to be late. Or worse, get cold feet and not show up at all. That would certainly mean she has wasted her time tonight, especially when she’d much rather stay home, make herself a whisky with honey and sleep off this dreadful viral infection.

She coughs. It’s a wet cough, but even if her chest sounds like she would want to keep coughing until it’s clear, it’s not a persistent and uncontrollable cough. Her nose is still the worst affected by this cold, mercilessly teased by the urge to sneeze. Congestion scraping against inflamed nasal lining. Stinging the back of her throat where it’s currently still more likely to trigger a sneeze than a cough.

She sips the Martini and wills her date to show his face before she decides to call it a night and leave. It would be his loss, either way.

As if she manifested him, a well-dressed man approaches her table. She looks up and their eyes meet. When he sees how sick and contagious she looks, despite the makeup she took great care to put on, he stops, hesitant. He looks like he considers turning around and leave the restaurant on the spot. She will not have that. Not tonight.

“Sit the fuck down,” she growls, and there is a dangerous spark in her eyes that, even more than the threatening tone, convinces him that escaping is not an option right now. He swallows, schools his features, and gives her a bright smile.

“Hi honey, I’m so sorry I’m late, got stuck at the office again.”

“It’s alright darling, you’re here now,” she replies, and she knows her facial expression matches the character she plays right now; she’s done this before, she’s a good actress.

He sits down and puts an envelope on the table between them. It looks like an envelope that could contain tickets, perhaps to a Broadway show, or plane tickets to some exotic destination. She knows it doesn’t contain either of those. She gives him a bright smile and a discreet nod. His eyes, predictably enough, wander to her cleavage. While she’s not overly endowed in that department, she knows what to do with what she has, and this dress beautifully accentuates her feminine curves.

His gaze is probably even more drawn to it because her chest is heaving, and he is so focused on that view that he doesn’t realise that the reason for this enticing movement is because she’s about to sneeze. Not until she actually does, and then he makes a grunting noise in surprise and disgust as droplets from the uncovered outburst spatter all over the tablecloth, the flower bouquet, the envelope, and the cleavage that he just admired.

She is so stuffed up that there’s almost a naturally half-stifled sound to the sneeze, but the spray, teeming with infection, is certainly not bottled up. The look of absolute horror on his face is brief – he remembers his place before she needs to remind him – but undeniable, revealing a germaphobe who will probably spend the rest of the night washing his hands and guzzling juice with Vitamin C.

It is, or should be, at least, painfully obvious to anyone within sight or earshot that she is sick with a particularly nasty headcold, that she is a disease vector of some magnitude, so his denial is almost adorable when he says in a pleading voice;

“Are you allergic to the flowers? I can have them removed…”

She sniffles. It makes a crackly, squeaky sound that sounds like the hallmark of cold-ridden misery.

“Don’t bother, it’s not allergies. I have a cold. A real fucking doozy of a cold,” she replies, rolling her eyes before picking up the envelope. She opens her clutch purse and puts the envelope into it. She sneezes twice openly into the air to the side of the table while she does, to the dismay of the other waiter that has the misfortune of walking by with the dessert for the table next to theirs at that very moment. He doesn’t acknowledge the watery-sounding sneezes, even though he felt the spray on his hand and knows the Tiramisu he carries has most likely been contaminated as well.

She doesn’t apologise this time either, she simply turns back to the man and opens her mouth to say something, but her cold gets ahead of her and she sneezes again.

“Uhhh-GTSCHhhh!”

He watches in horror mixed with fascination as the spray mingles in the air, he tries to subtly back away from the small droplets lest they rain down on him, dooming him to the same awful cold.

She sniffles again, a sopping nasal sound that sounds like some of the abundant congestion is loosening, threatening to spill out of her irritated, twitching nostrils if she doesn’t sniffle it back.

He has no desire to see that, so he reluctantly pulls out a handkerchief from his inner pocket and offers it. She looks at him like he’s insane.

“Put that away,” she says. “I’b dot taking adything that’s yours.”

His gaze momentarily drifts to her purse, and she rolls her eyes.

“Dot persodal belongings,” she clarifies, presses her fingertips against the left side of her nose and inhales sharply through her right nostril, then switches sides and repeats the action. He’s not sure if it really helped pulling the imminent flow back into her suffering nose, but the thick snorting sound indicates that it did something, at least.  

“Here’s what happens next,” she says in a low voice that requires him to lean forward to hear. He doesn’t want to inhale the air she exhales, but he doesn’t really have a choice here, now does he? “You are going to order a cocktail. Snrrrrfff..! Ugh… we’re going to sit here, drink our cocktails, and talk, like couples do. You think you can gather at least some acting chops to pull that off, or should I walk out right away?”

He smiles. It looks almost genuine.

“Of course I can, honey.”

She returns the smile and puts a hand over his. He smiles even brighter and tries not to think about her touching her runny nose just now.

“Better,” she says. “Then, when they ask us if we’d like to order, you tell them that we’ll just pay for the drinks and then head home, because I’m under the weather.”

She sneezes again, once again right into the air, all over the table, all over both of their hands, and he can swear he feels it on his face as well.

“That’s dot eved a lie,” she says, “this cold has by dose all… ahhh… aaaGSSHHIEW! All raw and itchy, and I think I have a fever. Oh, stop looking like that, you know as well as I do that if you catch this, it’s the least you deserve.”

Her words are critical, but her face conveys deep affection, and anyone seeing them from some distance would assume they’re filled with Valentine’s Day emotion.

“And then?” he asks. He’s smiling too, but he can’t wait to get away from this rendezvous and this woman, who is stunningly beautiful with her shapely body and cascading mane of hair, and on any other night he wouldn’t mind inviting her to his hotel room and fuck her. But not when she’s so full of cold that it’s overflowing.

“Thed we leave together. We walk to the corner. I take a cab. I don’t give a fuck what you do or where you go frob there. I’ll be in touch whed it’s done. Questions?”

“Will you be able to, uh, carry it out?” he asked hesitantly. “Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you don’t sound well at all.”

“I’b sure you’ve worked through a cold or two at sobe point in your career, too. It’s the sabe fucking thing. I’b a professional.”

She straightens up, and that hazy pre-sneeze expression creeps into her elegant features little by little once again. Tears form in the corners of her eyes as they narrow, ever so slightly smudging her makeup, but rather than ruining it, it’s only making the smoky effect even more dramatic. Her quivering nostrils, intensely red around the rims and blending into a lighter red and then shades of pink the higher up the bridge you look, flare helplessly, and some moisture glitters blatantly underneath. Her lips have been slightly parted the whole time because she’s so stuffed up she can’t breathe at all otherwise, but now it’s not just to breathe, but to gasp for air to fuel yet another germ-filled eruption.

The inevitability is spellbinding, and he can’t hope for any mercy, any chance of her at least turning her head away from him and sneeze on some other unlucky patron or staff, and if she hasn’t covered a single sneeze yet, the idea of such courtesy must seem pointless to her.

She hangs on the edge of the nasal explosion for several torturous seconds before she snaps forward, much more forcefully this time, as if she’s no longer able to contain the sheer power of her illness.

The sneezes – three in a row this time, deep, heavy, messy sneezes – burst out of her one right after the other, once again spraying all over the table, the flowers, her chest, and him.

She’s not a silent sneezer, but she’s not particularly loud either, and the only people who really notice her continuous sneezing are those sitting closest, and they in turn try their hardest to ignore the provider of their near-future cold and at least pretend to have a pleasant dinner.

This small fit of sneezes was the snottiest yet, and some clear mess is trickling out of one tortured nostril. Some flew out of her nose with the second sneeze and is now glittering in her cleavage like unconventional jewels.

“Bless you,” he says in a resigned tone. He can almost feel the viruses invading his body at this point. “Still declining my handkerchief?”

She gives him a look and takes out a fresh Kleenex from her purse and gingerly dabs the mess off her face. He’s astonished to find that she carried tissues with her the whole time and still just unleashed these brutal cold sneezes everywhere.

“Ugh, I think I’b getting sicker,” she groans in an even thicker voice as she wipes her cleavage. She doesn’t blow her nose, but that’s probably a good decision because the tissue already looks like it’s at capacity.

He bites his tongue, but she notices.

“I cad still do by job,” she says.

The waiter approaches, after giving her a discreet glance as if to discern if the coast is clear or if he’s going to be subjected to another virus shower.

The contract killer with the terrible cold smiles at her company.