When an adequate amount of time had passed, he cracked the door again. Not seeing anyone or hearing anything, he opened the door farther and slowly stuck his head out, looking up and down the hallway. The only people he saw were two nurses a distance down the main corridor at the central desk, talking to an ambulatory patient. They were far enough away so that Raj could just barely hear them. In the opposite direction, there were only three more patient rooms on either side of the corridor before a terminal conservatory. There were conservatories at both ends of the long corridor, each filled with plants and chairs for those patients able to use them.

In his mind, Raj could hear Samira’s advice: Don’t be seen, but if you are, act normally. Let your nurse’s uniform do the talking. Don’t be seen! Raj scoffed silently. Since he was a big man, slightly more than two hundred pounds, not being seen was particularly difficult, especially on a full hospital floor with nurses and aides scurrying about on any one of myriad possible errands.

Raj had gone to Samira and Veena’s room to seek advice that evening before he’d left for the Aesculapian Medical Center. He didn’t think he’d really need help and did it more out of respect for his female colleagues, but now that he was there, he was glad he did. Samira had finally admitted she had been nervous, which was good to know, since he, too, was definitely nervous. Veena, however, had said nothing.

Of the twelve nursing employees of Nurses International, as the only male, Raj provided a stark foil for the other eleven attractive and quite feminine females. He had medium-dark flawless skin, very dark closely cropped hair, darkly penetrating eyes, and a pencil-line mustache beneath a slightly hooked nose. But his most characteristic physical feature was his physique. He had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and bulging muscles. He looked every inch the enthusiastic weight lifter and black-belt martial arts expert he was. But despite his appearance, Raj was not a masculine-acting individual, but nor was he feminine, at least in his mind. Nor was he gay. He thought of himself as just Raj. The seemingly out-of-character weight lifting and martial arts had originally been his father’s idea. Recognizing early his son’s social proclivities, his father had wanted him to have some protection in a socially cruel world. As he got older, Raj liked the weight lifting, as looking buff had become enjoyable because of the attention it engendered from his mostly female friends, and he liked the martial arts because, in his mind, it was more like dance than an aggressive sport.