The Lesson the Perverts in the Ward Learned

I still remember my first few months as a nurse, when every shift felt like a small victory. Caring for people filled me with a satisfaction I couldn’t quite explain: a wound properly cleaned, a firm bandage, the trembling hand of an old man calming under mine. I felt like I was useful for something, that my work mattered.

But every profession has its dirty side, and mine did too.

The dirty side was called bath time. Bathing patients who could no longer manage on their own meant washing everything, and when I say everything, I mean exactly everything: the back, the folds, the feet, and also whatever was left under the sheet when you pulled it away. With most of them there was no problem. With some, however, the warm water and the sponge were an invitation they took advantage of without the least shame.

They’d get hard on purpose. They’d make comments in that thick, slurred voice of theirs, stare at my uniform neckline, pretend they needed help turning over just to brush against me. And it wasn’t just with me. They did it with all of us, and the younger the nurse, the more vicious they were.

—I’m sick of dirty old men —Daniela told me one morning, stirring her coffee as if she wanted to punch a hole through the cup.

Daniela had just started her placement. She was twenty-two, with a chestnut mane she tied up badly with a pencil and that mixture of tenderness and rage belonging to someone who still hasn’t learned how to defend herself. I was a few years older and had a lot more experience, but I understood her perfectly.

—Me too —I replied—. But there are ways to make them stop.

The one who taught me those ways was Rosa, the ward veteran. Rosa had spent twenty years in that hospital and had seen hundreds of patients like them come and go. One afternoon, while we were folding sheets in the little room at the back, she told me with a calm smile, like someone sharing a cooking recipe.

—Men like that only understand one language —Rosa said—. Fear. No need to shout or hit. It’s enough that they discover you’re the one in control of the only part of their body they’re proud of.

And then she explained the trick to me. Simple, silent, impossible to prove afterward. A squeeze at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right place, while you hold their gaze and speak in a sweet voice. Nothing that left a mark. Nothing a doctor could see in an exam.

That very afternoon, my coworkers and I smiled at each other in the corridors. For the first time in a long while, we were actually looking forward to bath time.

***

My patient that day was Aníbal, the worst of them all. A bald, flabby, hairy man, with skin speckled with spots and a tongue that never rested. He’d spent weeks making my life hell: saying I had nice legs, telling me to bend over a little more, asking whether my husband knew how lucky he was. I gritted my teeth and kept doing my job. Until that afternoon.

I helped him undress —he always had the strength for that, the hypocrite— and settled him in the bathtub. The water covered his round belly. I started as always, running the sponge over his shoulders, his broad back, his limp arms. It took less than two minutes for him to react. Beneath the surface, his small testicles floated among the gray hair and his cock began to rise slowly, peeking out like a submarine periscope.

—You do that so well —he muttered, closing his eyes with a greasy smile—. None of them do it like you.

I said nothing. I kept moving the sponge downward, over his chest, over his stomach, slowly, until I reached his crotch. I cleaned every nook and cranny with professional calm while he moved his hips, pushing against the sponge as if he wanted to fuck it.

—What do you think of how I’m working it? —he asked, opening one eye, smug—. Admit it, it turns you on.

I burst out laughing. A real laugh, long and genuine.

—That? —I said, tilting my head—. You call that little thing a cock? Please, Aníbal. You can barely see it.

The smile froze on his face. The blood drained from his features and for a moment he looked older, smaller, more naked than he already was.

—Look at it —I continued, lowering my voice to something almost tender—. It’s tiny. Did your wife ever get there with you, or did she have to finish herself off afterward?

—You little…! You daughter of a…! —he started to sit up, red with fury.

I didn’t let him finish. My free hand closed under the water, firm, exactly where Rosa had taught me. I didn’t squeeze all the way. Just enough for him to understand who was in charge.

—Were you going to say something? —I asked, holding his gaze with a sweet smile—. I can’t hear you, little chick.

The man opened his mouth but no sound came out. I squeezed a little more and a muffled groan slipped between his teeth. I watched the cock, once rigid, soften and shrink with each passing second, retreating like a snail pulling into its shell.

—Oh, how adorable —I said, watching it with false tenderness—. Now it probably doesn’t even measure two fingers.

I moved him back and forth, without letting go, and he could barely breathe. His hands clutched the rim of the tub, knuckles white, forehead beaded with sweat.

—I’m going to keep washing you —I whispered, leaning in close to his ear—, and you’re going to keep your mouth shut. Right?

He nodded quickly, desperately.

—And don’t even think about touching another coworker again. Or staring at her cleavage. Or saying a single word of your usual crap to her. Because next time —I tightened my grip a little more and he let out a muffled cry— I won’t be nearly so gentle. Do we understand each other?

He nodded again, his eyes full of tears that weren’t from pain, but from sheer panic.

I let him go. I finished washing him with one hand, calmly, while with the other I gently held his testicles, reminding him they were still there, at my mercy. How easy that had been, I thought. So many months putting up with it, and all it took was this.

—All done, we’re finished —I announced, helping him out.

It took him a long time to move. But from that day on, Aníbal was the politest patient in the ward. He lowered his eyes whenever I came into his room and thanked me in a whisper for everything, no matter how small.

***

I wasn’t the only one, of course. Rosa’s idea spread among us like a sacred secret, and each of us adapted it in her own way. Those chats in the break room, over coffee after coffee, became my favorite part of the shift.

—I got one who thought he was hot shit —Daniela said one afternoon, eyes shining—. One of those who brag about size. And honestly, he wasn’t entirely wrong, he was big. But as soon as I put my hand where you told me and squeezed, it got so small it almost disappeared in the hair. I didn’t know whether to laugh or applaud.

The three of us burst out laughing at once.

—Mine was one of those handsy types —said Noelia, a tiny blonde with a calm temperament no one would ever have imagined capable of that—. He’d already done it to me twice, pretending he was losing his balance. So when he got out of the bathtub, I pretended to stumble and fell on him right in the crotch with all my weight. The scream could be heard upstairs. The doctor came running. I told him the poor man had slipped.

—I don’t believe you —Daniela said, covering her mouth.

—I swear on my uniform.

But the story that affected me most was Helena’s. Helena wasn’t pretty, and the patients never let her forget it. While they showered the younger nurses with filthy compliments, they told her cruel things about her face, her body, her loneliness. She took it in silence, with a dignity that hurt me to see.

—I don’t get compliments —Helena said that afternoon, staring into the bottom of her cup—. I get the other thing. The insults. That nobody would want me even if I were given away.

An awkward silence fell. None of us knew what to say.

—But yesterday’s one went too far —she went on, and for the first time she smiled—. He told me I should bathe him with a bag over my head. So when he sat up to get out, I timed it well and gave him a headbutt right in the goods. By accident, of course. Things that happen when you’re helping a clumsy patient.

That time we laughed so hard the supervisor poked her head in to see what was going on.

***

Over time, the ward changed. Not overnight, but it changed. New patients learned quickly, through rumors or firsthand experience, that on that floor the nurses weren’t to be touched, weren’t to be humiliated, weren’t to be played with. That behind the friendly smile and the spotless uniform was a hand that knew exactly where to squeeze.

One of the revenges that impressed me most was Carla’s. A patient had slipped his fingers under a coworker’s skirt when she bent down to pick up a towel. Carla said nothing at the time. She waited. And when it was her turn to bathe that same man, instead of soap she rubbed a little alcohol on the glans just as he, all proud of himself, was displaying it and demanding attention. The howl, she said, still echoed in her memory like music.

We never talked about it outside the break room. It was our silent pact, our private justice, the kind no hospital protocol accounted for but none of us was willing to give up. Rosa looked at us all with the pride of a teacher, knowing her lesson would outlive her retirement.

—What matters —she’d tell us— is not hurting them. It’s making them understand, even if only once in their lives, what it feels like when someone has power over your body and you can do nothing. Maybe then they’ll learn to show some respect.

And learn they did.

The years passed. Today I’m the veteran of the ward, the one folding sheets in the little room at the back and sharing the recipe with the young women who arrive frightened and angry, just as I once did. I teach them the trick, the exact squeeze, the sweet voice, the steady gaze. And every time I see one of them leaving the bath room with that small, satisfied smile, I know the lesson is safe.

That’s only one of the many conversations I’ve had, and still have, with the girls on the shift.

Of course, as I always say, all of this is pure fiction.