Douchebag Doctor

by Roxy Gray

  Michelle’s heart raced. Her eyes met the doctor’s. They were light brown, like sweet caramel. Her gaze drifted lower, over his arms. Muscular, yet lean. Small veins protruded on the sides. She watched as his hand gently grazed hers, leaving sparks as it went.

  “Sure. I’d really like that.”

  The other students began to filter into the room. Michelle turned. The doctor bent down to whisper something in her ear.

  “Maybe I’ll get to ruin your pants this time.” He smirked.

  Michelle fought back the urge to laugh.

  “Doubtful. I don’t even know you.”

  A smile took over the doctor’s mouth. His voice vibrated by her ear, flicking his British accent into her:

  “I think you do. And I think you know what happens next.”

  Michelle slipped out of consciousness just before she could conjure up a name for him.

  The next day, she went to her class, eager to see Dr. Douchebag again. He didn’t show up. He didn’t come the day after that either. Michelle was furious.

  “That asshole! He was totally leading me on, pretending he was going to come to my class again. He probably did it to make me suffer for bumping into him,” she seethed.

  “You’re nuts,” her cousin said. “He’s probably just busy. Didn’t you say he was a doctor?”

  “Yeah,” Michelle nodded. “But I thought he was flirting with me. He was really sexy. And British. I really wanted to sleep with him. I’ve never fucked a doctor before.”

  “Is that all you want to do?”

  Michelle ignored her. Bree laughed and disappeared into her room. It wasn’t until the following Tuesday that the man made an appearance in the studio.

  “Hey,” he said, just like in her daydream.

  “Hi.”

  Michelle’s voice was aloof. She didn’t want to seem too eager. She hated it when guys were too eager. But to her disappointment, their conversation ended before it even began. The doctor rolled his yoga mat out onto the floor and stretched out on his back, face up.

  Michelle didn’t look at him once all through class. It was too tempting. He’d taken his shirt off midway through too, confirming her suspicions about how muscular his torso was. It could have been carved from rock. She wanted to run one finger down the centre or graze her lips across it.

  “Now lay on your back and lie with your eyes closed for a few minutes.” Michelle let herself daydream as the students went into the end of class meditation. She stole a glance at the doctor, noticing how peaceful his face looked. His full brows looked like two small feathers. His plush lips had a minuscule gap between them. It was nothing like when he’d snapped at her last week.

  Calm. She liked him that way too. And she was done denying herself the opportunity to get to know him.

  After class, Michelle slowly walked to where the doctor was packing up his things. He caught her eye and opened his mouth.

  “How’s it going —”

  All of a sudden, someone started screaming just outside the room.

  “He’s having a heart attack! Someone call 9-1-1!”

  A man was sitting on the floor clutching his arm. He looked pained. He quickly slipped from consciousness, falling onto the floor. The doctor sprung up instantly, driven by an imaginary force.

  “Give him some space,” he instructed. He checked the man’s pulse and began giving him chest compressions. Michelle watched from nearby, awed as the man miraculously began breathing again. A few minutes later, the paramedics arrived and lifted him onto a stretcher.

  “That was…” Michelle trailed off, at a loss for words.

  “Mind-blowing?” The doctor asked. “Because that’s how it felt.”

  “Yeah,” Michelle said.

  They looked at each other for a moment. Goosebumps coated Michelle’s skin. Now she really needed to know his name.

  “I’m going to go with him to the emergency room. My shift is starting soon, anyway.”

  He disappeared before she could get in another word.

  The following evening, Michelle found herself at a club in downtown Miami, sipping on a cocktail that looked and tasted similar to Pepto Bismol. She’d danced with a few men over the course of the evening, but none of them seemed good enough to take home. The one she was currently talking to was beginning to show his true colours. He dragged his gaze down her torso, settling on her full cleavage. His hand landed on hers atop the cool, stone bar.

  “So, baby, are your breasts real?”

  They were, though they didn’t look like it due to their size.

  “None of your business,” she snapped, pushing the man off of her. She downed the cocktail in one gulp and re-joined Bree at the other end of the bar. She regretted ever letting him buy her a drink.

  “This place sucks,” she moped. “Let’s go home.”

  “But it’s only nine-thirty!” Bree whined. “I wanna dance!”

  Michelle sighed.

  “Sorry. I’m just not in the mood.”

  “Fine, fine,” Bree huffed. “Go home. I’m going to call Jake and get him out here. He’ll dance with me!”

  Jake was Bree’s firefighter boyfriend. Michelle had to admit, he was sexy. But his aesthetic was completely different than the doctors. Plus, he was too nice. Michelle liked her men like she liked her coffee: rough, hot and tough to handle. Just like the doctor.

  Why did she feel the need to compare everyone to him?

  Michelle sparked up a joint out front, debating whether she should call a cab or not. Their place was only a fifteen-minute walk, though it was already dark out.

  Just as she was about to go, the boob-watcher appeared.

  “Hey, it’s you.” He said. His eyes looked creepy in the dim light that glowed from within the club.

  Michelle ignored him.

  He didn’t take the hint.

  “Oh, come on, don’t be a bitch,” he slurred. His body language had become aggressive. He leaned closer.

  Michelle wasn’t afraid. She’d taken many self-defence classes as part of her fitness training. She could knock this guy out in five seconds flat if she needed to.

  His hand grabbed at hers roughly. The goon tried steering Michelle to the side of the building. It was dark there.

  “Get the hell off of me.” She slapped his face. Hard. The lit end of her joint pressed against his arm until he recoiled.

  “Ow! What the fuck?!” He fell backward onto his ass.

  While the idiot was recovering, Michelle made her getaway, jogging across the busy street just in time to dodge a flurry of cars.

  “Bitch!” The pervert yelled. He gave her the finger.

  After he went back inside the club, Michelle sent her roommate a warning text, letting her know she was safe now and on her way home.

  She walked to work off her fury. It wasn’t the first time a club rat had gotten aggressive with Michelle, but she hoped it would be the last. What an awful evening it had been. Her only solace was that in ten minutes she’d be home.

  Home and in her pyjamas — it sounded like heaven.

  All of a sudden, an odd feeling took over Michelle’s body.

  She felt very drunk and dizzy.

  All of the lights around her began to spin. They melted together like candy corn, orange and firey.

  Michelle could barely see.

  Even her phone’s screen was completely blurry.

  She staggered off the sidewalk like a deer taking her first steps. She felt very tired all of a sudden. It was hard to move. Her limbs felt as if they’d been weighed down by bricks.

  The last thing Michelle remembered before she lost consciousness was stumbling towards a bright red light.

  “Michelle? Can you hear me?”

  She slowly blinked her eyes open, immediately feeling a splitting headache.

  Was this a dream?

  “Are you real?” She heard herself say.

  “I am.” The doct
or laughed. She recognized his face.

  His eyes were hazel up close.

  He’d shaved the scruff from his neck.

  Slowly, the room came into focus. Michelle was in a hospital bed. A nurse shuffled around beside her. An IV dripped some mysterious fluid into her. The lights hurt her brain. She felt puffy.

  “Where am I?” She asked. “What happened?”

  “You’re at the hospital. You collapsed. We pumped your stomach.” His scrubs were blue again. Clean, this time.

  “Oh,” Michelle said. She didn’t remember any of that.

  “Do you remember how you got here?”

  “No…” she trailed off. The details were fuzzy. “Sort of. I was out with my roommate. There was this creepy guy… he followed me outside… I slapped him I think.”

  She giggled. Everything was funny, even though it wasn’t.

  “We’re running some tests, but we suspect Rohypnol.”

  “Roe-hip-what?”

  “Rohypnol. The date rape drug.”

  “Oh. Shit.” She still felt drunk. Maybe a little high too.

  “Get some rest.”

  When Michelle awoke again, the doctor was gone.

  Come morning, they let her go home. She thanked the universe that it was Saturday, and she had the entire day to recover. Bree took care of her while she lazed on the sofa, devouring an entire season of the bachelorette.

  “I wish I had this many sexy guys after me,” she sighed.

  Her vagina was going to shrivel up like an old prune if she didn’t meet someone ASAP.

  “I think it would actually be exhausting,” Bree said. “One man is enough for me.”

  “That’s because you have a good one,” Michelle grumbled.

  She stuffed a handful of popcorn in her mouth.

  “You sound jealous.”

  “I’m not. I’m just shaken up from yesterday.”

  “Hmm, I think you are,” Bree taunted in a sing-song voice. “I think your little run-in with the doctor last night made you second guess your single status.”

  “Did not.” Michelle stood her ground. “He’s a dick.”

  As she watched the eyes of the men and women on screen declaring their love for all to see, a pit formed in her stomach.

  Michelle had never been interested in having a partner. She liked being on her own. She was independent and strong. If she didn’t rely on anyone else, she couldn’t be let down.

  What had changed?

  Why did she suddenly feel like she was missing out?

  The only answer she could come up with was the doctor. He was like a disease running through her veins. Addictive and multiplying through her body by the second. She barely knew the guy, but his pull was strong. She didn’t want to give the doctor any more opportunity to mess with her brain.

  The only way to rid herself of him would be to poison him with a taste of his own medicine.

  Next week, she’d squash this thing for good.

  3

  ___

  Dr. Douchebag waltzed into the yoga studio right on time Thursday morning, just before Michelle’s class was scheduled to begin. He strode in with an air of overinflated confidence that told Michelle he was expecting her to kiss his ass as a ‘thank you’ for last weekend.

  Yeah, right. The last thing she needed was an egomaniac.

  He unrolled his mat in his usual place, front and center. His eyes went to Michelle, beckoning her to speak first.

  He was in for a surprise.

  So what if he had pumped her stomach? She didn’t owe him anything. He was simply doing his job, just as she was doing hers right now. If he wasn’t working that particular shift, someone else would have taken care of her.

  It wasn’t a big deal.

  “Fully recovered, I see?” His voice was deep. Full. It rose goosebumps on her skin. She rubbed them away with one swipe of her delicate hand.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  She said it with a dead-ass serious expression on her face.

  He frowned.

  “Yes, you do. Don’t play games.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She turned and ignored him, announcing the start of the class. Take that, doctor. That should deter him.

  Except it didn’t.

  In the parking lot, Michelle’s plan to out-asshole the doctor came to a halt when she noticed his car parked beside hers. His vehicle was so close to the white line that she couldn’t open her door.

  “Move so I can go home,” she said when he finally appeared.

  He leaned onto the side of his black range rover and cocked his head to one side.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?” A smirk took over his pillowy lips, crinkling the corners of his eyes. His chocolatey hair blew in one direction, licked there by the wind.

  Michelle crossed her arms over her busty chest.

  “I have a right to be able to leave my parking spot.”

  “Do you? I don’t know you, so I’m not sure about that.”

  She stomped her foot like an angered toddler.

  “Why are you such an asshole?”

  “I’m not,” he said plainly. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re rude, for one.” She said, counting on her fingers. “You’re full of yourself, you’re angry...” she ran out of reasons. “And your accent is stupid.”

  The doctor laughed.

  “My accent is stupid? Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t have control over that.”

  “And the rest?”

  He shrugged.

  “Dunno. I do know something though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your pulse quickens every time you see me. Your pupils dilate just a little. And no matter what you say, you’re happy I parked beside you today. You’re glad that we’re finally having a conversation. I am too.”

  Michelle shook her head.

  He stepped closer until they were face to face.

  Less than a foot separated them.

  She could smell his breath — hot cinnamon and spice.

  His cologne was an aphrodisiac.

  “That’s not true.”

  She didn’t slap his hand away when he brought it to her face, brushing one thumb over her full bottom lip. With a touch as light as dandelion dust, his fingers travelled down her neck to her collar bone.

  Michelle instantly knew this was something.

  Something big.

  “I think you want to go out with me.”

  “I really don’t,” she scoffed. It felt like a lie. “I don’t date.”

  He laughed again.

  “Why’s that? Too afraid to get hurt?”

  “No,” she snapped. “I just like my space, that’s all.”

  “Fine,” he conceded, going around to the driver's side of his car. He climbed in and rolled the windows down.

  “When you change your mind, let me know.”

  Michelle had to flatten herself against her door to keep from getting whacked by the mirror when he reversed.

  “Bye, gorgeous.”

  He tore out of the parking lot, leaving her fuming yet again. Who did this guy think he was? ‘When’ she changed her mind? What was that supposed to mean? What kind of person goes around telling people what they feel?

  She wouldn’t give in.

  Yet something about what he’d said struck a sore spot within Michelle. “Too afraid to get hurt?”

  She’d never admit it out loud.

  * * *

  The following week, she avoided the doctor by calling in sick for both of her yoga classes. The week after, she ignored him completely. He didn’t try to talk to her, which bothered Michelle.

  Was she so easy to forget?

  She went twice as hard in her other fitness classes, feeling comfortable knowing the douchebag wouldn’t show up. She was safe there. He couldn’t get under her skin.
/>   Afterward, she stopped by her favourite coffee shop.

  “I’ll have a tall caramel mocha,” she told the barista.

  “Coming right up.”

  Michelle went to the side counter to wait. A man’s backside caught her eye as he sprinkled cinnamon on his drink. His legs were muscular. His ass looked firm enough to bounce a coin off of. He had fuckboy written all over him, but Michelle didn’t mind. She needed a good pounding after the past couple of weeks.

  The barista handed her drink over.

  He turned around.

  “Shit,” Michelle accidentally said out loud.

  “Look who it is,” the doctor laughed. He looked different out in the world. His jeans were rough and torn, matching the stubble on his neck. His hands looked large wrapped around a steaming coffee cup.

  She blinked at him. This wasn’t part of the plan. She was supposed to be forgetting his existence.

  “Come on,” the doctor gestured to an open table. He sat down and waited for her.

  Michelle sighed. She joined him.

  “This isn’t a date.”

  The doctor looked amused.

  “Whatever you say.”

  She leaned back in her seat, attempting to regain her calm and collected demeanour. Her foot tapped nervously against the base of the table.

  “I don’t even know your name,” she admitted.

  “Liam,” he said without missing a beat. “Liam Berry.”

  “Well, Liam, like I told you before, I don’t date.”

  “Yeah, I got that the first time.”

  “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Me? I’m just sitting here, having coffee with this really pretty woman who won’t stop giving me a hard time. And for some reason, it’s making me want to take her home and shut her up in a different way.”

  Michelle’s mouth went dry. What he’d said was brazen. Rude, even. But for some reason, the statement intrigued her.

  She took a sip from her cup, gathering courage.

  “How would you shut her up?”

  He shrugged. A hint of blush appeared on his golden skin.

  “I’d think of something.”

  “Hmmm, something,” Michelle re-iterated. “Maybe that’s exactly what I want.”

  Liam laughed, all dry and deep.

  “I don’t think so. I like to get to know a woman first before I indulge in… what you’re thinking.”