by Eden Myles
“I was,” he said with a small smirk, but then shrugged, like it was just a footnote in his history. “That was before I found my real calling in medicine.”
Stunned, I sat down opposite the big mahogany desk behind which the former bass man of Suicide Kings was sitting. I just couldn’t get over that!
Dr. Michaels moved his impressive bulk around to the chair behind the desk, ready to sit, but then the doorbell went off again. He stopped and said, “We take consultations here. If you’re hired, you’ll be handling this circus. I’ll be right back.”
“All right,” I said, trying not to sink into the leather wing chair which made me feel small and insignificant. I figured that was probably its purpose. Wow, I thought, a rock and roll doctor. I waited maybe five minutes before I started to squirm. I was about to get up and examine the guitars a little closer when Dr. Michaels suddenly swung back into the room.
He walked softly and I barely heard him enter, but suddenly he was standing by the desk, looking over an open file lying there, barely aware of my presence. He’d donned a long blue doctor’s coat, and he’d removed the earrings and had slipped on a pair of wire-frame reading glasses—probably for his consultation—but I could still see plainly that it was him. I sat for a few seconds in silence before saying, “Um…”
He turned to glare at me with cold blue eyes. “What are you doing here?”
I stiffened in my seat, unsure what to say for the moment. Did he have Alzheimer’s or something? “Um…” I said, hating the way I abused that small expression. “I’m Belle? I’m here for the housekeeping position?”
Dr. Michaels quirked a smile. “Ah. I see.” Looking bored, he picked up the file, balancing it professionally in his open palm. “Stay there. I’ll be back shortly.”
I sat and twiddled my thumbs, my brow wrinkling as I tried to make sense of Dr. Michael’s bizarre memory lapse. What strange behavior! About five minutes after that, he returned, but this time sans the coat, and he had the earrings back and no glasses. I wondered if he remembered me this time. I wondered if maybe I wasn’t losing my mind.
“There you are, Belle. Glad you didn’t run off.”
My anger got the better of me and I stood up. “I’m not sure what kind of a game you’re playing with me, Dr. Michaels, but I don’t appreciate this run around…”
Dr. Michaels set his big, slim hands upon the edge of the desk. “I’m sorry? I’m not following you.”
“You were just here. Then you were gone again, like you didn’t even know I’d been waiting…”
Another sly smile tugged the corners of Dr. Michael’s mouth. Despite my better sense, I felt my stomach flip over at the sight. “Oh. You’ve met Dorian.”
“Dorian?”
“My brother. My twin. He’s Dr. Dorian, if it makes things easier to remember. I’m Dr. Damian. He’s the plastic surgeon, the talented one. I’m the anesthesiologist.”
“Oh!” I said, and mentally kicked myself for going off on Dr. Damian the way I had. I felt like a heel and wanted to sink into the floor. I felt like I’d fallen into some weird 1980’s-style sitcom full of mix-ups and misunderstandings. “I’d no idea…I mean, Stefan never said anything about there being…um…”
“Two of us?” Dr. Damian quirked a sandy eyebrow at me.
I sat down again. “Sorry, I…um…this is awkward.” I was sweating from all the embarrassment and I quickly wrangled my cardigan off. I knew my face was beet red and I couldn’t seem to stop clenching my hands together.
Silence pressed in until I looked up at Dr. Damian.
He was staring at me in a new way, not like before, not in that teasing way he had. Instead, his focus was centered entirely on me—all over me—and his face was as sharp as a blade, his eyes an almost penetrating blue as they sparked with interest. He pressed his lips together as he gave me an all-over perusal that left me sweating and fidgeting even more. I just knew I was going to blow this interview!
Finally, he stood up. “Can you wait one moment more, please, my dear? It’s important, and I promise I’ll be right back.” His voice had grown soft and hoarse.
“Sure,” I said, not looking at him, though I wanted to roll my eyes.
He was gone maybe a minute or two at most, but returned this time with Dr. Dorian in tow. It was a little surreal to see two men so very identical. I’d gone to high school with identical twin sisters, but even they weren’t exactly identical. I mean, you could usually figure out who was who. But Drs. Damian and Dorian were exactly physically alike, except for the tats and the earrings that Dr. Damian sported and that Dr. Dorian apparently didn’t have. And Dr. Damian didn’t have the glasses his brother did. Other than those small things, they might have been clones. I wondered how their parents had told them apart. It must have been a nightmare.
“This is Dr. Dorian,” Dr. Damian said, introducing his brother.
I looked up at the tall man in the long blue doctor’s coat. He stared down his long nose at me as if he were examining me. “This is she?” he said in a cold voice. It was definitely Dr. Dorian I had passed in the hallway that day at the hospital. I remembered his salty, clipped attitude all too well.
“Yeah, bro, it is.” Damian moved back behind the desk but didn’t sit down this time. “Belle Starling. The Holy Grail, am I right?”
“It’s difficult to tell,” Dr. Dorian said, canting his head. “Her clothes are so frumpy…”
“Oh come on, Dor. Just look at her!”
Dr. Dorian tapped at his chin. “You may be right.”
I was confused. Insulted. At wit’s end. I looked back and forth between the two brothers. “What are you talking about?”
Dr. Damian slid down into his seat behind the desk while Dr. Dorian perched on the edge and said, “We’ve done surgeries on literally thousands of patients over the years. Some were done pro bono, like your friend, Stefan. But most of our patients are runway models, women seeking mammoplasties—breast enhancements. They almost always choose—”
“—Double-D’s, they’re our bestseller, you might say,” Dr. Damian finished for his brother. I found that both a little unsettling and whole lot impressive.
I gripped my sweater close. “What do your patients have to do with me?”
“You have perfect breasts,” they said in unison.
I thought about standing up and telling them to go to hell, walking out, but I had to admit I was so desperate for this job that their statement left me more stunned than insulted. “I don’t understand.”
“Your breasts,” Dr. Dorian said. He spoke softer than his brother, with less flair, but there was something quietly compelling about his presence. He seemed to fill the room with a subdued heat, and I found I couldn’t look away from him, his equally chiseled features, sandy hair, broody blue eyes. “They’re perfect double-D’s, which is infinitely rare. They are real? You haven’t had work done?”
“They’re real,” I said.
“One never knows these days.” He surprised me by going down on one knee like he was about to propose marriage. “May I see?”
His eyes were so sincere, and his voice such a compelling hush, I didn’t feel the least bit threatened, even though the situation was ridiculous. I let the cardigan fall away. He didn’t touch me, but he looked me over carefully while his brother spoke up from the opposite side of the desk.
“Mammoplasty is as much art form as science. My brother is very, very good, but only because he’s studied women like you, Belle. In fact, he regularly goes around the world, studying the most beautiful and naturally perfect women in the world. What we call Holy Grails. Women with perfect breasts.”
I laughed at that. “I’m not beautiful, and I hate my breasts.”
“I love them,” Dr. Dorian said. His voice was a low, vibrating purr. He raised his head and his glasses flashed at me as he centered his attention on my face. “You have the housekeeping job, of course. We would love to have you work for us.”
“So you can look at me
,” I guessed. “Study me?”
“That’s part of it, yes.” He looked over at his brother and I sensed a signal passing between them on an almost psychic level.
Dr. Damian said, “What your friend Stefan said we’re offering we’ll double, naturally. We want you to feel you’re being paid well for your services.”
“What are my services?” I demanded to know. “I mean, I don’t have to take my clothes off or do things…?”
“No, of course not,” Dr. Dorian said, standing up. “We are gentlemen, after all. But I would like to watch you at your tasks, study your form while you work, if it’s no bother. It will help me in my surgeries to see how you move…to see how your body moves. I’ll be as unobtrusive as possible.” He nodded at his brother and Dr. Damian opened a desk drawer and drew out a checkbook. He wrote off a check that he then passed to his brother.
Dr. Dorian handed it over to me.
I nearly had a heart attack. Stefan must have been mistaken. The check was for four times what he’d said they were willing to pay me for just one month of wages. I looked at the check, all the zeroes, my hands shaking. “Is this some kind of joke?” It was more money than I made in six months at all the other jobs I had ever worked. I could pay off half my student loans with it. I’d have extra for Grandma’s expenses.
“Keep it and come work for us,” Dr. Dorian said, folding my shaking hand over the check, and for the first time, I didn’t mind a man touching me. In fact, a kind of electricity seemed to arc over my skin at his touch.
He crossed his arms over his impressive chest and narrowed his eyes. “I only have two requests, Belle. Don’t alter your weight in any way, and please don’t wear that godawful cardigan again. If you do that, we’ll give you another check at the end of this month. Please say yes, Belle.”
***
I was in the college library, cramming for a killer business math exam, when Stefan dropped his backpack by my table and sat down. “So…hot or hot?”
“What?” I said, looking up, startled.
He rolled his eyes. “Dr. Michaels. Is he hot or is he hot?”
“Which one do you mean?”
Stefan scratched at his shadow. “Excuse me?”
I held up two fingers. “There’s two Dr. Michaels. Twins.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not. Dr. Dorian and Dr. Damian. Dr. Damian’s an anesthesiologist, which is probably why you don’t remember him during your surgery. And get this…he was the front man of Suicide Kings back before they folded! They opened for Mudvayne a few years ago, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.” Stefan slapped his forehead. “You mean I’ve been fantasying about one absolutely perfect gay guy when there’s actually two perfect gay guys?”
“I’m not sure about the gay part,” I told him frankly. “I mean, they didn’t have an aura of gayness about them or anything.”
Stefan quirked his eyebrow. “Aura? You do know not all gay guys act like Ru Paul, right?”
I grinned at my best friend. “Yeah, but let’s just say they did not exactly ping my gaydar.”
“They pinged mine.”
“But you’re attracted to straight guys, so that means your gaydar’s all broken, my friend.”
We bickered back and forth a bit before I spilled all about my very unusual interview at their mansion the day before.
“They didn’t ask for references, a resume, nothing. They just hired me on the spot,” I said.
Stefan gave me a dubious look. “Because they like your boobs? I mean…seriously?”
“Apparently. They said I’m the Holy Grail of boobs.”
A girl passing us by threw a strange look over her shoulder at me and I laughed. It sounded odd, even to me.
But Stefan wasn’t laughing. He did touch my hand, very lightly. “I hope these guys are straight with you. I really hope I didn’t get you into something weird—two weird guys with a boob fetish or whatever.”
I thought about that. I supposed it did sound weird, but something about the Michaels brothers had put me at ease almost at once—after I’d gotten over the confusion of there being two of them. I couldn’t explain it; it was just something in my gut that told me I didn’t have to be afraid of them. I boldly put my other hand over his. “I’ll be fine, Stef. I promise. If anything weird happens, they’ll be eating my dust.”
He didn’t look entirely convinced, but he did force a smile. Reaching down into his backpack, he pulled out a flier. “I saw this on the community board and thought of you.”
It was some kind of announcement for a meeting. The Survivor’s Club, it read. Oh no, it was a support group for men and women who were survivors of rape and sexual assault. They were meeting for the first time later tonight. I smiled at Stefan. “Don’t be silly. Why would I need this?”
“Izzy Pop,” Stefan said in a serious tone of voice, “please consider going. Just drop in and see what they have to say. It’s totally private. And maybe it’ll help you a little.”
“Nothing’s totally private,” I said, sounding angry even to myself. “And I’m fine. I don’t need help. I’m not a victim!”
“You’re right, Iz. You’re not. You’re a survivor. But you should still talk to someone.”
“Leave me alone!” I shouted at him, and the librarian finally looked up from the front desk and offered me a frown.
“Is there a problem?” she asked in a cold tone of voice.
“No, ma’am,” Stefan said getting up, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Obviously not.”
After he left, I crumpled up the flier and tossed it at the nearest wastepaper basket, but missed. I immediately went back to studying statistics and probability, but before I left I picked up the ball of paper and put it inside my backpack. Maybe dropping in wouldn’t be so bad and would help Operation Get Your Shit Back Together. Who knows?
***
The meeting was pretty cool.
There were ten of us in total, and I was a little surprised to discover that four of the people who showed up were guys. Somehow, I just hadn’t been expecting to see guys. I didn’t think guys could be sexually assaulted.
It was students only and we sat around in a horseshoe in the darkened student cafeteria and just talked about nothing in particular at first. Finally, though, this one tiny Asian girl named June piped up and talked about the night her boyfriend wouldn’t stop feeling her up and what happened afterward. Everyone told June it wasn’t her fault and she was awesome for being so brave.
A tall, handsome black guy named Miles went next, talking about what had happened between him and his uncle when he was twelve years old. The stories after that were scary, and sad, but somehow cathartic. The students who talked looked relieved after telling their secrets, like they were dropping this huge weight off their shoulders. It was like it stopped being scary after they got it out, like we were all sharing each other’s burdens.
A kind of anticipation started bubbling up inside me, and when it came my turn to say something, I was a little surprised by how much detail I offered. “I never saw him again. I hope I never see him again, but I’m afraid one day I might, and if I did, I won’t know how to react,” I admitted, staring down at my feet.
A red-haired girl name Christa nodded and said, “You’re not the only one, Iz. Clark did the same thing to me.”
I swallowed hard, like a walnut was stuck in my throat. “You mean Clark is a…like a serial…”
I didn’t want to use the word, but Christa nodded again and said, “A serial rapist? Yeah. I know at least three girls on campus he’s done it to.”
I caught a sob in my throat. “Why doesn’t anyone say anything? Turn him in? Do something?”
She looked at me sadly, with darkened eyes. “You didn’t turn him in, did you?”
I thought about her words as I got into bed that night. For once I didn’t cry myself to sleep. I was too damned mad to cry.
***
I pushed the Dyson Ball back and f
orth across the living room floor, leaving tracks in the plush crème-colored carpeting, while Dr. Dorian sat in a wing chair in a corner of the room and quietly made notations in his small, leather-bound notebook. He made not a sound, but I could feel his eyes on me as I slowly worked my way across the vast plane of carpeting. I worked hard at ignoring him and tried to concentrate on the task at hand and not go too fast. The work was surprisingly easy.
In the past week, I’d learned that the Michaels brothers were almost pathologically neat. There were never any stains on the carpeting, messes on the coffee tables, or even many dishes in the sink of their vast, industrial kitchen. Their bedrooms were absolutely spotless. I think they spent more of their times in the offices, consultation rooms, and attached clinic than anywhere else. They seemed to eat out more than they did in. When I arrived at work in the late afternoons, right after classes, it normally took me about ten or fifteen minutes to assess the damage from the night before, and usually only an hour or two to neaten up.
Dr. Damian told me I was responsible for answering the door, seeing patients to consultation rooms, and cleaning the whole bottom floor of the mansion—everything except the offices, consultation rooms and clinic. Those had a professional industrial waste cleaner who came in once a week to dispose of medical wastes and make certain the clinic was up to medical code. I’d asked about the second floor, but he said because it was just the two of them since their parents had died ten years ago, most of the upper floor rooms had been sealed off and I only had to worry about their bedrooms. It was easy work—almost too easy. An almost obscene paycheck for no more than two hours of work a day. I felt like I was stealing their money.
The carpet done, I shut off the vacuum and started rolling up the cord. “I put the dishes in the dishwasher and did all the carpets, Dr. Dorian. I also changed yours and Dr. Damian’s sheets and straightened up. I don’t think I forgot anything.”
“Thank you, Belle,” he said in a soft monotone, still scribbling notes. “Thorough work, as always.”