“What happened? What happened?”
“Well it all gets a little fuzzy.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“But I remember he reached out to touch my face, very gently - I liked that he did that, it showed respect - then put his hand on my right breast and squeezed me. Then energy just took over.”
“What?”
“Energy. At least that’s what if felt like.”
“OK, OK, Details. Details, Give them to me. I won’t survive ten minutes if you don’t.”
“Well, I’ve gone this far. I guess I may as well.”
“Was he already hard?”
Gina laughed. “Well, we’d created quite a bit of tension leading up to this. I was wet. I knew that. What I didn’t know was how far along he was. That’s one of the wonderful mysteries of all this. Discovery. Anticipation and discovery.”
“While he held my breast I started unbuttoning his shirt. We kissed and then we just threw off our clothes.”
“Weren’t you worried someone might come in?”
“I was petrified. But it was the end of the day and all the doctors had left. There were a few administrative staff milling around outside so it was possible we could have been discovered. But you know, and this is probably something particularly true of me, but somehow that fear of discovery ramped it up to a higher level of excitement, higher and higher, as if we were made to hurry and therefore all preliminaries and all inhibitions were swept away. No impediments. Basically, we just wanted to get at each other.”
“But Jesus, in a doctor’s office. Where did you do it?”
Gina laughed, “all over, I guess. I remember we were standing up when we undressed and the minute we finished throwing off our clothes we... attacked each other. I mean we really went after each other.”
“Standing up.”
“Standing up.”
“God, I can’t believe it. But you had all that EKG stuff on your body.”
“Yes. He had finished the recording before we... um, got going... so at the point when we were naked and attacking each other I suddenly remembered the recording and said, Hey, don’t forget to turn on the machine.”
“He laughed and switched it on. After that we would try something and look at the machine to see what effect it had. It was a kick. I think that the pressure of discovery and the air of experimentation added a validation, if you will, and took away even the pretense of modesty.”
“What did you try?”
“He squeezed my breast and we watched for effect. I grabbed his penis, and by the way, yes, it was hard... really hard. And then I looked to see if made any difference in my tracing. He put his finger inside me and rubbed me while we watched the tracing. And at that point we just forgot about the machine and chemistry took over.”
“Where were you when you did it?”
“We started out standing. As he was feeling me he put me up on the examining table, sitting facing him with my legs apart. We were both interested in how we might effect the recording. We watched the tracing as his hands moved all over me. There was some KY jelly there and he smeared it over my breasts and massaged them. It made funny little jiggly marks on the EKG. I took his hands and put them between my legs and squeezed against him real hard. The baseline moved up and down as I squeezed. I grabbed hold of his penis and rubbed it watching the EKG. Well, it didn’t do anything for the recording but it sure did a lot for me.”
“It was about then that I lost all interest in the ‘science’ of the matter. And just... well, sort of came unglued. I remember he laid me back on the table and climbed on top. I went wild. I don’t think I’ve ever been turned on so much, before or since.”
“I remember that we were at the peak when we heard, or thought we heard, someone starting to come into the room. I can’t be sure but the door may have come open just a crack and closed again. Anyway, it just made us turn loose all the more. And I have to tell you that I don’t always come. I guess my shyness makes me have to be really comfortable with a guy first. But for some reason, maybe because I was so uninhibited I... well, I just... exploded! It was great.”
Tracy caught her breath. “Unbelievable, she said. Un-be-fucking-leivable. Did anybody ever come in?”
“No, whoever it was must have decided against it. If it was anybody at all. But I think they did us a great service. Pushed us over the top. I guess the brink of exposure is what’s most exciting for me.”
“God! That’s fantastic. Making love on an examining table. How excellent!”
“Fucking, Gina corrected. It was fucking. I know the distinction more clearly now. There is room... ummm... need for both in the life, as long as you don’t mistake one for the other. This was just desire and situation.”
“What happened afterwards?”
“Well we got dressed quick. Really quick. He collected the tracing and separated it into two parts. He gave me the good stuff and I left.”
“Just left?”
“Just left.”
“How did you feel about it?”
“Well, Gina sighed, I know casual sex is not supposed to be good for women. Loss of self-esteem and all that. But I tell you, Tracy, I walked out of there like I had just been made chairman of the board. And the next three days - every time I took a step it felt like I was walking with springs under my feet.”
“I have to go look at this piece of art again,” Tracy said, and almost ran to the entrance hall to stand once again in front of what she now knew was something extra special. “My god, she said, I see it. Gina, it’s all here. It’s...” and she turned and placed her hand on Gina’s arm,... “it’s... it’s your orgasm.”
“Exactly.”
“Ooooh,” Tracy chilled and quivered to think of it. “How many people know about this?”
Gina looked away a moment and then turned directly in the path of her electric eyes. “You’re the first and only,” she said. Then the held her hand in the stop traffic position. “And it’ll probably stay that way.”
Tracy nodded and scanned the art work with the interest of an art critic for the New York Times, seeing so much more now than at first glance in the exhibition tour.
“And you know what I like most of all about it hanging here in my entrance hall?”
“What?”
“It’s a secret in plain view. My most private intimacy just right out there.”
The two women, now inexplicably closer, stood in the arc of the secret in the open, not minding the passage of time or the silence that accompanied it... until Gina finally, gently, broke in.
“I learned something about myself in all this,” she said. “I think the combination of modesty and fear of discovery works to create a fabulous tension which is so inhibiting, but in some mysterious way, gives me, when I have the courage to challenge it, a monumental thrill. Maybe that’s why I hang this piece, with all it means to me, out here in the open. And why every time someone comes in my door I get a little piece of that thrill, all over again.”
“To most people it’s probably just some scribbles on a piece of paper. But for some, there is something more. Its presence here in this hall provides a kind of spiritual feeling for them. I can see it in how some people react, as if suddenly... suddenly they are in the realm of the senses even though they have no idea what brought them there, feeling something they can’t explain. I love the mystery of that.”
“I’m jealous,” Tracy said. “I want one of these.”
Gina laughed. “Yours will be different,” she said. “But everybody needs one, needs a secret in the open. And maybe you’re ready. I do have to say you really zoned in on it.”
“Or, maybe it zoned in on me, whichever you want to believe.” She had been looking down at the floor in a quiet sense of inwardness shivering every now and then. She looked up at Gina.
Maybe it’s time I did something,” she said.
“Maybe it’s time you did.”
Tracy and Gina stood side by side for a long time looking at Gina’s orgasm, right there on the wall, in the open, out in front of god and everybody.
“Yeah,” said Tracy. “I think it is.
Two West
Great addition, Mark thought.
He didn’t generally pay attention to new recruits. He just did his job and went home, or back to the office. Best that way, he thought, what with the politics of the unit being complex and more than a little hostile towards someone who wouldn’t tow the line - wouldn’t brown nose, as they used to call it. Both the image and the concept made him flinch.
It’s not he intended to be this way. He could do team: played baseball, basketball, knew the concept. But hospital administration was a contradiction in terms. He just wanted to take care of his patients, not spend useless time pleasing the uppity-ups. Besides, his patients, at least, were human.
But when he saw her down the hall he thought to himself, boy, now that will certainly be an improvement in the scenery around here. Then went about his business. He had three eyelids and a breast to do that day.
Half-way into his second eyelid Alice brought her in the room. “This is Allison,” she said. “And this, Allison, is Doctor Mark Dodson Clark,” almost bowing as she said it in mock affection. “He’s from Wyoming. He’s the renegade around here.”
“Guilty as charged,” Mark said. And then he nodded to the same woman he had nodded to before, only she didn’t - or come to think of it, may, not have - noticed. Never underestimate a woman, he thought. “Yes, by all means,” he said into the surgical field, “don’t let me lead you astray.”
Playing the role of renegade was enjoyable. And he guessed, in case it mattered, it was more interesting to others to have a little rebelliousness about. It was his inborn error of metabolism. Blessed error. Nothing more boring than an organization man.
Allison had the look of confidence about her. He no more than glanced at her but he could see that much.
“We feel very lucky to be adding Allison to our staff,” Alice droned on.
Mark concentrated on his incision which, he was sure, would greatly improve the looks of Mrs. Magillicutty, who, god knows, needed it. Any slightly bloody field was more interesting than whatever it was Alice had to say.
“She’s had a lot of experience in surgical units back in New Jersey and is quite a find for us.”
We’ll see about that, thought Mark. He grunted.
“We’re really glad to have her here on Two West.”
Allison disappeared. Alice, thank god, disappeared. Mark finished his cases and went to his office hours to view the beauty of his handiwork on parade. It promised to be an ego-building afternoon.
Two weeks later, Allison was assigned to one of Mark’s cases. She knew her way around all right, gave him the surgical hand with just the right amount of snap. Love that pop of hemostat against his ruddy palm. Sock it to me. Sock it to me... It had, when done properly, an almost artistic gesture to it. Allison did it well. And not only that, she anticipated his moves with accuracy. Usually it takes a surgeon and nurse a little while to synch up their actions. Some never do. But with Allison it was like their brains were locked.
He noticed - not exactly noticed, felt is a better word - her movements around the room. She was mid-twenties, he imagined, nice tight figure, rounding out from the scrub greens she wore. And when she leaned over the side counter after a surgery, writing the endless notes they now make the nurses write, her curves emerged in graceful suggestions which electrified his imagination. It seemed to him that she was actually conscious how her body emerged from the amorphous green in front of him, her hips cocked, waist kinked to one side in absolute confidence, and might have been showing off, or at least was in possession of that unconscious sexuality that just couldn’t help itself. He liked that, whatever the hell it was. He liked the mystery and the basic animal nature of her presence in a world of over-refined sterility. He made it a point not to pay attention. Attention makes it self-conscious. Less attention eggs it on.
Mark had a bad habit of making last minute changes in his schedule. Not his doing so much as that of his patients, included in which were many of the elite of Los Angeles who had the elite habits that led to unpredictability. Mark was constantly adding patients to the operating schedule at the last minute. These seemingly unacceptable gestures set up an inevitable power struggle between him and the head nurse, Alice, who by now was none too fond of him.
“No additions after noon the previous day,” she said.
“Nonsense,” Mark said. “You’ve got the space, the staff, and a hospital occupancy disaster all of which benefits from whatever I bring and whenever I bring it.” The head nurse was not impressed. And she had the power. And the backing of the chief surgeon, Dr. Peterson, who was one of those wimpy, despicable organization men. Mark had his cases refused or bumped way too often. A lot more often than the chief surgeon.
“Hey guys, this a service organization.” Mark would almost shout his indictment in frustration, standing at the scheduling board seeing the red line drawn through his eleven o’clock case. But the line stood. He went over the head of the chief only once. For that effort he got back a letter stating that if he were more cooperative with the unit rules there wouldn’t be a problem. The administrator must have talked to all the wrong people. If he interviewed anyone at all, that is. Boilerplate. Company Hoo-Hah on a stick. Mark was stubborn but not stupid. He went underground and swallowed his discontent.
Meanwhile Allison was gliding through his rooms like a zephyr. He wasn’t looking for anything, he had no expectations, he didn’t even want to be effected by Allison but it was physical, beyond intelligence and beyond control.
She felt it too. He knew that. He could tell by the way she hesitated at his elbow, remaining there, close, longer than necessary. As if proximity were hard to break.
Sheeba raised her eyebrow. Sheeba was the only “human” in the unit. She had a no-nonsense, don’t give-me-any-bullshit attitude which wasn’t popular with the administrators who, by now, were much more accustomed to dealing with people who dealt daily bullshit. It was, after all, the local currency. Sheeba and Mark complained to each other, regularly. Ventilation, they call it, decompression, therapy... but she raised her eyebrows and said, “now you watch out for that little new one.”
“How come?”
“She’ll be just like the rest.”
“Naw, she’s harmless. She doesn’t look enough like a troll to act like one.”
Sheeba was from Texas. Close enough to Louisiana to be laced with a little Southern voodoo, that invisible kind of undercurrent knowledge that doesn’t show on the radar screen. Sheeba watched the stars. Wouldn’t take the full moon shifts in the ER or OB wards. “You just mark my words,” she said and rolled her eyes.
Mark knew enough to shut up at the right time.
But Sheeba went on anyway. “You don’t deserve to know this but I’ll tell you anyhow. Do you know how I know she’s one of them?”
“How?”
“She’s been writing us up.”
“What the hell is that?”
“You know. Writing us up. Writing us up.”
“I’ve got ears. It’s just the Portuguese I can’t penetrate.”
“Really! It’s what nurses do, diddlehead, when they want to get ahead. They write down your mistakes and turn you in. It makes little Nazi’s out of everybody.”
“Ouch!”
“Yeah, that’s that sweet-assed little Jersey kid you see prancin’ down these halls.”
Just as well, Mark thought to himself. He hadn’t found it easy to
like her, just easy to covet her body. That was easy but would lead to no good.
&n
bsp; Next day, Mark walked in to see that his one o’clock had been bumped. “Who’s charge nurse today,” he asked a passing aid.
“Allison,” came the reply.
“So Allison, what’s the deal. Here I am ready to go and I’m bumped.”
“Dr. Peterson has your room.”
“He has room three. I’m supposed to be in two.”
“He’s in three and two.”
Mark looked at her with his head tilted. “Three and two?”
“Well he was here and his patients were here so I put them in.”
“He can’t be in two places at once.”
“He’ll move to room two when he’s done. You can follow him in room three.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Jim Peterson is the slowest ENT this side of Kokomo and you want me to stand around for an hour while he diddles his way into my room. I could be in and out of there with my tattoo removal before he starts breathing hard.”
“It’s been decided.”
“What I’m saying is that it makes no damn sense. And furthermore, that’s my room!”
“You can’t have it. There’s a patient in it.”
“Well, move the patient out.”
“Can’t do that. We’ve already started pre-op meds.”
“You can do pre-op’s in recovery.”
“It’s my decision and that’s how it’s going to be.”
It was the absolute frustration for Mark, to be beaten not by logic but by power. “Just do me a favor will you fancy pants.”
“What?”
“Just get my patient in my room before next Thursday?”
As Mark stormed down the hall he passed Sheeba. She gave him that “I warned you” look.
“Don’t you say a goddamned word,” he said.
Two days later Allison was working with Mark again. They hadn’t spoken, through there were several occasions in which they could have spoken, occasions which Mark ducked with a capital D. Now she shows up in my room, he thought. Somebody out there has a sense of humor.
It was all official business from Mark. No small talk. Just the crisp words needed to keep the flow of surgery headed in the right direction. If this is how she likes it, thought Mark. So be it. Clearly she has no remorse.
Secret in the Open Page 6