by Sonia Henry
I undo my bra clasp and he groans, staring at my breasts. ‘God, those tits,’ he says, smiling slightly. ‘I always knew you’d have the most perfect tits.’
He leans in, running his tongue over my nipples, and I close my eyes, trying to fight the urge to take off my stockings as well.
‘Are you wearing undies?’ he asks, feeling my naked arse through my stockings.
I sigh. ‘No,’ I say, to his obvious delight, ‘but it was just because I had a really obvious visible undie line! This wasn’t deliberate!’
Also because I didn’t have a clean pair, I admit silently.
He laughs, a deep masculine sound that makes me wetter than I’ve ever been in my entire life.
He pulls me closer to him, and I can feel how hard he is through his pants. He slides his long fingers beneath the waistband of my stockings, and slips them inside me. I close my eyes, moving against him.
I have a vision of me at work, running from the operating theatre to the ward. I hear myself being yelled at on the phone by some overworked registrar, I see the Joker being nasty to me in theatre, I see Dr Prince and me kissing underneath a streetlight as if the world is ending. I see me six years ago, flirting with Lucas Lang and thinking he’s totally out of my league. I see everything and nothing and realise that for all the things I think I know, I actually don’t know anything at all.
Life’s a wild unpredictable beast that nobody can control, not even doctors, and it’s such a relief just to let go. Consequences belong in another time, far from this moment.
Lucas pushes his tongue inside my mouth, and I let him bite my lip, hard. I know immediately that he wants the kind of sex that I want. I want to open my legs for the man and get down on my knees in front of him.
‘You are such a bad girl,’ he whispers into my ear, shifting his finger down to where I want it to stay. ‘You really are a very naughty girl.’
He’s right. I am a bad girl. Two senior consultants in almost as many weeks. At least we aren’t in the operating theatre change room, I think, acknowledging the irony.
He starts to unbutton his pants and I realise that in another fifteen seconds Dr Lucas Lang’s cock is going to be deep inside me. I’m tantalisingly close to the best feeling, my body exploding … I want him so fucking badly. Sex is, after all, the world’s best distraction. From work, from life, from reality. Sex is the furthest thing from death, isn’t it? Doctors know that better than anyone. We try our hardest to avoid death but remain preoccupied by it, and we’re preoccupied by sex but force ourselves to avoid it, especially with the wrong people.
Until we don’t. Then temptation isn’t even temptation, it’s full-blown reality. Jack Prince lies in the shadow of death only a few hundred metres away, while I am sitting on top of Lucas Lang, every nerve alive.
He pushes my stockings down. It’s been so long since I’ve had any kind of sexual encounter I feel my legs turning to liquid.
‘Come on, babe,’ he groans, shifting me further onto him and parting my legs even more. ‘I can feel how wet you are.’
I’m obsessed with sex, but preoccupied by death. It stands there in the corner of the room, a woman wearing lacy lingerie but holding a scythe.
Suddenly I can’t breathe. I want Lucas so badly, but the scythe is raised and the man beneath me becomes Jack. I feel as if I am on the verge of a panic attack, and I don’t even really understand why. I stand up abruptly, pulling myself away from Lucas and clearing my throat.
‘Ah …’ I say, wondering what is happening to me. ‘Fuck, I want to have sex with you so bad.’
Lucas leans back on the couch and sighs. ‘This isn’t happening.’
‘Like, it nearly is, but …’
‘You just killed me,’ he says ruefully. ‘My old student has just killed me.’
He doesn’t realise what he’s saying, but the figure in the corner slinks away, scythe lowered. Lucas is all sex, and life, beating hearts and throbbing desires. No death here tonight.
‘I think we should call it here,’ I say, letting out a breath. ‘I just don’t know if this is the right, ah, time, you know.’
He doesn’t argue but pulls me back towards him. We kiss. He is warm and strong, and I already feel regret starting to course through my veins.
I tap his chest with my finger. ‘You’d better go, Dr Lang.’
‘Very sensible, Dr Holliday,’ he says, fixing his clothes.
I nearly laugh. Yes, me, the absolute epitome of sensible.
I walk him to the front of the house, topless, in my stockings and high heels. We kiss at the door, and he pushes me against the wall. This goes on for a while.
‘I really would love to have sex with you,’ he says, pulling me towards him. ‘You drive me fucking crazy. You always have.’
‘Some other time.’
‘Some other place.’
We look at each other. We’ll meet again, I think to myself. The looking-glass shimmers at me. Serendipity, fate, words we use to explain things that can’t really be explained. Like Latin medical terms. Or miracles.
Maybe nothing’s ever really over. Maybe we all just ride the carousel, and when it stops we think that it has stopped forever, but then the music starts again and we find ourselves flying past things that we thought we’d already left safely behind.
He kisses me slowly.
‘So, you want to be a writer,’ he says to my surprise.
I don’t ask how he knows. I probably told him when I was at peak intoxication at dinner, based on previous behaviours.
‘Yeah, I do.’
He runs his long fingers down my face. ‘Of course you’re a writer,’ he says. ‘What do you write about?’
I look into his brown eyes, admiring the way they catch the light. ‘Moments like this,’ I tell him truthfully.
He laughs and opens the door. ‘Can’t wait to read it.’
I smile. ‘Well, you’ll definitely be a chapter.’
He smiles back. ‘You know what you are, Dr Holliday?’ he asks.
I raise my eyebrows in query.
‘You’re a panacea.’
Dr Lucas Lang, the flawed hero from a book I’m yet to pen, vanishes into the night.
I close my eyes. When I open them, I’m still standing there with my hand against the door. For once, I haven’t even been dreaming.
Before I go to sleep I look up the word panacea. It is, I learn, a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases. A heal-all, nostrum, magic bullet, elixir.
Panaceas are an impossible fantasy in medicine, but that night I’m his, and maybe he’s mine. Miracles, different from the ones he performs every day, sometimes actually happen.
forty-six
I wake up on Monday morning and remember that I’ve finished my emergency term and am back to neurosurgery. I feel instantly relieved then immediately nauseated. Again, I berate myself mentally for begging for two neurosurgical terms at the beginning of the year. Although, I comfort myself, I could hardly have known how bad it would be. And I won’t even have Dr Prince around to protect me.
I walk into the hospital at the ungodly hour of 6.30 am to attend the weekly radiology meeting and cheer myself with the glorious memory of Lucas Lang sucking on my nipples. This distracts me so thoroughly that at first I don’t notice as I walk into the meeting that it’s unusually crowded.
I look around. ‘Why are there so many people here?’ I whisper to Max, who looks as exhausted as I feel. Max has finished nights, which is a relief, but he’s now on vascular surgery and is, in his words, already completely fucking over it. And it’s only been ten minutes.
‘It’s a special meeting today apparently, they’re only doing cardiac angiography,’ he whispers, ‘so the cardiothoracic department’s here.’ He nudges me. ‘Maybe Dr Lang’s here, mate.’
‘How come you’re here?’ I whisper, changing the subject. ‘I thought you were meant to be in theatre.’
‘My old consultant told me I needed to go to more meetings
for my CV,’ he says. ‘My team told me about the radiology meeting. They have it every week. I wanted the free breakfast and a break from the fucking ward, and I can say that I’m so keen I attend extra education sessions.’
I look around me, the realisation dawning that half the men in the room were at the cardiothoracic dinner on Friday evening. A few are giving me curious glances, and I realise I need to abort mission. Immediately.
‘I’m not that interested in hearts,’ I whisper to Max, quickly gathering my things. ‘I might just, ah, head back upstairs.’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ the Joker says, appearing before me like an evil spirit accidentally invoked at a séance. ‘We’re staying. One of the patients they’re presenting the angio of is also having neurosurgery under us so we need to be here. Your anatomy is hopeless. I’ll be quizzing you after the meeting to see what you’ve learned.’
Sandwiched between the Joker and Max, I sit back down.
‘Why are you wearing your jacket over your head?’ the Joker asks. ‘Have you converted to Islam?’
I ignore the political incorrectness and cough. ‘I’ve got a cold,’ I say. ‘I need to keep my head warm.’
The room goes quiet as Lucas Lang stands up to start commenting on the angiogram.
My face burning, I stare straight ahead, trying not to draw attention to myself, as he points to the left main coronary artery and describes the threatening stenosis present.
‘Stop being so obvious!’ Max whispers. ‘You look like you’re about to have a heart attack.’
I glare at him. ‘I need to get out of here,’ I whisper back.
‘Ah, perhaps one of the juniors can offer an opinion on the angio,’ Lucas suggests, smiling at me. ‘It seems like they’re very interested in talking about it.’
The burn is worsening. By now I must resemble a lobster. Thank God the lights are dimmed.
‘Dr Holliday?’
I try not to look too pained. ‘Hi, Dr Lang,’ I say. ‘Ah, yeah.’
‘What do you think?’ His smile widens.
Next to me, Max snorts.
The cheek! I can’t believe the nerve of the man! He knows very well what I think, and it has nothing to do with the angiogram in front of me. For a second, I imagine saying, ‘I think the angio is nowhere near as interesting as Friday night, when I was straddling you topless and you had a huge erection and your hands were inside my pants!’
Instead, I flush redder and mumble something incoherent.
‘Speak up!’ the Joker barks.
‘I think it’s at least eighty per cent stenosed,’ I shout, glaring at Dr Lucas Lang, hating him at the same time as wanting to drag him from the room and rip his trousers off. ‘I guess surgery would be the preferred option.’ (As if I have any real idea what that involves.)
‘Not bad,’ he says, raising his eyebrows.
Despite everything, I grin.
‘He’s so hot,’ Max whispers, nudging me. ‘Wonder if he’d give me a go?’
‘Oh my God, mate!’ I hiss. ‘He’s not fucking gay, all right?’
‘Maybe he’s bi,’ Max whispers again, ‘You never know …’
I kick him under the chair.
‘Fortunately for the patient the stenosis was bad enough that the cardiologists did end up asking the humble surgeons for our assistance. He had three grafts yesterday, and is doing well.’
Everyone looks appropriately morose and gleeful simultaneously.
Lucas smiles, rather smugly. ‘Anything else to add, Katarina?’ He’s staring at me again. The smile broadens.
I glare back. ‘Um, the right coronary seems a bit diseased too,’ I squeeze out painfully.
The Joker snorts. ‘A medical student could have picked that—I’m surprised you missed it earlier.’
‘I’m sorry I don’t have a brain as gigantic as yours and am unable to interpret cardiac angiography before I’ve examined them,’ I snap. ‘I know you can probably tell a patient’s pathology before they even actually get sick.’
There’s a silence, and I immediately, desperately try to grab the words from the air and stuff them back into my mouth. Max squeaks, trying to hold back a laugh, but in the end he doesn’t need to. Dr Lucas Lang guffaws into the microphone and that sets off the rest of the room.
‘You shouldn’t be so mean to your boss,’ Lucas says, still laughing. ‘He’s under a lot of stress, you know, Kitty.’
The Joker, fuming at my victory, and also looking confused by Dr Lucas Lang’s use of my nickname, gives me such a scathing look I feel my stomach curdle a bit. He’ll get the last laugh, as we both know, back in the operating theatre where there are no Lucas Langs to rescue me.
When the meeting has ended, Lucas saunters over to me. My legs go a little weak at his proximity. The man emanates sexual charisma. Regret at not having sex with him hits me like a freight train.
Max, ignoring my obvious eye signals, stays glued to my side. The Joker thankfully has been distracted by another consultant and has vanished, no doubt to argue about operative success rates.
‘Dr Holliday,’ Lucas says.
‘Dr Lang,’ I reply.
Max clears his throat.
‘This is my housemate, Max,’ I say grudgingly.
Lucas lunges forward, grabs Max’s hand and gives it the most enthusiastic shake I’ve ever seen.
‘Um, hello,’ Max says weakly. ‘I, uh, I guess I’d better go check on the ward.’ He is looking dazed as he turns and walks away.
Lucas looks into my eyes and smiles. ‘God, you make me laugh,’ he says, flashing his perfect teeth at me.
‘I just love being put on the spot by senior surgeons who’ve seen my breasts,’ I say in a low voice, smiling back at him. I might not be very good at interpreting cardiac angiograms, but he isn’t the only one who specialises in the flirt under pressure.
He laughs under his breath. ‘Katarina,’ he murmurs, ‘naughty.’
Another surgeon comes over, giving me a glance. ‘How’d your CAGs go on that old bloke last week, Lucas?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ Lucas says dismissively.
I break in. ‘I read an article that said more people are choosing stenting by cardiologists nowadays because they don’t want their chests cracked open, even if open-heart surgery may end up better for their vessels.’
He ignores the jibe and says, ‘That’s a special interest area of mine, actually—can you send me the link?’
‘I would, but I don’t have your number …’
‘That’s easily resolved,’ he says. ‘I’ll give it to you.’
I type the digits into my phone as he recites them. Where is this little exchange heading? I wonder.
As I walk back onto the ward, I take an indulgent trip down memory lane.
God, you’re so hot … I always knew you’d have the most perfect tits.
I can’t help grinning as I follow the Joker to the bedside. He is looking at me suspiciously, clearly perturbed by my unusually cheerful demeanour, when his phone starts to ring.
He glances at the caller ID. ‘It’s your boyfriend,’ he says sarcastically, putting the phone to his ear. ‘Hi, Lucas.’ The Joker listens then rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, she’s here with me.’ He turns to me. ‘What’s your number?’ he asks impatiently.
I tell him, and he repeats it.
‘Don’t poach my intern,’ he says into the phone, like he’s trying to make a joke but failing. He presses end and looks at me, his mouth a hard, mean line. ‘Why does Lucas Lang want your number?’
‘I’m sending him a research article,’ I explain, wondering what the hell is happening. Have I finally cracked the Grey’s Anatomy life of medicine? Is this what I have been waiting for?
My phone starts to ring. I pretend it isn’t, and busy myself with fixing the end of my stethoscope, which isn’t broken.
‘Answer it,’ the Joker says, curiosity getting the better of him.
‘Hello?’
‘Kitty,’ says Lucas’s voic
e on the other end of the line. ‘I just want to check I gave you the right number.’
I don’t know what to say, and choose not to ask the obvious question: how many phone numbers does the guy actually have?
I confirm that, yes, he has given me the right phone number.
‘Good,’ he says, and hangs up, leaving me to continue the ward round with a seething Joker.
‘He must have two phones,’ Max says as I relate this tale in the cafeteria. ‘It’s the only explanation—I mean, he’s married, right?’
‘I think he’s going through a divorce … but who knows.’
‘Gee, the secret life of surgeons,’ Max muses. ‘I always knew they were filthy bastards.’
I don’t ask Max how he knows this, but I don’t doubt he’s right.
‘So now I have Lucas’s phone number,’ I say, ‘what am I going to do with it?’
‘Maybe send him a nude,’ Max suggests.
We both go quiet, considering.
‘Boobs, would you reckon?’ I ask. ‘Or an arse shot?’
‘Tricky to capture the arse,’ Max says thoughtfully, being a connoisseur of the nude selfie. ‘Would vag be too much? I mean, that’d be an easier angle.’
‘I can’t send Lucas Lang a photo of my vagina!’ I exclaim, going red. ‘What if someone saw it?’
We both start giggling. I feel like I’m starring in an episode of The Real Doctors of Holy Innocents Hospital. Sitting in the cafeteria with my mate as we debate sending photos of my genitalia to one of the married surgeons at work. Another hard day spent saving lives.
‘Give me your phone,’ Max demands.
‘No way!’
He grabs it out of my hands and goes straight to the fake calculator app where I keep a collection of artistic erotic photographs in case of emergencies.
‘God, this one is great!’ He zooms in on my breasts in a white lace Italian bra I bought on a trip to Europe.
‘I know, right? I got that at Milan airport—like, it was at the airport. Europe’s the best.’
Before I can stop him, Max is opening a new message and typing. When he’s done, he holds my phone up in front of me, teasing. ‘I’m going to send this.’