“To what?” she asks. “Sell yourself for money to a patient?”
“I don’t sell myself for money,” I explain. “I sell portions of my time and my presence for money.”
“Wow, that’s got to be the most conceited way you could have put that,” she responds. “Are you sure I can’t get you a drink?”
“That’s all right,” I tell her.
“So, what got you into prostitution? Is it the whole anatomy thing?”
“First off, I’m not a prostitute. Second, what do you mean ‘anatomy thing?’”
“Well,” she says, “I would imagine that you see a remarkably high amount of disgusting things in your work. It would make sense for you to want to remind yourself that the human body isn’t all tumors and cancer.”
“Where did you want to go tonight?” I ask, trying to change the subject, as she doesn’t seem too inclined to let me bow out of this gracefully.
“I was going to have you take me out to an upscale bar around Tribeca, but I really don’t think it’d be such a good thing for us to be seen out in public together,” she answers. “It’d be fine for me, but isn’t this the sort of thing that doctors lose their licenses over?”
“I don’t know that I’d lose my license,” I tell her, “but yeah, it probably wouldn’t be great for my career if we get recognized out on the town doing whiskey shots.”
“Whiskey?” she asks. “You’re a sick, sick man. I’m making you a vodka tonic.”
With that, she’s out of her seat and in her kitchen.
So, what do I do now?
I’ve always worried that I’d run into someone I know from work while out with a woman who’s not Melissa. It never crossed my mind, though, that I’d knock on a door and a patient would be on the other side of it.
While being seen with another woman might not be the best thing to happen to me, being seen with a patient in a social context, especially one wearing a slinky dress topped with a necklace whose ruby pendant falls right at the top of her-
“Here’s your drink,” Grace says.
“Aren’t you going to have anything?” I ask.
“I don’t drink,” she says. “I’ve heard it can kill brain cells, and from what I can tell, I need as many healthy ones as I can get.”
“How are you doing with your treatment, by the way? I know we’re scheduled for a checkup-”
“Oh,” she interrupts, “I’d really rather not talk about that right now.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know,” she says, “anything that takes my mind off the fact that I hired my oncologist to take me out on a night on the town, thus calling into question not only his credentials, but the fact that even when I try to pay for a date, I just end up with someone I’d have trouble seeing myself spending the night with.”
“Well, as your doctor,” I start. I’m not surprised when she interrupts.
“Oh, I know the ethical concerns,” she says. “Still, here you are. So, what are we to do with an evening that has so clearly gotten off on the wrong foot?”
“I was hoping you might have an answer to that question,” I tell her.
“Well,” she says, “since you’re here already, I did have one treatment question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“How long after a round of chemo do I have to wait before I can have sex?” she asks, and I take a long drink of my vodka tonic.
“In a case like yours,” I answer, trying to put on the doctor hat and ignore how brazenly uncomfortable this situation is, “while I would recommend waiting until after a round is over, there shouldn’t be too much to worry about, so long as you’re feeling up to it.”
“So, if someone were to — how do I put this — stick his thing in me, it wouldn’t immediately fall off or anything?” she asks.