Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

"Touch me?" she said. "Yes, he touched me ... there, you know. And he kissed me, a lot. But I wouldn't let him do anything else!" she cried. "And he was just awful about it, too, and he probably knew then that he was giving me this!"

"You mean, he just kissed you?" Ronkers asked, incredulous.

"Well, yes. And touched me, you know," she said, blushing. "He put his hand in my pants!" she cried. "And I let him!" She collapsed against the bent-knee part of one stirrup on the examining table and Ronkers went over to her and led her very gently to a chair beside his desk. She sobbed, with her little sharp-boned fists balled against her eyes.

"Miss Brant," Ronkers said. "Miss Brant, do you mean that Harlan Booth only touched you with his hand? You didn't have real sexual intercourse ... Miss Brant?"

She looked up at him, shocked. "God, no I she said. She bit the back of her hand and kept her fierce eyes on Ronkers.

"Just his hand touched you ... there?" said Ronkers; he pointed to the lap of her suit skirt when he said "there."

"Yes," she said.

Ronkers took her small face in his hands and smiled at her. He was not very good at comforting or reassuring people. People seemed to misread his gestures. Margaret Brant seemed to think he was going to kiss her passionately on the mouth, because her eyes grew very wide and her back stiffened and her quick hands came up under his wrists, trying to shove him away.

"Margaret!" Ronkers said. "You can't have the clap if that's all that happened. You don't often catch a venereal disease from someone's hand"

She now held his wrists as though they were important to her. "But he kissed me, too," she said worriedly. "With his mouth," she added, to make things clear.

Ronkers shook his head. He went to his desk and gathered up a bunch of medical pamphlets on venereal disease. The pamphlets resembled brochures from travel agencies; there were lots of pictures of people smiling sympathetically.

"Harlan Booth must have wanted me to embarrass you," Ronkers said. "I think he was angry that you wouldn't let him ... you know."

"Then you don't even have to look at me?" she asked.

"No," Ronkers said. "I'm sure I don't."

"I've never been looked at, you know," Margaret Brant told him. Ronkers didn't know what to say. "I mean, should I be looked at? -- sometime, you know. Just to see if everything's all right?"

"Well, you might have a standard examination by a gynecologist. I can recommend Dr. Caroline Gilmore at University Hospital; a lot of students find her very nice."

"But you don't want to look at me?" she asked.

"Uh, no," Ronkers said. "There's no need. And for a standard examination, you should see a gynecologist. I'm a urologist."

"Oh."

She looked vacantly at the examining table and those waiting stirrups; she slipped into her suit jacket very gracefully; she had a bit more hardship with her shoes.

"Boy, that Harlan Booth is going to get it," she said suddenly, and with a surprising authority in her small, sharp voice.

"Harlan Booth has already got it," Ronkers said, trying to lighten the situation. But tiny Margaret Brant looked newly dangerous to him. "Please don't do anything you'll regret," Ronkers began weakly. But the girl's clean, wide nostrils were flaring, her gun-gray eyes were dancing.

"Thank you, Dr. Ronkers," Margaret Brant said with icy poise. "I very much appreciate your taking the trouble, and putting up with the embarrassment, of calling me." She shook his hand. "You are a very brave and moral man," she said, as if she were conferring military honors on Ronkers.

Watch out, Harlan Booth, he thought. Margaret Brant left Ronkers's office like a woman who had strapped on those stirrups for a ride on the examining table -- and won.

Ronkers phoned up Harlan Booth. He certainly wasn't thinking of warning him; he wanted some right names. Harlan Booth took so long to answer the phone that Ronkers had worked himself up pretty well by the time Booth said a sleepy "Hello."

"You lying bastard, Booth," Ronkers said. "I want the names of people you've actually slept with -- people who actually might have been exposed to your case, or from whom you might even have gotten it."

"Oh, go to hell, Doc," Booth said, bored. "How'd you like little Maggie Brant?"

"That was dirty," Ronkers said. "A rather young and innocent girl, Booth. You were very mean."

"A little prig, a stuck-up rich bitch," Harlan Booth said. "Did you have any luck with her, Doc?"

"Please," Ronkers said. "Just give me some names. Be kind, you've got to be kind, Booth."