Page 2 of Reckless

I’d heard whispers, because you always heard whispers when an outsider came to Dauntless. But thanks to the copper, Dr. Jones wasn’t getting raked over the coals too badly. The copper, people really hated. Or, they had to start with. It wasn’t personal, exactly. It was just because we didn’t like government men on Dauntless, and coppers were the worst sort of government men you could get, next to tax men.

People grumbled about Dr. Jones more than you probably ought to grumble about someone whose whole deal was saving lives and keeping people healthy—and he actually had saved lives; Mavis caught me on my way to the clinic and talked my ear off about how Dr. Jones had worked in an A&E on the mainland. She sounded grudgingly impressed too. So at least I could go to Dr. Jones knowing there wasn’t an active campaign to drive him from the island. In those first days after the copper’s arrival, I’d half expected to be hauled from my bed one night by an angry mob and tarred and feathered for selling the guy milk. Since Katrina and I owned pretty much all of the island’s chickens, the hypothetical mob would have had a ready supply of feathers.

Dr. Jones was tall and thin, with soft eyes and a wry twist to his mouth that you didn’t notice right away but definitely started to notice if you kept sneaking glances at him while he swabbed your dick and arse. He spoke softly and didn’t say much, and I could appreciate that.

Unfortunately, what he did say when I got the results of the rapid test was that I had gonorrhoea. I appreciated that a lot less.

The paper on the exam table crinkled under me as I shifted. “What’s…that do?” I asked stupidly, remembering what Kat had said about my dick falling off.

Chlamydia I knew all about, because goats can get that. Ask me anything about brucellosis, bovine herpes, or vibrio. But I didn’t know shit about gonorrhoea.

This guy who’d probably gone to school for like twenty years didn’t treat me like an idiot. He just said, calmly and quietly, “Gonorrhoea is an STI that can cause bacterial infection in the genitals, rectum, or throat. It most often affects sexually active individuals ages fifteen to twenty-four, but anyone can get it, and many people do. You mentioned a burning sensation when you urinate or defecate—that’s a common symptom. You may also experience yellow or green discharge from the penis, and swollen or painful testicles.”

I tried not to grimace.

“The good news is that it’s fully treatable. I’ll prescribe a course of antibiotics that will last seven days. After that, you should be okay to resume sexual activity.”

Resume sexual activity. Because there was only one way I could’ve got this. I wasn’t usually fucking stupid, not day-to-day stupid. Just once a month, I was really fucking stupid. And now I was paying the price.

I continued to stare at the floor. The clinic was in the old mill house on the main street by the harbour. I’d only ever seen the inside empty before. At least the building’s interior didn’t remind me of that doctor’s office from when I was a kid—all white with glaring lights, everything too shiny. Here, the floors were stone, like most other buildings in the village. The doctor had set up some of those acoustic panels like they use for office cubicles to make a series of smaller rooms. The partitions didn’t go all the way to the ceiling.

“Do you use protection during sex?” Dr. Jones asked. Not in a pointed way. Not in a judging way. Same as how he’d asked my birth date at the start of the appointment.

I didn’t answer. Which was answer enough.

“I see.” He sounded tired, like Kat did when I came back from Newcastle too hungover to work. That resigned, weary tone she used to tell me to go on to bed, sleep it off. Dr. Jones sounded genuinely tired, though, not martyred like Kat. “You can take some condoms with you. It’d be good to use them in the future, yeah?”

I gave a single nod. It was hitting me that Dr. Jones likely knew exactly what kind of sex I’d been having, if my arse was infected. And who gave a fuck, really, but I just didn’t want to have to explain myself to anyone.

“And it’ll go away?” I wasn’t even sure I was speaking loud enough for him to hear me. “Completely?”

“It will.”

I grunted and stood up. I didn’t know if we were done here, but I sure as hell wanted to be.

He was studying me, though I couldn’t read his expression. When I met his eye, he looked away. And for a second, while he was in profile, he seemed…sad. Not devastated or anything. Just kind of pensive and exhausted, like he didn’t really know what he was doing here. Not here as in this office, necessarily, but here. In the world. I only recognised the look because it was how I felt sometimes. I surprised the hell out of myself by asking, “How are you finding Dauntless?”

I wasn’t typically a full sentence kind of guy, which didn’t matter when it was just me and the animals, but made things awkward when I had to talk to people. I thought of Kat, who accepted me just as I was, even though she sometimes wished I wasn’t so closed off. For my own sake, she said. So that I wouldn’t be lonely. I wasn’t lonely, though. The farm had nearly everything I needed. And the other thing I needed, I got every fourth Wednesday.

“You haven’t been here long, right?” I wasn’t trying to be friends with Dr. Jones or anything, just…friendly, I guess. Though, of all the people I could have attempted small talk with, did I have to pick the guy who’d just put a swab up my dick?

There was that slight twist of his mouth again—a faint, mildly amused grimace. “I’m glad to be here,” he said. He didn’t turn to his laptop or sidle towards the door. He just stayed facing me from a couple of feet away. “I needed a change.”

I shoved my hands into my jeans pockets. “Yeah.”

I wondered what he’d needed a change from.

“Probably not as busy as what you’re used to,” I said.

“No, you’re right. But I wanted to go where I’d be useful. I wanted to help.”

“Well, we’re not charity cases. We’ve been doing just fine here for years.” Two hundred years, in fact. And sometimes it seemed like two hundred years from now, this place, its people, would still be exactly the same: same names, passed on to a younger generation. Same attitudes anchored in our blood. The same stubbornness we called grit and the same prejudices we mistook for protection. And the same fierce love for this rock and the waters she stood in, a love that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Jones said sincerely. “That came out wrong. But I did want to go somewhere new. Somewhere entirely new. And I would like to be useful to the community here. I know not everyone’s thrilled to have me, but I’m hoping to get to know you all a little better. The health department has arranged for me to put together a health fair in a few weeks.”

“A fair?” I repeated. “Like with rides and fairy floss?”

This time his smile was more than a slight twist, and he raised a hand to cover it then masked the gesture with a cough. “No. It’s more of a community information event, I suppose. Oh, but there will be show bags, with some products from sponsors and things like that. And lollipops for the kids, but I don’t think fairy floss is on the cards.”