AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My second and final year in the classroom was a tempest of facts chronicling all that could and did go wrong with the human body. The subject matter was melancholy—we are all walking around awaiting the Sword of Damocles, always just a few cellular missteps away from cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, scleroderma, mixed connective tissue disease... the list extended. My head ached with the knowledge I’d regurgitate on the monthly exams.
My mother’s voice spun in my head like a broken fucking record: “My dear, sadly you didn’t inherit my looks, but you did inherit your father’s brains. Your calling is to study, and doing well in school will be your ticket in life.” Needle up, down, repeat. Study. Calling. Study. Calling.
My study rituals began to feel Sisyphean. I needed to understand every organ system and corresponding disease state. Pushing the heavy rock up the hill, I’d slid into my own semicomatose disease state. I briefly perked up when I learned that during the arousal phase, a deluge of blood enters the corpora cavernosum, causing engorgement of the penis. The delicate corpus spongiosum serves as the Wall of Jericho, preventing the flood of blood from pinching off the urethra during erection, to allow for release of ejaculate...
Laura, my best friend from medical school, had impeccable timing. I’d been on the verge of metamorphosing into Howard Hughes. Moments before I might have started walking around the room with Kleenex-box slippers on my feet, my wild and crazy best friend arranged a weekend of debauchery in West Hampton. Unlike me, Laura had made medical school her Studio 54. Trolling inner-city Hartford was not my game—safer to stay home and study, watch TV, and consume a pantry full of microwaveable Chef Boyardee.
Mid-school year, Laura had taken a job for World Cruiselines. She managed to disappear for weeks, cruising the Mediterranean, brilliantly subsidizing her medical education. Generally, she flew under the radar, but in those rare instances when the administration came looking, when she was in danger of getting caught for her prolonged absences, we would all cover for her.
“I think her mom is sick... she’s come down with a god-awful case of Guillain-Barre Syndrome...heavy, heavy bleeding and cramping, yeah cramping, you know, uterine fibroids and all.” Laura’s friends worshiped and defended her unconventional choices.
On the morning of our planned vacation, Laura stormed into my room, where she found her sad-sack friend still chained to the desk. She grabbed a suitcase and started packing it with the skimpiest things she could get her mitts on. “Toothbrush, shampoo, hairdryer, deodorant, floss, flip flops, sexy shoes, one sexy dress, three bikinis, hat, workout clothes and... oooh, Astroglide! Okay, let’s go!”
She was ready for action just as I was finishing off paperwork for our upcoming exam. Laura had changed into a tight skirt and tight sweater with a very loose neckline. I expected to hear her boobs go “beep-beep!” like the Road Runner.
I tried to beg off; my zombie state was imploring me to stay home and collapse. No dice. Laura dragged me back to my bathroom for a quick shower, while she pulled out the appropriate outfit for either a porno film or a pole dance.
Once out of the shower, I perched myself upon my desk chair like a stubborn, angry parrot, death grip on my books. I’d lost weight, but somehow my remaining flesh was peeking out everywhere: calves, thighs, propped-up breasts. She had even ripped a small hole in the crotch of my panty hose.
“Rory. It’s time to get laid.”
“No it isn’t.” But I agreed to the trip anyway.
In Laura’s white Saab, West Hamptons-bound, Lenny Kravitz’s classic “Fly Away” blasting on the radio, the two of us were unaccustomed to the sun kissing our pale faces as we hopped on 91 South, heading toward a paradise free of pathology, histology, and parasitology.
We pulled into the parking lot of John Henry’s Surf Shack. We sat wedged in a corner of the bar, my two knees locked together in case my mother had me under surveillance. Meanwhile, Laura was the impresario calling out “come-and-get-it,” and you can guess who the “it” girl was.
The men, young and old, were a blur of bellicose cologne and alcohol breath. One muscular type bursting out of his tank top tried some well-rehearsed Tinder lines (“When did you arrive from heaven?”), but Mr. Tinder’s fire seemed to flame out when I played our “doctor’s card.”
Intelligent females were considered dangerous bloodlines for those with limp-dick syndrome.
I did manage some light small-talk with an affable Ivy type. Laura was bobbing and weaving in her stool as she downed a couple of IPAs, but I idly stuck to water and a few nuts. Mr. Ivy was droning on and I started yawning to drive him away.
Laura stopped flaunting the twins, who were threatening to jump out like beach balls onto the bar top. She pressed her face to my ear. “What’s wrong with you, Ror? That last guy was hot!”
“This isn’t working. I want to go home.”
“You are such a dork,” Laura retorted. “How do you get through it? Are you taking a vow of celibacy? The first Jewish nun in recorded history?”
“No, silly. I’m not ready. No sane man on the horizon. Besides, compared to that tall, dark surgeon Amir, the bulk of the male species seems nasty and boring... and perhaps a little psychopathic.”
Just then, out of the ether, through the hanging nets, tie-dyed boards, striped buoys and shellacked horseshoe crabs, Laura conjured up a five-foot-eleven brown-haired, green eyed, ex-lacrosse player, Jim, who worked for Goldman Sachs. He seemed humbled by female doctors in training. As mentioned, the doctor card didn’t usually work as well for us as it did for our male counterparts. One flash of a man’s medical school ID and the panties came down—especially if the school was Ivy League. Naming no names, but at C——, they called it the “C-Card,” at H——, the “H-bomb.” But if women said the D word, the party withered, the room emptied.
There was nothing I found interesting about my own feet, but I kept my head bowed, paying undue reverence to the toes in my platform sandals. My polish was slightly chipped. The color: Hemoglobin. Jim came up and lifted my chin, startling me.
“Don’t I know you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah I do!” He made a major play for me, trying to lead me beyond of the bar. I felt very tall and unsteady on my platforms as Jim guided me out behind the bar, past Christmas lights woven through the net and around the Coney Island Mermaid beer sign.
“Stop, I’m not ready for this.” I grabbed his hand and pulled him right back into the bar, sitting him next to Laura. I guess Laura and I were equal in Jim’s eyes, and he was happy to just get laid. He dragged Laura into some back room in the bar, which was unfortunately well within my earshot.
The two were obviously preparing for the classic Point and Shoot phase of sex, the “P” standing for the stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system during arousal, while the “S” represented the ejaculatory phase, controlled by the adrenaline or sympathetic nervous system.
Within a few moments, I knew Laura’s fun was about to abruptly end, as Jim’s voice turned raspy. He chanted a few quasi-religious phrases—“Oh God, oh God”—and no doubt he erupted. Tragically, Laura, the other field subject, didn’t make it to the “Shoot” phase—she was trapped somewhere in parasympathetic purgatory. I quickly lost interest myself, grabbed a drink, and headed to the bungalow we had rented to get some sleep.
10. Eight Thousand Nerve Endings
