| s t o r i e s * a b o u t * b i o * c o n t a c t * t r a i l e r * h o m e |
| D O C |
| The sign next to the door, once bright and full of promise, read SETH STEPHENS, M.D., in letters faded and dull as his new outlook on life. Seth locked up the office at 500 West Second Street for the last time, then turned with a sigh to face lower Manhattan an unemployed failure.
Deep in thought, his mind still stuck in the last stretch of the disastrous medical board hearing, he didn't even notice Jasmine standing on the sidewalk a few paces away--until he collided with her. His arm shot out to stop her fall before he recognized her, and when he did, he noticed with concern that his former patient had been crying. Her usually bright and seductive amber eyes, now streaked with red, peered from under swollen lids. Mascara tracks marked both cheeks, and her perpetually pouting lips quivered as she tried to smile. "Hi, Doc," she said. "I was hoping to catch you before you left." She spoke with care, as if she were lifting each word from a precisely arranged pile on the tip of her tongue. "Yes, well, your timing is immaculate. I'm leaving for good today." He could not keep a note of bitterness from coloring his speech. After all, it was for taking care of girls like Jasmine--prostitutes--that he'd lost his license. Suspended indefinitely, they said at the hearing...which he assumed meant forever. "Oh." The tentative smile fell from Jasmine's face, and pained sadness took its place. "I'm so sorry, Doc." "It's all right," he said brusquely. He didn't want to talk about it, not with her. Jasmine was one of the first "girls" to seek his care, care that it seemed no other decent doctor in Manhattan was willing to give without demanding an unscrupulous price, be it exorbitant amounts of money or free...services. Seth dealt fairly with the girls from the beginning, but when pharmacies refused to fill the legitimate prescriptions he wrote them, he was forced to use shadier methods of obtaining things like birth control pills, morphine and steroids. To complicate things, though he was powerfully attracted to Jasmine from their first meeting, both their patient-physician status and the glaring circumstances of her "profession" served to crush any hope he might harbor for a relationship. A thin mist began to drizzle between concrete corridors, darkening the pavement in random patterns of spray. With the light of day fading unseen, somewhere beyond the confines of the city's manmade majesty, the two stood in awkward silence, each locked in their separate problems. "Um, Doc?" Jasmine said at last. Seth looked up with a frown, and the girl cringed from him. He tried to soften his features; he wasn't angry with her, only with himself. How could anyone be mad at this exquisite, forlorn woman-child? A curious mix of maturity and innocence, Jasmine exuded a wanton coyness that made a man want to make love to her small, ripe body and cuddle her in his lap at the same time. "I thought you might...take a look at something for me." Small, pearly teeth worried her lower lip, and she looked down and shuffled her feet. He couldn't say no to her. "Yeah, okay, but you'll have to come to my place." The statement sounded gruff even to his ears, and in gentler tones he explained, "I cleaned out the office today. Everything's at home." "Oh...okay." Her apparent unease increased. Seth suspected she was supposed to be working right now. "I'm just around the corner, so it won't take long." She relaxed a little, and when he walked by her she turned and slipped a small, warm hand into his. At her touch, a jolt of desire slammed through him. She was coming home with him...but as a patient. He had to remember that. They proceeded through deepening twilight, turning right at the corner onto State Avenue. It was long after rush hour, but still too early for New York's night life to spring from the shadows and swallow the streets in reverie. Walking in shadow beneath structures that reached greedily for a sky they could never touch, Seth thought at that moment they could be the only people in Manhattan. He led her up a crumbling stone stoop to a battered metal door, through it and up a flight of stairs held together with tired patches of carpeting. His was the first door on the right; reluctantly, he raised his hand to fish in his pockets for his keys. He opened the door for her, waving her through with a slight bow. She flashed him a hesitant look, drew in a deep breath. Stepped over the threshold. Seth entered the apartment after her, simultaneously closing the door behind them and flicking a switch on the wall that flooded the room in harsh flourescent light. What had just yesterday been a plain, almost Spartan living room was now a jungle of cardboard boxes and manila file folders and gleaming steel medical paraphernalia. He glowered at the mess for a moment before turning his attention to his sole remaining patient. "Now, then, what can I do for you?" His shift from civilian to doctor was so automatic that he rarely noticed its manifestation; it was as natural as scrubbing to the elbows every time he washed his hands. Jasmine colored slightly. "Well, I...I need to...take off my clothes." Her voice slid down into a lower register on the last few words, and after her quick tongue darted out to moisten her lips she said, "Can we go in the bedroom?" Jesus. Seth felt the blood drain from his head, and his insides seemed to liquefy and drop somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. "The...the bedroom?" he stammered. If he could have moved, he would have slapped himself in the forehead for sounding like some lovesick teenager, instead of a competent--if unlicensed--doctor. She smiled at him, a slight curve of her lips that transformed her from victim to vixen in an instant. "That's right," she said huskily. "If it's all the same to you, I don't want to strip in the middle of your living room." "Okay," he whispered when he regained control of his tongue. "Follow me." He led her down a short hallway, past the open door of the cramped bathroom and into the room at the end. It was a bedroom only in the most literal sense--it contained a bed, and sometimes he slept there. The doorless closet boasted a neat, sterile row of handmade scrubs and little else. His casual wardrobe, consisting of four pairs of battered jeans, a raft of clean, if careworn, tee shirt and three button-down flannels, was folded and stowed in the squat dresser that doubled as a nightstand. Once the doctor was removed from Seth, there wasn't much left over. He crossed the room, motioning for Jasmine to follow him. Though it wasn't full dark yet, the heavy curtain on his window strangled what little light shone through it around the buildings across the alley from him. By the time he fumbled the bedside lamp on, she already had her shirt off. "Ah...I have a robe somewhere, if you want it," he told her. A flush crept up the back of his neck; he couldn't remove his eyes from the frothy expanse of crimson lace that covered her breasts. Her nipples were visible, dark pebbles centered on ripe swells of toasted almond skin. His blood roared through him, sang in his veins at the sight. She smiled and released the button of the pants that fit her like a second skin. "No, thanks," she whispered, lowering the zipper notch by maddening notch. "It'll just get in the way." In moments she faced him, clad in bra and panties, trembling all over. "I'm sorry," she said. "This is so embarrassing, but I..." She breathed in, bit her lip. "See, I got a tattoo, a butterfly, but I think something went wrong. It still hurts, and one of the other girls said it's turning green." A frown creased Seth's brow. "Sounds like it's infected," he said. "Where is it?" Instead of answering, she turned her back to him. He saw the tattoo right away--or at least, what he supposed was meant to be a tattoo. It may have been a butterfly once, but now it was a smear of raised skin and pus on her lower back, partially hidden by the sheer black material of her panties. As he studied the mess with clinical eyes, his gaze slid involuntarily lower, to the curve of her bottom. "Mr. Slade is furious with me," Jasmine said, facing him again. "He said he was going to make me go see Jenner unless I got this taken care of right away." She stopped, shuddering. "I don't want to see Jenner." The terror reflected in her face shocked him. "Who the hell is Jenner?" he demanded. * * * * * * * * * KEEP READING...Click here for Part II |