Doctor-Patient Confidentiality: Chapter Eighteen (Role Play Edition)

 

Your heart is still racing as you head to your car.

 

You’re shaky all over, your hand visibly trembling as you reach for your door, and you know it’s not because of the cold, despite the fact that the temperatures have dropped to below freezing right now.

 

You can’t get the look of his eyes out of your mind. They literally scare me…but they also make you feel something else; something you know you shouldn’t be feeling. Something you don’t think you’ve ever felt before. The way he looked at you was just…crazy. Straight-up crazy!

 

You know it’s mostly in your head and probably your subconscious’ way of looking for attention. That would actually make sense, since you were clearly looking for attention from an absolutely unattainable source. It’s probably for the best, anyway. With your aversion to love, you suppose you’d rather crush on a guy who you know you can’t have.

 

But is ‘crush’ even the appropriate word for what you’re feeling? Boys haven’t mattered to you in that way for a long time now, so you can’t be sure.

 

Boys.

 

You chuckle to yourself suddenly, thinking about how absurd the use of the word is to describe Doctor Frost. He’s clearly anything but a boy. That much is beyond obvious.

 

All the same, it’s been a while since you last looked at any guy who made your face heat up from thinking the kind of thoughts you wouldn’t even share with your best friend.

 

Speaking of Trixie, you really hope she’s okay. And more than that, you really hope she doesn’t run into Gina, and if she does, you really hope it’s not on campus. You know for a fact that it just won’t end well, and Trixie sure as hell doesn’t need any more drama with the university’s student conduct department.

 

One unfortunate incident her freshman year at a ridiculous frat party gone apeshit pretty much put her under a bit of a microscope with the School of Music’s administration, and any more incidents—even minor ones—have the potential to wreck her record, and her future.

 

And you can’t have that. She’s too dedicated and works too hard for it to all get fucked up over some chick who seemingly can’t keep her legs closed.

 

Your mother really disliked women like that, and had no qualms about making her feelings known on the matter. Mary Maladines, she called them; after the prostitute, Mary Magdalene. Only, they were supposedly much worse; unrepentant, unredeemable, and came with a host of maladies.

 

To be fair, she was never specific about what kinds of maladies.

 

She always stressed that you dress and behave appropriately and ladylike—meaning super-duper conservative—so that you wouldn’t ever become a Mary Maladine. Then again, she was raised uber Catholic, so you dunno.

 

You let out a deep sigh. You don’t want to think about your mom right now, especially when you’re having such a hard time keeping the good blue-eyed doctor out of your head as well.

You turn the key in the hole and the engine roars to life, bringing your little old car into motion.

 

You head straight to work, cutting through traffic as best as you can on the highway and through downtown as you make your way to the Mushroom.

 

It takes a good twenty minutes, and by the time you arrive at work, you still have plenty of time to spare before your shift begins. 

 

By some miracle, the parking spot directly in front of the back entrance is vacant today despite the shit weather. You can’t stop yourself from doing a silent fist pump; your small—and probably lame—gesture of gratitude for this small sprinkle of fortune in an otherwise horribly shitty day.

 

You practically run into the pub the second the car engine dies, doing your best to ignore how much the cold is biting into your body. You don’t even bother to check if your parking skills aren’t complete shit this go around.

 

In your haste to get inside, you momentarily forget just how slippery the ice has become until it reminds you, and before you know it, your legs are up in the air and your ass is flat on the hard, cold ground.

 

And it fucking hurts!

 

Ugh. Nothing like a good crappy fall to top off a crappy day.

You quickly get up and look around, saying a silent ‘thank you’ to whichever deity that’s decided to give you a tiny little break when you see that you don’t have an audience that witnessed your ungraceful tumble. ‘Cause that’s certainly the last thing you need right now.

 

You head into the back room, which is sort of an unofficial lounging area for the pub’s staff. You come here to study sometimes when the libraries are really full—especially during finals week—and whenever you don’t feel like going all the way to campus on the weekends.  The back room is completely vacant when you enter, and mostly quiet, but you can hear slight shuffling and clinking of glass in the distance. It’s obvious that business is slow and there aren’t that many customers, but then again, it’s a Monday afternoon, and a bloody cold one at that. And that’s precisely why you love this shift.

 

You look at your watch again. You still have about forty minutes until you take over from Nicole, one of the few other waitresses who still works here—although you’re sure she’ll end up quitting sooner than later. That gives you plenty of time to get some studying done.

 

You sink into the old and creaky but incredibly cozy loveseat that Larry adamantly refuses to throw away, claiming it’s been in his family for generations. It’s undeniably old, definitely a vintage item, and to be honest, it’s not a lot to look at.

 

Actually, it looks pretty damn ugly; possibly the ugliest love seat you’ve ever seen. It also has a bit of a smell, but it’s one you get past once you realize how comfortable it is. The distinct scent kind of even grows on you after a while. You know it did for you.

 

It just feels so warm and soft, and in this weather, you’ll definitely take warmth and comfort over looks any day.

 

Except, for some reason, you can’t seem to get a certain blue-eyed doctor’s looks out of your head, even though you’re really trying not to think about him.

 

But then that also makes you think of the whole reason you were in his office to begin with. And then that makes you think of his wife.

 

And now you feel like crap all over again.

 

You breathe out an annoyed sigh, wondering why you feel so temperamental today, and you realize it’s because of…well…everything, you guess.

 

Your stomach acting up and fucking up your singing in the process. Grandpa’s upcoming memorial. Hearing Danny’s name again and wondering if he’ll decide to cuss you out when he shows up at said memorial the way he did at the funeral. This damn weather. And last but certainly not least, being fucking broke on top of it all.

 

You breathe out another exasperated sigh, closing your eyes for a moment as you try to ignore the slight stinging sensation behind them and all the worry clouding your mind.

 

You realize your butt and your tailbone are still throbbing with pain from falling earlier, but you do your best to ignore that, too.

 

You plug your earphones in and allow the music to stream freely, each note and lyric filling you up like freshly made lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. The flow and rhythm of Chopin’s Étude Opus 25 fills your ears and head, replacing all your previous troubling thoughts. In this moment, nothing matters. Nothing else matters but the music.

 

You slap open your composition textbook and delve in, skimming over a few chapters you’d already covered over this past weekend. You can’t study without music, no matter what you’re studying. You’ve tried and it just doesn’t work. Everything just makes so much more sense when it’s accompanied by a song. You’ve met a lot of people who say they are visual learners. You guess that would make you an auditory learner then, if there is such a thing.

 

The music makes you feel amazing, and this particular playlist is a favorite, with compositions by legends like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and Debussy, as well as pieces by more modern composers like Macmillan, Strassburg, and Kurtz.

 

You’re so lost in the sounds and how they make you feel that you don’t hear the door open or someone walk in. It’s only after several moments that you register that someone else is in the room, and you look up to see Nicole mouthing something to you. You take the earphones off, and the spell is immediately broken. You’re back in the pub, back in the present, and back in your crappy reality. And the soft melodies, harmonious tunes, and smooth transitions are—to your dismay—replaced by Nicole’s high-pitched whining.

 

“Oh, my God, just how loud do you have that thing on?” she says, waving her hands around dramatically for emphasis with a disapproving expression on her face to match.

 

“Sorry,” you offer with a sheepish smile, turning your attention back to your textbook. Nicole is cool, but her voice hurts your ears. And you can really do without it right now. Unfortunately for you though, she doesn’t stop talking.

 

She sighs, shaking her head like a tired mother who’s trying to scold their child but can’t find the energy to do so. Her dark auburn hair swishes around her face, swaying in line with her motions. “You’ll go deaf by the time you’re fifty if you keep that up, you know.”

 

“Not if your voice beats me to it,” you mutter the words before you can stop yourself. You wince as soon as they leave your mouth, hoping to high heaven she didn’t hear you.

 

“What?” she says, her brows drawing close together in question.

 

“Nothing,” you quickly offer, getting up from the loveseat and packing the book away.

 

She waves her well-manicured hand dismissively. “Whatever.” She walks past you to head to her locker, and she drops something as she does.

 

“Hey, you dropped this,” you motion over to her before bending to pick it up from the floor. It looks like a business card, and just as you’re about to hand it to her, you see the writing on it.

 

~THE RAINBOW SEEKERS CLUB~

BRINGING YOU THE BEST QUALITY ESCORT SERVICES IN ALL COLORS AND FLAVORS

 

The contact name on it is “Blue Honey”, in a fancy italicized font, but you recognize the cellphone number as Nicole’s.

 

The realization of what it is doesn’t take long to set in.

 

Oh, wow…

 

This is a call girl service card.

 

Nicole is a…call girl?

 

***

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