Dr. Zoptic Pt. 03

"They seek me out of curiosity," Al explained, "I invite them to an office for a screen test. When they take their clothes off, those who crave the attention will be back as many times as I need them. I don't push. We can take you privately and see what you think."

On screen, most girls forced a smile as they passed the camera; the smile on Zaftig's face spelled out genuine enthusiasm. Did she derive enjoyment from the discomfort of others around her? She often said she would.

The scene closed with the girls laying face down on the lip of the pool deck. In the middle, Zaftig holding her head up with her elbows exposing her breasts looked up with a self -- satisfied smile.

Off camera in a private aside, Al Mandy had confided in me, "Not the preferred type, long limbed, thin waisted but Becky's more than just a jolt of chubby comic relief."

"Men seek, an ideal, an enchanting fantasy that's unreal, the girl of song, fair of face," I fell into a trill, "appealing to buyer's taste, legs so long, slender waist, ample breast; A curvy girl without a fig leaf, must add more than comic relief."

"Forget the pictures," Al shook his head, "I'll take you on as a writer."

Al started to move away. I shrugged my shoulders, about to assert, scared you off without a look see when Al turned to me to demand, "Coming?"

Upstairs in a locked Faculty Restroom, Al had a still camera pod set up. Closing the door behind us. Al ordered, "Everything off. Stand on the podium in front of the mirror."

"I'm gonna gross you out," I promised as I stepped out of the thigh high stockings and whipped off the white lab coat and lifted off my camisole. "Ta Da," I declared, "You ready to barf?"

To my surprise, Al showed no reaction. With a blank face, Al took measurements and his photos. "Hmm, Pectoral excavatum," he observed, "is statistically reported in one every 300 -- 400. Reports among males run 2xs to 3xs the number of reports among females. Development of breast tissue in females may conceal the problem. Your surgical wound has healed well."

"I don't suppose you'll put my boobs as a featured attraction," I said as Al photographed me, "in the next film you shoot."

"Not in one of my films," Al replied, "where the audience seeks an unattainable ideal, but perhaps for medical textbooks."

"You won't tell Zaftig," I prodded him.

"Neither your condition, nor the money you make from it is any of Dr Zoptic's concern," Al replied, "Your clothes are in the corner. Get dressed come downstairs. Dr Zoptic will be looking for you."

"Al," I called after him as he left me to dress, "For a person who'd prefer acting to medicine, you act like a natural doctor, impersonal but concerned. You've got a good bed side manner."

= = =

"Now, Ms Ehrlich," my interrogator snapped, "you've strayed from the point. You've told me a great deal about performing in pornography with Dr Barton but you haven't answered my question, `Why did you think that the Dr Barton was playing a prank on you when you found yourself naked and drugged sprawled on the sidewalk on Central Avenue? I'd like an explanation!"

= = =

Back in my apartment, I tripped over my legal tome as I moved to answer the phone. Voices were indistinct; cacophony a mixture of hysterical laughing and bitter whimpering filled the background. "Hello, Hello," I shouted into the phone.

"You better get over here," A gruff masculine voice ordered, "And pick up and carry off your friends."

Balancing myself on one foot, I struggled to put a pair of jeans over my flimsy panties. Pulling my clothes on, I let the net few calls go to the answering machine. A woman's voice was recorded. Leaving no message, the strange voice said, "she's probably on her way her. We'd better split."

It was past midnight when I reached the hovel where I dropped Zaftig off. Racing there so quickly, I left the motor running and the car door open as I ran up to the house. The lights were on. The door was opened onto the ground floor apartment where I left Zaftig off. She was lying naked, face down into the mattress, round butt in the air, on a bed cuddled up to Al. Zaftig was groggy, but managed to open her eyes to look up at me. I couldn't resist myself. I laughed.

In her drugged state, eyes glazed over, pointing in every direction, she vowed, "Laugh at me. Think this funny. I'll get even -- when you least expect it.",

"I'm over here, Dolly," I excused myself, "Do you know what happened to your clothes? Never mind I'll look around."

While I hunted through the vacated rooms for a blanket to cover her, Zaftig rambled that her classmates had found out about the Dr Zoptic films we had shot and decide to prank her and Al. The rooms were bare, empty closets, minimal stick furniture. "Typical furnished apartment in a college town. Zaftig's Dad paid top dollar for her flat -- until Daddy cut it off in her last year in school. When you want to keep something, you find a way."

The cost turned out to be the wages of sin, themselves, Zaftig's clothes, her steel rim glasses, her bag and jewelery, including the yellow cross around her neck went missing. Strange how somethings go unnoticed until they go missing.

"Damn Al," I exclaimed, "Big time director! His connection with all the foreign maintenance men opened many sets for those films Al shot," I griped aloud as I scoured through the apartment in search of something to cover Zaftig with, "but damn, Al takes too many chances," I complained, "Like reviewing the films he shot with the maintenance crew in a lecture hall at night or filming Dr Zoptic sequences in unused portions of the Hospital. Eventually, someone was bound to spill on him."

Finally, I snatched a sheet covering a ratty old couch. I coughed when I shook the dust out of it. Sling it over my shoulder, I returned to Zaftig. Assisting Zaftig to her feet, I tried to find out what she might have drunk. "Drunk," Zaftig shrieked, "I was eh -- harpooned."

"You're too heavy for me to carry," I warned Zaftig, "You'll have to negotiate the front steps on your own." Noticing a 4 x 6 manilla envelope, I picked it up and opened it. It was a blown-up glossy polaroid of Zaftig lying naked on the bed resting on the thin black curls of Al's chest.

I quickly scanned the poem on the sticky -- tab attached "Cut off by Father Almighty, austere and unmoved, not to be taken lightly, his sweetest little flower in bloom, pristine state, virginally clean, The proud and pompous Ice Queen, fired with furious guile, pierces the gloom, caught without her nighty, lived off her smile and survived in style."

Struggling to wrap the sheet around her, Zaftig demanded, "what you lookin' at?"

"Someone applying to Al to become a script writer," I replied, "Let's get this sheet around you properly."

I stripped the sheet away from her body. I studied her butterball shaped body. As I placed the sheet over her shoulders and wrapped it around the front of her body, Zaftig staggering on her feet muttered, "If it's a message for Al," she shook her head wildly, "why not leave it for him."

"I'll keep it safely -- for now," I promised as I showed her how to clutch one of the ends of the sheet up by her neck, "like a toga. It'll keep the sheet in place."

"Toga parties are all the rage, these days!" Zaftig clutched the end of the sheet and rocked back and forth.

I put my hand over hers as I started to walk her out the door. "Hold on tight. Al wouldn't want his star to give away a free show."

In the car, Zaftig glanced at the glossy photos I spread across her lap. "Father might have actually approved of these photos with Al Mandy -- Yeah really!" she insisted, "Somehow Father is very taken with Al Mandy's Father, an immigrant doctor from --eh Persia--I think. Is that a country?. Father has been trying to hook the two of us up ever since I left the convent school."

I suggested, "I ought to drive you to the hospital."

"Where one of my classmates might be on duty. No!" Zaftig's acerbic tongue insisted. "With my classmates. I'll get back at them," Zaftig swore, "And you too... for laughing at me."

"Do you know what happened to you?" I ignored her challenge to me.

"One minute I was standing talking and next thing I know I feel like I'm stung. People are standing around looking at me -- strangely," Zaftig recalled, "I hear a voice -- a woman's voice -- I'm sure -- from the other room. `She still standing? Al's already anesthetized, laid flat and prepped.'"

"I went through the entire apartment," I asked, "The entire apartment was emptied out. Do you know what happened to your clothes?"

"I started to feel woozy and unsteady on my feet. I put my glass down. I think I might have said, `What was in that drink?' before I collapsed."

"Did you hit the floor?" I prodded her.

I was caught by two or three of my classmates," Zaftig recounted, "`Ugh--she's heavy,' one complained. They dumped me on this bed."

"I take it that was not the end of it," I continued to draw the story out of Zaftig.

"My classmates debated cutting off my clothes, but one of the females expressed qualms," Zaftig explained, "`The Ice Queen' is wearing some expensive stuff. It'd be a shame to cut them to shreds. Besides, I'll have them cut to fit me.'"

"Nothing like looking at yourself in the mirror," I interjected.

In a fury Zaftig declared, "I've sworn vengeance against my classmates. I can't let this go," Zaftig added, "And you --- you're not off the hook -- You find this a laughing matter."

"Let me drive you to the police station. It's nearby right at Allen Street," I demanded, "It's time women stand up for themselves."

"And tell the police -- what? I was hazed," Zaftig declared, "I wasn't raped. I'm more angry than injured, more angry at other women. And who am I? A porn star wrapped in a sheet comes waltzing into a police station drugged out of her mind claiming she went to a party and lost her clothes. Police in these enlightened 1970s don't take violent rapes seriously. What do you think they'll do about this?"

"And you're sure?" I asked.

"The sisterhood, dear heart, is powerful," Zaftig raged, "I wonder what drug was capable of immobilizing me but leaving me in a detached state in which I was aware of everything done and said -- from the time I was carried into the room, laid face down. I could feel long narrow female fingers pulling at the waist band of my slacks and whisking them away, leaving me bare butted. My top was peeled off. I heard someone playing sling shot with my bra."

"What happened to your jewellery?" I prompted her.

"Once stripped naked, I felt fingers puffing up my butt for an injection. They decided to give me a second shot," Zaftig answered, "Then, I was plucked clean of my jewellery -- including that cheap cross which hung around my neck. -- more sentimental value. I was aware of the flash photography found myself instinctively curling up for warmth to Al's body. I knew what was happening but didn't care."

"You never expected your classmates capable of this nasty prank?" I asked.

"Erica, you see things differently than I do. You'd probably tell me that my classmates got to know too much," Zaftig griped.

"You're right. I don't see doctors as angels without wings," I replied, "Your classmates knew something about you and used it against you. I don't look for ikons, pretended saints. I look for motives -- jealousy being the strongest motive of all."

"Jealousy?" Zaftig challenged me.

"Winter was tough, prices doubled and tripled but." I continued, "the heat was on in one of the most expensive flats in town. Your classmates had to live hand -- to -- mouth off a short -- order cook or the scullery maid they shacked up with. The ordeal was over. The short -- order cook had to go before Mr Doctor or Ms Doctor got the sash, the title, the degree and joined the elite. Your friends were sharing their misery.

"And I walked into it," Zaftig griped.

"Then, to completely destroy you, I'm afraid the photos will go to your father, Dolly," I sighed, "You have to be prepared."

Zaftig started to laugh so hard she unloosed her grip on the sheet and bent over to hold her stomach. "Father is very taken with Al's father. They work together in the Hospital. Father will be pleased finding pictures of my bare butt cuddled up to Al. Father will count on grandchildren resulting. So, if I hear from anyone, I intend to dare them: Send those photos in."

"I wonder what Al would say to that one?" I wondered aloud.

"No matter, time will come when I settle the score," Zaftig swore, "With them and with that tubanless mongrel Ali and you too--you laughed at me."

"I warned you," I started, "You'll think clearer in the morning."

"Three years later did you really believe eh," my interrogator pressed, "Dr eh -- Zoptic, oops Dr Barton would still bear a grudge?"

"I would have wished Zaftig's whole hissy fit had been smoothed over," I sighed, "after she recovered from her drug -- induced haze. Much had changed in the next three years, but her pride was hurt. For some reason my laughing when I found her stripped of the wages of sin challenged her belief in her superior social status. This was to Zaftig an unpardonable sin."

At home, I whisked off the sheet baring Zaftig's pudgy little body sending her fleshy conical breasts bouncing. I threw open the covers and helped Zaftig lower herself into bed. "Ugh, I'm naked," Zaftig protested, "I hate to sleep naked. I'll catch cold."

"I you want," I took a deep breath as I was prepared to offer myself up to the potential humiliation of exposure. "I could ..." I looked down Zaftig was asleep.

Sunday afternoon, Zaftig was still abed when Al Mandy appeared at our door. To my surprise, Zaftig was prepared to see him. Al had a presence. "I know what we all want -- vengeance and I'm prepared to deliver it. We'll make a Dr Zoptic film about our classmates, show them wallowing in their natural evil, not the angels without wings they pretend to be. Are you a-game?"

"I'll consider it," Zaftig resolved, "if you can recover my outfit from Friday night, my wages of sin. Still, Erica, be on your guard when you least expect it."

Al agreed.

Escorting All out to the door, I said, "Chances are whoever swiped her clothes dumped them in a trash can somewhere along Western Avenue."

"Possibly," Al remarked, "I doubt anyone would fess -- up to stealing Becky's clothes. I took the register receipt off the kitchen table. I'll go out to the mall and buy her a fresh ensemble. If the salesgirl is cute, I may talk her into taking a role."

"You are pure evil," I declared, "worse than the people who set Zaftig up."

"Capitalism works. All the slings and arrows of hurt and fortune can be reduced to money, the wages of sin," Al assured me, "Zaftig will get her clothes back and she'll be happy. As a bonus to you," Al winked, "I'll call you down to assist me in the salesgirl's screen test," Al promised.

= = =

"Now two-three years after you laughed at Dr Barton, you were struck, your clothes cut off and you were left naked on the sidewalk in a desolate area. How did you figure this was a prank," my interrogator probed, "your former friend and former roommate Dr Barton played on you just settle an old score?"

"The med school grad believes they join an elite," I replied, "When I laughed at finding her stripped bare by her peers, I delivered a slight which in her view diminished her perceived superior social status -- Pretty god considering I never studied psychology."