The Doctor Ch. 01

ONE

Lynn Easton MD was uncomfortable being on this side of the desk. Even if the person on the other side was Fiona Lorimer, a colleague and friend. Fiona had done her psych residency at the same time as Lynn was doing her OB, and now both were full time Attending Staff at the General.

But she was desperate. It had been humiliating to come to Fiona in the first place, and she had struggled ineffectually with the problem for years, before finally admitting defeat, and letting someone else into her most shameful secrets.

Fiona was 30, a tall, rather bony woman with severe rimless demilune glasses which she was taking off now, and tapping reflectively against her teeth.

"Lynn, you have PSAS. Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome. Usually, though, women with PSAS do not experience desire for sex along with the arousal. That's unusual."

"Well, I could die of embarrassment, because I start wanting to copulate with the NAM, and I need several orgasms to quieten it down."

"The NAM?"

"The Nearest Available Male."

"There is no consistently successful drug therapy, Lynn. SSRIs are used but there's evidence that they make it worse, and other evidence that they make it better. Same for mood stabilisers. It's discouraging for you because it means that likely nothing works."

"Fi, please try me on something! I like sex but this is ridiculous. Last night I went to club and propositioned a guy. . . We ended up in the sack, and the asshole refused to wear protection."

"Oh, Lynn!"

"I was of course delirious with lust and couldn't stop him from fucking me. . . You have to be able to help me, Fi. I'm almost constantly in a state of arousal, with wet panties and a throbbing clit—"

Fiona looked interested. "And you say the trigger can be anything?"

"Or nothing. Sometimes a gorgeous man I should want to check out leaves me cold, and then suddenly a plumber fixing a sink in my house turns me into a glob of jelly. So horny I want to just rip off my clothes and throw myself on the floor in front of him."

"Odd that. Is there a pattern?"

"You know, Fiona, I think I've found something out. It has something to do with smell. Certain smells --"

Fiona laughed. "Do you know smell is a short circuit to the limbic system?"

"The what? I've forgotten all that psych stuff."

"The limbic system. The area of the brain that has to do with emotion and libido is the same part that deals with the interpretation of olfactory cues in our environment."

"Oh, Fiona! I don't want why, or how, I just want it to stop."

Fiona scribbled a prescription, handed it to Lynn. "Try these. See me in a month."

It was an indescribable, subtle kind of smell. Always from the bodies of men, and distressingly, most powerfully, from the bodies of men who were not obsessive about the frequency with which they showered. Thus the plumber, and once, in the street, as she passed a gang of men leaning industriously on shovels around some pavement repairs, she'd had to get out the little bottle of nailpolish remover she used to sniff to drown out these odours.

She hoped people didn't notice her furtive hand movements around her face, or think she was doing drugs or something.

It was because of the persistent and distressing sexual arousal she experienced that Lynn had decided to go into OB. That way she was guaranteed all her patients were women. Still, there were frequent enough problems with a husband or boyfriend of a patient, when she had to see the couple together to explain something.

She seemed blind to the faults of the various men she had had relationships with, and it took a lot of will power to turn her back on the sex they gave her.

The pills Fiona gave her were useless, and gave her stomach ache. She threw them out and cancelled her return appointment. When she met Fiona at a social function, she lied, and said the pills had improved the situation. Fiona was pleased.

One summer evening, Lynn got a call from Wendy Archer, a patient, asking her to fill out the guarantor portion of her passport application: "Dr Easton, I'm sorry to ask you this, but it's really urgent. I have to get it done as soon as possible because we're leaving for my Mom's in Oregon in three days."

"I'm not sure I can—"

"Please, Dr Easton. If I send Bobby round with the form, could you do it tonight? Pleeeease!"

Lynn really liked Wendy, but this made her angry. Typical that Wendy should have left the renewal of her passport to the last minute. She took a deep breath.

"All right, Wendy. I'll do it."

"Oh, thank you! Thank you, Doctor! I'll send him right over."

"You're welcome, Wendy."

But welcome wasn't the word Lynn really had in mind. It sounded more like nuisance.

She sighed. This is what Fiona would have called a Boundary Issue.

Right.

OK, so I let my patients walk all over me. I try too hard to get them to like me. I need to have limits. Be firm.

When it happened, Lynn was totally unprepared. There was Bobby, Wendy's eighteen year-old son, standing at the door of her condo, clutching a sheaf of papers. He looked hot, and out of breath.

"Hey, Bobby! Did you run all the way? Come in."

"No, Doctor Easton. I biked."

"Do you want an ice-cold while I do the form?"

"That works for me!"

So Bobby was sitting on her chesterfield, gulping down a coke from the can. Lynn was at the living room table, angrily signing in the box indicated, scrawling on the back of the photo. It was done.

Then she felt a familiar trembling. She was suddenly very afraid.

She almost ran to the bathroom, where she sat on the seat and viciously rubbed herself to orgasm. This took eleven seconds. But it did partially calm the tingle in her clitoris, the ache in her vulva.

She was furious. She usually was when this happened. She wasn't thinking of having sex with Bobby. The idea was ridiculous. This was just free-floating arousal, triggered by some molecule in the complex of musk and heat that radiated from a young man, who was hot and sweaty from a bike ride. It wasn't her fault. But it wasn't his either. She just had to get him out of the apartment quickly. As soon as he had left, she knew she would go to her bedroom and masturbate again.

"Are you OK, Doctor Easton?"

"Something I ate. I just had to run and heave."

"Can I do anything?"

What an extraordinary question. She handed Bobby the forms and saw her hand was shaking. She almost screamed at him. He had to get out! Now!

But Bobby's eyes were soft with concern. And he caught her as she passed out.

It was only a few seconds, maybe a minute later, she was lying on the chesterfield. He must have carried her there. He was kneeling over her with a cold cloth. Wiping her face. She took a deep panicked breath of his aroma. She wanted him to go! But she couldn't say anything. She felt paralysed.

"Maybe I should call an ambulance."

"No, Bobby. It's not serious. I get these spells. It'll pass."

"I'll stay with you until you're over it."

"Thank you, Bobby . . ."

Her brain had formed the words "that won't be necessary," but she could not push the words out to her tongue.

This felt wonderful. This was dangerous. Thrilling. The tender concern in Bobby's eyes. The coolness of the cloth stroking her face. She desperately wanted to turn her face into his hand and kiss it. He was such a beautiful boy. Tall, well built, athletic, short, blonde hair.

When he straightened up, she could see that she was having some effect on him. A bulge in the centre of his shorts announced his own arousal.

It seemed like they were both astonished by the situation. Both unwilling to accept it as real. The motions of the cloth became mechanical. The cloth was no longer cool. Bobby just didn't want this moment to pass. Neither did Lynn.

Then Bobby leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips.

"I'm sorry! Oh, I'm sorry!" He jumped to his feet. He would have rushed to the door and escaped, but he had to detour to the table to get his mother's forms. Lynn had time to sit up.

"Bobby."

"Oh, Doctor, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that! It's just that- I- You looked so-"

"Bobby."

"Please don't tell my Mom!"

"Come here, Bobby."

She had to stand, meet him. Place her hands round his face. Draw herself up to return the kiss.

This felt like Destiny. She had known almost from the first instant of Bobby's hot, fragrant body standing in her doorway, that it was going to happen. There would be Consequences. Serious ones. She didn't care. She was overwhelmed by lust.

She was undoing her blouse.

Bobby's eyes were wide with astonishment, and then he too abandoned the struggle. When he took off his T shirt, Lynn almost came. She was already bra-less. Then her panties were at her feet.

The boy gasped. He fell to his knees and placed his face right in the glistening wetness of her panty-crotch. He breathed in deeply, and gently helped her disentangle her feet. Then his face was caressing her belly, kissing it, his hands roaming over her naked flanks and buttocks.

Every electric, feathery touch of his hands cranked up the waves of lust that possessed her body.

Wordlessly, Lynn led him by the hand to her bedroom. She flicked down the covers, then had the presence of mind to get a condom out of her bedside drawer.

He looked puzzled. Embarrassed. She realised he had never put one on before.

She ripped the foil, quickly rolled the rubber down the length of his shaft. That he was well endowed seemed like too clinical a thought.

This was physiology at work, she mused. He was a boy. Inexperienced. Likely a virgin. He'd fuck her with quick disorganised thrusts, come, then be overcome with embarrassment and shame. She'd come too. Quickly, of course. Then the Consequences. The unbearable shame and anger at herself.

He took longer than she would have thought. He actually made eye contact, caressed her whole body as his pelvis jolted her into the mattress rhythmically and with accelerating energy. Waves of pleasure brought her to an almost unbearable pitch of arousal, pulsing with a rhythm slower than Bobby's panicked thrusts. She felt mad with desire, helpless to control the matching rhythm of her own pelvis, letting a low moan gather in her throat as she felt herself move irresistably towards the edge of the cliff where she would cry out, fall, and feel herself spinning through space, as she plunged into a sea of peace.

They came together. The first time that that had ever happened for Lynn. It was at the moment that the tip of his finger touched, as if by accident, her anal pucker. She was startled, but nothing could stop her maddened rush to the edge as he pumped his urgent seed into the condom, into her.

There was a couple of minutes of silence. Deep breathing. They lay side by side staring intently at the decorative plaster on her ceiling, their thighs touching, without thought, apparently. This was a moment, Lynn reasoned, between the animal lust, the insane coupling, and the rest of her life. The Consequences. Whatever.

She didn't hurry to leave the cocoon of sex. Time enough for the Consequences. Later.

"What does the 'L' stand for?" Bobby was turned toward her. Staring at her intently. "Dr 'L' Easton?"

"Lynn. But you may call me Dr Easton. . . I'm sorry, Bobby, but this will never happen again. I promise you. I cannot be Lynn to you."

"Oh." He looked crestfallen. "I thought—"

"This was lust, Bobby pure and simple. This was what our bodies wanted desperately to do. Did do. But won't again."

But she felt sorry for his evident disappointment. Did he really think there could be an ongoing affair between them? She caressed his face sadly, then lifted herself half up to kiss him again.

"It was very nice, Bobby."

His lips responded eagerly, almost savagely. "It was wonderful."

"I'm glad."

"You are so beautiful."

"Thank you, Bobby. A woman always likes to hear that. Pity my last boyfriend neglected to ever tell me he found me beautiful."

"So you don't have a boyfriend?"

She knew where this was going. "Oh, I'm pretty sure he'll come grovelling back with a bunch of flowers and I'll take him back."

"Don't!"

"Bobby. . . You mustn't—"

Lynn often wondered what would have happened if Bobby hadn't suddenly burst into tears. His face was wet as it moved hungrily over her breasts and belly. She caressed his head. She pressed lightly down when his face brushed her pubic triangle.

Kneeling now, he gently pushed her thighs apart. "You are so beautiful."

She widened her legs, brought her knees up, so he could see her vulva, and the thin drool of mucus running down over her rosebud.

"Bobby?"

"Yes, Lynn?"

"Fuck me again."

"Yes, Mam!"

And he did. Several times. After the second time, Lynn got a page from Wendy and said Bobby had left thirty minutes ago, but that he was going to drop by the 7-11 and hang out before coming home.

"I'll kill that boy!" Wendy wailed.

"I don't suppose it'll hurt if you mail it in the morning," Lynn said reasonably, hanging up the cordless on its stand and turning back to the task of taking Bobby's beautiful cock in her mouth.

Then, around eleven, he was sated. And she was almost sated. They washed each other carefully in the shower. She aroused reflexly when his fingers boldly rinsed the soap from her natal cleft. Her fingers matched that boldness in his.

He dried her. Kissed her incessantly. Bent down to kiss her hard nipples.

"I'll be back."

" Bobby. I don't think so. This can't go anywhere. It was a wonderful evening. For both of us. And now it's over."

He didn't argue with her. Perhaps he knew that no argument was necessary. Nor in any case sufficient.

He just kissed her, as she stood naked in her doorway.

Then the door shut with a soft thud.

She fell to her knees and covered her face with her hands, sobbing softly. It wasn't that the Consequences were flooding upon her, the shame, the regret. As a matter of fact, there was little of either. Making love with Bobby had been for her an event full of tenderness, of careful, and delighted exploration. Bobby was inexperienced. In fact, he had surrendered his virginity to her. But he was so tender, so attentive to every quiver in her body, that she knew that he had been the best lover she had ever had. . .

This fact frightened and thrilled her.

And the tears were for the fact that her helplessness had no end. She had had six separate, tumultuous orgasms with Bobby, and she was already reaching reflexly down between her legs to bring on another one, which racked her body as she lay curled in a fetal position next to the front door of her apartment.

"Fiona. I lied to you. It didn't go away. I didn't take the pills."

"Lynn, how can I help you if—"

"I know, Fi. But it's serious now. It's got to the point where I screwed somebody— I shouldn't have. . ."

"Let me guess. Somebody you shouldn't have. . . The main squeeze of one of your patients?"

"No. Not that bad, Fi. Just somebody who is very destructive to me, but who I can't keep out of my bed."

"Move away?"

"Start over in a new hospital, a new town? Abandon my referral base?"

"'Kay. Let's try again. And this time you take the fucking pills. Well, the non-fucking pills."

"They hurt my stomach."

"Take them with food."

Lynn's stomach churned reflexly at the voice over the intercom. It was hoarse, conspiratorial: "It's me, Bobby!"

Without saying anything, she buzzed him in. The last thing she needed was a prolonged public exchange over the intercom. She felt trapped. On Thursday night, the night after Bobby fucked her so comprehensively, she remembered her anger and disappointment that Bobby hadn't tried to see her. Along with relief. But mostly, just a feeling of abandonment. She wanted him to pursue her, so she could refuse him. But she did want the giddy thrill of him being persistent. Now on Friday, when he really did turn up at her door, she wanted to feel annoyance, but only succeeded in feeling a rush of happiness that he had come back.

Her door was open when he arrived, and she shut it quickly behind him. She felt a blush warm her cheek as she looked at him, knowing that they both had the same thought. When she last saw Bobby, she had just kissed him goodbye, standing naked in her own doorway.

"Hi!" Bobby said, smiling uncertainly. He had a half-empty backpack which he let fall at his feet as he reached for her. Lynn neither came forward nor stepped back. She accepted the confident caress of his hands, framing her face, the gentle kiss on the lips.

"Bobby!" Her voice was a hollow imitation of reproach. Bobby was now right up against her, his hands resting gently on her hips, on the bare skin above her waistband.

"I'm here for the weekend," Bobby said, nuzzling her hair.

It was all so inevitable. Physiology was already pumping the blood to fire her cheeks, to engorge her genitals. The thought of two whole days of their bodies interlaced and urgent with lust, of the smell of sweat, of aroused womanhood, made her tremble.

Now he was undressing her. Quickly, he undid the buttons of her blouse, then unclasped her bra, loosened the shorts, so they fell around her ankles. Wearing only her panties, she allowed him to lead her by the hand to the bedroom, where he lifted her onto the bed.

" The sheets smell of you." He said, removing his T-shirt, ". . . you didn't change them."

She allowed him to arrange her body on the bed. On her back with her legs up and parted, the glisten of arousal clearly visible in the crotch of her panties.

He was kneeling between her legs now, stroking his erect penis.

"Panties. Off!" He said abruptly. There was a peremptory gleam in his eyes. An expression that brooked no hesitation or discussion. She quickly removed the panties and placed them in his outstretched hand. He sniffed them, then threw them onto the bed, close to her head. He was in a hurry the first time. He hardly pumped half a dozen times before his face contorted and his pelvis doubled its rhythm, spending him.

His face was close to hers. He had the panties in his hand and was using them to paint her body with her excitement. He painted her nipples, her face, her mouth with her own wetting, then kissed where he had decorated her, licked her there.

A low moan gathered in her throat as he began to stroke the insides of her thighs. Her juices slimed his fingers and he brought them up to her mouth. She suckled contentedly on them. Short excited mewls like the noise made by a cat in heat, vibrated in her throat as he parted her, opened her, entered her. . .

She couldn't have him coming round any more. Mrs Sampson had already seen him twice and commented. Lynn said he'd come to put together some IKEA furniture. "I'm so hopeless at that stuff!" she said gaily.

"Oh, totally!" Said Ellie Sampson, a brainless young woman whose husband worked in some quite responsible job for the phone company. She smiled expectantly.

Lynn was not going to invite Ellie in to admire the New Whatever. And, now, fuck, she'd better buy something substantial from IKEA. Like she had any room.

She took rooms in motels for the weekends. A different motel each time, where the newlywed Eastons would spend the weekend while their house was being remodelled. The husband, Bobby, had a wispy beard which made him look older, but they still asked for his ID in bars.

The managers and owners would have been unsurprised that the Eastons were, like all newlyweds, absorbed with each other and hardly ever left the room except when one or the other, never the two together, would sneak out to buy take-out of some kind. Occasionally, someone would comment that Bobby could almost pass for a teenager. Lynn didn't even care whether they noticed or not. Consequences were inevitable, but perpetually postponable.