The Imprint Ch. 11: Tête-à-Tête

"Hmm," Dr Windham assumed her motherly tone, "playing the audience. I've become aware that you dropped out of the egg laying project. You've requested additional time off. There is that malpractice claim against you and the hospital for an alleged attack during one of your emergency drills. Is there a problem I should be made aware of?"

"Health issues, my weight," I replied, "I have chosen to address that. I'm only taking two days mid -- week a month, not much for a department head who works a seven day work week to ask for?"

I reason my increased Systolic (blood) pressure might not be noticed or ascribed to the moist heat.

"I suppose not," Dr Windham looking away conceded. "Perhaps then on those weekdays you're away. I can borrow that secretary of yours to teach a Remedial English program to incoming push -- ahead Medical students. As much as I welcome the glossaries your secretary adds to the techno-terms in your reports. I dread reading vulgar terms in reports from Med students."

"Do you think it is unfair to have the working class teach the push -- ahead candidates how to act as their masters?"

"Interesting thought," Dr Windham changed the subject. "Weren't you concerned what your father would say if he saw you playing," Dr Windham with a look of concern asked, "the fat girl in pigtails flapping your boobs racing to the shower or the sadistic nun whacking the bare butt of a tall shapely student, or, as Dr Zoptic, performing a testicular exam on a group of naked men volunteering for extended trip in outer space...."

"Business," I replied, "When Father cut off the allowance, he renounced his claim of authority to impose the rules."

"Business, business plays an important role in the baths," Dr Windham explained, "In the queue entering and leaving, the atmosphere is abuzz. There's an electric charge generated by reduction to a state of dishabille. Disrobing, going off shift, shedding the cares of the day, generates a psychological release."

"Are you saying that public bathing," I remarked, "does not merely promote prevent spread of disease and infection, it served a therapeutic value beyond physical cleanliness?"

A gleam appeared in Windham's eye as she reported, "Social nudity in the communal bath promotes physical as well as mental hygiene. Conversation erupts," Dr Windham tilted her head, "into informal education. Personal, business and patient information are exchanged in the whirlwind. Social nudity nurtures trust, mutual respect, equality and self -- confidence."

"You've given this a great deal of thought," I observed.

"In more ways than you could imagine, Reba." A lilt entered her voice when Dr Windham asked, "During your college years, what type of part -- time work did you take up?"

"Really, I never ..." I started. A skeptical glance from Dr Windham pried the admission, "until my senior year medical school when I appeared in porn Productions -- a fat girl running nude to join those shapely girls men pay to see in a communal shower. Aside from suggesting scenes and writing dialog, my role was purely comic relief."

"I worked as a Chiropractic Assistant," Dr Windham, lowered her head and bit her lip as she described her experience as "hands on.".

"A Chiropractic Assistant? That seems tame by comparison," I smiled reassuringly, "to exotic jobs like nude modelling, topless dancing, stripping, some girls in the cast had done. Tell me, did the experience of hands -- on in a chiropractic office whet your appetite for medicine?"

"Anatomy yes," Dr Windham clarified, "Medicine experimentation, as well. For me, the experience was more hands on than I might have." A giggle entered her voice, "tee -- hee -- eh -- anticipated. Oh, it was right before the state legalized Chiropractic. The gentlemen I worked for," Dr Windham shook her head in disbelief, "I'm certain they wanted to keep Chiropractic illegal."

"Really?" I was shocked.

"While Chiropractic medicine was illegal, as long as we didn't actually offer a medical opinion or give medical advice or prescribe a cure," Dr Windham explained, "we were within the law. The chiros did some muscle rubs and recommended heat treatments, ostensibly nothing more than a hot shower..."

"Good clean fun?" I questioned.

"Different from regular medicine--a..." Dr Windham hesitated as she decided whether to continue. "There were no standards. Therefore, as long as we did nothing expressly illegal, no one could question what we did. I was wondering whether some of their techniques might have validity."

"Allopathic" -- Remembering my secretary's admonition to translate medicine to English, I added, "--or conventional medicine still regards Chiropractic as a form of eh -- witchcraft, potentially hazardous if it delays consultation with a real doctor."

"Yet," Dr Windham asserted, "Chiropractic developed a wealth of knowledge about muscles, bones and tissues."

"And how does that intersect with the concept of the baths?" I queried.

"The Chiros," Dr Windham explained, "I worked for developed particular ideas about the power of the roman baths as a cure for many common ailments like arthritic changes, muscle strains, migraines, maladies we real doctors shrug off. My role in devising this experiment was designing the entrance and exit showers based upon the work those wacky Chiropractors devised."

"Arthritic changes are a natural function of aging," I regurgitated the standard text -- book response. "In adopting techniques of the Roman baths, did your Chiropractors process Chiropractic patients en masse," I asked, "in an unclothed condition?"

"No," Dr Windham replied, "We adapted the Roman bath to the very personal, intimate nature of Chiropractic. With the chiropractic patient, fully unveiled in the privacy of the examination room, the patient's sweat glands were under heat therapy spontaneously released. My doctors arced off that release as a natural oil for the skeletomuscular manipulation. Let me show you." Dr Windham pointed into sauna, "Next the caldarium, or literally the hot room or steam bath.

"Fortunately, we don't have the chiropractic torture table," I noted as I passed into the steam bath with Dr Windham.

"But I can show you the thoracic lift techniques," Dr Windham promised. "Relax, hands at your side. Close your eyes," Her voice was hypnotic. I complied. "Now cover your eyes with the palms of your hands."

"Are we playing hide and seek?" I joked, turning my head toward her.

"Face away," Dr Windham's order came in a soothing voice, "relax. In a moment you'll feel better than you've felt in a long time...." Her voice trailed off. It seemed the gentle touch of her hands caressed my thorax (Chest). Our corpora (bodies) swayed gently together. She must have squatted. With her mons pubis grinding into my fleshy gluteal prominence (butt), the coarse stumble of her pubic hairs tickled my intergluteal cleft (butt crack). Fingers from one hand probed my clitoris while fingers from the other toyed with my mammary papillae (nipples) Her mammary glands breasts were crushed against my dorsam (back).

Anticipating an approaching orgasm, I hadn't noticed the warm water gently falling turn into a delightful drizzle of warm soap. Time stood still. My respiratory rate and pulse soared. I was going into an earth -- shattering orgasm. "Please don't stop," I pled.

Suddenly Dr Windham reached under my thoracic cage and lifted me up. I never expected that she could be so strong. What did I weigh in today, 195 lbs? I panted. What would she do next? My mind wandered. Would she throw me on the floor for cunnilingus (oral sex)?

Next thing I knew I was brought back to reality. Pushed into the cold stream, I shrieked bloody curses. Turning to face Dr Windham who stood hands on her hips dispassionately watching me, perhaps enjoying my sudden discomfort.

"Why did you do that?" I protested, "It felt so good!"

"Welcome to the frigidarium, the chilly send -- off!" Dr Windham exclaimed, "The treatment required a shock to force the vertebrae into alignment," Dr Windham reported. "Most customers wanted the top popped. I kept my bikini bottom to collect my tips. Heck, tips were good -- enough to support me through college and medical school."

"And you did this with men and didn't get slugged?" I screamed.

"Actually," Dr Windham replied, "Yes, men were usually easier to deal with. The technique with men was simple manipulation of the glans penis, I'd lead them under the showers by grabbing the penis at the depression in the skin just under the head of the penis and lead them through the showers."

"That sounds perilously close to eh--," I was so shocked words evaded me. I stopped in mid -- sentence.

"What do they say?" Dr Windham laughed. "Grab a man by his nuts and he'll willingly follow. The technique required finesse to get them splashed with cold water just in the nick of time to keep from getting squirted with ejaculate."

"--close to prostitution," I exclaimed.

Dr Windham smiled as she drew me into a hug., "Oh, Reba, darling, so I am no less working -- class than the girls in your porn troupe who posed in the nude or stripped on stage to make ends meet. Or you yourself who, knocked from the aery palace, played an interesting role in porn parading your corpus," Dr Windham chuckled, "for comic relief. So, allow me to borrow your secretary to teach the medical lexicon Push -- A -- Head candidates for medical school."

"My secretary is a good egg," I shot a sly grin to see if my double -- entend drew a flicker of recognition, "an expert at medical language. She has proposed a theory that medical terminology rather than offencive language might make porn that much more erotic."

"If statistical demands were different," Dr Windham confessed, "I could put her in the medical push -- ahead -- program that produced you and other luminaries."

"Then why not?" I asked.

"I need so many non -- whites to make up quotas," Dr Windham explained, "now I have to report numbers of Pacific Islanders, Asians, Native Americans, etc enrolled in a more `inclusive' program. Where am I supposed to find worthy Pacific Islanders in this provincial backwater?"

I shook my head.

"I do need your Secretary indeed," Dr Windham insisted, "not as a medical student, but to teach remedial English lest we have some interesting anatomical terms floating around our hospital wards."

"Shouldn't we select the very best to decide questions of life and death?" I protested.

Dr Windham laughed so hard. It echoed off the walls of the bath. "Medicine," she declared, "is not now and never has been a meritocracy. Not for you; not for me. Some MD's son was passed over to make a place for us."

"I thought we were selected," I argued, "to impose gender -- blind merit selection."

"Diversity and inclusion requires preferences in the name of equality as a meritocracy would be inherently unequal. See we all play a part in the same hypocrisy." Dr Windham paused. "Now, I'm impinging on your own time. I sent the shower girl off to assist the physician on duty. Let me, warm you up. I can towel you down so you can dress and go home."

I reached for a white bath towel, but Dr Windham grabbed it out of my hands.

"Let me engage you in the devilry the magic of a Chiropractic witch's sorcery," Dr Windham held the bath towel between her arms outstretched above her head. The towel reached her umbilicus (belly button) exposing her pubes (genitals). Covering my clavicle (shoulders), Dr Windham palpated (felt up) my thoracic region kneading my mammaries, teasing my mammary papillae. I could feel hyperpnea (heavy breathing) overtaking me.

What if Dr Windham started exploring my hypogastric, supra pubis region? My secret would be let out. But suddenly overtaken by the stirrings of orgasm, I didn't care.

Fortunately, the naked shower nurse entered with the report that "the physician performing an Ovum extraction needs your assistance Dr Windham. I can finish up in here."

I reflexively exhilarated (sighed). Was it one of disappointment or relief?

Emerging covered in a towel from the shower, I met Nurse Charon. Grabbing the towel, draping it over an arm, she looked over my body and growled "right face" to examine my profile. "Fat girls are lucky. We can keep a secret." Returning to her charts, she muttered, "Boyfriend know?"

I might have shocked her by telling the truth that father would be told when I'm finished having fun. Dr Windham tolerated a porn star, but would she tolerate a single mother? This was the 1970s.

I merely smiled and asked for my clothes. "My boyfriend is waiting. I have to get dressed so he can rip my clothes off me."

Shrugging her shoulders, Nurse Charon snarled, "What fate follows Dr Windham's fake positive pregnancy test." A dreamy look appeared across the nurse's face, she fantasized, "You might suspect, male execs she'd love to coddle, to their regret, unable to resist her, in fond embrace to cuddle, must respect her, with piston throttled, and power pack humbled, by a resister."

I feigned ignorance.