to me is going to be better than Daniele.
What am I waiting for? I’m in the middle of this vibrant capital city juggling two exhausting but unusual jobs. Apart from when I’m on this boat I’m never alone. My sister’s right. There are men in the clinic, men at the club. I could get them all to want me.
I’m not a nun. I’m a horny young woman with lips made for kissing and a body ripe for someone new. According to our prime patient, a stupendous chest and sexy contours.
Yep. There’s only one man I want.
Someone totally hot, rich and deserving.
* * *
The appointments chart indicates that Pierre Levi’s free. I’m about to knock at his door when Dr Venska comes clacking down the corridor in a spindly pair of strappy white sandals. Not exactly regulation footwear. Nor is her white wrap skirt, which flaps open at the front as she hurries along and I catch a glimpse of a tiny white lace thong slicing up between her thighs.
‘What are you doing hanging around here?’ she asks, coming to a halt and looking down her nose at me. ‘Haven’t you got some commodes to empty?’
‘I need to speak to Mr Levi,’ I mutter, standing my ground as she reaches past me to grasp the door handle. ‘I don’t think he’s expecting you this morning?’
‘Therapy works far better with the element of surprise,’ she replies, opening the door. ‘And I can assure you Mr Levi is always delighted to see me at any time. Day or night. Don’t you worry about that.’
An overpowering waft of perfume hits me as she passes.
‘How about I get your notes for you, then, doctor? I see you haven’t got your file with you.’
‘What’s that?’ She is widening her eyes and pouting in the round mirror of her powder compact. ‘Oh, yes. Sure. If you must.’
She edges through and shuts the door in my face. I find the file in the cabinet, go back to the door and knock. There’s no answer. I knock more loudly. Still no answer. When I try the door handle I realise it’s locked from the inside.
I dither for a moment. What are they doing in there? Why haven’t they heard me knocking? I’m about to give up when my sister’s words nudge me.
Embellish, embroider, sex it up till he can’t bear it …
I’ll take the file round to them through the garden.
The garden of the clinic is large for central London and surprisingly peaceful, despite the rush and roar of the capital city all around us. There are flower beds bursting with roses, formal dark privets and bays clipped into exotic birds and beasts, spreading or weeping trees. A big pond in the middle of the garden is the favourite spot, where a fountain shaped like a dolphin splashes water gently all day. You know which patients are feeling better because this is where they’ll be sitting as soon as they can escape the confines of their rooms.
In this heat I’m tempted to take my clothes off and dive in, or at the very least paddle, but before my break I’ve got to deliver this file.
The French windows to room 202 are open. I’ll give Dr Venska the notes and as soon as she’s finished with him it will be my turn. I don’t know yet what I’ll say. Tell him another story if I have to.
I can’t hear anything. Not Pierre’s gruff murmur. Not the slightly high-pitched, accented voice of Dr Venska. The others nickname her Elsa because she looks and behaves like the cartoon princess. From her white toes with their white nail polish right up to her ice-blonde hair, coiled and pinned tightly to the back of her small, pointed head, it’s like she’s frozen, carved from ice.
I step closer, waving the file to remind them why I’m here.
The bed has been moved, away from the light. I can just about make out Pierre’s legs, one in the white cast, the other now in bandages, a sheet draped loosely over them. He’s wearing different pyjamas today. More jaunty. Different shades of red stripes.
And there’s Dr Venska, pacing the shiny floor between the bed and the window. For a moment I think she’s walking towards me, but her face is turned to the bed. Her white limbs, white face, bottle-blonde hair are all bleached colourless by the sun falling into the room. I can hear her now, talking in a low voice, running her hands down her sides, over her high pert bottom, stretching her long legs as she walks so that her short skirt rides up.
When she approaches the garden door I lift the folder like a shield, but she’s still not looking at me. She spins round towards the bed, lifting her hands in the air and smacking them against her legs, bending down, her tight white blouse straining across her breasts. Her head is jutting forward.
It looks as if they’re having a row. I can’t hear Pierre, or see his response. His right leg, the bandaged one, rises rhythmically as if he’s doing some exercises, but I can’t see his hands, which would indicate his response. His jolly red pyjamas contrast with the whiteness of his bed and the paleness of his companion. Like blood on skin.
More silence. Hectoring him hasn’t worked. Dr Venska is trying a new technique. My God. She’s facing him, slightly sideways to the window, and she’s unbuttoning her blouse, pulling it open.
I step backwards, still clutching the file. So this is the stage they’ve reached in his treatment. Pierre Levi has opened up to her, just like I told him to. Too successfully. Because she’s about to open herself up to him, in every sense of the word.
Whatever she’s about to do, whatever alternative sexual therapy she’s about to administer, whatever rules she’s about to break, I should know better than to hang around to witness it.
I turn too quickly, and stumble over the bench. The file flutters open, revealing the few sheets clipped inside. I tear my eyes away from the sight of Dr Venska’s blouse slipping off her shoulders and look down at the notes. I wonder if they mention the kind of therapy that involves the psychiatrist stripping for her patient?
They don’t. Because there aren’t any notes. Well, hardly any. On the first page, dated during the week Pierre Levi was admitted to the clinic, Dr Venska has written ‘psychosomatic erectile dysfunction?’ But she has apparently failed to answer her own question, let alone cure the suspected condition, because beneath the subsequent dates, up until the date I first met him, is scribbled the conclusion we’ve all become familiar with: ‘unresponsive’.
I glance back into the room. No wonder she didn’t need the notes today. She doesn’t need a folder or a textbook to tell her how Pierre Levi is doing. Her question has already been answered.
I can’t speak for his mental progress, apart from the fact that he told me he’d talked more to me in half an hour than he ever had to her. But what about his physical progress? I scratch at a peeling corner of the file. I mean, there’s nothing dysfunctional about Pierre Levi’s cock. I’ve seen the evidence. My body tightens at the thought of it, rising in greeting that first quiet morning.
What’s the point of gloating over that? Someone else is about to benefit from it. Not me.
There are one or two other illegible notes that refer to the drugs Dr Venska is prescribing, or that the other medics have given him for his pain relief. The word ‘hypnotherapy’ is scrawled in capital letters on some entries.
