36 - EPIPHANY
Lacey
Monday I was in my office with ten minutes to spare before resident rounds. I hadn't thought I'd sleep after the plane, and I slept like I was in a coma. But awake, I was consumed with the cruise. With an epiphany that wasn't one. I stared at my encounter notes and didn't see them.
The sensation my mind kept going back to—it had felt so intensely erotic that it was almost dreamlike. Every time I pictured it, myself on my knees, serving Janice, another’s hand on me like I was an object for her pleasure, it—
I adjusted, moving in my seat. Jesus.
Janice had gone down on me, an experience I'd craved for years, and it felt amazing. But it was the amazing of a thing you already know, arriving better than you'd pictured it.
The other was not that. The other had gone off somewhere behind my ribs and left a hunger I didn't have a word for. No. It had revealed a hunger I hadn't seen.
When Renée said she was next, and Janice offered me—I think she's about down for anything at this point—I felt named. Described. Perfectly.
Yes. I'll do what you want. Even if I don't know you.
The urge was so strong it frightened me. Janice heard the no and took it for too much. It hadn't been. I hadn't had the words for what it was, and I still didn't, sitting at my own desk with rounds in four minutes. Janice knew what it was and instead of explaining it, she used it on me.
Shit. I found the room number for my first resident and got there just in time.
"Dr. Bonds, I'm ready to review."
Michelle. Third year, and still holding her tablet against her chest like a schoolbook.
Two parents doing the anxious-parent thing, leaning forward. Between them, a toddler, entirely uninterested in any of us.
"This is Bella," Michelle said. "Term eighteen-month-old with a small VSD. No cardiac symptoms, following her growth curves nicely, thriving with her milestones."
Bella looked up at me and smiled.
"Good morning, Bella. Aren't you adorable." I straightened. "What did you hear on exam?"
"A rather loud, high-pitched systolic murmur at the left lower sternal border." Careful. Michelle is always careful. She hedges everything she's right about and nothing she's not sure about. Good quality.
"Excellent. And why do you think it was loud?"
"Um." A beat. "I'm not sure. Since it's so tiny."
I turned to the parents. "Small holes in the heart often sound louder than large ones, because you get a high-speed jet.
" I made a circle with my thumb and finger and blew through it.
"That's what you're hearing. And it's good news.
It's the sound of a hole closing on its own. We'll see you back in a year."
The mother's shoulders came down about an inch. The father said thank you twice.
I said my goodbyes and left Michelle to finish up with the activity instructions, and I was four steps into the corridor before the obsession came back.
It was Janice. That was all it was. Twelve years of some hidden desire for her, maybe, finally fulfilled?
Except it hadn't been Janice. Janice's hand had been in my hair.
I had to know. Janice knew. I could ask her.
No.
I wasn't ready to talk to Janice. She'd already texted at ten past six.
We should talk.
I'd have to answer eventually.
Manuel was next, waiting outside room three with the ease of a man three months from finishing.
"This is Rosie, twelve years old, bicuspid aortic valve, here for her annual surveillance. Trivial regurg. BP at target, repeat echo stable. She's an avid hockey player, so the parents asked if she could keep going. I've reassured them she's good to skate circles around the other players."
"And what did you use to get there? The valve or the aorta measurement?"
"Both." A small smile. He knew he had it.
"Perfect. Rosie, we'll see you next year."
Rosie turned to her mother with an expression of enormous vindication. "Told you."
Out in the corridor I checked my watch. Not late. And my mind went straight back to its new chew toy.
I'd felt something like it with Ricardo. Sucking him. Swallowing, cleaning him after. Was that all it was, some oral thing?
No. The hand on my ass. The fingers going into me from behind while my mouth was somewhere else entirely.
What would I have thought, a year ago, watching a woman do that? Slut? A little twinge. But Janice was free, had lots of partners, even told me herself she would go slutting, like it was an activity and might have clubs and competitive leagues.
No, but I didn't see Janice the way I pictured myself. I had been—what? Debased. Shamed. Humiliated.
The rush came so fast I staggered. No. Not that.
I don't know how long I stood there with my hand over my own mouth like a woman in a film.
"Morning, Dr. Bonds." I startled as if I'd been deep in thought about a diagnosis.
"Morning, Kelly."
My voice sounded odd to me, but Kelly didn't seem to notice.
I made it to the staff bathroom and looked in the mirror, which was a mistake. No tears. Just a face I couldn't place—flushed high on the cheeks, mouth slack, pupils blown.
Who is that? What kind of woman wants…
I looked away, cursing my clit for throbbing in the middle of my despair.
One more. One more and then I can deal with this.
Manuel had the new consult, and he should have been done. I let myself into the exam room quietly, meaning to stand at the back and listen. The whole room turned to look at me, so I stepped forward instead.
"Good morning. I'm Dr. Lacey Bonds." I put my hand out to the boy on the table. Fifteen, long-limbed, doing his best to look bored. "You must be Antony."
"Hi. Yeah, I go by Tony."
"Well, Tony, I'll let Manuel bring me up to speed."
"Tony's fifteen, four episodes of palpitations now," Manuel said.
"He describes it as his heart going crazy, like it's trying to jump out of his chest. They last around thirty minutes.
No syncope, a little lightheaded. He's got an Apple Watch—rate spiked to two hundred—so the parents took him in, and the ER captured a regular narrow-complex tachycardia.
Imaging shows a structurally normal heart. "
Good presentation. Clean, in order, nothing padded.
I felt like some kind of pervert sitting behind the eyes of a real doctor. Stop it.
I handed him the EKG I'd kept back before he took the history. "Diagnosis?"
"SVT."
"Good, but what's the mechanism?"
And Manuel stopped.
He looked at the tracing longer than he needed to. Tony's mother watched him too. Then she looked at Tony's father. Then Tony, who had been performing boredom for ten minutes, sat up half an inch.
If I had been together, I would have stepped in much faster. My mind was circling something else instead. Finally the alarm went off in my mind. I cleared my throat.
"There are two ways a heart does this," I said. "They look identical on an Apple Watch, but they don't look identical here." I turned the tracing so the parents could see it, and put my finger on the upstroke. "This tells us which one Tony has, and it's the one we can fix permanently."
Somebody behind me let out a breath they'd been sitting on.
Tony's mother said, "Fix it how?" and I heard the whole shape of her year change in three words. I explained it—the accessory pathway, the choices, when to go back to the ER, the referral for ablation. Reassurance. Everything would be okay.
I wanted to be them, wanted someone to tell me everything would be okay.
A light clicked, way back. Something…
My phone buzzed. Dammit!
Janice again.
We really need to talk. I need to explain.
I stared at it. She had answers, but I didn't want to hear them from her. I don't think I wanted her to explain herself. The anger was hot and clear and simple, and I understood it. I texted back.
Not this week.
The three dots came up right away, stayed a long time, and stopped.
I nodded. It was the right answer.
At the end of the day, still with no answers, still with the sick feeling, I was having dinner tonight with Derek. With Derek, and my epiphany.