The Doctor

The surgery was full of old ladies who had turned out to see the new doctor. He was causing quite a stir, even her own mother got a bit flustered when she was talking about him. Her friends in the sixth form weren't immune either.

She couldn't see the appeal really. He was ancient...at least thirty four someone had told her...alright for old ladies she supposed but really....and his dress sense! Talk about stuck in a time warp. He dressed like Elvis in the early Vegas years, complete with medallion and a half undone shirt. She wondered if it was even right for doctors to go around showing their chests. She couldn't remember any of her past doctors going around half-dressed.

When her name was finally called she walked in nervously. She'd really wanted a female doctor for this, but Mrs Jones only worked part time now she'd had her fourth kid.

She didn't take long telling him about her problem: that was what she was here for after all. But she did keep eye on a box of tissues the whole time. She didn't want to risk catching his eye and feeling a blush errupting.

When she finished talking he leant back lazily in his chair, seemingly unworried about the trail of patients still left cooling their heals in the waiting room.

"So..let me get this right. You are here because when someone kisses you, or you go further than kissing... you faint?"

She nodded. It sounded a bit pathetic now.

"How does it feel...just before you faint?"
"I get a noise in my ears and I go into what feels like a dream really..and then I faint."

"Hmmm," he was staring at her and it was making her uncomfortable. If he asked her to take her clothes off she was going to scream or run out and tell the receptionist. Something just didn't feel right.

"So... how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

He nodded, slowly, then sniffed.

"Are you a virgin?" She blushed now. She could feel it spreading over her chest and up her throat. She nodded, silently, hoping he hadn't noticed.

"Have you managed to have a boyfriend what with all the...fainting?"

"Yes."

"And he doesn't mind?"

"I'm going to University..."

"And you think it would be nice to sort this out before you meet someone new?"

"I want to get it sorted because it's not normal to be like this.." She had had enough. She was on her feet and shouting at him before she noticed he was smiling. Uncomfortably, she realised that she was being teased.

"Of course, it's only natural. I wonder, do you have any opinions on what might be happening... why you are felling like this?"

She shrugged. She'd read a bit of Freud and Jung but couldn't see anything that had helped her.

"It's my guess that you are hyper-sensitive to adrenaline. It can be dealt with very easily." He stood up and started rummaging around on his top shelf, behind a load of mugs and glasses with the names of some household drugs she recognised.

"I think that you are a very intelligent young woman so it's my guess that you'll be able to understand these."

He handed her a couple of American medical journals, first folding them at the appropriate page.

"Read them and come back and see me tomorrow, at twelve when surgery is closed."

She read them that night, her eyes widening at the articles inside. She wasn't stupid. She had an idea where this was heading. All she now had to do was decide whether she wanted to go there.

The next day the receptionist waved her through with a smile. He was washing his hands at the sink when she came in.

"So, did you read them?"

"Uha." Today she felt a little more confident, a little more in control.

"Sexual surrogates are a pretty new concept in the UK you know..look we could send you god knows where...I don't know how I'd traditionally treat this...but with a surrogate I reckon you'd get over this in a few sessions. We just have to reduce your sensitivity to what's going on. You wouldn't even have to take your clothes off."

"And you'd like to be my surrogate?"

"Of course, what a stupid question. But you don't have to worry. I won't take your virginity. I'll leave that for you to enjoy at university...so what do you think?"

He had sat down opposite her again but this time she felt she could hold his eye.

"I don't want to kiss you, you know."

"Alright. No kissing. I can live with that. Here's my keys. Go and wait in my car outside."

She didn't have to ask which car he drove. Everyone in the village knew he drove an Alfa Romeo Spider. It stood out against the Ford Cortinas and Capris.

She wondered where they were going. Perhaps back to his place. She smiled to herself. She should have guessed.

But they drove to Cardiff where he ushered her into the underground vaults of a small family restaurant where they sat and ate for three hours. He bombarded her with questions...everything from how she enjoyed Latin at school to how often her periods were. She answered them all, sometimes hesitantly, sometimes looking completely in the other direction as she couldn't bear to feel his eyes on her burning cheeks. But she answered them all.

By the time they had finished eating they had polished off two bottles of Italian fizz. She needed the toilet but as she stood up to go he shook his head.

"No," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because it pleases me."

Bemused, she sat back down again.

She found out many other things that pleased him that summer. But he was as good as his word. She never had to take her clothes off and her didn't take her virginity.

On their last meeting before she went off to Uni he kissed her and she kissed him back. She never saw him again. But she felt well and truly cured.