by Nicole Casey
A more comfortable and comforting silence now settled over us. My cup was empty but I lifted it to my lips and pretended to drink in order to not have to get up and leave. This was the most fun I had enjoyed in a long time and I never wanted it to end.
“Is it Beyoncé getting a nose job? Maybe you’re giving Taylor Swift smaller ears? Do you work on butts as well?” her voice lowered to a theatrical whisper. “Because I think you could work wonders with Johnny Depp’s tush, to be honest.”
“Much as I would love to get my hands on Johnny Depp’s butt, professionally speaking, this lady is a movie star who feels that her nose is a little too…prominent. My job, our job, will be to give her a schnoz that doesn’t cast a shadow over Tom Cruise or poke Brad Pitt in the eye when they kiss.”
We both laughed heartily and I enjoyed seeing her perfect teeth on display. As a plastic surgeon, I was used to spotting people’s defects, weaknesses, and complexes. As far as I could see this young lady didn’t have any of these things at all.
Over the many years of seeing famous and beautiful women naked or half-dressed, I had got very, very fussy. When was the last time I had seen a woman that I liked as much as Janie and hadn’t immediately started planning how I could make her look even better?
I had never before loosened up with a nurse and talked about clients in this way before. It felt good and so natural too.
“Do you sometimes worry that it is going to go wrong? The surgery?” I was now thoroughly enjoying how she asked me awkward questions that no-one else had ever thought to ask me.
“No. I don’t want to sound arrogant but, heck, I’m the best plastic surgeon that ever lived.” Damn, that didn’t sound arrogant after all, did it?
“That’s the kind of attitude I like to see in my boss.”
“What about you, Janie? Are you the best nurse on the planet?”
“Not yet, but I will be if you help me.”
“I get the feeling that we are going to be a great team.” I tried to make it sound professional but I felt that the words came out a strong double meaning. Janie either didn’t pick up on it or else let it slide, though.
“Yeah, I can feel that there are good times ahead. In fact, if you can just sort out this wretched coffee then everything could be perfect here.”
“Ha ha. You’d think the best surgeon in the world could at least sit down to a decent coffee, wouldn’t you?”
If I could have closed down the clinic and stayed here all day long I would have done exactly that.
However, I could see that our receptionist, the fearsomely dour Heidi, was looking at us. How long had she been spying on us? Had she noticed that there was a spark between us? I think even a fool would have seen that we were flirting, and the one thing that Heidi wasn’t, was a fool.
“Doctor Sanchez.” Heidi’s voice was colder and more distant than ever. “You are needed in the operating theater.”
“I’ll be right there, Heidi. Just enjoying some coffee here.”
The receptionist looked Janie over with a withering glance that would have stripped paint off wood or curdled milk. To her credit, Janie smiled sweetly back.
“So I see, Doctor. Enjoy the…coffee.”
Our little chat had come to a slightly uncomfortable end thanks to Heidi but I quickly told Janie what time to meet me the next day for the operation before rushing off. I was taking a big chance in using a brand new nurse for such an important task but I needed to be by her side as often as I could manage it from now on.
Who knew what the next few days might have in store for us?
3
Janie
My head was spinning when I got back home. I had expected my first day at work to be filled with reading boring presentations and reading staff manuals that made me fall asleep.
Instead, my first day had seen me flirt with a billionaire doctor who just happened to be my boss. He had frightened me at first, with his serious expression and powerful physical presence. Yet, I had seen his mask slip and been treated to a view of the real Frank Sanchez while we shared a coffee break.
I found myself giggling on the bus home and covered my mouth with my hand to appear slightly less of a lunatic to the other passengers. It felt good to be alive.
I bounded into my house with some lightness in my step that I hadn’t felt in years. Daisy was waiting on the sofa for me and looked surprised to see me grinning from ear to ear. Her famously sharp sixth sense was presumably working overtime right now.
“Good first day at work, Janie?”
“It was okay.” My broad grin was clearly screaming out to the world that the day had been slightly better than just “okay”, though. I tried hard to control my emotions but I wanted to scream out that I had maybe just met the man of my dreams.
“Did you meet Dr. Sanchez?” Daisy’s ability to cut through straight to the heart of the matter never ceased to amaze me. How the heck did she choose to open the conversation with that name? Maybe she could read my mind after all, just like she often claimed to be able to do.
“Dr…Sanchez? Hmm. Let me think. Yeah…if I’m not mistaken I saw a doctor there. Was it Sanchez it said on his name tag? Hmm…maybe.”
I left Daisy with her mouth open and bounded up the stairs, shouting down something about getting a shower.
I lingered longer than usual in the shower, partly to avoid Daisy’s unerringly accurate guesses and partly because I was imagining Frank’s hands running over my naked body. I lost myself in my fantasies for a good 10 minutes, as I imagined how his strong but gentle surgeon’s hands would precisely locate the exact areas where I urgently needed his touch.
Eventually, I went downstairs and saw Daisy sitting alone at the dining table. She looked so small and helpless at that long table – designed for 4 or more people – that it always broke my heart when I saw there sitting there.
My little sister had been just 10 when our parents had died so suddenly. Being just over 8 years older than her, I had to grow up quickly in order to look after us once we were all alone.
Somehow, I had juggled a series of part-time jobs to make ends meet while studying to be a nurse at the same time. I still have no idea how I managed it all but it was my love for Daisy that made me suffer the sleepless nights with as much good humor as I could muster.
Now, the two of us were still alone in the world but I finally had a good job and Daisy was growing up to be smart and strong. We were going to be alright after all, so maybe I could start to relax soon for the first time in my adult life.
Daisy had prepared my favorite meal – spaghetti with meatballs on top – and my plate with sitting waiting on me. This was our favorite time of day; when we finally had some peaceful time alone to talk about everything that had happened to us earlier in the day.
“So, tell me about the clinic. Did you fix the nose of someone famous yet?”
“No, don’t be silly. It was my first day. Well, actually, tomorrow I’m going to be working on a celebrity but I’ve been sworn to secrecy about who it is.”
“By whom?”
“By Heidi, the receptionist.” I lied while shoveling some spaghetti in my mouth. This was the one meal that we always ate with willful abandon, splattering sauce over our clothes and ending up with red stains over our mouths.
We both had this need inside to feel like children again for an hour or so. Daisy’s home-made spaghetti with meatballs gave us the perfect excuse to do this. We never failed to eat this meal with big smiles, while sometimes eating other stuff was a struggle at the big table with just two of us there.
“Heidi? Who is she? Isn’t Doctor Sanchez the boss?”
“He is. Well, I guess so.”
“So you did meet him.”
Daisy was smiling her most innocent little smile. That was always a bad sign. My experience of her little tricks and her sharp sense of humor told me to be on guard.
“Sure, we talked a bit. Blah blah, nose, scalpels, and all that boring stuff about medicine. H
e’s a bit dull, to be honest. And ugly. Jeez, that man fell down the ugly tree and hit every single one of those branches on the way down.”
“Hmm. So do you like him?”
“What the heck is this? The Spanish Inquisition. Why are you so obsessed with Frank…? I mean, Doctor Sanchez?”
My little sister’s eyes shone more brightly than ever before and her smug smile spoke a thousand words. She had found out my weak spot and she knew it.
The little rascal washed her plate in silence – we had long ago reached an agreement to each tidy up our own messes – and started walking up the stairs to her room very slowly. Was she going to let me off the hook for the first time ever? It seemed unlikely but I clung on to the tiniest shred of hope.
“Oh, by the way.” She hung over the stair handrails and the image of a cheeky little monkey taunting visitors to the zoo flashed into my mind. “Frank, I mean Dr. Sanchez, called you earlier.”
With that bombshell delivered, my mischievous little sister blew me a kiss and then ran up the stairs while I chased after her, strands of spaghetti still hanging from my mouth. She got to her room and slammed the door shut behind her before I could get my hands on her.
Frank had called my house not long after I had left work. What did he want that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?
Finally, Daisy opened the door of her bedroom and admitted that Frank had called to ask me to go in half an hour early tomorrow, as the operation had been brought forward. Apparently, my cell phone was out of battery so he had called my house instead.
From that brief phone call, Daisy had managed to work out that there was “something between us” and that he “could be the man of your dreams”.
She was right, of course. Or at least I hoped she was. Tomorrow would probably give me all the answers that I needed to know. How I wished that the night would flash by quickly like when I was a child.
That night, I dreamed of the operation going perfectly as I wowed Frank with my skills, confidence, and knowledge. However, by the time I woke up, it was a heavy sense of fear that was hanging over me instead.
I got dressed in a hurry but time seemed to be shooting past like it has refused to do last night. I was soon in danger of being late for the surgery so I rushed out the door without having any breakfast or seeing my little sister.
The bus was pulling out of the stop and I had to race after it to try and get the driver to stop. He didn’t and I trudged back to the stop. The day had started off horribly and I prayed that this wasn’t some sort of sign that it was going to be a day to forget.
4
Frank
I was feeling more nervous before this operation than I had felt in a long time. It was nothing to do with the fame of the patient. Heck, I had worked on some of the planet’s most famous faces and felt supremely confident of my own skills.
No, my unusual nervousness was mainly down to a desire to impress Janie the first time that we worked together. I felt proud of my plastic surgery skills and wanted to make her proud of them as well.
Of course, I was also very aware that using a new nurse so soon after she had started in her first ever job was risky. No doubt the other nurses in the clinic were gossiping about it and maybe even feeling a bit upset about Janie gaining my confidence so quickly.
However, I was the boss and the decision had been taken. It was my responsibility to guide her through the whole thing and make it the start of something very special between us.
I was already planning how to give her a hug after the operation to say well done. Let’s see where things go from there. I was rushing far too much and was going to have to make a big effort to slow down.
Janie walked into the clinic with her everyday clothes on and headed for the nurses’ changing area. I had never been in there before but the thought of barging in and seeing her get dressed made my heart skip a beat.
I knew she was in there alone so I looked around to see if the coast was clear and quickly walked in before giving myself a chance to let any doubts settle in. This was madness but I was just obeying some wild, inner impulse that this woman had activated in me the first time I saw here.
Janie was just sitting down and hadn’t yet started to button up her uniform so I could see that she had gorgeous white underwear on. The top half of the blue uniform was hanging open while she was bent over fixing her shoes.
I looked her over while she was concentrating on her shoes. I could see the form of her breasts clearly through the flimsy fabric and started to get aroused. My eyes wandered down to where I could just make out the top of her white panties as she slowly fixed her shoes.
“I don’t mean to disturb you.”
“Frank! What are you doing in here?” She wasn’t in any rush to button up her uniform by the looks of it, which was a good sign. I liked women who were confident of their bodies and free of silly complexes.
“Are you feeling a bit nervous about the operation today?”
“Should you be in here?”
She looked around, as though expecting someone to catch us out.
“I’m the boss. I can go anywhere I want to.”
“I really don’t think you should be spying on your nurses getting dressed, though.” She pulled her uniform together to hide her body from me.
Had I made a terrible mistake?
“Come on Janie; is it that bad that I saw your underwear?”
“It’s not very professional, Doctor Sanchez.” She had put me firmly in my place and I felt awful. My hormones had ruled my head for a moment and I might have ruined everything because of my uncharacteristically impulsive behavior.
This was completely unprofessional of me and I shook my head to try and clear my thoughts. I needed to focus on the operation.
My new nurse walked towards the door while buttoning up the last few buttons with a severe look on her face for the first time in my presence. It was time to get down to business.
The operation started off smoothly. I had been doing this for years and could fix someone’s nose with my eyes shut.
I could see that Janie was a bit over-awed by the occasion, though, especially when she finally worked out who was lying on the table in front of her. This woman was a beautiful actress that had also tried her hand at singing, with a reasonable degree of success despite having an awful singing voice.
She still looked upset at me too. The easy smile from yesterday had disappeared and I longed to see her relax with me again.
Janie’s nervousness was starting to affect me and I was getting more anxious by the minute. I asked Janie to mop my brow and felt her hand shaking as it moved along my brow jerkily. She looked uncomfortable near me and probably thought I was some sort of creep who spied on younger women all the time.
Being this close to each other had felt so good and natural yesterday that I had expected it to be the same in the operation theater. However, I now realized that the operating theater wasn’t the best place for simmering sexual tension or for new, awkward relationships.
Things started to fall apart but I had to get through this operation somehow. The reputation that I had taken decades to build up would collapse into the dirt if I messed up this procedure. The whole world would know about it if this actress turned up at a film premiere with a botched nose.
Janie didn’t know what to do half the time. That was my fault for rushing her into this job but I started to get irritable with her. None of this was her fault but I had to take it out on someone, as I was used to being as perfect as humanly possible.
I could see that Janie’s brow was even sweatier than mine. This was turning into a horror story. My hand was shaking so badly that it felt like I was attempting my very first surgery.
Finally, I snapped at Janie and told her to send in another nurse urgently while she took a break. She nodded and rushed out.
With the help of a more experienced assistant, I got through the rest of the procedure safely, although I now had a pounding headache and was feeling
very tired. Improving people’s looks usually left me feeling energized and happy but not this time.
After finally getting to the end of the worst operation of my career I got washed and dressed. For the first time in my career, I found myself praying that the patient was going to be happy with the results, rather than being completely sure of my work.
I tried to put on my most serious, professional face as Heidi came towards me. Her face was twisted into the sort of look of fake sympathy that she always wore when she was reveling in someone else’s misfortune.
The only reason I hadn’t fired this unlikeable lady a long time ago was that she was an incredibly organized receptionist who keeps things ticking over brilliantly. Her work lets me concentrate on what I do best and forget about the rest.
“What went wrong, Doctor?”
“Wrong? Nothing went wrong. The patient now has a beautiful new nose to be proud of.”
Heidi put on a look of mock innocence that made my blood boil.
“Oh, I just noticed that Jan ran out to the grounds crying. I thought maybe she had screwed up in there. Being her first time and everything.”
It took all my reserves of self-control to not go running out to look for her there and then. Instead, I walked as slowly and calmly as possible to my office and closed the door behind me. However, we both knew that I would soon be out looking for Janie.
Sure enough, I couldn’t resist more than 10 minutes of pacing up and down in the office before I sneaked out the back door. Christ, what had things come to when I had to sneak out the back door of my own clinic to speak to one of my nurses?
There was an area around the back of the building that I spent a lot of my free time in. The design had been inspired by a trip to one of England’s finest stately homes that I had made a few years ago.
There was a fragrant flower garden that was alive with color and delicious aromas at this time of year. Around the flowers were a series of shrubs that closed off the area, giving it a feeling of complete privacy that was perfect for those moments when I needed to get away from the world.
