Dr. Feelgood

by Marissa Monteilh

  She took the money and folded it into quarters. “Thanks. I’ll give it back to you.” She stopped as we approached the car and gave me a quick kiss.

  “No need.”

  She tucked the bill into her purse. “You are the best. I appreciate it.”

  I smiled as she stepped toward the passenger seat and sat down. I closed the door and walked around the back of the car. As I opened the driver side door and stepped inside, a young white man walked by and stared all through Monday’s very being. She noticed, and I noticed.

  She looked stunned. “That’s rude.”

  “He has good eyesight.” I started up the car.

  The man even looked back twice.

  I told her, “I can’t say that I blame him.”

  I pulled off while she rested her right arm along the open window. The eighteen-carat gold, gleaming bracelet was blinding under the rays of the sun. Her left hand was resting along my lap, making its way toward my crotch, then rubbing in between my legs. I reached over and squeezed her thigh just above her knee. This woman deserved whatever she wanted. My hard-on lasted the entire way back to the hotel.

  I’ll call her next week.

  Chapter 20

  Mary Jane

  I flipped open my cell as I stood in the hallway on the eighth floor. “This is Nurse Cherry.”

  “I just love that name, Cherry.”

  Carlos Jenkins is Dr. Worthy’s best friend. He comes around the hospital every now and then. He’s bright and he’s charming, but he’s Makkai’s friend and that bothers me, even though it doesn’t seem to bother either one of them. Heck, forget Makkai anyway. He basically kicked me to the curb.

  I crossed my arms with the phone between my chin and shoulder. “Let me guess, this is Carlos.”

  “The one and only.”

  “And what makes you the one and only?”

  “I suppose you’d have to talk to a few of my ex-lovers to find out.”

  “Ex-lovers, huh? So do you have any ex-wives or ex-girlfriends?”

  “Oh, no, never been married before. But, of course I’ve been in relationships.”

  “Well, that’s good, at least.”

  On his end, I heard the sound of a door closing.

  He said, “So, enough talk about my legendary status. That was back in the day, anyway. I’m different now.”

  “Oh, you are?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m looking for a good woman to settle down with.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  “And you, Nurse Cherry, in my opinion, fit the bill in every way.” He spoke in a voice that reminded me of Mack Daddy Mack.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, I see virtue in you. And you know that’s what men fall for when they’re ready to say goodbye to their bachelorhood … virtue.”

  “And when they’re not ready, what do they require?”

  “A pulse. No, just kidding.” He chuckled all by himself.

  “There’s probably a lot of truth to that, I’m sure.”

  “Nothing further on that one.”

  “Smart move. So to what do I owe this call?”

  “I was just hoping I could catch you on this number to see if you wanted to have lunch with me.”

  “Lunch when?”

  “Today.”

  I noticed the male nurse taking a peek at me from his station. I turned my back. “I can’t today. I’ll barely have a chance to run down to the cafeteria and grab some yogurt the way this day is going.”

  “That’s too bad. So is that how you keep your gorgeous figure, by eating yogurt?”

  “Oh, that’s not even my usual, so don’t get me wrong. I eat ribs, and smothered anything.”

  “I see. I’ll remember that when I take you to dinner one day. There’s this great rib joint in Santa Monica called Dem Bones. You’d love it.”

  “Sounds like a possibility.”

  “So you’ll come?”

  “We can talk about it.”

  “Just say you’ll come.”

  “I will say I can’t make lunch today. But, we’ll see what happens. I might be able to come with you.”

  “Coming with me is exactly what I want. Once you come with me, you’ll never want to come with anyone else.”

  “Carlos, excuse me, but, I get the feeling you’re taking this conversation to a place where I’m not comfortable. Please don’t do that.”

  “Oh, woman, I’m just kidding.”

  “I’ve always thought of kidding as a way to excuse the truth. I’m not feeling respected when you do that.”

  “Enough said. It’ll never happen again.”

  “Good. I’d appreciate it.”

  “A lady of virtue you are.”

  I glanced down at my watch. “Carlos, I’m going to have to go and assist a doctor down the hall. Thanks again for the lunch invitation.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch. That you can count on.”

  “Okay. Take care now.”

  That man is fine as wine, kinda looks like Eric Benet, with his twisted hair and fine features. But, he’s as crass as a dirty old man. I know he’s dying to get in my pants and nothing else. For that reason alone, I’m bound and determined that will never happen. He’ll treat me like a lady yet, that is if I don’t cuss him out before we even have a chance to have a first date.

  I walked into a patient’s room. The doctor walked in behind me.

  He spoke my way in a whisper. “You were down there chatting on your cell phone like this is some social gathering.”

  I didn’t even look back at him, releasing words from the corner of my mouth. “Why are you all in my business, Dr. Worthy?”

  “One doesn’t need to be in your business to see you talking on the phone all sneaky like you’re making an illegal crack deal.”

  I turned to face him. “I was not.” I cleared my throat and gave him the eye to stop.

  “All hunched over like you were speaking in code.” He actually imitated me as we walked over to the patient.

  I said, “Hello, Mrs. Reynolds. This is Dr. Worthy. He’ll be giving you a quick once-over today.”

  She nodded to him with a slight smile.

  “Hello, Mrs. Reynolds. Your regular doctor, Dr. Pratt, asked me to see you today. He had an emergency and I told him I would be glad to stop by and see if we can figure out what’s going on. Nurse Cherry is here to assist me with your exam. Now, how long have you been having chest pain?”

  I told him, “Doctor, she’s also coughing up blood, and has shortness of breath, and her temperature is 100.6.”

  “Okay, thanks, Nurse,” Makkai said with a tinge of sarcasm. “I see that right here in her paperwork.” He looked at Mrs. Reynolds.

  Her voice was raspy. “My chest has been bothering me for about a couple weeks or so. But, I just started coughing up blood this morning.”

  “I see. Well, let me ask you this. Have you been exposed to any hazardous substances that you know of?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “How long have you been hoarse, and had the wheezing?”

  She cleared her throat. “For a few months, I guess.”

  “Any weight loss?”

  “Yes, but believe me, I’ve welcomed that,” she joked with a smile.

  I replied, placing one hand on her back. “You look good, Mrs. Reynolds.”

  “Yes, you do. Do you smoke?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve been smoking for about twenty years now, Doctor.”

  “Okay.”

  I watched this beautiful, educated, well-achieved, wealthy, generous, empowering man do his thing. That alone was a major turn-on for me. The way he wore his white coat, the way the starched collar of his white shirt stood stiff and proud around his muscular neck, the way he held that lucky pen when he wrote. I wondered what it would be like to excuse ourselves for five minutes and take him into that bathroom so he could pull my skirt up to my ass and work his expertise while banging me up aga
inst that bathroom sink, and then he could get down on his knees, and kiss me from the top of my white thigh-highs to the middle of my girlie split, and …”

  “Nurse Cherry, did you hear me?”

  “Yes. I mean, sorry, Dr. Worthy. What did you need?”

  “I need you to order a helical, low-dose CT scan of her lungs.” He handed me her chart.

  “Oh, sorry. Yes, Doctor.”

  “My lungs?” she asked.

  He replied, “Yes, Mrs. Reynolds. Your chest pain could have little to do with your heart, as Dr. Pratt suspected, but more to do with your lungs, which control breathing. I want to make sure we have a biopsy done as well.”

  “Biopsy?”

  “I know that word sounds invasive, but what we do is we insert a slender scope, called a broncho-scope, through your nose or mouth, and down your throat to look inside of your airway and lungs so that we can take a small sample.”

  “But, why?”

  “Mrs. Reynolds, this procedure doesn’t take long at all, and it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “What are you checking for?” she asked, looking confused.

  “I’m just checking you out so that I can narrow things down.”

  “But, you’re not sure of what I could have?”

  He responded, “No, ma’am. Not yet. Based upon your symptoms, we’re just taking steps to rule some things out.”

  “I see.” Her eyes shifted into sad mode and she simply laid her head back. “I’m ready.” She looked at the doctor again. “Hey, but aren’t you a heart surgeon?”

  “Yes, I am. But, cardiothoracic surgery involves diseases that affect organs inside of the thorax, or the chest. And that includes the lungs.”

  “I see.” She managed a surprising wink at Makkai. “From what I hear about you, you can work miracles. I read that article about you winning an award. It was in the L.A. Sentinel recently.”

  Well, I’ll be. She was charmed by him, too. By the great Dr. Worthy.

  Mrs. Reynolds looked a lot like my mother. She was light-skinned and thin and quiet, but I could tell she was strong. I reached under her arm and grabbed her right elbow as she scooted up for her exam.

  After Makkai stopped blushing, he stepped to her and attentively looked into her left ear with the penlight. He then checked her with his stethoscope, listening to her heart. If I didn’t watch myself, I was going to start catching feelings for Dr. Feelgood, too. I knew he deserved that nickname, bless the heart of whoever gave it to him. If I could sing like Aretha Franklin, I’d have been serenading the world about his prowess myself. That man can sure make me feel real. That man takes care of my pains and ills.

  He spoke to Mrs. Reynolds with his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll be just fine.”

  “You promise?”

  “You’re in good hands.” “Yes, Dr. Worthy, I know that.” He smiled, looking at her and then looking at me as he exited the room with his slow and suave Denzel walk.

  Damn that Makkai.

  Chapter 21

  Some say what happened to me when I was fifteen could be considered a good thing. But, I definitely consider it a curse.

  See, I used to hang out with my little sister Fonda all the time. So much that we’d play the same games together. Which meant sometimes, like when we were younger, she’d play with my army men, and sometimes, I’d play dolls with her. She’d play with my race cars and I’d help her bake on her electric oven. Well, one Saturday morning, after being gone for two days straight, Dad caught her and me practicing one of Fonda’s dance routines in the living room to an old Supremes track. He didn’t say a word but gave me a look of disdain as he walked by in slow motion. Later that day, my play uncles ended up coming over to take me outside to play baseball.

  I stood there in the tight, stonewashed Levis jeans I was growing out of, and a big white T-shirt, with the wooden bat in my hands, ready to swing.

  My Uncle Milton said, “Boy, dat dere pussy is the best thang in the world. I’m tellin’ ya somethin fa real.”

  Uncle Leroy high-fived him. “Once you get a chance to stick your dick into that wet, tight tunnel, you’ll be chasing it morning, noon and night.” Needless to say I swung the bat about two seconds before the baseball reached me.

  “What’s wrong dere, boy? You ain’t even smelt dat yet?” Uncle Milton asked.

  I looked down at my weather-beaten tennis shoes. “No.”

  “You haven’t tasted it then, huh?” Uncle Leroy inquired. He surprised me more than anything.

  “No.”

  Uncle Leroy continued, “You will. We promise, you will.”

  The next evening, my dad told me to go for a ride with him. We drove all the way to St. Petersburg and pulled up to an old, small frame house. We turned into a long, winding driveway. Dad parked his Caddy behind a silver Ford Mustang. As we got out, a small brown, wide-eyed poodle ran up to him, wagging his tail and barking. Dad patted him on the top of his head, as the dog continued to run circles around him. We walked up to the side door. Dad took out a single key from his pants pocket and opened it, walking right in.

  “Roosevelt, is that you?” a woman spoke from somewhere.

  He responded with his Barry White voice, speaking loudly in her direction. “Yes, it’s me.” He crossed the threshold taking small, slow steps.

  “Her name is Erskalene,” he told me without looking back at me. “Don’t let the dog in,” he told me.

  I made sure to close the screen door in the poodle’s little sad face.

  “Oh, little Makkai is with you? Great. Roosevelt, your Aunt Ethel called here looking for you. I don’t know how she got this number, but I am listed.”

  “Oh, she did. That’s strange.”

  The house smelled of the corned beef and cabbage that simmered on the stove, and the faint fragrance of Egyptian musk circulated through the air. Erskalene came into the kitchen, wearing only her scarlet panties and a sheer top. She had to be in her forties, well into her forties. Clearly her large, wide breasts hung flat like pancakes, outlined by deep stretch marks. Her tummy bulged and her waist was as wide as her hips. She had suffered from Noassitol disease, as she had no butt whatsoever. But, she did have the shapeliest, longest legs I’d ever seen, and Dad was definitely a leg man. I was able to check her out intently because by the time she handed us plates full of cabbage and corn bread, and we devoured them and asked for seconds, Erskalene was standing in front of me, blocking my view of “M*A*S*H” as I sat on the sofa. She bent down on her knees. Dad sat on the burnt-orange reclining chair across the room. She leaned her majorly endowed chest toward my face, surely which had been her best asset years earlier, and I looked at my father with eyes that begged him to make her stop.

  “Son, tonight you’re going to become a man.”

  My eyes spoke louder than my words. “Dad, she is your friend.”

  “Tonight, she’s your best friend. Enjoy yourself and learn.”

  She handed me a tinted shot glass filled with some brown liquor. I sniffed it and looked at my dad again. He swigged his glass, and I followed suit. Next thing I knew, in between my coughing fit, Erskalene had my zipper down and my young hardness deep in her mouth. My eyes shut by themselves. The feeling was like heaven. I had jacked off before to a few magazines I found under the driver’s seat of my dad’s car, but this nut was coming fast, in spite of the fact that my own father was watching. I squirted in her mouth, and she looked up at me smiling. She didn’t miss a drop. She pointed her tongue along my swollen tip, wiped her mouth, and then leaned up to put her tittie in my mouth. I licked it like I was licking a Popsicle.

  “Pretty good,” she said, glancing over at my dad.

  “Lay on your back, Ersk,” he instructed her.

  She obeyed him, pulling down her lace panties and lying next to me with her curvy legs spread eagle.

  She played with herself, inserting a finger at the same time, until her entire hand was swallowed by her own hairy opening.

  His voice was monoto
ne and no nonsense. “Kiss her pussy, son.”

  “Dad.” My word was tainted with a question mark.

  “Roosevelt, maybe you should leave the room. I can show him.”

  His firmness was evident. “Will you let me handle my own son, please?” He cut his eyes from her to me. “You, my son, are going to be a man tonight. Playing girlie cheerleader routines with your sister. Now eat that pussy. And eat it right.”

  I leaned up and put my mouth between her legs. She had a wild, unshaven middle, and it smelled like sweat. I kissed it with closed lips.

  “Open your mouth and give her the tongue so you can taste it.”

  I parted my lips and stuck out the tip of my stiff tongue, squinting my eyes. The tanginess was odd. I backed away. The P word was staring me in the face.

  “Move over, son. I’ll show you how to do it. And you watch closely. No son of mine is going to be guessing about how to please a woman. You will not ruin the Worthy reputation by acting like you’re afraid.”

  He yanked me up and then bent down with his knees to the floor. He scooted her hips toward him and parted her lips with one hand. She reached over and took a hit off a homemade cigarette, replaced it, and then leaned back.

  “You don’t just go right to it, you approach it. You tease it, you enjoy it, you marinate it, you watch her movements, you feel her wetness, you pay attention to her breathing, to her moans, to her ass tightening, to her legs straightening, to each muscle contracting, to her eyes rolling back in her head. Like this.”

  And Roosevelt Worthy stuck out his long tongue, and licked and teased and worked his mouth and his razor-stubbled chin and his cheeks and his dark brown, aged, professional fingers all around Erskalene’s vagina until she contracted her legs and burst out with a scream that sounded like she had been stabbed. She bucked wildly and her breasts started flopping. He held tight to her ass cheek and had one hand on her stomach. She screamed again and called out his name. It was as if I wasn’t there.

  “Get you a good nut, baby. That’s my baby Ersk,” he said. “Girl cums so hard.” He looked over at me as he stood up. “And you gotta talk to ‘em. Tell ‘em they’re the best, that they cum just for you. Make ‘em feel relaxed and free to pump that cum right into your face as though if they peed on you, you’d sop that up, too.”