exactly what was wrong. Underneath that affable glad-hander was a sharp mind. Tom could be very tough with people. He compartmentalized, internalized, rationalized. Valuable abilities in a corporate setting, she knew. But the animal always won. This is what she'd learned from her patients. The brain was an organ that privileged itself before other organs, arranged the perception of reality for its own comfort. But it could not control the body's reaction to its own perceptions, the secretion of hormones, the cellular flux. Tom was acting like nothing was wrong. He seemed calm, but she knew he was not. Something was wrong. Right now, as he was staring out of the window of the town car, telling her nothing. Why?
'This is it,' he said to the driver.
A lovely apartment! Huge! High in the air! Some of the people were actual billionaires, not that it mattered to Ann. She chatted, drifted, let Tom do his thing, talk to the big wheels, over in the corner, each holding his drink. She'd shaken hands with some people but found her way to a huge sofa and sat there happily, half hidden by a giant spray of lilies, accepted a glass of white wine. The servants were all tiny Guatemalans. She was too tired to be of much use to Tom. So she watched. She'd been introduced to Connie, the youngish wife of someone important there, so Ann studied her. The woman sported a very expensive boob job. How natural and yet grotesque! How impossible yet marvelous! One hardly knew who was most responsible for this aesthetic state of affairs, men or women themselves. And yet, equally strange to Ann was the fact that the fake tits worked. Men who were otherwise among the most sophisticated and brilliant, worldly and perceptive, lawyers, bankers, artists-men who had buried parents, friends, spouses, even children, and who thus knew the essential tragedy of the flesh-were themselves so often rendered helpless before these unnatural yet unarguably beautifully executed falsies. Smart men! Thoughtful, sensitive men! Doctors! Yes, doctors, who should know better, who were well informed about infection rates, adhesions of muscle tissue, immune system response, nerve damage, tissue scarring, ligament failure, the complications of burst implants, and so on. Yes, even doctors. The male response was hardwired in, kicking off testosterone pulses in the endocrine system. Couldn't help themselves. Helpless. Helpless men. They lost the power of discernment and resistance. They lusted, and in the glare of that lust, women gained power, if for only a moment.
Now Connie spied Ann across the room, turned, and came to her, smiling with professional hospitality.
'Are you-you seem to be-'
'I'm sorry-bit tired. Long day.'
This admission was on the outer edges of Manhattan dinner party protocol. You never admitted weakness or insufficiency. 'Oh, are you-what-?' ask Connie politely, one eye on the room.
'I'm a physician and I just saw a lot of patients today, that's all.'
At this Connie's posture softened, and she drew nearer, seeming to reappraise Ann with both admiration and a bit of fear, for people know that doctors know things the rest of humanity does not.
'May I ask your specialty?'
'I'm an internist. Internal medicine.'
Connie sat down, intimately next to her. 'I keep telling my husband he must see a doctor.'
Ann nodded. Many wives said this.
Connie leaned closer, whispered. 'Can I talk to you about this? He pees too often in the night. Maybe six or seven times.'
'That is too many times.'
Connie leaned closer. 'And he has pain.'
'When he pees?'
Connie winced, as if sampling such pain. 'Don't think so.'
'Trouble peeing?' Ann asked.
'Maybe. He's so private. I know he has pain you know, down there, down under there.'
Benign prostate hyperplasia less likely, malignancy more so, she thought. PSA test. New inflammation test. Eliminate false positive. Biopsy probable. 'Pain all the time?'
The question triggered alarm in Connie's beautiful face. 'Maybe, but I think yes, all the time!' she whispered.
'Between his anus and scrotum. Sensitive to touch?'
'Well-' Connie drew a breath of surprise at the sudden clinical frankness of this question. And made a quick check that no one was listening to them from behind the lilies. 'Well, yes. It worries me so much!'
Ann wondered if she had seen Connie's face before somewhere, an advertisement, perhaps. 'He should see a urologist as soon as possible-I mean tomorrow-and get a digital exam.'
'That's what he doesn't want…'
'He's going to have to get over that.'
Connie was nodding frantically, eyes wet, apparently having forgotten the party.
'It's no big deal, frankly. As a woman, you know that, the way gynecologists poke into us.'
'I've told him.'
'He's never had one?'
'No.'
Ann nodded. 'Afraid?'
'Yes.'
'You really should have a talk with him.'
'Yes. He's so very tender down there.'
'He needs an exam tomorrow.'
Connie became tearful. 'Doctor, do you-do you do them?'
'Almost every day.'
'And the men-do they mind the fact that-'
'I'm a woman? No. They accept it.'
Connie looked at her, a question seeming to tremble in her big beautiful eyes. 'Would-would you, would you do it for him?'
'Of course, he can call my-'
'No, no, he's going to Germany tomorrow for four days, he's being picked up at six… no, no, I mean would you, could you now? Here?'
Here. Now. Not what she wanted to do but it was her duty, always her duty to help. Connie led her down a hallway to a sumptuous bedroom filled with Picassos on every wall, Manhattan sprawling below from two sides. This is real money, Ann breathed to herself. This is what Tom wants.
'Do you need anything?'
Yes, Ann said. Connie nodded. She picked up the phone, pushed one button. A servant was dispatched to an all-night pharmacy for rubber examination gloves and K-Y Jelly.
'I'll go get him,' Connie called. 'Please just wait-'
More than a few minutes went by. Was Tom wondering where she was? Not necessarily. He could easily be locked in a conversation on the far side of the room. She sat perched on an upholstered bench with her purse, which had a very small doctor's bag in it.
'— to do it, Bill, I absolutely insist.'
Connie appeared at the door. 'He thinks he's humoring me.'
Martz stepped into the room, glowering. 'I am.'
'I said it would only take a minute.'
Connie handed Ann a white bag from the pharmacy and pulled the door shut.
'Well, Doctor-'
'Please call me Ann,' she said, 'given that I am your guest.'
Martz nodded obligatorily, his expression indicating he had no idea who she was. 'Where do you practice?'
'I have my own office practice and I have privileges at Beth Israel.'
'How many exams of this nature have you performed?'
'I don't know. Several thousand, perhaps.'
Martz's eyes, yellowed by decades of golf, hung open as he stared at her. She could not decide if he found her attractive or whether his interest lay elsewhere. Maybe he hated his wife for asking him do this, maybe he
