happened to anyone before, she knew. She was unique.
It had all started with her first adventure, a night of fear, anguish and resolve. Then, when it was over, she was flooded with a warm peace, an almost drunken exaltation. When she had returned home, she had stared at herself in a mirror and was pleased with what she saw.
It seemed to her that, for self-preservation, she could not, should not stop. She was rational enough to recognize the dangers, to plan coldly and logically. But logic was limited. It was not an end in itself, a way of life. It was a means to an end, to a transfigured life.
The gratification was not sexual. Oh no, it was not that, although she loved those men for what they had given her. But she did not experience an orgasm or even a thrill when she- when those men went. But she felt a thawing of her hurts. The adventures were a sweet justification. Of what, she could not have said.
'It's God's will,' her mother was fond of remarking.
If a friend sickened, a coffee cup was broken, or a million foreigners died in a famine-'It's God's will,' her mother said.
Zoe Kohler felt much the same way about what she was doing. It was God's will, and her newfound sensibility was her reward. She was being allowed to enter a fresh world, reborn.
Dr. Oscar Stark, an internist, had his offices on the first floor of his home, a converted brownstone on 35th Street just east of Park Avenue. It was a handsome five-story structure with bow windows and a fanlight over the front door said to have been designed by Louis Tiffany.
The suite of offices consisted of a reception room, the doctor's office, two examination rooms, a clinic, lavatories, storage cubicles, and a 'resting room.'
All these chambers had the high, ornate ceilings, wood paneling, and parquet floors installed when the home was built in 1909. The waiting room and the doctor's office were equipped with elaborate, marble-manteled fireplaces. There were window seats, wall niches, and sliding oak doors.
Dr. Stark and his wife of forty-three years had found it impossible to reconcile this Edwardian splendor with the needs of a physician's office: white enameled furniture, stainless steel equipment, glass cabinets, and plastic plants. Regretfully, they had surrendered to the demands of his profession and moved their heavy antiques and gloomy paintings upstairs to the living quarters.
Dr. Stark employed a receptionist and two nurses, both RNs. His waiting room was invariably occupied, and usually crowded, from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. These hours were not strictly adhered to; the doctor sometimes saw patients early in the morning, late in the evening, and on weekends.
Zoe Kohler had a standing appointment for 6:00 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month. Dr. Stark had tried to convince her that these monthly visits were not necessary.
'Your illness doesn't require it,' he had explained with his gentle smile. 'As long as you keep on the medication faithfully, every day. Otherwise, you're in excellent health. I'd like to see you twice a year.'
'I'd really prefer to get a checkup every month,' she said. 'You never can tell.'
He shrugged his meaty shoulders, brushed cigar ashes from the lapels of his white cotton jacket.
'If it makes you feel better,' he said. 'What is it, exactly, you'd like me to do for you every month?'
'Oh…' she said, 'the usual.'
'And what do you consider the usual?'
'Weight and blood pressure. The lungs. Urine and blood tests. Breast examination. A pelvic exam. A Pap test.'
'A Pap smear every month?' he cried. 'Zoe, in your case it's absolutely unnecessary. Once or twice a year is sufficient, I assure you.'
'I want it,' she said stubbornly, and he had yielded.
He was a short, blunt teddy bear of a man in his middle sixties. An enormous shock of white hair crowned his bullet head like a raggedy halo. And below, ruddy, pendulous features hung in bags, dewlaps, jowls, and wattles. All of his thick face sagged. It waggled when he moved.
His hands were wide and strong, fingers fuzzed with black hair. He wore carpet slippers with white cotton socks. Unless a patient objected, he chain-smoked cigars. More than once his nurse had plucked a lighted cigar from his fingers as he was about to start a rectal examination.
He was, Zoe Kohler thought, a sweet old man with eyes of Dresden blue. He did not frighten her or intimidate her. She thought she might tell him anything, anything, and he would not be shocked, angered, or disgusted.
On the first Tuesday of that April, the first day of the month, Zoe Kohler arrived at Dr. Stark's office a few minutes early for her 6:00 p.m. appointment. Mercifully, there were only two other patients in the waiting room. She checked in with the receptionist, then settled down with a year-old copy of Architectural Digest. It was 6:50 before Gladys, the chief nurse, came into the reception room and gave Zoe as pleasant a smile as she could manage.
'Doctor will see you now,' she said.
Gladys was a gorgon, broad-shouldered and wide-hipped, with a faint but discernible mustache. Zoe had once seen her pick up a steel cabinet and reposition it as easily as if it had been a paper carton. Dr. Stark had told her that Gladys was divorced and had a twelve-year-old son in a military academy in Virginia. She lived alone with four cats.
A few moments later Zoe Kohler was seated in Dr. Stark's office, watching him light a fresh cigar and wave the cloud of smoke away with backhand paddle motions.
He peered at her genially over the tops of his half-glasses.
'So?' he said. 'Feeling all right?'
'Fine,' she said.
'Regular bowel movements?'
She nodded, lowering her eyes.
'What about your food?'
'I eat well,' she said.
He looked down at the opened file Gladys had placed on his desk.
'You take vitamins,' he noted. 'Which ones?'
'Most of them,' she said. 'A, B-complex, C, E, and some minerals.'
'Which minerals?'
'Iron, zinc, magnesium.'
'And? What other pills?'
'My birth control pill,' she said. 'The blood medicine. Choline. Alfalfa. Lecithin and kelp.'
'And?'
'Sometimes a Librium. Midol. Anacin. Occasionally a Darvon for my cramps. A Tuinal when I can't sleep.'
He looked at her and sighed.
'Oy gevalt,' he said. 'What a stew. Believe me, Zoe, if you're eating a balanced diet the vitamins and minerals and that seaweed just aren't needed.'
'Who eats a balanced diet?' she challenged.
'What about the choline? Why choline?'
'I read somewhere that it prevents premature senility.'
He leaned back and laughed, showing strong, yellowed teeth.
'A young woman like you,' he chided, 'worrying about senility. Me, I should be worrying. Try to cut down on the pills. All right?'
'All right,' she said.
'You promise?'
She nodded.
'Good,' he said, pushing a buzzer on his desk. 'Now go with Gladys. I'll be along in a minute.'
In the examination room, she took off all her clothes and put them on plastic hangers suspended from the top edge of a three-paneled metal screen. She draped a sheet about herself. Gladys came in with an examination form fastened to a clipboard.
Zoe stepped onto the scale. Gladys moved the weights back and forth.
'One twenty-three,' she announced. 'How do you do it? One of my legs weighs one twenty-three. Better put on your shoes, dear; the floor is chilly.'
She handed Zoe a wide-mouthed plastic cup.
