“You’re a therapist?”
“Uh huh. A sexual therapist. I mean, usually I call myself a hooker, because it saves the argument. But what I am really is a sexual therapist.”
“You’re saying you’re a prostitute.”
“Huh uh, a sexual therapist. You’re a doctor, right? So guess my weight. If you want, you can even feel me up, like they do at the carnivals.”
Dr. Bob stared at her, rubbing his chin, then made a note on his pad.
“I’ll give you a clue. I’m five eight, no shoes.”
“Two hundred pounds, I suppose.”
“Two forty. Now you’re a really nice looking young guy, even if you are a little wide around the hips. Suppose I came up to you on the street. It’s pretty close to midnight, and we’ve both had a few, maybe. I say, ‘Listen, I’m in a hell of a bind. Take me to your place, and I’ll show you a wonderful time. Anything you want. I gotta have fifty bucks.’ Would you take me?”
“I suppose so.”
“Doc, I suppose not. A guy like you can go into any singles bar in town and walk out an hour later with somebody half my weight that he won’t have to pay for. The ones that say yes …”
“Yes?”
“Well, they’ve got some kind of trouble. Sometimes, to tell the truth, their trouble is they just can’t say no to it. Sometimes they feel guilty—they’re cheating on their wives or girlfriends or even for Christ’s sake on their mothers. Then they don’t want a girl that looks nice. They want to be grossed out. I can spot them by the way they look at me when I undress. Hey, why am I telling you all this?”
“I suppose because I’m a doctor,” Dr. Bob said. “And somewhere inside you’re hoping I can help you.”
“I think it was the dope they gave me.”
“No.” He made another note on his pad.
“Get these straps off me, will you?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Violent patients must be restrained for the first twenty-four hours. It’s a hospital rule.”
“I’m not a patient.”
“You are.”
“Can you just
“If you mean confine someone permanently, no. There has to be a sanity hearing, and this isn’t even a permanent facility; we don’t keep anyone, under any circumstances, for more than six weeks. But we can admit anyone whose behavior is dangerous to society or to himself, on a temporary basis.”
“That’s what you did with the cop, huh?”
“Cop?”
“Sergeant Proudy. He was in the Consort, and somebody—I forget now who it was—called about him. Jim, I guess.”
“You know him then. The policeman.”
“I didn’t really know him. I helped bandage him.”
“I saw the dressings. I gave him his entrance interview, just as I’m giving you yours. That was a very professional job.”
“Thanks.”
“You did it?”
“I did part of it, yeah. I helped.”
“I would have said the stitches in his scalp had been made by a surgeon.”
“You took the bandages off, huh? Yeah, a doctor sewed him up.”
“You were working for the doctor?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“No.”
“Not necessarily a registered nurse. A practical nurse, perhaps.”
Candy snorted with laughter. “An impractical nurse. That’s me.”
“I wonder if you could tell me who the doctor was. Possibly I know him.”
“I’ve forgotten his name. He told me—or somebody did—but I forget. That’s a problem I have, a real bad problem.”
“I see.”
