THIS WON'T HURT A BIT
by Timothy Sheard
Originally published by Creative Arts, 2001
PROLOGUE
Kate Palmer gripped the scalpel lightly in her right hand, as she would the bow of a violin. With the forefinger of her other
hand, she traced the cadaver's anatomical landmarks from the crest of the hip diagonally to the groin. Even through the latex
gloves, the wet, rubbery gray flesh felt cold.
Her lab partner, Jennifer Mason, stood watching from the other side of the black marble dissecting table. Theirs was one of
sixteen tables laid out in neat rows, each with its own cadaver flanked by a pair of medical students. The lights of fluorescent ceiling
lamps reflected off the moist surfaces of the corpses, and the air was filled with the pungent odor of formaldehyde and decay.
At another table a beefy, blond medical student with a surfer's tan called out, "Hey, look at the dingus on this guy - is that an
implant or what?"
"I didn't think rigor mortis lasted this long," a fellow at the next table rejoined, raising guffaws from several of the students in the
dissecting lab.
Kate turned to the noisy table. "Letterly, couldn't you advertise your inadequacies somewhere else?" She stood five feet five
in her running shoes, trim and graceful. Her short auburn hair framed a round face without make-up.
"Just doing a little comparative anatomy, love," he replied. "You never can tell when"
"Crack!"
The blow of a wooden pointer against a marble surface silenced the class. Aiming his stick at a word on the blackboard, Dr.
Anton Praxis intoned, "You will recall that the relative location of the femoral nerve, artery and vein can be remembered by use of
the mnemonic 'navel,' meaning: nerve, artery, vein, empty space and ligament. Bear in mind that the femoral nerve is lateral to the
vasculature. That is, away from the midline."
A wan, restless man with unkempt white hair and a drooping mustache, Praxis liked to prowl the classroom, gazing into the
cavities of the bodies with the look of an animal that hunts, and pointing out flaws in the students’ work. As he continued, the class
stood poised over the cadavers waiting for permission to use their scalpels.
"When you make the incision, be cautious. Do not bisect the structures with the knife. After making your incision, probe the
wound with your finger, or the handle of the scalpel, if you are squeamish, and locate the underlying organs."
The Professor paused to gaze disdainfully at the class as though looking at a lower form of life, then, with a little flourish of the
hand, he said, "Begin."
Kate stabbed the rubbery flesh with the pointed tip of the scalpel. Despite months of dissection, she was still surprised that the
wound produced no blood, merely a trickle of clear fluid. Each cadaver’s bodily fluids had been drained and replaced with a clear
preservative that filled the organs and blood vessels, keeping them plump and life-like.
Pressing firmly, she drew the blade across the groin, pried the wound open with her fingers, and peered into the opening,
trying to recognize the layers of tissue.
Jennifer, tall and blonde, with raspberry red lips and a mouth that was born to pout, bent down to peer into the wound. "Gee, Kate,
it looks like the meat in the back of my fridge."
"Remind me not to have dinner at your place again."
While Kate probed the wound searching for the femoral nerve, her partner looked over the body. "Boy, this guy's face really
got mangled when he hit the windshield. I bet he didn't have an airbag."
"Or wear his seat belt," said Kate, glancing at the torso. "That circular mark and the 'X' on his chest is where he hit the steering
wheel.”
She felt a long, stringy cord inside the wound. "Got ya! Femoral nerve! Pour some more cadaver juice over the wound, will
you?"
Jennifer grimaced at the nauseating odor as she poured a mixture of saline and formaldehyde over the corpse's groin. "What
a bummer we got stuck with the worst cadaver in the class."
"They say Praxis hasn't given an 'A' to a woman student in ten years."
"He’s has got to give it to you, Kate. You're tops in the class."
"Don't count on it." Kate pushed her finger deep into the wound searching for the artery.
Jennifer said, "After you finish the groin I guess I'll dissect the scrotum." She held the shriveled sack and felt the testicles. "I
wonder if he had a vasectomy. Let's see if there's a scar."
Looking at the underside of the penis, Jennifer traced the cord from the sack up along the underside of the organ. There were
three small, red birthmarks along the cord. She bent down to examine them. Suddenly she dropped the member, ripped off her
latex gloves, and stepped away from the table, her face contorted in horror.
"Katie, I know that dick! I mean, I know that guy!"
"What’s that?" her partner asked.
A few students at nearby tables stopped their dissections to look over.
"I'm talking about the cadaver. I know who it is!"
Jennifer grasped the corpse's head and turned it to the side. "His face is deformed from the auto accident and his hair should
be blond, but I'm certain this is Randy Sparks, the third year medical resident."
"The one who disappeared last December in the middle of his rotation?"
"Yup, that's the one. God! And we've been cutting him up!"
By now the entire class had ceased working and was staring at the two women.
Professor Praxis approached them.
"Is there a problem, ladies?"
Jennifer pointed at the cadaver. "Professor Praxis, this isn't an ordinary body. This is Randy Sparks, the resident who
disappeared last month!"
Arching a single eyebrow, he glanced down at the cadaver, then turned his attention to the groin incision that Kate had made.
"Have you dissected to the femoral nerve, Miss Palmer?"
"Yes, sir." She pointed to a slender filament running through the wound. "It's that gray string, isn't it?"
"Correct. Continue until you have exposed the artery and vein."
As Praxis turned to a nearby table, Jennifer blurted out, "But, Doctor, shouldn't we, like, call the police or something?"
The Professor pulled a gold watch on a gold chain from his vest pocket, opened it to note the time. "There are thirty-six
minutes of class time remaining. This man has been missing forwhat did you say, a month? The police can wait another half-
hour to find him."
As he cast an imperious glance around the room, all heads bowed to their business on the tables.
Kate hesitated, torn between revulsion and a desire to find the vessels hiding in the wound. She glanced briefly at the body's
battered face, gritted her teeth, looked back at the groin. Taking a deep breath, she inserted her finger into the wound and
resumed her probing.
"Honestly, Kate, I don't see how you can still work on him."
"Praxis isn't keeping me out of the Honors Program. I'm going on with the dissection."
Looking at the other tables, Jennifer saw Letterly wipe his brow on his sleeve, wink at her, and return to his dissection. She
crossed to Kate's side of the table, leaned close to her partner and whispered, "Kate, what if somebody finds out I slept with Randy?
It means I’ve been cutting up a man I had sex with!”
“So?”
“So? Why, it borders on necrophilia!"
"I don't know. Some guys would probably find it a turn on."
"Letterly would, but he's a pig."
As Kate cut deeper into the gray tissue, more fluid welled up in the wound, like water filling a footprint on the beach.
“Hey, I found the femoral artery, take a look," she said, pointing to something that looked like a thin white worm running through
the wound.
Jennifer glanced nervously at the wound. "I think I'm going to be sick," she said.
Her finger deep inside the cadaver, Kate said, "Come on and probe the wound.”
Pulling on a latex glove, Jennifer pushed a finger into the opening. As she felt the sinewy formations in the wound, she
whispered to her partner, "You realize, Kate, if this gets out it's going to destroy my love life."
CHAPTER ONE
He was a man of modest proportions. Dressed in custodian's black shoes and blue work shirt and pants, Lenny Moss was the
sort of fellow who went unnoticed on a crowded sidewalk. His black framed glasses perched on a broad nose beneath thick,
arching eyebrows and coarse, untidy hair. He needed a haircut, but he always seemed to need a haircut. And a shave.
Having recently celebrated a thirtieth birthday, Lenny wasn’t feeling old exactly, but he didn’t feel young and energetic either.
The custodial work in a big university hospital like James Madison could tax even the strongest man. On top of that, his
responsibilities as a union representative wore him down. He was worried about the contract negotiations, which were stalled over
the hospital’s threat to privatize whole departments, eliminating union members.
He had been sleeping badly as well. A woman in the kitchen was on probation for missing work, and Lenny knew that one more
slip would land her in the soup. A housekeeper on the night shift who had custody of her three grandchildren was sleeping on the
job, which was inevitable, given her daytime responsibilities. Lenny functioned as a combination defense lawyer and salesman,
bargaining, promising, sometimes even begging the administration to lessen a charge and save someone’s job.
But the main source of his fatigue was not what he did so much as what he lacked. His wife Margaret had died nearly a year
ago. Although he would be loathe to admit it to his friends, or even to himself, even after many months of living alone, he didn’t
mind staying late on the job talking to his co-workers; it meant putting off the moment when he stepped into his empty house and
heard the silence there.
He set the buffing machine in the middle of the Seven-South corridor. It was six-thirty on a Tuesday morning, his favorite time
of day, when the only floor traffic was an occasional technician drawing blood or a sleepy night nurse making a last bed check.
"It's a fucking war," he grumbled, moving the buffer in broad sweeps across the old marble floor. The enemy was the
procession of careless pedestrians who scuffed up his work or marred it with food, coffee, urine, blood.
"Nurses are the worst," he decided. "They never pick an armchair up to move it. They always drag it. Why can't they lift it?"
He knew that as the shift wore on, liquid stool from soiled linen would leak onto the floor, and the wet wheels of the stretchers
would spread it in long black streaks. By evening, the floor would look like the slushy Philadelphia streets in January.
Celeste, the unit secretary, came by in a fur coat and floppy wool hat. “Hey Lenny!” she called over the sound of the buffing
machine. “Your number come up last night?”
“I don’t play the lottery,” he answered. “I’d rather just give more in taxes and know I’m getting screwed!”
“I choose to dream,” she said with a smile and went on to the nursing station.
Betty, his housekeeping partner, came ambling down the hall on her bowed legs. She was a middle-aged black woman with short,
gray hair like steel wool, thick hips, and a face that was all sharp angles and a long jaw. She tapped him on the shoulder
"Hey Lenny!" she yelled over the buffer.
"Huh?"
He snapped off the machine and looked up.
"They need you down at the office. Regis got his self in trouble again."
"Shit," he said, coiling the electric cord onto the handle. "Cover for me, will ya, Boop? I got a feeling this is gonna take some
time."
"Sure," she said, smiling at the nickname Lenny had given her years ago. "You give them hell down there, you hear?"
After riding the elevator to the basement, he walked briskly by the housekeeping office to the locker room. The workers
couldn't get to their lockers without going past the office, a layout that allowed the supervisor to keep an eye on comings and
goings.
Lenny opened his locker, which was stuffed with paperback mystery novels, union grievance forms, extra clothes, and an umbrella.
He dug out a yellow notepad and a dog-eared Employee Handbook covered with doodling, then he shut the locker and hurried to
the office.
Entering the outer office, he walked past the time clock and the long rack of time cards, to a door labeled ENVIRONMENTAL
SERVICES SUPERVISOR. With a curt knock he opened the door, entered, and found himself looking at a familiar tableau.
Slouched in a black leather chair behind a large, cluttered desk was Supervisor Norman Childress, a pasty-faced man with hair the
color of wood ash. Standing at parade rest beside the desk with his chest bulging beneath a dark blue blazer was Joe West, the
chief of hospital security. In front of the desk sat a young black man, Regis Devoe, laundry worker and frequent visitor to the
supervisor's office.
Giving Lenny a sour look, Childress pointed a smoke-stained finger at the accused and said, "Mr. Devoe has been terminated
for violating three separate work rules. Mr. West will collect his hospital identification and clean out his locker."
"Whoa," Lenny said, making hold it signs with his hands. "Do you mind if I hear the charges?"
Lenny pulled up a chair and had barely sat down when West stepped forward, placed his face inches from Lenny's nose, and
snarled, "Devoe was fifteen minutes late again punching in. He disobeyed a direct order from his supervisor, and he called a
Department Chairman by a foul name. You can't grieve your way out of this one, Moss!"
Lenny nearly gagged smelling the security chief's cheap after-shave. He pulled his head back, turned in his chair and looked
with disbelief at his young coworker.
"Regis. I can't believe you would do that. You, of all people."
"No way I could've been late this time. My watch said I was right on time, and it's got a frickin' quartz movement. See?" he said,
thrusting a wrist up to West's face. The watch was big, gold, and said 'Rolex' on the dial.
West stepped away from Lenny, a pair of handcuffs jingling on his belt, and stood ramrod stiff, the creases on his navy blue
pants as straight as a yardstick.
"It looks like a very accurate timepiece to me,” said Lenny. “Did you set it by KYW, the 'all news' radio?"
"Of' course,” said Regis. “I love that little song they got. You know, the one that goes, 'K-Y-double-yew, news ray-di-o"
"Can it!" Childress snarled. "At James Madison Hospital we go by the time clock. Mr. Devoe not only arrived at the office six
minutes late, but he refused to report for duty as ordered by his supervisor, Mr. Docksett. He didn't even punch in til quarter after,
and he called Mr. Freely a faggot!"
Lenny sat forward in his chair. "Let me see if I understand this. He came into the department at six-o-six but didn't punch in 'til
quarter after. Why the delay?"
"Perhaps he can explain it to you. We don't understand Mr. Devoe's behavior one bit," West said, spitting out the last word as
though it were a bitter seed.
Lenny looked from West to Regis and back to West. "I'll need a few words with my co-worker... alone."
With a nod from Childress, Lenny and Regis stepped out to the hall. Lenny stood looking at the young man. He found himself
thinking that his bag of tricks was not only empty, it was ripped to pieces, and there was no way he could pull out a rabbit this time.
CHAPTER TWO
Gary Tuttle, RN, hurried to the Seven-South nursing station and picked up the phone on the forth ring. He cocked his head
sideways to hold the phone to his ear. He was a stocky man of thirty with light brown hair beginning to recede and sleepy blue
eyes. His features were rounded and soft, and they, combined with a disarming manner, encouraged trust in his patients.
"Seven-South, Mr. Tuttle. May I help you?"
The strident, nasal voice of Dr. Priscilla Gandy raked his ear. "Gary? This is Dr. Gandy. I've got a patient in my office I need
to admit right away. Are there any empty beds on your ward?"
"Let me check the board, Dr. Gandy. Hold please."
Gary punched the hold button on the console and put down the phone. He pulled the Census Ledger over and ran his finger
down the list, comparing the number of Seven-South admissions to the number of discharges. He also checked for Deaths, of
which there were none.
He picked up the phone. "I'm sorry Dr. Gandy, but both our discharges have been taken by Admissions. Nothing is open."
"Dammit! I've got a sick patient here in my office. What am I supposed to do, dance around the room until somebody finds me
a bed?"
Gary's free hand tightened into a hard fist. The fist trembled, then slowly opened. He spun his chair around to look at the
census board on the opposite wall. As far as he could tell, none of the patients listed on the board was ready for discharge or
about to die.
"I'm looking at the board, Doctor, and I don't see anyone else going out any time soon."
There was a long, awkward silence. Gary knew that Dr. Gandy would not give up until she got what she wanted.
He took in a long breath, let it out slowly.
"I guess I could call admissions and ask if they can switch one of our hits to another floor to make room. What is your patient's
name?"
"Mr. Lewis. He's in a lot of pain and he's badly dehydrated. Prostate cancer. He needs the morphine pump and IV nutrition.
When you get a bed, call the resident for orders. I'll be up to check on him after office hours."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do."
Dr. Gandy clicked off.
As he dialed the Admissions Department, Gary asked himself for the hundredth time, why did he ever do that woman a favor?
After two rings, a purring voice answered. "Ad-missions, how may I help you?"
"Hi, Ruthie, Gary on Seven-South. Dr. Gandy just called me all upset. She wants to admit a patient direct from her office, a Mr.
Lewis, and we're full up. Is there any chance that you could switch one of our admits to another floor?"
"Let me pull your census up on my screen, Gary. One moment."
While he waited, Gary plucked a pen from the pocket of his white scrub suit and transcribed Mr. Oldenfield's medication order.
Ruthie purred back on the line. "Gary?"
"Yes..."
"Aren't you expecting an admission of Dr. Gandy's by the name of Louis Anderson into 6-B?"
Gary looked over the Census Ledger. In the Admissions column he found the entry 'Anderson, Louis - CA of Prostate/Gandy.'
"That's right, it's in the book."
"Could the Mr. Lewis that the doctor called you about be the same man?"
Gary looked again at the name in the Log: L-o-u-i-s Anderson - Prostate Cancer... Gandy had called her patient Mr. Lewis....
"That damned Gandy,” he said. “Do you know that last week she came up and asked Bettyour housekeeper could she
put a patient in the bed she was cleaning! She never follows proper channels."
"Shall I change the name in the computer?"
"We'd better wait until the patient comes up and we'll let him tell us his right name. Thanks, Ruthie."
"Sure thing, Gary. Anytime."
Gary called Dr. Gandy and told her that a patient had been scheduled for a bed on Seven-South under the name L-o-u-i-s
Anderson.
"Leave it to those admission clerks to screw things up," Gandy said.
"I don't know who screwed up, Doctor, but the bed's ready now. You can send the patient over."
There was silence on the phone.
"Actually, Mr. Lewis hadn't eaten anything this morning, so I sent him to the coffee shop for a snack. You know how long it
takes the kitchen to deliver a late tray. Be sure and page the resident when he gets on the floor."
The phone clicked off.
Gary felt as though he had been pushing against a stone wall. Unable to move it, he was left tired... depressed...defeated.
Lenny stood in the hall outside the housekeeping supervisor’s office wondering how he was going to keep Regis from being
fired this time.
“I’m not sure I can help you, Reeg,” he said. “You’ve got too many strikes against you.”
"What’re you talking about? You handle those bozos real good. You don't get pissed off like me."
Lenny studied the young man in front of him: a slim and broad-shouldered knot of restless, angry energy.
"Regis, what the hell happened this morning with the time clock?"
"Man, I really thought I was on time today! I got this new watch from a guy hawking it on Germantown Avenue couple a' nights
ago." He showed Lenny the watch again. "Paid twenty bucks for it. I figure it's only a knockoff, but what the hell, it looks
great."
"And…"
"And when I went to punch in on the clock, Docksett was standing right there watching, and I see it's six minutes after the hour."
"So why didn't you punch in then?"
"I knew Docksett was gonna dock me fifteen minutes pay for violating the four-minute grace rule, so I told him go ahead and
dock me, you can't make it any worse, and I went back to the locker room."
"That's logical."
"Then he said if I didn't punch in and report to the laundry room this second he was gonna call Childress and have me
suspended on the spot, and Mr. Freely in Human Resources would back them up one-hundred per cent."
"And you, being a calm, rational young man, refused."
"Hey, no way I'm gonna lick Docksett's boots. Just ‘cause he's black and talks like, 'we all brothers,' and shit like that don't
mean I'm gonna cut him no slack. No fuckin' way. I told him, call that faggot Freely and report me, I don't give a shit, I'm going back
to the locker room and sit my ass down."
Lenny took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks and studied his union friend. Grievances were like this more often than not.
The worker in trouble was no angel. Not that Regis deserved his fate, but it was harder to win when the guy dug his own grave. A
few even brought their own shovels.
Lenny considered the charges, searching for weaknesses. Exceptions. Precedents. He remembered a case with a similar
charge, decided it was the best he could do for now.
"I'll try something. Stay put."
“You gonna get me off, ain’t you? Cause if you don’t, Salina’ll kill me.”
“You might have thought of that before you crossed swords with Docksett.” He ran his palm over his chin. “Just stay here.
And don’t make things worse. Okay?”
As he reached for the door to the office, Lenny made his face a mask.
CHAPTER THREE
Returning to the office, Lenny took a seat, opened the Employee Handbook and leafed through several pages. West stood
stiffly behind the desk, while Childress pretended to read a report.
Lenny underlined several lines on a coffee-stained page of the handbook, stared at the page for a moment, then looked up.
"Let's take the charges one at a time, shall we?"
Silence from West and Childress.
"Good. Now, I admit that according to the time clock Regis arrived two minutes after the four-minute grace period that's
stipulated in the contract, but you know there've been problems with the clock for months. Sometimes it's off by hours, not just a
couple of minutes."
"That's because some joker's been pulling the plug on the goddamn clock!" West said.
"Whatever. The point is, I called the number for the exact time on the pay phone out in the hall just now, and Regis's watch
was right on the money. Purr-fect. So it looks like he was correct about the time and shouldn't have been docked in the first place."
"That clock is checked every time it's reset."
"Are you sure that Mr. Docksett didn't simply set it by his own wristwatch?"
Childress opened his mouth to speak, hesitated.
"For two minutesthat's two minutes over the grace periodan arbitration panel could rule in our favor. They might listen to
KYW, too."
Childress shot back, "Even if you win on the two minutes, he still refused a direct order from his supervisor."
"Ah, but did he really? It says on page twelve, paragraph three, and I quote, 'All employees are required to obey any and all
reasonable requests of their supervisor while on duty.'"
Childress looked puzzled. "So?"
"So when Docksett spoke to him, Regis wasn't actually 'on duty'," Lenny answered, making quotation marks with his hands. "In
fact, he told Docksett that he wasn't ready to report for work."
"Are you saying that Devoe was in the hospital but not on the job?"
"Exactly. It's just like he was at home calling in." He pantomimed picking up a phone and dialing a number. "Hello, Mr.
Docksett? This is Regis Devoe. I'm sorry to report that I will be fifteen minutes late getting to work this morning. I hope that doesn't
inconvenience you any."
"Bullshit!" West said. "An employee can't decide when he's on duty and when he's not."
"As a matter of fact, there was a case just like last fall on third shift. A nurse's aide came onto the ward a half-hour early and
was sitting drinking a cup of coffee. The nursing supervisor told her to answer a patient call-light, but she refused. She was
suspended, and we turned it around at the third step."
"No comparison," Childress said.
"I think there is, and so might an arbitrator."
"What about the foul language? Calling Freely a faggot is insulting any way you look at it."
"Not if it's true. In that case, it's merely use of a common slang. Are you prepared to certify that Mr. Freely is a bona-fide, true
blue heterosexual?"
Childress scowled. He raised a meaty fist in front of his face. Lenny noticed that the cuticles were red and swollen and the
nails were bitten down to the quick.
Childress pulled a finger up with his other hand. "One: he was late on the clock."
"With all the time clock problems we’ve had, you could lose on that."
"Lose, schmooze." The supervisor pulled up a second finger. "Two: he disobeyed an order."
"If he was on duty."
"Three. The faggot thing. Docksett told Freely about it, and Freely's feelings are hurt. I can't let a thing like that go by."
"Even though Devoe didn't say it to his face?"
Childress laced his fingers together to form a tent. "Makes no difference."
Lenny doodled in the margins of his handbook while he considered his options.
"What if Devoe apologized to Mr. Freely? That would soothe his feelings. You could drop the charge for foul language and
give him a three-day suspension for the two-minute lateness. Three days for two minutes - that's still a respectable punishment."
"Is the apology in person or in writing?"
"In person, of course. Mind you, I'm not sure I can get Regis to do it. He's very proud."
West leaned over the desk and pointed to the January heading on the desk calendar, then he flipped the pages forward to
June and tapped the number 30. Both men knew that it was a long time until the end of the fiscal year, when the disciplinary
records were wiped clean and past violations could no longer be counted against union members; that Regis would never make it
that long without earning one more reprimand - the one that would get him terminated.
Childress looked up from the calendar. "Three day suspension and a face-to-face apology to Freely. In my office!"
Lenny stood and stepped away from the desk. "I'll run it by him. I can’t make any promises."
Dr. Leslie Odom, a senior physician on the gynecology service, approached the nursing station. He was a short, trim man
immaculately dressed in silk shirt, pinstriped suit and soft Italian loafers. As he pulled a chart from the rack and began reading the
history and physical, the residents and medical students on his service, two of whom were Kate Palmer and Jennifer Mason, stood
behind him waiting.
Closing the chart, Odom stood and led the others down the hall to the patient's room, summarizing the case as he walked.
"Mrs. Grey is a thirty-eight year old black female who has had three full-term pregnancies and one miscarriage. She came to
the emergency room complaining of back and abdominal pain not related to lifting or posture, nausea, and loss of appetite. She
was initially seen by the orthopedic resident, who ordered x-rays of the lower back and a CAT scan."
Poker-faced, Odom looked at Kate with dark, unblinking eyes and said, "The results of the scan were...?"
She realized that the gynecology service would not have been consulted had the orthopedist's test been positive, so she
answered, "The CAT scan was negative."
Odom turned away from Kate without acknowledging her answer as he continued down the hall. "Back pains are nonspecific
symptoms which tell us little. If physical exam suggests an area of tenderness or a mass, an MRI may be useful."
The group entered Mrs. Grey's room. In the bed was a slender black woman with an oval face and large, dark expectant eyes.
She was reading a bible.
Dr. Odom approached the bed.
"The orthopedic doctors asked me to examine you, Mrs. Grey. I am Dr. Odom, a gynecologist."
"Oh thank goodness, doctor. I wanted to see a gynecology doctor when I came to the emergency room, I was sure it was a
woman's problem, but they insisted on sending me to the orthopedic doctor, and I've been so depressed with the constant pain, I
haven't wanted to eat anything."
Odom pointed to the door, which was quickly shut by a medical student. The physician pushed the bed control to lower the
head of the bed, then he lifted the woman's gown and began to press on her stomach. At two areas she winced.
"Discomfort?"
"Yes, a little."
The doctor continued pressing on her abdomen.
"Lower your panties and raise your knees. I am going to perform a pelvic examination."
The woman looked at the clutch of people standing around the bed.
"You mean here? In front of everybody?"
He gestured toward his entourage. "They are all physicians."
“But...”
Odom stepped away from the bed. "If you refuse the examination I cannot find out what is wrong with you."
She stared at the doctor's deadpan face. Odom's dark eyes did not blink.
With trembling fingers, she slowly pulled the sheet up to her chin, raised her knees and began pulling down her panties.