"What?" I asked, concerned.
"You're really too attractive."
"What?"
"Seems like a waste," he added. "You should be a doctor's wife, bedecked with jewels and furs, running social and charity affairs," he said and then laughed. "Just kidding. Although the only female doctors I've known could scare the germs away." He patted down his bed, which was covered with a plain light blue quilt and two pillows. "Would you like something cold to drink? I've got orange juice, tonic water, and Dixie beer."
I gazed at the kitchen. It looked contaminated.
His face broke into a laughing smile. "I'll wash the glass first. I promise," he said.
"Orange juice will be fine."
"Great. Sit anywhere you like. Sit on the bed if you want," he said and went to get my juice. I sat on the settee and started to peruse the medical books.
"I know it's too soon, but have you considered what you want to specialize in?" he asked from the kitchen.
"I was thinking about pediatrics."
"Good one," he said returning. He had juice for me and a glass of beer for himself. "Especially for a woman. Mothers find it easier to deal with a woman."
"I wasn't thinking of it because of that," I said with some testiness in my voice. "Women are capable of becoming good surgeons, good cardiologists, good—"
"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'm not a male chauvinist. I'm just practical," he said, handing me my glass of juice. He sat beside me on the settee. "Hungry yet?"
I had been, but the sight of the room had churned my stomach and driven away my appetite.
"Not yet," I said. I was thinking now that I would study with him for a while and then make my excuses and go home, where I could enjoy some of Milly's leftovers.
"I happen to be a pretty good cook. All that chemistry," he said smiling. He gazed at me and then let his eyes drop softly, moving like invisible fingers over my face, down my neck, and across my breasts. "I bet a beautiful girl like you has had lots of boy-friends, right?"
"No."
"No? I thought girls were more promiscuous these days, collecting male trophies the way boys used to when I was in high school," he said.
"I have always had more important things on my mind, although I did go steady for a while this year."
"What happened? I don't mean to be personal. I'm just curious about young people today," he said.
"Let's just say I wasn't as committed to our relationship as he thought I was."
"Uh-oh. I think I know what that means. Was he your first steady boyfriend?" he asked with a licentious smile.
"Yes, but as I said, it didn't last that long."
"I see." He nodded, his right forefinger and thumb squeezing his chin. He was making me feel as if he were a doctor of romance and I had come to him for a love checkup.
"What do you have to study tonight?" I asked, feeling a little uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny.
"Hmm." He thought a moment and then reached under the settee and brought out a textbook. "I know just the topic. During office hours, we had a female patient today who suffered from dyspareunia. I don't suppose you know what that is," he said thumbing through the book.
I shook my head.
"Another term used is vaginismus, affectionately known as the honeymoon injury," he said, his smile widening. "Enough hints?"
I felt myself blanch.
"Now, now. Someone who wants to be a doctor must be comfortable with every aspect of the human anatomy. Our patient," he said sitting back, "was a nineteen-year-old girl who had been recently married. You understand what dyspareunia is now, don't you?"
"I think so," I said. My heart was beating rapidly, but I felt as if my lungs had stopped working.
"Painful or difficult coitus," he recited. "You shouldn't be uncomfortable discussing any aspect of the human body," he repeated. "Or any of our normal functions."
"I'm not," I insisted. I felt my spine harden into cold steel and sat up sharply.
"Good. Dyspareunia may be the subject of back alley and barroom jokes, but to us doctors it's just another medical problem to solve, another form of suffering for us to end," he declared with the dedication and authority of someone who had been part of the medical profession for decades. "You understand that, don't you?"
"Of course." In my secret heart I wished he had chosen a different subject, but I wasn't going to let him see that this topic disturbed me. That was just what he would expect, and he would tell me how my attitude illustrated why it was so difficult for a woman to become a doctor.
"Let's continue, then." He leaned forward. "The patient confided in me after Dr. Bardot had left the examination room. She felt more comfortable talking to someone younger. She said she had been raped when she was twelve years old."
"Raped! How horrible."
"Yes, and that left her with some deep psychological damage." He handed the textbook to me and stood up. He started to pace like a college medical instructor giving a lecture. "This was important for me to know, because dyspareunia can be caused by psychogenic spasms. Please turn to page 819, top right corner." I did so quickly and then looked up at him.
He paused and closed his eyes, grimacing hard as he searched his memory. "When dyspareunia is not due to local causes, or when local symptoms are overshadowed by nervous symptoms, it indicates a psychological defense mechanism developed by the patient." He opened his eyes and looked down at me expectantly.
I read the first lines. "That's right," I said.
"Good. Let's continue. The defense may be directed against sex and intercourse in general. The possibilities are listed: excessive egotism, ignorance of the anatomy and physiology of the reproductive organs, fear of pregnancy, aversion to the partner, possibly due to a previous love affair or something discovered after marriage. I think it says that even halitosis might form the basis of such an aversion, right?"
"What?"
"Bad breath," he said. "You know. You're in bed with someone, and he turns to you and—"
"Oh." I read and looked up at him. "Yes."
"So if you read between the lines there, before someone marries someone, she should be very familiar with him. They should conduct some test runs, don't you think?"
"I don't know that that's necessarily the inevitable conclusion," I said quickly.
He laughed. "Well, let's use you as a case in point," he said and sat on the settee. "Reading between the lines concerning what you told me about your boyfriend and you, I assume that you and he never made love. Correct?"
"I don't want to discuss my personal life," I said.
"You have to become purely objective, even about yourself, if you want to be a good physician. That's why I say that some people are just not psychologically prepared to become doctors. They might be smart —valedictorians, even—but if they can't bridge the psychological gaps—"
"I can handle the psychological gaps," I snapped.
"Fine. Then you shouldn't have any trouble discussing yourself. You're human, right? Every reaction you have, other people have, too, people you're going to examine and treat. When a man touches you, your body does the same things another woman's body does when a man touches her," he said and shrugged. "Don't you see that?"
"Yes, but . . ."
"So. Let's continue. It's much better to work these problems out with real subjects than just to recite lines from textbooks. You might be suffering from frigidity," he said nodding firmly.
"What?"
"It's a medical term for the incapacity of the female to derive normal pleasure from sexual intercourse. It's right there in the textbook, bottom of the page on the right side." He indicated the passage with his right forefinger.