“I’ve told you there’s no place like home.”
“I tend to agree with you, Lor, but it’s not a permanent solution.”
“That’s right. Sex with a mate is still the best. Just remember: two hands playing in the bush are better than one buzzer in your hand.”
While Laura kept trying to prescribe sex in a bottle, my priorities were more focused on maintaining my own sanity. Maybe she was right, that first came sex, then came sanity, but Laura had a gift that I lacked—keeping love and emotion out of the equation.
14. Ginge Minge
Time marched on as the third year wrapped, neatly packaged in month-long rotations. OB-GYN. I dreaded this month, especially since it was to take place in one of the dingier wings at City, the St. Francis Wing. For the next few days I was back in scrubs, making rounds through the bilious halls of the St. Francis wards. Unfortunately, this part of the hospital had been neglected. The idea of assisting life coming into being should have been as uplifting as a musical finale on Broadway. Except here, everything was brown or gray.
At the ends of most corridors stood a clay rendition of Saint Francis of Assisi, venerated for his rejection of material goods. A recipient of religious ecstasy, he was the first individual to receive Christ’s wounds as stigmata. Yet he freely admitted in his writings that he had wrestled with his sexuality as a young man. Somehow sex and this dingy wing didn’t match.
As for the rotation itself, I’d heard stories of evil sorority-sister residents hazing unpledged students. Why hadn’t I pledged at college? I lacked the requisite Greek skills—designer herding and haughty exclusion.
One of my older guy friends had warned me about this rotation’s litany and range of vaginal diseases. “OB is a fun place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
The rounds on this morning commenced in a conference room brimming with myriad attendings: four Barbie Doll resident physicians, and one oddballmale, a fossil in the making. Times had changed. Women now felt a greater imperative to have their nether regions examined by a female physician.
This perceptual shift was reflected in the ratio of our training group. Females had migrated to OB-GYN residencies, joined occasionally by the token dude. A fellow named Kevin was that dude that day. With his flaming red hair and chubby freckled face, he stuck out like a fire hydrant.
I was seated at a table, eyelids heavy, drifting in and out of a light slumber, when a demure woman walked in: tall, graceful, and looking very studious with large oval glasses.
“Mind if I sit here, Rory?” she said quietly.
To my surprise, it was my friend Laura Johnson.
“Laura?! What the—?” Who was this girl? Laura at work had certainly changed her persona from the Laura gulping margaritas at the bar. I knew Laura was cute, but...
She pulled out the chair between Kevin and me, and I felt an uneasy twinge of insecurity. What had happened to Laura,the instigator of the new, sexual Rory? And what was she doing in her Manolos, silk pants and elegantly paired blouse, while her hair was gleaming and freshly coiffed? Where had the patched blue jeans and the ripped Keds gone?
Medical-student chic meant “wash and go” at 4 a.m., with as little maintenance as possible. I felt a surge ofjealousy pique under my usual smudged scrubs.
Rounds commenced. Laura was magical, fielding a senior physician’s questions the way Roger Federer commanded the baseline. “I believe that this woman is suffering from pre-eclampsia...” “Ectopic pregnancy...” “I would administer a beta tocolytic...” “Magnesium indicated to prevent seizing.”
The inquisition came to a close. Quite unexpectedly, the “old” Laura wrapped a luscious arm around Kevin. “Why hello, my new friend. What the hell is there to do for fun around here?”
“How about me?” Kevin replied sheepishly.
“Yeah you, Ginge Minge,” she purred, as her long fingers traced his wedding ring. “You’re married? That’s too fucking bad. We could have had a bit more fun, but you’ll do...”
I watched Kevin’s freckles grow more freckles.
“Laura, what’s with you?” I asked later with pronounced skepticism. “Where did you pick up this glamorous personality transplant? And while we’re at it, what is a ‘Ginge Minge’?”
“I just spruced up our spa treatment last week, Rory. And please don’t tell me you are unfamiliar with what a Ginge Minge is.”
She paused and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Minge is what the Brits call the ‘pussy twat,’ or the genital hair. Ginge would be his bright ginger top and pale skin, presumably accompanied by flaming red pubic hair. I’ll bet you a frozen margarita that Kevin’s a Ginge Minge. It all comes down to whether his furry carpet matches the carrot-top curtains. Men are always curious about women in that way. Now it’s our turn.”
I guess I should have been thankful Laura hadn’t lost her sense of impudence.
For the next several weeks, I probed minges of all colors. Thank you, Saint Francis, for your ample supply of latex gloves. My fingers circled garden-variety genital warts, herpes simplex virus, and molluscum contagiosum or “water warts,” all sexually transmitted diseases.
The disease states were clinically challenging, although there were benefits. I loved observing Caesarian sections. In no other surgical procedure was the outcome a living, breathing organism. I practically squealed with delight every time I witnessed this type of delivery. I was recovering and getting back into a surgical mind-set all right.
Meanwhile, the transformed, demure Laura was stealing my thunder.
A battle for Kevin’s soul had begun between the two of us. Things did not come easily for him, as he told us one late night while Sinatra played on the jukebox at a favorite bar, Dr. Brew, which was decorated in the ubiquitous brown leatherette. Kevin had struggled in medical school, passing toward the bottom of the bell curve, and he’d luckily managed to discover his niche in OB-GYN.
