**Tie Me To A Tree**
Bengali stumbled out of bed…and into a dresser. He would
most likely have been able to connect feet with floor, had he been
stumbling out of his own bed. As it was, he had yet to discover
whose bed this was, though to do that, he would first need to
discover where the light switch was.
Feeling his way around the room, he made it to the doorway,
where the knob stuck out of the wall just slightly. Flipping it
upward, he squinted, then slowly forced them open. His heart sank as
he began to make out the form lying in the bed.
- - -
* Yesterday *
Dr. Zhie stepped into her office at the Snarfria Free
Clinic. It wasn't exclusively a clinic for snarves, but since it was
located in one of the Snarf Provinces, most of the patents were
snarves anyway. All clinics were free, actually, but it just sounded
good to have the word "free" in the name…made you feel like you were
getting your money's worth…
She took a few moments to glance over the Lonsdale Times,
scanning for any major accidents that might have happened the night
before. Not that it would have helped her any, but it was nice to be
able to tip the other doctors off about things. No, she had one of
the more important jobs in the clinic.
Rising and walking to the door, she opened it, dusted off the
sign that read:
Flessidoria Zhie, MD, Ph.D.
Sex Therapist/OB-GYN
and headed down the hall to the main patient check-in counter to see
if she had any patients scheduled for the morning.
Snarfer was sitting at the desk, telephone receiver hanging
off of one ear, pencil tucked behind the other. His paws were busily
tapping the keys as he spoke to the person on the phone in his
annoyingly high pitched voice.
"Nope, no sir, no problem with that. I can get you in for an
appointment at 3pm, no sweat." He listened, then tapped a few keys
again. "Well, no, I'm not a professional…no, sir, snarfer, snarfer,
I can't say for sure, but it suuuuurrrrre does sound like you have
the mutant crabs, Mr. Alluro. But don't you worry, I've got you down
to see Dr.Zhie at—"
Zhie whapped Snarfer in the back of the head with one of the
charts she was looking at. Snarfer excused himself for a moment,
then turned to look at the doctor. "Snarfer, Snarfer, what was that
for?"
"You keep sending me the wrong patients, and you're causing
me to lose my patience. I don't deal with people who have sexually
related medical conditions, I deal with the people confused about sex
in the first place." She tried to explain.
"Yeah, but obviously, some part of sex must have confused
this guy, or he wouldn't have the mutant crabs." Snarfer went back
to scheduling the call, leaving Dr. Zhie to curse her way back down
the hall to her suite of exam rooms.
The waiting room was nice – she'd insisted on having a
fireplace in it when the complex had been built – and the chairs and
couch were done in an ironic fake cheetah fur motif. She'd thought
about cheetah print curtains, but figured that would have been
overdoing it, and settled for white and black tiger stripes instead.
At the reception desk sat her none too cheerful secretary, playing
solitaire on the patient information computer. Dr. Zhie tapped on
the glass window that separated the registration area from the
waiting room, and kept walking through the door into the hallway that
connected to the three exam rooms, two offices (her office for
talking to patients, and her nurse's office), and the restroom, that
had one of those nifty little sliding door things with the
compartment where you'd put urine samples after using the restroom,
although on occasions, disgruntled patients would sometimes leave
other presents as well.
And there was, of course, the drug closet. It was closely
guarded, kept locked at all times, except when free samples of
whatever new miracle drug was needed to be handed out to the current
patient. Dr.Zhie was standing in front of the closet, one hand
pressed against the door, as if it contained some sort of secret to
the mystery of life. Her secretary came waddling past, half-full
coffee mug in her hand.
"It's not the friggin' temple at Karnak, freak. Let's get
this day going, I've got bowling at 6:30." Luna kept going, down to
the end of the hall where the coffee pot was kept. Dr.Zhie reached
into her pocket for the keys to the closet, determined to slip some
Prozac into the coffee pot later on.
*******
It was already 11am, and Dr. Zhie had only two appointments
before lunch. The bottle of Prozac was still in her pocket, and
since she had a few minutes before the next one would be shown in…
Carefully, Dr. Zhie unscrewed the cap of the bottle and
placed it in her pocket. Lifting off the cover from the pot of
coffee, she let the steam rise up before positioning the bottle over
the gallon of dark brown liquid below. Each caplet contained 500mg.
Assuming normal coffee intake was 16oz, and that there were 8oz to a
cup…
As she attempted to calculate the amount she could safely
dump into the caffeine repository, she was suddenly knocked into from
behind. The bottle dropped out of her hand, landing not in the
coffee, but in the opening of the water cooler next to the coffee pot.
She thought to make a desperate grab into the huge water jug,
but instead turned to find her nurse standing behind her, beet red
from embarrassment and exhaustion, most likely from running. "You
know, if you could get here on time, you wouldn't need to park five
blocks away and jog over."
"Don't worry, I didn't." she was assured by her
assistant. "I double parked behind your car in the lot. Smart
thinking, huh?"
Fighting the urge to slap the lion upside his head, Dr. Zhie
merely pointed to exam room three. "There's a patient in there who
has…a problem. He was supposed to wait until three to come down
here, but he couldn't wait."
"Don't tell me it's another case of the mutant crabs."
Complained Lion-o, taking a funnel cup and filling it with water.
Zhie watched as the bubbles rose up to the top of the cooler, but
didn't mention anything about the drugs that more than likely now
dissolved in the water. Lion-o drank the water in one gulp and half
heartedly walked down the hall. "The things I do for my community
service." He complained.
Dr. Zhie thought to remind him that it might help next time
not to expose himself to a group of first graders, in which case he'd
have never had community service at all, but now wasn't the time to
get into the whole thing with him. Instead, she headed into her
office for her next patients. She took a look at the schedule that
was printed up and sitting on her desk. It read:
11am
Mr. T and Mr. S
Consultation
but her assumption was that it was most likely a typo and she would
have to mention it to Luna later. Straightening her lab coat, she
buzzed the couple in.
Dr.Zhie stared across the desk in mild amusement as the next
two patients came into the office. The first seemed a bit worried,
looking this way and that, keeping his eyes from meeting hers. The
other boldly marched himself in, flopped into one of the conference
chairs (nearly breaking it), and proceeded to lift one slightly
bloodied boot after the other onto the desk, where they eventually
rested quite comfortably atop a pile of forms and prescription pads.
"What can I do for you, gentlemen?" the doctor asked,
reclining in her chair.
"We've had a few things on our minds, and we thought that you
could possibly help us out." Mumbled the shark, who was seated nearer
to the door.
"I'll do the best I can to help you out." Promised the
doctor. "What's on your minds?"
"We need information about birth control." The saberlion said
matter-of-factly. "Any and all information that you can give us –
statistics, types, risks, alternatives - everything."
Dr. Zhie pushed her mane back behind her ears and leaned
forward to hear better. "Excuse me, I think I'm going deaf. Could
you repeat that? I could have sworn you said you needed information
on birth control."
"He did." Shark was twiddling his fins in his lap. "See, now
that we've moved on from third base into a more intimate
relationship, we need to think of these things. If we don't, it's
just a matter of time before we have a small army of leathery skinned
saberlions running around. Not that we don't eventually want to hear
the pitter patter of little fins, but for the time being-"
"Guys." Dr. Zhie came around the desk, and leaned against it
when she was standing in front of them. "I don't know if you're
being serious or if someone put you up to this, but neither one of
you has to worry at all about birth control if you're only planning
on being with each other."
"You mean- we'll never have children?!" Shark seemed a bit
shocked, and Thunderwolf came over to him to put a consoling arm
around the fishy one's shoulder.
"Not if you plan on being the only two parties involved."
Thunderwolf patted the sniffling shark on the back, then
looked over to the doctor. "And you knew that without doing any
tests? You can just look at a couple and know that one or both
parties would have no chance of conception."
Dr. Zhie glanced around the room, trying to find a hidden
camera or something that would tell her this was a set up. "Well, no,
most of the time, it does take a few blood tests and some other
things to figure that out…however, as far as I know, medical science
has not yet advanced far enough to allow two males, or two females
for that matter, of the same species, to procreate."
"But it worked in Jurassic Park." Managed Shark from behind a
tissue.
"Suffice to say, it just doesn't work that way here."
Explained the doctor.
"So there's absolutely no way the two of us would be able to
have our own bundle of joy to teach how to swim, and eventually
overthrow the universe when we're too old to?" Shark asked with
pleading eyes.
"Hypothetically, you could have the dna from both of you
combined, then inserted into an egg where all of the dna had been
extracted from. The result would be a combination of both of you,
although you'd have to find a female to help you out with the
gestation process." Zhie pointed over to a chart on the wall. "It's
very much along the lines of cloning."
"So, there's no other way for us to have a child, then?"
prodded Thunderwolf.
"As far as I'm aware of, no. I'm sorry, if there was any way
I could help the two of you out, I would." The doctor looked over to
the pair, who were now both smiling – well, more like smirking- at
her. "What? Did I say something funny?" And, then she
understood. "Oh, hell no."
"Come on, doc. You said if there was any way you could help,
you would." Shark reminded her.
"Number one, I meant in terms of…oh, you know damned well
what I meant. Second, you couldn't pay me enough money to." The
doctor was about to continue to reason three, but was cut off by the
lion.
"We didn't plan to pay you, we were just going to force you
to do it." He told her, somewhat more cheerfully than should have
been expected.
"Force me to. Right. As if you'd just, I don't know, tie me
to a tree and-"
"I've certainly had enough practice." Thunderwolf reminded
her, cracking his knuckles.
Briefly, Dr. Zhie glanced at Shark, then at Thunderwolf, then
jumped back over the desk and bolted from the room. On the way out
of the waiting room, Luna stopped her.
"Just where do you think you're off to?" questioned the troll.
"Lunch." She looked over her shoulder, expecting that she'd
have them following after her any minute now.
"Well, you can't just leave this patient in here." Luna said
matter-of-factly, motioning toward the tigress on the couch reading a
magazine. "She's been waiting a full hour to see you."
Dr. Zhie took another look behind her shoulder, then walked
briskly to the couch. "What'dya need?"
The tigress put down the magazine. "I had a question about
a, well, I don't know if I'd call him a friend. More like an
acquaintance. Yes, an evil acquaintance, though I'm positively
convinced that he's not really all that evil, and-"
"Yes, yes, quickly, get on with it. What's the problem,
then?" Zhie asked impatiently.
The tigress was a bit taken aback, but continued. "Well, he
seems to like killing Tygras."
"And?"
"What do you mean `and'? He kills Tygras, isn't that enough?"
"Look, does he seem to get off on killing the Tygras."
"Well, I'm not sure, but I think I would have to say yes."
She answered.
"Does he get off in some sort of sexual way? When he's
killing the Tygras, that is."
"No, I really don't think so."
Zhie threw her hands in the air. "Not my problem then. Have
a good day." She turned to Luna. "Okay, I'm off to lunch." She
quickly pushed past the lunatak before any further complaints could
be made.
Thunderwolf and Shark emerged from the offices and into the
waiting room. "Damn. I think that was a `no'." Shark said
disappointedly, crossing the doctor's name from the list he was now
looking over. He walked over to Luna, prepared to say something,
then shook his head and crossed off the last name on the list.
Dr. Zhie peered around the corner of the waiting room,
expecting there to be a shark and a lion sitting on the couch waiting
for her. Instead, there was only a single gentleman sitting rather
stoicly, and holding in his lap a medium sized white bakery box. The
doctor came around the corner, glanced over to see if Luna was at her
desk, which she was not. The midget usually took a double lunch on
Monday, so it wasn't much of a surprise. It was surprising, however,
that Nurse Lion-o hadn't yet had the patient seated in one of the
exam rooms.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Zhie. Are you…here for an appointment?"
She couldn't remember who her 1pm was supposed to be, so she hoped
the patient would supply a name.
"Oh, no. I just wanted to stop by about a consultation. I,
um, I called earlier and the nurse said to come at 12:30. No one was
in here when I came in, but I've only been here a few minutes." The
man looked down sadly at his box. "You weren't expecting me. I can
tell. I'll leave." He got up and started for the door, but the
doctor stopped him.
"Let's go into my office. We can talk there. I shouldn't
have another patient for at least twenty minutes, and if they're
early, they can wait. That's why we have a whole room for waiting.
We make people do that a lot." She bit her lip at that comment – it
usually didn't give people the best impression.
The patient didn't seem to notice as he followed her into the
office. She closed the door and took her seat behind the desk.
"My name is Kamanchee. You may address me as Kam. I have a
problem." He set the box down on the table. "Open it." He
instructed, pushing the box toward her.
Dr. Zhie carefully untied the strings that were wrapped
around the box, then lifted the lid up. Glancing inside, she
wrinkled her nose. "It's just a chocolate—"
"Shhhhhhh!" Hissed Kam, jumping up and closing the lid
quickly. "Don't say, please, don't say it. I know what it is.
That's my problem."
"Your problem is this chocolate –"
"Shhhhhhh!" Kam grabbed the box, and set it onto his
lap. "If you say it, I'll go crazy. I have this…fetish…for those
things…"
"I see. Well, fetishes can be good, sometimes." Explained
the doctor.
Kam shook his head. "Not in my case. I thought it was
good. But I'm always looking for it, I always need it…I carry this
one with me to keep me calm."
"This doesn't sound like a sexual dysfunction, though, and
that's my specialty. You may want to see our psychologist on the
third floor." Suggested Zhie.
"No, this carries over. I just can't have sex – hell, I
can't even make out unless I have a –" he pointed to the box "-with
me. Usually, I can't go more than an hour without having some. It's
been five hours sixteen minutes and thirty-two seconds, and still,
I've kept myself away from it, but I don't know how much more I can
take!"
"Oh, dear, that is a concern. Well, we could try-"
It was at that point that Luna came into the room, carrying a
plate, plastic wrap covering the dessert that was on it. "Yes, I'm
interrupting, and no, I'm not sorry. I was at the deli for lunch,
and the snarf working there said thanks for curing his ejaculation
problem, and that I should bring you this piece of carrot—"
"CAKE!" shouted Kam, pouncing on the plate, tearing off the
plastic. Within seconds, the plastic was shredded, the plate was no
more, and Kam's face was covered in cream cheese frosting.
Kamanchee stood back up, smoothing out his shirt, brushing
off little orange cake crumbs. "I think that our meeting has been
quite beneficial, doctor. I'll call you if I have anymore
problems." Kam began to leave, then eyed up the box he had dropped
to the floor, grabbed it, and left.
To Be Continued