Luna stood at the door, baffled. Dr. Zhie shrugged, and
Luna left. Slumping in her chair, Zhie flipped through her rolodex,
then dialed a number.
At Cat's Lair, the phone rang. Tygra, being the closest,
picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Good, it's you." Dr. Zhie propped her feet and tail up on
the desk. "I had a patient in today with a cake fetish."
"*Another* one?" the tiger sighed. "The Fetish Utopia help
group is starting to get crowded. You send me two or three whackos a
week. Aren't you supposed to be curing these freaks?"
"Hey, I'm not the one with the freak fanclub. If you don't
want them, I can always give them the number for Mandora's rehab
group."
"Now that was a low blow – you know she's my main
competition." Tygra growled.
"Look, the guy seemed pretty messed up. Can I give him the
information packet if he comes back?" asked the doctor.
"More messed up than I am?" questioned the Thundercat.
"No one's that messed up."
"Sure, give him the info. We can always use another weirdo.
Cake, right? It's been a while since anyone's brought treats to the
Monday night meetings…"
"I knew you'd come around." There was a sudden knock at the
door. "Talk to you later, I must be late for an appointment."
After hanging up the phone, Dr. Zhie swung her legs off of
the desk, then went to the door. She opened it, and found Shark on
the other side, with a sad puppy look on his face.
"Please?" was all he said.
Dr. Zhie rolled her eyes and walked past him. "No." She
continued to move down the hall to exam room three. It was the
biggest of the rooms, and since she noted that Mumm-ra had an
appointment for later in the day, she wanted to make sure it was free.
Upon entering, she found that it was not.
"Dammit, Lion-o!" she yelled, struggling to cover her eyes
and grasp the curtain that could be used to separate part of the
room. She somehow managed to draw the curtain so that she didn't
have to see what was going on when she walked in.
"Um, the patient's, um..he's cured now!" Lion-o shouted from
the other side of the curtain. "No mutant crabs here, he's all
better now!"
There was the sound of a bit of a struggle, then Alluro
telling Lion-o, "You will not tell anyone about this. You will
forget everything here and not say a word to any of the reporters at
the Inquirer…"
Dr. Zhie hurried out of the room, closed the door, and sped
past Shark, who was still making sad faces in the hall, to Luna's
base of operations. "Do me a favor and call security up here, tell
them we've got a code 69 going on in room three and they should
arrest anyone in there."
"I've never heard of a code 69 before." Luna said, picking up
the receiver.
"Trust me, they'll figure it out." Assured the doctor,
walking out to the waiting room. On the couch, Thunderwolf was
explaining to the tiger who'd arrived earlier the benefits of
becoming a surrogate mother, but from the looks she was giving him,
she wasn't buying it. In one of the chairs sat a large green dog
with a poodle on his lap. Dr. Zhie walked over to great them.
"Hello," she began, extending a paw, "I'm Dr.—ow!"
Zhie drew back her hand, which now had bite marks on it. The
fluffly white poodle readjusted herself on the dog's leg, then sat
back down.
"Sorry about the missus, sudden sounds tend to alarm her."
Cautioned the dog. "I'm Fianna, and this is Snookems."
"Arf-rarf arf." Replied the petite dog, jumping off Fianna.
"Oh, of course, angel." Fianna cooed, then added to the
doctor, "But of course, you can just call her Mrs. Fianna."
Dr. Zhie nodded, thought about charging extra over the fact
she'd need a doctor later herself for her hand, and led them back to
her office. Once there, she shut the door and got out a notepad and
pen. "Now then, what seems to be the problem."
"Now then, what seems to be the problem?"
The poodle and the green dog spoke to each other in hushed
barks, then Fianna addressed the doctor. "It's quite private, so
we'd rather not say."
Zhie folded her hands in front of her. "But it is sexual in
nature, is it not?"
Fianna nodded. "Oh yes, it surely is."
"And you'd like a bit of help in solving it, correct?"
"Absolutely." Both Fianna and the missus were nodding now.
"Then you really are going to have to tell me about it, at
least a few minor details. Otherwise, I won't be much help at all,
would I?"
Fianna frowned. "Well, no. But it's really not a matter
that one would feel comfortable discussing with a complete stranger."
Zhie smiled. "That might be true, but I am a professional and
am trained in such matters."
"How do you know you're trained?" Fianna argued. "You don't
even know what it is yet!"
"Well, if you'd tell me," the doctor replied through clenched
teeth, "Then I can tell you whether I'd be qualified to help."
"You mean you might not be qualified to help!" shouted the
canine, jumping to his feet. "I was under the impression that this
was a highly regulated medical facility that conformed to all
province standards! And you might not even be qualified!" The
poodle barked in agreement, and the couple stood staring at the
doctor, awaiting an answer.
Luckily, she was saved from having to attempt to answer by a
desperate call on the intercom from Luna. "Doctor, you need to get
here immediately! There's a cheetah running across the walls!"
"Running across the floor, Luna…I'm sure she just appears to
be running across the walls." Zhie said into the intercom.
"No, she's definitely running across the – now she's on the
ceiling!"
"Hold on, Luna, I'll be right there." Zhie opened the door,
and waved her patients out. "I think we've made some really
progress." She lied as they began to exit.
"Really?" asked Fianna, shaking her hand.
"No, not really." She began to extend a hand to the poodle,
but thought better of it. The doctor was growled at by the poodle as
Fianna carried her from the office.
By the time she'd reached the waiting room, Zhie found
telltale signs that someone *had * in fact run across the ceiling,
and more than once. The room was in shambles, and in the center of
the floor, sprawled out and panting with a wide-eyed look was a young
female cheetah, looking quite jittery.
"And you are?" asked the doctor, helping the cheetah to her
feet.
"Who, me?" The cheetah looked around, suddenly glancing from
place to place. "I didn't do this!"
"Yes, she did!" complained Luna from her reception booth.
Dr. Zhie led the cheetah to one of the exam rooms to take her
blood pressure and do a few drug tests, all the time talking to her
to get information that might be helpful. It turned out her name was
Ayanna, she had a hyperactivity problem, and as far as could be
figured, she wasn't on any drugs.
"How long have you had this problem?" asked the doctor, when
they'd gone to the consultation office.
"I wouldn't call it a problem really." Ayanna corrected,
bouncing on her chair. "Did you know that the average thundarian can
only mow seven moderately sized lawns a day, yet I would be able to
mow roughly fifty-two, not including travel time?"
"Um, no I did not. Thank you for that fascinating fact. I'm
glad you've found something to do with your..your..gift." replied the
doctor.
"Huh?" Ayanna suddenly stopped bouncing and gave the doctor
a strange look, then began to bounce again. "Oh. Mowing lawns.
Nope, I hate to mow lawns. Even my own. Someone else does that for
me!" The bouncing became more intense.
"Oh-kay then." Dr. Zhie scribbled some notes down in the
patient's chart. "Are you currently seeing anyone?"
Ayanna giggled. "I see lots of people. It's not like I'm
blind, y'know."
"Right. Of course." A few more scribbles, and then, "What do
you think of the Eifel Tower?
"The Eifel Tower? I don't know." Ayanna stopped
bouncing. "I think it's a great building, and really defines the art
of architecture of the new world, while at the same time is a
monument of awe and beauty. Hey, whatcha writin'?"
"I'm making a few notes in your record." Zhie told her. "It
seems your disorder is quite easily solved. You're merely making up
for lack of intimate relations with an overabundance of unspent
energy."
"Lemme make some notes!" Ayanna bounded over the desk,
wretched a pen from the pocket of Zhie's labcoat, and began madly
doodling over the words on Zhie's paper.
"Hey!" Zhie snatched away the pad, upset that Ayanna had
drawn so hard that she'd created a hole in it. Ayanna gleefully kept
drawing huge scribbles on the desk top, then, grinning, grabbed a
black magic marker from the tray on the side of the desk and managed
to draw a few doodles on the doctor's lab coat before Zhie was able
to grab the marker away. "Alright, well, I see our time is up.
You'd better be going!" Zhie practically shoved the cheetah out of
the room.
"Wow! This was fun! I'll be back tomorrow!" Ayanna tore
down the hallway, tearing the carpet away from the moulding as she
went.
Dr.Zhie came back into her office, throwing her lab coat into
one of the empty consult chairs. Before sitting down, however, she
noticed a large white envelope on her desk. It was the kind used for
X-Ray films, but instead of having a patient name and number on it,
there was a big red smiley face drawn on the front. Curiosity won
out, and the doctor tore open the envelope.
Inside were four large photographs. The first was impossible
to figure out, since it was merely a picture taken too close to the
object, so the paper was all pink. She shuffled to the next one,
which seemed to be more of a pink triangle, that was sort of bulging
in the middle. Flipping it to other angles, it was still uncertain
what the object was.
Next, the focus was a bit clearer, but still too near. And
there was some sort of odd light sorce affecting the way that the
picture had been exposed. It was as if light was coming from all
around the object. When the doctor finally got to the last photo,
her eyes widened in realization. She shrieked, threw the photos down
to the ground, and huddled atop the desk.
A few moments later, Luna was in the room. "What in bloody
fucking hell-"
"Cancel my appointments for the afternoon. I'm taking sick
leave." Responded the doctor from her perch.
Luna cautiously went to the pictures that were spread across
the floor. "What's Grune doing hanging from a chandallier in nothing
but a hot pink g-string?"
"Aaahhh!" Dr. Zhie covered her eyes and squeezed her eyes
shut. "Shred them! Burn them! Just get rid of them!"
"Oh, come on, they aren't that bad. You just have to
readjust the flash on the camera to account for the lighting…"
explained Luna.
"They aren't mine! Someone left them here for me to find.
Someone very, very evil."
"Oh, that's right…I forget sometimes that you're related to
that bunch." Luna scooped up the photos and took them with her. "I
can keep these, right?"
"Just get them out of my sight! I never want to see those
again!" Carefully climbing off her desk, the cheetah heard a knock on
the door. Thunderwolf poked his head around the corner.
"Uh, doc-"
"No!"
"Just checkin'." He said walking back down the hallway.
TBC