Frankly, I had never heard of the particular drug which my doctor was now prescribing. Not that I was a pharmacist or anything, but I had been on so many prescriptions, established and experimental, since my dicey gut and chest injury and recovery that I was no longer surprised by anything which was prescribed.
Besides, Doctor Tansie Orlane and I had now known each other for more than five years, since the start of my recovery from the industrial accident which had left me slightly crippled and thoroughly screwed up internally. I liked her and trusted her implicitly. She was one helluva good looking thirty-eight year old.
"Look, Brad, this is new, I know, and I also know how many drugs we've tried on you in the last five years — probably sixty, seventy?"
"Seventy-three," I said, sourly. Then I smiled, 'cause I liked Tansie and she wasn't trying to do me anything but good.
"I thought you'd have kept count," she grinned. "This is still so new, it's almost still in the experimental stage — but I'll personally guarantee that it will do you no harm, if it proves not to do you any good."
"That's a pretty sweeping warranty, Tansie. And just how would I collect if the warranty comes into play?" We both laughed. Yet I was thinking of one possible — I hoped, likely — way to collect on such a warranty, not that I didn't want the drug to do me the most good of which it might be capable.
Despite having become good friends, I had always carefully disguised my feelings about Tansie. For a long time now, I had wanted to make ardent love with her, and my penis began to harden as I thought about that. I wondered if she knew how often I'd masturbated just thinking about her and that imagined lovely body of hers. My penis was just longer than my cupped hand, though, not very large.
"Well, Brad, take one of these capsules the first day, every four hours during the daylight hours — eight in the morning to eight at night — one at eight, one at twelve, one at four and one at eight, again. Second and succeeding days, one a day for the rest of the week. Come back and see me then, and we'll check any results. O K?"
"Yes, ma'am, doctor."
So, I took the first four pills — they were slow-dissolving capsules, compounded by Tansie's own hand — she had been a pharmacist before going to med school — and then six more capsules. I couldn't feel any effect, and I told her so when I went back the next week.
"So. No feeling better, a better outlook on life, no urge to go out and chase women... nothing like that?" I thought I'd fall off my chair.
"Tansie, the only woman I want to chase is you!" I said that in complete amazement at my temerity. I had never meant to let the way I felt about her slip from my mouth.
She grinned. "I think there must have been some effect, Brad. You've never said anything like that to me before."
"M-maybe n–not, Tansie, but I've been feeling that way about you for th-three years, anyway."
"Hm-m. I wonder if the drug...?"
I sat there blushing in deep embarrassment while she consulted her laptop. Her fingers flew over the keys as she sought some site that might answer her question. Of course, because this was a brand new drug — ohmigod, I thought, s'pose it hasn't even been approved, yet! — not many sources knew anything about it. In fact, as I gathered from Tansie's worried frown, none.
"Stop taking this until I get back to you, Brad. How do you feel, otherwise. Can you go without a prescription for your old medicine for a few days?"
"Sure. The old stuff wasn't doing me any good anyway, remember?"
We left it at that and Tansie told me to check in with her on her cell phone if I felt badly, odd or dizzy at any time. I was to come back in four days in any event.
* * * * *
Five days later I was in Tansie's office, being seen by a colleague of hers that I hadn't known she had. Doctor Lausen was a Swede, or at least he sounded like one. Tansie had called him in, I supposed, as he was supposed to be one of the discoverers of the drug. I certainly got that impression, anyway.
"But, Toctor, ve can inyect wit'out bad effects, chew know!"
Tansie agreed to that, and asked me, although Lausen had not thought to consult his patient — me — at all,
"May we try this injection, Mister Hunt?"
I guessed she was formal because of the other doctor standing right there, her voice sounded strange, so I supposed she was under a strain. Damn him, he had the syringe already in his hand, pushing his fingers on the cross-piece to force liquid from the sharp tip. I nodded assent and lay on the gurney.
God, that's a bi-ig needle with a lot of stuff in it! I remember thinking.
Before I could think much further, Lausen had me over on my chest and belly — they'd healed enough not to be sore — and had poked that long needle into my buttock, close to my spine! Jeez, that hurt! Only for as long as it took to "inyect" the drug, though. I was so angry I wanted to hit the bastard when I rolled back over and started to get up.
"Hey, where is he?" I asked Tansie, who was standing by the gurney looking stunned.
"Who?" she asked me, still looking dazed.
"Tansie, you O K? You don't look too good."
"I-I'm all right. It was just a very odd moment there. I thought I was seeing a man standing right here, and...and then I wasn't seeing him, all at once!"
"What the hell. . .? You mean the doctor? Doctor Lausen? Your associate?"
"What are you talking about, Brad? There was no other doctor here. I don't have an associate! I was going to give you a different formulation of the drug, and I must have just had a very short black-out from pure fatigue, I guess."
"You've been working too hard, have you?"
"Oh, God, yes. Eighty-two hours this past eight days, and not able to sleep."
"Well, you've got to rest. Lie down on the gurney and I'll watch out for any more patients while you take a nap."
