Nudie Cuties

Dr Zoptic: Pt 5 Nudie Cuties: Blowing Hot & Cold

Around midnight one July evening, I was sitting at the kitchen table in my favorite oversized Che Guevara T -Shirt and panties. A continental high settled on Capital land that summer shrouding the gabled buildings of the state capital in hazy, hot humid days and still, stifling nights.

Now about to begin my second year in law school, I had been in these cozy rooms with my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton, whom I nicknamed Zaftig for almost a year.

"From a blustery North Country winter to a blistering Continental summer," a weather announcer on the radio I had playing in the background quipped. My loose Che Guevara T shirt was sticking to the back of the chair. I'd have loved to have installed an air-conditioner in this quaint brownstone I shared with my roommate Rebecca Barton, now a recently graduated medical doctor whom I called Zaftig.

I chuckled when the announcer ended the weather report on a positive note. "Take heart! In 16 short weeks, we'll be digging out from under a real North Country blizzard. Just think hot and cold are relative."

•••

Only a couple of hours earlier I had been in the sweet, sweat-free, artic blasts of the air-conditioned fertility clinic. After hours, Zaftig's classmate tall, bronze tinged skinned Al Mandy installed himself and his operation. "Besides boasting of its own theat -- re," Al vocalized the British spelling, "a plus, this location, in this bloody heat, beats running my operation out of a school shuttered since end of May."

Escorted to the theatre in the office, I snickered as I climbed onto the podium, "I guess I should strip. Usually," I joked as I put my bag down, kicked off my shoes and unbuttoned my skirt allowing it to slide to the ground, "this step should follow a date, a few drinks and dinner and a trip to a seedy motel."

"I got another order, same researcher," Al informed me.

"Why not give him my number," I needled Al as I carefully lifted off the shirt dress waitress costume over my head and cast it aside, "Then, I might actually get drinks and dinner before I have to strip."

"It might kill the illusion," replied Al. "You've taken well to medical modelling," Al positioned my shoulders. After he unhooked my bra, with a formal, "Allow me," Al delicately ran his finger down my concave chest.

"I allow no one to touch me there," I complimented Al, "You're excepted!" I exclaimed with a smile, "You'd make a great doctor in practice with a wonderful bedside manner. Why do you jerk yourself off around filming nudie cuties?"

"For the moment, it's more productive," Al laughed at his play on words, "to work in a fertility clinic. You resist touch. How do you live with Becky, who is quite the exhibitionist? She jumped at the chance to do a nude shower scene when I had signed her on for a fully clothed role as a nun." Al recalled, "buxom baps bouncing and round rump racing, Becky's compact frame bound down the corridor. What did she say standing under a shower spigot with shapely birds?"

"I wonder," I sighed, "After getting drugged, stripped and left helpless by her classmates at a graduation party she'd be so willing to be quite so risqué."

"The cutie who adlibbed the double - entend with such an innocent smile into a shower scene, `Good things come in small packages.,' would molt into a prude," Al exclaimed.

I shook my head. "You were so shocked that I thought you were going to cream yourself when you blurted out, `And sweet Becky! You once wanted to be a nun!'" I paused. "I assume that you arranged our meeting for a purpose larger than idly reminiscing."

•••

Arriving, after my meeting with Al, at the apartment I shared with Zaftig, I was bathed in sweat. I felt the sweat dripping as soon as I left the refrigerator cool of the Fertility clinic for a ride in my rickety, old car through the broiling, insufferable heat and humidity of the breezeless capital land night. Why hadn't I found some cozy corner in the clinic to sleep comfortably in the glorious stream of cool air? I had complained of the cold while I was with Al. Why had Al wanted me there in the first place?

•••

Al Mandy had wanted me on hand in the Fertility Clinic while he spoke with a new prospect he was trying to recruit for the upcoming planned production. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be the bother," Al apologized when he appeared at the restaurant where I worked, "Except that I am reaching out to Ashleigh Keytone, a comely woman with whom I have had a passing acquaintance. As far as I knew Ashleigh has no experience on camera and never shown any interest in acting or modelling."

"Then," I asked Al as I modelled for more medical research photos, "why would you think this Ashleigh Keytone would have any interest in appearing in one of your nudie -- cuties?"

"Ashleigh, dear Erica was Carter Plessenger's eh -- informal fiancée," Al explained, "Ashleigh supported Carter throughout medical school. She expected the ring ... "

Taking a moment to adjust my posture, by running a finger up my spine, Al continued, "Naturally, Ashleigh was more than disappointed. She was tossed from the apartment she paid for all those years Carter was in school."

Joining Al in the Fertility Clinic's theater after my shift in the restaurant ended, I complained about the cold blast from the AC while I posed nude for photographs for a medical researcher.

"Turn it down? That would be bad for business," Al insisted. Answering my skeptical glare, Al declared, "Of course the researcher is devoted to purely scientific pursuits, but he's a man. He finds your delicious dark nips go erect signifying arousal; if goosebumps appear, hmm, that shows anxiety. It might appeal to a sadist streak that runs through medicine. Professionality, huh! Even that is all staging."

"You're terrible Al.," I declared in the Fertility Clinic, "I swear you invite me here to amuse yourself looking at my deformed chest. Why don't we just go out on a regular date?"

"I pay my obligations -- unlike Carter," came Al's repartee, "Just ask Ashleigh." After Al thought for a second or two before he reached into a pocket of his lab coat and pulled out an envelope with cash.

I laughed. "Al, I'm in bare skin, wearing nothing more than a smile. I have no pockets in my skin. Do you think I have a pouch like a kangaroo?" I deliberately bent over to wiggle my tush in Al's face I stuffed the envelop in my bag.

"Carter's break -- up with Ashleigh was particularly messy," Al commented.

"What," I chuckled, "did Ashleigh Keytone after putting Al through med school learn she would be jilted--given the old heave -- ho the very night of the graduation party?"

"While Carter organized the college frat type prank," Al informed me, "Ashleigh suggested drugging Becky, stripping her and leaving her naked -- as `a fitting tribute to Becky's performance as the porn star and whore Dr Zoptica.'"

"How does that make Ashleigh our friend?" I asked.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," thundered Al.

"And I thought," I teased Al leaning forward to dangle my stubby breasts in Al's face, "that was a bizarre expression from the lands of the bazar, not `The Home Islands.' I stand corrected." I declared pompously.

"Carter broke up with Ashleigh right before the execution of the prank Ashleigh herself planned. It adds an extra incentive. Ashleigh thought she was in the in -- crowd and found she was not," Al noted, "Her motive, like ours in making the film, would be revenge." Al replied. "Lean forward some more like you did to Hunch your shoulders a bit the researchers love the emphasis on the hollow."

Leaving the exquisitely cooled fertility clinic where Al ran his activities after hours into the swampy feel of the Capital land streets, I hit a wall of heat. I couldn't wait to get in the apartment to get my clothes off. It would feel good to peel sweat drenched clothes off my body and sit in front of a fan blowing cooling air across a bowl of ice. I might even risk letting Zaftig catch me nuding about the rooms.

I'd paused for a moment of self -- mocking pretended self -- importance to pause to appraise my body in the old-fashioned full-length hall mirror. Other than a hallow chest, I wasn't bad looking. Indeed, before Zaftig and I took roles in Al's productions, I'd embarrass Zaftig with my suggestion: "Dolly, with your set of double DD boobs on my delightful 5' 7," 125 -- pound, long legged frame, I'd make 2xs as much an hour as I do in a week, working topless or stripping in a bar or starring in porn. Think on it. The two of us combined could make one hot porn star."

•••

"The mirror draws out a certain Narcissism in us all," Al noted when he had me pose before a mirror for the final naked photos.

"Will the researcher pay extra for glamor photos?" I asked.

"If I get paid extra, so will you. I put you in front of the mirror so that you might reali-s-e," Al emphasized the unvoiced "S" sound, "that you're neither a freak, nor ugly. While I can't make you a porn star, you could pick up some money as a medical model in University Hospital. I can't say there are an infinite number of researchers interested in pectoral excavatus. One day my researcher will compl-" Al managed to vocalize stressing the English spelling, "-eat his paper and I will ask you to pose no more."

"And," mocking Al in a phony protest, I retorted, "I thought you invited me here to enjoy the pleasure of my company. I--eh prefer not to allow Zaftig in on my secret."

"Dress in the scrubs on the edge of the podium," Al ordered, "Ashleigh ought to be here in a few minutes."

"Why did you settle on Ashleigh?" I called after Al.

"Ashleigh was the one who agreed to meet with us." Al nodded.

•••

At home glued to a kitchen chair by perspiration, I might have preferred to whip my top off and wring it out. But I couldn't tell what time Zaftig might show up if at all. Just recently graduated from medical school, my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton MD, whom I called Zaftig, was tied up in her internship.

In the mid-1970s, newly graduated med students were paid a pittance to work slave hours in the hospitals. "Cheap labo-u-r," our friend Al Mandy commented when I spoke of Zaftig's plight during the medical photo session which preceded the meeting with the prospect Ashleigh Keytone. Al took a breath, "Medicine has some of the highest paid people and the worst paid. Till she passes out of this phase and joins the elite, she'll have to console herself with the dream that one day she may have revenge upon all the African princesses who are bullying her around."

To my question, "How do you make your own rules to avoid the same ritual initiation?" Al disdainfully shook his head slightly and laughed.

•••

Returning from my meeting with Al and his prospect, I found the apartment still and quiet. When Zaftig poured over her textbooks as she studied at the kitchen table, despite occasionally uttering complaints about professors and students, she was lost in another world. Without her, the rooms gave off a feeling of desolation. Oh, Zaftig never was one to make much noise as she passed through the rooms, but this flat were her holy sanctuary. She vowed to keep her preserve, even I chuckled stand up to her old man -- that imperious `Father' figure that had loomed so large in her life -- to an extent.

To keep the rooms when `Father' cut her off in her final year, Zaftig not only endured me as a roommate, she performed in nude shower scenes and starred as Dr Zoptic in a series of nudie cuties filmed by her classmate Al.

Through most of June and July and going into August, Zaftig hadn't been much around to enjoy her sacred space.

Just as my discomfort from the humidity was about to overcome my fear that Zaftig might suddenly appear, I heard the squeal of the No 10 Capital land bus' brakes as it stopped on State Street in front of our building. Seconds later her keys turned the lock. In popped a haggard Zaftig in fire engine orange scrubs with her stethoscope still dangling from around her neck. She tossed her stethoscope on a table.

"I needed to get away for a few hours, to shower without having some rotund colored nurse pull me out, throw me some scrubs and tell me I was needed. Pure harassment!" Zaftig declared. "I'd dry off as the round bottomed black bitch watching screaming for me to hurry. Then, the bitch threw me these bright orange scrubs so she could more easily keep an eye on me. And then dragged out of the shower, I'd find ..."

I exclaimed, "I haven't heard from you much through June, July into the first week of August and you pop up talking most uncharitably about downtrodden racial minorities." I spoke in inflated tones, "Imagine what you might say about religious minorities. I never heard you talk like that before." I needled her, "Were you with the good sisters in the convent school too long?"

"One good thing about being so busy," Zaftig started but didn't complete the thought.

"You haven't even opened the package Al Mandy sent from `Newman -- Baker's Shops,'" I prodded Zaftig, "Al replaced the cute outfit you lost at the graduation party."

"Graduation is a commencement, a new beginning, a rebirth," Zaftig smirked wistfully shaking her head, "To bring on the new beginning, the trappings of the old life must be stripped away. I left for the party in an overpriced separates wearing chic eyeglasses with steel frames. I came home stoned, blinded and wrapped in a sheet. I guess I embraced the concept more enthusiastically than I would have wanted."

"Back to the world," I reminded Zaftig, "the rent is coming due."

"Erica," Zaftig complained, "I've been so busy. I haven't had time to cash my checks, as pitiable as they are. Could you cover the rent this month?"

"I've already covered three months rent. Where am I to get the whole rent payment for a fourth month out of a minimum wage, 2-10 an hour job, with reduced hours and few tips?" I protested.

"Doesn't Al Mandy make extra money available for you?" Zaftig asked. "it's not like I won't pay you back."

"Al tells me that producing a film, even one designed to indulge in a borderline appeal to a prurient interest requires time to script, recruit a cast and scout locations. When he's ready to shoot, we get paid." I took a breath and promised, "Give me the checks. I'll cash them, pay your share of the rent and deposit the balance in your account for you. There's a branch of Capital land State Bank right near the restaurant I work in. Let me take care of it for you."

A strange look appeared on Zaftig's face. Zaftig did not answer. A full minute passed. I broke the silence. "I'm just going to put it in the bank for you. You're gone for 24 -- 48 -- sometimes 72 hours at a time, I get worried about you getting off work downtown at 2AM, waiting for a bus. Why don't you call? I'll pick you up."

Zaftig laughed. "You aren't my mother." Holding her head, Zaftig griped, "In this state of cumulative fatigue, my my cognitive faculties are failing me. They expect me to make life -- and -- death decisions while they subject me to sleep deprivation torture."

"Al tells me your classmates say you're anxious to kill your first patient," I chided her, "Here's your opportunity."

"Don't mention my classmates. I've savored the fraternity of medicine," Zaftig ranted, "all too much. Bad enough I have these massive mammies hoovering over me dragging me out of bed, shower, hunting me down in any cranny I find to nod out in..."

"You should find out how Al avoids all this. He knows every dodge, wheedle, all the angles, every easy way out," I noted. "Al says, `There are no medals for people who struggle to bear burdens other people believe is rightly borne.'" To her question about Al activities these days. "You mean plotting the revenge. Al is sorry he can't stage the snuff film you might like." To her grimace, I shrugged my shoulders.

"You're quoted for waiting for the day you can kill your first patient. Al wants you to come down for a talk with him."

"What so that Al can steal my panties after he coaxes me out of my clothes?" Zaftig asked.

"He wants to film a shower scene," I replied, "Al recommends this as a measure to relieve the stress you're experiencing."

•••

At the Fertility Clinic, I retrieved my bra but couldn't find my panties. I chuckled. I had heard Al liked to swipe girl's undies from others in his usual cast. "Al pays for his privileges certainly enough to replace the rags I wear here," Throwing on the deep purple scrubs, I thought aloud, "everything is dark in here." As I straightened the scrubs, I heard Al's voice interrupt the office's piped -- in music to imperiously summon me to his consultation room.

"Coming doctor," I announced as I donned the operating room booties which squished as I hurried through the dark carpeted corridors to the consultation room.

In the consultation room, Al totally relaxed like the master in his mahogany wainscoted domain positioned himself behind his dark wood desk. In front of him sat an attractive woman in lime green scrubs sporting an ash blond streaked hair in her late 20s. Introduced to Ashleigh, I blurted out. "Your ex-friend Carter must have been blind, stupid, or crazy. Carter, shouldn't he know a Doctor in good standing must have a hostess -- model for a wife? Tall as me, thin, nice rack," I declared, "you fit the bill."

"Does she," Ashleigh pointing to me asked Al, "always come on as strong as a fire belching dragon?" Throwing me a penetrating glare, Ashleigh declared, "Impertinent and demanding, obviously she's another nurse!"

"Close," I interjected, "I'm usually a waitress -- In one of Al's flicks, I blow as cool and suave or as hot and passionate as the script requires."

When Al smiled and shrugged his shoulders, Ashleigh asked, "You know Carter tossed me from the apartment I paid for from my wages. I made a mistake. He's on the lease. I'm a guarantor. I owe the rent; he has the flat. Played the fool, I'd like to get even. Exactly what do I have to do?"

"That depends," Al answered, "to structure the plot, I need to know why Carter would take the mickey," Al, reading confusion on Ashleigh's face and mine too, deliberately paused.

I interjected, "Al loves to play the imitation Saxon." I called on Al for "an English -- to -- English translation," batting my lashes I added, "if you please?"

Al explained, "eh -- Why did Carter play this puerile, frat house trick on Rebecca? Do you know?"

"Carter wanted a sinecure, Assistant Director of the Emergency response Training Department," Ashleigh recounted, "Carter was afraid it would go to Becky under the push -- ahead -- programme at University Hospital. Carter thought if he unmasked Rebecca as a porn star he'd knock Rebecca out of the running."

"Oh!" I interjected in a serious tone, "from the first time I met Zaftig--Rebecca--Dr Barton she told me, `I don't intend to take up one of the traditional roles reserved for the few women who break into medicine: teaching, administration, gynecology, obstetrics, or," Al and Ashleigh laughed as I stumbled over the word, "Cran - io - facial reconstructive surgery --whatever -- the heck -- that is! Maybe one of you two can tell me."

"I'll try," Ashleigh answered, "I'm a nurse."

•••

At home in the rooms we shared, Zaftig raged, "I wanted to work on the cutting edge of the power of life and death and not a spectator in a cubby hole in a traditional role reserved for the women of medicine."

"You know what Al would say," I spoke softly, "There are no medals for people who do it the hard way."

Gripping her head in her hands and rocking, Zaftig moaned, "I'm so disoriented I must be delirious. Have my cerebral functions, the ability to reason, the power of logic, deserted me?"

Was she crying? Zaftig was a tough girl. I never saw her cry. She resisted when I attempted to touch her. She looked at me. A fierce expression was etched into her face. Was this little butterball ready to attack me?