Comparative Anatomy

It was just past sunset on Friday at the beginning of the four - day a holiday weekend in late October. Veterans Day, I think was October 25th, that year. In the mid 1970s Veterans Day had lost its traditional date, though there was talk of returning it to November 11th. I was in the Central Avenue Urban Renewal District to pick up my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton whom I called by the endearing pet-name Zaftig. I had just parked around the corner from a mock emergency medical response which my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton was directing.

We had been roommates for just over two years. While in that time, we had become lovers, we were currently in the middle of a tiff. Zaftig had invited me with a wink to go out to dinner to kiss and makeup. This holiday weekend, my roommate Dr Rebeca Barton and I wouldn't expect much competition for a table. No one come from Capitalland; Capitalland empties out every holiday weekend.

Weighed down by studies in my final year of law school, I looked forward to an evening out.

Instead, just as I turned the corner onto Central Avenue, I assaulted, jabbed in the arm, forced to the ground and stripped bare. Seconds later, Zaftig, my roommate Dr Rebecca Barton was standing over me "Oh my God," screeched Zaftig, "It's my roommate Erica! She's not one of the disaster actors. This is a mistake."

If only I could have laughed! Zaftig had finally gotten her sweet revenge -- against me. This was almost like a plot of a Dr Zoptic movie. Indeed, sweet revenge was the theme of one of the last Dr Zoptic films, Rebecca Barton was featured in.

• • •

A little over a year earlier, as I was getting ready to begin my junior year in law school at Capitalland University, I was at the Fertility Clinic where Al Mandy was filming `Comparative Anatomy: Revenge Match.'

You could only see Al Mandy's 'teeth and eyes' as tall dark-skinned Al, leaning against a dark woven wall hanging in the corridor of the Fertility Clinic, read through his shooting script for the umpty-umpth time attempting to project an image of calm. Further down the corridor, the camera crew stood with a bespeckled average sized man. Bare foot with knee -- length bathrobe tied at the waist, the man would be playing Cameron Ratzinger scanned the shooting script, but I knew he had no lines.

I could hear some banter in the corridor among Al's regular female players that Al dubbed the dirty half -- dozen. Still in street clothes, these girls would appear in the shower and locker room scene where they'd undress, shower and change into the Dr Zoptic Nursing Assistant outfit, white lab coat reaching down to the mid -- thigh barely meeting black fishnet, thigh -- high, stay -- up stockings and white sneakers. Standing by with the Dirty Dozen waiting for Al to call for "places," I was already in costume with a camisole under the lab coat to conceal my deformed, scarred cleavage.

High pitched female voices echoed through the corridor, as the dirty half -- dozen endured the wait were more interested in the berobed gentleman speculating what lay under the robe. "He looks good enough to produce a stiff one," quipped one of the girls.

Another woman in the cast, looking over the script, snickered, "Grabbing his plunger between the lips and pulling him inside isn't in the script."

"Ah, like the rest of the sluts in this dimly lit corridor," another girl returned the jibe, "you're jealous you have nothing to do but strip off in the locker and stroll bare assed into the shower."

"Paid to take a bath?" came the answer, "you can't beat that."

"Hey," one asked, "The script I was handed for tonight's script says it's the latest in the Dr Zoptic series, "The title is `Comparative Anatomy Revenge Match.' Where's Dr Zoptic?"

Where is Dr Zoptic? That's a good question. Zoptic evolved from the word Zaftig, my pet name which amply described my roommate pudgy Rebecca Barton, a girl with a well - rounded figure, pleasantly plump. Tonight's episode `Comparative Anatomy' was a payback to her classmate Carter Plessinger. Discovering the roles Zaftig played in Al Mandy's light porn to support herself in her last year of med school, her classmate Carter Plessinger orchestrated a frat house prank on Zaftig and Al Mandy.

"Stripping her bare and photographing her derriere in the air," Al Mandy had quipped in an aside, "for all the world to see, Becky lying naked on top of me, Becky became unhinged, vowing sweet revenge."

"Against whom?" I released a tired sigh in reply, "has Zaftig vowed revenge Carter Plessenger or me?"

My roommate Zaftig would play the curvaceous Dr Zoptic in the title role but tonight the spotlight tonight would focus on tall, svelte dirty blonde Ashleigh Keytone, a Registered Nurse in real life who had shown up in her scrubs as Al had requested. Al probably wanted to use some of the footage shot in Ashleigh's screen test.

Ashleigh shook her head as she read aloud her lines from the shooting script:

"`SCENE: Locker room. Brightly lit,' "Ashleigh interjected a comment, "that's good. It's a little too dark in most of the clinic. Did you ever see a doctor's office so dark?' The two other new girls standing with her chuckled as Ashleigh read, "Girls arriving to begin a day's work, undress, stow street clothes in a locker and shower."

"`O, things are about the same,' Ashleigh moans to a neighbor as she lifts her top over her head, `Since calling off an engagement, Cameron,'" Ashleigh interjected a comment, "That's supposed to be that scum bag Carter Plessinger my ex, `Cameron has given me to the end of the week to get out of `his' flat. His flat!,' Ashleigh screeched, `is an apartment in a townhouse, Cameron has because I guaranteed payment of rent so that Cameron could get the lease. Cameron kept his dream house because I paid the bills faithfully.'"

"`What brought it on?' a neighbor asks,'" Ashleigh interrupted reading the script for a parenthetical remark, That's one of you. Ashleigh roared as she undid the bow holding her scrubs bottoms up, letting them slide to the floor, `Cameron expects to land a big -- ass, soft touch job as Assistant Director, big pay, no work.' Stepping out of her scrubs and rolling them into a ball, Ashleigh tossed them into a laundry cart. `If Cameron becomes an Assistant Director, he can forego the daily spermatozoa donation, unlock the chastity cage and go stepping out -- with someone else.'"

"Ashleigh's neighbor protested, `Look at you! He's crazy,'"

"`Me? I'm nothing special! Just a great bod in chic loungewear,' Ashleigh quipped, "Nothing more enticing than a scantily clad vixen in eye -- catching royal blue bra and panty set, little more than three triangular patches, each no bigger than an eye patch,'" Ashleigh threw in the comment, "You can tell men wrote these lines. The script continues, `Ashleigh went on tippy toes to pirouette and display her sculpted bare butt cheeks bisected by a string running through her crack.'"

Calling out to me, Ashleigh asked, "Erica, who's going to play Carter Plessenger -- ugh I mean Cameron Ratzinger -- in the script? The guy up the corridor is a good match. But I wish I had been consulted. Aren't you supposed to be in the shower scene with me?"

I shook my head. I wasn't slated to appear in the locker or shower scene. There were a few snickers from amongst the girls in the dirty half - dozen. "Too precious to bare it all," smirked one, "she even wears an undershirt under the lab coat to cover her cleavage. Does she expect to blind the guys with the sight of her flat chest?"

Only little blonde Crissy spoke up for me. "Erica doesn't play nude! I don't believe it! Erica was hot during my audition with her. Her tongue was so crafty I thought it'd slither in down there and come out my mouth." Doubt entered her voice when Crissy added, "But come to think of it, during my screen test, Erica managed to keep her top on."

Like a bunch of chickens ganging up to peck at one of the flock, one girl after another added to the tease. It reminded me of the chorus of high -- pitched voices taunting me in the high school gym's locker room. The sight of my deformed funnel chest brought out shrieks of "Yuck, freak show! I going to barf. Seriously! I have to look at that after lunch."

To get me a medical excuse from gym, my sainted father cajoled the family doctor to release me from high school gym. Making me remove my top, in the presence of my father, the lecher ran his finger along the scar down the middle of my sunken chest and squeezed my nipples. "There's nothing wrong!" the doctor exclaimed, "small breasted but they're likely to perform their function when that's required."

Ultimately it was my Dad's threat to send me to St Athena's of the Holy Virgins Convent School that forced the bastard doctor to write gym excuses. I often wondered how the holy virgins at St Athena's might have reacted. I'm sure that, if not shielded from view by the camisole I wore under the white lab coat, the sight of my deformity would scare off Al's clientele who endured Al's attempt to inject a story line to watch nudie cuties.

The taunting in the corridor might have continued, but for a timely intervention by Al. "The guys at frat smokers and bachelor parties," Al threw his arm around me and held me tight, "who salivate watching bedazzling belles strut bare breasts and butts would love to see Erica's frame plucked clean, but she has a contract with an artist which prohibits her appearing in the altogether. Thus, I can tease, I can suggest, but regrettably I cannot script Erica in the shower scene." Having neutralized the situation, Al went down the corridor to talk to his camera crew.

Looking back to lock eyes with me, Al was wondering whether Zaftig, Rebecca Barton, my roommate show up. I shrugged my shoulders. The question was a natural one. This production was all about Zaftig. Where was she?

When I mentioned to Zaftig that there were times Al and I could conduct a subverbal communication, a rare smile blossomed on her face, "Trying to land a doctor?"

"I thought," I replied hugging her, "I already had one."

"Oh," Zaftig teased me, "Remember what happened to Ashleigh Keytone. Is Al worth the risk? Certainly, the relationship would be a plus for your business when you get out of school. Besides, you recognize that we both have a duty to contribute our intelligence to the gene pool."

"Gene pools not something," I retorted, "you, an erstwhile aspirant to the veil of nun-hood in a convent school, ought be concerned with. Didn't your Dad receiving Carter Plessener's photos of you lying bare butt in the air with the air mounting Al Mandy start counting on grandchildren?"

"I admit Father has a liking for Al Mandy as a prospective son -- in -- law," Zaftig chuckled, "but, if it were necessary, I'd prefer to have Al's spermatozoa injected in a syringe than have Al ejaculate fresh cum inside me. Besides, I wouldn't want to steal a guy from a girl I regard as a sister. I think you'd make a better fit. Think of your future career getting business off Al."

"I knew I should teach you how to think, but drafting contracts for porn stars?" I suggested. "Right now, obscenity is still illegal. A contract could be drawn, but it wouldn't be enforceable." I took a breath. "Al went to great trouble to schedule this shoot to even the score with Carter Plessenger for having you stripped bare and photographed at a graduation party: The Porn Queen of the Class of 1976. Al expects to find you there."

"I have a meeting with the Hospital President Dr Regina Windham in the shower at the University's sub-basement Institute to deliver my answer on the offer of an Assistant Directorship," Zaftig responded, "Whether I come depends on how that meeting goes." Shaking her head, Zaftig added, "I don't know. Her invitation from Dr Windham sounds weird. Why in the shower? Am I being set up again?"

"Maybe," I suggested, "this Dr Windham wants to see what a porn star turned doctor hides under that aura of professionality."

Slipping into that twilight, a trance in which she was present but not in contact, Zaftig vowed, "Don't think I can excuse you for your part in Plessinger's prank? I'll get even when you least expect it?"

"Why?" I protested, "I went out in the middle of the night, covered you, drove you home. I even told you of my bad feelings before hand and told you not to go? How did I wrong you?"

"You laughed at me," Zaftig retorted.

Merry laughter filled the corridor as the 'Dirty Half-Dozen recounted some of the past films Al had made, "Anytime Al finds a new girl who's a little nervous about baring it all, I tell them look at Dr Zoptic; if a girl shaped like a thanksgiving turkey can flaunt it, you certainly shouldn't worry. All guys see is Tits and Ass."

Yet I pondered why would Zaftig who could run down the corridor uninhibited in complete abandon be angry because I saw her naked?

While the cast touted previous Dr Zoptic films during the wait in the darkened corridor of the Fertility clinic, I wandered over to Al to tell him about Zaftig's thinking about mind -- linked sub -- verbal communication. Al's view was not tinged with romantic notions. "It's a skill -- actors good ones pick up the capability of reading the next line in the script off other actor's face. Now, if you could read dear Becky Barton's mind, tell me whether she's going to do us the honor of joining us tonight."

Looking down the darkened corridor to appraise the girls collected for the shoot, Al told me, "The regular Dirty Half -- dozen don't seem to mind; the camera crew is starting to get irritated -- Join the newcomers. They might get antsy. I'm starting in a few minutes with or without Becky."

"Ah," I sighed, "When we don't plead, please Zaftig come help us do Carter like he did you, I expect she'll make her grand entrance."

"An urchin spoilt rotten!" exclaimed Al.

"Al," I baited him, "you'll have to get me a copy of that English -- to -- English dictionary for Imitation Saxons that you use."

I drifted over to the three newcomers. In addition to stately Ashleigh Keytone, there was the aspiring blonde model Crissy Callin, and Mary a short, chubby girl who seemed out of place among the usual cast of characters. Asked to explain the Dr Zoptic medical costume, "It's part of the ambiance of the fertility clinic. Like the dark carpeting and wall hangings, and dim lighting, the costume, Al believes, would induce bright young men to come in here, attain a state of arousal and leave their genetic material behind."

"That's short for jerking off into a cup," Ashleigh, the nurse who had just been jilted by Zaftig's classmate and nemesis Carter Plessenger after she supported him through med school, quipped with a voice laced with bitterness.

Stunned by that tone, blonde perky little Crissy sauntered off down the hall to mingle with Al's dirty half dozen, Al Mandy's usual players, chattering away about putting herself through University's drama program by working as a salesgirl in upscale Newman -- Bakers at the Westgate Mall,

"In a few minutes we'll get started," Al addressed gathered cast and cameramen. "Tonight, we have my regular Dirty Half Dozen, plus we welcome some newcomers. Over there mingling with the regulars, there's Crissy Callin, a drama student here at the University. It's her first time on camera, the beginning no doubt of a successful acting career. We all remember the familiar face of Erica Ehrlich," Al pointed to me, "who, by contract with an artist, must remain partially clothed in her parts in the Dr Zoptic series."

Crissy exclaimed, "Try to get Erica released to play nude scenes. She's so hot. I need a copy of my audition tape with Erica to teach my boyfriend how to make love to a woman."

A shocked silence fell on the corridor. Even Al was stunned. I broke the quiet. "Crissy, how nice your boyfriend is so broad minded!"

Before eyes could turn to me, Al introduced Ashleigh, "We'll find a use for that tape, I assure you Crissy. Crissy's partner in the shower scene tonight will be," Al pointed to Ashleigh, "is standing next to Erica Ehrlich. Nurse Ashleigh Keytone deserves a scripting credit. Her ideas have helped with scripting the locker room scene."

"I have contributed what insight I might have on the wild world of med students supporting themselves through school," Ashleigh replied.

"A new frontier in medicine," Al remarked, "a new subject for the theatre. I see over here Mary Skeene, another drama student," Al called on a dark-haired girl about as short and hefty as Zaftig. "Mary has played a doctor in some University productions. Mary, are you afraid of being type cast?"

"I'm," Mary responded in a clear voice, "actually hoping to become type cast. I'm taking some science courses this semester. I'm hoping to be swept up into Med School through the Push -- Ahead -- Program."

"All life is the stage," Al responded. "Speaking of our stage. I expect we'll begin in a minute or two."

"Mary," one of the regulars called over to the heavy girl, "Come meet Crissy. She can get us discounts at Newman -- Bakers at Westgate Mall."

While Mary joined her friends, I approached Ashleigh still in lime green scrubs from her job in the University Hospital. "I'd like to wrap up," Ashleigh admitted, "my role in this. I figure with September rent upcoming on Carter's luxury apartment, the landlord will come looking for me. Bad enough I supported Carter in the lifestyle to which he'd like to become accustomed to and put out for him, but I'm over being fucked. I need to scoot. Nurses are in high demand, easily re -- employed elsewhere."

Al looked at me. The question, I read off his face, was should we start? I nodded agreement. A strained look on Al's face suggested the next question: do you think she'll come? I gave Al a blank stare.

You don't care, Al's face bore the question.

Shrugging my shoulders, I indicated I supposed Zaftig will rush in at the last minute to make an entrance.

Nodding Al yelled out, "Places." Silence fell on the corridor. The man in the robe joined Al and me behind the camera men out of the scene in the corridor. When Al called action the lights on the cameras sent a bright beam through the darkened corridor and the cast started the usual chatter you find in a workplace when the employees start showing up for work. As the players filed into the locker, two cameramen slipped past them one in the locker the other in the shower.

Girls in varying stages of undress, stood in front of the bank of lockers: petite Crissy completely naked hands on her hips thrusting her perky breasts out, one topless still in slacks and boots, two bare breasted down to their panties, Mary and several others in their underwear stood by to listen as Ashleigh undressed and related her tale of woe. When the others undressed and filtered off into the shower, Ashleigh in an audible whisper suggested an idea which would blow Cameron's mind. "In the shower with everyone watching?" Crissy's eyes lit up, excited by the prospect.

Ashleigh, throwing a towel over her shoulder, swinging her hips, led Crissy into the shower. Invited to join in, I politely declined, "Much as I'd like to roll on the floor and fuck all day, we have to eventually get to work."

A clamor arose from the entrance to the office suite; Al and I turned to the source of the disturbance. Zaftig was running down the corridor to toward us. Hobbling on one foot and then the other to remove her flats, Zaftig apologized, "Sorry I'm late. First day of rest in three months. I got the job. Morning shower and sauna with the Hospital President. Then I slept the day away. Two weeks off. I start classes in computer science." Al hand -- signalled one of his cameramen to follow Zaftig.

Directed toward the locker, Zaftig, kicking off her flats, squatted to slip off her slacks before she started down the corridor; lifting off her blouse, then unhooking her bra and finally tossing her panties aside rendering herself naked. Bare DD breasts bouncing, Zaftig rushed into the locker where most of the crew was in the process of dressing. Yelling "Sorry I'm late," Zaftig froze in the entrance of the shower. In front of Zaftig tall buxom Ashleigh was locked in an embrace with a cute, petite, pony tailed, honey blond girl. "Don't mind me," Zaftig promised as she took a position under a spigot. Nonplussed, Zaftig turned the shower on, "I'll be gone in a jiffy."