I was laying in gutter in the urban renewal area of Capitalland. I had come to this desolate area to pick up my roommate Dr Barton whom I called by the pet name Zaftig. In charge of running an Emergency Disaster Drill in this neighborhood of boarded up windows and shuttered doors, Zaftig had promised to take me to dinner. It was supposed to be a kiss and make up sort of thing.
A few minutes before 6PM, I was on my way to pick Zaftig up at the drill site. Even though the shadows were lengthening among the sea of abandoned brick houses, I walked with confidence. In my last year in lawschool here in Capitalland, I regarded the rundown sections of this provincial Capitalland as nothing compared to the mean streets downstate where I came from. That thought crossed my mind when I was attacked.
As soon as I turned the corner, I accidentally walked in on the field exercise in emergency care of sick and injured still in progress. Knocked silly, I was thrown to the ground by overanxious Med students. Clothing cut away and injected with some kind of sedative, I found myself unable to move or speak.
Silly things come to mind, in her inflated medical - ese that Zaftig liked to prate in, she would have called the sedative which left me motionless on the ground a neuro -- muscular blocker.
Suddenly, the last rays of the weak October sun were blocked by a fire emergency rescue vehicle which stopped a couple of feet away from me. Zaftig -- Rebecca Barton came into view. I could see my roommate clearly sitting in the passenger side. Our eyes locked. Her hazel eyes glowered a predatory, fluorescent yellowish green. I managed to raise my arm in a plea assistance. Instead, Zaftig turned her head to look straight ahead. Within a moment, the emergency vehicle sped away. I couldn't believe it. I was left abandoned.
===
A little over a year earlier, I was working with Al Mandy one of Zaftig's former classmates on his latest soft porn film. He was meeting Rebecca Barton's, Zaftig's, body double in Al's film in production.
When hazel eyed Mary, a drama student, interviewed with Al as a body double for my roommate Rebecca Barton whom I nicknamed Zaftig, Al insisted I assist. "No one knows Rebecca Barton more than you," Al Mandy, behind broad teak desk in a sperm bank and fertility clinic, justified his request. "Besides, I prefer to have a woman accompany me during these interviews. Every girl dreams of acting in this country of Hollywood endings. How many are willing to do what's required?"
"Al," I chuckled, "your classmates in medical school as well as your dirty dozen starlets who appear in your soft porn say that in the hard business of interning, you landed in a soft spot."
"Don't say that!" Al mockingly upbraided me, "In the process of collecting sperm from virile young men, obtaining a yield would be pr -- o -- blematic," Al with a sly smile tried to stress his affected English tones using the long vowel `o' sound, "if their ardo -- `u' -- r," and the additional vowel, "went soft."
At that short and plump Mary, fashionable dressed in new polyester slacks and a white silk blouse with a scarf entered the room. Her expression was serious. She wanted the part. Did she understand, Al was casting for a body double in soft porn?
As Mary walked into the Al's office, her wedge heels of her new dress sandals plopped as she stepped onto the black tiles of the room. Studying Mary, I was struck by Mary's general physical appearance, hair color and style, height and weight, Mary, fully dressed, could make a good substitute for Zaftig.
"Even Zaftig's eh -- Rebecca Barton's eyes," I blurted out, "are just about that same color changeable as a chameleon."
Zaftig used, I mused, to say women make natural actresses, because they can change their appearance, wear pants instead of a skirt or dress, change their hair color to one of several different shades, wear their hair up in curls, straighten their hair, even change their height by choosing heels over flats. "Women with hazel eyes," I repeated aloud Zaftig's line, "have an even greater advantage: their eyes can be baby blue, serious brown, and mysterious green."
Told that Al was looking for a well -- proportioned woman, Mary presented still photos taken of her in connection with various productions staged by the Drama Department of Capitalland University. To me Mary noted, "You're a Capitalland student, I heard."
"Capitalland Law, yes, just starting my Junior year in the fall," I shifted the discussion back to Mary. "You would be doubling up in some scenes for my roommate Rebecca Barton who financed her last year in med school playing Dr Zoptic and an extra in others. What do you think of playing body double for the title character Dr Zoptic? How does that fit into your career plans?"
"I've played a doctor in some University productions," Mary responded in a clear, confident voice, "I'm doubling up on science courses this semester. Like Dr Barton, the original Dr Zoptic, I hope to be swept up into Med School through the Push -- Ahead -- Program."
"It may interest you then," Al informed Mary, "this film is dedicated to Rebecca Barton, her last hurrah, you Yanks might say in cinematography."
"A biopic?" Mary, hands folded in her lap, was intrigued, "You must think highly of her."
"Biopic, interesting Colonial expression," Al replied in his imitation British tones, "Becky is getting even for a prank her classmates played on her at a graduation party."
"It's serious business!" I interjected sharply, "Drugged her up, stripped her naked, plopped her in bed with a naked man, photographed her, " I was blunt, "her classmates circulated her pictures -- bare rump in the air to her esteemed father and others. That's an idea of the part you would be playing. You'd have a part in a revenge match. Still interested?"
Al's dark eyes met mine. I looked at Mary. She was caught between fascination and uncertainty.
"I could see," Al observed, "By observable physical proportions, you appear to be an effective substitute for the current Dr Zoptic. Usually, I like to see a photospread." When Mary did not answer, Al added, "You are a tyro. Do have a photo spread or at least know what that is?"
"I was told to get a photo spread," prodded by Al, Mary replied, "but Aimee was busy with her real -- ugh her `day' job and my boyfriend didn't believe that anyone would want to cast me in a naked picture. He thought I want to do something," Mary giggled, "kinky."
Mary and I chuckled when pithily Al remarked, "that obviates the necessity for my usual question, `What would happen if your boyfriend came across the film?'" When the laughter subsided, Al suggested, "Why not show Mary around? You birds might want to discuss requirements of the role."
Ordered to escort Mary and to explain the role, I fielded questions as we walked down darkly carpeted hallways with subdued lighting. "It seems awfully dark for a doctor's office," Mary took note.
"Al calls it an ejaculate - orium," I waved my hand pointing out charcoal grey wall hangings as I spoke, "Think of a Sperm Bank as a bank where men come to make deposits and women come to make withdrawal. The subdued atmosphere provides the ambiance which simulates the natural method and puts donor and recipient in the mood to get it on."
In the locker, Mary remarked at the singularity of the shower in a medical office.
"The sperm bank operates from 5AM to 9PM with two shifts of nursing assistants. Personnel shower with medicated soaps and change into scrubs on entering and back into street clothes when leaving," I explained, "Remember what bodily fluids staff handles here."
"Perhaps, it would help if," Mary asked, "if you told me a bit about the person, Rebecca Barton, you said, I'm playing body double for."
"Zaftig -- ugh Rebecca Barton," I reflected on my roommate's strange allure as we continued the tour and headed to the theatre, "could throw some curves." I chuckled at my own play on words. "At times Zaf--Rebecca can molt from the pleasantly plump girl with sparkly blue eyes who'd run blissfully bare naked into a communal shower with total abandon to a total bitch, the beady brown eyed nun with the ruler in the first in the Dr Zoptic series. With foggy hazel eyes, Rebecca can disconnect from the world to speak in medical bull -- jive and then turn into an insufferable witch seething with blood -- lust reflected in ominous predatory, fluorescent yellow -- green eyes dreaming of wreaking her revenge by examining the nuts of her nemesis Carter Plessinger as she prepared to castrate him."
"A rather intense person," Mary commented.
"Intense might be an understatement. Before the push -- ahead program catapulted her into College and Medical School," I recalled, "Zaftig -- Rebecca Barton wanted to be a saintly nun. Launched into medical school, Rebecca Barton's ambition, her classmates say, was to kill her first patient."
"Is that the reason her classmates played the prank?" Mary asked.
"No," I paused, "nothing so noble. Her nemesis feared her as a potential competitor for a coveted position. It backfired. Zaftig--Dr Rebecca Barton didn't even know the position existed. Circulating the picture put Rebecca Barton in the running. Zaftig backed into a job she never sought."
"And that doesn't satisfy her?" Mary asked.
"Zaftig -- Rebecca Barton," I spoke of my roommate, "can sail from a tranquil sunny day into the vortex of a tempest. She could stroll to the shower in the altogether right in front of me in our rooms with her towel slung over her shoulder; yet be infuriated at me because I laughed at her when I found her drugged up and left naked by her classmates at a graduation party. I had bad feelings that night. I advised her to skip that party. Yet, Zaftig became more enraged by my laughing than she was by the prank her classmates played."
"You keep referring to eh--Dr Barton as Zoptic. Am I hearing you right? Isn't that the name of her character in the Dr Zoptic series?" Mary asked.
"Zaftig pronounced Zoptic is the name of a character in Al's productions," I replied, "It's a term of endearment for an attractive buxom girl, with distinctive feminine curves. Zaftig herself refers to her own bulbous breasts as `boy magnets.'"
Cupping her hands under her own breasts, Mary quipped, "I'll have to tell my boyfriend that one."
I shook my head promising Mary, "You'll fit right into Al's Dirty Dozen."
In the theatre, Mary and I descended down the aisle which bisected three rows of charcoal fabric stadium seating. Beyond the lectern on the podium hung a white screen brightly standing out against the dark curtains along the walls. "You really do have a theatre," Mary commented, "Why?"
