Dr. Emeril Cox sat at his desk, watching Linda Foster, waiting for her response to his long description of his group fertility procedure. He'd delivered this speech so many times, each time altering it for his audience. In this instance he hadn't even been entirely sure about offering this technique to Mrs. Foster. He felt he was a good judge of character and intelligence, able to pick those who would be willing to undergo the group fertility procedure, rather than waste his time on those who wouldn't be able to understand it. A long silence always came at this point.
Mrs. Foster was looking at him, trying to process what he said and then finally spoke.
"It sounds like a gang-bang," she finally said.
Dr. Cox was surprised at first, not expecting her to respond with such a crude word, but he covered it with a light chuckle.
"Well, I can see why you'd think that, Mrs. Foster," he responded. "In fact you're not the first person to say that. And in a way you're right."
Now, she looked at him somewhat surprised.
"Of course I would prefer for you to not think of it in those terms. That has pornographic undertones and what we're discussing is not pornographic. We're discussing reproduction," he said and paused, seeing if his words were having any effect. "Fertility," he added and nodded his head.
"The procedure is just me being..." she stopped, her eyes glancing around his office, obviously about to say a curse word, but trying to find something less profane, "... well, excuse me, for saying it, but it's just me being fucked by several men, one after the other."
He repressed his urge to sigh at her for deciding to actually use profanity in his office, disappointed she hadn't corrected herself, disappointed that perhaps he had actually been wrong this one time in judging her character, her intelligence, her ability to see past her own prejudices and to that which was exceptional.
"I understand your misgivings, Mrs. Foster," he said. "As I said I've heard these very things many times." He heard he was repeating himself and sat up straight. "And I've heard much worse I assure you." He smiled, waiting for his smile to spread to her lips, but it didn't. "We are not discussing pornography, or rather I am not." He heard the bitterness in his voice and caught himself, making his face more serious. "We are discussing a scientifically proven fertility treatment. You have the documentation in front of you." He pointed to the binder laying on his desk in front of her. "In there you will find the papers I've published, containing years of research, rigorous scientific research. Research that is peer-reviewed and published in the most respected journals covering the fields of biology, reproduction, and fertility treatments."
She looked down at the binder, but her brows arched disapprovingly.
"And of course there's also a video disc presenting much of that material in less scientific terms, explaining the procedure and its very strong basis in research and scientific method," he continued, holding himself back from wanting to drill this information into her head, to make her understand, wondering why she didn't understand as he had expected. "As you know I'm the leading fertility clinician in the country. I received the award for top fertility and reproduction physician from the National Association of Fertility Treatments and Reproductive Medicine in 2027 and the each of the four years following." Of course he didn't mention he'd paid for it, at least paid for it that first year, the other years had come from merit he told himself.
"So you won... that award," she said, "for five of the past six years. What happened last year?"
Dr. Cox sighed deeply. How many times had he had to answer that question?
"This last year it was won by a Dr. Benson," he replied. He forced a proud grin on his lips as he continued. "He is actually a former pupil and at one time even a partner of mine. But we split ways..."
"What did he win the award for?" she asked with real interest.
Dr. Cox waved his hand as if to shoo away the question and the completely irrelevant answer that would follow. "Oh, it was something completely undeserving of the award and the committee is already finding themselves embarrassed as Dr. Benson has found himself in a lawsuit for the very technique he received the award for." He hoped that would be enough to end the conversation.
"And what was that?" she asked anyway.
Dr. Cox sighed again, showing this discussion was only wasting their time. "He developed a technique, a new age technique involving hypnotism that many have construed as mind control and he's received charges of rape from some," he blurted out quickly.
"Oh... I hadn't heard of that," she said. Dr. Cox looked at her disapprovingly. She seemed to know very little about the field from which she was hoping to benefit.
"It's an embarrassment to all those in our field and a somewhat personal embarrassment to myself since we were once... so close... But he strayed. I'd like to say I saw it coming. I saw something... wrong coming from him, so we parted ways, but I had no idea the direction he would go."
Dr. Cox put on his friendly smile again, hoping to bury the discussion on Dr. Benson with that last comment and turning it to this own embarrassment so she wouldn't want to continue with the discussion. She nodded and smiled signaling she was done with that.
"Look, Mrs. Foster, you came to me knowing you'd receive only the best, most advanced, most effective information on reproduction techniques." She was looking at him, her face starting to show she was sorry for her initial response to his ideas and his upfront discussion about an embarrassing situation for himself, seeing him now as more trustworthy. "And I assure you, Mrs. Foster, I am not a pornographer," he finished and chuckled as he sat back in his chair.
She actually smiled this time and looked down, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry Dr. Cox, I never meant to imply you were," she said, looking up at him, her shoulders squaring, overcoming the embarrassment with a smile. He thought he was winning her over finally.
"I know you didn't Mrs. Foster. I'm just making a joke," he responded lightly.
"I guess I'm just confused. This isn't what I expected when I came here," she responded.
He knew that had to be a lie. Everyone that came here knew of his procedures, especially the group fertility procedure. He'd been in the news several times. He'd been vilified by religious leaders, politicians, and anyone with an ill-informed opinion and a way to voice it. Of course he'd made the news on other occasions for his innovative research, so it's possible she only knew his name but not the reasons why.
"Well we offer many different procedures, all tailored for our patients' specific needs," he said, using the word 'we' though he was the only doctor there. "We don't offer the group fertility procedure to everyone, only those whom we think it will offer the most benefit and to those we deem open-minded, logical, reasonable, and dedicated to personal reproduction enough to attempt it." He let that last part sink in, a slight poke at her pride. "But we offer more traditional procedures as well. Though, nothing we do here is traditional. My research has led to techniques and methods far beyond what anyone could consider truly 'traditional.' But by traditional I mean the more common, and less successful, techniques such as in-vitro fertilization."