Setting: Exam/consultation room at one of GeneCo’s surgery centers. Time: Afternoon, roughly eleven months ago. (Backplay!) Characters: Lawrence Bloodgood, Open to Doll Rating: PG13 for now.
It wasn’t his first appointment of the day, and it wasn’t going to be his last. Perhaps unluckily, they were all consultations. It wasn’t that he didn’t like consulting with his patients (he recognized it as something that had to be done; a necessary and appreciated part of his position). He just felt that he was singularly bad at it. Better to leave such things to the Geneterns. They could give him a secondhand report of what procedures were required, he could make any necessary recommendations through them…
And then he’d never have a repeat of that particularly uncomfortable consultation with Amber Sweet. Which would be better for everyone, he felt. Dear God, the woman was practically sin incarnate. It was like she had aspirations of being a nudist, and could only truly fulfill them in the presence of a medical professional. She had a talent for making him nervous, and the fact that she was currently in a position where she could fire him outright didn’t help. He prayed that she wasn’t as dissatisfied with his work as she seemed to be with his bedside manner. In the six weeks since he’d performed his first lift on her, Lawrence had been walking on eggshells to say the least.
Needless to say, he was grateful that it wasn’t her name on his roster for his two o’clock. He’d pulled up her medical record while waiting, sipping a cup of tea as he scanned it. She had a decent amount of history already, which was good. That meant there’d be no new paperwork. Of course, it also meant that he might have to work around (or completely redo) another surgeon’s previous work, but he was arrogant enough to be comfortable with that prospect. Relatively young for his line of work, Lawrence felt that he had a good amount of talent in his field. His patients attested to that. He had a number of regulars, including some of the more selective clientele available. That had to count for something.
Even if he did get somewhat nervous during initial consultations.