Free Monsieur by Emma Becker Page B

trousers. I put up a token struggle, my face flattened against the side of the lift, Monsieur’s growing erection grazing the small of my back. The problem is that desire is rising fast inside me, triggered by his feverish groping. As the lift doors open, I’m panting hard. Any observer would have concluded in a flash that I was getting wetter by the minute at the mere thought of that eternal cliché: a masked anonymous medic seeking to enslave me by trying to grip my wrists behind my back. Not a single word passes between us, the quiet broken only by our uniforms rustling, a silent dialogue.
    â€˜Do calm down, Monsieur! Not here, not in the lift, not in the clinic!’
    â€˜I’ll do whatever I want with you, right here and now, whether you like it or not.’
    â€˜Please, I beg you, stop!’
    â€˜Quiet, learn to give yourself! At least a little!’
    The whole scene lasts about six seconds, but I’m praying no one will notice that the eminent surgeon has a pronounced hard-on, and the small masked blonde girl at his side is evidently responsible for it.
    As soon as the doors open, I recognize some of the orderlies and anesthetists. It’s extraordinary how elegant and noble Monsieur looks, cruising down the corridors of the surgical block; he’s lost the superior air he usually wears, as if he owns the place. Just the way he moves, spreading his particular scent that even the ether can’t obscure. There is something magical about Monsieur’s movements as he strolls from room to room, leaving his mark.
    I find a corner where I am out of the way while he introduces me as a literature student here to research a paper on the body (I can imagine the obligatory face-to-face discussion with Monsieur behind the locked doors of his study). It’s crazy, all these women here at his beck and call, instinctively adjusting his scrubs, preparing his instruments, voicing his name as they soothe the nerves of the first patient. All the kindness, the lack of condescension Monsieur displays in the presence of the person now lying on the operating table is unlike his usual rather cynical attitude. How can he move so quickly from arrogance to this? He’s now bending over the table, whispering instructions into his microphone, such a benevolent picture of kindness I’d be willing to have my nose shattered into a thousand pieces if only to be smiled at like that.
    â€˜Can we go ahead, Doctor?’ a nurse asks, opening a pack of sutures.
    And the ballet begins. Beneath his surgical mask, teasing me, Monsieur reminds me: ‘If you begin to feel faint, you can always walk out and sit in the corridor.’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ I answer, with a dire attempt to emulate his honeyed smile. ‘I don’t faint easily.’
    His gaze is insistent, so, in a tiny voice, I add: ‘Some years ago, not that long, I wanted to become a pathologist.’
    â€˜A pathologist?’
    His eyes are like fingers touching my skin under the surgical blouse, almost laughing because this tiny blonde girl with her pink bum and careless words had considered spending her life in the realm of dead, silent flesh.
    â€˜How amusing,’ Monsieur says, with irony, while my cheeks grow redder by the second. Then, holding his scalpel, he leans over the man sleeping below him, as if suddenly aware that his tone almost betrayed us. The fear and awe inside my chest are coming to the boil at the elaborate precision of his movements. Amazing. Now that I am aware of this, I will be able to concentrate better on the ways in which he manipulates me, assess whether his surgical skill can be detected among the folds of our sheets.
    â€˜If you happen to faint,’ Monsieur continues, without glancing at me, ‘we have everything here to bring you back to life.’
    â€˜Blood won’t make me faint.’
    â€˜Oh, there are many reasons for fainting – pain, hunger . . .’
    Still