Free Doctor's Orders by Daniella Divine

death-defying leap, through
to Brad’s sex-defying departure. Oh, yes…and the bit about picking
up strange men in a bar.
    ‘So what am I supposed to do now?’ I asked her, but
she didn’t have any better answers than me. Eventually, we decided
the best course of action was to wait and see what happened at the
office on Monday. For one thing, I realized I didn’t have any way
of contacting Brad except on his office phone number. So I didn’t
have much choice but to wait. It wasn’t much of a plan…but a plan,
nevertheless.

    ***
     
    What happened in the
office on Monday was, well, quite a lot.
    I arrived early, aiming to get in before Vanessa.
However, she was already there, and looked like she had been there
for hours. I knew she also put in an hour in the gym before getting
to work, so God knows what time she got up in the morning. I
reckoned it must be about 3.00am…that is, about the time when I am
usually getting off to sleep. I was dosed up on Starbucks, and
ready to rip into a busy week.
    Vanessa called me into her office, and congratulated
me on the first draft of my article on Karen. ‘This is good stuff.
She is quite a character, isn’t she? She must have slept with more
men than you, me and the rest of the women in this office put
together.’
    Ummm…probably not, actually…but I decided not to
pursue that line of inquiry. ‘Any news on Thomasin?’ I asked,
changing the subject. Thomasin was the other person I was supposed
to interview on sex addiction.
    ‘Yes, he will meet you for lunch today at one. Oh,
and Brad called…he wants you to go over to his office at four. But
he said it’s OK if you don’t want to…any idea what that means?’
    I shook my head. ‘No idea, but four is fine with
me.’ But while I was talking, my brain was ticking over like crazy.
Was this business or pleasure, or both? It was office hours, so I
guessed business…but it could be awkward.

    ***
    As it turned out,
lunch with Thomasin was more awkward. He was a nice enough guy…but
it was clear that he was far from over his sex addiction issues.
That is to say, he started hitting on me as soon as I arrived in
the restaurant, and didn’t let up. Ordinarily, of course, this
would be like a match made in heaven. I mean, he was an ex male
model, for heaven’s sake, and still in very good shape. On
practically any other day, we would have skipped the meal, booked a
room somewhere and got down to business.
    But for the first time ever in my adult life, dick
wasn’t the first thing on my mind. You can laugh if you want, but I
was really torn. One part of me wanted to get inside Thomasin’s
pants, but another part of me wanted to be a good girl,
anticipating something more (I didn’t know what exactly…but
something) from my meeting with Brad in the afternoon. Somehow, I
thought a lunchtime fuck might spoil the romance later, if you get
my drift. Yes, I know all this is fucked up, but this is what was
going through my head.
    To be honest, Thomasin didn’t have much of a story
to tell. He was just a horny guy, and because he has natural good
looks, he didn’t have much trouble getting girls between the
sheets. At least, I assumed it was his looks that were the
attraction. He didn’t seem to have much going on between his ears.
I spent an hour listening to him brag about his various conquests,
and it all seemed rather sad and pointless. Just a string of sexual
encounters and one-night stands, with no mention of love or
romance. With a shock, I realized this was my life, too.
Just an empty series of encounters with people who would never see
me again, and who wouldn’t recognize me if they did.
    Was this really what I wanted for the rest of my
life? When I was in my final years, and looking back on my life –
like that old lady in the Titanic movie – what would I see?
Memories of happy family life, love and shared happiness? Or just
vague memories of all the dicks I had worked my way through. It
certainly gave me