Agorafabulous! by Sara Benincasa Read Free Book Online Page A

va-va-va-voom cleavage that owed its perkiness to nature, a well-constructed push-up bra, or a talented surgeon. She wore a tight purple V-neck shirt and a black miniskirt beneath an open white lab coat. I dimly noted her large gold hoop earrings and three-inch-high black stilettos.
    Then she whipped out a pair of black-rimmed glasses that looked more like a prop than a necessity, and it dawned on me that I had unwittingly wandered onto the set of a porno movie. There was nothing about the scenario that didn’t scream adult film, down to the bevy of hot chicks in nurse costumes. Out of deep-seated Catholic guilt and terror, I had long resisted my occasional feelings of sexual attraction toward women. But in my weakened state, I found myself vaguely turned on.
    Then Mr. D’Angelo opened his mouth and promptly took the wind out of my Sapphic sails.
    “HELLO. ARE YOU THE DOCTOR?” he asked in the loud, slow voice that Americans reserve for non–English speakers (as if screaming in a foreigner’s face is going to increase his or her comprehension of our mongrel tongue).
    Dr. Sophia cast the most dismissive glance at him that I have ever seen a woman give a man, and I’m including women who roll their eyes at cat-callers on the street. She didn’t roll her eyes, but she did look straight through him, like a lioness who had heard the sound of a small, non-delicious animal but couldn’t quite place its origin.
    A hush again fell over the room. Mr. D’Angelo shut his mouth. Mr. Brixton uttered not a peep. Even the three lovely nurses were completely quiet. Had this been a BDSM porno, it would have been clear who was the dom and who were the subs.
    Dr. Sophia’s eyes came to rest on me, and she raised an eyebrow slightly. Regally, she held out her hand. A nurse quickly skittered up and gave her a clipboard and a chart. Dr. Sophia looked down at it, frowned slightly, and approached the table slowly, with her head cocked slightly to one side. She was wearing a significant amount of perfume, and her scent reached me before she did. She smelled like the most annoying part of a department store, but on her it was somehow sexy. With a body and a face like that, she probably could’ve carried off Eau de Raw Sewage.
    Then she was right beside me, staring at me with an emotionless, analytical curiosity. I felt like a crossword puzzle. She bent down low, then even lower, until her face was mere inches from my own and the scent of her perfume threatened to overwhelm my nostrils. We locked eyes for a long moment.
    I blinked first.
    “Homesick!” she exclaimed in lightly accented English, straightening bolt-upright. Behind me, I sensed Mr. D’Angelo and Mr. Brixton jump in tandem.
    “Sedative!” she ordered, scribbling something on the clipboard and handing it back to a nurse. Within a minute, a nurse handed me a cup of a yellow liquid and a cup of water.
    I drank the yellow stuff, which tasted bitter and astringent, and then the water. Dr. Sophia smiled broadly and touched me for the first time. It was probably too early for the yellow stuff to have begun to work, but I felt a narcotic sense of calm wash over me.
    “Better now,” she said, smoothing some hair back from my forehead. “You go rest, take deep breaths, walk by the ocean. No stress!”
    “No stress,” I repeated, awed.
    She turned to Mr. D’Angelo and Mr. Brixton.
    “No stress!” she said firmly, glaring at them.
    “No stress!” Mr. Brixton replied promptly. Mr. D’Angelo nodded mutely.
    And then the queen swept out of the room, followed swiftly by her three ladies-in-waiting. It was as if none of them had even been there at all.
    The room was silent for a few moments. Then Mr. D’Angelo said, “And this is all free?”
    “Completely,” said Mr. Brixton. “Of course, they pay very high taxes to fund it.”
    “See, that I wouldn’t like,” Mr. D’Angelo said.
    I sat upright and grinned at both of them.
    “Are you feeling better then, Sara?” Mr.