Terry
stood up. The back of the dressing gown was sticking to his cheeks like
clingfilm. ‘Perhaps I should find another doctor,’ he said.
‘No,
no,’ said Rimmer, and ground out his cigarette in a battered ashtray.
‘Unfortunately, I’m it.’
He
pulled open a drawer. His leather vagina hit the desk with a thud.
‘Don’t
worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to ask you to fill it.’
His
arm disappeared into the drawer again, and he produced something metal and
medical with a flourish. He huffed on the dull surface and rubbed it on his
sleeve.
‘If
you’ll, er, follow me over to the bed, as it were.’
Terry
lifted a knee onto the frame, which elicited a quiet laugh from Rimmer.
‘No,
Terry. Not yet. Just sit down.’
Terry
perched himself on the edge of the mattress. It was made of rubber. The backs
of his legs were already stuck to it.
‘If
you’ll lean over,’ Rimmer whispered, ‘I’ll have a quick look at your membrane.’
Cold
pressure as Rimmer pushed and struggled to get the probe into his ear.
‘Oooh,
it won’t go in. First time, is it, Terry? Shall we try some Vaseline?’
Terry
batted the instrument away and stood up, dragging half of the mattress off the
bed. ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ he said.
‘But
you have to do your medical, Terry. Having your eardrums explode at forty
thousand feet might cause problems. You could easily swerve into the path of an
airliner full of drunk tourists. Think how you’d spoil their holiday.’
Terry
raised a finger.
‘And
I have it from informed sources,’ Rimmer continued, ‘that Windolene and a
duster are not standard issue for fighter pilots.’
Drive!, a novel about music and attempted patricide in 1980s Edinburgh, is available here.
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