"Brian.. Dr. Huller?"
"I'm sorry, what was that?" I look to my door and see my secretary standing there, hands on her hips.
"You've been humming and off in la-la land all day for the last few days. Did you and your girlfriend ... achem.?" She clears her throat and waggles her eyebrows at me, making me burst out in laughter.
"I'm sorry, am I distracting you?" I ask, not answering the question.
She gives me a knowing smirk, "A little bit, but you should know, your two o clock appointment is here." She walks closer to my desk and whispers, "I think she's trying to seduce you, too. She's dressed like a hussy. Should I place a training pad on the seat so nothing get's on the chair?" She grimaces and my eyes widen in shock.
"That bad?" I ask.
"Yes." She holds out her hand and I pull out a pad for the chair that she expertly tucks around the cushion, making it seem part of the cushion other than it's stark white.
She clears her throat before exiting the room and a minute later I see what she means.
This is one of my new patients, while she's a good looking young woman, she doesn't hold a flicker of light compared to Sarina. She struts in, confidently, her bouncing breasts barely contained in her low cut, see through top, her nipples on full display. She's wearing a pleated, black mini skirt that barely covered her standing with high heels on. It reeked of desperation and street walker. It was screaming for attention and reeked of desperation.
"Hello, Ms. Lyle. Please take a seat." I motion to the chair as I grab my clipboard and a pen.
"Please, it's just Ruby, Brian." She says, smiling provocatively.
"Dr. Huller." I reprimand. "It's Dr. Huller, Ms. Lyle, I keep things professional. Now, let's see, last time we left off going over your experience and I'd like you to go into greater detail about how you feel about yourself, now."
I sit there listening and making notes avoiding looking at her for the most part, but when I do my eyes stay on her eyes. I can see out of the corner of my eyes, the way she keeps crossing her legs and making her chest bounce.
Everything she's telling me is screaming, she's a liar. I could probably bet money that she was never ra**d, there's no emotions or cues that a sexual assault survivor would display. Plus, no police report has been submitted, no hospital or medical records, nothing that I have asked for to show her insurance company that I'm charging them correctly.
"Ms. Lyle, did you forget to submit your medical record permission waiver and the copy of the police report to me?" I cut her off while she's telling me about some tattoo she wants to get now because of what she went through.
She pauses and you can see the oh shit run in her mind. "Uhmmm, yeah, can I bring those in next time?"
"Yes, If you don't bring them in with you next time, I can not continue to treat you." I state my stance on the subject firmly and to the point.
"Why? You don't believe me?" She asks, straight faced and acting annoyed.
"Please, do not put words in my mouth. I have to have those to charge your insurance company first of all and to make sure that you are still within the accepted allotted time since the crime for it to be billed correctly. I'm sorry, Ms. Lyle but I do not work for free." I say setting the clipboard and file down.
She stands and steps closer to the desk, bending over it and wiggles her shoulders, "I don't expect you to work for free. We can work something out, I'm sure." She says giving me what she probably thought was a provocative smile.
I smile, "Yes, we can work something out."
I lean forward and press the button to page my secretary.
"Yes, Dr. Huller?"
"Yes, could you please come and get Ms. Lyle. Make sure she gets a copy of her bill."
A few seconds later, my secretary is in there dragging Ms. Lyle out, who's fuming with indignity. I pick up the phone and make a call to the police department and make a report on Ms. Lyle and her actions. When my secretary comes back in, I hand the phone to her so that she can give her recollection of the situation too. I ask the officer if he can look up if there are any incident reports for Ms. Lyle too. He has me wait a few minutes, before letting me know there was a few minor things for traffic and drunk in public, but nothing more.
I thank the man, nodding to my secretary and run my hands through my hair. I could feel something was off about her story. At least I was right in my assumption but damn I'd be kicking my own ass if I was wrong.
After that, I clear my schedule for all Ms. Lyle's future appointments, collect my things and let my secretary know I'm going to the hospital early. She bids me good day and I head to my car.
"That was a good show you put on earlier, Dr. Huller." Ms. Lyle's voice comes from behind me, right as I'm unlocking my door.
"Ms. Lyle, It was not a show. Now leave the premises and do not come back, or I will press charges." I say turning and climbing into my car. She huffs and stands in front of my car, refusing to leave. I turn on the car, dial the police department again and ask to be transferred to the officer I spoke to only ten minutes ago. I inform him of what is going on at the moment and her refusal to move. He offers to send an officer to help out and I thank him.
She stands there and keeps saying something, but I just turn the music up in the car, so I don't have to listen to it. When the officer shows up, she flips me off and starts walking away but the cop is quick to stop her from getting away. He has a partner with him so I quickly ask if I need to stick around since I did have other patients to go see. I was waved off after showing my identification, and explaining the problem to them and they told me they would handle the situation.
I drive over to the hospital and take care of my two patients there, before heading to the nursing home David was at.
"Hey Doc! How ya doing?" David greets me while I'm walking through the back door by the garden space.
"Hey David. Who's keeping you company today?" I ask noticing the woman in scrubs right next to him. "Wait, is your name Alyssa?"
She smiles warmly at me as David nods, "Yep, Sarina told you about her?"
"She did, it's nice to meet you ma'am."
"Nice to meet you too, Doctor Huller. I'll leave you two be, I've got to get to my patients inside." She places a kiss on David's cheek and nods before going back inside.
David is all smiles watching her walk back in before turning to me.
"What?" He asks sheepishly as he catches my shit eating grin on my face.
"Nothing, I've never seen you smile like that."
David scoffs, "Come on Doc, you smile the same way when you see my sister. I don't give you any shit over it."
Now it's my turn to scoff, "Oh really?"
"Come on doc, let's go talk about our feelings in a more private setting, yeah?" David takes off towards the doors, making me laugh to myself before following him.
We have a good session and afterwards I just hang out with him for a little bit.
"So David, tell me more about Alyssa?" I ask him, putting my notes away.
"Am I talking to Doc or my brother in law?" David asks.
I chuckle, "I haven't even asked her to marry me yet, but sure brother in law."
David sighs, stretching in his chair, "Ohhh... You know, we dated back in high school right?"
I nod, remembering Sarina telling me about it.
"Well, she went to college out of state and we broke up but remained friends. I always thought it was just for the time she would be in college, you know. That way no hard feelings if either of us partied or something. I wasn't worried about it on my end because my heart belonged to her." He looks down with a sad smile before continuing, "Then she called and told me one day that she met someone and didn't think it was a good idea to keep talking. Then I heard through the grapevine that she was going to get married."
He tilts his head back, something I notice he does when he's overwhelmed with emotions.
He drops his head back down, meeting my gaze with reddened eyes, "I wanted to fly out and stop her or at least see if she still had feelings, but I did not. I was afraid of the rejection if she didn't have feelings for me anymore. That's when I first started fucking up. I felt so lost, all my plans, my dreams for the future, they all revolved around her being in my life with me. That's when I almost bankrupted the company, I just didn't care and made some bad choices on taking contracts too low, not enough of them, you know." He shakes his head and sighs.
"None of that matters now though. She's here with me now. They got divorced because he cheated on her but she told me she never really stopped loving me to begin with."
"So how do you feel about it now?" I probe a little further.
He looks at me, smiling, "There's no way to explain how much it means to me, Brian." His eyes start glistening, "I just wish I could..." He stops, choked up and begins to cough. I grab the trash can and grab his water for him to sip on.
After a few minutes his coughing has calmed down and he sighs heavily. "You know doc, life is short, you better marry my sister and start making your lives together. My one regret in this life that I have is that before the car accident happened, I should have flew out to see her. If I had just shown up, she would've been mine instead, but I was a coward. However, I'm grateful that she's here with me right now. That I never left her heart, just like she never left mine."