GARY W. SHOCKLEY

DR. BORG

I ALMOST STOP DIALING. I don't want to do this. I don't. But it's been eight
days, and the strange symptoms persist.

"Ukiah Medical Center. May I help you?"

"Uh. Yeah. I'd like to make an appointment."

"Your doctor?"

"I don't currently have one."

"I see. Let me check here...."

I know what she's doing. She's looking for the newest member of the staff. I'm
guinea pig material.

"May I ask who your insurance provider is?"

"I don't have health insurance," I say, feeling like a criminal and a victim at
the same time.

"I see. Well...."

"Is that a problem?"

"Oh, no, no. No problem. Okay, I have a Dr. Borg who can see you tomorrow at
nine-thirty."

"Who?"

"Dr. Borg."

Despite my dark mood, I chuckle. "First name `The'? Big Star Trek fan?"

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Nine-thirty tomorrow is fine. Thank you."

I get to the clinic twenty minutes early. I figure they'll hit me with one of
those Alzheimer tests. You know, the form that asks for your complete medical
history, all the shots you've ever had (Last Tetanus booster? Before the Saturn
V, I jot), all the diseases (Hepatitis? Sure. TB? Uh-huh. Diphtheria? Of course.
Ebola? You betcha), and I flunk royally, not a clue, can't even remember my home
phone number.

A young woman hired for grunt work calls me into the back area, where she takes
my weight (158), blood pressure (120/80), and temperature (98.6). Escorting me
to a vacant room, she says, "Okayyy, wait here and Dr.--" She squints hard at
her clipboard and gives a shudder."--Borg will be right with you."

"Excuse me," I say before she can slip away. "Is this Dr. Borg new here?"

"Oh, couple of weeks. But she's --" She glances over her shoulder. "--gaining a
reputation. You're...in good hands." With another shudder she steps out and
closes the door.

A woman doctor. I knew it. I just knew it. My last two doctors were women, and
both tried to kill me. There was the "Take these and call me in a week," from a
Dr. Kinski based in Eugene, Oregon, giving me two bottles, one with an explicit
warning on the back not to be used in conjunction with the other. Then there was
the infamous rectal exam in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, wherein a Dr. Lamsky
sought to set a new speed record for withdrawal. Hearing the thwup, I was
engulfed in white light shot through with stars, attended by excruciating pain
lasting minutes, through which, faintly, I heard her say, "Sorry."

Alone in the room, I try to allay my fears. Maybe she'll be ugly. I've been to
college. I know how it works. All those pretty young things flocking about the
professor, saying, "Oh please, please, please, I missed all the questions
because my pencil broke!" and the professor, charmed by their attentions, agrees
to look into the matter, opening the floodgates for countless beautiful inepts
to move on, filling professional positions.

Just maybe, if this one's ugly, she'll be competent. Though fresh-flown-in with
jet-lag and a hangover from reed-school graduation late last night, maybe she'll
do all right with her first-ever patient.

There's a light knock, then the door opens, and in steps a tall, busty,
wasp-waisted woman who introduces herself as Dr. Borg while brushing back thick
bangs from gorgeous hazel eyes and I know I'm going to die.

I rise, trembling, to shake her hand.

"How are we today?" she asks.

"Well, I seem to have a prob --"

"Uh!" She raises a finger. "No hints please. Let me figure it out."

She opens cabinets and drawers, pulling forth an astonishing array of
instruments, and these she begins attaching to me, putting gizmos on herself as
well, and it is the long monocular attachment that decides me.

"You're a Star Trek fan, aren't you," I say.

Her eyes--or eye, the one without the elongate monocle -- brightens. "Oh, I love
the show. Original, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, doesn't matter. And
you?"

I've trapped myself. Honesty prevails. "Actually, I can't stand the stuff.
`Forehead Theater,' I call it. I mean, the makeup's gotten better, but still --
Aliens? They're costumed humans. And the plots? Can you say formula? And then
there's Babylon 5 and company pretending to be different, only they're not,
they're not." I laugh pathetically, then pause, seeing her scowl and the
hypodermic needle behind it. I swallow hard. "Just kidding. I love the stuff."

Well, she attaches still more devices to herself and to me, and while some of it
is familiar, like the blood pressure gauge and the stethoscope and the ear
thingy, there's a lot I just can't fathom. I'm standing and she's standing too,
and we're only two feet apart enmeshed in tubes with my blood pumping through
them and who knows, maybe hers; and I'm breathing into a transparent bag and so
is she, maybe the same air, and it's like we've become this bizarre little
biosphere that, that ....

She steps closer, monocle almost touching me. "Now, Mr. Shockley," she says with
a serious set to her jaw. "We must dance as we have never danced before."

I have to laugh. This is getting too weird. "Dance? Sorry. I don't."

"If you don't dance, how am I to get an accurate metabolic -- ?"

"I don't dance!" I say.

"Well, then," she hisses, grabbing my hand and shoulder, eye aglare just off the
port brow. "Maybe it's time you learned!"

She leads, I follow. As we pass by the pulsemeter, she turns it all the way up.
Our heartbeats pound through the room, sending framed credentials crashing to
the floor.

We dance to the intersection of our pulses. At their sluggish start, we
slow-dance. As they pick up, so, too, do we. Our pulses intertwine, slip apart,
losing and refinding each other countless times in the creation of a microcosm
of rhythms, all danceable, as we dare to prove.

"You're limping," she breathes.

"Well, I--"

"Don't! Don't tell me anything."

We dance onward. Some of the dances I recognize. Most are just a blunder of
steps. I remember spinning her, and her me, though it seems impossible in our
instrumented cocoon. All the while our hearts beat louder and faster still.
Waltz, jitterbug, boogie, twist. Polka, fandango, disco, cachucha.

Ballet. Now that one is the worst.

"I think I'm dying," I gasp after a failed pirouette.

Her eyebrows arch. "Let me be the judge of that!"

Finally, mercifully, she turns the pulsemeter off and we glide to a halt. She
looks at me with the slightest smile.

Then, to my great astonishment, she says, "Kinky," as if she can read my mind.
Because this has been one very strange session. But a chimpanzee leaps down from
the top of a cabinet and lopes over to her.

"You have a chimpanzee named Kinky?" I say.

She gives me a cold look while exhuming me from instrument hell. "I would
caution you not to offend him. Besides, he's very smart." She tells the
chimpanzee to bring her pamphlet number 1543, which he does. She hands it to me.

I read the cover. "Ankle Sprains: Healing after the injury and preventing
reinjury."

"But --!"

"Sit down." When I hesitate, she pushes me into a chair. The chimpanzee pulls
off my sandal and sock and starts sucking and chewing on my foot. At first it
hurts, but then it starts feeling rather nice.

"You didn't think it was a sprain because there were no symptoms for eight
hours," she says. "And you were puzzled by the swelling in the other foot as
well, and -- "

She proceeds to list all my symptoms, of which there are many, none mentioned to
her, and for each she gives a credible explanation. She's good. Oh, she is very
very good. And her monkey isn't bad either.

I'm home now, rapidly improving. I'm following the pamphlet to a T. And I'm
thinking of watching some Star Trek. Maybe. Though I'd have to buy a TV. As for
doctors -- especially women ones -- well, I still don't trust them. But they're
not all bad. I found that out the morning I danced with Dr. Borg.