sabremeister | HS&S:WT Short (Reply)

Playing Doctor

"And stay out!" The door slammed shut, but not after a saucepan had clanged off the cobbles of the street that Max was now standing rather sheepishly on. His wife wasn't all that fond of him anyway, and now, in these circumstances...

As a physician's assistant, Max was quite a respectable figure about town. He wasn't as knowledgeable about illnesses and the processes of the body as his master, Doctor Steppan, but he was knowledgeable enough. He was also rather more approachable than the rather stuffy Doctor, and as a consequence, was tutoring three young men from the army about wound treatment.

To thank him for their tuition, the three young men had practically dragged him out for a night on the town. It had gone smoothly, no one had got drunk enough to be ill, and somehow, despite them being soldiers, not one of them had suggested accepting the solicitations of the whores in the taverns they had been to. The problem stemmed from what happened afterwards.

The four of them had been wandering somewhat drunkenly around the further reaches of the city when the first spots of rain fell, shortly accompanied by some thunder. It sobered them all up considerably when it began raining in earnest moments later. They realised that they were a long way from barracks (or in Max's case, home), and decided to head to the abode of one of the soldier's family. It was so late at night that it was early in the morning, but the soldier in question, Peter, assured them that as long as they were quiet when they got in, no-one would mind. So, they hurried down a few streets, Peter stopped them at a particular door, carefully opened it, they crept in, and the door was closed. Peter found them some blankets, and they all slept on floor of the main room.

They were awoken not long past sun-up by footsteps coming down stairs, a gasp, and a little shriek, then a big shriek. After eveyone had jumped up and calmed down, they realised that the source of the noise was Peter's sister, Beatrice, who, not expecting guests to be sleeping on the floor of the downstairs, had come unsuspectingly down said stairs, taken fright at the unexpected figures, jumped backwards in shock, and hit her head rather hard on the wall behind her.

Max and the soldiers carried her to the table, hastily made it comfortable by putting a couple of blankets on it first, and Max examined her. She had a mild concussion, so Max asked one of the soldiers to hurry to his home and ask his wife to let them have his work bag.

Half an hour later, while Max was checking Peter's sister's eyes for focus, something which necessitated him standing over her and peering closely at her face, the door opened, and in came the soldier with Max's wife and his work bag. She took one look at the situation, threw the bag at Max's head, shouted something about philanderers, and stormed out.

Max recovered himself enough to finish treating the young lady, including preparing some smelling salts for her. Then he packed up his work bag and hurried home to talk to his wife. Unfortunately, she had taken it into her head that the delay was merely proof that he was sleeping with another woman, and she wouldn't listen to any of his attempts to explain. So she had thrown him out.

Max picked up the duffel bag that contained some of his clothes and most of his books, picked up the pan, and picked up his work bag. He sighed in resignation, and decided that the best course of action would probably be to go to his wife's sister's house and explain the situation, in the hopes that she could calm her down and get her to accept him back.

As he trudged away, he thought to himself that his wife should have a higher opinion of his concealment skills - he was hardly likely to invite her to see him in the act of philandering, even accidentally. And certainly not with the sister of a random soldier who he had been giving instruction to on wound treatment. Especially not when he had been sleeping with Doctor Steppan's much prettier and bustier daughter for the last three years completely without incident.