The Virgin

Chapter One - Kate

"Nice work, everyone," I say, handing my nurse the newest in high-tech surgical lasers. "Now, go home and get some rest. Tomorrow we do it all over again."

I exit my O.R. as Frank Sinatra sings the last stanza of New York, New York. All surgeons have their "go to" surgery music and mine is any song sung by Frank Sinatra. He has a boldness that is contagious and when someone's life is in my hands a little extra faith in oneself never hurt. My name is Kate Matthews. I'm twenty-nine years old and North America's leading neurosurgeon. I am also the youngest practicing neurosurgeon in the world, performing cutting-edge surgery on patients who have been given little to no chance to live. I love life and my life is my job.

While my patient is transferred to ICU, I give his family the good news that their patriarch is in stable condition, and that we expect a full recovery. They hug me and thank me. In the end, I'm just doing my job - the best job ever. Have I already mentioned how much I love my job?

"Hey, Kate, let's get a drink," Mark says to me, snapping my bra. Mark Friendly, R.N., my surgical nurse of choice, adolescent friend I never had, and general pain in my ass. He always gets a drink post surgery and he always asks me to join him. I never do.

"Oh come on. You and thus we, never take a break. Don't you feel the walls closing in on us?"I look around at the bustling halls: nurses admitting patients, doctors tending to wounds, and families hugging one another. How does he not see what I see? These white walls, which are supposedly closing in on us are pristine and hold within them the possibility of scientific advancement.

"Mark," I turn to him and give him my best in disappointed looks, "how does one justify taking a break from saving a life?"

"Doesn't mean we can't have a life," he scoffs.

"Really? I guess I didn't get that memo...ever."

Mark always stares at me when we work. He claims he is in love with me, but really he is in love with the idea of me. He has a type and I'm not it, so he flirts with me and pretends I'm his perfect woman when really I'm nowhere close to what he really likes: a woman that drinks, has lots of sex, makes vulgar jokes, and if given the opportunity would quit her job and run off to Fiji with him, just because he asked.

OK, now he's staring a little too intently.

"What?" I bark.

"You know you'll be on it. One drink isn't going to change that."

I pretend not to know what he's talking about.

"On what?" I ask, while signing off on one of the many legal documents involved in cutting open someone's brain.

"You know what: the surgery that could define your career and bring international attention to this hospital."

"It will define someone's career," I say to him, gritting my teeth as I swallow the cold hard truth of how the medical field actually works. "Rumor has it they're flying in Dr. Bodhi Wells, so there is nothing to celebrate."

"Bodhi who? Never heard of the number two neurosurgeon in the world."

"Number one," I mutter, pushing down the bubbling resentment deep inside me. The resentment that stems from knowing that a hot surgeon from another country is going to fly into New York and act like he's training me in a technique I basically helped create. Only to fly off the next day to god knows where and taking with him all the glory of completing the newest in laser neurosurgery, because he's in his early forties and because, yes, I'm going to say it: he's a man.

"But you're better looking," Mark says, smiling at me with a childish grin.

"If only that were true," I snap back, feeling a little annoyed that the handsome, playboy, genius, Dr. Bodhi Wells has that on me too.