Bawdy Double

A Loving Bottle of Vodka

An excerpt from Bawdy Double

Adult Content

It's almost time to leave, Dr. Zoryana Puskinska thought, anticipating a stiff shot of vodka on the way home. She looked up from the chart she was reviewing to glance out into the waiting room from behind the tinted reception window.

Only two people left to see. But both of such breathtaking beauty that she stared at them. "Kris, who are they?" she whispered.

The receptaclone shook his head. "They wouldn't say," he said in a low voice. "Asked to see you on standby. I told them you had a date at the pub, but they wouldn't take no for an answer."

She didn't know whether to rebuke him for the pub remark or for not telling her about them sooner. "Step this way, please." She retreated far enough into the back room to make sure she wasn't visible from the waiting area, smacked him hard across the cheek, and growled, "Come tell me immediately any time someone like this comes in!"

He cowered, whimpering. "But they told me not to!"

And she cuffed him again. "You work for me, not them! You do what I say!" She took one step past him and sank her elbow into his kidney as hard as she could. "And don't ever spread my business about town!"

He slid down the wall to the floor.

Composing herself, she stepped toward the waiting room. "I'm Doctor Zoryana Puskinska. How about we go into an exam room for confidentiality?" She gestured the magnificent couple to a short hallway opposite the entrance.

Her receptaclone was just crawling back into his chair at the reception window, struggling for breath.

"No more appointments today," she told him.

"Yes, Doctor," Kris whispered, a clear imprint of her hand across his cheek.

I hope I inflicted some kidney damage, too, she thought. She entered behind the couple and pulled the exam door closed. "Names, please?"

The couple exchanged a glance, each so exemplary in face and physique that the Doctor nearly melted.

"Frederick Andropovich," the man said.

"Katarina Satsanova," the woman said.

From the way they sat and how they'd glanced at each other, Zoryana assumed they were married. They were so well matched that they were destined to be lovers. Such a joining could only end in tragedy! she thought. "My apologies for the brevity, but I have an appointment with a shot of vodka. You're not here for cosmetic facial surgery." They're too good-looking for surgery!

Again, that glance between them, more said in a single look than strangers might exchange in a long conversation.

"Well, actually, we are," Katarina said. "My cousin, the new Premier, is so similar to me in appearance that I've been mistaken for her over twenty times since my aunt's assassination. Terribly inconvenient."

Belatedly, Dr. Puskinska recognized her. A still shot of the new Premier and her beau, taken moments before the attack, had been published galaxy-wide, both of them vexatiously handsome, both of them deeply engrossed in each other. Premier Satsanova's husband was rumored to be filing for divorce, citing the now-famous still shot as proof of his wife's infidelity, the new Premier embattled on several fronts, her political enemies capitalizing on her personal travails.

"How different do you want to look?" Zoryana asked, glancing between them. She wondered how Frederick had managed to look so much like the other man, the one whom the new Premier was having the torrid affair with, whose name Zoryana couldn't quite recall. In Dr. Puskinska's business, too many questions—especially questions of the wrong sort—tended to deter customers. And these two, Zoryana thought, they reek of wealth!

Again, the couple glanced at each other. "What you can do?" Frederick asked.

Dr. Puskinska looked at him directly, and in that moment recognized him. He looks just like Captain Fadeyka Andropovich, the Admiral's profligate son, the one who'd finally landed at Brygidki Prison after a series of lurid scandals. No wonder he wants to change his face! "I can show you a vid of before-and-after stills, but they won't include my most famous clientele." She smiled. "Those with shyness toward the interstellar authorities."

"Perfect," Katarina said.

"Why don't I leave you with this sample vid, and Kris the receptaclone can make you an appointment for consult, say, next week?"

The couple exchanged yet another glance.

Zoryana was getting annoyed, the two of them sharing an intimacy that made her jealous. How I wished I was intimate with someone on that level! she thought.

"Any sooner than that, please?" Frederick asked.

"For half the time, the price will double."

"And the surgery?" Katarina asked.

Dr. Puskinska shrugged, suppressing a scream. She wanted to run to the pub to drown her loneliness, but this insufferably intimate pair wouldn't let her. "A month out, easy. You want it sooner, you pay more. Ask around. I'm the best and worth the money." Then she smiled. "Here, I'll start the vid. When you're done, see Kris. Thank you so much for coming in."

Zoryana shook hands with them both, a thrill coursing through her as Frederick stood to see her out, the front of his allsuit taut with the ample sample behind it.

Leaving her clinic, instead of going to the pub, Dr. Puskinska had a gallon of vodka and a young escoriant delivered to her home, needing a fire hose to douse her sorrows.

The male escort variant was the perfect accompaniment to the gallon of vodka, and she reveled the evening away in their company, getting thoroughly lubricated. When the escoriant suggested a rather risqué position, she was happy to let him minister to her. The upended, quarter-full bottle firmly ensconced between her widespread legs, the escoriant lowered his lips to the region and did what she'd paid him to do. Soon afterward, she drifted off to sleep.

When she didn't show up at her clinic the next day, they found her in that position, her body cold.

Making love to a gallon of vodka.