Just A Smile

Chapter 7 : A Small Massage

Max hadn't had a minute of break of the entire day. Her lunch was a sandwich in the corridor in direction of her next patient. She hated and loved days like that. It was exhausting days, but after a day like that she was always proud of her for making progress all her patients. She arrived late at her appointment with her last patient of the day, by luck, it was Gary.

- "Sorry Gary, I kept running all day!"

- "It's okay, boss, I can wait if it's you who is coming."

- "Good. (sits in front of him) How are you today?" Max asked while she was opening his file.

- "I'm fine, ready to walk again," he smiled.

- "Yeah? How did you sleep?"

- "Great, like a baby."

- "And you didn't feel sick yesterday?"

- "No, why?"

- "Because the nurse told me that you threw up after our session. And you didn't sleep a lot after that."

The man paled and looked down like if he was ashamed or embarrassed. Max wasn't surprised, he wasn't the first one who tried to hide his pain to act strong and he wouldn't be the last one.

- "Gary, I can't help you if I don't know how you feel. Why not telling me that you were sick yesterday? It's the kind of things that I need to know, it means that I asked you too much yesterday, I can change the exercises."

- "I didn't want you to think I'm weak..." the man mumbled.

- "If I think that, then I should find another job. I had several patients in my short life, and they were all different, but at no moment I thought that one of them was weak. You're disabled, not weak or lazy or whatever people can say!"

- "Yeah..."

- "I'm not here to judge you, okay?"

- "Okay, okay...It's just, I was worried that you would think I wouldn't be...you know, be good enough for you..."

- "Gary, I never bring work at home," Max joked with a serious tone.

- "That's rude!" the man stated with an amused tone.

Max lightly chuckled which made smile the man.

- "More seriously, Gary, you're my patient, nothing can happen between us."

- "You prefer Jane anyway, right?"

- "I...I think we are digressing from the subject," Max smiled. "Shall we begin?"

- "Sure."

Now that things were cleared, Max could work correctly with Gary. The man stopped acting like if he wasn't feeling pain which allowed Max to have a better point of view of his physical aptitude and his mental. She knew his strong points and weak points. At the end of the session, she advised him to talk about this with his psychologist, he would have better advice for him than her. She said goodbye to him and went to the staff room to finish her day. Some of her colleagues were there, sadly, it wasn't the ones who she had the most affinity with.

- "Just imagine having sex with one of them!" the blonde boy said with a proud smile.

- "Ew," the black-haired girl answered before chuckling. "That's disgusting, I'm sure they dribble when they are doing it, they can't focus on every part of their body like a normal person!"

- "And their moans! By hearing the creepy noise they make when they're doing their exercises, in bed it must be cringing!"

While they were laughing, Max was boiling. It was unbearable to listen to, she already knew they were weird, but now they were going too far.