Rachel set her tennis bag on the floor and leaned it against the ER exam table. “Would you shut the privacy curtain, Jennifer?”

Jennifer pulled the curtain closed. She twirled and her lab coat settled against her body like petals closing. She pointed at Rachel’s knee. “What happened?”

“I dove for a drop shot,” Rachel glanced down. “A quick physics lesson. And a reminder that I’m made of flesh and blood.”

You sure are, thought Jennifer, blushing inwardly. “Hop up on the table. I’ll get you cleaned up.”

“That isn’t why I’m here. I wanted to run an idea by you.”

“Okay,” Jennifer said, pulling on latex gloves. “You can tell me while I work on your leg.” She opened an alcohol wipe and gestured for Rachel to sit.

The paper on the exam table crinkled beneath Rachel’s weight.

Jennifer put her glasses on. She stepped on a pedal, which raised the exam table, and she sat on a stool, eye-level with Rachel’s knee. Her pulse quickened. She’d lied to Rachel. She wasn’t worried about this minor flesh wound. Getting a chance to peek up her boss’s tennis outfit had manifested, and she was going to take advantage of it. Every day, Rachel came into the hospital wearing a low-cut top and a tight skirt; her ass was firm but well-proportioned; the straps of her brassiere buried into her flesh, the cups striving to cradle her cumbersome casabas. The treasure between this woman’s legs was concealed beneath so much lace and consequence.

Rachel shyly tucked the pleats of her skirt, blocking any view. “It’s good you’re sitting down,” Rachel said. “This idea of mine is a little nutty.”

Jennifer debated whether to stall and wait for Rachel to move her hand.

“The idea involves you,” Rachel said, “and it’s a lot to ask.”

“So ask,” said Jennifer, frustrated. She put a bandage on the cleansed wound and lightly pressed her thumb to secure the adhesive.

Rachel closed her eyes. “I need you to help me handcuff Baltimore to his desk chair.”

Jennifer stood. She removed her gloves and threw them away. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Payback?”

“I’m wondering if Baltimore wouldn’t pay very good money for you and me to handcuff him to a chair.”

“That’s true—I suppose.”

“We’d be giving him a cheap thrill. Or even worse, a free one.”

“But,” Rachel said. “What if we tortured him?”

“Sure,” said Jennifer sarcastically. “I’ll grab a pair of pliers and you get the duct tape.”

“Well, what if we don’t have to lay a finger on him?”

“Like what, a staring contest?”

“Exactly,” Rachel said. “Baltimore. Staring at us.”

“As we do... what?” said Jennifer.

“Each other?” said Rachel. She put her hands on her thighs and drew her knees together.

Jennifer’s blood pressure spiked. She shook her foot free from her black leather clog—the air outside the shoe cooled her foot off, relaxing her.

“Or,” Rachel said, sliding off the exam table—“just forget I said anything. This idea is incredibly unprofessional and merely proposing it is illegal.”

As Rachel moved to grab her tennis bag, Jennifer placed her hand on Rachel’s abdomen, which made her stand up straight and square her shoulders.

“I get it,” Jennifer said. “Baltimore is crafty—which means being two steps ahead of him isn’t enough. We have to be on a completely different plane.”

“Don’t feel obligated,” Rachel said. She took Jennifer’s hand. “I was coming to you as a friend. I forgot that I’m your colleague, which completely changes the dynamic.”

“You certainly caught me off guard.” Jennifer slipped her foot back into her shoe. “As your friend—and because I wouldn’t mind seeing Baltimore knocked down a few pegs—I’d be more than happy to help.” Good God Rachel was sexy in her tennis outfit: tight, low-cut tank top attached to a pleated skirt, producing a single, practical athletic garment. Which meant there were two ways to take it off: dropped to the floor, or pulled over her head. Unless, of course, the shorts were sewn into the garment. Were they called shorts? Tennis panties? That didn’t sound right.

“Are you completely sure?” Rachel asked.

“I am,” said Jennifer. “When you’re ready to do this, I’ll...”

“Oh—I didn’t even say,” Rachel said. “It has to be now.”

Jennifer pocketed her hands in her lab coat. “Why now?”

“Are you in the middle of anything?”

“Well, no.”

“Good.”

“But I’m curious,” said Jennifer, “why can’t this wait?”

Rachel took a deep breath. “I had the IT guy install software to record Baltimore’s browser history. At four to five on Wednesdays he consistently visits a sex video website, Czechoutmyjunk.com, which features Czech women with sizeable behinds. And Czech men with large testicles.”

Jennifer looked at her watch. “It’s almost four.”

“Which is why I’m here,” said Rachel. “I’ve got the keys to Dr. Spalding’s office. We can sneak up on Baltimore if we come in from the balcony.”

“And then what?”

“Once we have him handcuffed to his chair, we’ll have free rein.”

“I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “Before we storm in there and catch Baltimore jerking off...”

“He won’t be,” said Rachel. “I have it on good authority he waits to finish... until he’s home. His mind is a portable hard drive. Anyway, he’s probably just sitting there questioning some poor girl about fishing and bicycle repair to see if he can be the first person to get a camgirl to cancel a session out of boredom or confusion.”

“That sounds like Baltimore,” said Jennifer. “But how are we going to be torturing him? Won’t he just download our little performance and replay it later in his mind?”

Rachel held her hands out, like a film director. “Picture Baltimore gawking at his computer screen, asking some college girl to spank herself while miming winning the Tour de France. There’s going to be some amount of rubbing involved.”

“And cuffing him,” said Jennifer, “removes relief from the menu.”

“Right. And because the two of us are going to be his surprise entertainment, there should be a considerable intensification of interest.”

“This is good. But we need a blueprint." Jennifer was really getting into this; her mind was reeling. "If we’re trying to drive him crazy by making massive amounts of blood rush to his dork, we've gotta get him just to the point of shooting off in his briefs, and keep him there, for as long as we can. His balls’ll be bluer than Neptune!”

“I’m in your hands,” said Rachel. “It sounds like you’ve done this before.”

“I haven’t,” said Jennifer innocently. “But every girl daydreams.”

“So—where do we start?”

“When we walk in, Baltimore is going to be in a heightened state of arousal. We have to choose our words carefully. Maintain eye contact. Don’t frown and don’t smile. We’ll approach him slowly, together, and calmly cuff his hands to his chair. Once he’s restrained, we’ll ask him what he would like us to do to one another. A lot of vague, unanswerable questions.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Okay,” said Jennifer. “Pretend this stool is Baltimore. Now step over here.” Jennifer took Rachel’s arm and put her in position. “I would say something like, ‘What do you want from me? My body? Both of our bodies? Beginning where? Here?’” Jennifer exposed her midriff. With the pad of her index finger, she traced the rim of her belly button. “’Or should I start with your boss?’” Jennifer moved to the other side of Rachel. “’The musk of a powerful woman is irresistible, isn’t it?’” Jennifer lifted Rachel’s arm and swiped a DNA sample. She closed her eyes, raised her fingers to her nostrils and inhaled. “’My brain is saying she and I are a match.” Jennifer slipped her arm around Rachel but kept her focus forward. “Do you believe me? You can check my panties if you’d like.’”

“Jennifer,” said Rachel. “You said you’ve never done this before.”

“I haven’t,” Jennifer said. “It’s just unbelievably sexy you don’t wear deodorant when you work out.”

"You know exactly what to say, don’t you?”

“Something became clear to me, when I was going to college. In any given sexual situation, you should picture the obvious next step and then add as many steps as you can before performing the next move. Think of more sexy little steps as you go, and stuff them wherever they'll fit. Don’t worry about timing. Just stay in the moment and be confident. The person you’re seducing isn’t going to forget where all of this is leading. Adding well-proportioned courses to a meal enhances any entree.”

“But Baltimore isn’t going to get an entree tonight,” said Rachel.

“He won’t even get a piece of bread. He’ll sit there and watch us eat and eat and satisfy ourselves until he’s doubled over, begging us to stop.”

“Damn, you have daydreamed about this.”

It began to rain once Rachel and Jennifer stepped over the partition on the balcony between the two offices.

“Let’s do this,” said Jennifer.

The two women entered the office, each with a set of handcuffs. They pulled the doctor’s hands behind his back and cuffed his wrists to the arms of the chair. Rachel swiped a bottle of pills from Baltimore’s jacket.

Jennifer pointed at the computer screen. “He’s not on a porn site. He’s playing solitaire.”

“Same difference,” said Baltimore, spinning around in his chair, revealing that he had a full-on erection.

Rachel tore off a length of duct tape and sealed Baltimore’s mouth.

Baltimore gaped cartoonishly at Rachel’s cleavage. He inhaled and exhaled loudly through his nose.

“Yeah, drink it in,” said Jennifer. “We wanna see that knob twitching in your chinos.”

Rachel handed Jennifer a pill. “You ever take speed before?”

“You ever have midterms before?” She took the pill and swallowed it dry.

The pills were prescribed to Dr. Baltimore, even though it was clear he didn’t have ADHD. They made him one of the top surgeons in the country. A different way of saying this was: without them, he couldn’t tweeze his own nosehairs.

Rachel pulled a mobile whiteboard across the room. “Would you like to begin this afternoon’s lesson, Dr. Tanner?”

Jennifer adjusted the lever on Dr. Baltimore’s chair to keep it from spinning. She got on her knees and locked the wheels in place. She tugged on the fabric of Baltimore’s pants tent and whispered: “You boys ever watch A Clockwork Orange?”

“I have to run to my office,” said Rachel, and she ran out, slamming the door behind her.

“I guess we’re alone, now.” Jennifer pulled a chair around and sat. “You’re probably wondering what’s gotten into us.”

Baltimore shrugged. His erection waggled.

“What would happen if someone walked in and saw us, right now? Probably not much. We’re not really doing anything. But,” Jennifer slid her butt forward on her chair. “What if I were touching myself?” Jennifer lay her fingers on the soft fabric of her slacks. "Would this set off any alarms?"

The flagpole stiffened.

“If someone so much as touched the door handle,” Jennifer said, “I could sit up in my chair and everything would appear normal. Well, everything but you looking like Patty Hearst. Which makes me wonder if I should risk it and show you more.” Jennifer unbuttoned her slacks and pulled on the zipper. “There. Now we’d get in some trouble.” Jennifer unzipped the rest of the way. Her panties were light pink, like cotton candy. She slid her middle finger down...

Baltimore moaned through the duct tape, and strained against the handcuffs.

“Have you ever smelled two women on the same digit?” Jennifer made a fist and raised her middle finger, examining it. “If my fingerprint were a crime scene, forensic scientists would have zero trouble placing me and Rachel where it all went down.”