'Yes,' she said. 'In a second.'

I looked at her, through her horn-rimmed glasses to the place from where she peered at me. She pushed my chin away and up.

'Eyes forward.'

'Hmm,' she said, 'that's all there is...eyes like the sky on a dull grey day. All.'

'I'm not here for therapy,' I said. 'I just want my spray.'

'Asthmatics will go through walls for those damn things,' she said, returning to her chair.

'So,' she said, and nodded, 'what about this weather, huh?'

'Are you going to write the prescription or...'

'Or?' she said and bit her lower lip. 'You want me to give it to you?'

'The spray,' I said. 'The spray for my asthma.'

She stopped gyrating then and stretched back, kicked off her shoes and raised her feet onto the edge of the desk. 'What's that now?' she said. 'Oh, the spray. Yeah.' She began to hike her skirt hipward.

I exaggerated my wheezing, just in way of refocusing the purpose of my visit. When her panties came into view, I coughed.

'OK, OK!' she said. 'Prescription, prescription, prescription. Always with the prescriptions.' She returned her feet to the ground and took a pad from a drawer. 'This is, like, no fun whatsofuckingever. Zero.'

'Sorry,' I said, though unsure why.

I watched, how she lowered her face to within two inches of the pad and began to move the pen. She silently mouthed the words as they appeared on the paper. It looked like the genuine article; scrawl.

'You're not like any doctor I've ever met,' I said.

'You know,' she said, 'people say that. I don't read much into it. Here.' When I reached out to take the prescription she pulled it back.

'Hand it over,' I said, my hand still over the desk and open.

'Trade?'

'No.'

'Take it, take it! Here,' she said, and slapped it down.

'Thanks. I should be go--'

'Damn!' she said. 'I should have listened to your breathing. Where did I put the stethoscope?' She was opening and closing drawers now, rustling through papers and paraphernalia.

'I'll need you to lie down and remove all your clothing,' she said, I think she said; I was on my way out the door by then. As I walked across reception to the exit, I heard her voice -- calm and soft and low -- over the intercom, 'Next patient, please.'

---
16) Nice, French Riviera. There'd been snow the day before in Cannes, nothing seemed right.

The café behind the hotel thrived from before light till after dark. It was where our shifts, or our plans, finally collided. Like a fault line between time zones. I was with my crew, she with hers. Les garçons et les filles. Like a Bollywood confrontational scene, but everyone high. It was rush hour, everyone in a rush to get home, get laid, or just to get drunk. The bar heaved as the evening grew, stools were rearranged; people moved closer, drunks fancied themselves as inconspicuous. By nine, getting to the toilet meant squeezing through a scrum of bodies. Cue our first exchange ...

--'Scusi!
--Nullo problema.
--Grazia.
--Italia?
--Si.
--Ahh. Lago di Como!
--Bellisimmo!

It took her eight secundo to establish that my Italian was limited to place names and bill of fare.

--Stupido! she laughed, and slapped me playfully -- playfully but, like, hard-playful. She reminded me of a fresco I'd seen somewhere, and if I'd spoken Italian I would have told her. That was a real shame because women love to hear stuff like that.

For the duration of our time together we spoke our respective vernaculars, English and Italian. Our French was largely limited to work-related vocabulary: knives and forks, sheets and pillows. She worked in housekeeping; I washed dishes. It didn't only mean different departments: it meant different worlds.

We stood arm to arm as our crews evaporated into the night, forsaking smoky blue clouds for Le Promenade des Anglais. She spoke at length, in an animated fashion, about I do not know what. I listened and nodded. She stroked my face once -- for a second I thought she was going to plant one on my lips right there and then. When the time came I followed her to the exit and into the street. The night was colder than cold has any right to be and the wind screeched along the sea front like it was auditioning for a horror movie. We must have looked like a couple of Medusas. She linked my arm and turned her face into my jacket. I thought we were walking to my place but at the first light a taxi pulled over and she jumped in and was gone. It was like it was planned. Our worlds were worlds apart.

MORE BY KEVIN O'CUINN

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