Doctor On Call

Let me start with Laura Ashworth.

I'm Will. 24. Foundation Year 2 at Addenbrooke's. Been a proper doctor for eighteen months, can run a cardiac arrest, manage a thirty-bed ward, still get treated like I know nothing by every nurse over forty. Get paid roughly minimum wage when you work out the hours and haven't had a proper night's sleep since medical school.

Last week I had a twenty-six-year-old seize during ward round. Brain tumour nobody had spotted. I had about fifteen seconds to decide whether to intubate and I got it right. She lived.

Threw up in the staff toilet after.

Mr James Ashworth, consultant neurosurgeon, never mentioned it. Too busy bollocking an SHO in the corridor for using "pt" instead of "patient" in the discharge summary. I've watched him make registrars cry during handover and last month he blocked someone's specialty training application because they'd questioned his management plan in front of medical students, the phrase he used was "attitude problems."

Cross Ashworth and your career's finished.

The hospital fundraising thing was one of those painful events where they make you buy tickets you can't afford to stand around drinking warm prosecco while consultants' wives pretend to care about the paediatric ward. I was there because attendance was "strongly encouraged."

Ashworth was holding court near the bar, talking to the Medical Director about some research grant, I'd spent the first hour avoiding eye contact.

His wife was standing by the canapé table looking bored.

Mid-forties, blonde, kept shifting her weight in her heels. I watched her calf muscles.

'These salmon things are rank,' she said when I reached past her for a napkin.

'Yeah, everything's rank. Character building or something.'

She laughed properly, not the fundraiser laugh. 'You're one of the junior doctors aren't you?'

'That bloody obvious eh?'

'You look about twelve and you're the only person under thirty not holding a tray.' She held out a hand. 'Laura Ashworth.'

Oh brilliant. Brilliant.

'Will. Foundation Year 2. On neurosurgery, actually. With your...'

'Oh God, poor you.' She pulled a face. 'James is a nightmare at home, can't imagine what he's like there.'

'Demanding. But brilliant, so...'

'Demanding, that's one word for it.' She grabbed another prosecco. 'Sixteen years I've got. Loads of material.'

We ended up in the corner and she was funny, kept touching my arm when she laughed, asked about the job properly, not the usual "must be so rewarding" rubbish. When I told her about the seizure, the intubation, throwing up after, she just said 'Christ, do they pay you for that?'

'Yup, badly.'

'Course they do.' She stared into her glass. 'I used to work. Mergers and acquisitions. Then we had Tom and I just... gave it up, seemed like the thing to do.' She paused. 'Now I'm forty-six and I go to pilates, have lunch, wait for James to remember I exist, which is...' She looked at me. 'How often do you think that happens?'

'Christmas?'

'If there's not an aneurysm, yeah.'

From across the room, Ashworth's pager went off.

Shit.

'Don't worry, he won't bite. Not here anyway.'

'Laura.' Ashworth didn't look at me. 'Subdural. Theatre in twenty.'

'Course there is.' Her smile was wrong. 'Go on then. Save someone.'

He kissed her cheek. 'Don't wait up.'

Then he was gone.

She finished her prosecco. 'Four hours minimum. He'll be there till...' She turned back to me, closer than before. 'James and the hospital, very loving relationship. I'm married to James, so...' She shrugged. 'Bit circular.'

The way she was looking at me.

'I should probably...'

'Should you?' She set down her glass. 'Or should you show me where you lot hide when these things get unbearable?'

This was career suicide.

'The on-call room's not exactly glamorous.'

'I'll survive.'

We slipped out separately and met at the lifts, my brain was screaming at me to stop but also telling me this was actually happening.

The on-call room was grim. Single bed, thin curtains, hospital smell everywhere. She locked the door behind us.

'So this is where you sleep when you're on call?'

'Not much sleeping. Mostly lying awake.'

She came closer, put her hand on my chest. 'You're the same age as my son.'

'Is that meant to put me off?'

'Why, is it working?'

'Nope.'

She kissed me, hands in my hair, pressing herself against me and she tasted like prosecco and expensive perfume and Ashworth was three floors down drilling into someone's skull.

'This is mental. Your husband's my boss.'

'James is three floors down drilling into someone's skull and he'll be there for hours.' She was unbuttoning my shirt. 'Unless you want to stop?'

'No, I'm good. I'm very good actually.'

She pushed me onto the bed, straddled me and her weight settling on top of me was the best thing I'd felt in months. Ran my hands up her thighs over the sheer fabric, up to where it ended and there was bare skin and then lace.

'Fuck, are you wearing suspenders?'

'Thought you might appreciate them.'

She stood up, unzipped her dress. Matching black underwear underneath and those stockings with the suspenders and I was watching this consultant's wife strip in an on-call room while said consultant operated three floors below us.

She knelt down, undid my belt, got my cock out and wrapped her hand round it.

'You've had this going since we left the reception haven't you?'

'Sorry, was it that obvious...'

She took me in her mouth and I actually said "oh Jesus" out loud because it had been six months since anyone had touched me and she was good at this, really good, taking me deep until she gagged then coming up gasping with spit on her chin and lipstick smeared everywhere.

She turned round, got on her hands and knees on the narrow bed, looked back over her shoulder while she pulled her knickers to the side.

'Condom?'

Right. Condom. Jacket. Wallet. Where's my... there. She's just there waiting and I can see everything, the black knickers pulled across and I'm fumbling with the foil like I've never opened one before.

Got it on eventually. Knelt behind her and she was soaked, I could see it, and this was actually happening, I was actually about to have sex with my consultant's wife in an on-call room and my career was over and I didn't care.

Pushed in slowly because otherwise I was going to embarrass myself. So wet. So tight. Had to stop for a moment.

Started moving. My hands on her hips. The suspenders under my fingers, the clips, the straps. Could see where I was going into her, the knickers pulled to the side. Everything at once.

'Harder.'

Tried to. The bed was too narrow, my knee kept hitting the wall, someone was definitely going to hear this, the wet sounds, her breathing. She was dripping, making the nylon stick to her thighs.

My pager was digging into my leg from my trousers on the floor and I had this hysterical thought that if it went off right now I'd just die.

'Yes. God. Yes.'

She came. Went tight around me, bit the pillow. Could feel her clenching and that was it. Done. Gone. Three more thrusts and I was coming so hard I forgot where I was.

We both stayed there for a moment and I could feel her still pulsing round me. My knee hurt.

Pulled out carefully. Dealt with the condom while she collapsed forward. She didn't move. Just stayed there face down.

'You alright?'

'Yeah.' Muffled into the pillow. 'Just... give me a second.'

I sat back. Something was off. Not off. Just different.

Her shoulders were doing this thing.

Oh no.

'Laura?'

'I'm fine.' But her voice came out wrong. 'I'm fine, just...'

She turned her head. Her makeup was everywhere. Not just the lipstick now. Her eyes were wet.

'Shit, did I hurt you?'

'No.' She laughed but it sounded like crying. Sat up slowly, wiping her face. 'No, you didn't hurt me.' Pause. 'God, this is embarrassing.'

'What is?'

'Crying after sex. Very sexy.' She looked at me. 'When did someone last touch me like they actually wanted to?'

Didn't know what to say to that. My consultant's wife was crying in an on-call room after I'd just shagged her while her husband operated downstairs and I was twenty-four years old.

'Sorry.' She was trying to pull herself together. 'Ignore me. Hormones or something.'

But she was still crying. Quiet. Wiping her face with the back of her hand.

Reached for the tissues on the bedside table. Hospital issue. Rough as sandpaper.

'Here.'

She took them. Blew her nose. Laughed, properly this time. 'Christ. Sexy, aren't I?'

'Yeah, actually.'

She looked at me. Then leaned forward and kissed me. Soft. Her face was wet against mine.

When she pulled back, she touched my cheek.

'You're sweet.'

My pager went off. Cardiac arrest ward 7.

'Bollocks.' Grabbed it off the floor. 'I have to go.'

'Course you do.' She stood up, started getting dressed. One of the stockings had a run in it now. She smoothed it down anyway, adjusted the suspender clip.

I was still seeing it. Her on her knees. The way she'd looked over her shoulder. Her face in the pillow. The crying after.

'Your husband's going to destroy my career if he finds out.'

'He won't. James doesn't notice anything that isn't neurosurgery.' She fixed her hair in the mirror over the sink. Nearly back to normal. 'And anyway, worth it.'

'Was it?'

She looked at me in the mirror. 'Ask me on Tuesday.'

Then she was gone.

Ran to the crash call. Patient survived. Wrote it up. Back to the ward. Finished the jobs list. Four hours later, back in the on-call room at two in the morning, found the paper in my jacket pocket.

Her number and "Tuesdays" underneath.

Ashworth did his longest theatre lists on Tuesdays.

Should have thrown it away. Saved the number instead.

Three days later, Sister Matthews walked into the sluice room while I was disposing of a catheter bag and locked the door behind her.

That's when I realised I had a problem.