“My upper lip itches,” Penny complained. “I feel like my nose is running.”
“It’s your moustache,” Miss Carridge cackled.
“I don’t have a moustache!” Penny snapped back. “I’m very careful to use a depilatory regularly. I’ve never had a moustache!”
“Well, you do now,” the nurse told her. “A great big, black bushy one.”
“Nonsense,” the doctor said kindly. “Here, take a tissue.” He passed Penny a Kleenex.
Penny blew Pennington P. Potter’s nose. “It still feels like there’s something there. You didn’t give me hormones or anything to make me grow hair on my upper lip, did you?”
“No hormones,” Dr. Kilembrio was reassuring.
“Unless she’s been hurt,” Miss Carridge quipped, off and musing in her own sadistic dream-world.
“I don’t feel any stitches there.” Penny was surprised. “It doesn’t hurt at all. But my head aches a little.”
“Wait! Your headaches are just starting,” Miss Carridge opined.
“The headache is soon going away,” Dr. Kilembrio told her. “And the stitches in the groiny parts you shouldn’t worrying about.”
“I’d like to sit up,” Penny said.
“Why not? Miss Carridge, helping the patient should sit up.”
Miss Carridge helped Permy to a sitting position.
“Now my chest itches,” Penny said. “It feels hairy too.” Penny reached under the covering sheet to scratch. “It is hairy! And there’s something missing!” Penny noticed.
“What powers of observation!” Miss Carridge commented.
“Now, don’t be alarmed,” Dr. Kilembrio told Penny.
“Don’t be alarmed? What do you mean don’t be alarmed? Where are my breasts? What have you done with my breasts?” Hands groped frantically under the sheet. “My breasts have been amputated!”
“Not really,” the doctor started to explain. “You see -”
“What do you mean ‘not really’? They’re gone! What kind of sadistic quack are you anyway? I come in here for a simple little abortion and you amputate my breasts. Malpractice!” Penny screeched hysterically. “I’m going to sue you for medical malpractice!”
“Now what do you wanting to make such a big stink over a little titty for?” Dr. Kilembrio was conciliatory.
“Little, my eye! They were my best feature! I was damned proud of those breasts! What right did you have to remove them without even consulting me for permission?”
“Removing them I didn’t--”
“No? Then where are they? Answer me that? What have you done with them? Do you do bosom-swapping operations on the side? Did you go and peddle my bosom to some flat-chested girl? Did you steal my breasts without so much as a thanks for the mammary?” Penny shrieked. “Why did you do it?” This last shouted directly at Dr. Kilembrio.
“In an emergency situation, there was no time to asking permission about a lot of things. Understanding you should have. Whatever I’m doing is the only way to saving your life.”
“Well, you are the doctor,” Penny subsided, although still grumbling. “I suppose I’ve got no choice but to go along with whatever you thought was necessary.”
“Exactly.” Dr. Kilembrio flatulated with relief.
“My bladder feels very full,” Penny said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Here comes the moment of truth,” Miss Carridge said.
“Nurse. Take the patient to the bathroom,” Dr. Kilembrio instructed.
Miss Carridge escorted Permy to a door at the far end of the cellar. When the door had closed behind Penny, the nurse turned and faced Dr. Kilembrio with her fingers stuck significantly in her ears. The precaution was well taken. They hadn’t long to wait. Then Penny’s scream—-more a deep-throated howl, really—resounded and the door burst open.
“What is this?!” Penny stood quivering in the doorway, waving the phallic evidence with one hand as if trying to rip it free from its moorings.
“Well, it isn’t bigger than a breadbox,” Miss Carridge noted.
“What have you done to me?”
“Now just keep calm,” Dr. Kilembrio suggested.
“Calm! Calm! You’ve pulled a reverse Christine on me and you expect me to keep calm! Just what am I supposed to do with this?” Penny shook the offending instrument vigorously.
“Oh, surely you’ll think of something,” Miss Carridge said sweetly.
“Don’t be so rough!” Dr. Kilembrio cautioned. “You’re not used to handling it like most men are. You could hurting yourself if you don’t be more gentling.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want it!”
“Would you like me to cut it off for you?” A gleam came into Miss Carridge’s eyes.
“I’m a woman!” Penny walled. “I was born a Woman! I’ve been a woman all my life! What do I know about being a man?”
“So you’ll be finding out,” the doctor answered. “But not if you don’t stop with the manhandling your manhood that way. Is not a yo-yo you should see how fast you could shaking it.”
“What am I going to do?”
“For a starter,” Miss Carridge interjected, “why not go back into the bathroom and do what you went in there to do in the first place?”
“All this activity is probably making that even more urgent,” the roly-poly medico added.
“You’re right,” Penny admitted, hysteria subsiding momentarily. She went back into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
“A tinkle is making her feel better,” the doctor said hopefully.
A moment later, his hopes were dashed. Penny came storming out in tears. “There must be something wrong! It doesn’t work right!”
“Really?” The doctor was thoughtful. “What seems to be the troubling?”
“It’s like a hose that goes out of control and sprays every which-way!”
“Get hold of yourself,” Miss Carridge advised.
“When I sit down, it points up,” Penny complained. “Is because of all the shaking you do,” Dr. Kilembrio told her. “You shaking like that so long, and with such energizing, is making for tumescence. Leave alone a little, it’s relaxing. Besides,” he added, “what do you mean you’re sitting down?”
“Well in order to—Well, naturally when I-—Dammit! I always sit down!”
“When you’re a woman, yes. But a man isn’t sitting. This you’ve got to get straight in your mind. A man is tinkling erect.”
“Erect, Doctor?” Miss Carridge wanted to know.
“No. Not erect that way. I’m meaning standing up. Vertical for the tinkle, having a seat for the other.”
“But I’m afraid I’ll miss,” Penny confessed, turning brick-red.
“Well, first you’re raising the toilet seat, no? Is making the target bigger.”
“I never thought of that,” Penny said.
“And then you’re getting a good grip and aiming. Is not so hard when it’s not so hard.”
“Do I use one hand, or both?”
“Is strictly a matter of personal expertise in the long running. Some fellows-in my estimating they’re show-offs-—are tinkling with hands behind the back.”
“Look, Ma, no hands,” Miss Carridge interjected.
“But this I’m not thinking you’re ready for yet,” Dr. Kilembrio continued. “My advice is to start slow and using both hands. Later, when you’re handling better, you could use maybe one only.”
“Which one?” Penny wondered.
“Which one?” The doctor thought about it. “If you’re right-handed, the right hand initialing. Later you’re switching off maybe for the sake of variety. But you’re starting slow.”
“The way it feels now,” Penny confessed, “I’m not sure I’ll be able to start slow. But I’ll do my best!” Penny dived for the bathroom and once again the door was slammed closed.
Dr. Kilembrio and Miss Carridge both cocked their heads to hear with the pragmatic detachment of scientists checking out the first results of an experiment. But whatever they might have heard was drowned out by the loud pounding on the door at the top of the stairs. The banging was accompanied by the high-pitched, hysterical voice of Mrs. Potter.