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Back Going Under Save as PDF
Chapters (70)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I BIRTH
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. PART II LIFE
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. TWENTY-ONE
  28. TWENTY-TWO
  29. TWENTY-THREE
  30. TWENTY-FOUR
  31. TWENTY-FIVE
  32. TWENTY-SIX
  33. TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. TWENTY-NINE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. PART III DEATH
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. FIFTY-FIVE
  63. FIFTY-SIX
  64. FIFTY-SEVEN
  65. FIFTY-EIGHT
  66. FIFTY-NINE
  67. SIXTY
  68. EPILOGUE
  69. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  70. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When Dr Prince has finished, I ask the question that has been echoing so loudly in the room though no one has voiced it.

‘Can you save him?’

I realise as soon as I open my mouth that it definitely isn’t my place to ask sensitive questions about sensitive cases. I feel myself blushing as Dr Prince looks up and over the surgical mask, his eyes catching mine. For a brief, startling moment I find myself wondering what he’d be like in the bedroom, rather than the operating theatre. I frown and try to get my brain back on track. Tumour. Operation. Work. Doctors. Life. Death. Important. Stay focused, I tell myself. How can you be thinking about sex at a time like this? But another part of me is thinking that, when you’re a doctor, life and death and sex are intertwined. We are constantly leaping from one extreme peak to the next, with little regard for the abyss below.

My mind rages at me to stay focused, but the battle is already lost. I stand there in my scrubs under the warm lights, next to the unconscious body of Mr Wilde as everyone else contemplates life-saving surgery, and realise I’m experiencing an overwhelming desire to have incredibly long, wild, alcohol-fuelled sex with my fifty-year-old surgical boss. I stand very still, in the most sterile environment in the world, looking into a man’s brain tissue, with a vagina that has betrayed me by suddenly catching on fire. Brain tumour, operation, surgeons, vagina on fire. I leap from death, across to sex, and am brought down to earth with a mighty thud by the Joker replying to my question, even though he’s not the one I asked.

‘He won’t survive an open craniotomy,’ he says, sneering slightly.

‘I can’t get enough out with the ventriculoscope,’ Dr Prince says. ‘The only option is to open him up. Book him on the list for Friday.’

The Joker sinks into sullen silence.

I pull myself and my vagina together immediately, and manage to refrain from jumping in the air and yelling ‘Wahooo!’ as I leave the operating theatre. Dr Prince is like a knight in shining armour, a champion of truth and justice. He is kind of old and could lose a few kilos, I think as I smile at him, but at that moment he is the motherfucking sexiest man I’ve ever seen.

He can be a bit awkward at times, I feel myself fretting as Lawrence and I leave theatres to head back to the ward. I wonder briefly what he’d look like naked. I picture what underwear he’d most like to see me in. Black lace. No, white. G-string? French? Definitely French. God. Maybe it wouldn’t be awkward. Maybe the sex would be really hot. Maybe not even just hot, maybe—