Dr Jew

myself, practicing the intonation. The acoustics of the place were all wrong. No matter how you label something luxury or try to get it special , the fact remains that other people's things will never have the tight warm fit of your own things, your own way, like the vagina that fit just so.
    She came.
    Even with the ravages of Swine-AIDS upon her – the swollen jaw, glassy hair, and armpit warts – I could see that she was a beauty, would always be beautiful as the disease continued to fell her like a lumberjack working a mighty oak. Yes, I wanted to perforate that asshole. I never conceal about these things. But the light, the temperature, the feng shui of the place and its tacky tropicalia motif, all these conspired to lend me a boyish instability that I hadn't felt in many, many years.
    "Hello, my – "
    I couldn 't remember how it went, how it ended, what I was saying.
    "Hello," she said.
    "Ah, you speak English," I said. Not one of my best aphorisms.
    "Of course. And you are the Jew doctor?"
    I chuckled for her swinish stupidity. "No, Mrs. Simpatico. Methinks you have seen too many of your husband's movies. My name is Dr. Jew. Have no fear."
    "I am not afraid, Dr. Jew. I know I will be dead soon."
    "Tut tut, no! That is what I'm here to manhandle most greedily, the ugly monster Swine-AIDS what sickens you. Point where it hurts and I shall heal."
    "What?" said Lise.
    "Are you familiar with the facts of –"
    "Listen, Doctor. I've had Swine-AIDS long enough to do my research. I know all the symptoms of the terminal stages and that is where I'm at."
    "Of course, of course. Yet your husband has asked me – me, among all the medico-professionals in the known galaxy and within his reach – to do my best and procure a cure for your molassesed trunk. Why do you think that is?"
    "I don 't know what he's thinking. If there's a cure, we'd know about it."
    "If there 's a cure, madam, you may be the first. Among my circle I'm known for my slightly deviant machinations in realms scientific. Sometimes I misfire in my procedures and it goes sour for the occasional lab rat. C'est la vie . But when I traipse into strange new territory and the lights click together, the beauty that manifests is something to marvel at and etch onto the golden plates of time immemorial and Wikipedia."
    "So you have a plan?"
    "A plan? A plan? Ma'am, plans are a dime a dozen and if I didn't have one I'd cobble one together from the dust of my genius."
    "I 'm asking whether you have medicine. If you've –"
    "Enough. Yes. Yes, I have a technology that I'm prepared to work with. The question is, are you ready to be reborn?"
    I could see from how she looked at me that she wanted nothing to do with me – she, aye, she with her leprous flesh. Who was she to turn a blind eye to my adorable person? I decided that my participation in the oily machinery of Hollywood via Sergio Simpatico was not reward enough to work with this haughty marmaduke. She probably knew not of the specific agreement with her husband anyhow. It was time to up the ante.
    "I can fix you, " I said. "If it's worth it to you."
    "Of course it 's worth it . What are you talking about? Do you think I want to die?"
    "Yes, yes, of course, of course you wish to see your husband and children again outside of a computer screen. Of course. Can you imagine those children growing up without a mother? Brings a tear to my eye, it does. Or worse yet – can you imagine Sergio - your pal and mine – remarrying some whore and passing her off as a new mother to your little ones, like she blew in off a musty cloud of smog?"
    "Obviously I don 't want that, Doctor. I don't see why you have to remind me of what I'll leave behind."
    "I merely wish to show that you have the power to dodge this dread scenario, to resuscitate your tawdry mask and cleanse away that underarm plague – if you are prepared to submit to the treatment."
    "I am. I have to."
    "Good. And are you also prepared to pay the requisite purchase price for this newfound lease on life I can assign you?"
    I can recognize the reciprocal quality in healing and how it would help also me, the healer, to steer my identity away from Vader and back toward old Ben Kenobi. But everything has a price. To be overly charitable would set off red flags within me and I would know it was all an act with no lasting value. My deeds would have to be within the scope of my being to call the slight perturbation toward Dr. Jekyll a natural and proper development,