Gloria and Julie are working together

When you and Dot arrive for your intern shift for Ob-Gyn with Dr. DeLoria Cutler, you instead find Dr. Didyma Breedlove, looking flustered and checking the schedule with the unit assistant at the main desk.

"I'm sorry, ah," Dr. Breedlove pauses, reading your trainee badges, "Anna and Dot. Somehow the schedule was mixed up, and we weren't expecting you."

"Diddy, I NEED you!" a voice calls from somewhere you cannot see.

"Maybe you can check with Nurse Bates?" Dr. Breedlove says.

"DID-DY?" the voice comes again.

"Coming, D-, Dr. Cutler!" Dr. Breedlove hurries around the corner.

Nurse Bates and Nurse Paul are sitting with their heads close together, looking first at a schedule on a computer display, then a printed out version of schedule blocks. Gloria Bates points and makes suggestions. Julie Paul frowns, purses her lips, and adds notes or scribbles out lines on the printouts.

Nurse Paul is blonde. Her hair is pinned up and back. She might be around thirty. She is relaxed while sitting next to Gloria Bates. She does not hold any distance. Their shoulders brush as they work together, and neither one pays any mind.

"I'm sorry, Dot and Anna," Gloria Bates says. "We had two hosts who we were expecting for the next block who are suddenly unavailable, so Nurse Paul and I are trying to sort out next week."

You volunteer to be helpful in whatever way you can. This turns out to be fetching printouts and coffee. For a while, Dot sits at one end of Brenda's big leather office sofa reading Nurse Julie's copy of THE CARTOON GUIDE TO REPRODUCTIVE ANATOMY. Eventually Dot gets up from the leather sofa and tells you she is going back to the changing room reserved for the trainee program, to get a little more study time.

"Let me know if you're going to stay late, Anna," Dot says.

Dot is a good roommate. You are happy you ordered her a new vibrator to replace the cheap one she burned out during the first week. You have been unlucky in actually trying to vibe off together, with one thing and another. Though you did enjoy listening to her describe her favorite masturbation fantasy.

"It kind of needs me to be using a vibe inside," Dot had told you. "To make it feel right when I'm imagining that scene. I mean, I can just get off with my fingers, or on a pillow, but I have to concentrate too much and it's just not as satisfying."

You're comfortable enough with each other that you don't mind hearing each other masturbating in bed.

"Nah, I don't mind," Dot had said. "Either way. Just let me know if it bothers you hearing me."

"I am not too loud?" you had asked.

Dot had laughed. "As long as my vibe has batteries, it doesn't matter if you're being loud in the other room."

Dot trusts you and cares about you. Even when you are a terrible crying heap. You do your best to be good to her. Your personalities are so different but by now you are convinced you actually like each other. You are tickled that with her freckles and her red hair in twintails, she could be the life model for the Wendy's mascot. You laugh at each other. You help each other. Is this what having a friend is?

It feels strange to you to be back in Brenda Box's office, with the big leather sofa and the framed paintings that look like they belong in a gallery or a museum. The last time you were here, Brenda fingered you to a screaming orgasm that caused a hospital danger code to be declared. That was why Brenda gave up her office to Gloria and Julie to use for the intern program and was working from off site.

After Gloria and Julie's fourth cup of coffee, they agree that they have made as much progress with next block's schedule as they're going to, until they hear back from some of the trainee hosts.

"Well, coffee in, urine out," Julie Paul tells Nurse Bates. "I need a toilet break. Are you ready for lunch?"

"Count me in for the same," Nurse Bates says. She drains her coffee mug, tipping it high to get the last drops. "Are you coming, Anna?"

You get a little tickle inside. You and Dot followed Lexie Holt, the phlebotomy and urine sample technician. You practiced collecting samples. That day you saw many vulvas and soft penises.

"I do not need the toilet. I am ready for lunch."

At the cafeteria, you make yourself small and quiet as you sit with Nurse Gloria and Nurse Julie. Julie starts to ask you how things are going, but Gloria stops her.

"Anna has had a few difficult days," Nurse Gloria says.

There is some head tilting and eyebrow lifting. Julie's expression changes.

"Oh. I see," Julie says.

So instead they talk about other things. They are both married. Gloria has a daughter in college. Just like the mug on her desk said, MY DAUGHTER GOES TO BRYN MAWR. Julie does not have any children. She is thinking it might be time. She and her husband are talking it over.

"It's a big, big change," Gloria says.

"Don't I know it," Julie says. "My little sister already has two kids, and now that's her whole thing."

"Vincent was the best father I could have hoped to have for our daughter," Gloria says. "He was always holding Jillian, taking care of the baby mess and laundry and washing. He'd prop her up in a high chair and sing to her while he was doing things. He made my career work when I was a new mother."

"Maybe Vincent can give Alvin his playbook," Julie says, laughing. "Be his daddy coach."

You approve of Vincent from what you hear of him from Gloria. He seems unusual for a man in that he is good for more than just sex and a steady income. Imagining a man who is more than incidentally present and more than an instrument to further a personal need -- a sex hookup, a ride -- is a little bewildering to you.

Then they are talking about other things. Your attention drifts. But you notice them touching each other's hands. They lean close together. They look for long moments into each other's eyes. Their postures mirror each other.

Gloria Bates and Julie Paul are very good friends. Or they are lovers. You imagine they are lovers. It seems like a good thing.

After lunch, some of the chit-chat continues in Brenda's office. Warm and full from lunch, you doze off on the leather sofa. Your eyes flutter open to see Gloria and Julie holding each other and kissing, silently, without motion.

Lovers.

Your fingers slide between your legs, outside your trainee scrub pants, and cup the vee of your sex.

Gloria and Julie look round and lean back from their embrace.

"Are you tired, Anna?" Gloria asks. "Did you want to catch up with Dot and take a short day today, since Dr. Cutler wasn't available?"

"Okay. Thank you, Nurse Bates."

You pull the door to Brenda's office closed. You wonder if they will be kissing again now that you're gone.

You have 1 XP, +1 Hard, -1 Hot, -1 Cool, +2 Control, and know the CHARACTER MOVES Ass-Licking and Masturbate.

Roll +CONTROL(+1) (+2 Control, -1 two girls) using MASTURBATE in front of Gloria and Julie. 2d6+1 = 4+1 = 5, Miss.

Stalk Dot: 2d6-1, 8-1 = 7, she's in a public place or there's trouble in the way.