Dr man candy, p.2
Dr Man Candy, page 2
part #2 of Healing Hands Series
After all, the other baby shower guests don’t seem to have any problems finishing when they have sex. They have all these crazy stories about seeing stars and almost collapsing, whereas I don’t have even one story about one simple orgasm.
I swallow back a sigh. These types of conversations always make me uncomfortable. Why can’t we play another silly baby shower game instead of talking about sex? I feel so lame and unfulfilled, like I’m only half a woman instead of a whole being.
Suddenly a sharp voice interrupts.
“I just remembered one!” a sorority sister exclaims, jumping to her feet. There are so many girls here that I don’t remember everyone’s names. I think this one is Katie, but I can’t be sure. “We were at the movie theater,” she continues, “and we were way in the back, so he went down on me right there. But I think what made my big O even better was the risk of being caught. I’m glad we didn’t, because that would’ve been mortifying and we would have traumatized all those kids,” she giggles. “It lasted a full ten minutes because he kept eating me out even as I came, and trust me, we were loud.”
I go beet red. Holy cow, did that really happen? Judging from Katie’s smug expression, yes. Then a few more girls chime in with their experiences and with each new story, I feel more and more like a loser. Is there some way I can leave the room without it being obvious or rude? My self-esteem is really taking a dive right now.
I’m just about to make an excuse to go get more champagne when Janet turns my way.
“What about you, Chloe? What was your best orgasm?” she asks innocently. Oh shit, I’ve been too quiet and someone noticed. I flush while stammering.
“Oh, well, you know… um…” My cheeks are on fire. Why can’t I come up with a lie? My mind is completely blank.
Maggie nudges me. “Come on, we’re all friends here. Tell us about it, girlfriend.” I go even hotter with shame.
“Well, I, um…” I can’t meet anyone’s eyes while shifting nervously in my seat. But nothing comes to mind so before I realize it, I’m blabbing the truth in its unvarnished entirety.
“Well, I’ve never had an orgasm before,” I babble, hoping no one will understand or ask me to repeat myself. “It’s just something I’ve never experienced.”
Unfortunately, the room goes quiet and it seems like everyone turns to stare at me. Fifteen girls, all with their mouths hanging open.
“I’m sorry, what?” Maggie asks, puzzled. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
I sigh. Oh shit, this is even worse than I expected.
“Okay guys, here’s the truth. I’ve never had an orgasm before. It’s just something that skipped me by.”
Now you can hear a pin drop in the room.
“Never?” Janet asks, her voice full of disbelief.
I shake my head. “Never. Not even by myself. It’s really sad right? And weird?”
My friend puts a hand over her heart like this is the most horrifying news she’s ever heard. “Holy smokes. I can’t even imagine what it must be like.”
Really? That bad? But I try to look nonchalant and shrug. “It’s fine. I’m fine, really.”
The girls titter some more, although the giggles are uneasy.
“Are you a virgin?” asks one particularly bitchy blonde. “I mean, no shame if you are, but I’m just wondering.”
I smile at her tightly.
“No, I’m not a virgin. I have tried my utmost to have an orgasm, but it just hasn’t happened for me yet, okay? Thanks. I appreciate your interest.”
The girls sense my prickly tone, and out of politeness, turn away to chat about other things. But I know they’re still thinking about me, even if they’re not overtly talking about my “little problem.”
Suddenly, Maggie leans forward, her expression urgent.
“Hey girlfriend,” she whispers. “Is all that true? Seriously? You’ve never orgasmed before?”
I sigh and nod.
“Yes, Maggie. It’s true. Why would I make up something like that?”
She smiles and then waggles her eyebrows.
“Well, if it’s true then I think I know something that might help.”
I raise my brows at her. “Honestly, I doubt it. I’ve tried everything and I don’t really want to hear anything about mood music or how the brain is the most sensitive organ.”
Maggie shakes her head quickly and winks again.
“No, trust me girlfriend, you haven’t tried this. It’s new, sort of. It’s this special therapy called frequency healing.”
I shake my head.
“Is that some weird New Age freaky-deaky procedure where they cover you with crystals? Because if it is, I’m not into it.”
But before Maggie can answer, Janet yawns while smiling at everyone.
“Ladies, as much fun as it is having all of you here, I think this mama-to-be needs a nap. Thank you all so much for coming out to my baby shower! This child is going to have so many awesome aunties. Bye now, girlfriends.”
We all get up, chattering and clucking like chickens while throwing away paper plates and uneaten pieces of cake. While we head out, Maggie makes eye contact with me and raises her hand to her ear in the universal sign language of “call me.”
I sigh. I’m not sure I want to hear what she has to say about frequency healing, but then on the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. After all, I have a real problem that needs fixing, and the older I get, the more desperate the problem becomes. I would much rather solve this problem with a hot man by my side as he makes me cream and squeal, but what hot man am I thinking about? Unfortunately, there’s no one on the horizon so I merely smile tightly at Maggie and nod, resigned to my fate.
2
Brett
Conferences tend to be a bore, even when they are about my specialty, which is holistic medicine. I hate coming to these things, but it’s the only way to keep up with the most recent breakthroughs in my field. Plus, it’s a chance to see a lot of other folks in my area and catch up.
My colleague, Greg, elbows me in the side. “Dude, neither of us even do acupuncture. Why are we here?”
I shush him. We’ve already gotten dirty looks from the women around us for talking during the last presentation, and I don’t want to get kicked out before the frequency healing seminar starts in an hour.
Truthfully, though, I don’t have a good answer to Greg’s question. These seminars don’t exactly fill up, so I could have gotten a seat to the frequency healing one without sitting through the three before it. I guess I was just sick of walking past the same booths with the same vendors trying to sell me the same things. My office is well stocked, thank you very much. I did find a few new crystals that were interesting, but I’ll need more than a five second demonstration to decide whether or not I should invest in these new tools for my practice.
Greg sighs beside me, ruffling his scruffy brown hair. He looks tired and bored at the same time, and I don’t blame him. Acupuncture really isn’t my thing either because I do energy healing while Greg does mind/body therapy. Neither of our practices use needles.
“Fuck it,” I mutter under my breath. I’m sitting in the aisle seat with Greg next to me, so our exit is easy. We duck and head out the back doors. Unfortunately, I can feel eyes following us because Greg and I are practically the only men under sixty at the conference. That, plus my buddy and I are good-looking guys with full heads of hair and athletic builds. That always helps too.
But right now, we just need to make an escape.
“Thank God,” Greg says when we get back to the main conference hall. “I was falling asleep. It was bad enough to go through that integrative medicine seminar, but sticking needles into someone’s skin? No fucking way. You know I don’t do needles.”
I laugh. Considering that Greg has an MD, it’s always a surprise when he reveals his fear of sharp objects. He says that’s why he went into psychology and eventually holistic mind/body therapy. Blood and guts don’t work well for him.
“Alright, what do you want to do?” I ask. “I need to be back at one for the energy healing presentation.”
He checks his watch.
“We’ve got forty-five minutes. Want to grab lunch? I haven’t eaten since breakfast at the hotel.”
Goddamit. My friend is always thinking of food, like a true animal. Come to think of it though, I’m mighty hungry as well, and my stomach growls. I had breakfast, but one hard-boiled egg plus some burned toast isn’t nearly enough.
“The pizza in the food court downstairs is good if I’m remembering last year’s conference correctly,” I say.
Greg nods.
“Yeah, probably. Honestly, it could be cardboard with sauce on it at this point and I’d eat it.”
Alright, thanks for the dramatics. Nonetheless, I follow my buddy to the escalators that lead to the basement level. This convention center is huge and there are at least four other conferences going on at the same time as our holistic medicine conference. There’s the Gutbusters Colonics Conference (yech), the Economic Opportunity Razers (whatever that is), Nasty Naturals (not us), and the Women’s Health Summit (the only one that sounds remotely normal).
We’re probably the smallest group. There’s only the one seminar room, which holds less than a hundred people, and a small vendor room with maybe fifty booths. I’m not sure how they make enough money to keep running, but I’ve been coming to Holistic Healings for the last five years and attendance is growing, so they must be doing something right.
Since it’s lunch time, there are a ton of people packed into the food court. I wait in line for the pizza while Greg finds us a place to sit. By the time I get to the front of the line, he’s staked out a table for us in the corner. I bring over our sodas and personal pizzas and plop myself into the maroon plastic chair.
Greg doesn’t waste a second before shoving an entire piece of his pizza into his mouth. He groans as he chews, moaning like a demon.
“Dude, seriously?” I ask. “You’re fucking disgusting.”
He chuckles. “I told you buddy, I was hungry!”
I shake my head and take my own bite of pizza. It’s just as good as I remember it being from last year’s conference. Suddenly, a shadow appears at my side.
“Mind if we sit with you?” a man asks from behind me. Greg shrugs and moves a few pamphlets from the two other seats at our table.
“No problem.”
“Thanks,” the man says, taking the seat. He’s decent looking with brown hair and brown eyes. Very average. Another completely average guy sits down across from him, evidently his friend.
“It’s like a circus down here. What conference are you guys in for?” the friend asks.
“Holistic medicine,” I say. “You?”
He nods.
“Yeah, that’s what we’re here for, too. I’m Peter and this is James. We run our own practice up in Albany.”
“I’m Brett and this is Greg,” I say, shaking their hands. “I work in New York City but Greg is down in Miami.”
Peter presses his lips together.
“New York City? That’s not too far, then. Are you commuting?”
I shake my head. “The ride to Boston isn’t bad, but I don’t want to do it every morning, so we’re overnighting here.”
“Smart move. Last year, we did the drive down from Albany every day but it was brutal. This year, we opted for a hotel, too.”
I nod, the niceties out of the way.
“So what are you guys here to see?”
James finishes a bite of salad before answering. “Our practice specializes in energy healing. We each have our own specific techniques, but we follow a lot of standard procedures.”
I squint my eyes.
“Seriously? I’m in energy healing too.”
It’s pretty coincidental because I don’t meet a lot of guys who practice energy healing. Most people think it’s fake, but I’ve seen from experience that it really works. After all, my mom’s life was saved by a frequency healer, and that’s why I went into the practice.
Peter snorts.
“Yeah, small world. You don’t run into a lot of folks like us outside of conferences like this. At least, not in Albany. Are there a lot of practices down in the city?”
I shake my head. “I know a couple of others, but not many.”
“Yeah, that’s how it goes,” Greg says laconically. “But the lack of providers does make for better business. It’s when a hundred other businesses start popping up that we lose out on clients.”
“True enough,” I say. I hold up my soda to clink against his, and James and Peter join in the toast. It is true that fewer people means less competition, but it also decreases our visibility. Frankly, there are a lot of people in the world who could benefit from frequency healing but have no idea it even exists. It’s a shame.
“Have you been to any good presentations yet?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
The other men shrug.
“We’re waiting for the energy one later,” Peter says. “We did go to a crystal presentation that we thought was going to be good, but the fucking thing turned into a sales pitch.”
I snort.
“Yeah, I hate when that happens.”
The other men nod, and we all commiserate a bit. I get that these people are here to sell their products, but it’s annoying to sit through a sales pitch disguised as a seminar.
“I went to a presentation yesterday that felt like an infomercial,” I grunt. “The guy literally said, ‘But wait, there’s more!’ and tried to get us to buy a hundred dollars worth of stuff to get a free salt lamp.”
Peter and James cringe. “Seriously? Glad we missed that one.”
I snort.
“I wish I’d missed it too.”
We continue to chat about what we’ve seen at the conference so far, from CBD use to sensory buds. It seems that aside from a few terrible experiences, most of the seminars have been interesting. It’s worth the price of admission to come every year and learn what other healers are doing.
“Hey, are you coming to the energy meetup tomorrow morning?” Peter asks.
“The what?”
“There’s a meetup for energy healers tomorrow morning at the coffee shop upstairs. It’s a chance for us to get together and exchange ideas and just talk about what it’s like to work in our field. I was invited through an energy healer Facebook group I’m a part of.”
That’s the answer right there.
“I don’t really use social media,” I admit.
“Are you serious?” Greg asks, shooting me a look of disbelief. “I swear, I saw you on Facebook posting some shit.”
I shrug.
“I have someone who handles all that for me. I’m practicing medicine, not honing my social media skills.”
James nods.
“Well, listen dude, you’re welcome to attend. I can text you the details.”
Texting is something I can do. I give Peter and James my number and immediately receive a text with the time and place of the meetup. Then our new colleagues turn to my buddy.
“Are you an energy guy, too, Greg?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m more of a brain guy. Do you know of any mind/body meetups?”
James fiddles with his phone for a minute and then hands it over to Greg. “There’s a meetup tonight at five at the hotel bar. You should go. You always meet some interesting people, even if some of them are hoo-ha necromancers.”
Greg snorts.
“Thanks, man,” he says. “This is awesome. I’ll keep an eye out for funny shit.”
We continue talking, and James, who’s been pretty quiet up until now, throws out an interesting tidbit.
“I’m hoping to run into Jake Quill,” he mentions casually. “You know, the Quill dude who’s popular up in NYC?”
I’ll say. Jake Quill runs the biggest energy healing school in New York. I wanted to go there when I first started seeking out my certification, but it was way too expensive for me at the time. James continues.
“Yeah, I saw him last year and he gave me this book I’d never heard of. It was good reading, and trust me, I don’t even usually read.”
Hmm. Interesting. Mentally, I make a note to look up Jake Quill’s new book because I like being at the top of my game, and shit, but this guy is a leader in our industry. He’s written a couple bestsellers, and even if what he says is somewhat hokey, it’s making him a ton of money. I’d love to do the same.
Suddenly, Greg interrupts.
“Shit, we need to get back up there. Good meeting you folks.”
The other men nod, and the four of us get up and toss our plates before returning to the conference area. This time, there’s a session on Reiki which isn’t bad. My practice focuses on frequency healing, but I’m getting more into Reiki because it’s similarly aligned with my values; it turns out Japanese techniques for hands-on healing are eerily similar to western ideas of medical massage.
After the session, Greg and I wander through the vendors again. We’ve seen most of them already, but this time we spend a bit more time learning from each one. I don’t mind chatting with salespeople about their goods as long as they don’t try and force me to buy stuff from them.
“So who do you have doing your social media?” Greg asks casually as we leave a stand promoting mind/body textbooks.
I grunt.
“Her name is Debbie. I can get you her info. Do you do your own?”
He nods. “It’s getting to be too much, though. I spend more time writing and scheduling posts than actually seeing patients, can you believe it? It’d be nice to have someone to handle the day to day for me.”
I pull out my phone and forward Debbie’s most recent email to Greg.
“There you go, my man. Let her know I sent you and she’ll give you a good deal.”
“Thanks, buddy,” he responds, clapping me on the back. “Will do. By the way, have you noticed how many hot women are here today?” he adds in a low voice. “Have you ever hooked up with someone at one of these conferences?”
I shake my head. “Nah, too complicated.”
