Phantom pain, phantom smile. Fair enough, huh?

She pulled up the chair in that way of hers and dropped into it, like she was sitting on her boyfriends lap. He thought of it as charming. He was not quite sure if that word fit or how someone can sit charmingly but that's what he thought. He had been here two or three days now and he'd had five dreams about her already. Sometimes, when he was awake, he fantasized about her, he thought about the way she sat down, the way she kept her legs spread slightly when she sat, the way she slouched, which hid the shape of her breasts, the way her panty hose would rustle, the lab coat would fall… He did not let the fantasies get beyond that point.

Dr. Weiser was the only thing that troubled him about killing himself. He hoped she wouldn't be the one to find his body.

"You want something to drink?"

"Scotch. Glenfiddich. Aged twelve years. Neat."

Snappy Dannie, snappy jokes.

"OJ?"

"I'll pass." She opened his chart. "I see we've got you lined up for more tests over the next couple days. There still isn't much to report. Spinal shock is slowly subsiding."

Weiser then did some poking and probing of her own and went through the same neuro exams that Gould had done a few days before. When he touched his nose she said, "Good," the same way Gould had, and though he wished her version meant something more than His, it clearly didn't. She made a notation on his chart, sat back, then lit a cigarette.

"You cut yourself," she said.

He nodded, avoiding her eyes. He pushed a dangling handle of the jump rope out of the way.

"I…" His words stopped.

"I know how anxious you are to find out about your recovery," she said kindly. "But until the shock subsides, all you can do is hurt yourself doing something like that. You could get a bad infection. Hospitals are filthy. They're full of bacteria."

"Sepsis," Donnie whispered desperately.

"Sepsis." She studied him for a moment then said, "You want to know about sex."

"I want to…" He nodded, then confessed, "I wanted to see if I could feel anything. Down there."

She told him it was too early to know much. But she agreed to tell him a few things. Weiser added, "I don't have much time now. I'm going away for a couple days."

His heart choked. She was leaving him.

The Terror at least was pleased at this news and pawed Buffett mercilessly as he sweated and clung to the gingham jump rope.

"Where you going?" he asked, to take his mind off the Terror's maul.

"I have place at Lake of the Ozarks."

"You married?"

"I'm divorced."

He remembered she had mentioned that.

Weiser added, "I have a boyfriend."

"I go down there some. Horses. A lot of horses, I remember… And trees." A vague memory came to him, then vanished.

"Unfortunately, Donnie, there are no short answers to the sexual aspects of SCI."

" 'Aspect'… You doctors use funny words." For an instant his facade cracked. She paused as she noticed the blip of anger in his face. His smile returned.

"You worry about it a lot?"

"What the hell else is there to do?" He grinned. "I stare at Vanna White's tits all day long."

Weiser laughed. "We know from the location and nature of the trauma that you won't be able to walk again, Donnie. At least not with the state of the technology now. But sexual dysfunction is still an open question in this stage of your recovery."

Dis function, dis function…

Buffett was hugely disappointed in her. She was bull-shiting him. Partnership? A good team? Crap.

"Even in the worst case there's a lot we can do."

As she talked his thoughts wandered. Down at her summer place, how often would she fuck her boyfriend? Would she tell him about Buffett? Would she lie underneath him and whisper to him that she had spent the morning talking about pricks and come to a eunuch? Would that make her boyfriend hump her harder?

"… two concerns. The act of intercourse. And second, siring children… Now, a man …"

She probably made love to her boyfriend four, five times a week. She probably had shuddering orgasms, she probably took him into her mouth…

"… two types of erections. Reflexogenic and psychogenic. Reflexogenic are caused by some stimuli to the genitals, the penis, of course, primarily, but also to the prostate or bladder. You don't need your brain to participate in order to have this kind of erection."

Ping. Sweat sprang to Buffett s skin.

The Terror was having a ball.

Buffetts armpits itched. He felt sweat appearing where it never had before-his cheek, his ears, the backs of his hands. Jesus God Almighty, his wrists were sweating! As if the moisture were crawling out of his flawed body, escaping.

"You wake up in the morning with an erection, that's reflexogenic. Psychogenic is the type of erection in response to fantasies, visual stimuli-thoughts that turn us on."

Weiser paused to ask, "Are you okay?"

"Hot in here."

She stood up and opened the window. She turned her back to him, and the silk skirt was taut against her butt. He saw the outline of her panties. Donnie swallowed.

She sat down again. Lit a cigarette, drew on it deeply three times, then crushed it out.

"I'll give you an exam. We'll find out if your lesion is upper-motor neuron or lower-motor neuron. If it's upper, you'll be able to have reflexogenic erections…" What is she talking about?

"If it's lower-motor neuron, that will mean your sexual activity will be what we call areflexic…"

"Psychogenic?" Buffett tried to concentrate. He hated words like that, big words, Doctor words. The Terror ate them up.

They gave the Terror strength-ha, a hard-on! It stirred and stepped over his pain, the phantom pain, the betraying pain, and slid into his gut. Then the Terror moved through his chest. Buffett clenched his teeth and tightened his stomach muscles to keep it from oozing into his heart, where he knew it would kill him.

He kept his eyes locked on to hers and he pulled at the jump rope hard. Arm wrestling with the Terror.

"There are four possibilities. You could be complete or incomplete reflex, or complete or incomplete areflex. The most severe is complete areflex-that means no reflex activity and no brain involvement."

Here is Donnie Buffett, six feet away from a beautiful woman, with sparkling green eyes, talking to him about hard dicks…

He glances down at the small, motionless bump at his groin and feels the Terror dig an inch closer to his heart.

"Usually, in the case of gunshots, the lesion isn't complete. In the case of areflexic patients with incomplete lesions, three-fourths of them have intercourse, and more than half have ejaculations and orgasms."

But I'm not going to be one of them. A girl in a tight leather skirt talks to me about coming and I can't feel a thing…

"It may not be necessary-it probably won't be-but you might want to consider a prosthetic."

Buffett thought that meant artificial leg.

"… There are a couple different kinds of penile implants."

The Terror was really up for this, carousing, squirming, swimming on its fucking back. The sweat poured. Buffett swallowed.

"Now, on the question of siring children, spinal injury generally results in a decreased sperm count, but many people without SCI have problems conceiving, and there are a number of techniques…"

A son? What about a son?

And, that was it-bang, the Terror got him.

Donnie Buffett shook like an antelope in a lion's jaws.

Her eyes were narrowing a little, squinting, as he wiped the sweat off his face. "Donnie- "

He looked at her and swallowed. "I'm sorry." He tapped his shoulder. "I've still got a hell of a lot of pain. You know, where