He rose quickly, blinking off the effects of the liquor, and carefully returned the utensils to their proper niche behind the volume of Freud on the bookshelf. Good old Freud, he thought, always knew he'd come in handy one of these days. Then he returned to his desk to consult a small pad, and silently cursed the cruel fates that had given him patients tumbling upon one another in a ridiculously mad haste to reach the jumbled sanity of the normal world.
Why couldn't there have been a decent interval of time between them, so he could take a shower, or have a game of golf, or maybe even hang on a small one, or see a psychiatrist himself. Or maybe start that chicken farm he'd been talking about for the past two years.
He jabbed a button, said into the intercom, "Miss Austin, will you please send in the file on Mr. Charles T. Moore?"—and without waiting for an answer snapped the machine off.
Fifteen seconds later the door opened and Miss Austin walked in, a Manila folder in one lovely hand. As usual she was in an immaculately white uniform. White for purity? he wondered. It was a tight-fitting garment that clung to every curve as though hanging on for dear life, and on second thought he mentally erased the purity inscription on his mind's slate.
Miss Austin had a beautiful walk, and beautiful legs to walk on. He stared at them as she approached the desk. He always stared at them, fascinated, and she always knew he did, and she smiled that enticingly mad smile of hers that always made him want to give vent to an emotional catharsis.
God, he thought, how I'd love to psychoanalyze that woman! What a beautiful ego she must have. What a gorgeous id.
Carefully she deposited the folder on his desk, leaning forward strategically so her perfume could glide over him in intoxicating currents.
"Will that be all, Doctor Rawlings?" she asked in her honey-liquid tones.
"For now," he said, reaching for her hand and finding it. "But don't go away."
She smiled again, and gently freeing her hand, swept from the room. She looked even better from the back, if that were possible; after a few seconds deliberation he decided it wasn't possible. But it was women like Miss Austin that made him want a chicken farm, among other things. Miss Austin and a little tract of land far out in the country would be just perfect. In such a paradise he wouldn't even have to worry about the pecking order of hens. In fact, he might even get engrossed in raising things other than chickens.