Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

Pentagon bureaucrat. She approached me with athermometer as though she were uncertain as to how to goabout placing the object in question in my mouth. She wasplainly nervous and ill at ease. But then the thermometerwas drugged and it is possible that she was experiencing amomentary twinge of conscience, quickly dispelled by the"doctor," who had been watching her with ill-disguisedirritation. "Go on, take the temperature. Please," he said inan irritable voice. "But he bit my finger last time," she saidplaintively, as I allowed the thermometer to be placedbeneath my tongue. "But Mr. Breckinridge was delirious atthe time. Now he's quite normal." "What do you mean Mr.Breckinridge?" I asked, suddenly aware of the shift in sex,and nearly swallowing the thermometer in the process.They exchanged a conspiratorial look, much like the oneOswald gave Ruby on television seconds before he wasstruck down by his supposed friend and accomplice.-- "Ofcourse, Miss Breckinridge," said the "doctor" soothingly,readjusting the thermometer. I made no further complaintalthough I prefer the honorific title of Mrs., to which myuniqueness entitles me. "I still have an ugly scar," said the"nurse," holding up a bandaged hand in an effort to engagethe "doctor's" sympathy. I was pleased with myself:apparently I had fought hard to retain my mind's integrity sorudely violated by these drug-administering agents ofimperialism. "Now, Nurse, we must try and understand whathe what she has had to go through these last few days.""What we've had to go through," grumbled the "nurse," atthe very least the mistress of an Assistant Secretary of