Fragments of Desire: Marigold's Silent Departure novel Chapter 2

At first, Lennon thought he had answered a wrong number and hung up with a frown.

But the call came in again.

He hung up several times, and she redialed just as many.

Lennon, growing impatient, finally answered, and a soft voice came through.

"Sir, I'm serious. I'm 20 years old, in good health, young and clean, attending Wye City Eldridge Academy. The quality of my eggs must be of great quality. Please consider it."

Lennon paused, his brow furrowing further.

A college student caught in such scams?

He bluntly spat out a few words into the phone, "Selling eggs is illegal, don’t you have any common sense?"

The other end fell silent, not making a sound for a long time, as if choked by his words.

All that could be heard was faint, weak breathing, as if nervous or wrestling with something inside.

Without waiting for her to speak, Lennon decisively hung up.

Stepping out of the operating room, he threw his isolation gown into the trash.

Having just finished several appendectomy surgeries, his head ached terribly.

The hospital had been short-staffed lately and even he, a specialist in complicated internal medicine cases, had been assigned to a few surgeries, busy all day.

Passing by another department, Kent Cooper was getting off work and draped an arm around Lennon’s shoulder, raising an eyebrow in greeting.

"What a coincidence, Dr. Sterling! Finally caught you, come on, join me for a drink after work!"

Lennon glanced at him and flatly stated, "You've got dark circles under your eyes like you're cursed, careful or you'll drop dead from drinking too much."

"Don't remind me, I'm just pissed off," Kent complained as they walked, "Are all the college kids these days brainless? Just now a girl came in for a consult, having sold her eggs, her necrotic ovaries necrotized, uterus eroded, she can't have kids anymore. She was crying her eyes out in the ward, and gave me such a headache."

Lennon was momentarily stunned, his mind flashing back to the phone call.

The girl's voice was sweet, tinged with a youthful naive, and one could hear the nervousness in her stammering tone, yet she sounded earnest.

Twenty years old, still naive to the ways of the world.

If she saw some small ad of egg selling, it was possible she got duped.

His eyes dimmed. He clutched his car keys and stepped into the elevator.

He wasn't a saint and didn't care to deal with such bothersome affairs. A doctor couldn’t stop people from digging their own graves.

As he was about to hang up and block the number, something Kent had said earlier popped into his head about how college students these days were brainless.

"Necrotic ovaries necrotized, uterus eroded, can't have kids anymore..."

Lennon's tone shifted, he spoke coldly, "Are you a virgin?"

There was a clear pause on the other end, "Wh-what?"

"You said you were clean, right? Are you a virgin? We can talk if you are, don’t bother if not."

Lennon was deliberately trying to scare her.

Marigold paused for a good half minute on the phone, her face burning up, and then after a long while, she uttered in a low, tender voice.

"Yes."

Lennon stopped in his tracks.

Water cascaded down from above, growing cooler with time, flowing from his head to his feet.

Lennon felt restless all over, even the cool water couldn’t quench this irritation. He took a deep breath and coldly spit out.

"Then prove it."