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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Voodoo_Clerk on 2024-09-13 00:32:15+00:00.

When you walk into this office and the first thing you see is me smiling back at you with a big old smile I bet you wonder why I’m the receptionist at a plastic surgeon’s office. And that’s a fair question I sometimes wonder that myself. I’m Maggie and I’ve been working at Dr. Harrison’s clinic for about three years now. One thing to know about me is that I am no supermodel. I’m a little overweight (I like to use my mom’s phrase of tastefully plump!) but my whole life I’ve always been comfortable with who I am. I’ve never let anyone’s words get to me and as such when I applied to work here I fully expected to get rejected, but I needed a job and was willing to try for this spot. 

Meeting Dr. James Harrison was like coming face to face with a perfect work of art hung up in an art museum. His skin is flawless and smooth without a single mark or imperfection. While a little messy, his brown hair is soft and silky. And those beautiful eyes. He has eyes that are so bright green you could swear that they were glowing. I was so intimidated when I met him for an interview for the position and his gaze was so intense I almost felt like he would reject me on the spot. But instead, he gave me a happy smile and began to make conversation with me. And before I knew it? I was the receptionist here!

Dr. Harrison is booked full almost constantly, and the flood of people that come in once we open our doors is insane! I swear there’s a line at the door when I go to open it once we’re finally open. Plenty of women and men check-in and eagerly await their turn to be with Dr. Harrison. My job boils down to answering the phone, booking appointments, confirming appointments, dealing with payments, and the occasional coffee run! The waiting room sort of resembles a hotel lobby with how big it is, and to my knowledge besides Nurse Rachel, it’s only Dr. Harrison doing all the work. 

I don’t think Rachel likes me very much, unfortunately. When I started my first day of work the look she gave me was one I gave some food I discovered in the back of the fridge that I’d forgotten about. A mix of disgust and annoyance is the best guess I can give. Rachel also has flawless skin and hair and she looks like she lept out of the pages of a magazine. She only seems to tolerate me because I’m so close to Dr. Harrison. But when she arrives at work before him, she lets me know how much she hates me. Unlike her though, I don’t have time to hate her. Especially since the phones are usually ringing off the hook with people looking to book appointments with us. 

Speaking of phones, there’s also this old-fashioned rotary phone located in the back of my little receptionist area. Dr. Harrison has given me explicit orders that if it ever rings I am to ignore all other calls and focus completely on answering that phone. So far that phone hasn’t ever rung and it just sits there ominously on the wall. When I say old fashioned I mean old, that thing looks like it jumped right out of an old black-and-white movie. I even had to ask him how I was supposed to answer it. 

Dr. Harrison let me decorate my reception desk however I liked so I naturally brought all the knick-knacks I could to the office. I’m a simple girl with simple tastes. I decorate the desk according to the season and the upcoming holiday, from Halloween decorations like pumpkins and skeletons, to Christmas decorations like my little tree and various stockings. But normally I just like to have pictures of my dog Sonny and a few pictures of my family.  

Well I wouldn’t be here on this site if strange things didn’t happen at Dr. Harrison’s office now would I? Well, I have some stories to tell you, folks. The first major red flag about this place is just how…enthusiastic let’s say, the patients are. Once when I was trying to tell someone that they didn’t have an appointment and that the next opening would be in six months she very nearly lept over the desk separating us and started strangling me right there. It took a couple of the other patients to restrain her and for the cops to take her away. But that wasn’t an isolated case, and things like that happen nearly every day here. 

Another thing about the patients is how…I don’t wanna say bad, but how worse they eventually start to become. While we have so many patients they all start to blur together, and I do sometimes keep tabs on some of them. And as they progress they become more plastic-looking almost. They start to resemble those botched plastic surgery stories you see online and I don’t understand how. When they come here at first they seem flawless just like Dr. Harrison and Rachel. But slowly they become more and more plastic. And eventually, some of them just, stop coming. When I asked Dr. Harrison about it he quickly shrugged it off, telling me he simply forwarded them to a specialist who treats conditions like that. I remain unconvinced though. 

Then there was the incident that made me want to tell someone about the strange things going on around here. I’m usually the first to arrive at the office. I have to unlock the door and turn the alarms off. Once that’s done I usually finish off any remaining paperwork from the previous day and start on the paperwork for that day. Normally right after I come in and turn on the lights and turn off the alarms, Dr. Harrison comes in right after me. 

But on this day he was running late, and that’s rare for him. He’s normally very punctual and when I saw Rachel had gotten here before him I started to get a little worried. Mostly about what the patients scheduled for today would do if we had to cancel their appointments. Already I could see the line of them starting outside our doors. When the first phone started ringing I nervously grabbed it and fully expected it to be another patient arguing with me about an appointment. 

“Thank you for calling Dr. Harrison’s office, this is Maggie, how can I help you?” I answered with the cookie-cutter opening I always made when someone called the office. To my surprise, it was Dr. Harrison calling me. 

“Maggie, something came up. Tell Rachel to prepare the first patient immediately after you guys open for me. We’re going to need to start it as soon as I arrive, understand?” he asked me, talking so fast I had to focus on what he was saying to understand any of it. 

“Of course sir, are you alright?” I asked him as I stood up from my chair and got ready to talk to Rachel. 

“I’m fine, just…make sure Rachel sets everything up properly. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up without even a goodbye which upset me a little. It was the first time since I started working there that he hadn’t said bye to me. But I chalked it up to his rushing and placed the receiver back onto the phone dock. I took a deep breath and stepped back through the reception area and towards the consultation offices where Rachel was probably getting everything ready. 

I entered the room she was prepping and met her judgmental gaze head-on. “Dr. Harrison just called me. He says to prepare the first patient immediately after I open. And that you guys are going to start as soon as he gets here.” The look she gave me quickly turned into one of urgency and a little bit of fear. 

“I told him we should’ve done that yesterday! This is just great.” She grunted tossing her pen at the floor and walking past me, bumping into my shoulder and stepping away down the hall towards the medical closet. Rubbing my shoulder and sticking my tongue out at her I walked back over to my desk and finished up my preparations to open. And at 9 o’clock on the dot I walked over and unlocked the front door for the patients, quickly jumping out of the way so I didn’t get trampled by all of them rushing in. 

Taking my place back at the desk I sat down and looked up at the first patient who had managed to get to my desk to check in first. “Name please?” I asked her as I checked my computer to see if she had an appointment, 

“Kara Smith, ” she told me. I could tell she was a regular since she acted like I should know her personally and immediately upon seeing her. Little did she know I saw at least a hundred people a day. I checked her name and scrolled around on the page before I found her. She was here for a rhinoplasty. I took another look at her and slightly raised my eyebrow. Her nose looked fine to me, but I wasn’t exactly allowed to say that to the patients. 

“Okay, you can go right ahead, Nurse Rachel will be there to meet with you. Dr. Harrison is running a little late today so I do apologize for that, but he should be here soon.” I told her with a smile. She returned my niceties by cussing me out and stomping over towards the door to the consultation rooms where Nurse Rachel was waiting for her. One of the better interactions I’ve had. 

I kept checking people in and turning away the people who didn’t have appointments. Usually, if they got too rowdy a little flash of my pepper spray was enough to at least get them to go away. After about an hour of being open and with patients starting to grumble, Dr. Harrison burst through the front doors and quickly ran past everyone including me. I normally only ever saw him in his doctor coat and scrubs so seeing him running in with a jacket and a scarf was certainly interesting. Especially since it was the middle of summer. He was so well covered up, that I almost didn’t know it was him. The only thing that told me that it was Dr. Harrison were those beautiful b…

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