I want to ask a question, just to relieve my tension, but she fits the stethoscope into her ears and I become a patient.
“Breathe in,” she says. “And out.” I empty myself of air, making myself hollow, imagining myself blowing out not just the air but my thoughts, as well, and picture everything else following afterwards: my stomach, my intestines, my blood and heart, and my lungs themselves, turned inside out by my exhalation.
We have a stethoscope at home. I don’t know why, or where it came from. It has been there as long as I remember. As a child I would creep away with it and listen for the heartbeat in my stuffed animals. Sometimes, when my parents’ bedroom door was closed and locked, I’d press the stethoscope up against the door to hear the sounds inside. Not words. Not crying, either—something else.
I remember the sounds now, suddenly and perfectly, though I haven’t thought of them in many years. It’s the stethoscope, round and warm like a mouth against my back, and the reason I’m here on this table that bring the sounds back to me.
“All clear,” she says. “Now we’ll examine your breasts.”
She works her way around my left breast first, what little breast I have, making concentric passes with her fingertips. If I let it, it would feel kind of good. When she gets to the nipple, she squeezes it a little. I breathe in sharply. I wasn’t expecting that.
“Do you examine your breasts at home?” she asks, moving on to the right one.
“Umm . . . no.”
“It’s easy to do,” she says. “You just work your way around, like I’m doing, checking for anything unusual, like lumps. In the shower is a great place. Soap and water helps your hands glide more smoothly. Lay back,” she says, and I do, and she lifts my arm up over my head and explores my armpit a little, pushing here and there. “Fine,” she says. “Perfectly normal.”
I start to sit up but she puts a hand on my chest, just above my breasts. “Just lie down,” she says, “and scoot your bottom down toward the end of the table. Put your feet in the stirrups.”
Okay. Not surprising, but still. Not exactly comfortable. My heels are cupped in the hard plastic stirrups; the paper gown bunches up as I shift lower on the table.
“Scoot down a little more.”
I scoot.
“A little more.”
I feel like I’m about to slide off the table and into her lap. It’s awful.
“Now we’ll do the pelvic exam,” she says. “Just relax.”
She switches out her gloves for a fresh pair. “First I’ll examine your vulva,” she says. “Would you like a mirror?”
Maybe the only thing that could make this situation even more embarrassing would be to have a mirror in my hand right now. “No thanks.”
“You should look at your vulva and vagina regularly,” she tells me, and I imagine her at home, with a glass of wine, rubbing her breasts and taking vaginal selfies.
Her fingers feel nothing like Seth’s. There’s nothing erotic about her touch, but at least it doesn’t take long. “Perfectly normal,” she tells me. For a half second I think we’re done when she turns away, but then she picks something up from the metal tray next to her and I know I’m not getting out of here that easily.
She pulls a plastic thing out of its sealed plastic wrapping and smears some clear jelly stuff on the tip. “This is a speculum. I use it to open your vagina so I can see your cervix more clearly. It won’t hurt,” she says, “though it may feel a bit uncomfortable.” Then she says again, “Just relax,” and I feel the cold nosing tip of the speculum against the entrance of my vagina, totally different from the press of Seth’s warm, hard penis but still not that different, really.
Then I hear the speculum ratchet open and I’m more exposed than I’ve ever been. There’s a bright light shining between my legs like I’m on frigging Broadway or something and all her energy totally focused on the inside of my vagina. I look up at the ceiling.
Kittens. There are pictures of kittens, torn from magazines, dotting the ceiling above the exam table. “Hang in there!” encourages one kitten from a thought bubble. It clings to a branch by its claws. “It’s nothing purr-sonal!” claims another. This one lies curled and content in a pet bed, with a large sad-eyed dog looking on.
“Perfect. No lesions or sores,” she says, which I hadn’t even realized was something she’d be looking for. “Now I’ll take a few cells from your cervix for the Pap smear.” She holds up a little brush and dips back down to insert it. I can feel the brush scraping against the inside of me, my cervix, I guess.
She’s done now and she’s cranking down the speculum and pulling it out. There’s a weird gooey sound and a brief feeling of being emptied out, like a vacuum. I wonder if I look any different down there now, after having been stretched by that thing. Then I think of all the vaginas in the world that have pushed out babies, and I figure probably the speculum is pretty minor in the grand scheme of Things Put Into Vaginas.
“I’ll give you a minute to get dressed,” she says, pulling her gloves off inside out. “Then we’ll talk more about birth control options.” The gloves go in the bin marked MEDICAL WASTE next to the door on her way out, as though the touch of me—of my vagina—is toxic.
???
Twice a week after school, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I volunteer at a high-kill shelter. Every time I’m there, I see the conditions under which people determine love.
Youth + symmetry + quietness = love
Young dogs find homes quickly. Old dogs are fucked. Dogs who are missing something—an eye, a leg? They lack symmetry. It’s lethal injection for them, almost all the time. Barkers. Dogs who make a fuss, who don’t wait patiently and virtuously, who don’t wag their little tails and perk up their ears. Dogs who cry for help. No one wants them, either.
Last year, when I first started volunteering at the shelter, I tried to steal a dog. He was little, small enough to fit into my backpack. He was ugly, and it turns out he was mean, too; he bit a kid, a three-year-old boy. The boy’s family was looking to adopt, and they had this ugly little mutt—we called him Fang because of his ridiculous teeth—out in the visiting room. The kid hadn’t yanked the dog’s tail or anything, he just started petting him, and that stupid dog sank his teeth right into the kid’s forearm. Blood and everything, and the kid screaming. It was awful.