Standard Procedure

He snapped the blue latex glove on with practiced ease. There were few exams more brief yet thorough in a typical emergency room but as the attending physician, he was required to perform this one. He'd already, today, intubated three toddlers, re-set a compound fracture to the shinbone of an eerily stoic six year old boy, and blocked the split toenail of a hysterical 20 year old woman. A manual gynecological exam of a bored and cranky 24 year old white girl complaining of abdominal pain was almost- not quite- boring.

As he ripped the single-serving foil packet of surgical lube, he mused, like he always did, that lube should always be a single-serving affair, not kept in sticky bottles that collected lint and countless sorts of bacteria. If it wouldn't get him fired and blacklisted, he'd leave a box of the things in the locker of that Japanese nurse with the bangs. She'd transferred shortly after they'd ended their association, but only three floors up to the ICU. He smeared the whole of the viscous stuff onto his first two fingers and appraised his patient: She was still gowned and pantied, not spread-eagle and bare-assed like he'd instructed her. Her face was screwed up into an expression that could be best described as "apologetic irritability".

"It's alright, ma'am. It'll be very quick. We just have to make sure your pain isn't due to ovarian cysts."
He liked speaking with authority to nervous, helpless females. He thought, secretly, that someone should base a TV show on his particular brand of bedside manner. He felt he was a consummate doctor and lovable kook.

She said nothing in reply, but shimmied her underwear off, and wadded it quickly into her hand. "Take'em down" he thought, and smothered a giggle. Two sixteen-hour shifts in a row could make even sexual assault funny.

She spread her legs and clamped her eyes shut. She clutched her Muppet-themed panties in her palm like a stress ball. He, at times, in the not-so-distant past, was accused of being a brute. Oafish. Ham-fisted. His dreams of being a rockstar surgeon had dimmed to hotshot attending physician.

He slid his fingers, two fat, blue, rubber-clad sausages, into her. She winced, tried to relax and let him pass, but he did not listen or adjust, he wiggled.

"Does that hurt?"
"Does WHAT hurt? That wiggling? You wiggling? No, that doesn't hurt."

She was in that literal no-man's-land known to gyno visitors everywhere. To make it hurt less, she knew she had to relax, and the only way she knew how to relax that particular part of her body was to enjoy it. A little. Because, in general, penetration was a great joy in her life. To have it reduced here to science and pure... access seemed sacrilegious, unholy. Still, she attempted to unwind her tightly clenched center, since his fingers were rough, unexpected and rather rude visitors as long as she tensed defensively.

She responded to his questions as quickly as possible and it was over before she opened her eyes. whe she finally did, he was turned away, removing his glove.

"Just, ah. On second thought, why don't you get dressed first." He avoided her eye contact and nodded brusquely at the chaperone nurse, who closed the door softly in his suddenly flustered wake.





© Sara Gaddis 2010