I'm starting to get impatient. It's been half an hour since I signed in at the laptop by the front desk, but I guess you just have to accept the wait when you make a walk-in appointment. This is my first time at the University's Health Services even though I'm a sophomore. I guess I'm usually pretty healthy, but now I've got this rash between my legs. It didn't seem like a big deal when I first noticed it, but that was more than a week ago and now it's starting to freak me out.
"Benjamin?!" I hear a voice call.
I stand up (careful to avoid aggravating my rash) and see a middle-aged nurse standing at the door to the room. We make eye contact and I follow her down the hall to a typical exam room with the counter and the body measure-y thing and the bed thing with the white sheet thing on it.
"Take a seat," the nurse says. I oblige. She sits at a computer and scrolls through something. I assume it's my information. She's got glasses short spiky hair dyed red. I think about how she looks like a mom who makes a lot of jokes when you're hanging out with her son at her house.
"Okay," she says. "Ria will be right with you." She gets up and leaves me to wait some more.
She's kind of old to be a nurse. You'd think she'd be a doctor by now. Wait. I guess that's not how it works. Nurses can't just get promoted to being doctors; they have to go to school for it. That's why there's old nurses and young doctors.
Coincidentally, a young doctor walks into the room. "Hi there. I'm Ria," she says as she walks over to the computer. But I barely hear her, because I'm struck by her appearance. She's got black hair in a bun and such a sweet face. I can't see much of her body with her white doctor's coat on, but I can tell she's wide and narrow in the right places, and when she walks past me the sideview of her butt gets burned in my mind forever.
"Oh- Uh. Hi," I say, several seconds too late.
"A little slow, are we?" she says, smiling.
I laugh a little. "Sorry."
She pulls up my information on the computer. "No need to apologize. I like taking my time too... Do you go by Benjamin or Ben?"
"Ben."
"Okay, Ben. Let's take a look here." The doctor starts scrolling through my answers to the survey I filled out when I signed in earlier. I stare at the floor to avoid staring at her, but I need to take two glances just to confirm how beautiful Ria is. I notice that she has big eyes. She's probably in her late 20s but she could be my age if it weren't for her distinctly adult confidence.
"So, you have a rash?" she asks.
"Yeah," I say.
"Where is it?"
"My- um, between the legs."
"Okay. Are you allergic to any medication?" she asks.
"No."
"On the question about depression you indicated that you are '1 - depressed some of the time.' Is that typical for you or is it just due to your condition?"
I didn't think they would actually look at that. I say, "No, I've never had a rash quite big enough to make me depressed."
She laughs at my joke and it makes me feel like a champion. She says, "Alright. It may be worth it to consider seeking help then. What's your height and weight?"
I've been working out a lot more this past year, but I don't have a scale in my dorm. "I'm 5'10". Not sure about my weight... 160?"
"I can check for you," she says, and I nod. "Take your shoes off and hop on the scale."
I slip off my shoes and socks and get on the scale. The doctor walks over and looks down. "You know, you didn't have to take off your socks," she says.
"Oh." I blush, embarrassed. "My bad."
"Don't worry about it..." she says as she adjusts the little weights.
I build up my courage and say, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Of course," she says.
"How old are you, Ria?"
She laughs. "You know, you're not supposed to ask a woman's age."
"I didn't think that applied for young women."
"Fair enough. I'm twenty-six," she says.
"And you're already a doctor?"
"I got through med school a bit quickly. You're 156 pounds."
I step off of the scale. She says, "Okay, I'm gonna check your vitals. Pop yourself up on the end that bench when you're ready." I do as I'm told.
She does all the regular stuff. Temperature, blood pressure, heart rate. She says my heart rate is a little high, but I know the reason. Having her so close to me, with her hands so close to my body is really making me feel some type of way.
Ria grabs her stethoscope and says, "Take off your shirt please?" Since I started working out, I feel like my upper body is starting to look kind of good, so I'm kind of glad that she gets to see it. I pull my shirt over my head and toss it over to the chair. She walks around behind me and I sit up with perfect posture. I take deep breaths as she puts the stethoscope on different parts of my back. I'm imagining that she's thinking about my muscles, even though she's probably not.