An Absurd Series of Humiliations that Would Never Happen
today, 8:30 am
“Knock, knock!”
Benjamin’s eyes sprung open under the running water of the shower and his head spun around. He watched in disbelief as his mother strolled into the apartment complex’s second-floor shared bathroom – the only place where, ironically, he should have any privacy whatsoever — with a happy wave. The door lock was like everything else in this building: cheap and unreliable.
He turned his back to her, almost pressing against the mildewed tile.“I’m in the shower!” he called over his shoulder.
Holly looked at her eighteen-year-old son – brown water falling down his backside into a wide open drain hole, with no door to block the view – and laughed. “No kidding!”
“What do you want?” Out of the corner of his eye he could see the bright daylight coming in, the door left ajar. “At least close the damn door!”
She rolled her eyes and tugged the door shut. “We gotta do the thing, from the doctor...” She noticed his clothes strewn everywhere and, shaking her head in annoyance, started to pick them up.
“Wait till I’m out!” he yelled again.
“Yeah, but-” she started.
“Just get out and we’ll do it later!”
“Okay, but we’re doing it before I leave, I don’t care,” she said with conviction. “And I’m running late, so hurry the hell up.”
“Then get out and let me finish!”
“Fine, I’m leaving!” she yelled back, and started out, taking only one more peek at him with a proud smile before shutting the door behind her.
Ben dropped his head under the shower and covered his face.
The doctor
.
***
yesterday, 10:03 am
Benjamin Locke sits on a metal folding chair in the waiting room of the Good Samaritan Center, a sad-looking one-story building with chipped blue paint and broken windows. A small crowd of indigents and elderly people huddles outside the door; the inside smells like disinfectant and bug spray. His mother Holly fills out a form at the receptionist’s desk, and they call Benjamin to follow them into the back.
“In here,” the old lady barks at him. “You’re on this side.” She draws a large canvas curtain that separates the room in two. “Have a seat while you wait,” she continues. “And please get down to your underwear.”
Benjamin looks toward his mother, who shrugs pleasantly and takes a seat. He shakes his head a little and begins to undress – first his shirt, then his shoes and socks, and lastly, with some trepidation, his jeans, which he folds and places on his lap. He stares into space as his mother plays a game with fruit on her phone.
The clinking of the hooks rings out as the curtain is thrust open.
“Benjamin?”
His eyes go wider than he wished they would have. He was expecting an elderly and bearded Dr. Innskeep, not a woman in her early thirties: freckled skin, strawberry blond hair, large white eyes behind large, black-framed glasses. Following behind is a younger woman – hardly older than Benjamin himself – dark hair and eyebrows, a smooth ivory complexion, and a pretty look, despite the irritating grin.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Jackson, and this is Alicia, my assistant,” she continues and picks up the form. “It says here you did a college physical last month,” she says.
“That’s right,” I say.
“So why are you here today?”
Benjamin opens his mouth but says nothing.
Looking at her son askance, his mother says: “He’s got an issue... down there,” pointing at his crotch with a queer frown.
Benjamin presses his lips together and looks down, then up at the assistant, whose grin is more irritating than before.
“Okay,” says Dr. Jackson. She turns to Ben, her expression emotionless, her eyes wider. “Care to elaborate?”
“Um,” Benjamin stammers, licking his lips, “It’s not, like... I mean it itches.”
“What itches?” she asks with piercing eyes. “The penis? The scrotum?”
“Uh, the tip,” he mutters.
“The tip? The glans or the urethra?”
“The what?” Benjamin asks.
“The head or the hole,” says Holly. Alicia almost snorts and looks away.
“Um, both.”
“So it’s not spread throughout your genitals?”
“Uh, no.”
She scribbles on the form. “Are you sexually active?”
“What?” he responds with shock.
“Are you having sex regularly?” the doctor repeats.
“Um, n-not right now,” he says, looking back and forth at his mom – who has raised her eyebrows at him – and the intolerable assistant, straining to compose herself.
“When was the last time you had sex?” Dr. Jackson asks.
Benjamin goes crimson red and shakes his head.
“Hm,” she says with knitted brow. “Guess we can rule out STD. Let’s have a look then.”
His lips involuntarily part. While only moving his eyes, he scans all three female faces – the doctor’s wide and inscrutable eyes; his mother’s cheerful anxiety; the assistant’s nauseating amusement – as a sinking horribleness forms in his belly. The sensation flees from his face and his hands.
“Okay,” he starts. “Is there a room where we go...?”
“
This
