Now this makes me feel old. When I was growing up, doctors were always so much older than me. They were ancient. Craggy. Wizened. Bearded (mostly men, to be sure). And then somehow, with no transition or warning whatsoever, they're younger! And female!
"Have a seat, Mr. Wise. I'm Dr. Pattison." She was probably in her late 30s, which made her about a decade younger than me. She had some nice lines around her narrow brown eyes when she smiled, and I could see a little of her age in her neck. Her lips were thin and lightly glossed, and the strands of brown hair that had escaped the loose bun atop her head floated about her ears.
She was wearing a pale blue blouse and a navy skirt under her doctor's coat, which was at least a size too big judging by how it hung from her shoulders. She was scribbling noisily on a clipboard, and the whole impression was of someone playing at being a doctor.
I sat in the corner of the tiny office and waited, thinking about how in a few short years, I'd be coming in for regular colonoscopies. I was not looking forward to that. Meantime, I'd been less than vigilant over a smattering of suspicious moles on my forearms, calves, and lower back. It was high time I got serious about my health -- starting today.
Dr. Pattison put her clipboard on her desk and pulled a beat-up stool toward me. The space was tight. She sat and put both hands on her skirted thighs, and I couldn't help but notice the hemline had climbed a good two inches up her leg when she sat. She was wearing very sheer tan pantyhose (stockings?), which made my imagination twitch just a bit. This is not what I had expected from this visit, but I wasn't complaining.
She asked about my family history (melanoma on my mother's side), how long I'd been concerned about my moles (not very long, and not too concerned), how much sun I was getting (lots, which brought a disapproving frown), and various other questions. Then she stood.
"Ok Mr. Wise, time to have a look at you. If you can take off your shirt and stand here please." She pushed herself back on her stool and we both stood up together. She turned to make more notes on her clipboard while I unbuttoned my shirt and laid it on the chair behind me. I'd worn shorts for the occasion, knowing I would need to get my calves examined.
She turned back to me. "Great, now if you can extend your right arm for me." I held my arm straight out in front, palm down, as she'd demonstrated.
She clasped her hands behind her back and started her examination by simply peering closely at my arm, starting at the wrist and slowly working her way toward my shoulder. Then she gently took my arm and rotated it to see the other side. Her touch gave me a little jolt. When a strange woman touches your body, medical exam or not, you react. Simple as that.
She examined my arm for a minute, then lowered it and moved around behind me to review my other arm. She pulled a small black magnifying glass from her breast pocket and held it up to my arm in a few places, squinting into it.
I started to become uncomfortably aware of our relative physical positions and the environment. The nearness, the privacy, the touch, the quiet, her expertise, my vulnerability.
"I'm impressed Mr. Wise," she said as she lowered my left arm and looked at me. She was standing close. "You have more moles on one arm than most people have on their entire bodies." She smiled expectantly.
I wasn't sure how to respond. "Thanks, I think?"
She laughed and walked around to stand directly behind me. "I'm just going to check your back now, you can relax your arms at your sides." She made no sound for the next 30 seconds. I stared straight ahead. Then I heard her shift her weight, and then nothing again for another half minute. Then she said, "You're going to feel my hands, ok?"
"Yep," I said. Her fingers grazed my lower back and I shuddered, even after the advance warning. She thumbed one of my moles, then another. Then I felt both her hands on my shoulders, and she traced a light, slow path down my arms over my biceps, ending at my elbows, where she let her fingers drift off. It felt more like the touch of a masseuse, and I wondered about the medical purpose of that contact.
Pattison walked around in front of me and sat down on her stool. She crossed her legs and I heard the always-thrilling sound of pantyhose on pantyhose as her right leg came up over her left and settled down into the cross. The heel of her shoe swung away from her airborne foot and I could see her nylon-covered ankle.
I was standing, she was sitting. I felt like the only appropriate place for me to look was right down at her, especially since I was now awaiting further instructions. She laced her fingers together over her knee and looked up at me.
The eye contact in that moment dropped my stomach into my pelvis and I had to look away. Me standing looking down into her face, her sitting looking up into mine -- I'd forgotten the primal gut-wrench that accompanies this position. It had been at least 10 years since my wife and I had struck similar poses, usually in the bedroom.
"I'm going to move on to your lower body now," said Pattison. "Calves are a common place for melanoma to develop. They get a lot of sun exposure, and they're hard for you to see and monitor."
I continued to look straight ahead. I felt like I was under military inspection. "Ok, sounds good," I said.
"It's easier for me to sit for this part. If you can just turn around..."
I did as I was told. Once I was facing the back wall, I heard her legs uncrossing and the squeak of the stool as she dragged herself closer.
"You'll feel a hand now," she said, as she placed a few fingers on the outside of my right leg, just below the knee. But that wasn't all I felt. Pattison had scooched herself close enough that I could feel her left knee pushing into the back of my left leg. As her fingers continued to drift up and down my calf, her left knee moved ever so slightly back and forth against me.
Then her fingers came off my leg and her knee pulled away, and I heard the stool scraping again as she repositioned herself on my left. Movement on the floor caught my eye and I looked down to see that she was extending her right leg out past my right foot. I could see from the middle of her shin down -- all the way to her toes!
She'd removed her shoe at some point. She pressed her leg against the outside of my calf as her fingers roamed my other leg. I gulped, audibly I was sure, and felt my blood begin to pound. I kept looking at her toes, where I could see the reinforced seam of her pantyhose. I've never had a thing for feet, but in this context the image was jarringly intimate. And I do have a thing for pantyhose.
Her fingers dropped away from my calf and she drew her leg back, slowly it seemed, sliding it across my own. I blinked, dazed. The stool screeched again.
"Ok Mr. Wise, you can turn around now."
I turned toward her, looking at the floor as I made my half circle. I was thinking that if I started by looking down, I could pull my eyes from her feet up along her legs and to her face and that would be somewhat natural.
