"I'd like to thank you for seeing me today on such short notice, Miss Bennington," Doctor Gupta said, shining a penlight into one of Becky's cornflower blue eyes. "Our phone conversation suggested you might be having another flareup, and I thought it best to get you in for a check-up right away. A condition like yours requires careful monitoring, and I'm very grateful to you for coming in so we can ensure you don't experience any unforeseen issues."
Becky blinked away spots as Doctor Gupta moved the penlight from one eye to the other. "Yes, right, of course, my... my condition. Sure," she nodded, trying to see Doctor Gupta's concerned expression behind the bright patch of greenish-yellow visual snow in the middle of her field of vision. She felt like the same afterimage floated in front of her thoughts, disorienting and confusing her memories of the last hour until she couldn't quite connect her presence in the doctor's office with the phone call she received from Doctor Gupta.
It was the strangest thing-she could remember his calm, lightly accented voice speaking to her, she could remember driving to his office... but emotionally, Becky felt like she'd just woken up from a sound sleep to find herself sitting on the examination table and staring blankly into Doctor Gupta's eyes. "Um, yes, absolutely," she said brightly, pretending a confidence she didn't feel at all. "My condition, absolutely. Um... could you just remind me what my condition was again?"
Doctor Gupta frowned in concern. "Failing to remember that you have a condition is one of the early symptoms of your condition," he said, stroking his dark beard in contemplation. "Tell me, Miss Bennington, have you been experiencing any periods of unexpected physical sensitivity to touch lately? Have you had any difficulty concentrating, or difficulty retaining information for extended periods?"
Becky rubbed the back of her neck, brushing aside her long blonde hair as she struggled to push through the lingering sense of disorientation and answer the doctor's questions. "Um, I... no, I don't think I've had any, um, any difficulty concentrating." The words practically made themselves into a lie; Becky felt like she had to work incredibly hard to keep her train of thought from dissolving into blank, incoherent confusion. Her brain felt oddly numb, almost as if it would coast to a stop without her continuous effort and leave her sitting on the examination table in a fugue of bewildered silence.
"And the other symptoms?" Doctor Gupta asked, his gaze radiating sincerity and concern. He had the most wonderful dark brown eyes, Becky thought absently, the notion bubbling up into her brain without any real prompting on her part. It was one of the first things she noticed about him, back when she first came to see him. She remembered thinking that it would be very easy to lose herself in eyes like that, to simply stare into the bottomless depths of his wide black pupils and let go of all her troubles. It was a good quality for a... in a... for, um... um...
The bubble burst in her head. Becky let it pop. "I'm sorry," she said, her expression firming into blank, bewildered politeness. Her hand slid away from the back of her neck to brush gently along her cheek in confusion. "I... what other symptoms were we talking about?" She furrowed her brow, trying to clear the thick fog that seemed to fill her head long enough to figure out why she had such a thick fog filling her head. Becky didn't think of herself as scatterbrained or stupid, at least not usually, but somehow her brain didn't seem to want to work right now. Every thought took a frankly terrifying amount of effort to push through her sluggish, groggy mind.
But Doctor Gupta seemed to know exactly what was going on, and his calm confidence kept Becky's confusion from escalating into fear as she continued to gaze into his deep brown eyes. "It's just as I thought, then," he said, patting her knee gently. "I think it's best if I examine for myself. Can you please take off your clothes and lie down on the table so that I can take a closer look? I suspect that your condition is developing a full-blown episode, at the moment, but I need to be sure."
For a moment, Becky froze in confusion. She knew that Doctor Gupta was a fully licensed medical professional, but something felt strangely... off about undressing for him. It didn't quite fit into her head properly, as though she was used to seeing her doctor in a completely different context. The sense of disorientation grew stronger the more she thought about it, until even the examination room itself seemed incongruous to her. Nothing felt normal or right anymore-the walls seemed to swim as if there was another image laid over them, another place and another time where Becky went to... to stare, to listen, to...
"Of course, doctor," Becky murmured, her hands moving automatically to pull her shirt up and over her head. Her eyes went slightly glassy as she reached around behind her to remove her bra next, letting it fall to the linoleum tiles and exposing her heavy breasts to Doctor Gupta's gaze. She didn't need to worry about it, though. Doctor Gupta had seen women's bodies before. He was an MD, as well as a... as a... She didn't need to worry about it. That was the only thing that mattered.
