The examining room was very warm. Olivia was thankful for that, seeing as how she was only wearing her bra and panties.
There was a nurse who had come in earlier to record Olivia's height, weight, and blood pressure. After telling Olivia to undress, the nurse informed her that this was a very busy hospital with many patients and that they didn't always have enough hospital gowns for everyone. Olivia's sandals, purse, tank top and shorts were piled up together in a blue plastic bin and Olivia had on nothing but her undergarments. The nurse had placed the blue bin on top of the doctor's desk and then left the room.
Olivia wondered how much longer the doctor would be. She hoped the doctor would be a woman. And hoped that the doctor would speak English. She shut her eyes and rubbed her temples as she thought about her stupid actions from the night before: the nightclub, all the cocktails, her overly sexy outfit, her overly sexy dancing. What had she been thinking? The night before, Olivia had been behaving completely out of character. It was as if she had been trying to become someone else.
It was the summer before Olivia was supposed to begin college. She had earned a partial scholarship to go to a state university which was, luckily, located in her hometown. The scholarship was going to go a long way to help her pay for her education. On top of that, she was planning to live at home with her parents while she attended college. Between the scholarship and living at home with her family during the school year, Olivia was going to be saving quite a lot of money compared to her peers. One of her best friends from highschool was going to college out of state. Another close friend of hers had opted for a private university. Both friends had taken out hefty student loans to attend the colleges of their choice. With all the money Olivia was saving, she had managed to convince her parents that a summer abroad backpacking trough Europe was well earned. And while Olivia's parents were extremely hesitant, they eventually agreed. After all, she was legally an adult now and would be paying for the trip herself with money she had earned from working after school jobs.
Throughout all of highschool, Olivia rarely went out partying. She spent her weekends either working at various part-time jobs or was at home studying. Having little to no social life during highschool was depressing much of the time. She had never even had a real boyfriend. Had it not been for her best friend setting her up with a date for prom, she would have probably still been a virgin. (At least losing her virginity was one rite of passage she managed to get out of the way before college.)
But now having the chance to spend the summer abroad in Europe, all the hard work and sacrifice seemed worth it. She had opted for Eastern Europe. She had always been fascinated by stories that had come out of Russia: Doctor Zhivago, Anna Karenina, Rasputin and Anastasia. She loved music by Tchaikovsky and dreamed of being able to watch a classical Russian ballet. But before going to Russia, she had decided to visit some of the smaller lesser known Eastern European countries first. She had spent a weekend in Estonia and then a few days in Latvia. Currently she was in the tiny former Soviet country of Vulmonia. She had planned on spending about two days in Vulmonia before taking the train to Belarus.
Olivia had never heard of Vulmonia before she had begun planning her big trip abroad. To her surprise, she couldn't find out much about it while researching Eastern Europe. She could only find the most basic of information; it had a population of under two million, the capital city was Nulmara, and the majority of the population belonged to an extremely conservative sect of the Eastern Orthodox Church. She read that while the country was relatively poor, they had an unusually high education level. They had adopted a British style education system and much of the country was fluent in English. But that was about all the facts she could find about the small nation. In a way, having such little information made Olivia want to travel to Vulmonia even more. With the country so shrouded in mystery, it made traveling there seem like more of an adventure.
After actually arriving in Vulmonia, Olivia observed several things. The women dressed extremely conservatively. While showing some skin certainly wasn't illegal, most women covered up from head to toe. Some even covering their heads with thick scarves, despite the sweltering summer heat. Olivia probably would have covered up as well in order to fit in, but it was just too hot. And she was spending hours at a time walking around, sightseeing, and getting very sweaty in the process. She noticed other western tourists dressed in t-shirts, tank tops, shorts and flip flops and decided that her attire probably wouldn't get her into too much trouble.
As Olivia was walking through the town square in the capital city of Nulmara, she was shocked at the sight of a raised platform in the middle of the square. On the platform was a man, bent over and restrained in what looked like a pillory. As Olivia stopped with her eyes wide and her mouth agape, staring at the miserable looking man, another more knowledgeable tourist - a burly American man in his forties - came up beside her and started to explain. According to him, Vulmonia had been denied entrance into the European Union because its legal system still practiced medieval forms of punishment such as flogging, mock drowning and public shaming. The pillory was actually one of the less severe forms of punishment a convicted criminal could get. Especially since there was a police officer standing by making sure no one inflicted any actual permanent physical harm on the penitent. The worst that could happen was someone might throw some rotten food in the convicted man's face. But other than that, no real harm would come to him. The punishment was more about shaming him rather than physically harming him.
"Why do they still practice such brutal punishments?" Olivia asked in horror.
The middle-aged American tourist shrugged his broad shoulders. "It keep costs down, I guess. It's much cheaper to keep someone in the pillory or the stocks for a few days rather than have them spend weeks or months in prison. Vulmonia is not a rich country and they have to save money when possible."
Olivia shuddered. "It's just so barbaric."
"Have you ever seen inside an American prison?" the older man inquired. Olivia shook her head no. "You might be surprised." He told her. "One look inside an American federal prison and you may not find Vulmonia so barbaric after all. At least there's a policeman standing guard to prevent the poor guy from getting buggered."
"From getting what???" Olivia's eyes widened.
"Nothing. Never mind," the older American man chuckled. "Listen, my name is Luke and I'm going to be here for about a week. I'm staying at the Nulmara International Hotel. " He pulled a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. Olivia accepted it half-heartedly from his large, stocky hand. "If you need anything or even if you just want to talk and hang out, you can call the hotel and ask for me. Or you can call my cell. The number's on the card."
Olivia stuffed the card into the back pocket of her shorts. "Uh, yeah, thanks," She mumbled. "Well, there's other stuff I want to do and see," she said vaguely. "So I'd better get going." She silently hoped that Luke wouldn't ask to join her.
"Sure." He smiled. "But if you get lonely, don't hesitate to call," he said winking at her.
