A flash fiction piece
“The Gynecologist’s office is no place to spend an anniversary, Marybeth.”
The words floated from the mouth of tremor-ridden Dr. S. P. Lunker to his patron, who was lost in thought.
Image by Zachary Anderson
“Any concerns to raise before we begin?”
Marybeth had only one thing on her mind.
“The test results,” she said. “I can’t keep lying to my boyfriend. I need to know whether or not I have an STD.”
“Marybeth, a truly loving man would not care. You can use contraception for protection.”
“One, condoms are completely devoid of pleasure. Protected sex is about as fun as dry-humping a garbage bag. Two, I’ve had to hide my vagina until this is sorted out. Jeremy has been misbehaving, so I’ve been able to withhold sex, you see?”
Doctor Lunker did not understand any justification for withholding sex, but he relented.
“Go on,” he said.
“Well, it was easy at first. He got arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, so I cut him off for a week. Then I caught him masturbating and added two more weeks.”
“Masturbating is worse than being arrested?” the doctor asked quizzically.
“Of course it is! He’s cheating on me, directly violating the fidelity of the relationship. In fact, the only thing missing here is another woman,” Marybeth said.
The doctor let out an audible scoff, something that may or may not have been related to Marybeth raising her legs into the stirrups.
“He said if we don’t have sex tonight, we’re through,” she said. “It’s been 12 weeks.”
Lunker’s arms fell to his sides. “What on Earth has he done to deserve 12 weeks without sex?” asked the doctor, only partially concealing his astonishment.
“Most recently, he farted in bed. That’s direct sabotage.”
“Really?”
“He tried to say he was asleep, but I just watched an episode of Dog Whisperer where Cesar Millan said sleep farting is a subconscious signal that the farter is shitting on the relationship. That earned Jeremy four weeks on the couch.”
“Four weeks for farting in bed? Does he know that you had sex with another man and that you have to visit a gynecologist because of it!?” The doctor exclaimed.
“Don’t get smart, doc. I was just getting even when I slept with Henry. Jeremy never picked up my tampons that one time. He is always forgetting me, so I paid him back in kind.”
“Right, forgetting an errand is worth sleeping around. I see.”
The rest of the check-up went smoothly, aside from the battle going inside Lunker’s head. He prepped Marybeth for a Pap smear while seriously debating whether or not to tell her the true results of her test, grappling with whether or not Jeremy would care about Marybeth’s STD status at this point. His hand, which appeared to be constantly dancing in a strobe light, gripped the analytical needle only to throw it to the floor after Marybeth asked, “How bad would it be if we never had sex again?”
The doctor exploded, and not in the fun, pleasant way.
“It’s a rash! You must have skipped a segment in the shower or have a moldy bike seat or something, just go home and fuck Jeremy for Chrissake!”
He stormed out of the room, leaving Marybeth somewhat stuck in the stirrups. As she struggled to defy gravity and her portliness simultaneously, she contemplated the dreadful thought of actually having sex with Jeremy, and decided it was worth it to wait for a second opinion.