Did you miss part 1? Read it here!
I sat eagerly in the waiting room, my thumbs moving rapidly across my phone screen as I drafted a text message. Since entering the clinic an hour ago, my anxiety had gradually started giving way to excitement. Smiling to myself, I hit “send” and looked up to inspect my surroundings.
The room was crowded for a Monday morning, every other seat occupied by old men in American flag t-shirts or exasperated mothers keeping their fidgety children in check, mostly unsuccessfully. Little bastards, I thought. All dribbling noses and high-pitched whining. I had a long wait ahead of me.
My phone buzzed with a reply. “Tom, I’m so excited to be on this journey with you. This is such an important milestone. Keep me posted!” I smirked. Truly, no man is a failure who has friends so invested in the fate of his penis.
Twenty-four hours. That’s all it had taken for me to throw in the towel and come here.
That first morning in Rhinelander, I’d found myself in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, tears in my eyes, as I bit down on my hand to stifle my screaming. Even still, I wondered at what my family must have been thinking. This was an old wooden cabin with paper-thin doors and cramped quarters. Privacy is a rare commodity in the north woods, and even the tiniest “drip” from the bathroom, be it from sink or urine, was audible to anyone with half a mind to listen. Surely, I couldn’t evade attention for long. And so, gathering what remained of my dignity, I had hauled myself up from the floor and departed immediately for the urgent care clinic.
“Absolutely. Thank you so much for your support in these trying times. I’ll keep you posted.”
I shot back my reply and looked straight ahead at the woman behind the front desk. Did she know the impact her words had had on me? She sat idly at her computer. Before her, an old man leaned on his cane and hacked a wad of phlegm into a handkerchief, inspecting its contents for several moments before folding it neatly into his back pocket. The woman didn’t bat an eye, her fingers whirring over the keyboard as she took down the man’s information through his rasps and coughs, pausing only briefly to take a slurp from her “All Dogs Go to Heaven” coffee mug. No, it didn’t seem likely that she noticed much at all, much less the excitement her words had instilled in me.
When I had been standing in that old man’s place an hour earlier, I had felt only shame and anxiety.
“What brings you in today, hon?” I remember her asking.
Well, ma’am, my closest friend since the day that I discovered Riley Reid has decided to turn against me in a flash of fiery rage. And it’s having just the most unfortunate impact on my capacity to expel waste. “Uh, well, the last few days I’ve had some, um, burning when trying to urinate.” For a brief flash, I saw myself crying on the bathroom floor, silently biting my fist to stifle the screams. “And I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s been getting worse the last day or so.” By the end, my voice had dropped to a whisper, my eyes darting side-to-side in embarrassment.
The woman jotted a few words down on her computer. “Mmmhm and how long has this been goin’ on?”
Since time eternal. Since before the fates spun their first skein of yard into the fabric of time; a time before the theft of fire into the world of man, a time before kingdoms, a time before pain. “Sunday morning.”
Her long, lacquered nails clacked across the keyboard. Without looking up, she motioned vaguely to the waiting room behind me. “Okay now, you can head on over and take a seat for a spell. A nurse will call you in shortly to take your STD test.”
My eyes widened in surprise. “My what?”
“Hon, most days we treat two things in this clinic, STDs and ATV accidents. Since you walked in here on your own and still got both your arms on you, I would say that only leaves one option, don’t you? What did you think you had?”
I sheepishly fidgeted with the phone in my pocket. In hindsight, my WebMD search for “UTI” felt too optimistic. Conversely, the browser window spelling out the symptoms of “flesh eating bacteria” seemed a bit dramatic.
But this? This wasn’t what I expected at all. This was something entirely new for me. This was, well, this was…awesome!
I felt the tension leaving my body. My penis was no longer a diseased animal put out to pasture. It was a solider! A brave warrior struck down in the heat of a righteous battle against the forces of celibacy. I stood up a little straighter and formed a silent salute in my head for my wounded serviceman.
“Ah, sorry, I’d misheard you. STD test. Right. Thank you.” I turned around to find myself a seat, a swagger in my step. Yeah, that’s right. I fuck.
Snapping back to the current moment, I heard a voice echo across the waiting room. “Tom?” Out front, a nurse stood holding a door open, roving her eyes over the mass of snotty children and snottier old men. I slid my phone back into my pocket, rising from my seat like my name was just announced at the Grammy’s, and sauntered over. Did these people know how lucky they were to be in the presence of such a virile young man? I hoped I wasn’t making the old men jealous with my youthful, confident stride.
The nurse raised an eyebrow at me as I followed her back to the examination room.
“Piss in this,” she said as she offered me a plastic cup. Right. One last battle. Fitting. “When you’re done, leave it on the tray outside the bathroom and come back here. We’ll give you a call in forty-eight hours when we get your test results. The doctor will be with you soon. Any questions?”
Without waiting for an answer, she gave me one more flat look and exited the room, leaving me alone with my cup and my male ego.
I took a step towards the bathroom. The man on the door was no longer mocking. It looked small, scared. The arms hanging down its sides were not opened in welcome, but in silent resignation. It knew the war was almost over, and that the tide had turned against it.
I took a deep breath. “To honor and glory, my friend.”
I pushed open the door.
The Existential Wannabe 