You are a forty-year-old man and your time has come.
You sit in the waiting room of what you suppose you may now call ‘your’ proctologist’s office, your legs bouncing up and down nervously on your toes. The fluorescent light flickers above your head, making it difficult to read the 2003 issue of Highlights for Kids the staff has graciously provided in a doctor’s office that exclusively serves adults. Some asshole, I mean jerk, has colored in the Hidden Pictures.
“Damn it,” you say a bit too loudly, causing the receptionist to shoot you a disapproving look. You smile and wave apologetically, then avoid further eye contact with her.
The nurse opens the hallway door and calls your name. You shuffle meekly to the rear, I mean back, of the office. You sit gingerly on the padded examining table, the dry white paper crackling beneath you. You try to enjoy the last sit you’ll ever have before you’ve had another man’s finger in you rectum. (You tell yourself that time in college doesn’t count.)
The doctor walks into the examination room and greets you. He explains the steps of a routine check-up with him, going into enough detail to make you nervous while somehow being vague enough to scare you. He numbers these steps and punctuates each number with a finger gesture.
He uses his index finger for number one and time, for a moment, freezes. That’s the one. You study every swell and wrinkle on that finger, knowing it will soon be inside you.
In addition to counting on his fingers, the doctor frequently uses broad, sweeping hand gestures. Your eyes track his hands up and down, over and round, as if tracking a fly buzzing around the room. You consider telling him a proctologist should not make a habit of speaking with his hands, but think better of it. He might not take it, I mean receive it, I mean you might offend him.
The moment is here and the doctor slips on a black latex glove. You ask him why he wears black and he says it’s because black doesn’t show dirt as badly as white. He chuckles; you do not.