“What do you mean, your job?” she asked still panicking. “Where is Doctor Simms?” she was now looking around.
The man pulled his mask down and smiled.
“He is right here,” he said and she shook her head.
“But you are…” her voice trailed off as a flood of words came to mind.
Young.
Hot.
Perfect.
“Where is Doctor Sean Simms?” she asked again making sure that she stressed the name for him to understand how serious she was.
“Actually, you are looking at him,” he said and she raised an eyebrow over the other.
“Huh?”
“I am Sean Simms, the second.” He took a long deep breath. “A lot of people call me Junior but I would rather just go by the name Sean.”
Kylie frowned and shook her head in confusion.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“To make a long story short, I took over my father’s practice,” he said.
“Oh my God,” she said in a low voice as she felt her cheeks flushing a bright crimson. “This is the worst day of my life.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I need to go. Right now.”
“That’s fine but I hate to break it to you but you still have a speculum inside you,” he said and she rolled her eyes.
“Can’t I just pull it out myself?”
Sean smiled and shrugged.
“You could but it would be so much safer to let me do it,” he said. “You might end up pinching the skin on your…” she put her hand up and closed her eyes at the thought of what he was going to say.
“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” she said as she lay back down.
“Listen, Kylie…can I call you that?” he asked and she nodded. “I have been a doctor for eight years now. I know what I am doing.”
Kylie nodded.
“Just relax and this will be over before you know it,” he said and she closed her eyes again. She held on to the edges of the exam table and without even realizing it she was humming. What she didn’t see was that Sean was smiling to himself as he pulled out the speculum.
“There. All done,” he said as he rolled his chair away from the exam table. He took off his gloves as she covered up once more.
“By the way, the irritation is just candidiasis. I’ll give you a cream and a few days’ dose for that.”
She looked at him and shrugged, her heart still beating and her cheeks still flushed. There was no telling just how embarrassed she felt at that moment. And to make everything worse, she was frozen. She couldn’t talk or even move which made her look like an even bigger idiot than she felt.
*****
Kylie had never had so many murderous thoughts about her sisters but on this particular day, that was all she was thinking of doing even though it was the Moran weekly family dinner night, well, their version of family dinner. When the sisters moved to California for college, their parents had insisted on a weekly video call as they had dinner just to make sure that they didn’t lose the essence of family. And so far, it had been working great.
“How did you guys forget to tell me that the old Dr. Simms retired?” she asked, looking up from the lettuce she was chopping.
“Wait, you didn’t know?” her elder sister Kenzie asked. Kylie rolled her eyes and looked at her.
“How was I supposed to know?” she asked.
“But your last check-up was right about the time when he retired,” her other sister Kristie said.
“Which she would know if she kept the appointment,” Kenzie pointed out and Kristie gave Kylie a disappointed look.
“Why would you skip an appointment?”
“Because I hate it when some guy just tells me to spread my legs to have a look at my privates for no good reason,” Kylie said rinsing a few tomatoes. “It’s just weird.”
“Well, for starters, it is not for no good reason,” Kenzie said as she took a dishcloth from the counter. “And secondly,” she used the dishcloth to hit Kylie with it making her yell out in pain.
“What the hell was that for?” she asked and Kenzie shrugged.
“For skipping your appointment. That’s why,” she said.
“Yeah, I have half a mind to come over there and beat you with this damn stick myself,” Kristie said as she stirred the sauce in front of her. “And I would do it too if I wasn’t sure that I would ruin this beautiful sauce right here.”
“Well, eventually I went and everything is fine,” Kylie said as she sliced the tomato. “Except for some infection he called candid.”
Candidiasis,” Kenzie corrected her.
“Same difference,” Kylie said rolling her eyes. “Would you pass me the dressing?”