Amy dreaded the thought of having to find a new gynecologist. She'd been an anxious wreck ever since she called her usual clinic to make an appointment for her annual exam, only to be told that the provider had sold the practice off to a podiatrist and took an early retirement for herself. Fuck! Amy had been seeing her OB/GYN since she was 17. She didn't want to go to someone new at this point in her life! No one had ever seen her genitals other than that doctor and her now-ex-husband. The only reason she felt the need to make this stupid appointment in the first place was to get an STI screen after that two-timing asshole had gone off on a weekend “business trip” with her now-ex-best friend. She knew that friend had questionable tastes in men. Apparently she did too if she could have been so gullible to believe her exes lies for as long as she had.

She walked into the building of office suites and identified “Kelly's Women's Clinic” on the building’s directory. She pressed the “up” button for the elevator, stepped inside and selected the uppermost “5” from the panel within. The doors closed, the elevator lurched (along with her stomach) and slowly began to rattle its way up. She should have taken the stairs, despite the elevated heart rate it would have given her. This elevator certainly wasn't doing her any favors in that regard.

She stepped off the elevator into a long, dim hallway. In front of her a small sign indicated “Thomas Pediatrics” with an arrow pointing left and “Kelly's Women's Clinic” pointing right. The space certainly didn’t feel very inviting towards women OR children for that matter, but Amy stepped off in the direction of the navy blue door at the end of the hallway to the right. By the time she pushed open the door and stepped into the waiting reception room, she could practically hear her pulse in her ears. A young man who couldn’t have been much older than 22 sat behind the desk with a pleasant smile and hello to her as soon as the door latched behind her. She was caught off-guard by the male behind the desk. She knew better than to judge by gender, but it still felt odd - off - to be greeted by the face of a young man at a women’s clinic.

“Amy?” He asked, his voice surprisingly deep for his youthful appearance. “4:30, new patient…annual?”

Amy approached the desk and drummed her fingers nervously against the counter top. Nodded. She immediately noted the utter silence and lack of other patients around the place. Something definitely felt off about this.

“Wonderful,” the young man said as he quickly typed something into the computer in front of him, “Do you have your ID and insurance cards?” Amy handed over both. “Thank you… and it looks like you completed the preliminary questionnaire online prior to coming here… good, great…” He typed some more. “Any concerns you wanted to address with the doctor at today’s appointment?”

Amy’s breath caught in her throat as she caught his gaze with an incredulous look. He looked so earnest and, gosh, so young. “Isn’t that something that I should discuss with the nurse or the doctor once I’m in the room?”

“Oh, sure, absolutely, but if you want to let me know I can make a note of it here so the doctor knows what to expect,” the young receptionist said happily as he clicked away on his keyboard.

Amy swallowed awkwardly and cleared her throat with a sound that sounded more like a choked squeak than anything else.

“You know what?” The receptionist said with a smile, folding his hands together on top of the desk where he sat, “You can just let the nurse know when he comes out to grab you. Go ahead and take a seat and he’ll be right out.”

He?! How many men worked in this Kelly’s clinic?!?

As Amy took a seat in a - remarkably comfortable - plush armchair, she could practically feel herself vibrating with nerves. She suddenly realized she didn’t do her due diligence in researching this clinic. It had a good enough star review on Google, though surprisingly devoid of any actual written reviews. Maybe she should have just gone with the information that was passed along from the podiatrist who had taken over from her beloved OB/GYN, but that clinic had been poorly reviewed. Or, rather, one of the main doctors had been.

“Amy?” She was startled as she heard her name from behind her shoulder and stood to face a startlingly attractive and young male nurse holding open the door to guide her to where she needed to go.

“If you want to follow me, we will be going straight into Exam Room B,” he said as he pulled the door closed behind them both and indicated his head forward down a long hallway of closed doors. Surely they weren’t all in use?! The clinic was practically silent save for an occasional beeping or mechanical whir from unidentifiable locations.

“What brings you to see Dr. Kelly?” The nurse asked as they walked on ahead. Wait. Dr. Kelly? She thought… oh no. Of course she should have assumed Kelly was the doctor’s last name. Oh god… ”Are you ok, Amy?”

The nurse pushed open the blue door labeled “EXAM ROOM B” and Amy twisted her hands around the hem of her shirt, riddled with nerves and anxiety. The room was massive. How was this a standard examination room? A padded exam table sat in the middle of the room, under a cluster of impossibly large surgical lights, the padded knee rest stirrups already positioned and in place at the end of the table. Oh god, where WAS she?!? A door to the right of the room led into a single use bathroom. An entire wall of cabinets buffeted one side of the room, metal carts and other electronic medical devices stood silently waiting on along another wall. The room was otherwise spotlessly clean, not a single tool or instrument in sight from what she could see. She swallowed nervously.

“Go ahead and have a seat there…” the nurse indicated to a plastic chair tucked behind where they had stepped in through the door, and he pulled aside a mobile computer cart, along with what looked like a hospital crash cart. Without a word, he reached out and grabbed Amy's hand and slipped a heart rate monitor over her finger. He returned to his computer cart and began to type.

“Again, Amy, what brings you in to see Dr. Kelly today? Looking through your intake information provided here it looks like you don’t really have any pressing health concerns or abnormal tests in your medical history…?”

“Um… just an annual exam, I guess?” Amy replied quietly. “I’d like a STI test done too. My husband…er… ex husband… he was unfaithful and I want to make sure…” she trailed off.

The nurse nodded sympathetically and typed more into the computer in front of him, “Yep, sure, absolutely, we can do that. Dr. Kelly typically does run a basic STI panel with any new patients, although he can also perform some additional tests and procedures at request, depending on how concerned you are.”

“He?” Amy squeaked, she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t think the nurse caught the startle in her voice.

“No concerning gynecological symptoms otherwise though? No pain or unusual discharge? Cycles are normal? Moods are good and balanced? Anything you want or need the doctor to know before he comes in to see you here?”

“Uh…no, I don’t think so,” she replied.

“Ok, great! We do love to hear that…” he typed some more. “Now, Amy, we do have a bit of an unorthodox clinic here. Dr. Kelly can be exceptionally thorough with his examinations and he may perform some tests and procedures that could feel uncomfortable, painful, or a bit more, er, invasive than you may be used to with the doctor who you’ve been seeing for so long.”

The nurse met Amy’s gaze and immediately softened his tone, “I am happy to remain with you for the duration of your examination with the doctor, or you may request to meet with him alone. Either option is fine with us. I apologize that we do not currently have any other women employed within the clinic at this point in time. Our PA is on maternity leave as of two weeks ago, and our other nurse practitioner just got a promotion elsewhere. We're currently hiring for her replacement and hope to have someone new within the next month…”

”I’ll be fine,” Amy said quietly, mostly to assure herself.

“You sure?” The nurse punched something into his keyboard and returned to Amy's side to take her blood pressure. “Your heart rate is awfully high, we might need to get a better reading at the end of your exam.”

He quickly typed a couple more things in his computer and then turned to the row of cabinets that lined the wall behind him and grabbed a white gown with blue dots from within. “You’re the only patient we have at the end of the day here, I have no problem staying if you want an extra person in the room with you.”

“No,” Amy said quickly, taking the gown from the nurse, “No, I’ll be fine.” She held up the gown. It was tiny. It wasn’t a gown, it was barely a shirt.

“Sorry it’s fairly minimal,” the nurse explained, sensing her unease as she held the thin fabric between her fingers, “Again, Dr. Kelly can be a bit unorthodox in his examinations. Once we get you undressed, weighed and situated for the exam, the doctor has a curtain that he prefers to position over his patients - versus the usual paper drape that you’re likely used to. Dr. Kelly believes this provides his patients with a sense of modesty without anything interfering with his examination process.”

Yeah, but she would still feel everything that he was doing down there, wouldn’t she?!

“Should I…” she shrugged as she held the gown in her hand.

“Oh, yes, please, absolutely, you may go ahead and undress completely,” the nurse indicated, “Bra and panties included. I can step out in the hall if you’d like, but I will need to come right back in to weigh you once you’re undressed and I can assure you that I have seen it all.”

“You can’t weigh me right now…?” Amy argued.

”Sorry, the scales are adjusted to the ounce and any article of clothing will skew the result. We know the weight of the gowns so we subtract that from the result on the scale.” Amy took a deep breath. She supposed this male nurse was going to see her bare ass one way or another, maybe it didn’t matter if he left the room.

“Can I at least change in the bathroom or something?” Amy indicated to the room in question tucked off to the side of the exam room.

“I'll just quick step out,” the nurse said as he went to the door of the room, “just knock on the door when you're undressed and ready.”

And with that, he left her alone in the expansive exam room to get undressed.