“Lieutenant Willard?”

The name cracked through the sterile air of the medical tent like a whip.

Marc Willard, American Army, with just the right amount of roguish charm and insufferable self-confidence, turned from the tray of protein bars he was judging with suspicion.

“That’s me,” he replied, flashing a grin as if he were checking into a five-star spa and not a yearly poke-and-prod appointment.

Dr. Elisabeth Hartley barely looked up from her clipboard. “Delightful,” she said, in the driest tone this side of the Thames. “This way. Try not to trip over your ego on the way in.”

He followed her into the partitioned exam space, which smelled like antiseptic, coffee, and doom.

“Big fan of bedside manner, Doc. You practicing for your role as Ice Queen of the Year?” he quipped, hopping onto the exam bed with the practiced grace of a man who spent a lot of time jumping out of aircraft and into trouble.

“I won last year, actually,” she replied, snapping on latex gloves with surgical finality. “Unanimous vote. I beat out three coroners and a tax officer.”

“Hard to believe,” he said, unzipping his field jacket and shrugging it off. “You seem almost human.”

“You’ll see the rest of my personality when you pass your physical,” she said. “Now. Boots off. Shirt off. Try to look like you’ve heard of hygiene.”

He complied with theatrical sighing. She produced a tape measure and a scale with the air of a woman ready to diagnose both a bullet wound and a man-flu without batting an eye.

“Height?” she asked, adjusting the scale’s rod.

“Six-one,” he said, puffing his chest.

She raised an eyebrow. “And that’s without the hair gel?”

“Ma’am, this is natural volume,” he said, giving her a slow, dazzling smile.

“Tragic,” she replied, noting his height. “Weight?”

“190, give or take a protein bar.”

She jotted down the number as he stepped on the scale. “Give or take twelve protein bars,” she muttered.

He grinned. “Are you flirting with me, Doctor?”

“I don’t flirt, Lieutenant,” she said crisply, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around his bicep. “I triage poor decisions and keep men like you alive despite your best efforts.”

“Men like me?”

“You know. The ones with good teeth, bad ideas, and a death wish wrapped in heroism.”

“Well now you’re just describing my dating profile.”

She pressed the stethoscope to his chest. He made a sound suspiciously like a low growl.

“Deep breath,” she ordered.

He inhaled.

“And again. Try not to flex dramatically this time.”

“I’m not flexing,” he said innocently. “These abs are on autopilot.”

She didn’t dignify that with a response, though she did make a note on her clipboard that may or may not have read: Narcissism: severe.

“Heart rate’s elevated,” she said.

“Maybe it’s your bedside manner,” he replied. “Or maybe it’s the fact you’re currently pressed up against me with a cold piece of metal.”

She looked up at him with the clinical detachment of a mortician. “It’s your fight-or-flight reflex reacting to the presence of competence. Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”

Next came the lymph nodes. He tilted his head obligingly as she palpated his neck with expert fingers.

“Anything I should know about?” she asked.

“Other than I’ve been having dreams about this exact moment?”

“I meant medically. Not your delusions of romantic inevitability.”

He laughed. “You're good at this.”

“Years of practice. And a very large cup of tea.”

Abdominal palpation followed, which Marc claimed was unfair without a dinner date first.

“I suppose this is where I ask if you feel any tenderness,” she said dryly.

“I feel deeply wounded by your emotional distance, does that count?”

“You’ll live,” she said, pressing down gently across the quadrants of his abdomen. Her hands were cool, clinical, and unfairly elegant.

He tried not to flex again, but it was a losing battle.

“Do you do this to all the soldiers, or am I just lucky?”

“Most of them don’t talk this much,” she replied, standing straight and peeling off her gloves. “Or they faint halfway through. It’s really a mixed bag.”

“Bet none of them look this good shirtless though,” he said, slipping the shirt back on with a practiced roll of his shoulders.

She arched an eyebrow. “I’ve seen better.”

He stared. “Now that was cold.”

“Please,” she said, scribbling the last notes. “You were born to be insulted. Your blood pressure barely twitched.”

“I work well under pressure,” he said.

“Good,” she said, walking toward the desk. “Because we’re only halfway done. I haven’t even gotten to the reflexes, vision test, or the... let’s call them lower hemisphere assessments.”

He stood, tugging on his boots with a smirk.

“Can’t wait,” he said, his grin all teeth. “Do I get a sticker if I’m brave?”

“You get to keep your dignity,” she said. “Assuming you had any to start with.”

-

“You look nervous, Lieutenant,” Dr. Hartley said, slipping on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves with that same deadpan detachment that made Marc wonder if she moonlighted as a dominatrix—or perhaps a tax auditor. “Not having second thoughts, are we?”

Marc Willard, usually the very picture of cocky American bravado, sat on the edge of the exam table, sleeves rolled up, chest puffed out... but his eyes? They were locked on the syringe tray like it was a nest of vipers.

“Big fan of bullets,” he muttered. “Knives, explosions, bar fights in Kabul—love ‘em all. But needles?” He glanced up. “You people make them unnecessarily long.”

Dr. Hartley raised an eyebrow as she picked up the vacuum blood collection needle, attaching the collection tube with a precise snap. “This one’s a pediatric gauge.”

“It looks like something from medieval torture porn.”

“Oh, stop,” she said, palpating the antecubital fossa of his arm. “You’ve got the veins of a show-off. Practically asking for it.”

“Do you flirt like this with all your patients?”

“Only the ones who turn an annual physical into a Shakespearean monologue.”

He gritted his teeth as the needle slipped in with barely a pinch. She collected the blood with practiced efficiency, changing vials mid-stream.

“There we go,” she murmured. “Still breathing?”

“Barely.”

“You were quieter during this than you were during the auscultation. A miracle.”

“I’m conserving strength for the next round,” he replied, eyeing her tray suspiciously. “Don’t tell me that was the worst of it?”

“Oh no,” she said, removing the tourniquet with an audible snap. “Now we move on to swabs.”

“Throat swab?” he asked hopefully. “Bit of back-of-the-mouth action? Maybe a gag or two for comedic effect?”

She tilted her head. “You’re disturbingly cheerful about that.”

“Standard procedure. Did a dozen in the field.”

“Good,” she said. “Let’s see if this time you manage not to drool on my gloves.”

He opened wide. She went in with the long sterile swab, brushing the tonsillar arches. He gagged, as predicted, and flailed only a little.

“Dignified,” she said.

“Delightful,” he rasped. “Now what?”

“Nasal swab.”

“Oh come on—”

“Relax, Lieutenant. This part is merely moderately traumatic.”

She tilted his head back with a firm hand and slid the swab into the nasopharynx—deeper than he was emotionally comfortable with. His eyes watered immediately.

“Why does it feel like you’re brushing my brain?”

“Anatomy,” she said sweetly. “You should read a book sometime.”

He blinked rapidly as she disposed of the swab. “That better be the end of it.”

She turned, opened a sterile pack, and produced a new set of swabs—these thinner, longer, and somehow far more ominous.

“No,” she said, almost cheerfully. “Now we test for the interesting things.”

Marc stared. “Those are the STD swabs, aren’t they?”

“Correct.” She was already snapping on another pair of gloves like it was tea time. “Urethral and rectal. Full panel. Command’s orders. Same for everyone, don’t feel special.”

“You say that like it’s comforting.”

She approached, clinical and calm, the exact opposite of Marc’s internal monologue which was rapidly descending into chaos.

“Now,” she said briskly, “you’ll feel a brief, sharp discomfort. I recommend breathing and not punching your medic. That’s considered poor form.”

“Doc—come on—I don’t suppose you’d settle for an awkward handshake and a promise of celibacy?”

“No,” she said, already positioning herself. “Pants down, Lieutenant.”

“You could at least buy me dinner first.”

“You couldn’t afford my dinner, Lieutenant.”

He groaned but complied, face burning a shade of red best described as regret incarnate.

“Try to relax,” she said.

“That’s like telling someone to relax before a parachute jump.”

“In this case, a very small jump,” she added without missing a beat.

He stares at her. Stares.

“Okay, Willard. This could be unpleasant. I do recommend to take a deep breath and look away”. She said, deadpan. He replied with a guttural sound, voice caught in his throat.

The doctor leaned forward over the examination table, grasping the soldier’s penis with her left hand. She visually inspected the urethral meatus and then retracted the foreskin, exposing the glans.

“Spread your legs a little more,” she said, lightly tapping the patient’s left thigh.

“Ngh!” the lieutenant muttered, gripping the edges of the examination table tightly and spreading his thighs almost imperceptibly.

She didn't flinch and slightly opened the meatus with the index finger and thumb of her left hand. Then she said, “On three,” with no real intention of actually counting to three. His eyes were squeezed shut, his breathing rapid and shallow.

She lifted the cotton swab from the tray and gripped it firmly in her right hand.

His knuckles had turned white from the pressure as he clenched the edges of the mattress.

“One… two…” — and she inserted the tip of the swab into the urethral opening.

“OWHHHCHH!”

The lieutenant’s body stiffened abruptly, his buttocks clenching in an involuntary reflex.

“Keep still, Marc!” she exclaimed sharply. She tightened her grip on the shaft of his penis and inserted the swab for three excruciating, painful, centimeters into his urethral canal.

“Fucking hell! It hurts, it hurts…!” He couldn’t hold it back, squeezing his thighs together.

She was used to soldiers’ unrestrained reactions; she had seen big, burly men writhe like eels during the same unpleasant procedure.

Doctor Hartley paused for a few moments before rotating the swab three times.

The turns were slow, deliberate, and extremely uncomfortable.

The tip of the swab pressed against the penis walls, burning like lava inside the urethral canal.

The lieutenant couldn’t withstand this latest move and let out a strangled scream.

“I know it’s unpleasant, but you have to stay still, Willard—we almost done…”

“Unpleasant?? Unpleasant!! Tough you were trying to kill me!”

The lieutenant couldn’t hold back a tear, which he tried to hide by covering his eyes with an arm bent at a right angle across his face. His other hand was rigidly anchored to the cot, his fingers now numb from the lack of circulation.

The doctor adjusted her grip on the swab’s handle, preparing to withdraw it. With the change in position, the swab advanced another couple of millimeters into the soldier’s delicate anatomy.

“AWWWWHHH.”

“Shhhhhh,” she said gently, withdrawing the foreign object from the poor lieutenant’s penis. “All done!”

The removal had been painful as well. He was breathing heavily, his eyes glossy, his cheeks flushed.

She carefully picked up the swab, taking care not to contaminate the tip, and placed it gently into the test tube, sealing it before setting it on the tray alongside the blood samples she had taken earlier.

“Come now, Lieutenant Willard! It was just a small urethral swab, not a catheter!”

He didn’t have the strength to answer, but shot her a look full of hatred. She leaned forward to grab the second test tube, and in doing so brushed against the tip of his still-sore glans.

“Son of a—!”
“Language,” she interrupted, already preparing the rectal swab. “We’re not done yet.”

“What do you mean you’re not done?!” he muttered through gritted teeth, alarmed expression. “I am done! I am more than done!”

“C’mon, Lieutenant! What kind of military fantasy would this be if it ended without further torture?” She asked, with rhetorical smirk.

“You stabbed me already with a swab!” That sounded a bit more angry than he willed.

“And yet, here we are. One over, and—believe it or not—you didn’t die.”

He raised an eyebrow, lips pressed together and a very disappointed expression.

“The next one won’t be so unpleasant. Roll over, big boy”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You hear me. Rectal swab next, I need you to roll over and spread your checks for me.” she said, in the voice of a woman who had stitched up bullet wounds and watched enough Americans panic in this exact position to have a favorite brand of gloves.

He turned ten shades of red.

“Elisabeth— sorry, Doctor Hartley. You can’t be serious. That was already mortifying!”

“I am dead serious. And I do not have all day. Flip over, Lieutenant. Unless you want me to go get backups to keep you in position!”

He sighed. Painfully. And then turned over.

Doctor Hartley couldn’t help but admiring his cute, white, muscular butt. Only for a second, but still she enjoyed the view.

Then she took hold of the lieutenant’s hands and, as if maneuvering a puppet, encouraged him to open up his own buttocks. He huffed, but didn’t have the courage to let go. The position, objectively, was far from dignified. Marc could feel the cool air of the room teasing his anal opening.

His puckering hole, shamelessly exposed, twitched in small, uncontrollable movements. The skin around his anus, usually well shielded by his cheeks, felt especially sensitive to the chill of the room.

“That’s why I can’t use any lubricant—it could interfere with the test results,” she said, pulling the thin swab from its sterile packaging.

“Actually,” she said calmly, “it’s synthetic rayon. Designed for maximum sample collection and minimum trauma.”

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘minimum trauma.’”

Then she continued, “you’ll feel some mild discomfort during insertion.”

“Really? You don’t say!” he shot back, his sarcasm barely hidden.

“Take a deep breath and relax,” Elisabeth urged, without waiting any longer.

She pressed the enlarged tip of the swab against his anal sphincter, which twitched a few times in anticipation of the insertion.

After a few seconds, realizing her patient wouldn’t relax any further, she proceeded to insert the swab about four centimeters into Marc’s rectum.

“Owwwwwww! Christ! At least give me a warning!”

Despite the resistance, the thin swab slid into the lieutenant with relative ease.

“Keep breathing.”
“Easy for you to say!”

She didn’t respond to his remark and began rotating the swab vigorously—three times clockwise, then three times counterclockwise.

The lieutenant grumbled but didn’t let go of his cheeks. After about a minute, the doctor withdrew the swab.

The removal was just as uncomfortable and stinging.

She peeled off her gloves and disposed of the swabs like a woman filing away unwanted paperwork.

“You may get dressed,” she said. “And breathe. Both optional, but recommended.”

Marc sat there for a second, red-cheeked, blinking at the ceiling.

“Doc,” he said finally. “I’ve been shot. Blown up. Left in a ditch. But nothing compares to that.”

She arched a perfectly shaped brow. “You’re welcome.”

He sat upright on the table, slowly pulling his trousers back up, visibly traumatized.

“You’ve got the bedside manner of a Bond villain.”

“And yet I’m the best medic on this base,” she replied, already filling out the lab request form. “And that concludes the fun part.”

“The fun part?”

“Indeed.” She smiled faintly. “Next up, reflexes, vision, hearing, and the, ah... more manual evaluations.”

He groaned, rubbing his face.

“You know,” he said, “when I imagined getting undressed in front of a beautiful woman, it didn’t involve a rectal swab and a loss of pride.”

She handed him a tissue. “Drink some water. Walk it off. And if you feel faint, lie down—but not on that side again.”

-

By now, Lieutenant Marc Willard had reassembled his dignity with all the success of a Humvee trying to back into a stealth mission.

He sat on the exam table, shirt once again half-open, eyes suspicious, and posture guarded like a man who knew the worst might still be coming—and suspected it involved another swab.

Dr. Elisabeth Hartley, meanwhile, was precisely as composed as she had been from the start: clipboard in hand, hair tightly pulled back, and absolutely no indication that she’d just swabbed this man in more places than his last three dates combined.

“Reflexes next,” she announced. “Try to stay calm. I won’t be inserting anything this time.”

“Promise?” he asked, deadpan.

“No,” she said sweetly. “But I intend to behave.”

She took a little reflex hammer from a drawer and gestured toward the edge of the table. “Legs dangling. Relax. If that’s still physiologically possible for you.”

He scooted forward. “You make it sound like I’m a traumatized horse.”

“I’ve seen horses with better blood pressure.”

She tapped his patellar tendon. His leg jerked appropriately.

“Well done,” she said. “Your nervous system survived the trauma. That’s encouraging.”

“Barely,” he muttered. “What’s next? You gonna flick my ears to check for childhood guilt?”

“Tempting. But no. Vision and hearing. Stand.”

She held up the standard eye chart. He squinted dramatically.

“Read the lowest line you can.”

“I see: E… F… P… T… O… Z.”

“Correct.”

“I have the eyes of an eagle.”

“You have the ego of one, certainly.”

He smirked. “You’re warming up to me, I can tell.”

“No. You’re just becoming increasingly difficult to medically insult.”

She handed him a tuning fork and a whispered set of instructions. After a series of tests involving ear coverage and low-frequency vibrations, she made a final note.

“Hearing intact. Sadly.”

She removed her gloves slowly, almost ceremoniously, and replaced them with a fresh pair. The sterile snap of latex echoed like a gunshot in the quiet tent.

Willard’s eyes narrowed.

“That… sound. That’s not a good sound.”

“It’s a great sound,” she replied. “For me.”

“Doc. Come on. We’ve been through a lot together. We shared a moment during the throat swab.”

“You cried and gagged.”

“A moment,” he repeated.

She didn’t answer. Just gestured for him to lie back.

“Now. Final physical inspection. Hernia check, testicular exam, and digital rectal. You know the drill.”

He groaned. “Can’t I get medically discharged on the basis of emotional unavailability?”

“You’re still conscious, mobile, and speaking in full sentences,” she said, snapping lubricant onto her fingers like a surgeon preparing for the world’s most awkward victory lap. “So no. Pants off again. Lie back.”

“I swear to God, if you enjoy this…”

“Oh, I do enjoy my work,” she said calmly. “And your whimpering only sweetens the deal.”

He obeyed, gritting his teeth as she palpated for inguinal hernias with professional precision.

“Cough, please.”

“Cough? You want me to cough while you're holding—okay. This is fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Good. No hernias. Now—testicular exam.”

“Fantastic.”

She worked swiftly, efficiently. “No abnormalities. Left slightly lower than the right—very standard. Try not to look so betrayed.”

He blinked up at the tent ceiling. “This is how trust dies.”

“No,” she said, snapping on yet another glove. “This is how trust dies.”

He glanced at her.

“Oh no.”

“Turn. Onto your side. Pull knees toward chest.”

“Elisabeth, don’t do this.”

“Doctor Hartley,” she corrected gently. “And I’m afraid this part’s non-negotiable. Digital rectal exam. Deep breath.”

“Just... be gentle.”

“I’m always gentle,” she said, her tone as dry as her tea.

Her finger resting for a couple of seconds at the entrance of his puckering hole. Then she inserted the index finger, mercilessly, one phalanx at a time.

He tried to resist, but the lubricant and the decise demeanor of doctor Hartley overcame any resistance. The finger deeply inserted in the anal cavity, looking for his prostate.

A moment later, he yelped—loudly.

“Language,” she said coolly, mid-exam.

“That’s not a finger! That’s a bloody crowbar!”

“I’ve got small hands,” she said, inspecting for prostate irregularities. “But I admit, my patience is massive.”

She withdrew, discarded the glove, and handed him a tissue.

“You’re all done. You may sit up—slowly. Dignity optional.”

He sat up, hair askew, pride in tatters.

“I need a drink.”

“You need therapy,” she said, scribbling something on his file. “But hydration’s a good start.”

-

Fully clothed and thoroughly inspected, Willard stood at the edge of the tent like a man who had been through war. Again.

Elisabeth handed him a paper. “Results in 3 to 5 days. If anything’s abnormal, I’ll call. If everything’s clear, you’ll get a very anticlimactic email.”

“I think I preferred the swab.”

“Many don’t.”

He paused at the tent flap, glancing back at her.

“You know,” he said slowly, “if you ever want to check on my emotional well-being—off the clock—I’d be open to drinks. No latex involved.”

She considered him, just for a second.

“Lieutenant Willard,” she said crisply. “You’ve just spent the last hour swearing, sweating, and accusing me of war crimes.”

“And yet,” he said with a grin, “you’re still standing there, smiling.”

She smirked. “That wasn’t a smile. That was professional satisfaction.”

“Close enough.”