"Sarah?" Sarah turned, the nurse's voice echoing in her ears, barely audible with the pace of her thumping heart.

'Okay, calm down. You've always known this would happen some day.' She said to herself.

It'd been just days since she received it, the summons to come in for her government mandated Comprehensive Adult Female Physical Exam. It'd been a shock to her to get it so soon after turning eighteen. Most older girls she knew had gotten it later, when they were closer to twenty.

Everyone, male and female, was required to get the exam sometime between the ages of eighteen and twenty. Sarah was especially terrified, having only been to the doctor a few times before, for things like a sore throat. She had no idea what to expect from a many hours, sometimes days long exam process. Only that, no one was allowed to talk about it after the fact.

'It's okay.' She almost hyperventilated. 'Mom and everyone else you know got through it....'

It'd been several generations since the world you and I know faded away. Following a massive world war, the population dwindled and a highly controlled government came into power, one which had strict rules aimed at keeping the population small. One of those rules had changed the entire culture completely: couples had to apply to have a child, their own sexual activities monitored ... and persons under the age of eighteen weren't allowed to know anything about sex.

Sarah didn't realize that sexual and anatomical education and assessment were a main component of this exam but her nerves went before her as if to foreshadow the ordeal that was to come.

The young girl clutched the wooden side of the waiting room chair, her clammy hands sliding as she stood, unsure of her balance. She picked up her bag, feeling as if the world played out in slow motion as she made her way over to the nurse, who held open the door that led to the exam rooms. The woman continued to speak, but Sarah's heart drown out both her continued instruction, and the sound of all the other girls talking nervously in the government doctor's waiting room.

Sarah almost jumped as the nurse shut the door behind them, leading her down a long, white hall, her chart in hand.

"Exam room 5D." The nurse put the chart in a box outside the door, before leading her into the room.

Sarah squirmed, the exam room far different from any she'd seen before. There was a standard exam table with the back of the bed raised, a table next to it with all kinds of tools and other equipment, the sight of which made her gulp. A small folding screen sat in one corner of the room, and two doors went to other yet rooms. But it was really all the posters and diagrams that lined the walls and shelves which caught Sarah's attention. She'd of course seen anatomy before ... of hearts, and lungs and muscle .... but this was something else.

She stared at a poster of a woman's pelvis as the nurse got some more tools out of a drawer. Sarah tried to focus on the poster, not listening to the sound of the tools clanging.

'Is that..?' She thought. Sarah could swear it had something to do with private parts. 'No... couldn't be.' She dismissed it.

"Okay Sarah. You can put your bag behind the screen, just hop up on the exam table."

Sarah shakily followed orders, also removing her jacket in the process.

"Doctor Pecktor is a little late, finishing up another exam, but will be here in a minute. He likes to do all the preliminaries himself so-"

"Wait, he?"

"Yes, he."

"I um..."

Sarah didn't exactly know the difference between boys and girls, but she understood there was one, having at least been taught that she should never allow a man or boy to see her private parts. Her eyes darted to the anatomical drowning of what she thought was a vagina, her heart quickening again.

"It's fine. All the doctors here are men. Doctor Pecktor is particularly through tho."

"But -"

"Don't worry, he'll be in shortly."

The nurse shut the door, leaving Sarah alone and terrified.