Mark stops at the pharmacy to pick up his antibiotic prescription and as soon as he gets into his car, he tears open the small paper bag and struggles impatiently with the safety cap on the bottle. He puts one of the chalky bitter white tablets in his mouth and in desperation, swallows it down with the few drops of stale cold coffee left over from his drive in to work earlier that morning.

He arrives home and as he walks to his front door, he rehearses in his head the story that he will tell his girlfriend, Tess.

When he comes in the front door, Tess hears him and jumps up form her computer in her home office to greet him, “HI Baby!”She wraps her arms around him, “How did it go?”

He returns her hug limply. “OK I guess.”

”You guess what? What’s wrong? “ She let’s go of him to look him in the eyes and gives him a puzzled look of skepticism. “What did they find out?”

Mark looks away and and mutters, “Pulled muscle in my groin.” He limps into the kitchen in an exaggerated fashion to try to provide some credibility.

Tess follows him, “Well, doesn’t sound to serious. What’s in the bag?”

”Pain pills. Percocet.”

”Percocet? For a pulled muscle?”

Mark‘s lack of talent for concocting believable lies was getting him off to a bad start.

“It hurts really bad Tess. Anyway, I’m heading back to work. It will take me all week to catch up on things after this morning.”

Tess was troubled with how sullen and quiet Mark was the rest of the week and knew something was not right. His responses to her concerned inquiries were terse one word answers. At the end of the work week when she was loading laundry into the washing machine she caught site of the inside of one of Mark’s pair of undershorts and was momentarily puzzled at the dry glazed film stuck to the fabric. She quickly recognized it from her experiences after her GYN exams and noticed too that it was in the back where his butt was. She headed straight to the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of his prescription. It was not Percocet as he had told her. A quick Google of the name on the bottle told her it was an antibiotic. She was angry at his dishonesty at first, but them became more sympathetic as she considered that it was likely because of his embarrassment.

When Mark got home that evening, he and Tess had dinner together and she confronted him with her discovery. Mark’s was caught off guard and stared across the table at Tess with that deer-in-the-headlights look.

Getting no response, Tess went on, “Mark honey, you have to be honest with me. Health problems can be a bit embarrassing, but we all go through them. Remember how we always agreed that to build up our trust for one another, that honesty is so essential?”

”Tess, you don’t know what it was like.“

”Oh, I bet I do!” she responded. “But it was probably quite new and scary for you. I get that.”

“It was brutal. Embarrassing to the extreme.” Mark could not look at her as he spoke.

”Oh baby, I’m so sorry.” She leaned over the small table and stroked his face, but Mark just gazed downward at the uneaten food on his plate.”

”Thing is, I am not even sure if I’m getting better.”

Mark explained his diagnosis as best he could to Tess.

”Well, you need to call them back and tell them and get a follow up appointment. And this time, I’m going with you.”

”Tess, I’m a grown man and I don’t need you there adding to the stress.”

”Sorry dude, I am going to be there for you. If I had been there the first time, you wouldn’t be in this state.”

As Mark recalled the exam he had at the first appointment, the idea of Tess being there and witnessing what they had done to him was just too much to imagine. He quickly tried to think of a way of preventing her from coming with him.