A Pain in the Ass

This is a longer read so there is an e-book file for download

“Hi… eh…” he paused, unsure of what his next word should be.
“Are you checking in?”
“Yes. Please.”
“Name?”
“Mercier. M-E-R-C-I-E-R.”
“Andrew?”
“Yes.”
“What are you in for?”
“I have… an, eh… an abscess.” He paused, and looked around as if it were the check-for-cops part of a drug deal. “On my butt.” He finished in a hushed tone.
“Excuse me?” He’d spoken too low and the lady behind the desk had clearly not heard.

He pulled down his mask so she could read his lips. “An ass abscess. A boil on my butt.”

She nodded, unfazed, already typing. “Ok, the nurse will call you in a few minutes. You can take a seat over there.” Her eyes flickered from him to the seat while her face betrayed no other emotion behind her own mask. “Or don’t. Stand. Whatever works.”

Andrew shuffled away slowly, due as much to the pain in his lower back, as to the pulsing, pummeling ball of anger that had made its home nestled up against his sphincter.

He found a quiet corner of the ER and eased himself into the seat in the same way a heavily pregnant woman would. It wasn’t any more painful to sit than it was to simply exist at the moment, but he needed to be gentle with this potential bomb he had concealed in his butt cheeks.

He had only just eased himself into the chair when he heard a woman call, “Andrew M?”

He leaned his head slightly to see around the corner and gave a polite wave at the triage nurse to let her know he was coming. With gargantuan effort, he lifted himself out of the seat and waddled over to the nurse’s station.

“And what are you in for tonight?” She asked as she busied herself with various apparatus, mainly a blood pressure monitor.

“I have an abscess on my ass.”

“Has it ruptured yet?” She asked, squeezing the bulb to inflate the cuff on the blood pressure monitor.

“No.”

“What is the pain on a scale of one-to-ten, one being very little pain and ten being excruciating?”

“It’s like a five, maybe.” It was pushing seven but he didn’t want to seem dramatic.

The rest of the exam was conducted in silence and Andrew was told to go back to the waiting room. He resumed his seat in the corner. When discomfort relented slightly, he reached for his phone. It was 10:23 p.m. The most recent text from Shannon read:

We’re just getting the check. Where are you?

He leaned forward and sucked in a deep breath before typing.

Work emergency. Sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

She was typing…

You’re not on call this weekend??!

Server crashed for big client. All hands on deck.

Try to come as soon as you can! I miss you!

She followed up with a picture of Lexi in a sash smiling in front of a piece of cake with a candle in it. He gave it a heart emoji and put down his phone.

“Nurse. NURSE! Where’s my sandwich?”
“You know we don’t give out food here, Earl, honey. You’ve got to be admitted for that.”

“You can’t just get me one little sandwich? Maybe a bag of chips?” Earl turned away from the nurse and looked directly at Andrew. “This place used to be hospitable. I ain’t even asking for no Diet Coke this time.”

Andrew gave a polite smile and then picked up his phone which was suddenly extremely interesting to him.

“Hey, what you in here for?”

Andrew knew this was probably directed at him but had no wish to engage. He ran his fingers around the lobe of his ear to show that he had an ear bud in there and wasn’t paying attention. It worked and Earl moved on to the person three seats down from Andrew who wasn’t as well prepared.

Since he didn’t actually want to hear anything else that was happening in the waiting room anyway, he opened Netflix on his phone. He scrolled down to the ‘Leaving Soon’ list and a movie called ‘Closer’ with a very attractive looking cast was third on the list. The title rang a bell. Shannon’s “absolute fav movie” listed on her Hinge profile. She had called in “honest and real and raw” if he remembered correctly. She had mentioned it on their second date right before he made her laugh so hard that wine came out her nose. She hadn’t been embarrassed and just kept on talking after wiping her face. It was worth getting to know her a little better. He tapped the play icon and adjusted his seating position as if it was going to make a difference.

A couple of minutes in and the main characters are in the waiting room of a hospital. How fitting. It is London and a movie, so very different to the situation Andrew currently found himself in.

Andrew looked up from his phone as the double doors to the Emergency Room opened up and a patient on a hospital bed was rolled out into the waiting room. She looked like the old lady from Titanic, frail and deathly white in every facet of her being. The nurse left the bed by a wall and a look passed between him and the intake nurse as he returned to the ER.

While Andrew was still trying to figure out what the look meant, the woman let out a cough that sounded like an enormous baby with chronic croup. The cough was deep and dry and guttural. Andrew couldn’t believe a sound like that could come from any human but certainly not this tiny relic. He looked over at the intake nurse who paid no heed.

“Nurse,” the woman called weakly, but it carried clearly across to Andrew. The intake nurse definitely heard. “Nurse, I can’t breathe!” She coughed again. “NURSE!”

Andrew looked around to see if there was another nurse rushing to help her. There wasn’t. The waiting room was quiet for several minutes before the woman started yelling again.

“Oh fuck, I can’t breathe… Nurse… Nurse… Water. I need water.”

This time the intake nurse got up from the desk but went in the opposite direction into the triage nurse’s station. They spoke for a minute before she returned to the desk.

“Nurse? Can you not hear me?”
“Yeah, she’ll be over in a minute.”

“I can’t fucking breathe, I need help.”

“Yep, she’s coming.”

Andrew’s phone vibrated in his hand. His whole midriff was starting to hurt. He knew he was tensing every muscle in existence between his knees and diaphragm but couldn’t relax any one of them. His body was sore and his mind was starting to melt. He read the text:

DREW!! We in the club rippin shots!!! Wher u

Andrew considered for a minute before responding. It was past 11:30 p.m. There was no way he was making it out.

I’m on the way. Train is so slow

Duck thetrain Uber!

I’ll be there as soon as I can

Andrew stood up slowly. The pain emanating from his ass was feeling even more pronounced. The abscess felt like it had gotten bigger. Maybe it was about to rupture. Sometimes he convinced himself that it had already burst, such was the mixture in severity of pain. He made his way to the bathroom very slowly, partly from the pain but mostly in case his name was called and he didn’t want to miss that.

Pinching and pushing out the last few drops at the urinal angered the abscess greatly and caused him such intense pain that he didn’t even care what ended up dribbling on to the front of his jeans. They were dark enough that it didn’t matter. If he was going to have a piss stain on his pants, there were worse places to have that than the waiting room of the emergency department.

He took a new seat again, this one a little closer to the intake nurse who he had dubbed St. Peter. He hoped that the creeping pain now evident on his face might help his case to enter through the Pearly Gates she was guarding so diligently. Things seemed to be moving very slowly and he thought he still saw a couple of faces that had been waiting longer than him.

He opened Netflix again. Jude Law was on a medieval-looking live chat from the early days of the internet and was catfishing Clive Owen. Andrew found it difficult to concentrate fully.

The security guard was doing his rounds. He spotted Earl but not before Earl spotted him. The two greeted each other like old friends. Evidently they hadn’t seen each other in a while, although Andrew got the feeling that Earl was a frequent visitor to this particular ER and that was the extent of their working relationship. They chatted amiably for a few minutes, the security guard promising Earl that he would see if he could dig up a sandwich for him.

As if on cue, an Uber Eats delivery driver came in, looking confused. He spoke briefly with the intake nurse and left the bag of food slightly to the right of her station before heading off with his head buried in his phone. Andrew eyed Earl who was eyeing the bag. Just then, the double doors opened and a patient wearing a very skimpy johnny came out of the ER, grabbed the bag of food and turned to walk back to the ER. He had neglected to tie the hospital gown that his hairy back and entire ass were on full display. No one who noticed seemed to care.

Andrew’s phone buzzed again. He swiped the message away without reading. The time on his phone showed 12:32 a.m.

Clive Owen and Natalie Portman were blatantly flirting at an art exhibition while their respective partners flirt with each other on the other side of the room. Andrew couldn’t fully take in everything that was being said no matter how often he paused. There was not a line of dialogue wasted. He made a mental note to watch this movie again when he wasn’t suffering in an ER waiting room.

The lady in the bed, who had been asleep, was barking again and calling for the nurse who was still ignoring her. While this was happening, the double doors swung wide again and a woman came out accompanied by a nurse. The new lady was wondering very loudly if her taxi was here yet. Both nurses assured her she should sit tight and her ride will be here in a minute. The lady looked weathered but demanding, and Andrew got the sense that she was another regular visitor.

She sat quietly for a minute but the noise remained constant with the coughing lady and Earl repeating his sandwich request ad nauseam. When they were both quiet, the new woman piped up asking about her taxi and why it wasn’t here yet. The nurse ignored her the first three times before gently repeating that her ride was on the way.

After another few verses of croup-sandwich-taxi, two police men entered the building. When the woman spotted them, her face betrayed the emotion of someone who had been successfully tricked. Andrew couldn’t hear any of the words that passed between the woman and the cops but they were brief and accepting. She exited the building flanked by the cops at either side and Andrew was left wondering what she had done and how regular of an occurrence this was for her.

His phone started buzzing incessantly. A video call from Shannon. He just stared at the phone, unable to answer or decline or look away. Her face eventually disappeared and the screen went black. It lit up again seconds later.

You better be here

Where the Fuck are you

Your a lying bastard

I am bullshit

He swiped the barrage of messages away and closed his eyes. The small relief this gave him caused tears to well up in his ducts. Every tiny muscle around his eyes relaxed in a way the ones around his sphincter couldn’t and the tears rolled gently down his cheeks.

Jude Law was telling Natalie Portman he’s been cheating on her for over a year and he’s leaving her. She’s upset and crying and trying to leave but he doesn’t let her because it’s not safe. She relents and tells him to make some tea. While he’s doing that, she slips out and disappears.

Another text flashed up on the screen from a number he didn’t recognize.

This is Lexi. Shan is bullshit! Where are you???

Nearly there

He didn’t know what else to say or do at this point. It was coming up on 1:30 a.m. He was exhausted and Shannon was drunk. He wasn’t even sure what time nightclubs closed but it had to be soon.

The movie continued to play in a small box in the corner and Andrew tried to put it full screen. Instead, he accidentally turned off Bluetooth and the sound of an argument between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen started playing at full volume. Andrew fumbled for the volume button on the side but dropped the phone and it bounced under the seat.

“YES!”
“What does it taste like?”
“IT TASTES LIKE YOU BUT SWEETER!”
“That’s the spirit. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag.”

He finally got to the pause button but it was far too late. There was no way the entire ER hadn’t heard that. He closed Netflix and refused to look up for several minutes, wildly embarrassed at what had just happened. Even with the app closed, he was too nervous to look at his phone, never mind opening the app again to continue watching the movie.

The Pearly Gates opened again and a nurse stood there with a sandwich in her hand. She didn’t call a name, she just held it out with a smile on her face. Earl dutifully stood up and walked towards her. “How are you doing tonight, Earl?” she asked jovially, as she turned to walk back into the ER with Earl close behind and the double doors closing automatically behind them.

Andrew took this chance to take a quick scan of the room. There were only six or seven people left in the waiting room and he was pretty confident all of them had come in after him. He must surely be next.

His phone started ringing in his ears again a split second before the screen lit up. The Bluetooth had reconnected by itself and Shannon was trying to video call him again. He took a deep breath, stood up and started to shuffle towards the door. When he got out to the breezeway, he put a thumb over his front camera and answered the call.

“Hi.”
“Where the fuck are you?” Shannon was sweaty and yelling and in the middle of a half empty dance floor. The music was obnoxiously loud.
“They won’t let me in. They’re saying the club is full.”
“Where the fuck are you? I can’t see you?”
“Oh sorry, my camera must be broken. The club… the club is full.” He repeated but he was quite sure she couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
“I want to do shottts! Come find me now! You should have been here all night. You’re ruining everything.”
“I can’t… they won’t let me in.”
“WHAT?” She held the phone up to her ear, and he considered yelling but he had endured enough embarrassment for one night.

He hung up the call and shot off a quick text.

They won’t let me in. I’m going home. Sorry.

He made sure it was delivered and then turned off his phone. He took a couple of deep breaths of the cold late night fresh air which was a welcome reprieve from the acrid stench that had become common to him over the past several hours in the waiting room.

Shuffling back to the waiting room, his head down as he concentrated on not making eye contact with anyone, he heard his name and looked up. The nurse who had just brought Earl back stood now in the double doors calling his name.

“Yes. God, please, yes. That’s me. I’m Andrew.”
“Great, follow me. I’m Steph, I’ll be your nurse. I hope you weren’t waiting too long?”
Andrew looked at his watch. “Nearly 4 hours.” He was devoid of any emotion.
“Oh God, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, I know it’s not your fault.” He was struggling to even talk now. “It’s no one’s fault.”

They turned the corner and were greeted by a line of beds against both walls of the corridor, with people in various states of decay. One gentleman was so yellow and ashen faced, Andrew assumed multiple organs were failing him. This was immeasurably more depressing than the waiting room.

Andrew was taken into a large room that looked like an operating theater with heavy, expensive-looking machinery protruding from the ceiling and scattered around the sides. A small trolley was placed in the middle of the room with a hospital gown and a blanket and a pair of hospital socks neatly stacked on it.

“Ok, everything off and you can put the johnny on, ties at the back. I’ll be back with some questions in a minute,” she said, as she drew the curtains in front of the door. Before disappearing through them, she turned back quickly. “That’s underwear, too.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he said, not meaning to sound sarcastic, but he did know they would need access to his actual asshole and his boxers would be detrimental to that effort. He undressed quickly and covered himself with the blanket not bothering to tie the gown at the back.

True to her word, the nurse returned a couple of minutes later.

“Full name and date of birth, please?”
“Andrew Mercier. 7/22/91.”
“Thank you, and you are in for an abscess?”
“Yes.”
“On your rectum?”
“Em, well… I’m not sure exactly but it’s…”
“It’s in between your butt cheeks?”
“It is.”
“How close is it to the sphincter?”
“I’m not intimately familiar with the terminology… but I think it’s pretty close.”
“It’s probably easiest for me to take a look. What side is it on?”
“The left.”
“Ok, and are you okay with me taking a quick peek?”

Andrew nodded in the affirmative. He suspected that there would need to be several people looking directly at his butthole before the sun came up on a new day.

“Ok, lie on your left side and pull your knees up to your chest.”

Andrew did as he was told.

“How would you say the pain is on a scale of one-to-ten, one being very mild and ten being unbearable.”
“It’s like an eight.”

The nurse lifted the blanket, moved the gown out of her way and spread his ass cheeks wide apart in one devastatingly quick movement. She then let go and repositioned herself before lifting his right cheek up as high as she possibly could, as if she was trying to lift him off the trolley and jabbed her index finger of her other hand right in the middle of the abscess.

“TEN! TEN! Jesus Christ, that’s a ten!”

Andrew recoiled in pain and made a grunt that sounded suspiciously like a sex noise.

“Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he responded through gritted teeth.

She poked deeper before moving her finger around the area to understand the extent of the abscess. There was no movement for a minute until Andrew heard the snap of rubber gloves.

“That is quite close to the sphincter but it goes deep so I can’t tell if it is interfering or not. We’re going to need to get you in for a CT to see the extent of it. Sit tight, okay?”
“Ok, thanks.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“Something for the pain?”
“I’ll talk to Doc and see what she prescribes. She’ll need to take a look too, of course.”

She left the room and Andrew found himself alone and the most relaxed he’d been for several hours. The pain was worse than it had ever been but just knowing that something was finally in process to relieve him of that pain was helping him mentally. Lying down was probably helping physically, too, after nearly four hours squirming on the waiting room chairs.

Turning off his phone hadn’t hurt either. He had really caught himself in a lie with Shannon and wasn’t sure how to get out of it. Closing his eyes again, his lids served less like blackout curtains and more like those net gowns. The room was so fucking bright.

Outside the door to the room in which he currently lay, Andrew could hear voices. When he walked in, he had seen a very old man on a gurney who was accompanied by a regular old man who he assumed was his son. The man in the bed was begging for water and was being refused by both the nurse and the son. He said that his stomach was so sore and he just needed some fucking water. It seemed cruel that they wouldn’t give the man a sip. While he was still pleading his case, a woman entered Andrew’s room.

“Hi, I’m Mel, I’m one of the doctors on call tonight. Can I get your full name and birthday?”
“Andrew Mercier. 7/22.”
“Thank you. So I understand we’re dealing with an unruptured perianal abscess with questionable interference. Is that right?”
“I think so.”
“Okay, we’ve put in for a CT scan to get the extent of it. Mind if I take a quick peek?”
“Be my guest.” Andrew assumed the same position he had for the nurse. The doctor was a little more gentle with the cheek spreading and the poking, which did not go unappreciated.
“Have you ever had this issue before?”
“Not like this but I do remember when I was younger, maybe 5 or 6, and I had some sort of boil on my ass that wouldn’t go away. I don’t remember it being painful like this but I do think it was in the same place.”
“Did you get it drained?”
“No, I think it just went away on its own one night.”
“Ok, well sit tight. The CT could be a while. Do you need anything?”
“Something for the pain, please?”
“Sure, I’ll put in for some Tylenol. I’ll turn off the light too so you can maybe get some sleep.”

She did just that and Andrew’s pain level dropped immediately. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. The same tears that had come when he was outside about half an hour ago came again. What the fuck was this situation that he found himself in?

There was commotion outside the room as the trolley of the old man was getting moved into the room next to Andrew’s for a mystery procedure. Andrew was glad of this fact because it sounded like the poor man was in a lot of pain. Hopefully he would get his drink of water, too.

The lights in his room had not been off for ten minutes when a man burst into the room and turned them back on, asking Andrew for his name and date of birth as he did so. Andrew gave him the relevant information and the man started rushing around the gurney, unhooking machines and lifting up the sides.

He explained he was a CT tech and they had literally three minutes before their next patient and they looked at their list to see who they might be able to squeeze in and Andrew was their youngest and healthiest so they went with him. Andrew was almost flattered until he remembered the hallways littered with decrepit yellow and ghostly white bodies.

His bed was wheeled out into the same hallways and past the nurses station to an area of the ER he hadn’t been in yet and up a labyrinth of hallways.

“I just want to double check, we’re doing a CT abdomen with contrast. Does that sound accurate?”

“Em… sure.”
“Have you ever had a CT scan before?”
“No.”
“Ok, all you need to know is that you need to lie very still. We’re going to add a dye through your IV. It might feel like you’ve peed yourself but don’t worry, you won’t. Do you have any metals in your body? Pacemaker, piercings, knee or hip replacements?”
“No, none of that.”
“Ok, good. If you did, the machine would rip them right out of your body and break the machine.”

In the room, another tech lifted him on to a different bed. The tech whipped his blanket off without warning. His gown had found its way up around his waist so his penis was on full display until they covered him with a different blanket. Another embarrassment to add to the long list suffered so far from the night.

The CT scan was over as quickly as it had started and he was back in his room, lights as bright as ever overhead. The pain in his ass crack had not subsided in the slightest but the act of being able to relax on the bed meant he was no longer clenching all of his other muscles quite so tightly. The strain that had been put on them that was suddenly released was spreading the pain over a much bigger area rather than being concentrated on one tiny area right at his sphincter. It wasn’t necessarily better but it was different and different was actually better.

Outside the room, the old man was not back yet and his nurse was talking to the son.

“We got fourteen hundred milliliters out of him. He was in quite a bit of pain and you can understand why. That’s a lot of pee.”
“Holy shit,” was all the son could muster. He had had a few tense exchanges with his father through the night, and was feeling bad. Andrew wondered if 50 oz of pee trapped in his bladder would be worse than what he himself was dealing with.

He was fully immersed in this hypothetical scenario when the nurse entered the room quietly and looked immediately suspicious.
“Was someone in here? Doc said she turned off the lights and that you might be asleep?”
“Yeah, a guy took me for a CT scan.”
“Oh, you had that already? And you’re back? That’s amazing. You weren’t scheduled until 5:30 a.m.”
“What time is it now?”
“It’s just after 3 a.m. Let’s see if we have any results yet.” She wiggled the mouse and tapped the keyboard a little. “Yep, we’ve got a perirectal abscess measuring 2.7 cm by 2.7 cm and 1 cm deep.”
“That sounds… tiny.” Andrew’s face was a mess of confusion.
“I bet it doesn’t feel tiny.”
“It feels like it’s trying to murder my entire body.”
“Oh I’m sorry. I’m going to get these results in front of Doc. She’ll probably need to talk to colorectal and see if we can do this thing bedside or if we’ll need an OR.”
“Can you explain to me what any of that means?”
“Of course,” Steph responded with a smile. “Ideally, we’d like to get this thing drained right here and send you home as soon as possible. The problem is the placement of this thing. If it’s interfering with your sphincter and we cut it wrong, you could become incontinent. No one wants that, especially at your age.”

Andrew’s sphincter tightened inadvertently, about the worst thing that could happen to him in his current situation. The pain caused him to writhe in agony.

“That looks like a nine,” the nurse evidently noticed. “I’m going to get these to Doc as quickly as I can but it’ll probably be a while. I do have your pain meds though which should help a little in the meantime.”

She handed him two pills and a tiny cup of water which he gratefully drained and lay back down.

“I’m going to turn the lights off again. See if you can’t get some rest.”
“Do you mind getting my phone from the chair first, please?”

She handed him the phone and left the room. He looked at the blank phone for a long time before he finally long-pressed the power button. He left it on his chest and lay back as he waited for it to start up. When it started vibrating violently, he closed his eyes again and breathed deeply before checking the phone. Eleven messages from Shannon, short, misspelled, laden with profanity, and peppered with voice notes.

There were a couple that were three seconds of indecipherable nonsense and one longer one that he listened to last. This one was only slightly more coherent but there was no mistaking the visceral anger in her voice. She definitely called him a cunt and told him to fuck off and die. Of that, there was no mistaking.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to pull this one back from the brink. It had been stupid to lie in the first place but he had really burrowed deeply as he built yet more lies on top of this unsteady foundation. He fixated on her final text:

Lying fucking asshole!!!!

Their relationship had moved fast but how do you tell the woman you’ve only been dating for a couple of months that you have a festering abscess in your asshole and it hurts like the fires of hell to wipe after you take a shit? Who wouldn’t fake a work emergency if they found themselves in the same situation?

While he was still deep in his feelings the doctor from earlier burst into the room and for the second time in less than an hour, the room was suddenly and violently bathed in light.

“Alright, we are doing this,” she said, as she hustled around the room, rummaging in various drawers and cabinets. A man who Andrew had not seen yet entered not thirty seconds behind her with a very similar energy.

“This is Dr. Bottomley from colorectal. He’ll be assisting with draining this abscess.”
“We’re doing it bedside? No operating room?” Andrew asked apprehensively.
“We’re doing it right now. Can you lie on your side and just make sure your johnny is open at the back? You can leave the blanket on for now.” She moved to his head and spoke to him directly. “We’re going to be very gentle with this and will keep everything as private as possible.”

She held up a blanket with a square hole in it. “We are going to need to take off the blanket and replace it with this one. It will allow us to access the affected area and some dignity for you.”

Andrew nodded and she replaced the blanket with the new one. Both doctors were at his butt and she was pumping the bed up so that his asshole would be right in their eyeline.

“We have a couple of residents assisting tonight and they have never seen an abscess drained before and there are a couple on the surgical team who would also benefit. We are a teaching hospital. Is that okay?”
“Eh…”
“Great, they’ll be here in a minute but you won’t even know.” She turned to Dr. Bottomley and said as an aside, “Should we try and tape it open for better access?”

There was a small mirror in whatever machine was above Andrew. He saw Bottomley nod in the affirmative.

Before he knew it, she had spread his ass cheeks and applied a length of tape to the inside of his right buttock. The tape was then brought over the top of his body where she was wrapping it around the bars on the side of his gurney. She was using the bed to strap his asshole open. It felt very ineffective to Andrew but both doctors seemed quite happy with their McGyvering.

Andrew felt some light commotion behind him and he knew that the audience was filing into the room. The reflection in the mirror was not clear or all encompassing but counted at least seven people who weren’t either of the two doctors or Steph.

Doctor Bottomley and Doctor Mel were both firmly rooted behind him and were looking directly at the abscess and trying to decide how best to tackle it. This clearly caused the views of the audience to be obscured as they all started to jostle for position.

Mel and Bottomley realized that they weren’t as happy as they thought with their taping job and he felt two hands on his cheeks and someone started to knead them like they were two massive dough balls. A second set of hands somehow found more real estate to work with and they spread everything in every possible direction several times before they were finally happy with what they were looking at and devised a game plan.

Mel was going to be the one making the incision. She said that she was going to numb the area first and that Andrew might feel a little pinch. When the needle entered the area around the abscess, Andrew immediately recoiled despite his best attempts and bit down hard on his thumb knuckle. As he continued to bite down, he let out a breath from deep within himself that held the remnants of a scream but somehow none of the sound. Eventually and mercilessly the needle retreated and Andrew felt a couple of drops of the Novocaine spill onto the exterior of the abscess.

Thank fuck that is over. That was an actual ten on the pain scale. The poking from the nurse must have only been an eight. He never wanted to experience it again.

“Another pinchy-winch coming,” said Doctor Mel nonchalantly, and he felt every millimeter of the needle enter a slightly different part of the affected area. Andrew bit down so hard this time, he thought he broke skin. This one was thankfully faster than the first, but was quickly followed by a third needle prick. Six times in total she stuck him with the needle in the most sensitive area on his body that was also the most painful area on his body at the very same time. His own teeth marks littered the skins on his left hand as tears streamed freely from his eyes and collected on the pillow. He did his best to regulate his breathing so as not to be openly sobbing in front of his enraptured audience.

Doctor Mel was talking again. “Ok, I am going to make the incision along the entire length of this perirectal abscess so as to drain it entirely.”

Andrew felt the point of a scalpel push gently against this bulbous, protruding, angry little lump of ultra sensitive skin that was filled to bursting with pus. Then he felt nothing. Mel was moving frantically behind him and, while he no longer had full feeling back there, he could tell she was squeezing the abscess between her two thumbs. Then she was pushing it in and squeezing again. Then moving her thumbs ninety degrees and repeating. The smell that filled the room was foul. Andrew gagged and imagined a pool of bile and pus and shit and blood flowing out of him in that moment.

“That’s not big enough yet. You’re going to need another incision. At least another centimeter this way.”
“Ok, Andrew I need to make another cut to get this thing drained. Do you need more numb-numb?”
“No, thank you.”
“You don’t need to be a hero. I’ll give you more.”

Three more times the needle sunk deep and Andrew pushed as much of his fist as would fit into his mouth to stop himself from shrieking like a banshee. Doctor Bottomley was instructing Mel and Andrew felt the scalpel sink deep this time and felt it too when she took a sharp left to make an L shape on the incision.

It was only now that Andrew realized what sweet relief had been visited upon him in the last thirty seconds. He clenched his sphincter, which had led to nothing but agony for the past twenty-four hours. This time he felt nothing. He let out the breath of a man who had died and gone to Heaven and was realizing that Heaven was a place that existed and it was as great as he had imagined. Mel was still squeezing at the now defunct abscess, Dr. Bottomley was talking about packing the wound with gauze, and seven other strangers were still staring directly into his mangled asshole but this was the happiest he had been in quite some time.

He zoned out for long enough, he didn’t realize that Bottomley was talking to him.

“I’m sorry, how much gauze did you say is in there?”
“About eighteen inches. I’ve left a wick for you to be able to pull it out. You’re going to want to take a nice warm bath tomorrow and pull it out very gently. You’ll want the good pain meds for that.”

Andrew swallowed hard but refused to think about it. This was sweet relief and that was all that mattered.

“Steph will be in with your paperwork in a few minutes and you will be good to go.”
“Go where?”
“Home.”

The hours of waiting and all of the trauma he had just endured and it was all just… over. What a wild ride.

He looked at his phone again and the nonsensical mess of messages he had received from Shannon, all the while puckering and unpuckering his asshole just because he could. She was likely sleeping her way into a considerable hangover. He was still thinking about her as he pulled back on his jeans a couple of minutes later and as he pushed the button to open the double doors that he had watched open so many times over the course of the night. The waiting room was empty.

He took his phone out of his pocket and responded to her last text:

Good thing I just had asshole surgery then. I’m sorry for lying. I’ll tell you everything later.

With that, he returned his phone to his pocket and walked out into the early morning.