She is asking me my preferred position for having my rectum inspected with her gentle and affirming fingers. All of this is done with a soft smile and sympathetic voice. Once they return from the lab that insurance partially covers, the results from my STD screenings will go into this database as well, no doubt. Her questions and my answers are typed into the clinic’s database which someone will use for some report, some line graph, some percentage, some brochure.
Before the doctor will refill the prescription, I will have to return to this Lower East Side clinic that accepts Medicare, answer a slew of questions about how I have sex, undergo an anal examination, piss out a urine sample, give a swabbing of the back of my throat, and have vials of blood drawn. The prescription will run out in a little over a month. An audio version of this essay is available to subscribers, provided by curio.io.
