“It takes a village to raise a child.”
“Be Smart. Be Ready.”
“Is he hurting you? Get help NOW.”

My milky thighs tear the tissue paper beneath me as I adjust my hips. I cover one foot over the other protectively, instinctively because soon the stranger will be in to spread my legs. She’ll tell me to move my ass closer to her (even closer..) and relax my feet into the stirrups. “I said relax,” she’ll tell me again.

The nurse enters the room, wearing Winnie the Pooh scrubs. Without skipping a beat, without even looking into my eyes she lubes up the duck clap and inserts it into my woman-cave. I struggle to breathe. She tells me “You’ll feel a pinch here”. But she doesn’t tell me it’ll last so long that I moan, long and hard, resulting in my quick embarrassment.  My mind is flooded with every sexual experience I’ve ever had as a strategy to rationalize why I am here, enduring such pain. Only half the memories are any good. My eyes dart across the room, reading the posters again, frantic for a distraction–less because of the pain and more because of the uncomfortablness of a stranger being inside of me. Some people like it. It’s not my thing. And her stupid cartoon scrubs make it worse, like a stranger with candy, or something. Fucking sicko.

Ittakesavillagetoraiseachild. Besmart.Beready. Ishehurtingyou?Gethelpnow.

Relax, she tells me again. Foolishly I look to a side table and see blood, and those blue napkins they use. Like mechanics napkins. I’m quite literally a piece of work.

The nurse quickly releases the duck clamp which cramps the inside of my woman as it goes out. I shake and tremble as the stranger shuts my legs. “You’re good for 12 years,” she tells me. I smile and thank her, coming to my senses, dizzy, the room smelling like we’re both still inside of my vagina.