Peculiar Patients

Nathan's blood rushed in his ears. What did that mean? He had expected a break to use the lavatory, not... Not whatever long, curved instrument Nurse Luchmann was preparing. It was metal and syringe-like, with two loops on one end, and a narrow body that curved upward and opened in a small hole at the end. With a clatter, Nurse Luchmann placed a basin under him while Dr. Ivanov took notes.

Nathan strained to sit up. "What are you doing?"

"Lie down, please," Nurse Luchmann instructed. "Try to relax. This will only take a moment."

With gentle fingers, Nurse Luchmann spread him open. He felt a burning sensation as the tip of the instrument touched his urethra, and then an intense pressure as she began to insert it.

Nathan's breaths came quickly. He had never felt anything like it before. The pressure, the burning, the sense of violation, the intense urge to urinate. He couldn't help but groan with a combination of pain and relief when Nurse Luchmann pushed it all the way into his bladder and his urine started to flow into the basin.

Draining him took an embarrassingly long time. All the while, Nathan could feel every inch of the rigid rod invading all the way up his urethra and into his bladder. Even worse, the walls of his vagina were contracting, as if he'd just had an orgasm.

Removing it brought another wave of intense sensation, and when it was out, Nathan squirmed on the table. He watched Nurse Luchmann wipe off the device and remove the basin, now full of his urine.

Dr. Ivanov returned to probing Nathan with his fingers, which was only slightly more bearable. Despite himself, his body reacted to the touch. He was able to accept the doctor's fingers more easily, and grew wetter by the minute.

"There. That feels better, doesn't it?"

Nathan might have mumbled a response—he wasn't sure. The doctor removed and wiped off his fingers. He started preparing an instrument on the tray, which Nathan could only catch a glimpse of, just a flash of metal. This time, he closed his eyes.

"This may be a bit uncomfortable for you, given your inexperience," Dr. Ivanov said. Guiding it with his fingers, he pushed it inside.

Nathan winced at the cold metal.

"Good. Very good." The doctor pushed further, causing a dull ache in Nathan's abdomen. Then he started to turn something in the device, which slowly opened its wings. Nathan felt himself being pried apart, opened up to the cold air, making visible parts of him that had never seen the light of day.

"Come have a look," Dr. Ivanov said to Nurse Luchmann. The two peered into his opened cavern by Dr. Ivanov's light. "The cervix appears normal..." the doctor said, prodding at him with a swab. He scraped another across the walls of his vagina, taking a thorough sample.

Slowly, he twisted closed and removed the speculum. When he set it on the tray, Nathan saw the full size of it. Had that really been inside of him? His lower belly throbbed uncomfortably.

"I'd like to try something else, Nathan. Please, take a deep breath and try to relax."

There was little chance of that. He took a breath, but it came out as a shudder. As he did, Dr. Ivanov pushed a gloved finger into his anus. He unconsciously clenched around it. He had never had anything invade this part of his body before.

"Breathe," the doctor instructed. Nathan did, and the doctor buried his finger further and probed him internally.

Nathan's whole body was tensed around Dr. Ivanov's finger. And he couldn't do anything to control it—his clitoris throbbed. He hoped the doctor wouldn't notice, but saw him lift his head toward Nurse Luchmann.

"Look at that," he said, repeating the intrusion. This caused Nathan's erect clit to pulse visibly. "Fascinating. The organ looks and reacts as a small phallus in response to stimulation, despite the patient having a fully-intact female reproductive system."

Then the doctor pushed a finger into his vagina, his thumb just brushing across Nathan's clitoris. It was just enough to send a wave of sickly, unwanted pleasure through his abdomen—enough that he tilted his hips upward for more, but none came.

Dr. Ivanov removed his fingers, leaving Nathan feeling opened and empty. The doctor spoke to Nurse Luchmann: "We'll begin the intake process immediately."

...

Nathan spent the next few days in a state of disorientation. He was confined to a bed in one of the hospital's wings, but had been moved several times. Now his bed was separated from any other patients in the ward by sheets of blue curtain. Occasionally he heard shuffling and curtains being pulled back, the rolling of nurses' carts, and low moans rising from nearby beds.

For the most part, he was left by himself. An IV dripped clear fluid into his arm, and he slept uneasily under the sanitary hospital sheets. He suspected there was something in the IV keeping him drowsy and compliant, but the thought didn't go much further than a dim recognition that he was no longer in control. His mind swam with blunted alarm and a few sharp moments of clarity when he woke in the darkness and planned a feverish escape from St. Augustus, before realizing this was impossible.

During his intake, Nathan's street clothes had been whisked away, and all he had now was the thin hospital gown he had been provided with. After a few other routine examinations, a nurse inserted a catheter that slowly drained Nathan's bladder while he lay in bed. It was less painful than the metal instrument, but he could feel the rubber tube inside him anytime he changed positions.

Every few hours, a nurse would come to check his vitals. They also checked how much fluid was flowing in through his IV, and out through his catheter. Then they checked that it was still properly in place, lifting Nathan's hospital gown with cold, clinical interest. This always made him blush with embarrassment.

And yet, Nathan anticipated the nurses' touch, and felt coldly abandoned when they left him alone. He hadn't realized how much of his life he had gone without anyone touching him, even in this sanitized way. Wandering touch had never been something he could allow. These nurses seemed to have no discomfort with touching and probing every inch of his body, as invasive as it was.

Sometimes, when the fog cleared for a moment, Nathan tried to raise his voice and get one of the nurse's attention and asked what was happening to him. Each time, he was dismissed with a short response: "Dr. Ivanov will explain everything."

On the third day—though it might have been longer, it was difficult to say— Dr. Ivanov came to his bedside. He looked considerably taller and more imposing from this vantage point. Or maybe it was because every time the doctor's fingers moved over his notes, he thought of how they had felt inside him, and how easily they might be there again, with so little that protected him from nakedness and vulnerability. He felt this even more acutely when Dr. Ivanov bent to examine the bag that Nathan's bladder emptied into, noting the amount.

"How are you feeling this morning, Nathan?"

"Fine. But Dr. Ivanov..." It exhausted him to speak. "How much longer will I be here?"

"Just fine?" The doctor pressed his pen to his lips, concerned. "Are you in any pain?"

"No, doctor."

"Have you been sleeping?"

"I've been trying to."

"That's very good." He finished scribbling a note. "If all is well, we'll proceed today."

"Proceed?" It was all he could get out. Nervous energy vibrated across his skin, and his tongue was heavy as lead.

But the doctor wasn't paying any attention to him. He stuck his head through the curtains and called a nurse over.

Nathan tried to sit up, but felt too lightheaded.

"Please prepare the patient," he instructed her.

Nathan swallowed, scrambling for words. But before he could speak, the doctor had gone, and the nurse with her cold gaze and artificial smile was hovering over him.

She removed his IV, which left a stinging sensation in the inside of his elbow. She pressed a square of gauze to his skin to staunch the droplet of blood that had risen to the surface. Then she drew back the curtain and rolled Nathan's bed through the hospital wing past other curtained rooms with nurses passing in and out—tending to other patients of Dr. Ivanov's, he assumed.

How many others, he wondered? He suddenly wished he had tried to call out to them in the night, try to make contact. Perhaps they could have warned him. But some part of him had known that it was already too late for that.

Fluorescent lights flickered above as Nathan lay, helpless, propelled down the white corridor to the sound of rolling wheels and the quiet tapping of the nurse's shoes. She pushed him through a set of swinging doors into a vacuous space—one half of a large room sectioned off with curtains. Nathan's eyes were drawn to the one principal centerpiece: a well-lit operating table made of glistening steel. Stirrups rose from it menacingly, farther apart than he thought could possibly be comfortable.

He still wanted to believe, however faintly, that Dr. Ivanov would bestow him with the gift of understanding and send him on his way when all was said and done. And done. That was the part that made his stomach turn and his fingers bury themselves in his bedsheets.

The nurse rolled his bed alongside the operating table and helped him onto it. Nathan lay his exposed back against the steel, which was frigid and uncompromising. With little strength left to stop her, the nurse guided Nathan's legs apart and lifted them into the stirrups, sending a wave of cold air against his bare skin. She secured Nathan's legs to the stirrups with leather straps, cinching them so tightly that they pinched his skin.

He strained to lift his head. "What are those for?"

"Just to keep you still," she said, very matter-of-factly. She moved around the table to secure belts across his hips, chest, and finally his wrists.

Nathan clenched his hands, trying to move against the restraints. He found they had little give. His pulse raced with fear.

Moving out of view for a moment, the nurse returned with a stack of white sheets. She draped him meticulously, covering his whole upper body aside from his head, and then his legs and feet, so that only his genitals were exposed.

She settled between his legs and inspected his vagina. She slid one gloved finger over the opening, but did not press inside. Then she massaged Nathan's clit, making him squirm as it became erect with blood.

Then she shifted the rubber catheter, and Nathan felt a tug deep inside. She deflated the balloon inside his bladder with a syringe, then pulled. Nathan shivered involuntarily as it slipped out, followed by a small spurt of urine. The extraction left him feeling raw.

"Very good," the nurse said, removing her gloves. "The doctor will be in momentarily."

When Dr. Ivanov emerged, he was dressed from head to toe in green surgical gowns and a cap to tie back his hair. "Wonderful, Nurse Capaldi. I'm glad to see the patient is ready. We'll begin in a few minutes."

He circled the operating table, getting a good look at Nathan. Then he set to work, Nurse Capaldi helping him pull on brown rubber gloves that reached up to his elbows.

"Did you know, Nathan,"—Nathan startled at the doctor suddenly speaking to him directly—"that my mother was a florist?"

He had no idea how to respond. In his drug-clouded mind, he couldn't understand how the question had anything to do with the present situation, which was becoming more vivid and alarming by the moment. His chest rose and fell quickly, trying to stave off panic.

"She was very dedicated to her work. It wasn't enough for her just to observe the pretty flowers or arrange them for clients. She had a greenhouse all her own, where she conducted her own private study. She had to know how the plants worked. And to do that, she had to part their petals and interrogate their mechanisms."

He nodded at the nurse, who rolled a rattling cart of instruments to him. He arranged these to his liking. "She was a meticulous woman. She was the first to discover that you could cross-pollinate a Petunia hybrida with a Nicotiana tabacum due to their unique sexual anatomy, did you know that? I've learned everything I know about medicine from her, in a way. All of my curiosity, all of my willingness to go beyond what most men consider sane and reasonable in the name of scientific discovery... I have her to thank for it."

He shook out his shoulders, standing tall, and allowed Nurse Capaldi to straighten his cap. "Right on time," he said.

She nodded at him and began pushing back the curtains. As they rattled over their metal rods, Nathan took in a breath at what had been hidden in the other half of the room. In front of him were several rows of seats, each row rising higher toward the back of the room.

Nathan felt cold fear flood his senses, realizing just how powerless he was. He couldn't move an inch inside his restraints, and he was completely on display and at the mercy of Dr. Ivanov and whatever audience was about to fill the seats before him.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. With a creak, the theater door swung open.

"Ah, come in, come in!" Dr. Ivanov called.

A group of young men streamed through the door and filed into their seats. All wore suits in various shades of black and gray, and many carried notebooks or briefcases at their sides. Many were bespectacled like Dr. Ivanov. They all let their eyes linger over Nathan as they entered, some smiling slightly, but none showed expressions of shock or disgust. They stared at him, or what parts of him were visible, with intellectual curiosity. This was clearly not the first time they had seen a patient in his position.

"Welcome!" Dr. Ivanov said as they took their seats. "I'm delighted you all could make it today for the study of a particularly unique specimen. Today we'll be examining a male patient who presents with phenotypically female genitals and reproductive organs, though with some peculiarities. And you all know what a special place I have in my heart for peculiar things."

A chuckle made its way through the students.

Nathan fought against his restraints. Up until now, his entire admission had felt distant and foggy, the imaginings of a dream. But this couldn't have been more real. Horrified clarity flooded him, his eyes darting between the men in the theater, who opened notebooks or folded coats over the backs of their seats, or simply observed him with quiet curiosity.

"I know you're all as eager as I am to begin, so let's not waste time with a preamble. After all, a hands-on experience often proves more educational than a lecture." Dr. Ivanov stepped between Nathan's wide-spread legs. With two fingers, he parted Nathan's lips. "My initial findings were that of a normative female appearance, except..." He isolated Nathan's clit between his fingers, tugging on it, stretching it away from his body to display its full length. "Observe the pseudo-phallus. It sits at five centimeters in length, much larger than a typical female's. It was immediately obvious to me that it responds," he ran a finger over the underside of Nathan's clit, slick and tender, "to stimulation in a similar manner to the masculine phallus."

Here he held back the hood, exposing the sensitive head. "I've also observed that the tip is especially reactive." He rubbed it with his thumb, causing Nathan's lower body to clench.

He could feel himself getting involuntarily wet in reaction to the aggressive stroking. The longer the doctor rubbed, the more intense his agony became. He tried to pull away from the doctor's fingers, but the various belts restrained him and he whimpered with frustration. His thighs trembled. Finally, the overstimulation forced a pained cry from his throat.

At this, the doctor released him. Nathan panted.

"As you can see," Dr. Ivanov forcefully spread his lips open. He knew he was wet inside, and that the students were leaning forward and adjusting their glasses to see this. The doctor ran a finger down his slit, and then—Nathan gasped— pushed it inside. "The patient is already considerably aroused. The vagina is producing an excess of lubrication, and has begun to dilate." Pushing in another finger, he probed Nathan's insides. "But this is better felt than observed. Please, file down in an orderly fashion."

One by one, the students pushed their fingers into him.

Nathan's body was betraying him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He pushed helplessly against their fingers, trying and failing to restrain his moans when they withdrew them. Some pushed forcefully and curled their fingers inside of him, exploring. Some prodded, stretched, or stroked his clitoris, watching and feeling his muscles contract in response. Others were hesitant at first, but lost their modesty when Nathan's eager wetness drew them in. They seemed to be just as fascinated by examining him as they were by the way his body responded to it.

After one student had thoroughly explored his vagina, he shoved a finger into Nathan's anus. He laughed at the way Nathan's body jolted with surprise and turned to another young man to show off his handiwork.

When the last student approached the operating table, Dr. Ivanov put a friendly hand on his shoulder. The young man had bushy brown hair and had a hefty camera strapped around his neck. "Gentlemen, we're lucky to be joined by medical photographer Rupert Finch, who will be documenting today's examination."

Mr. Finch's flashbulb flared between Nathan's legs; he could feel the heat of the flashbulb powder on his skin.

"It's a fascinating anatomy, isn't it?" Dr. Ivanov said. The students nodded in agreement, whispering to one another, as they filed back to their seats. Then Nurse Capaldi handed Dr. Ivanov another metal device. "Normally I would use lubricant," Dr. Ivanov said, "but it seems rather unnecessary in this case." A ripple of laughter rose from the viewing seats.

Nathan tensed against the metal as the doctor pushed it into him, but he was powerless to resist it.

"Previously, I've used a Pederson speculum on the subject, but it won't be sufficient for a lecture this size to get a full view. That's why this time I've chosen the Collins."

It did feel larger than the already-uncomfortable speculum Dr. Ivanov had used during the first exam, but the difference really came when the doctor began to turn the knob to open its wings. Nathan felt himself being pried painfully apart, opening him past the point of soreness, then even further.

"Ahhh, there we go," said Dr. Ivanov. "Now we can fully visualize the vaginal canal and cervix." With a cold metal rod, Dr. Ivanov prodded at Nathan's cervix and the sensitive inner walls. "Notice all the lubrication from arousal. We can also visualize the urethral opening..." He poked the tip of the rod right inside Nathan's urethra.

A stinging shock resonated through his body and tears sprung to his eyes.

"I've only performed a digital rectal exam on the patient, but for the sake of a complete and extensive examination, we'll need to take a closer look." Dr. Ivanov pushed a finger into his anus, which stretched to accept it, making Nathan feel even fuller. He pushed deeper, plunging in and out. "Now let's proceed..."

Nathan groaned as the doctor inserted another metal device. It was smaller than the speculum, but still uncomfortably large. Dr. Ivanov slid it in until the metal rim pressed against the outside of his anus. He removed the inner core, leaving both of Nathan's holes open for observation.

Once again, Dr. Ivanov invited the medical students down from their seats to peer inside of him. Some adjusted the speculums to get a better view, causing an uncomfortable shifting feeling inside him. The photographer lingered the longest. He spread the speculum even wider before blinding Nathan with the flashbulb. He was violated, pulled apart.