Page 96 of Love Sick

“Thirty-two weeks. Claims she’s a virgin, but thinks she has chlamydia.”

I blink. So many contradictions there…

She only laughs.

The patient is a short redhead with bright blue eyes. They gaze at me with unblinking intensity while I introduce myself.

“What can I help you with today?” I ask.

“I was hurting and had this yellow stuff comin’ out my twat, so I took a home test for STDs. Said I have chlamydia.”

I draw a breath, but she holds up a finger.

“Doesn’t make sense. I never had sex.”

My eyes narrow and my pen drifts to point at her very pregnant stomach.

She follows the pen’s direction and stares at her belly for two seconds before jumping in surprise, like she’s forgotten a human grows there.

Blue owl eyes return to me. “I didn’t have sex, but I think I know how I got pregnant.”

“Did you have a sperm donor?”

“No.”

I scratch my head. “Then where’d the sperm come from?”

“From a cup.” She has no inflection to her voice. No tonal changes. She’s an owl-eyed robot, and a little voice in my mind whispers,You’re being punked.

“How did it get in the cup?”

Her owl eyes drop to my pants. “Don’t you have one? You don’t know how they work?”

I tilt my head and beg the universe to keep me from laughing. “Fair enough. How did it get in your vagina?”

“I poured it in.”

The image of a red Solo cup filled with cold semen fills my mind, nauseating this early in the morning. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

Her blue eyes go impossibly wide. “Wait. Is that how I got chlamydia?”

And that’s about how my morning progresses until Dr. Scarlett calls to tell me the patient in the ICU has stabilized and they’re moving her to pre-op.

A quarter hour later, I slide a latte toward Scarlett where she’s waiting in the OR attending lounge. “Any luck on a translator?”

She pops the lid and glances inside. I know all the hospitalists’ coffee orders by heart, so hers is perfectly made, but she still doesn’t thank me as she takes a sip.

She shakes her head. “Now they’re thinking it might be Khmer. The reverend from her church showed up, but his translation of her story doesn’t make much sense.”

I suppress the pang of annoyance that she didn’t call me for the interview with the reverend. “What did he say?”

“That her last period was four days ago and she only started feeling sick this morning. Did you look at the ultrasound images?”

I nod.

“What’d you think?”

“Honestly? It looked like a huge gray mess in there.”

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