The Side Effect of Consequences

The Side-Effect of a Consequence


Dr. Phil’s face is growing weary now. He is talking to a mother who’s daughter has been having oral sex regularly. She was apparently coerced by an older girl, an entrepreneur if you will, who got “Ally” and her friends to charge for oral sex so that she could take a stake in the profit and probably attend a Jonas Brothers concert with it.
The good doctor doesn’t want to go into detail, he barely wants to know where these, um, acts were performed but he repeatedly asks the disembodied young voice on the telephone if she realizes it was a mistake. She answers as if being punished by her principal who has caught her kissing a boy in the hallway.
“You realize this is wrong? You realize we don’t do these things here?”
“Yes, yes sir. Of course, I know. I won’t do it again.”
By now my face is slack, my ass numb in the supposedly comfy chair in the clinic’s waiting room. The only thing I comprehend is Dr. Phil’’s moving mouth, making elongated southern syllables.
I wonder, once again, when this will be done and the what the end result will be. I still think she will run out, dressed in her gown, and tell me that she has made a mistake by doing this.
Dr. Phil’s next topic is students having sex on the dance floor. Panties and condoms found on a dance floor and an anatomically awkward description of a bump and grind. Christ almighty, I feel sick. How long does this take, anyway? My eyes dance with the blurred image of the faux-Monet on the wall and the food rises up in my stomach. I run to the bathroom, and barely make it to the toilet. I shouldn’t have had that taco earlier. Yes, that was obviously a bad idea. My stomach burns and my knees collapse. I shift so that my forehead is against the cooler material of the stall door.  A knock at the door reverberates against my head.
“Someone’s in here.” I croak.
A woman answers. She is a nurse. She asks if I am okay. How far along I am.
“Not pregnant. Here with a friend.”
She asks who.
“Chloe Sanders.”
Chloe is still in there, apparently. She is waiting. She has time.
I claw my way up using the toilet, and immediately regret it. I undo the latch, the nurse takes my arm gently. She leads me to a room with a bed and a tv, still playing Dr. Phil, and tells me she will get me some water and and aspirin. She pushes the garbage can closer to my bed and advises me to “get it all out.” On the screen, a boy is talking about how if he gets a girl pregnant, he can’t go to Annapolis for the Naval Academy. Good point, if only other people had his foresight then I wouldn’t currently have the aftertaste of Mexican-flavored vomit on my breath.
The nurse comes back with the water and aspirin. I ask her about Chloe and she sighs, tugs on her scrubs and says my friend is next.
“Is she going to go through with it?” I ask.
“Seems like it.” She replies.  “Was she having doubts?”
“She was for a little while.”
“I think she’s past it.”
“Oh good.”
The blonde girl on the screen is so earnest in her regrets about having sex at such a young age. It made her feel beautiful at first, and then she realized it all had to do with her father leaving her at a young age. She sounds like she’s reciting lines from “Reviving Ophelia” and Dr. Phil is shaking his head enthusiastically, a gleam of judgement still present in his eyes.
         “Idiot.” The nurse says.
            “Tell me about it.”
         “All these young girls today.”
         “I know.”
The nurse smiles at me.
         “How old are you?”
         “17 going on 40.”
         “Do you have a boyfriend?”
         “Not yet, maybe never. I’m not too enthusiastic about physical intimacy right now.”
         “Uh huh. Understandable.”
         A beat.
         “Who’s the father? I always like to ask but sometimes I dread the answer.”
         “Her boyfriend, Tommy. He doesn’t know.”
         “They usually don’t.”
She gets up, asks if I need anything else and then exits quietly, shaking her head.
         I close my eyes, and fell asleep. About a half an hour later, a different nurse comes and shakes me. She asks me if I can drive and I nod my head sleepily.
         “Your friend’s waiting in the lobby. She’s um, a little loopy. We’ve given her some percocet for the pain. It’s normal.”
         “I believe you.”
Chloe clings to me as we walk out to the car. I open the door for her and she falls in.
         “Real graceful, Chlo.”
About halfway down the street, she starts sobbing uncontrollably. What do you do in this situation?
         “It’ll be okay.” I sound awkward and unconvincing.
More sobbing. No response. We drive the rest of the way in silence.
         When we walk into my house, my brother is sitting on the couch, beer in hand. He knows whats happened and doesn’t say anything when I cover it up with a lame excuse.
         “Hi Chloe.” He smiles.
She makes an unintelligible response and bursts through the door into my room, where she proceeds to throw herself on the bed and throw the covers over her head. I don’t begrudge her the luxury. Instead, I tell her I will be in the living room if she needs me and I gently shut the door.
         “Beer?” My brother holds out a brewsky. “I won’t tell.” He promises.
         He opens it with his teeth, a newly acquired skill, and hands it to me.
         “Where’s Mom and Dad?”
         “Out to dinner.”
         “Oh, thank god.”
         “Mom was already looking up holistic healing remedies for any complications she may have so you’re not off the hook yet.”
         “Hmm..”
         “She’s very proud of you.”
         “Great.”
         “You okay?”
I glance at the door to my room. “I’m fine. I don’t think she will be.”
         My brother crosses his legs. “It’s a fresh wound. Literally. She needs time to heal.”
         The sobbing gets louder, we can both hear it now.
“It’s a side effect,” the doctor told my mother when I was little, sitting in the hospital, my stomach emptying itself after a dose of penacillin.
         The sobbing stops abruptly and is traded for some very heavy breaths and the greedy consumption of waters.
         “Just a side effect,” I repeat to myself. “Only a side effect.”