“Why You Should Never Marry Your Gynecologist”

by Kathy Spicknall



“The coffee shop on 5th Street” is your go-to response anytime anyone asks where you and Kevin met, which people always seem to ask at office parties or neighborhood cookouts or other coupley events. It’s not entirely a lie because you did meet him there…for your first date, that is. They never ask where you and Kevin first met, so really it’s their fault for not being more specific. You smile as you respond. They think it’s because there’s going to be some cute story about spilling coffee on each other or picking up the wrong drink, and when you assure them there isn’t, they still don’t believe you.

But you know they’d rather hear the coffee shop version over the truth, no matter how unsatisfying it is, because the few times you responded with “He was my gynecologist,” people suddenly realized they had to go to the bathroom or that their drink was empty, and when they leave you, you know they aren’t coming back. They won’t give you the chance to explain the whole story—

That you felt something when he looked into your eyes with his steel blue ones, and it wasn’t because, at the same time, his fingers were rubbing your boobs to check for lumps and that your boobs hadn’t been touched in eight months, (twelve months if you didn’t count that guy Dan you went out with a few times who thought it was sexy to shake your boobs like an aerosol can during foreplay), but Kevin was different because he asked you questions while he touched you, questions about you (and your medical history), and even though he may have had to ask, you could tell he really cared because his voice was tender, and when he told you to lie on your back and stuck the speculum inside you, you imagined it was him in you, that you were fucking on the beach since there was a tropical calendar picture taped to the ceiling tile above you, likely to make patients feel more relaxed while getting probed, but you were completely relaxed because it felt good; you told yourself it wasn’t because you longed for any sign of affection from anyone other than your cat, but that maybe for once you had a guy who actually knew what he was doing down there, and whatever cold gel he spread around felt kind of kinky, not to mention he was a doctor, so he fulfilled your mother’s marriage requirements which she made you memorize when you were thirteen—that a woman should marry a man who is twenty percent smarter than she is and that loves her ten percent more than she loves him— and every time your mom called you now she slipped in the fact that at your age (a young 27) she was already married and pregnant with your older brother Chris, and it didn’t help that every time you scrolled down your Facebook newsfeed, another one of your friends was engaged (as if you could afford another wedding present) or had posted another annoyingly cute photo of their baby being licked by the family dog, so you may have been husband hunting because you eventually want those things too; it’s just hard to find someone when you’re stuck in a room teaching snotty, pre-pubescent eleven-year-olds the difference between declarative and interrogative sentences, and when you finally get off work, you only have enough energy to mindlessly scroll through your Facebook with your mouth hanging open like a cow and sometimes you manage to pour a glass of wine and call for takeout; on Saturdays when you don’t change out of your pajamas, you don’t feel bad because there isn’t anyone to impress, except for your parents who want grandkids before they die and are relying on you as if it’s easy to go out and find “The One”; you were shocked when Kevin agreed to coffee, and when you told your parents you were seeing this guy, you made sure to mention he was a doctor, which made your Dad smile because he no longer had to worry about supporting you on your teacher salary, but then when your mom asked “What kind?” and you replied “Gynecologist,” she just said “Oh,” which you know from your childhood really means “Oh, honey…” in that southern, condescending drawl she has, and you tried to explain to her and convince yourself that it wouldn’t be weird, that it wouldn’t bother you that he looked at and touched other women’s boobs and vaginas all day long, that he had seen so many that they probably didn’t even phase him anymore, but what you didn’t realize until after three years of marriage was that he looked at you that way too, that he wasn’t turned on by your naked body but instead only noticed when something smelled funny down there and offered to test you for a yeast infection, or when you wanted to cuddle after sex and he refused until you went to the bathroom and peed so that you wouldn’t get a urinary tract infection, but what really upset you was when you were ready and had worn your sexy bra and underwear set and he would say he’d already “seen enough vaginas for one day” or that he didn’t want to bring his work home with him, and that’s when you called your mom, and a lawyer to draft divorce papers, and then your dentist Dave because maybe you have a cavity but also maybe because he is a young, single, attractive man, and when he says you have good teeth, he really means he loves your smile, and when he says you take perfect care of them, he’s really saying that you’re perfect, but the best part about him is that he’s a different type of doctor, one who doesn’t look at other women’s genitalia all day, and you can definitely tell people how you and Dave met.

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