“I’m afraid you didn’t do a very good job convincing Nurse Donovan that you’re a boy.”

Part 2 - Wilshire

Nurse Donovan led us to a small examining room and invited me to sit on one of those steel tables while she took a medical history. Marjorie sat at a small desk and filled out another paper saying she would be responsible for paying the bill.

Other than giving my name as Kissy Eleanor Davis (I have three real middle names, but I stole this name from my character in our role-playing game), I simply told the truth until asked when I’d had my last period. I just blinked at her. Well, I knew she thought I was female, but I hadn’t expected that question, and she hadn’t asked for my sex.

“You don’t have to be exact,” she qualified the question.

“Uh, never,” I said. “I’ve never had a p-period.” I don’t normally stutter—stammer, yes, but not stutter—still, this seemed like it might be a good time to start. “I’m a b-boy.” Why was I having a hard time saying that!

Nurse Donovan did not blink or look startled, she simply wrote it down and continued asking about childhood diseases, immunizations and allergies. Then she took my blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate. She had me take off my shoes and measured me, 160 cm, then weighed me on a scale, 45.5 kg. I worked that out later, about 5’3” and a bit more than 100 lbs., somewhat less on both numbers than I had thought.

She looked in my ears and up my nose and had me open my mouth and say ‘ah.’ Then she took the paper she had filled out, and the one Marjorie signed and left the room, saying, “The doctor will be in to see you soon.”

“That went well,” Marjorie remarked.


I shivered. “I’m terrified.”

She climbed up, sat beside me and put her arms around me “No need to be scared.”

“Easy for you to say,” I accused.

She nodded, smiling in sympathy. “You’re covered in goosebumps.”

“It’s cold in here. Doctor’s offices are always cold.”

Marjorie hopped down from the examining table, strode across the room and opened a cabinet. Before her behavior could scandalize me further, she turned around with a thin blanket exactly like the ones they give you in a hospital. She spread it out, double thickness, and draped it around my arms and shoulders.

“Thank you,” I said, clutching it to me.

The doctor came in before Marjorie could get us into more trouble. He was a tall man with receding wavy brown hair and sharp grey eyes behind glasses. He seemed to be carrying the same clipboard Nurse Donovan had used. He smiled at me, “You’re Kissy Davis?”

I nodded, close enough.

He glanced at the cabinet Marjorie had left open where she had gotten the blanket I had wrapped around me then back at his clipboard. “Unusual first name,” he observed. 

“It’s from a town in Scotland,” Marjorie put in. “It means, meadow where the cress grows.”

I stared at her. I’d never told her the derivation of Kissee. She was always messing with her phone—she must have looked it up.

The doctor was still smiling. “I’m afraid you didn’t do a very good job convincing Nurse Donovan that you’re a boy,” he said. “She wrote it down, but I don’t think she believed it.” His smile broke into a grin as he looked me over. I very carefully kept my knees together.

He pulled a chair over and sat down, putting our eyes almost on a level, him being tall and me sitting on a table. “You also said you had never had a period. That’s the sort of problem people come to me for. And others see me because they have a problem deciding for themselves or convincing other people of their gender.”

Marjorie started to say something, but Dr. Forbes just looked at her, and she shut up. I needed to learn how to do that.

“I’m a boy,” I said after a moment of being quiet. “Marjorie wanted to see how much I could look like a girl, since I—I don’t seem to have gone through puberty like everyone else.”

“Pretty elaborate effort,” he commented. 

I nodded.

He seemed to consider something. “First, we have to find out what your problem might be, medically, if you have one. But whether you want to become a boy or a girl, there are treatment options. Including doing nothing, perhaps—if that suits you best and is not medically dangerous.”

“But,” and he looked at Marjorie. “You did not check the box that you are Miss Davis’s legal guardian, and I don’t believe you are. Since she’s underage, I cannot treat her; I can’t even take blood samples to send to the lab. All I can do is examine her with her clothes on, which Nurse Donovan has already done.”

He made a gesture to show his hands were empty.

“Could you take a cheek swab?” Marjorie asked.


Dr. Forbes glanced up at the ceiling through his rather bushy brows. “I think I could. The lab can rule out Klinefelter’s and a few other things.” He stood and went to the counter, pulling a big jar of long swabs toward him. He chose one, then opened a drawer and pulled out a long thin test tube.

“Miss Davis,” he said to me, “I’m going to swab this around your cheek and gums and catch a few of your cells, which we can do some testing on. We can also check the saliva for a few things we would normally look for in your blood. This is minimally invasive, but if you don’t want to open your mouth, there’s nothing I can do.

He sounded so serious, and he wasn’t talking to me as if I were a child. I giggled nervously and opened my mouth. He swiped around inside quickly, then sealed the swab, stick and all, into the long tube and put the tube in an envelope. 

He spoke to me. ”We probably won’t get this back before next week. Genetic testing takes time. But if you can return with your guardian, or a signed and notarized permission slip, we can do some blood work and… other tests.”

He turned so he took both Marjie and me into his gaze and smiled a little ruefully. “The odd wrinkle in the law is that if you had come in claiming that you thought you might be pregnant, then I could take blood tests, ultrasounds and do certain other procedures without permission of your guardian.” He sighed.

Pregnant? Oh, boy. I nodded to him. I’d have to get Mom to sign something, or this would end right here. Okay by me, I decided.

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” said Marjorie. “And if it’s possible to hurry any of these tests, I’ll pay for it.”

The doctor nodded, apparently accepting that she could indeed pay. “Make an appointment with Louann at the front,” he said. He put out a hand and helped me down from the examining table, then shook my hand in both of his. “Nice meeting you, Miss Davis,” he said. 

“Nice—nice to meet you, doctor,” I said, leaving the blanket on the stainless steel table.

He shook Marjorie’s hand, too. “Nice to see you again, Miss Lords,” he said. “Have you heard from Carl—Carol?”


Oh. This wasn’t the first time Marjorie had been here?


She smiled and nodded. “Carol had her surgery a year ago, here in LA. She’s probably on her honeymoon now. I think they were planning to go to Spain.”

“Nice,” said the doctor. He turned back to me, saying, “Miss Lords brought me another young lady with a problem similar to yours a few years ago. Well, maybe not that similar but perhaps in the same genus.” He smiled, showing a dimple of his own in his right cheek.

Marjorie gathered our purses, handed me mine, then went to make payment arrangements at the front desk. She was also probably going to make another appointment, one that I intended to skip.

I wandered out to the waiting room where a young woman in a very smart pantsuit and a three-day growth of beard sat on the back sofa near the reading lamp. I went on out to the hallway to hide my disturbance.

Down the hall, I saw a sign for Restrooms. I headed that way, thinking about things. I went inside the correct restroom for the way I was dressed, chose a stall and removed or loosened enough clothing to relieve myself.

I checked my phone. Still half an hour till 5 pm. My mother worked for another doctor in a building less than two blocks away. Long Wilshire blocks, but only two. I could go there and get a ride home from her. I’d have some tall explaining to do, but it was doable.

Or, I could take a bus, get home before Mom did if she was going out with her friends, get out of this masquerade and never have to tell anyone about it.

I cleaned myself off, put my clothes back the way everything had been just as I heard someone else come into the restroom. “Kissy?” Marjorie called.

I flushed and left the toilet stall, meeting Marjorie at the mirrors. We kissed, more than once, and I knew she had done enough damage that I should get out the repair kit. I didn’t, though.

“I made us an appointment for eleven in the morning,” she said.

“That late?” I asked calmly.


“Earliest they had,” she said. “It’ll be Friday. They probably won’t get any lab work back until next week.” She shrugged. “They’ll try to hurry it but no promises.”

I looked directly at her. “Cancel,” I said. “I’m not coming back.”

Her face fell. “Are you mad at me?”

I shook my head. “I’m not mad—I—,” I became aware that I was crying.

“Sh, sh, you’ll mess up your makeup.” She tried to put a laugh in her voice, but it came out a sob.

We stood there holding each other, crying like our hearts were broken. Eventually, I pulled away from her and started for the exit.

“Oh, Kissy, don’t go!” she cried. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to do this, but don’t—don’t leave me.”

I turned to face her and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Lipstick smeared, eye makeup running down my face. And Marjorie looked no better. We came together and held each other, again.

“Oh, Marjie,” I whispered in her ear. “What am I going to do?”