Greater Austin Medical Center is a fairly gloomy place. It
used to be a hospital, which had been built in the late fifties. It had
a problem with asbestos in the air conditioning and heating ducts, so a
lot of people who came here to get better got worse... or died.
The asbestos was all removed in the early 80's when a bunch of doctors bought the place. They tried to turn it into sort of a mini-hospital with a maternity ward and an emergency room. They didn't do either very well. It was back before a lot of the 'family medical centers' sprung up so people could go to the doctor when they were sick on a weekend or late at night. The doctors simply weren't equipped to do the kinds of things they needed to, to say, correctly diagnose birth defects or treat critical trauma patients. A lot of people died simply because they weren't taken to a better emergency room. More than a couple doctors lost their careers because of stupid mistakes or mismanagement. My life began here. Both my parents lives ended here. Today, GAMC has been converted into a lot of office space for individual doctors and specialists. I hate the place. It looks just as evil and grim as it did when my older brother Michael told me that Mom and Dad died. Still, it's the building where the only doctor in town who deals with cases like mine works. It's the only place I can go. "Once more unto death," I muttered. "Hmm?" Michael asked, looking up from his laptop. "Nothing. Just thinking about a movie," I answered. Michael's quite a bit older than me. He was born in the early seventies, and I was born when he was fifteen. Even though I'm in my last year of Junior High, Michael's the manager of the Technical Support department at an software company. When my parents died, he was the only family I had left. He had to drop out of college and start working to take care of me. It's been hard on both of us-- especially with my medical problems-- but we get by. I've got a scholarship to a good private school and Michael's good at his job. Good enough that he's gotten higher in his career than most people without college educations ever do. We've paid off all the debt we incurred right after our parents died and bought a new car. We even got to move into a nicer apartment. It's got a balcony facing south so we can have satellite movie channels. This... today's visit to the doctor... is likely to put us a little further into the hole, but Michael's medical insurance should catch most of it. Even if my condition is 'preexisting', it's disfiguring enough to crack the black heart of even the greediest of insurance agents. "Mister Angelus?" The nurse said, stepping into the waiting room. "You can come back again." I nodded and gestured to my brother. He took a deep breath and closed his laptop, following me. We walked through the waiting room and into the institutional green hallway beyond. I had already been back and forth through these hallways a few times today, so I knew the layout pretty well. "This way," the nurse said, taking us into a consultation room. Inside, my doctor was looking at a photograph. There was a strange, unreadable expression on his face. I guess he was disgusted by what he saw. I knew that I was. "Doctor Grimes?" My brother asked, trying to get the man's attention. The doctor jumped as if he'd been struck. I got a bad feeling but tried to pass it off. It was just nerves, right? "Ah yes. Gabriel. Michael. How are you doing today?" he greeted us in a conversational tone. Strangely, I noted a few beads of perspiration on his forehead. ![]() I exhaled, not really caring to think about the fact that I was built like a Ken doll. The only thing I had that was even remotely an indicator of normal human genitalia was a small opening between my legs that I could piss out of. I didn't even have pubic-hair to mark me as an adolescent. It was my secret shame and my own personal horror. Nobody knew except Michael and the doctor and I planned to keep it that way forever. Hopefully, what the doctor was about to say would make it so that I never would have to tell anyone, regardless. "I'm fine. A little tired, but fine," I said. "Ah, yes. The... the cat-scan is rather exhausting, isn't it?" he said. I just had to lay there for the cat-scan, but I didn't say anything. Better not to mention that we had been sitting in the waiting room for three hours. "So, about my brother's condition," Michael prompted him. "Ah, yes. The c-condition," the doctor stammered. "What's wrong," I demanded, finally feeling too nervous to try to let things ride anymore. The doctor was acting like he had just stolen something, and I wanted to know why. Michael was starting to pick up on the guy's nervousness as well. "The condition was diagnosed by Doctor Herbert as latent-sexual-development syndrome when you were an infant," the doctor said. I nodded. It was a rare, but fairly well documented condition. I was born without external genitalia. Theoretically, my penis and testes would grow into place as I matured, but I had yet to see signs of them. According to Doctor Grimes, it was possible that they were growing up inside my body and would have to be brought out with surgery. The blank area between my legs was changing in texture-- becoming more soft and swollen, so it was possible that it meant that it was time for that surgery to happen. It was surgery I was completely willing to undergo if it meant that I could look and feel like every other boy or man. Even if things didn't work as perfectly as they could, what I did have could be augmented with plastic surgery until it looked normal. I had often fantasized about having a dick like my brother's or any of my friends'. Since I had lived with the concept so long, my fantasy penis was a huge, surgically enhanced club worthy of a porn-star. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was upset that we were going to have to result to more plastic surgery than he originally diagnosed. "Y-you must understand," Doctor Grimes began, "that when Doctor Herbert made the diagnosis, LSDS was a fairly recently discovered condition. I have been working on the assumption that LSDS was indeed what Gabriel--" "Out with it!" Michael said, growing impatient. "What's wrong with my brother?!" I put a hand on his arm to calm him. Michael had an incredibly short temper, especially where I was concerned. "Doctor, is something wrong with my genitalia?" I asked. He shook his head, but there was a stricken look on his face. "No! No, there's nothing wrong, but... but..." "Did Doctor Herbert misdiagnose me?" "I'm afraid so," Grimes said. "When we performed the cat-scan this morning, what I expected to find was a complete penile shaft and at least one testes embedded in your abdomen." "You didn't," I noted. I tried to keep my reaction from showing on my face, but I couldn't help but shudder slightly. Still, I quickly made the emotional adjustment so that instead of my own equipment, I would have the porn-star equipment I had dreamed about. "No. What we found...." He pulled a computer printout out of the folder he was carrying. It was black with white lines and shapes... the obvious outline of human hips, with the pelvis and leg bones as bright white shapes. Above it were some strange-looking coils and blobs. I couldn't really tell anything apart, but I assumed I was looking at an image of my own intestines. "This--" he said, circling a strange shape on the printout, "Is a complete uterus. And these are each ovaries." "Those are female parts, right?" I asked, feeling a little sick. I had just learned about them in biology class. "What are you saying, Doc?" Michael demanded, his anger giving way to confusion. "Gabriel's a man," he insisted. "A detail of this inset," the doctor said, not able to meet mine or Michael's eyes. "Is a clitoris... just under is a urethra where we'd expect one--" "What are you saying?!" Michael asked again, growing angrier than before. "Gabriel is *not* a hermaphrodite!" he insisted. "No! No, Mister Angelus. Gabriel is not a hermaphrodite." That seemed to placate Michael somewhat, but I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach. "Gabriel's condition was much simpler than Doctor Herbert diagnosed it. Instead of a LSDS, what was wrong with Gabriel was that... that..." he trailed off. "Gabriel was born with fused labia majora. It's not common, but it's not a rare condition either. It's usually corrected with minor surgery right after birth." "Excuse me? Labia?" I said, feeling the pit grow deeper in my stomach. If what the doctor was saying was true... "You said Gabriel wasn't a hermaphrodite!" Michael accused. "No... Gabriel is... a healthy young woman who's been living under a misconception because of a minor cosmetic birth defect," Doctor Grimes explained. - - - ~to be continued |