Wishing I could shove it in deep, stabbing her with the metal piece of equipment I could so easily turn into a torture device, I gently pull the speculum out of my patient’s vagina. I set it on the rolling tray before pulling my gloves off and throwing them in the hazardous waste bin as I imagine her screams of pain.

“You know I’m not allowed to say anything official. But from your internal exam, you seem perfectly healthy to me, Jacqueline. I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary, but the doctor may want to conduct his own exam to be sure.” I see the sliver of excitement flash over the slut’s face, and I keep my own expression schooled, not revealing my disgust in the vile woman. “You’ve been trying to conceive for several years now, and according to your chart, you’ve never attempted any form of fertility treatment. And I know you hate it when I bring it up, but your age—”

“I know, I know. Forty is entirely too old to be trying to have a baby. But I’m a firm believer in if it's supposed to happen, then it will,” she cuts me off, sitting up and smoothing her perfect waist-length white-blonde ponytail.

Long enough to strangle her with.

The thought puts me in a happy place, so I easily make my voice pleasant. “As your PA, I’m giving you my professional opinion. If you truly want to have a baby, and you’ve been trying for this long, tracking your cycles like you say you have, then there is probably something keeping that from happening. Your ultrasound last time was clear. No cysts on your ovaries, no uterine fibroids.” I let out a breath. “The problem could lie in your husband’s sperm. Do you think he would be willing to come in for a semen analysis?”

She chuckles, crossing her legs beneath the examination sheet, placing her perfectly manicured hand beside her knees, and leaning to the side prissily as she touts, “That man would do anything I ask him to. I’ll set up an appointment for him on my way out.”

Her cockiness makes me want to slap her. If only her husband knew she wasn’t really a hypochondriac who came in to the gynecologist once a month for checkups, but to fuck her doctor. In the two years I’ve worked here at Dr. Curtis’s office, I’ve seen Jacqueline Stine no less than twenty times. After the sixth time in as many months, when I first acquired my dream job I’d worked so hard for, I asked Dr. Curtis why she required so many appointments. Especially when her charts indicated she was perfectly healthy and not receiving any type of monthly treatment. He briskly explained she had an uncontrollable fear of STDs, borderline obsessive, so she came in regularly to be tested for peace of mind.

A married woman with an obsessive fear of sexually transmitted diseases? Was she worried her husband was cheating on her? Her ever-present attitude and surety in his giving in to her every request would indicate no. Plus, why would she be trying to have a baby with a man who she suspected was unfaithful? But considering the fact she was the only patient who had a signed consent form in her file stating a nurse or physician’s assistant is not required to be present in the examination room with her doctor indicated something else entirely. So did the locked door I discovered soon after my suspicions were birthed.

As always, I pick up my iPad off the counter and let her know the doctor will be in to see her as soon as he’s finished with his current patient, closing the door gently behind me. As calmly as I can manage with the rage still boiling through my veins, knowing what would be happening in Exam Room 3 in the next few minutes, I make my way to the checkout desk and let Aria know that Mrs. Stine needs to schedule a semen analysis for her husband before she leaves.

Shuffling to my desk, feeling discouraged, I think about all the reasons why I’d wanted so badly to work at this office, one of the most highly acclaimed OBGYN/Fertility Treatment Facilities in the state of Texas. I’d grown up an only child, my parents trying for countless years to have a second child. I witnessed all the struggles, the pain—both emotional and physical—while my mom tried everything, including in vitro fertilization, as she and Dad did their best to give me a sibling. But nothing ever worked. My parents made a few close friends throughout their treatments, in support groups for people going through the same thing. As I got older, I realized it was one thing for a couple who had never had a baby to struggle with infertility. Their dream of creating a life together through their love of each other something they wanted to experience. It was something entirely different for people like my parents. My mom already knew how wonderful it was to feel a new life growing inside her belly. They already knew what it was like to look into a baby’s eyes and feel love like they never thought possible. I remember her telling me about the sensations of my kicks. The way she felt this sense of completion when she knew a part of her heart beat inside me. I’m weak in my heart for women who can’t have kids, but I feel most connected to the ones who lost something they already greatly knew. It wasn’t more unfair than the couple who were denied the gift of a child, but an entirely different form of torture. It was when my mom and dad finally gave up trying, on her fortieth birthday, that I decided I wanted to become a fertility specialist.

Several minutes later, I keep my back turned toward the door as my boss and his patient leave the exam room, and I ignore their goodbyes, waiting to hear Mrs. Stine make her way to the checkout desk. My skin always crawls when she’s near, knowing what she does behind her husband’s back. So when she sets the appointment for her husband, and then her next visit, I breathe a sigh of relief when she finally leaves.

I log in to the office network with my employee number and passcode, typing in my last patient’s name. When Jacqueline’s file pops up, I scroll to see when the appointments were set.

“Wow, you wasted no time, did you?” I murmur under my breath. “The perfect cover up.”

Mr. Stine is now set to come in tomorrow morning for his semen analysis. So now the cheating skank can go home and tell him she got him the earliest available appointment so they can get the baby train rolling.

I shake my head, logging out of the program before grabbing my lunch kit and purse and heading home for the day.

I remove my shoes as soon as I walk in my apartment’s front door, putting them neatly in their designated place with calculated effort. Setting my bag on my couch as I pass behind it and into the kitchen, I place my lunch kit on the counter. I strip as I make my way toward my bedroom, tossing my scrubs into the washer as I go. My bra and panties follow suit, leaving me naked as a jaybird as I enter my room. I smile at the old saying as I promptly sit in my computer chair, wiggling the mouse to wake up the monitor. In the top right corner of the split screen, I watch Aria and Dr. Curtis leaving through the front door of the office, him turning to lock up for the evening as her short, round figure waddles toward her Ford Focus. The other eight squares on my monitor are still, no one else inside the building.

Choosing the surveillance camera for Exam Room 3, I rewind through the last hour, only catching the tail end of the doctor and Mrs. Stine’s sexcapade before he helps her back into her clothes. And as she turns back around to him after he zips her into her dress, I see the exchange like I do every month—him pulling out a round packet of birth control pills from the pocket of his white coat, her taking it from him with a sly grin and bat of her fake eyelashes, and then she slips them into her expensive-looking purse. I save the clip into the file I’ve kept since I placed the microscopic hidden cameras throughout the building, stretch my arms high above my head with a groan, and spin the seat around, prancing my way into my en suite to take a blistering shower.