Special Clinic

As a student, living on little money, in squalid conditions, with insufficient funds for heating, whilst consuming large quantities of alcohol and other assorted drugs, one is prone to a range of diseases, most of them venereal.

During a particularly active period, I myself suffered the sting of Cupid’s arrow, right up the tip of my willie. At first there is a tendency to ignore it and hope that it’s just something temporary, but as the inflammation gets redder than a Policeman’s nose and starts to drip faster than the same nose on a frosty night, you have to bite the bullet and get something done about it. By this time you are probably way past the bullet biting stage and have chewed mouthfuls out of the telephone directory, because this is serious pain, something like pissing glass shards into a bowl of rusty razor blades.

At Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham, most male students went to a local GP who we shall call “Doc Thomas”, because that was, and I hope still is, his name. If you went to Doc Thomas with a broken arm, a scalded foot, frost bite, beriberi or any other similar student ailment, he would always first ask you to drop the shreddies and show up your old man. There were 25 year old virgins who took exception to this sort of inspection, but for most of us it just became a routine and a fairly sound one at that. The drawback was, that if he did find anything untoward in the underpants department, he would only refer you to the “Special Clinic” at the General Hospital and, until such time as your attendance had been recorded there, the Dinner Ladies at the College Canteen would all take a step backward whenever you joined the queue.

So if you already knew that something was awry, the best thing to do was get yourself straight off to the “Special Clinic” and get sorted, thereby avoiding the middle man with the knowing smile, but somehow not the Dinner Ladies, who seemed to have informants in all sectors of the seedy underbelly of Cheltenham Spa. Being in total agony by the time I admitted to myself that something was wrong, I called the Hospital direct and was informed that the Special Clinic operated on Mondays and Wednesdays only. Today being a Thursday, it was either chop it off ( A considered option) or get the bus to Gloucester and attend the Clinic there. This actually, was an appealing solution. I doubted that the Dinner Ladies’ network extended the 10 miles down the road to Gloucester, thereby guaranteeing anonymity and a hot lunch. Score.

Having got off the bus in Gloucester, I hobbled into the General Hospital reception and leaned on the desk, wiping the beads of perspiration from my brow and waiting for my turn. I was walking like a gay Cowboy after a 3 month cattle drive with the Village People. Anything to prevent the tip of my willie rubbing against my undercrackers.

“Could you please direct me to the V.D. Clinic, please” I quietly asked the lady at the counter, whilst surreptitiously looking for a soup ladle, pinnie or other badge of the informant.

“What?” Replied the unctuous old bat peering over the rim of her hornrims. I wanted to pull the gravy stained cardigan over her head and strangle her with her spectacle chain but instead, I had to ask again, slightly louder, so that everyone in the queue could hear.

“Oh, You mean the ‘Special Clinic’” she replied this time with a disdainful smirk and a knowing look aimed for the benefit of the audience. “Just follow the yellow line on the floor until you come to Room 611.”

I looked to the floor and there was a rainbow of coloured lines. Red went to the Burns unit, Blue to Hypothermia, Black to Terminal Illnesses, Green to Gangrene and Yellow obviously led the way for the drip, drip, drip of the Syphilitic prick. If anyone in the Hospital had failed to hear that you had a sexually transmitted disease, they could still work it out by which coloured line you were following. Anonymity, out the window. They may as well have hung a bell round my neck. I shambled along, head shrunk down into my shoulders with the collar of my donkey jacket pulled up. Every step a jag of pain. The yellow line beneath my feet and the corridors getting noticeably dingier. I didn’t feel very “Special” and the “Special Clinic” wasn’t living up to its quotation marks.

Slowly the Room numbers crept up towards the magic 611. There weren’t many people about now and, although I felt lonely and isolated in my pain, I was relieved that there were no witnesses. I rounded a corner figuring that I was just a few doors away and there, blocking up the corridor, was an entire cast of thousands. “Bollocks”. Now this I didn’t need. All these people watching me go into the “Special Clinic” and sniggering at the social leper.

Blinded by my annoyance, I still managed to see the number on the door, dived into Room 611 and dropped into the nearest available chair to recover from my humiliation. As my composure returned, I scanned the room and noted that there were 4 females and me. It appeared that the crowd outside had consisted of other young gentlemen in a similar condition to myself, politely waiting for the end of the “Ladies” session. Rather than go back out and face them, I resolved to sit it out. “Bollocks” again.

Two of the Ladies looked a bit put out by my presence, One burst into tears, but the Fourth started to chat me up. It wasn’t exactly “Do you come here often”, but it was something along those lines. My response being something in the order of, “Well poppet, I know why I’m here and I’ve a pretty shrewd idea as to why you might be here, so why don’t we take a rain check until we are both feeling a little brighter”.

The clinic door opened and one by one the ladies left me, the Fourth one with a very winsome smile and then suddenly the corridor door opened and a hoard of gits invaded the room. The clinic door opened again and I was in, no hanging about. These guys may have been in the corridor for an hour but I had suffered additional humiliation and therefore merited instant attention.

I was greeted by Doctor Patel, who found it all rather amusing. “Not being a Girlie-Boy are you? Coming in-between the Ladies and Gentlemen? Surely not? Okay being dropping your shreddies and show me your John Thomas.” Which I did, me standing with trousers round ankles and him kneeling looking straight at my old boy. “Ooooh looking very nasty. Can you be pulling back the foreskin? Ooooookey dokey. Can you be squeezing the tip from top and bottom so that the end opens up and I can see in.”

I’m standing there, with my shirt and vest tucked under my chin, feeling sorry for myself, peering down at my poor old chum whilst squeezing the tip in accordance with procedure and I didn’t register the Doc’s next move. He looked as if he were reaching up to stroke back his hair, but in reality he had palmed a stainless steel rod with a cotton swab on the end which shot forward like a darter going for a double top finish, right up my dick end. A turn to the right, pull out and he was on his feet before my screams reached the 500 yards back to the reception desk. My world span, but I distinctly heard the corridor door open and at least four sets of feet left the waiting room.

“Very good, veryy, verry good. Now that didn’t hurt too much did it?” I think I was crying by this stage, but managed to get my trousers back up and sank into the proffered chair. “ I will just put this on a slide and be looking through the microscope. My assistant, Dr. Patel, will just take a little blood sample for double-checking.”

The other Dr. Patel looked about 15, he rolled up my sleeve and wiped the inner elbow with an alcohol swab. I would have sucked it dry if he’d let me. This Dr. Patel took a good sized syringe and, after applying a rubber tourniquet, and asking me to “Being balling up your fist”, went for the vein and missed. “Sooooo sorry! We try again one time, Whoops! Two time. Deary, deary me! Three times. Most unusual!”. On the fifth time, he resorted to pinning the vein against a bit of cartilage and wiggling the tip of the hypodermic until he got purchase and with a large sigh, manage to extract about a nano-litre of my reluctant corpuscles.

By this time, my entire forearm was that liverish blue black of the extremely well bruised, covered in pinholes and rigid across my chest. He managed to get the shirtsleeve down and the donkey jacket on my back before Dr. Patel returned with the results from my slide. “Not to worry about the blood sample Dr. Patel, the patient is being only having NSU. Congratulations sir!” And, as if I were a Lottery winner, he grabbed my right hand and shook it vigorously, which, Dr. Patel, had inadvertently used for the removal of blood. As I fainted with pain, which he took to be relief, he pressed a bottle of antibiotics into my jacket pocket and said he hoped that he never saw me again in a Professional capacity but was I interested in joining the Gloucester Round Table?

I staggered out of the Clinic and out of the Hospital through a back door next to the refuse collection point, a fitting exit in the eyes of the Hospital Governors. The bus back to Cheltenham saw me drifting in and out of clouds of pain that only a pint would cure, I knew that you’re not supposed to drink beer and take antibiotics, but I needed a painkiller and I had cause to celebrate. Clap free and no hint of scandal. I stepped into the Cotswold Arms and asked Elsie for a pint of 6X. A group from College were hanging about. “You alright Johny” asked one of the girls. “Lookin a bit Goth”

“No, I’m alright thanks, just banged up my arm playing rugby. Pretty bruised but I’ll survive.”

“Here you go John” said Elsie, as she put a foam covered pint on the bar. I tried to reach for my money but my arm wouldn’t move. “Sorry Elsie love, I can’t get in my pocket with this arm. Could you reach in for me?” I smiled and she huffed, but she obliged, she reached across the bar and dipped into my jacket pocket, pulling out a wadge of change and a small bottle of pills that skittered across the bar top. She picked it up for me and squinted at it.

“Got the Clap have you John?” And the Pub went very quiet.

• Uncategorized