1
Yogurt & Lots of Water
HER GYNECOLOGIST RECOMMENDED him to me. Ironic: the best urologist in New York is French. Dr Jean Claude Vigneron: ONLY BY APPOINTMENT. So I made one.
'You like New York better than Paris?' I asked.
'In Paris, I dared to keep a car.'
'My father is a urologist, too.'
'Then he must be a second-rate one,' Vigneron said, 'if he didn't know what was wrong with you.'
'It's nonspecific,' I said. I knew the history of my ailment well. 'Sometimes it's nonspecific urethritis, once it was nonspecific prostatitis. Another time, I had the clap - but that's a different story. Once it was just a common germ. But always, nonspecific.'
'It looks very specific to me,' Vigneron said.
'No,' I said. 'Sometimes it responds to penicillin, sometimes sulpha does the trick. Once, Furadantin cured it.'
'There, you see?' he said. 'Urethritis and prostatitis don't respond to Furadantin.'
'Well, there,' I said. 'You see? It was something else that time. Nonspecific.'
'Specific,' Vigneron said. 'You can't get much more specific than the urinary tract.'
He showed me. On his examination table I tried to be calm. He handed me a perfect plastic breast, as lovely a one as I've seen: realistic color and texture, and a fine, upstanding nipple.
'My God ...'
'Just bite on it,' he said. 'Forget about me.'
I clutched the rare boob, looking it straight in the eye. I'm sure that my father employs no such up-to-date devices. When you're erect, the nasty glass rod goes in a bit easier. I recall I pulled a muscle, trying not to cry.
'Very specific,' said Jean Claude Vigneron, who responded in sly French when I told him it was at least unusual to hold a breast whose nipple one could bite without reserve.
Vigneron's diagnosis of my ailment is best understood with some historical perspective. Odd and painful peeing is not new to me.
Seven times in the last five years, I have suffered this unnamable disorder. Once it was the clap, but that's another story. Usually, the apparatus is simply stuck together in the morning. A careful pinch sets things right, or almost right. Urinating is often a challenge, the sensations always new and surprising. Also, it's time-consuming - your day spent in anticipation of the next time you'll have to pee. Sex, typically, is unmentionable. Orgasm is truly climactic. Coming is a slow experience - the long, astonishing journey of a rough and oversized ballbearing. In the past I had given up the act altogether. Which drives me to drink, which makes the pee burn: an unfriendly circle.
And always the nonspecific diagnosis. Terrifying new strains of possibly Asian venereal diseases are never substantiated. 'Some kind of infection' is carefully not named. Different drugs are tried; one eventually works. The Medical Encyclopedia of the Home reveals vague and ominous symptoms of cancer of the prostate. But the doctors always tell me I'm too young. I always agree.
And now, Jean Claude Vigneron puts his glass rod on the problem. Specifically a birth defect. Not surprising - I have already suspected the existence of several.
'Your urinary tract is a narrow, winding road.'
I took the news pretty well.
'Americans are so silly about sex,' Vigneron said. From my own experience, I felt unfit to argue. 'You think everything is washable, but the vagina remains the dirtiest thing in the world. Did you know that? Every unexposed orifice harbors hundreds of harmless bacteria, but the vagina is a superior hostess. I say "harmless" - but not to you. Normal penises flush them out.'
'But not my narrow, winding road?' I said, thinking of its odd crannies, where hundreds of bacteria could lead a secret life.
'You see?' said Vigneron. 'Isn't that specific?'
'What's the recommended treatment?' I still held the plastic breast. A man with an invulnerable nipple can be brave.
'You have four alternatives,' Vigneron said. 'There are lots of drugs, and one will always work. Seven times in five years is not surprising, considering such a urinary tract as yours. And the pain isn't severe, is it? You can live with this periodic inconvenience to your peeing and your screwing, can't you?'
'I have a new life now,' I said. 'I want to change.'
'Then stop screwing,' Vigneron said. 'Consider masturbation. You can wash your hand.'
'I don't want to change that much.'