Hilary Fields - Bliss

It was like looking into the essence of a great symphony, all the elements of passion, playfulness, and exultation commingling. Sera stumbled to a halt, her feet no longer obeying the music, drowned out by what she saw in Asher’s expression.

He came to a stop with her, but his arms kept their clasp about her body.

“I think…” A look not unlike consternation crossed Asher’s face. He stared down at her, unwontedly solemn. “I think I would like to kiss you, Bliss. Would you… also like that?”

Would I like that? Would I like that?

“There’s only one way to find out,” she found herself saying with far, far more sassiness than she’d expected to be able to muster in a moment like this.

But Asher didn’t smile. As momentous as this occasion felt to Sera—she hadn’t kissed or wanted to kiss anyone since Blake had shattered her confidence (she had, in fact, never had more than a casual coffee date since getting sober)—it appeared to be even more fraught for Ash. His hand gently cupped her face. Sera registered its rough texture, its control and exquisite sensitivity. Its… trembling? His thumb traced her bottom lip, and Sera found herself trembling as well, her lips parting in anticipation. When is it going to happen? Is it going to happen? Oh, my God, it’s about to happen…

And then his lips took hers, and her wits took off.

Well, everything looks perfectly normal down here,” said the voice between Sera’s thighs.

Paper rustled, metal instruments blessedly retracted, and Dr. Flores, Sera’s brand-new gynecologist, wheeled herself back on her stool and into visual range. “You can sit up now,” she instructed briskly.

Sera did as bade. (There was nothing like a speculum to make a girl feel subdued.) She sat cross-legged on the exam table, disposable paper gown gapping in all sorts of unflattering ways, trying to tuck everything tuckable back into place. I can’t believe Pauline did this to me, she thought for what had to be the hundredth time. And I can’t believe I let her. Hell, my last pap smear was less than a year ago. This so wasn’t necessary. But Pauline Wilde would not be denied. She’d spent the entire weekend peppering her niece with probing questions, poking her and eyeballing her like she was some sort of exotic specimen, then tut-tutting and exclaiming, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” at least once an hour. And come Monday morning, she’d been on the horn first thing, getting Sera an appointment with her personal gynecologist, whether Sera liked it or not.

“I don’t see what the emergency was, frankly,” said the doctor. She was a steel gray woman from top to bottom, neat but not militarily so from her wiry, short-cropped hair to her starched doctor’s coat and gunmetal pantsuit. “The way your aunt made it sound, I thought we’d be admitting you to the ER. I don’t usually offer appointments in this big of a rush. It normally takes weeks to get in to see me,” she said with a hint of pride.

“I’m very sorry, Dr. Flores. I don’t mean to waste your time,” Sera said. “It’s just that Aunt Pauline was very concerned, and I…”

Thought this would shut her up.

“Fine, fine,” said Dr. Flores. “You’re here now, and of all my patients, Pauline is probably the one I’m happiest to let call in a favor. So let’s get to your symptoms, shall we?” She didn’t wait for Sera to continue. “Are you having any burning sensations when you urinate?”

Sera shook her head.

“Pain during sexual activity?”

How to answer that? “Um, not exactly…”

The doctor pinned her with a slightly impatient look. “ What, exactly?”

“Well, no, no pain, but also… no sexual activity.”

The doctor’s expression didn’t change. “For how long?”

“Over a year,” Sera whispered.

The doc made a note in her chart. “And over a year ago, when you were sexually active, did you experience pain during sexual activity?” she asked impassively.

“No… ah, not exactly.” Sera looked wistfully over at her clothes.

The doctor cast her stainless steel watch an equally wistful glance before leaning back on her stool and studying Serafina from under knotted brows. “ What, exactly?” she repeated.

“Not pain, but… not really pleasure either. And, um… you probably know how Aunt Pauline is about, um… pleasure.”

Was it Sera’s imagination, or had Dr. Flores’s lip quirked?

The doctor scribbled another note, then slapped her hands down on her thighs decisively and rose to her Aerosole-clad feet.

“Okay, Miss Wilde. I’ll send out the usual pap smear and do a urinalysis, but as I said, I can find nothing physically wrong based on your exam. Come into my office as soon as you’re dressed,” she invited, “and we’ll have a little chat.”

She might have said “chat,” but Sera heard “firing squad.” She gulped and did as ordered, wishing forlornly that she hadn’t given up smoking along with drinking as she dragged on her T-shirt and jeans and slipped into her beat-up Dansko clogs. Now would have been a great time to smoke ’em if she’d got ’em.

Inside the doctor’s airy, peach-walled office, O’Keeffe prints confronted Sera at every turn. She squirmed down as small as she could into the doctor’s little beige love seat, averting her gaze from the flowery vulvas and focusing instead on the anatomical models of ovaries and uteri that littered the woman’s glass-topped desk. I’ll take anatomical over artistic any day.

The doctor unfolded a pair of neat, wire-framed bifocals and propped them on her nose, glancing at Sera over them. “Now, Miss Wilde, how about you describe the exact nature of the problem that’s brought you here today?”

Was it her imagination, or was Dr. Flores making fun of her, just a wee tiny bit?

Serafina took a deep breath. Enough wasting this nice lady’s time, Sera, she chided herself. “I guess I better just come out and say it, huh?” She sighed, twisting her hands in her lap. “But that’s the problem. I can’t. Come, that is.”

“Meaning, you can’t experience orgasm?”

Sera nodded glumly.

“I see.” The doctor jotted down another note in Sera’s file. “Is it an inability to experience arousal, or is it more like arousal with anorgasmia—that’s when your body experiences sexual pleasure but can’t achieve climax,” she added when Sera looked blank at the word.

You’d think I’d know all the words for my condition by now, Sera thought. Blake certainly had enough of them, and “frigid” was one of the kindest. “Ah… the second one, for the most part. I can get in the mood”—her kiss with Asher on Friday night had amply proved that!—“but I, ah… I’ve never quite gotten ‘there.’”

“Never achieved climax.” Dr. Flores looked a bit impatient with Sera’s discomfort using the clinical terms. “Not even alone? When you masturbate?” the doctor clarified.

Yeah, I got that from the whole “alone” thing, Sera thought, blushing. She shook her head mutely. She’d given it a fair try—Pauline had practically given her a mandate to, once Sera had reached her mid-teens—but though things would start off well, they’d always end up the same way. Failure. Frustration. Eventually, the shame over her inadequacy had been too much, and she’d simply given up trying. “No. Once or twice I got pretty close—or at least I think I did—but, um, there was a definite failure to launch.” Having no frame of reference, and a distinct lack of desire to watch porn, Sera had had to rely on her friends’—and Pauline’s—descriptions of what the climactic moment felt like. And based on their rhapsodizing (in Pauline’s case, endlessly), she’d definitely missed the boat.