Page 8 of Sex Positive

“Please, Quinn,” she says over her shoulder. “Just forget it, alright?”

Pushing through the main doors, she steps into the blinding sun, leaving him behind.

Sometimes she wishes she never met Wesley Quinn.

Four

The Wild RueSexual Wellness Clinic—aptly named for wild rue’s long history of ancient medicinal use for reproductive ailments—operates out of a modest two-story building twenty minutes from campus consisting of a cozy waiting area, four exam rooms, an office for the doctor or PA and their medical assistant, a small lab, and a closet for medical supplies. The second floor holds roomier offices used by administration and the Advocacy and Outreach Committee, as well as a large conference room for meetings and workshops. Charlie began working there part-time almost three years ago.

She loves working there. Loves the routine of seeing patients, drawing labs, cleaning rooms, and restocking medical supplies. It shuts her mind off for a few hours, silencing her endless to-do lists and intrusive thoughts about an annoying, attractive man with capable hands and an arrogant smile.

“You have very gentle hands. Has anyone ever told you that?” Jessie, a thirty-something young woman whom Charlie has gotten to know from her STI checks every three months, says.

Charlie smiles, untying the blue tourniquet from Jessie’s upper arm. Maintaining steady pressure on the butterfly needle nestled in her vein, Charlie watches the tube fill with blood.

“I can’t say they have.” She removes the first vial, exchanging it for another without so much as jostling the needle. Two years of working as a medical assistant has honed her phlebotomy skills, and her hands no longer shake with apprehension when she draws a patient’s blood, afraid she’ll stick them too hard with the needle.

Jessie flutters the fingers of her free hand over Charlie’s forearm. “Very light and delicate. It’s comforting.”

Laughing softly, Charlie removes the needle, applying the gauze to Jessie’s arm to stanch the blood before securing it with medical tape.

“Well, thank you. I’ll be sure to add that to my list of skills on my résumé.”

Jessie winks and flicks a lock of long, wavy auburn hair over her shoulder. Her eyebrow piercing—a simple diamond stud—glints in the fluorescent lights of the clinic.

Dropping her supplies into the sharps container and biohazard bin, Charlie tucks the two vials of blood into the front pocket of her scrubs and gathers the clipboard with Jessie’s information.

“Anything else you want me to mention to Dr. Angelo before she comes in to see you?”

Jessie shakes her head. “Nope. Just the routine works. Y’all know I love coming here.”

“We love seeing you,” Charlie returns.

Jessie leans back on the exam table, the paper crinkling under her palms, swinging her legs off the end. “You guys talk to me like I’m human.”

Charlie keeps her face neutral even as her heart clenches at the words. “That’s because you are,” she says, holding her smile steady.

Jessie smiles back, but it’s full of tired ruefulness, not her usual bubbly effervescence.

“I know.” She shrugs. “But a lot of people don’t think that once they find out what I do.”

Charlie presses a hand to Jessie’s shoulder, her heart aching for the woman. “You’re always welcome here.”

Jessie’s bright grin returns. “I know, my love.”

Retreating from the room, Charlie closes the door quietly behind her and releases a small sigh.

Jessie is a sex worker who had already been visiting the clinic for years before Charlie started working there. She remembers the day she found out, a slow afternoon a few weeks after she’d completed her medical assistant training. When Victoria told her Jessie was waiting in room two, her body language must have tipped Victoria off, something that made Victoria take Charlie’s hand, her expression one of both understanding and firm authority.

“They’re humans, Charlie.” Her tone was soft but insistent. “Whether it’s sex work or abortion care or hormone therapy, they all want to live a life they choose. It’s our job to treat them with empathy and respect. We have the power to ensure that they receive kindness and respect, so that’s what we do.”

While Jessie’s sentiment—gratitude, relief—is not the first she’s heard from a patient, it’s one that’s familiar to her.

Growing up as an only child in a small town in Indiana, her parents insisted on the importance of saving herself for marriage, disparaging anyone in their small community who failed to do so. Charlie, however, was a curious child and soon developed into a curious teenager with feelings for cute boys in her class. When one of those boys paid her some attention during her sophomore year of high school, she liked how it felt. She agreed to meet him at the mall after school under the guise of seeing a movie with a friend.

But her mother showed up early to retrieve her, arriving at the exact moment the boy kissed her on the bench outside the main entrance, one hand on her leg, the other sliding under her shirt.

Charlie will never forget the way her mother said her name, her voice full of vitriol.