Baseball practice didn't happen that day. I got a text from the coach after I'd arrived at the field, while apparently everyone else had gotten it much earlier. I slung my pack over my shoulder and re-mounted my bike, unsure what to do with two free hours on a summer day. I headed home, where at least I could get out of the sun for a while.

I parked my bike alongside the house and went in through the garage. I heard voices from the back patio, where Mom and Mrs. Landry, our neighbor, sometimes sat and chatted. I grabbed a bottle of water from the pantry and unscrewed the top. Then I heard Mrs. Landry clearly, and the bottle stopped at my lips.

"You know the Taylors had to have their boy circumcised last year."

"No."

"He'd gotten to where he couldn't leave his penis alone. Every time they looked at him, he had his hand on his crotch, pinching and pulling. When they asked him about it, he just said, "Nothing" and stopped. But pretty soon he was back to scratching like he had a rash or something. It got to where they couldn't take him out in public because he kept embarrassing them."

I knew Alan Taylor, but I never noticed him acting like that. I edged closer to the patio door to listen. Mrs. Landry continued the story.

"Well, they finally told their doctor, and she said to bring him in for a physical and she'd have a look at it. She found his foreskin grown onto the lip of his penis-head, making it itch. She was able to take care of the problem right there."

"How?"

"She circumcised him. Even though she used anesthetic, he came out of the office crying and was cranky for days. But in the end, it was worth it. By the time school started, his stitches were out and he was back to normal. Just in time for football, too. You know the boys compare with each other in the locker room, like we did. They're pretty hard on an uncircumcised boy."

"Did they ever figure out why it grew together in the first place?"

"I don't know. Didn't ask. Maybe he didn't clean it enough. I hear you're supposed to scrub the foreskin every day to keep it from smelling. Maybe if you don't, it grows together."

"Maybe."

I knew about foreskin cleaning from as far back as I could remember. At bath time, before I had a clue what circumcision was, my mom had always opened my foreskin and wiped the glans with a soapy cloth. The way she stretched my penis out, dragged the cloth along the inner foreskin, then squeezed the glans with the cloth seemed to overload my senses, and I couldn't help but shiver. "The doctor said you have to keep this clean," she said, "or we'll have to have you circumcised." I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded pretty scary. I didn't want anyone else touching my "weenie," as I called it.

At some point early in my childhood, she let me and my sister take baths together. This gave Mom some time to herself, so she let us stay in there as long as we weren't too loud. But we knew time was up when she came in to clean my penis. My sister always watched.

Then once, in the middle of our bath, my sister announced, "Time to clean your weenie!" and without even thinking, I stood up and she started tugging on my penis. When she squeezed the glans so that it popped within the skin, I jumped so suddenly that I nearly fell. She laughed out loud and wanted to do it again, so I let her, several times. I guess Mom heard the ruckus because she came in suddenly, ordered my sister to dry off and leave, then cleaned my penis in haste. We got the message: no more playing with Jason's weenie. That was our last bath together.

But Mom still concluded my solo baths by sliding my foreskin back, wiping down the inside and glans, and rolling it closed again. When she was done, she stretched the foreskin out so that it sealed over the end. After the rawness of the washcloth, this felt comforting, like getting tucked into bed.

Eventually, Mom told me I needed to do this myself. She showed me how to wet the washcloth, slide my foreskin down, and rub the glans and inner foreskin gently. But no matter how gentle she was, it still tickled intensely, made me want to dance. When I did it on my own, it wasn't quite so exciting, because I knew what I was going to do. But then I discovered how to roll the foreskin up and down quickly, and I was off on my own self-generated thrill rides.

"Your boy is circumcised, isn't he?"

Mrs. Landry's words jolted me out of my reverie. Mom cleared her throat.

"We didn't have him circumcised," Mom said, with some dignity. "His father isn't circumcised, and in our experience, it just wasn't necessary."

"So he hasn't had any problems?"

"My husband, or my son?"

"Well, either one, I guess. I was thinking of your son."

"They're both fine."

"I understand," Mrs. Landry said quickly, then added, "but if your son ever needs to be circumcised, you could take him to the medical school. I know military insurance isn't all that helpful."

Their conversation turned to matters of war and homefront, and I edged away from the door. As soon as I cleared the kitchen, I dashed up the stairs to my sister's room. I found her reading on her bed with headphones on. I motioned for her to take them off.

"Cindy, I need to talk to you," I closed the door and pulled a chair from her desk.

"I take it this is an emergency?"

"Yes," I started to spill it out, then thought about what I was actually going to say, and hesitated.

"Go on," she looked intensely at me, sensing the urgency. I decided just to spill.

"Do you know what happened to Alan last summer?"

"Alan Taylor? Kinda," she said, "I heard he had a problem with his dick and they had to operate on it. Circle-, circum-..."

"Circumcision."

"Yeah. He was sore for weeks. He's supposed to be all better now. Why are you asking?"

I looked around quickly.

"I don't want that to happen to me."

Cindy stared at me blankly.

"You're not already circumcised?"

I shook my head. She kept staring.

"I thought all the boys were. Except Alan, of course."

"No," I muttered. "Don't you remember when we were little kids in the bath, and Mom would clean my penis?"

"Kind of," she squinted. "Was that because you weren't circumcised?"

"Yes. It has to be washed every day," I decided not to remind her of the glans-popping incident. "I heard Alan didn't take care of his right."

"Well, I guess you better keep yours clean. This is really upsetting you, isn't it?"

"Of course it is. I don't want a circumcision."

"Why not? Isn't it normal for all the guys? And it's no big deal when you're a baby," she pondered her words. "I guess if you get circumcised now, it might be."

"That's why I don't want it."

"If you want to get laid, you should," she folded her hands. "Every girl I know says she would never put an uncircumcised penis in her mouth, or anywhere else." She wrinkled her nose. "Isn't it smelly?"

Those words made me shudder, coming from a female, even one I had no desire for. More importantly, she was telling me that other girls had their mind made up about foreskins. If they found out I wasn't circumcised, I might be jacking off alone for the rest of my life. I drew a line.

"You can't talk about this with anybody. Got it?"

"You don't have to threaten me, I'm your sister," she started to open her book again, then paused. "Don't the other guys see your penis in the locker room?"

"No. We don't use the showers unless..."

"What?"

"Unless we practice football before school."

That thought crystallized in my mind right then. In a few weeks, I would be joining the team and working out with all of them as the summer wound down, just before classes began. And afterward, all of us would toss our workout clothes in the hampers, walk naked to the showers, and wash ourselves up. Then we'd dry off, drop our towels in hampers, and walk back to our lockers. My foreskin would be on display before everyone.

The stakes became clearer to me then. My foreskin would determine my future. Cut it off or keep it, the consequences were unavoidable.

"I guess I'm not playing football, then."

"Really? Just so your dick stays hidden?" she asked. "You'd rather have a little piece of skin than a chance at a scholarship?"

"It's not just a piece of skin," I blurted, then stopped. Talking to my sister about masturbating was territory I couldn't enter. Especially since my fantasies included her friends.

"Suit yourself," she readied her earphones. "I guess if Mom had gotten you circumcised as a baby, you wouldn't be dealing with this."

I got up and left her room. I paused in the hallway, then turned into my room and closed the door. I locked it, and unbuttoned my jeans. I slid them and my underwear to the floor, and turned to the mirror.

My penis hung slightly to one side, as it had since it started to grow fast just over a year ago. A tuft of pubic hair had filled in above it, and my scrotum featured a feathery arrangement of its own. My left testicle hung a little lower, and my foreskin rested just over it. I tugged at the lip, stretching the skin a little, and felt a "click" at the base of my penis. Touching my foreskin always did that, and soon the body of my penis began to fill.

I kept tugging gently, and the rim of my glans started to bulge under the skin. I moved a little closer to the mirror to watch as my erection grew to stand straight out. I slowly rolled the foreskin all the way open until it seemed to disappear into the shaft skin. But I knew it was there by the pinkness of the inner foreskin. This was something I never saw on the other boys when we were peeing together at the troughs in grade school. Their glandes ended where the shaft skin began, and it was all a brownish color. My pink glans - now purple with engorgement - stood out, and I started using the stalls so no one could see it.

As I reached to touch my sensitive glans, that's when I spotted it. On one side, where the sulcus curved around, my inner foreskin had grown over the groove, just like Alan's. I pulled at it, but it wouldn't open up. The corona and foreskin had fused into one smooth surface. At least on that side.

Why hadn't I noticed this before? Then it hit me: When I masturbated, I almost never completely opened my foreskin. It felt so good to roll it on the glans that I'd never paid attention to how it looked when I rolled it all the way back. As a little boy, I'd studied it enough to know that now, something had changed. My foreskin had grown onto my glans. How would I get them separate again?

I looked at myself in the mirror. My hard-on still stood, and a little pre-cum had formed a glistening drop over the meatus. I turned to the bed, laid myself down, and began the rhythmic stroking that I'd always done to relieve my frustrations. All those beautiful girls in school, with their curves on display and smelling so good and smiling. One year they all started wearing yoga pants, which were promptly banned, but not before I'd memorized how they fit on some of my sisters' friends. Sassy Jenny filled hers like a swimwear model, her sculpted ass wrapping up into her hips and narrow waistline when she bent over a desk. I pictured my hands sliding between her legs from behind, lifting her buttocks slightly apart. She leaned back into me and purred. My erection levered up between her thighs and emerged in front. Jenny bit her lip, reached down with her fingertips, and toyed with the tip of my penis.

And then a hot spurt of semen landed on my neck, then another six on my torso. I lay there, breathing hard, my erection wilting in my hand, and reveled in the endorphins I'd released all throughout myself.

Jenny stopped touching my glans and turned quickly to face me. She looked down at my erection, then put her hand to her mouth.

"Omigod, Jason," she exclaimed in a loud whisper, "you aren't circumcised, are you?"

I looked down at my pulsing, hard penis, its glans wrapped in the skin I'd always known belonged there.

"No. What's the problem?"

"That's, that's," she searched for the words, "not okay. I can't handle this. Get it ... get it circumcised. Just ... now."

I rose slowly from the bed, trying to contain the blotches of semen on my chest and stomach until I could mop them up in the bathroom. My long-running fantasy about Jenny's sweet ass had taken a bizarre turn, thanks to the gossip of Mrs. Landry.

_____________________________

I liked to take my time with breakfast. I'd been reading the paper since grade school, starting with the comics. Now I studied the scores and tried to grasp the contents of the business section. Of course, war news dominated page one. On this morning, Mom sat down across from me with a cup of coffee and took a sip. She set the cup down and looked at me until I noticed her.

"Jason, have you had any ... trouble with your penis?"

A shot of adrenaline went through me. Did she know about the adhesion? How? Had I been scratching like Alan without realizing it?

"No. Why?"

"It's just something to watch for," she said, grasping for words that she had probably rehearsed earlier, though not well enough. "You know you're not circumcised?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Dad and I thought that was best for you. Most of the boys around here," she gestured with her head, "were circumcised when they were born. We didn't do that with you."

"Right."

"Have you ever been teased about it?"

"No."

"Has it ever given you any pain, or discomfort?"

"No."

"Well, if it ever does, you can always just get it done," she said, leaving out the word "circumcision." I was grateful for that, even in this awkward conversation. That word made me shiver.

"When you're grown like you are, they use a local anesthetic so you don't feel anything. It wouldn't hurt, so don't be afraid. Sometimes it's better to get it done than to let a problem continue."

"What kind of problem?"

"Well, sometimes the skin grows together there," Mom was really avoiding specific terms now, "and it's better to remove it than to let it stay that way. Prevents infections. I know you wouldn't want that."

I nodded. Then I realized that since the word "penis" had come out of her mouth, I hadn't moved. My neck and arms felt stiff, so I adjusted them slightly.

"If you ever have a problem with it, just let me know," she looked intently at me. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, and a doctor can take care of it pretty easy. One of the boys at school had it done just last summer, and he's fine now."

She took a breath, smiled, and got up to leave the kitchen. I stared at the paper, which had become a jumble of words.

I wondered what Alan's penis looked like now. I had actually seen it years ago, before the circumcision, briefly, in the middle school locker room as he was changing out of his gym clothes. He wore boxers, and his fly fell open to expose the little pink blob of foreskin at the end of his boy-sized penis. I wished right then and thereafter that I could have thought of something to say, to tell him we were alike and alone in this room full of skinless dicks. But I couldn't come up with the right words. Now, it was too late.

I folded the paper slowly, shouldered my backpack, and went out the back door.

_______________________________________

Two weeks later, I got an information packet from Coach Walgren, who'd led the school's football team for almost 20 years. It included page after page of disclaimers that Mom had to sign electronically, and a checklist. Item #3 was "Complete physical exam by a licensed physician." It even had a list of recommended doctors.

Mom ignored the list and set me an appointment at the medical school. I figured as much. As Mrs. Landry had mentioned, Dad's military insurance didn't cover much, so instead of a doctor, I'd be subject to a room full of med students led by a professor. Beggars, choosers, some restrictions apply.

So on the appointed day, I took a noon bus to the university. I followed the signs to a white building with a portico entrance. I checked in and took a seat in the lobby. As people came and went, I noticed the place appeared to be staffed entirely by women. That made sense, as so many men were needed in the military. A clerk called my name and sent me down a hallway with only a room number to guide me. I found the door, which opened into a smallish room that smelled of antiseptic.

I didn't remember getting a physical before, so I didn't really know what to do. I took a chair along the wall and looked over the exam table, cabinet, sink, and assortment of tools on a rolling tray. A movable spotlight of sorts hung over the table.

Within minutes, I heard a knock at the door. I answered with "Come in," and a young woman in a lab coat entered. Slim but proportioned, a little short in a spunky way, she immediately struck me as someone I'd want to play sports with. A bright smile and wavy brown locks completed the picture of a 20-something medical student who was undoubtedly way out of my league.

"I'm Kelly. You don't have to call me doctor, because I'm not one yet. So Kelly is fine," she glanced at her tablet. "You're Jason?"

"Yep."

"Okay, Jason. Since we don't have assistants here, I'm coming in ahead of the team to do what an assistant usually does. Are you ready for your physical?"

"I am."

"No, you're not."

"I'm not?"

She folded her arms and gave me a squint.

"You're still dressed, silly. See that paper thing on the table? That's what you're supposed to wear for this. Change into it while I get some things ready."

She turned toward the cabinet and started putting supplies in order. I slid out of my shirt, jeans, boots, and socks, and finally my underwear. I quickly unfolded the paper gown and looked for a way to put it on, but could not make any sense of the ties and slits. It looked like a sheet of wrapping paper someone had tried to make into a car seat cover, but failed.

Kelly sensed my frustration and turned. Unfortunately I had the gown over my shoulders and back at that moment, trying to get it around my body from behind.

"Oh," she said, looking straight at my penis. She looked up at me, then down again, then at her tablet.

"Okay, I see. You're here for a physical, and ... possibly a problem with your foreskin."

A shiver started in my thighs and ran up my body, pausing to draw my testicles up. So Mom had called ahead.

She studied the tablet for a moment, then folded her arms over it.

"Can you tell me more about your problem?"

"I don't think it's a problem. Really."

"It's an adhesion, isn't it?" she looked again at her tablet. "It's making you itch."

So I had been scratching and my mom had noticed, and that's what started the conversation with Mrs. Landry before I listened in! Kelly looked at her tablet again.

"Oh..." her voice trailed off as her eyes widened.

"What?"

"Dr. Weisser is attending this afternoon," she said, and set the tablet down. Her voice shrank to a whisper. "Do you want to be circumcised?"

"No."

"Then you better let me help you. She's the most pro-circumcision doctor on the faculty. Here, stand up and peel back your foreskin."

A little stunned by her bluntness, I stepped onto the exam table's footrest and let the crumpled gown fall behind me. I tugged my foreskin back slowly, flattening the pink nipple into a thin sheath that spread across my glans and revealed its shiny, moist surface. Kelly stared.

"You have a model foreskin," she whispered, locking her eyes on it as she reached behind herself for a rolling stool, then took a seat. "We almost never see them here, at least not on adults. We circumcise all the babies that are born in the hospital."
She took my glans gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. I noticed then that she had forgotten to put on gloves.

She turned the glans upward, traced the raphe with her finger, then rotated it to one side, then the other. She held my penis there, sideways, for me to see.

"There it is," she said, "an adhesion. The inner foreskin's grown onto the glans in one place. Does it hurt?"

"Not really."

"But it does bother you."

"A little."

"Has it always been like this?"

"No. When I was younger it was completely separate all around."

"Well, I know what Dr. Weisser will say," she muttered, rolling my foreskin back into place. "We call her Weisser the Slicer, because she's never met a foreskin she didn't want to cut. Well..." She paged through her tablet. "At least that won't have to-" and she stopped speaking.

"What?"

Kelly stared at her screen.

"Your mother's already signed the consent form for your circumcision."

I suddenly felt woozy. I sat down on the table. My mind raced.

"Jason," Kelly said, setting the tablet aside. "Your adhesion isn't that serious. You could probably pull it apart yourself, but don't. There's a better way."

She glanced at the door, then continued.

"We don't circumcise in my family, either. All my brothers, my dad, my nephews, they're all intact," she pointed at my penis, "You don't want to lose that skin. It's what makes sex pleasurable for you. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No."

"Ever had one?"

I grimaced.

"Someday, she will appreciate your foreskin. But you have to get out of here with it still attached," Kelly grabbed an automated blood-pressure cuff, slipped it onto my arm, and threw the switch. "Stay here."

Kelly quickly left the room, her last words leaving me puzzled as to where she thought I could possibly go. The cuff inflated, then deflated, registering my pulse and blood pressure on a digital readout.

Kelly returned in one minute with a small, white box in her hands, which she placed in a cabinet, then she turned, took a deep breath, and gave me a reassuring look.

Just then someone knocked on the door and pushed it open. I grabbed the wadded-up gown and set it on my lap. Two, then three, students entered along with a tall woman whose long hair was tied up behind her head.

"Dr. Weisser," Kelly said suddenly, moving aside to make room. "This is Jason. He's here for a routine physical."

"Jason," Dr. Weisser offered her hand, so I took it. "I hope you don't mind the crowd. This is a medical school, of course, and these students are here to learn procedures hands-on. This is Mandy, and Laurel, and Cynthia. And I see you've met Kelly."

I nodded to all the girls, each of whom held a tablet.

"And why isn't Jason wearing a gown?" Dr. Weisser asked Kelly.

I held the mass of paper up.

"I can't make any sense of this thing. Where's the front?"

The students burst out laughing. One of them handed her tablet to another and took the paper ball from me. As she straightened it out and arranged the arm holes for me, I noticed the other two students glancing at my penis, then up at me, then at each other. One tapped something into her tablet.

I took a seat on the exam table. Dr. Weisser addressed Kelly.

"Is Jason ready for his examination?" she asked. Kelly nodded.

"He's all set. Vitals are within normal range for a boy in his age, size, and athletic condition."

That was the first time anyone had described me as "athletic." I blushed again.

"Well, let's begin with the general and work toward the specific," Dr. Weisser said, tapping her tablet and beginning a narrative that sounded like something she said every day. She addressed the students, not me. "Protocols."

Kelly passed a box of latex gloves around and each student slipped a pair on.

"Mandy, you begin for us. Heart and breathing."

Mandy met my eyes briefly, then placed her stethoscope on my chest. "Breathe in slowly," she said. "Now out, slowly. Do that each time I place the stethoscope."

Mandy moved the instrument to various places on my chest and back as I continued the in-out exercise. Then she listened closely to my heart.

"All sounds normal," she said to Dr. Weisser. "He seems to have larger than average lung capacity, probably from exercise." Dr. Weisser nodded.

"Cynthia, you handle the head, neck, and reflexes."

Cynthia set her tablet down and picked up a scope. She looked in my ears, nostrils, and throat. Then she tested my ability to raise my arms, pull against her hands, and then checked my knees and elbows for response with a rubber hammer.

"Laurel, palpate the abdomen," Dr. Weisser instructed, then to me: "Lie on your back for this part, please."

I did as she said, and Laurel began tapping my stomach, beginning just under my ribs.

"Tell me if any of this hurts," she said. She continued tapping, then squeezed my abdomen in several places. I shrugged.

As she worked, Dr. Weisser studied her tablet. Her eyes suddenly widened and she looked at my groin, obscured by the paper gown. Then she swiped a few pages and turned her attention back to Laurel, who had just finished with her tapping.

"All good in the mid-section, doctor," Laurel stated flatly.

"Fine, then. All right. Kelly, time for the hernia check. Jason, please stand and lift your gown above your waist."

I levered myself up to stand on the step. I tried to be casual raising the paper, but I saw all the women's eyes zero in on my penis, and I had to clear my throat. Kelly took the rolling stool and slid into position right before me.

"Now, as you can see, Jason isn't circumcised," Dr. Weisser began, "which is unusual today, as most doctors and parents have accepted circumcision's value in disease prevention, hygiene, and improved function. But a few parents still aren't willing to take our advice, and their sons leave the maternity ward uncircumcised. We usually see them later with foreskin-related disorders. It's an imperfection in human anatomy that, fortunately, we can correct."

I swallowed hard. As Dr. Weisser spoke, Kelly manipulated my testicles, pushing first one, then the other, up into my pelvic floor with the instruction, "Cough." I complied, and Kelly finished just as Dr. Weisser ended her lecture.

"No indications of hernia, Doctor."

"Very well," Dr. Weisser turned her attention to her tablet. "Now, Jason's mother has added an item for our attention as part of his physical."

All the students except Kelly looked at their tablets.

"Jason, for this, we will need you to lie down again so all the students can see."

I eased myself back down on the exam table. The students and Dr. Weisser moved in to surround me. Kelly stood next to the table.

"Kelly," Dr. Weisser continued, "the patient complains about a penile skin adhesion. See if you can locate it for us."

While Dr. Weisser aimed the spotlight, Kelly glanced briefly at me, took my penis in hand, and peeled my foreskin back. She turned my glans to the left, exposing the adhesion. All the students leaned in. My scrotum tightened a little more.

"Now, because we don't see many uncircumcised penises, you may not immediately notice what's wrong with this one," Dr. Weisser said, leaning forward herself. "Kelly, do you observe anything unusual, besides the presence of the foreskin, of course?"

Kelly spoke, in a voice cooler than I could have thought possible.

"Yes, Doctor. Here on the left side of the glans, the foreskin is partially adhered to the periphery of the corona."

Dr. Weisser nodded and began to speak, but Kelly broke in.

"Jason, has this part of your foreskin always been attached to the head of your penis?"

"No, it hasn't."

"So in the past, your foreskin was completely separate from the glans, and the groove under the glans was open all the way around?"

"Yes."

"Doctor, this appears to be a late-developing condition. So we can rule out a congenital defect."

Dr. Weisser didn't speak right away. She looked again at her tablet, then swiped a few pages.

"That's a fair assessment," she said. "This is something we see on occasion, where an uncircumcised boy hasn't been diligent with his hygiene. Smegma builds under the foreskin," one student winced at the word "smegma" and her eyes met mine briefly, "and its corrosive effects trigger a defense mechanism, in this case the foreskin itself trying to protect itself against contamination."

"Actually, Doctor," Kelly spoke up, "this is probably attributable to excessively diligent hygiene."

The room temperature seemed to drop two degrees at Kelly's words. She had flatly contradicted her professor in front of the other students. They all looked at Kelly, then at Dr. Weisser, who appeared stunned. Kelly continued.

"Smegma serves as a lubricant for the membranes of the glans and inner foreskin," she said matter-of-factly. "It's present in the folds of females' labia, too. It has antiviral and antibacterial properties, in addition to its obvious purpose, which is to keep these mucous membranes separate. My guess is that Jason has been too fastidious in cleaning under his foreskin. Jason, how often do you wash your glans?"

"Every day, when I shower."

"And do you use soap on the glans?"

"Yes."

Still holding my penis, Kelly turned to the students and Dr. Weisser.

"Soap emulsifies smegma and dehydrates membranes. This is likely the result of too much cleaning, not of a lack thereof."

Dr. Weisser took a moment to recover: "And your recommendation is circumcision?"

"No."

Kelly's one-word response hung there for a moment. Dr. Weisser took a little longer to come back from that.

"I see," she took a breath, "Well, you need to understand that the only sure method of separating the inner foreskin from the glans, and to prevent reoccurrence of this problem, is to permanently cut the foreskin away so it can't grow back. Fortunately, Jason's mother has already authorized the procedure, and we have the clamp and supplies ready to circumcise him. This will take about 30 minutes. Cynthia, I'd like you to assist."

I gasped, and Kelly cut in again.

"Since the adhesion is not congenital, more conservative treatments are indicated in this case," she said, "including triclonazole cream. We may have samples right here. Cynthia, would you see if there's a tube of triclonazole in the samples cabinet?"

Cynthia opened the cabinet door, retrieved the small box Kelly had placed there, and handed it to Kelly, who held it up for me to see.

"Jason, this is a sample size, but it's probably more than you'll need," Kelly said. "Each morning, rub it in right where the membranes have grown together. Then in the evening, pull gently on the foreskin for about 10 seconds. Within a week, the adhesion should be completely separate."

This was too much for Dr. Weisser, whose nostrils flared.

"Kelly, there is much to be said for conservative treatments," she said, a little louder than necessary, "but you're not taking into account the patient's needs. Jason is a young man. If he's not already sexually active, he will be soon. And this foreskin," she gestured contemptuously at my penis, "will in all likelihood continue to cause him physical difficulty."

Dr. Weisser paused after that to compose herself, then smiled grimly and addressed me.

"Jason, do you know that virtually all the boys your age are circumcised?"

"Yes."

"And do you know that circumcision helps lower your risk of penile cancer, AIDS, and a long list of sexually transmitted infections?"

"I've heard that."

"And you must know that women in our culture expect their men to be circumcised? Including your mother, who appears to have changed her mind about your foreskin and has signed the consent form for you to be circumcised today?"

I looked at Kelly. If she and I were starring in an action movie, her eyes would be saying, 'Take the shot now.'"

"Yes, and fuck that, Dr. Weisser."

Her gasp punctuated the silence. I felt Kelly's fingers tighten on my penis. I went full-bore.

"You're not circumcising me today. I'm walking out of here with my foreskin still on. Get your thrills elsewhere."

Dr. Weisser's eyes narrowed. She knew I had come back too strong, and she grabbed the advantage.

"As you can observe, resistance to circumcision can be formidable in adults and adolescents," she hissed, "which is why every boy should be circumcised at birth, and parents who doubt the procedure's value should be educated rather than accommodated. This is a matter of public health. Jason, you have never attended medical school. Your attachment to your foreskin is understandable, but it's not reflective of common medical practice."

I kept my eyes on Dr. Weisser, but sensed the students watching me for a response.

"I'm keeping my foreskin, Dr. Weisser. I'll bring it back after the treatment to show you how to heal one instead of cut it off."

I turned my eyes to Kelly, who was trying to contain a smile.

"How long do you expect this medicine to take?"

"Two weeks."

"Good. Dr. Weisser, I'll make a follow-up appointment 14 days from now. Undoubtedly your students would be interested in the results."

Even Dr. Weisser couldn't rebound from that one. But she tried.

"Likely we'll need to do a circumcision then, and will be prepared to do so," she announced, then turned to Kelly. "Are you done with this diagnosis?"

"I have further instructions for the patient," Kelly replied, then addressed me, still holding my penis. "Don't hurry the separation process. And once the adhesion has separated, you can use pure aloe vera or some other water-based lubricant to ease any soreness. Going forward, for hygiene you only need to rinse with water, and only every few days. That will help prevent future adhesions." She tugged my foreskin back over the glans and laid it on my abdomen.

Dr. Weisser typed on her tablet as she spoke.

"Any questions from any of you?"

The students shook their heads. Kelly stood and they all peeled off their gloves.

Dr. Weisser waited until she'd turned toward the door to mutter, "Thank you, Jason."

Kelly waited to be the last to leave the room. In that time she gave me a kind, knowing smile. I returned it and mouthed the words, "Thank you" to this girl who had risked her academic standing to save my foreskin. She nodded, turned, and left.

I balled up my gown and stuffed it into the wastebasket. As I slipped back into my jeans and shirt I began to imagine how the conversation with Mom would go when I got home.