Barely Legal (Julian Casablancas)

.::Chapter Thirty-Eight||Dumb Wh0re::.

          Janae had gone to the health department for birth control and the "morning after pill." She had mistakenly called it the "abortion pill" until the practitioner had corrected her blunder. Although she seemed understanding of the mishap, Janae still felt incredibly ignorant. The kind nurses' aid consoled Janae's embarrassment by telling her it was a common misconception and that it would/should be on the shelves as an over-the-counter remedy before too long—if Bush didn't get elected. The current talk of politics was that George W. Bush would be running for office come the new millennial.

          Janae was told the heath department didn't carry the morning after pill, and to either go to Planned Parenthood or her primary care physician for a prescription. Janae didn't have a family doctor since moving to the city; so Planned Parenthood she went.

After giving the facility her information, and filling out a lengthy questionnaire filled with more intimate details she'd ever care to disclose with a stranger, she was called back.

She was told to peed in a cup, then to wait in a small room for a nurse that would then check her hemoglobin. Before being left alone to wait, the aid checked Janae's vitals and weight. She didn't ask many questions, the staff informed her that it was protocol to test hCg levels for all women that were there for birth control. As for Janae's hemoglobin though, she wasn't so sure.

The wait was long—too long. She found herself staring at the clock on the wall, the sound of the hands moving every second was driving her mad.

            Janae had been waiting for over thirty minutes before a beautiful dark skinned woman of Pakistani descent wearing a white coat entered the room; her black tresses reaching the middle of her back. And although she insisted Janae call her Inaya, she kept calling her Doctor Khan—mostly because it was easier.

          "It's a common misconception, many girls come in here for the abortion pill believing it's the morning after pill." But before Janae could protest, Doctor Khan went on.
          "The morning after pill is essentially a big dose of birth control. It's progesterone only, which not only thickens your cervical mucus to keep sperm from reaching the egg, it also stalls ovulation. If you've already ovulated during the cycle, the odds of it working are actually quite low. Now with the abortion pill, it's medically called Mifeprex. You're a few months early for that one, we're not legally allowed to prescribe that until next year. It's been proven to be a safe and effective method since the eighties, but it's typically only used for women during dilation and curettage, the medication is the dilation part of the step. Next year, we'll be approved for two. One will terminate the pregnancy, which you would take here in the office and the other would be taken later at home, that pill would be to expel the byproduct. I know a lot of women personally that would feel more comfortable with that method, but it sadly isn't an option for right now. So what would happen is this,"
          Doctor Khan carried on—Janae wanting more than anything to interrupt her mistake, but decided to let her finish.
          "You would come into the office, you would take an antibiotic, ibuprofen and I always prescribed Valium. We would numb your cervix and then dilate you by two or three centimeters. We would then evacuate the pregnancy with an instrument like a vacuum. It takes three to five minutes, it's very quick. We could schedule that for you as soon as next Friday."

          Janae sat staring into Inaya's intense brown eyes, her mouth slightly agape. She was surprised the doctor had made such a mistake about her reasons for coming to the clinic, but more so shocked by how casually and in detail she spoke of an abortion.

          "Um... I'm- I'm not pregnant. My boyfriend and I had sex night before last and he- he didn't pull out in time. I just wanted to get the morning after pill and get on birth control so I would never have to have an abortion."

Doctor Khan's bold brows furrowed in confusion, looking down at Janae's chart for reference. "I'm so sorry, you're Janelle Chrisoline Cox, is that correct?" 

"Yes?"

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to inform you this way, but... your chorionic gonadotropin is over forty-two-thousand which puts you at roughly seven to nine weeks. You would need an ultrasound scan for a more precise reading, but my guess would be about seven weeks according to your LMP."

          Janae's world had stopped moving—she had forgotten how to breathe. When she remembered how to inhale again, her breath was more of a gasp. Tears sprang from her eyes blurring and already blurry room. She shook her head in denial, in absolute disbelief. All Inaya kept repeating was "I'm sorry."

          "Have you felt any different these past few weeks?" Doctor Khan asked.

Janae shook her head, unable to get a word out. She felt no different, except for the strange feeling of impending doom that lurked occasionally. She was crampy, like her period was going to start, but nothing seemed to happen. Her breasts were tender, but not unusually so. However, her emotional state had been incredibly unstable—her feelings scattered, ranging from anger to sadness at the drop of a hat. If this were true, her intense orgasms night before last made sense too, she supposed.

          She closed her eyes remembering to breathe again. Janae nodded in agreement—she had definitely been feeling different. Janae had always thought she'd know before a test ever confirmed anything. She had always heard that, not to mention what the media and particularly cinema portrayed—morning sickness.

Janae felt stupid, and weak. This was her fault—she should've known better than to trust Julian. She wondered how often Julian had came inside her without her knowledge; questioning whether he, himself, knew when it happened. Tiffany had always told Janae, 'it's okay to be a whore, just don't be a dumb whore.'

          "Can I think about?" Janae spoke with a tight throat, her words merely a squeak.

"Of course you can, sweetie—we're just an option. You don't have to have an abortion, we're here to give you available option. If you have any questions, just call us."

Janae nodded, wiping her tears away. There was a part of her that still couldn't believe she was pregnant; perhaps it was just the shock of it all. The feeling of impending doom actually had a cause—it wasn't her Tiffany, or Holly or even her estranged mother; it was an alarm, alerting her that she had been a dumb whore.