Towering over a seated Nick, I check his glands: digital palpation of the submandibular, submental, and superficial cervical nodes. Nick averts his eyes, looking at my widow’s peak rather than my left ear like most patients tend to do. I step behind him and wrap my hands around his neck—right above the bow where Nick secured his yellow smock—and press my finger pads along his thyroid, just inferior to the laryngotracheal framework. “Swallow,” I command, and Nick does, allowing for elevation. He’s uncomplicated from this angle. The back of a head is anonymous, apolitical. Choking a disembodied hairball would be emotionally uncomplicated.

Nick clears his throat.

“Your glands are slightly swollen,” I say—and am immediately seized by regret. Well, damn. That’s a first. Never before have I fibbed to a patient. There’s still time to take it back, to say, My bad. Placing my fingertips behind his ears, I press my thumbs against his cheekbones. “Just checking your sinuses,” I say, pressing harder. “Any pain here?” Although, to be fair, everyone’s lymph nodes are different, so maybe his are slightly swollen, so maybe it isn’t a lie. Pressing harder still: “What about here?” So maybe it’s fine.

I tell Nick to say ahhhh. He obeys, and when I find his gag reflex with the tongue blade, causing him to wretch, I say, “Sorry about that,” and turn quickly so he won’t see me smile.

Pitch the stick. Dispose my gloves. Get a grip.

My job is remarkable. In what other work dynamic must one submit to inspection like this? No banker gets to squeeze another man’s neck without resistance. Architects can’t shove objects down throats without arrest. Doctors, however, are expected to do as much and more. Women let me record their weight. Men turn their heads and cough.

I hold my stethoscope to Nick’s back for chest auscultation and tell him to breathe deeply. His exhale smells like coffee and Wintermint gum. I pause to ask about his appetite (fine) and his insomnia (chronic). “Nighttime gets the better of me,” he says.

I nod and move the chestpiece from one side of his back to the other. Lungs clear. Heart pumping from valve to valve, right in time. I ask, “And are you sexually active?” Through amplifying eartips, I listen for the acceleration of Nick’s heartbeat while bracing for the reverberation of his voice.

“No.”

“You don’t have to be modest.”

“It’s true,” he says. “I’m not at the moment.”

I swap my stethoscope for an otoscope and stare into one ear canal, then the other, giving Nick time to wonder if and how my questions relate to his predation. With two fingers below his chin, I tilt his head back for anterior rhinoscopy. “I treat too many boys your age, I guess. So often, they’re on the prowl.”