Inside, the waiting room is marked by several ferns and stacks of magazines with the bottom corners torn off to hide home addresses.

The blue eyes of the receptionist peer over the high black counter at me.

“And are you Cassie?” she asks.

“That’s me.”

“Well, that’s just great! I just have a few forms for you to fill out here and the doctor will be right with you!”

I take the clipboard to the waiting area. I fill out: Name, Address, Emergency Contact.

On the third page, there is a bold headline over two outlines of a generic female body.

PLEASE CIRCLE WHERE YOU ARE SUFFERING, THEN RATE YOUR SUFFERING ON A SCALE FROM 1-10, WITH 10 BEING THE MOST SUFFERING.

One outline shows her front, with little circles for breasts. The other outline shows the back of her body.

I circle the torso then I circle the torso again. I try to calculate my suffering on a numerical scale, assign a value. What is 10? The hottest sun?

I write the number 7.

“Thank you!” she chirps when I hand her the paperwork. “We’ll call for you shortly.”

In the waiting room magazines, faded recipes measure out ingredients that combine to make: glazed ham, Jell-O salad, a slick series of shiny tortes.

“Dr. Richardson will see you now!”

I follow her down a short hallway full of fake body sections: Plastic heart, plastic spine, plastic liver, each split to show their arteries, vertebrae, veins.

“And you just put this on, he’ll be right with you!” she says, pressing the standard paper gown into my hands.

I strip down and put on the gown, skin pricking beneath in the office cold.

“Cassie!” his voice booms when he steps in. “You decent in here?”

“Yes,” I say.

He has the face of a Roman god, but old and tired under the eyes, fatter around the middle.

“I’ve been reading your paperwork,” he says, thumping the pages. “Seems like you’re a perfect candidate.”

“For what?”

“We’ll get to that, but first let’s take a look under the hood, shall we?”

“The hood?”

“Why don’t you just let me have a look at the knot?”

I lie down slowly. He stands next to me, sliding the gown up, resting it below my breasts, cutting me in half, a magician’s trick.

“Well, this is one hell of a knot,” he murmurs. “Big guy. May I?”

I nod.

He runs his hands over the knot, fingers probing the crevices, the twists, the turns I’ve already memorized.

“Good, good, now sit up for me and pull that gown down. Let’s talk about our options.”

“Options?”

“Well, the techniques have advanced,” he says. “I’m the only one in the city who can do it. Some would say it’s the forefront of medicine.”