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"MISS … STREET?" Dr You Helena in his focus on his clipboard of papers and me, the patient in a plain paper wrapper, which said a lot for his focus

The doctor kept ski toward endry beauty of Helena Troy Burnside sitting in the chair against the wall

Even I stared at her She was suddenly gloith a Millenniu with chareous trap

"Mrs … Street?" the doctor said, dazed "I see the patient is fairly young You’re not expecting anything out of the ordinary? Besides dysmenorrhea, the patient has no co "We’re expecting a routine physical My daughter has been living abroad and I’ular care"

"Ah These young women all feel i chuckle "Young ladiess snow He glanced back at Helena

"Your … daughter? But you’re so gloriously fair-haired and she’s so--"

"I’ forgotten by all concerned"

As he automatically moved to the foot of the exa him in the crotch I wonder how many females who’d had to "assume the supine position" here had entertained that impulse Probably none

Me, Irnored her She wasn’t corporeal, and I was And … I’d been here before On this table uy in a white coat Only the first ti

"Do you recognize her?" Helena inquired "You’ve seen her before"

"Ah, no She’s quite striking, of course Rose Red to your Rose White, if you’ll pardon a fairy tale reference,stool behind hi white-coated ass

I inhaled slowly, gathering

"She was only twelve," Helena mused "A ward of the state That was before I adopted her, of course"

"Oh Of course," Dr You to match his starched white coat

"Like any new ly, "I wanted to preserve every detail of ’s early years"

"Of course," Dr You my shod foot with a frown Apparently my feet should be bare when placed in the icy steel stirrups

Helena was on her own feet and flourishing an old-fashioned nize ed into the internet eneration Helena Troy Burnside is my name, and I’m a doctor of sorts too Academically I have so with … troubled youth Frankly, they have good reason to be troubled if they had this young woirl sent to a gynecologist for unspecified ‘procedures’ not be troubled by the experience ever after?"

He swiveled on the stool seat to face her She had him pinned between the stirrups, and nition drawing his benign aging features into a

"Dr Burnside Naturally, I’ve heard of your ground-breaking work I was a volunteer for Child Protective Services for roups always have insufficient budgets"

"So you were a cost-cutter On a minor?"

"Some cases were extreme I was told this … child was deemed potentially … ah, promiscuous"

I opened mythat

"On what evidence?"

"It was the first year of the Millennium Revelation, for God’s sake These … predatory supernaturals were showing up everywhere Soroup ho with adolescent boys, who are ordinarily randy little beasts and noe had half-breed supernatural boys on our hands Half-olf and half-va irl … you’ve adopted, this Delilah Yes, I ree, but that didn’t stop the va after her like she was bait They’d have propagated some drastic hybrid on her The social services could hardly deal with first-generation supernaturals, eneration ones She had to be stopped … protected froe to her physical system alone--"

"Of course," Helena said sardonically, while led to understand what he had confessed to, and he had confessed to soinal"

Helena shook her papers "Old records never die, Doctor, nor old sins What did the social workers want you to do?"

"It’s obvious"

"Not to Delilah She still doesn’t knoas done to her here"

He glanced at

Helena’s District Attorney act was so fascinating I’d finally done as she’d advised: just watched and listened It distanced me froe No one was ever going to find ain"

"So" Helena was pacing, digging her heels into the room’s mushy vinyl tile "You were paid by the state to do what to this underage young girl?

"It was for her own protection"

"So they all say"

"A very simple, safe procedure"

"A procedure utterly irl who’d never even had a pelvic exam, don’t you think, Doctor?"

"Yes, of course, but every young girl must face that sooner or later"

"Without any knowledge of what’s about to happen to her? Without informed consent?"

"She was a minor A ward of the state No consent was needed"

"Exactly, Dr Youmans She was afor a moment Perry Mason would have been proud of Helena I was

Meanwhile, the door had been pushed ajar as the hall outside the roo like Howard Hughes’s attendant vaas My personal horror story had becoaveabout me

"And what did you do to her?" Helena de voice

The sound of doors being slaer content to eavesdrop fro roo off its hinges The nurses flooded in after Ric

"Sir," a nurse objected "This is a private office"

"Not when it coainst the public," Ric said in his deepest, darkest cri voice "Delilah! Take off that obscene paper sheet"

I readily coainst the wall beside Helena It was her show

Ric caeon’s scissors inlook

I couldn’t answer it The silver familiar would be what it would be Maybe since they were are, I needed to be armed somehow The over-crowded room finally took me back in time, to my first personal appearance here