The woman put a clipboard in front of us on the counter.
She had foamy green eyeliner under her eyes and a skull on her skull, dotted with follicles.
‘Where, hon?’ she asked.
‘Clitoris,’ Barbra said.
I coughed. I kept coughing until I could not breathe.
‘You probably should ask your boyfriend to leave.’
‘I will.’ Barbra smiled. ‘But first he’s paying for it.’
The woman gave Barbra a sheet of paper and pointed at a laminated contract page. ‘Clit’s right here,’ she said.
I stuffed my cold hand in my pocket for my father’s credit card.
Barbra stared at a smudged black line drawing of a vagina.
She traced her finger around the vulva, in and out between the lips.
The woman handed Barbra back her id. ‘You gotta check all the boxes and sign for consent.’
Barbra pointed at the exaggerated stem of the clit on the drawing. ‘This part got cut a bit when I was a baby.’
The woman didn’t flinch. She covered Barbra’s hand with her own. L-O-V-E was inked on her knuckles in blurry block script.
‘That’s a crime,’ the woman said.
‘Well, I have no memory of it.’
Then, as if unburdened, Barbra quickly checked off all the boxes. I slapped down my wallet on the counter exaggeratedly.
‘We’ll take a look, hon, okay? We’ll see what we can do.’
Barbra palmed my wallet and extracted the card. The woman came out from behind the counter, shaking a pair of green plastic gloves.
‘Lemme just talk to her for a second,’ I said, throat closing. ‘You can’t do this.’
‘I can,’ Barbra said.
She gave me back my wallet. Then she followed the bald woman across the black-and-white-checkered floor. They both disappeared behind a hospital room divider. I shuffled forward like a roach.
Barbra was taking off her pants. They were red harem pants with tiny white flowers: a rectangular insert, a voluminous crotch.
‘Hon, sorry. Tell your boyfriend he has to wait for you outside.’
The woman had her back to me. I wanted to tell her to fuck off. She’s the one who should leave. The woman was searching inside some kind of medical cabinet. Barbra had settled into a white leather barber’s chair. I slipped behind the curtain to scoop up her harem pants.
‘Put these on,’ I whispered. ‘We just have to talk.’
Barbra did not look at me. I grasped the bone of her wrist.
‘Did it hurt? Why’d they hurt you? Why did your family do that?’
Barbra smirked but she wouldn’t look at me. I hadn’t noticed anything about her vagina. I remembered that word on TV: clitoridectemy. I remembered the tears of Fatima and Tyra Banks crying this beautiful woman just wants to be free.
‘Hon, come on. You have to tell your person to leave.’