John sits at his desk in the corner of the campus library, his laptop open to three different coding forums, his headphones blasting a lo-fi playlist, and an untouched energy drink sweating a ring onto the table beside him. Three months at this college and his routine hasn't changed: class, library, dorm, repeat. The few people who've tried to talk to him got one-word answers and averted eyes before giving up.
He shifts in his seat, tugging the hem of his oversized hoodie. Underneath, he's wearing baggy cargo pants that hang loose around his legs. Everything he wears is deliberate. Armor. He's been dressing like this since he was twelve, since his body decided to betray him in the most confusing way possible.
John is slim. Lean, the kind of body that disappears in a crowd. Five-foot-eight with a slightly lanky frame, pale skin that never sees enough sun, and messy black hair that looks like he rolled out of bed and gave up on fixing it. His thick-rimmed glasses slide down his nose every few minutes, and he pushes them back up with his index finger without thinking. His brown eyes are large, darting nervously whenever someone walks too close.
But his ass. That's the problem. That's always been the problem.
Genetics dealt him a hand he didn't ask for. When he was twelve, his butt started growing. Not gradually, not subtly. It just grew. Round, full, disproportionately large for his slim frame. A bubble butt, the kind that people notice and comment on and stare at. His classmates in middle school noticed first. Then high school. The jokes, the looks, the whispers behind his back. He learned to wear baggy clothes, to hunch his shoulders forward, to take up as little space as possible. He tugs his hoodies down constantly, a reflex at this point, making sure his butt is covered.
He's straight. That's the thing he's certain about. He likes girls. He's always liked girls. But no girl has ever looked at him twice because he doesn't let anyone get close enough to look at him at all.
The one person who talks to him regularly is Mark. And even that is stretching the definition of friendship.
Mark is his dorm roommate. Sort of. They share a dorm suite but have separate bedrooms, which means they interact in the common area and the kitchenette but mostly keep to themselves. Mark is everything John is not. Six-foot-three, fit, blonde hair in a wolf cut that he sweeps back during games and leaves tousled everywhere else. Green eyes that scan rooms like he's reading a basketball play. He wears fitted joggers, crisp white sneakers, vintage team jackets. He rolls his sleeves to his forearms and adjusts his wristbands constantly. He chews his lower lip when he's thinking. His posture is confident, relaxed, with a bounce in his step that screams athlete.
Mark is a basketball player. Division I scholarship. Star of his high school team. He's a social butterfly who knows everyone on campus, who walks into a room and owns it without trying. John is a computer science major who spends his nights coding and his weekends in the library.
They are exact opposites. And they are not close.
Mark told John he was bisexual on their third day in the dorm. They were standing in the kitchenette, Mark making a protein shake, and he just said it. Casual, direct. He didn't want John to find out later and get weird about it. John had nodded, pushed his glasses up, and said "cool" in a voice so quiet Mark probably didn't hear it. They talk sometimes, in the common area, about classes or campus food or whatever game was on TV. But they don't hang out. John is too socially anxious to initiate, and Mark is too busy with practice and friends and campus life to push.
It is what it is.
One Tuesday morning, John wakes up at six-thirty, same as every day. He stumbles into the shared bathroom, still half-asleep, and stands in front of the toilet. He tries to pee. It burns. A sharp, stinging burn that makes him wince and tighten his grip on the edge of the sink. The stream is weak, slow, and painful. He stands there for almost a minute, jaw clenched, before it finally stops.
He doesn't think much of it. He drank maybe one glass of water yesterday and three energy drinks. He's probably dehydrated. He washes his hands, splashes water on his face, and goes back to his room to get dressed. Baggy hoodie, baggy jeans, glasses pushed up, hem tugged down. Same routine.
He goes to class. He sits in the back. He takes notes. He eats lunch alone in the library. In the afternoon, between his second and third class, he uses the bathroom. The burning is worse this time. Sharper. Longer. He grips the side of the stall and exhales through his teeth. His urine is darker than normal, almost amber. He zips up, washes his hands, and tells himself it's just dehydration. Drink more water. It'll pass.
He doesn't drink more water. He grabs another energy drink from the vending machine and goes to his evening class.
After dinner, which is a microwaved burrito eaten alone at his desk, the abdominal pain hits. It starts as a dull ache below his belly button, something he almost ignores. But within twenty minutes it sharpens into a cramping, twisting pain that makes him double over in his chair. He presses his palm flat against his lower abdomen and breathes through his nose. Sweat beads on his forehead.
The door to the common area opens. Mark walks in from practice, gym bag over his shoulder, hair damp with sweat. He drops the bag on the couch and glances toward John's open bedroom door.
"Yo, you good?" Mark asks. He's still catching his breath from practice, cheeks flushed.
John straightens up too fast. The pain lances through his gut and he grimaces. "Yeah. Fine. Just... ate something weird."
Mark leans against the doorframe. His green eyes narrow, scanning John's face the way he scans a court. "You don't look fine. You're white as shit."
"It's just my stomach."
Mark chews his lower lip. "How long has your stomach been hurting?"
John exhales. "Since... a while. It's nothing."
"John."
The use of his actual name, not "yo" or "dude," makes John look up. Mark is watching him with an expression that's hard to read. Concern, maybe. Or just alertness.
"The... when I pee," John starts, and his face flushes red immediately. He stares at his desk. "It burns. Since this morning. And now my stomach hurts really bad."
Mark doesn't flinch. Doesn't laugh. Doesn't make a face. He nods once, slowly. "Okay. My uncle's a urologist. Works at Mercy General, like ten minutes from here. I can take you there tomorrow morning."
John's eyes flick up. "You don't have to—"
"I've got early practice at six. I'll be done by eight. We can go right after. That cool?"
John's mouth opens. Closes. His glasses slide down his nose. He pushes them up. "Yeah. That... thank you. Yeah."
Mark nods. "Get some sleep. Drink water. I'll knock at eight."
He pushes off the doorframe and disappears into the common area. John sits in his chair, hand still pressed to his abdomen, and stares at his laptop screen without seeing it.
He doesn't sleep. The pain rolls through his lower belly in waves, sometimes dull, sometimes sharp enough to make him curl onto his side in bed. He sweats through his t-shirt. He drinks water, bathroom trips every hour, each one a fresh round of burning that makes him dig his nails into his palms. By four in the morning, he gives up on sleep entirely and sits at his desk, forehead resting on his folded arms, waiting for light to come through the window.
At eight sharp, Mark knocks. John opens his door, and Mark takes one look at him and says "let's go" without another word. They drive to Mercy General in Mark's car, a used Civic that smells like gym socks and pine air freshener. John sits in the passenger seat, knees drawn together, hands clasped tight, hood up. Mark doesn't try to make conversation. He just drives.
The hospital is clean, bright, and smells like antiseptic. They check in at the front desk, and within ten minutes, a nurse leads them to an examination room. Mark's uncle walks in a minute later.
Dr. Ryan Mitchell. Mark's uncle, his mother's brother. Thirty-eight years old, six-foot-one, with the kind of lean fitness that comes from marathon training rather than weightlifting. Short brown hair, clean-shaven, light green eyes that match Mark's. He wears a white coat over a fitted navy polo, stethoscope draped around his neck. His handshake is firm, his smile professional and warm.
"John, right? Mark's told me about you." He glances at Mark. "Thanks for bringing him in. You can wait outside or stay, whatever John's comfortable with."
John looks at Mark. Mark shrugs. "I'll wait outside. Text me when you're done."
The door closes. Dr. Mitchell turns to John, pulls up a stool, and sits.
"So. Tell me what's going on."
John tells him. The burning. The difficulty peeing. The abdominal pain. He stammers through it, face red, eyes fixed on the floor tile between his feet. Dr. Mitchell listens without interrupting, nodding occasionally, typing notes into a tablet.
"Any fever? Nausea? Back pain?"
"No. Just... the burning and the stomach."
"Okay. I'm going to run a quick urinalysis, maybe a blood panel. Standard stuff." He stands. "Nothing to worry about. The nurse will come in to collect the sample."
The tests take forty minutes. It would have taken longer, but Ryan made sure that the test results were back quickly. When the results come back, Ryan sits down across from John and shows him the tablet. "UTI. Urinary tract infection. Pretty common, especially if you're not drinking enough water and running on caffeine all day." He smiles slightly. "It's not serious. I'm prescribing a course of antibiotics. Ten days. You need to finish the entire course even if you feel better, understand? And drink water. Actual water. Not energy drinks."
John nods. He takes the prescription slip. His hands are shaking slightly, from pain or relief or both.
"Thank you," he says, barely above a whisper.
"Of course. If the pain doesn't improve in two days, call me." He writes his direct line on a card and hands it over. "Mark's got my number."
Mark drives him back to the dorm. John goes straight to bed. He takes the first pill with a full glass of water and passes out for six hours.
Two days of rest, antibiotics, and actual hydration. The burning fades first, then disappears. The abdominal pain unravels like a knot being untied, looser each day until it's gone. John pees without wincing for the first time in almost a week and almost laughs at how good it feels.
He finds Mark in the common area that evening, watching game film on his laptop. "Hey. Um. Thanks. For taking me to your uncle. I'm... it's better now."
Mark doesn't look up from the screen. "No problem. You're good?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good."
"Cool." Mark chews his lip, eyes still on the screen. "Drink water, man."
John nods and retreats to his room.
But something is still off. The burning is gone, the abdominal pain is gone, but there's a dull ache inside him. Deeper. Lower. Somewhere in his pelvis, in the space behind his balls, inside his butt. It's not sharp. It's not debilitating. It's just there, a low persistent throb that he notices most when he's lying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling.
And it scares him.
His grandfather died of prostate cancer. His uncle too. Both on his father's side. He was eleven when his grandfather passed, old enough to remember the hospital visits, the weight loss, the way his face changed in those final weeks. His uncle died two years ago, and John remembered his father sitting at the kitchen table afterward, staring at nothing, saying "it runs in the family" in a voice that made John's stomach drop.
He knows what a prostate exam involves. He's looked it up. He's read the articles, the medical pages, the forum posts. He knows the word "rectal" and he knows what it means. And the thought of it makes his face burn and his hands shake.
He wants to tell Mark. They're roommates, sort of, and Mark helped him before. But they're not friends, not really, and the idea of saying "hey, I have a dull pain in my butt and I'm scared it's prostate cancer" out loud to anyone, let alone the most socially connected person on campus, makes John want to disappear.
So he doesn't. He waits.
Two days. The dull ache doesn't go away. It doesn't get worse, but it doesn't go away, and every hour it persists, John's mind spirals further. He pictures the cancer spreading. He pictures his grandfather in that hospital bed. He pictures himself at eighteen, dying in a dorm room because he was too awkward to see a doctor.
On the third morning, he gets up early, before Mark's practice. He pulls on his baggiest hoodie, tugs the hem down, and walks to Mercy General alone.
The waiting room is quiet at seven-thirty in the morning. A receptionist recognizes him from his last visit and checks him in without questions. He sits in a plastic chair, hood up, glasses pushed tight against his face, and waits.
Ryan walks into the waiting room ten minutes later, coffee in hand, and spots him immediately. "John. Hey." His smile is warm but his eyes are curious. "Mark didn't mention you were coming back."
John stands. His hands are shoved deep in his hoodie pocket. "Mark doesn't know I'm here. I'd... I'd like to keep it that way. If that's okay."
Ryan watches him for a beat. He nods. "Of course. Anything discussed here is confidential. Come on back."
They walk to the same examination room as before. John sits on the edge of the table, the paper crinkling under his weight. Dr. Mitchell pulls up his stool, sets his coffee on the counter, and sits.
"So. What's going on?"
John takes a breath. "The UTI is gone. The burning stopped. The stomach pain stopped. But there's... there's still a pain. Inside. Like, a dull ache, in my..." He trails off. His face is crimson. "In my butt. Like, deep inside."
Ryab doesn't react. He just nods. "Okay. And you're worried about something specific?"
"My grandfather. My uncle. They both had prostate cancer. They both died from it." John's voice is flat, clinical, the way he recites facts to keep himself from falling apart. "It runs in my family. And now I have this pain and I can't stop thinking about it."
Ryan leans back slightly. "I understand why that would be scary. It's good that you're aware of your family history, and it's good that you came in." He pauses. "I'll be honest with you, John. Prostate cancer at eighteen is extremely rare. Almost unheard of. But making sure, getting checked, ruling things out, that's always the right call. So let's do that."
John nods. His jaw is tight.
"First, let me do a basic check." Ryan pulls out his stethoscope and holds it to John's chest, listening to his heart. John's pulse is fast, rattling in his ears. Ryan checks his breathing, his temperature, his blood pressure. Everything reads normal.
"Now," Ryan says, and his tone shifts. Softer, more deliberate. "The next step is a rectal exam. I need to check your prostate for swelling, lumps, anything abnormal." He pauses. "I know this isn't the most comfortable thing to talk about, but it's a quick procedure. A few minutes, and we're done."
John's stomach drops. He knew it was coming. He read about it. But hearing it out loud, in this room, from this doctor, makes it real. His mouth goes dry.
"Okay," he says. His voice cracks.
Ryan stands and opens a cabinet. He pulls out a folded cloth gown, pale blue, and hands it to John. "Change into this. Take everything off underneath. There's a curtain behind you for privacy. Take your time."
John takes the gown. It's thin, cheap, the kind that ties in the back. He steps behind the curtain and undresses slowly. His fingers fumble with his hoodie strings. His jeans are baggy enough that they slide off easily. He folds his clothes into a neat stack and puts on the gown. It ties with two thin strings at the back, and the fabric hangs loose on his slim frame. His legs are pale, thin, slightly hairy. He pushes his glasses up and steps out from behind the curtain.
"The examination table," Ryan says, gesturing. "Lie on your left side. Knees slightly bent toward your chest."
John climbs onto the table. The paper crinkles loudly. He lies on his left side, pulls his knees up, and stares at the wall. His heart is hammering. His hands grip the edge of the table. He can feel the gown riding up the back of his thighs, and he resists the urge to yank it down because there's no point, not for what's about to happen.
Ryan moves behind him. John hears the snap of a latex glove being pulled on. Then the click of a plastic cap, a tube being squeezed. The wet sound of lubricant being spread over a finger. John's jaw clenches so hard his teeth ache.
"I'm going to need your consent to proceed with the examination," Dr. Mitchell says. His voice is calm, professional, unhurried. "I'll be inserting one gloved, lubricated finger into your rectum to feel your prostate. It may feel uncomfortable, but it shouldn't be painful. You can tell me to stop at any time."
John stares at the wall. A poster about flu shots is taped there, the edges peeling. "Okay," he says. Very slowly. Very quietly.
"Take a deep breath in. And relax."
John breathes in. His ribs expand. His stomach tightens. He tries to relax the muscles of his lower body, and he mostly fails.
Then the doctor's finger touches him. Cold, wet, pressing against his hole. John's breath hitches. His grip on the table tightens. The finger pushes, slow and steady, and slides inside.
The feeling is immediate and strange. A pressure, a fullness, something entering him where nothing has ever entered before. John is straight. He's never experimented, never been curious, never put anything inside himself. The sensation is so foreign that his brain short-circuits for a second. It doesn't hurt, not exactly, but it's so intensely new that his body locks up.
"Try to relax," Ryan says. "I'm going to press on the front wall of your rectum to feel your prostate."
The finger moves. It curves, pressing forward, and John feels it. A firm, deliberate press against something inside him that he didn't know existed. And the feeling that follows is so unexpected that John almost stops breathing.
It feels good.
Not mildly good. Not just pleasant. Good in a way that sends a jolt through his lower body, a pulse of heat that radiates outward from the point of contact. His eyes widen behind his glasses. He bites his lower lip hard enough to taste copper.
The doctor's finger moves slowly, methodically, pressing and feeling along the front rectal wall. Checking the size, the shape, the texture of the prostate. John understands none of this. All he knows is that every small movement of that finger sends another wave of sensation through him, deep and heavy and warm, pooling in his groin.
His dick is hard. He realizes it with a sick lurch of embarrassment. His six-inch cock has filled out completely, pressing against the thin fabric of the gown, tenting it visibly. He can feel his pulse in the shaft, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. A bead of precum leaks from the tip and wets the gown, and he can feel the damp spot against his skin.
The doctor is still checking. His finger sweeps in a slow arc, pressing, feeling, examining. John is falling apart. His breathing is ragged, shallow puffs through his nose. His thighs are trembling. His knuckles are white from gripping the table. Sweat prickles at his hairline. Every press against that spot inside him sends another jolt of pleasure through his cock, and the precum is leaking steadily now, a slow continuous drip that he can feel spreading against the gown.
Then, suddenly, a different feeling. A pressure in his bladder. An urgency, like he needs to pee. It builds fast, mixing with the pleasure, creating a confusing double signal that his brain can't parse. The doctor presses again, and the urgency spikes.
John gets the feeling that he needs to pee.
He tries telling Ryan, but before he can start the sentence, John's body seizes. The orgasm hits him like a punch to the gut. His cock jerks, untouched, and cum shoots out in thick ropes, splattering against the inside of the gown, against the paper on the table, in pulses that he can feel from his prostate to the tip of his dick. His whole body locks up, back arching, legs shaking, mouth open.
"Fuck," he gasps. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
His hips jerk involuntarily, once, twice, three times, each thrust accompanied by another spurt of cum. The pleasure is blinding, overwhelming, radiating from deep inside him in waves that make his vision blur. It's the strongest orgasm he's ever felt, and nothing is touching his cock. His prostate is doing all the work, pulsing against the doctor's finger, and each pulse sends another rope of cum out of him.
His mouth stays open. His breath comes in broken gasps. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh god."
The last spurts are weaker, dribbling down his shaft, pooling in the fabric of the gown. His body goes slack, muscles unlocking all at once, and he sags onto the examination table. His chest heaves. His glasses are fogged. His face is burning red, and he can feel tears of sheer humiliation pricking at the corners of his eyes.
The doctor's finger slides out. John hears the glove snap off, the trash can lid open and close. Footsteps. Then Ryan is standing beside the table, holding a box of tissues, his expression calm and neutral.
John takes the tissues with a shaking hand. He can't look at the doctor. He cleans himself in silence, wiping cum off his stomach, his thighs, his softening cock. The gown is a mess. He balls it up and drops it on the table.
"You can get dressed," Ryan says. He turns away, giving John privacy, and begins typing on his tablet.
John climbs off the table. His legs are unsteady. He retreats behind the curtain, pulls on his baggy jeans, his oversized hoodie, and ties his shoes with trembling fingers. He pushes his glasses up. He tugs the hoodie hem down. He steps out.
Ryan is sitting on his stool. He gestures to the chair across from him. John sits. The paper crinkles.
A beat of silence.
Then Ryan speaks. "Everything is normal, John. Your prostate is healthy. No lumps, no irregularities, no signs of cancer. What you're feeling is a bit of residual swelling from the UTI. The infection can cause inflammation in the prostate, and that can cause a dull ache that lingers for a few days after the other symptoms clear up. It should resolve on its own."
John stares at his lap. His face is still red.
"And," Ryan continues, his voice steady and matter-of-fact, "you don't need to worry about what happened during the exam. It's a physiological response. The prostate is packed with nerve endings, and direct stimulation can cause arousal and orgasm in many men. I've seen it happen plenty of times. It's completely normal. Some men even report that prostate stimulation gives them the most intense orgasms they've ever experienced. So there's nothing to be embarrassed about."
John's shoulders loosen slightly. Just a fraction. He pushes his glasses up. "Okay," he says. His voice is still rough.
"I want you to monitor the pain for the next few days. If it's still there after a week, come back and we'll do a follow-up. But I expect it'll clear up on its own."
"Okay. Thank you." John stands. His legs are steadier now. "And... you won't tell Mark?"
"I won't tell Mark." Ryan stands and extends his hand. John shakes it. "Take care of yourself, John. And drink water."
John nods. He leaves the room, walks through the waiting area, and exits the hospital into the morning air. The sun is bright, the campus is waking up, and he walks back to the dorm with his hood up and his hands in his pockets.
When he reaches the dorm, Mark is in the common area, sitting on the couch with his phone in one hand and a protein bar in the other. He's still in practice clothes, sweat drying on his forehead. He looks up when John walks in.
"Yo. Where were you?"
John's stomach drops for a half-second before he catches himself. He pushes his glasses up. "I was... out. On a date."
Mark's eyebrows rise. He chews his lip, and a half-grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. "A date. For real?"
"Yeah."
"Cool." Mark goes back to his phone. "Nice."
John disappears into his room and closes the door. He leans against it, exhales, and drops onto his bed. His baggy hoodie is bunched around his hips. His glasses are fogged. He takes them off, sets them on the nightstand, and stares at the ceiling.
The room is dark and quiet. The dorm is muffled beyond his door, distant footsteps and the hum of the building. John lies there, one arm behind his head, the other resting on his stomach. His mind replays the examination. The cold gel. The pressure. The stretch of something entering him for the first time. The jolt when the doctor's finger found that spot inside him. The way his cock filled out without permission, throbbing and leaking. The way his whole body locked up when the orgasm hit, the intensity of it, the cum shooting out of him in ropes while he gasped and cursed.
He thinks about it. Turns it over in his mind. The embarrassment is there, hot and heavy. But underneath it, something else. A curiosity. A residual tingle deep in his pelvis, a ghost of the sensation. The memory of pleasure so intense it made his vision blur.
His eyes grow heavy. The ceiling blurs. The dorm goes quiet. And somewhere between replaying the moment and trying not to think about it, John falls asleep.
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