"Alright, Keith," the doctor said. "That's the last of your shots for this year. How do you feel?"
The skinny red-headed boy looked at his arm as he rubbed it. "Okay, I guess," he replied. The shots hadn't exactly been pleasant, but he remembered what his father had said: he was ten years old now, which meant he was in double-digits. He wasn't a little kid anymore, so it was past time for crying.
"Good, then I'll see you next--" The doctor stopped himself as he flipped through pages on the clipboard. "Oh, I almost forgot! There's one more injection we can do. It's optional, but it's supposed to lead to healthy development in boys your age. I just got to go grab it from the supply closet. One moment please."
Keith grimaced at the thought of another needle poking through his skin. He wondered if he could just tell the doctor not to do it; he did say it was optional, after all. But he figured that if his doctor was this positive about it, it couldn't hurt, and the pain would just be temporary. Might as well suck it up and just do it, he thought to himself. He tried to focus on something else while he waited.
A few minutes later, the doctor returned into the room holding a needle, one that looked much larger than the previous ones (or maybe that was just his imagination at work). "All right, Keith, this should be the one. Ready?"
Should? Keith thought to himself, not liking the slight hesitation in the doctor's voice, but he pushed his fear down and simply nodded. The doctor gently grabbed his arm, batted the already-tender spot where the needle was about to go in with a cotton swab wet with rubbing alcohol, and brought the tip of the needle to the skin. Closing his eyes and biting his lips, Keith braced himself, waiting for the inevitable sharp sensation of pain.
That sensation never came, though. Instead, he only felt a half-second's worth of pressure, and then nothing for several seconds. He waited, expecting that pain to come any second, until finally he heard his doctor say "All done! That didn't hurt too much, did it?"
Keith spun his head around and gawked incredulously at his arm. Sure enough, there was a red spot where the needle had gone in, but he could've sworn that he didn't feel any hint of pain there. In fact, now that he thought about it, a slight feeling of pleasure was swelling through him, one that was rather unfamiliar to him. "N-no," he stammered in reply. "That didn't hurt at all!!"
"Really?" The doctor sounded skeptical, but shrugged it off. "Well, that's certainly good news! You handled your injections like a pro, Keith. You're really growing up to be a fine young man. See you next year!" And with that, the doctor was off.
Throughout the car ride back home, Keith could feel the unusual pleasureful sensation spread throughout his body. It wasn't anything too overwhelming, and it was probably best to be ignored, he thought, but it certainly was a nice side effect of the shot, if that's what caused it, anyways. Much later that night, though, he began to realize just how significant that feeling was, and that it was only the beginning of something... big...  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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