I prepared myself by taking a series of deep, cleansing breaths and walked to the bathroom.
I clutched the towel rack with my left hand as I carefully unzipped my fly and pulled out my cock. A drop of mucousy discharge clung to the tip of my member. The inside of my cock tingled in a bad way, like an insatiable itch.
“Just get it over with,” I told myself and began to piss.
Instantly, the itchy irritation intensified into an excruciating burning. It felt like I was pissing out red-hot razorblades, hundreds of them. Tears welled up in my eyes. I squeezed the towel rack so hard my entire hand turned white. I focused all my energy on forcing out as much urine as quickly as possible. I felt like I was giving birth and it was all I could not to scream in pain.
Then, it was over. I had pissed.
I took a deep breath and released the towel rack. My hand was cramped and pale, completely useless. I gently tucked my cock back into my pants before flushing the toilet. I splashed warm water on my face and concentrated on breathing to calm my rapidly beating heart.
Looking in the mirror at my completely colorless, war-torn face I realized this was not a mere urinary tract infection. No, this was much worse. The cranberry juice binge I imposed on myself during the last week was all in vain. Sure at first there was just a mild discomfort below my belt, but each day it grew and grew until six days later I dreaded taking a piss like some dread the dentist, like urinating was the Chinese water torture.
The next morning, I had my dad drive me to the doctor for a 7:30 appointment. The mornings were the worst. Just the slightest movement or adjustment made me think my cock was filled with broken glass or molten lava or something worse, something beyond my imagination. Pulling into the hospital parking lot… all those damn speed bumps…
“Why you fuckin’ skanky bitches?” My dad asked.
I just shook my head.
Of course, the first thing I had to do for the doctor was piss in a cup. I gave myself a pep talk and wrung out a few drops, crying only a little. Handing over a cup of my infected urine, my lava-piss, I felt good. The worst was over, now all they had to do was give me a prescription and I’d be healed.
Then the doctor pulled out a catheter. “We can either do this now, or have you come back another time,” he said.
I opted to get it over with but in hindsight, I wish I had gone back, heavily medicated, intoxicated, anesthetized, completely fucking numb, because if it hurt that bad to simply piss, imagine how it felt to have a cold metal rod shoved up your cock.
The doctor sat in his chair and made me stand over him with my pants around my ankles. My cock shrank in fear and a slimy icicle of discharge oozed out.
“Whoa,” the doctor said placing latex gloves on his large, hairy hands. “That looks bad.”
I didn’t laugh.
“I’m going to insert it and keep it in there for the count of ten.”
“Okay.”
As he manhandled my manhood, I stared at the organ chart on the wall: pastel-colored illustrations of the heart, lungs, stomach–
“Now take a deep breath…”
I looked down, something you should never do, and saw the doctor insert the catheter down the throat of my sickly cock.
Holy fuckin’ Christ, fuck!
“One… two…”
The agony was blinding. I had never even imagined such pain could be experienced without loosing consciousness.
“Three…”
Seven more seconds and I’ll be dead.
“Four…”
It was torture. I couldn’t escape the pain. It consumed me, both body and mind. It felt like he had shoved a spoon inside my cock. No, a fucking rusted ladle. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see; my existence was the pain.
“Ten.”
And it was over. I returned to the world, the doctor’s office. I felt nauseous and for a moment feared I would either throw up or pass out. I made myself release the desk and pull up my pants. Then, I breathed, realizing it had been a while. My jaw hurt from clenching my teeth.
“You can sit down now,” The doctor ordered while he dropped the instrument, the torture device, into a plastic bag labeled with my name. “We won’t have the results for a few days but I’m going to write you some prescriptions now because I think I know what you have.”
“What’s that?” I asked, relishing in painlessness.
“The tests will say for sure, but it looks like an inflammation of your urethra. It may be Chlamydia, but probably just non-gonococcal urethritis.”
“And what’s that?”
The doctor removed his gloves and washed his hands while talking to me over his shoulder. “It’s basically an allergic reaction to a type of bacteria, usually Ureaplasma urelyticum or Mycoplasma genitalium.”
“So what do I do?”
“I’m gonna give you a juice to drink and some pills to take. One pill you take right away, Doxycycline to take twice a day for a week or so, and I’m gonna give you something to help you urinate. It’ll make you numb down there and turn your urine bright orange, but it’ll eliminate the pain.”
“Sounds good.”
And that was it. The urine test reveled an inflamed urethra and the catheter test came back negative. I took the pills, pissed neon orange for a week, and was healed.
One night of drunken, unprotected sex yielded a week of agony and regret which climaxed with catheterization. I was fortunate to only have contracted non-gonococcal urethritis, an extremely painful yet easily curable disease. Now, I no longer fear pain.

A.P. Smith

Some appropriate “found art:”