Jaime is a WHAT?

Dr. Benker sighed. This was going to be hard.

            He had delivered babies for six years now, and although his colleagues had seen everything (and repeatedly told him about it… the worst lot were the ones with pictures), he could honestly tell himself that he had not seen everything, and was thankful for the relative normalcy in his life.

            But now…

            Now he had come pretty damn close.

            How was he going to break it to the mother?

            He paused outside the door. The new mother was awake and resting in her bed, watching the television mounted in the wall. He was sure he was going to get through this, he just wasn’t sure how he’d get through it without remembering the scene for seventy years.

            He knocked on the door, and poked his head in.

            “Mrs. Needlemeyer?” he said, and asked if he could come in.

            “Of course, please,” said Mrs. Needlemeyer, whose name was Jenna but he wanted to stick to formalities.

            Dr. Benker stepped in and closed the door behind him.

            “I’m afraid we have some… rather distressing news, Mrs. Needlemeyer.”

            The woman’s drop dropped. The worried look on her face turned to sheer desperation.

            “Oh no!” said Dr. Benker, quickly. “I assure you, the baby is quite healthy, yes. Definitely.”

            The woman relaxed, but not completely. The hesitant tone in Dr. Benker’s voice was enough to raise suspicion, but, thankfully, not hell.

            Yet.

            “What’s wrong, doctor? Is… is it serious?”

            Dr. Benker’s face creased. He just wasn’t used to this. Serious? Well, yeah, if you look at it in one light, but not very, that is, if she wanted her darling precious to be…

            But he pulled himself together.

            “Mrs. Needlemeyer, We’ve run through the routine tests on your baby to ensure that…” he read the file. Ah. The young couple had already named their baby. “…that little Jaime is healthy and we’ve found…”

            Mrs. Needlemeyer stared at him. “Yes?”

            “Mrs. Needlemeyer, Jaime is a hermaphrodite.”

            He braced himself and his eyes instinctively screwed shut, waiting for the response.

            The woman sat back.

            Her eyes were very wide.

            “Goodness,” she said.

            “Er, I realise that it is rather hard to accept, but I assure you –”

            “Hard to accept? What are you talking about! Wait till Arthur finds out that our child is a genius! This… this is fantastic!”

            Dr. Benker just couldn’t take this. There was no training, no manual, nothing that he could fall back on and continue confidently.

            “Er…” he said to this now celebratory woman.

            “Er…” he tried again, and finally found the words. “No, Mrs. Needlemeyer, ah, to be a hermaphrodite, ah, yes, well. To be a hermaphrodite is to have…”

            She waited patiently for his hands to stop forming themselves uselessly in the air.

            “…to have,” he said, “both male and female… traits. If you get my meaning.”

            Now the woman sat up straight. She gave this some thought. A ray of understanding and a brief struggle of acceptance waged itself on the mother’s face.

Dr. Benker relaxed, now the tension was over. The cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and there was nothing left now but to cope with the situation.

“So you’re saying…” said Mrs. Needlemeyer slowly.

“Yes…” said Dr. Benker, who now felt like a terrible burden had been lifted.

“That my child, my… my Jaime…”

“…yes…” said Dr. Benker, quietly. He felt like he was now on Earth again and wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but that would not have been appropriate.

“My Jaime has a… a…”

Dr. Benker found himself leaning forward.

“a… a penis…”

Dr. Benker nodded.

“… and brains?”