I put an ice pack inside my pants. I decide I must have developed a latex allergy.
1.
“Is that a cold sore?”
He’s pointing at an angry red scab on the corner of my mouth.
“No,” I tell him. “It’s a cut.”
It’s cracked and it stings each time I open my mouth. I’ve never had a cold sore before. It’s definitely a cut.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
“Yes. I promise.”
To prove it, I unbuckle his pants and take his cock into my mouth. I pull up and it glistens, wet with my spit.
I smile at up at him. “See?”
2.
I take the elongated blue pill out of the case I keep in my purse.
I pop it into my mouth and chase it down with cheap white wine. I’m sitting at my favorite bar.
“Is that Valtrex?” I look over at my friend Briggs, who is sitting on the bar stool next to me.
“Yeah,” I say, realizing he must have seen what the pill said when I opened my box. “I take it for cold sores.”
I flush hot with shame, but act unaffected. I take another swig of my wine.
My friend Lorenzo pipes up from across the way. “Carlos gets cold sores, you know.”
I’ve been sleeping with Carlos for three years now.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
I flush hot with shame, but act unaffected. I take another swig of my wine. Click To Tweet3.
“Use a condom,” I tell him.
We met on OkCupid. It’s 3 AM and he’s just showed up to my house.
He’s a tattoo artist, covered as much with body hair as he is tattoos. I’m desperately attracted to him.
We’ve been on one date.
He rolls the condom down and enters me. My hands grab the thick hair on his upper back and I gasp.
4.
I’m in more pain than I can ever remember being in in my life.
I text him. “What kind of condom did you use? I think I’m having a reaction to it.”
His response is curt, short. “I don’t know. A Trojan or something?”
My vulva is swollen. Everything between my legs feels like it’s on fire. I can’t sit, I can’t walk.
I put an ice pack inside my pants. I decide I must have developed a latex allergy.
I never hear from him again.
My vulva is swollen. Everything between my legs feels like it’s on fire. I can’t sit, I can’t walk. Click To Tweet5.
“I have the weirdest symptoms,” I tell my roommate.
“My butt is achy. Like, you know when you have the flu and your skin aches? My butt feels like that.”
I Google “herpes.” I see pictures of lesions. I shut the laptop, shaking my head no.
“Sometimes the muscles in my thighs are so sore that my legs give out, even though I haven’t done any strenuous physical activity,” I tell her.
“Go to the doctor,” she says.
“And say what? The skin on my butt feels like I have the flu?”
6.
I lay on the exam table in the Planned Parenthood clinic, looking up at the fluorescent light flickering overhead. A thin white paper is draped over my legs, my feet in stirrups.
“I keep getting what feels like an ingrown hair, but it’s always in the same exact place,” I tell the doctor.
Her head is between my legs, occupying the spot usually reserved for lovers. The non-latex gloves I’ve requested feel cold against my skin.
I direct her to the spot. “In between my inner and outer labia, just to the left of my clitoris.”
She peers up at me, over the paper blanket. “It’s scabbed over, so I can’t swab it. Sorry.”
“Can you do a blood test?”
7.
The first time the phlebotomist tries to take my blood, she misses my vein.
That happens a lot. “You really should use a butterfly needle,” I tell her, for the third time.
This time, she listens. I watch the tube fill red with blood.
A few minutes later, a nurse comes to speak with me.
“The blood test came back positive for HSV-II. That means that you have genital herpes.”
“Thanks,” I say.
I Google 'herpes.' I see pictures of lesions. I shut the laptop, shaking my head no. Click To Tweet8.
“Do you hate me?” I ask.
I haven’t cried yet. I mostly feel numb, though I’m a little bit relieved, a little bit unsurprised, and mostly resigned to my fate.
“Of course not,” he says. “Come here.” He pulls me in and gives me a hug.
He kisses the top of my head. “I love you.”
9.
“Hey!” the message says. “I saw your blog post about having herpes.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever written about herpes on the Internet.
A scene from long ago plays in my mind. My stomach drops.
I write back. “So, you remember that time you asked if I had a cold sore? And I told you it was a cut? Well, it was a cold sore.”
I feel sick as I wait for his response. I’m getting ready to justify it, to type, “I’m so sorry. I truly didn’t know it at the time,” when he writes back.
“Yeah, I figured. It’s cool. Oh, and I think what you’re doing is really brave.”
In a study released last week — the “first ever global assessment of the prevalence of the herpes virus that causes cold sores” — the World Health Organization has found that two in three people under the age of 50 are infected with herpes.
