And so, a new era begins. I had been spending a bit of time with this… fellow. For now, we can call him a friend. For a little while, there was a “maybe” back there.

If I had my std-free druthers, I would have stuck my tongue in this man’s mouth long ago. My overall contentment is fueled by eating when I’m hungry, drinking when I’m thirsty, stopping when I’m tired, and loving when I’m grateful. Also, feminist re-education has scrubbed away any coyness that probably didn’t exist in the first place from my relations with men. I was a maker of first moves.

Post-herpes, I am a maker of excuses. There are fuzzy memories of intimate alone quality time with the opposite sex; memories of widened-pupil stares, close whispers and a light touching of the knee, face sucking. You can fill in those blanks with the neutered stumblings of a woman with an unsavory secret. At a number of moments I’ve found myself in one of these choose-your-own-adventure type situations, the most recent of which went something like this:

Unidentified Male, at pause from grilling meat over an outdoor gas bbq. Rough hands from much manual labor, and now at close stance with our hero: “This part– (he clasps my shoulder with a large, calloused paw, and moves his thumb across the design) –is the best part of your tattoo.”

Our hero, one arm akimbo and the other hand holding a cocktail, stands slightly contrapposto in a sundress. She smiles and says:

Old option 1: “Next time you touch me like that you’d better be prepared to stick your tongue in my mouth.”

Old option 2: “You’re not supposed to stand this close, honey. It might give people the wrong idea.”

Old option 3: Eat face.

What actually happened: Some clumsy bullshit.

I may have laughed and agreed that I liked my tattoo as well, or asked about something laying around in his backyard, or instigated any other number of non-threatening conversation starters. The point here is that I’m basically a eunuch now, and have no business wearing perfume and waving my breasts around like Gavroche at the barricades.

Sorta. I think the Unidentified Male and I eventually grew tired of each other’s dances; I, detaching and sabotaging intimacy by assumption that he’d rather focus his time on brooding about his divorce (true story) and he, probably working on the assumption that he doesn’t meet certain specifications, and I don’t have herpes (the first somewhat untrue and the second very untrue.) Anyway, that’s how it goes until I can get my mind together and find peace with just keeping gents at a non-boning distance.

As their exchange pressed on he revealed that he had not one, not two, but four ex-wives. Long ago, one of his wives received a phone call from their youngest son. The son told her, “Listen, Mom: for once in your life, just listen.” Then shot his brains out.

Aside from the importance of being a good listener, I’m reminded of a few other cautions from this encounter. Parallel to this story I think of the experience I had recently with my very first herpes support group. I was full of questions, most of them of a genital-tech nature. Among other questions, inquiring minds want to know: Can I still be on the receiving end of a nice blowjob*? The group, comprised mostly of older women in their 40s and 50s, was quick to alleviate my concerns but exacerbated another. Participants raised their hands and began in the same way:

“Absolutely. However, it’s very important to be on suppressive therapy. When my ex-husband and I…”

“Of course, if you want! My last husband and I…”

“Ha, yes. When I told my first husband I had herpes…”

Right.

I’m not nessiccasrily convinced that human relationships, monogomous or otherwise, work. Also, I’m not so sure I’m going to find one lasting partner with which to run the fields of Greece and sing the Internationale hand-in-hand. These days I don’t even really know if I’ll feel a man’s touch again, and am preparing to walk the earth alone like the Incredible Hulk.

All skepticism considered, these more seasoned mentors have painted a very bleak future. Is this symptomatic of the herpes lifestyle? Are those who are affected by an std more inclined toward turbulent romantic interactions? Or, could another idea be that people like us were already conditioned to be flighty and unreliable life partners, and having an std has nothing really to do with it?

My armchair science is inconclusive until further results are in; the herpes community is a new one to me, and the communities in which I’ve felt most at home are populated by artists, anarchists, rogues, rakes, rascals, and roustabouts. In other words, my milieu is historically no good to their lovers. The last man I dated placed into a number of the above categories, plus residual melancholy and regret from a failed marriage. The current man I’ve been eyeballing only really falls into the artist column. But his divorce casts a very long shadow indeed.

Eh. Further research is needed here.

*The modern world is still lacking a catchy slang term for cunnilingus. For our purposes, I’ll call them blowjobs.

The concept of a date is the secret language that humans forget about when they pretend that they aren’t animals. One animal meets another. After a number of visual cues and a battle of wits, one will slip in a detail to test if the other is paying attention. This may come in the form of mentioning relationship status, sexual preference, plans for the evening or upcoming days, or even a phone number.

Loosely translated, this amounts to the following:

“There appears to be an exchange of magnetism here. I’m fairly certain I’d like to know you in a carnal sense, but prefer to be in your presence a little while longer to make absolutely sure. Let’s agree to make some time when we both have semi-control over our immediate environment.”

Whether causally dating an acquaintance or catching those tension-filled sparks with an old friend, the proverbial butterflies basically enter our worlds the same way.

I value these exchanges. So very, very much. I love secrets. I love being in the know. But lately, indefinitely, I’ve had to falsely give others the impression that I don’t speaka-the-language I know so well. My knowledge isn’t at an academic level, of course; I had to learn by immersion and making my share of blunders. Excuse me, sir, I would like much handsome time coffee? How you call cinema watching popcorn, yes?

I just don’t have the heart to flirt boldly anymore. And quite frankly, I’m a little freaked out by the natives. Casual dating leads to familiarity, leads to physical intimacy, maybe. And then? “Wrap yourself in plastic. No, not just that. Do you have gloves? Saran wrap, too, if it’s laying around…”

For a little while anyway, It’s just going to be easier on a whole to pretend I’m a foreigner in Dudesylvania.

Call it performance anxiety. I was becoming an athlete, and very familiar with the ways my body behaves. Now, part of what keeps me up at night is this new body I have to learn to live with. Will I still snap back after a challenging climb? Will bouncing around setting all of my weight on my undercarriage trigger a nasty relapse? Does an outbreak keep one off the road? So long as the money’s tight and the shop works with molasses-speed, I won’t have to find out the answers to those questions.

Then there lies the issue of other athletic performance. Gone are the days of the pickup line, “I have a lovely vagina. You should see it sometime.” Well, it doesn’t feel very pretty right now. And I’m sure the ghostly pangs of this ordeal will keep it from getting me into anymore trouble.

So what’s a vagina to do? It’s a bit early to place it in retirement. At the moment it’s parked in a conceptual garage and underneath a custom plastic sheath. People know it’s there; they’ve seen it rolling down the street before. Looks good, sounds good, and has a custom paint job and everything. Is that a V8? Sure, but I won’t be taking her out on the road for a while. For one thing, she can’t ever haul on the highways again. It just isn’t safe. Her racing days are over, too. There’s no point in just cruising around town anymore.

While I’m wading through the slow bleed from limbo to reality, I’ll bide some time to figure out what this all means.

The initial diagnosis, was, of course, completely devastating. I’m relatively young, my career is just starting to kick-off, and I was finally getting into great shape. In other words, something of a disease-free catch.

In the interest of the existentialist undercurrent that probably makes all of my decisions for me, I would be a fool not to acknowledge that this is all a drop in the proverbial bucket of existence. Weeks ago I was drafting very eloquent “finale letters” and contemplating who would appreciate my record collection the most. I’ll tell you who… No one! I’m taking those things to the grave, sucker!

Maybe ol’ J.P. Sartre would say this: It could be worse.

You could be a teenager living with this. You could be someone on the brink of divorce and faced with some stark truths about the role that honesty played in your marriage. You could be one of millions of victims of underage sex-trafficing, with no family and no access to health care. Or you could be one of millions living with HIV.

But you aren’t. I’m not. I have a network of very supportive friends and family. I have a strong friendship with the gentleman who unknowingly passed this to me. I live in a nice home and can (sort of) pay rent every month. I can write. And for that I’ll be kissing my vinyl before I sleep tonight.

After weeks of doctor’s visits, various blood tests, and peeing fire, I find myself under that column of people who are living with The Herp. I started this blog because I can finally laugh again, and I want you to do the same. This is a place where I plan to write candidly about the social and physical mechanics of hsv.

Don’t worry; you can’t catch anything by reading a blog.