My eyes focused on the illustration of the fallopian tubes as Dr. Marquez fingered me with two digits and a pencil light. Poking and prodding at my cervix, I spread my thighs like I was back at cheerleading practice warming up for a jump sequence. I wondered what she might find down there…a rash? A tear? Old remains of a cheap tampon? In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised. In fact, I’d be thrilled to know it was my own stinginess that rendered sex impossible, and not the Judas-level betrayal of my vagina. I needed an answer, some form of explanation as to why my butterfly was dryer than the charcoal-colored dust framing my ceiling fan. Not only for me but for my boyfriend playing Pokémon in the waiting room.
The doctor’s face peeked above the hem of my paper dress. “There’s definitely some scarring of the tissue down here.”
“Really?” I replied. I wasn’t surprised but felt that I should respond with something.
“Yes. You said the pain was closer to the surface?” She continued to nudge the skin.
“Right. It hurts more on the outside, like closer to the labia I guess?”
“Yeah, it’s definitely inflamed and it looks like there’s some minor abrasions.” She stood up, removing the non-latex gloves which took her over fifteen minutes to find. I was willing to wait, though—not eager to discover how my latex allergy would manifest on the inside.
With naked hands, she returned to her clipboard and sighed. “I don’t want to say this is herpes but…I’m going to go take a look at your urine sample and then I’ll know for sure. It should just be a couple of minutes.”
“Okay…” My insides tumbled like the contents of a drying machine. HERPES?!? Did she really just say that?!?
She took her clipboard and shut the door behind her with a half-smile. It’s the same face my therapist makes when the session’s over but I’ve only just started sobbing. Could I really have herpes? Did I know anyone who had herpes? Did I look like someone who would have herpes? Seeking an ally in Google, I reached for my phone in the chair next to mine while testing my torso’s ability to stretch over sky-blue tile. Ten minutes ago, my greatest fear was a surprise pregnancy, a vision of all the nurses huddled together, gawking over my cup of pee. But now I was typing ‘genital herpes’ into a search bar, judging the images against my own appearance like it was inspiration for a haircut. Some of the pictures were like alien mutations, a peculiar prop for an Escape Room. I realized my boyfriend had seen far more than I had. Perhaps I’d underestimated his politeness.
But what about my politeness? If this disease were sexually transmitted, would that make Jack the transmission recipient? And if our genitalia shared a likeness, how did I miss it? As far as I could tell, he was fresh as a packaged dildo, which was baffling given our resistance to condoms. Jack claimed they didn’t feel good…but then he also claimed that the idea of impregnating me was too great a turn-on…any barrier against that—a psychological boner killer. As an absent-fathered daughter, the sentiment was a symbolic Neosporin, enough to quell all further discourse on the matter. Still, as I considered the potential of my new identity ~the herpes hoe~ my gut pulsed worse than when I sat backseat as my stepdad went 80, an open Corona rattling in his cup holder. Needless to say, I wished I had fought for the rubbers. But given the opportunity to speak up, I rarely took the bait.
You can speak your mind. You can speak your mind. You can speak your mind, I told myself as I sat at the edge of my bed one afternoon, naked except for a pair of ill-fitting underwear, spotty with some cold combination of sweat, semen and vag-juice. I could have grabbed a new pair; the dresser was practically an arms-length away, but something about Jack’s presence kept me buoyed to the bed. He sat there like a pissed-off Socrates, facing the door instead of my face, his fist like a pillar supporting his chin. I sat behind him, my butt wedged between my ankles as my gaze alternated between the cum-rag at his feet, and the contour of his sternum. Although my expression was masked by his refusal to meet it, I kept my breathing shallow, ever aware of the delicate bubble surrounding us. I don’t remember what he said to break the post-coital silence, but I could never forget the following incident. We were fighting…really screaming. My roommates had disappeared, and my therapist had just suggested a blunt approach. So I believe I screamed the following,
“It’s just too much pressure! I can’t feel turned on when I don’t feel relaxed!”
“When are you ever going to feel relaxed?! Should I just wait around for what…forever?!”
It was an excellent question, comparable to ‘Why are we here?’ For both, I had no answer. But I remember the next part as if my brain played it back beneath the bulbous glass of a magnifying lens. His cheeks were pink, and his muscles jittered like a tea kettle. As he slanted toward me, I could smell the yellow of his teeth before he confessed, “Do you think I actually like your small boobs?! Huh? Do you think they turn me on? No…but I don’t let that stop me from showing you passion.”
I can’t remember what occurred next, but I recall the way I stared at him several hours later. We were in his car, our laps like tables supporting our fast-food. It was how most of our fights concluded—in a desperate quest for immediate carbs. When you spend the day immersed in combat, it’s easy to neglect the body. Weight fell off of us like confetti that Summer—ironic that despite our struggle to generate sexiness, we never looked sexier. It was silent except for the buzz of the AC and the occasional sloshes from our chewing. Between his French fry-to-mouth deliveries, he stroked my thigh with his right hand. “I’m so sorry,” he muttered, his eyeballs glossy beneath his lashes, tapping at his lids as he lowered his head. “I have so much to apologize for…” he continued. I nodded.
“It’s okay.” But the words tasted sour as they left my tongue.
“It’s not,” he rebutted. I stared…at his face, and then at the In-N-Out structure before us.
“You scared me today,” I whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” he shook his head, the skin between his eyes folding in on itself. He glanced at me the way my dog used to when my parents left for work. Then he shook his head again and slapped his temple with his left palm. “What I did today was…horrible,” he admitted. To which I practically salivated. More. I need more. So instead of responding, I just kept nodding. “I didn’t mean the things I said,” he continued. “I hate that I said them.” That’s when the liquid started spilling out of him. By impulse, I reached for his arm, stroking the boy who filled me with gold between the shadows of darkness. “I can’t talk to you like that. It’s not okay,” he admitted, now sobbing.
I couldn’t release my grip just yet, so I traded an ending for an appointment at the Gyno. Fast-forward and there I was, spread-eagle in stirrups, the words: “minor abrasions” pecking at my skull on repeat like a scratched-up CD. I imagined sores of splotchy red where I had forced Jack into my own scratched-up tunnel. It was all very me, I realized—the woman who uses force when all else fails. My mom used to warn me about this, “If you have to force it, it’s probably not gonna work.” I believe I was assembling a Christmas present when she first delivered the advice, shoving a piece of Polly Pocket plastic into a slot that wouldn’t budge. Rather than changing tactics, I upped the pressure, using every ounce of arm strength to push the slot till my thumb was a pulsing crimson. In the end, it still didn’t work. Mom was right…wrong hole I suppose…
My own hole was still awaiting its verdict. And as the minutes ticked on, the urge to text Jack meandered between daunting and tempting. “Turns out I might have herpes,” I thought about sending, but something stopped me from typing the words. His reactions were like the rain in Florida—often torrential and thoroughly unpredictable. But then a new thought occurred to me, liquefying all the tension in my joints. If nothing else, we’d be stuck in this together now, an early engagement in the form of an STD. Herpes could be the thing that glued us together. And it wouldn’t be me who was forcing it, but rather, the universe. If I really did have an STD, it would mean that my issues were only skin-deep. Clearly, something was wrong with me. But maybe herpes would actually be the thing that healed, rendering every bump and bruise an anatomical misfortune. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was fixed on the jar of wooden sticks placed like an art piece across from me when I heard the door knob fidget. A second later, it swung wide open revealing Dr. Marquez. She had returned with her clipboard.
“So, we got the results and it turns out it’s just a yeast infection. I’m going to prescribe you a cream to use twice a day and you should start feeling better in a week or two.”
…well fuck.
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
