Take Off Your Cool

To close my 3 stories about guys I've encountered with HIV/AIDS, I'm going to write this post about a person that gave me an opportunity the other two didn't when we had sex; a choice. The first guy, was a victim of an encounter and never told me his status. The second was well...you can read here, ugh. This guy told me the second we met that he was HIV positive, so I took a gamble with him and well...here goes nothing.

Due to the lack of drama, this post will be short and sweet. Its about a guy I'll refer to as "R".

I met him in DC, of course (isn't that where HIV is common as rats in an alley?) and he was in the military.  During a period of time at the beginning of 2010, let's just say I had more time on my hands that usual, and as we've all heard "idle time is the devil's playground".

I began a daily "funemployment" routine. When my roommate trotted off to work, I'd watch TV, eat, work out, eat and run errands until my friends were off work. In the midst o all that, I was extremely horny virtually everyday. The days went like this: wake up, turn on Moesha just to the hear theme song:

God I love that song.

I would start making breakfast, shower, hit the gym and come home with endless time on my hands. So I would get in the habit of religiously checking porn sites for updates. Since I gave up drinking for lint and pork, my desire to engage in sex was much lower (weird right?).

Anywho, one day went by with no updates and the same wack videos, so I went to the good 'ol "networks" and found a cute guy had messaged me.  He was a bottom ✓, cute ✓, but he was HIV POSITIVE?! ✗

I was pretty much over the thought of hooking up at that point.

But something about our conversation was different, he was well-spoken and polite. Maybe because he was in the military and a had just moved to the area. I knew that he wanted something sexual because I mean who strikes up a conversation with a dick pic on adam4adam and just wants advice on places to "hang out"? No one.

So I cut to the chase, I told him I was horny, but I had to address the elephant in the room.  I asked about his HIV status. Before you beat me up, I'd didn't ask the lame "How did you get it? How you long have you had?" But I wanted to know if he would mind using protection and if he was on therapy.

Thanks to me being a hypochondriac that thought a shave bump on my crotch was herpes, I knew everything about the virus and wanted to make sure I was dealing with a low risk guy before hooking up. He told me the once-a-day pill he was taking and that he was undectectable with an ellipsis. I didn't mean to offend him, but the notorious "..." in a text makes you feel like shit. So I invited him over.

I did the usual routine of tossing a towel across my bed (we all know how messy it can get), putting on my "freak sheets" and having the lube and condoms by the bed with netflix playing to make things seem less awkward.

He arrived in his fatigues from the base, had a killer smile, great caramel skin and a tight army strong body. He stripped down to his underwear and started asking me about college and other things he noticed in my room.

We ended up talking for over an hour about my hometown, things I liked and disliked about DC and things were cool. That's until he leaned over and kissed me in my mouth. Uh hello..this is a hookup, you're not my bf, like wtf?

He could tell by me leaning back awkwardly and bashing my head against my headboard that I was not interested in that, so he laughed. "Are you scared?" he asked. I lied and said no, but I just don't kiss random guys. He then made me look stupid by saying what was worse kissing or eating some random guys ass and fucking him. I had no response.

He ended up "reverse psychology-ing" me into making out with him and that's all we did.

No sex. Just laid there.

As comfortable as it was, I was a little weirded out by having a complete stranger in my bed just chilling.  So again, I made up some b.s. to get him out and he saw through it and said it was cool.

To draw me in more, he ended up, texting me asking me how my day was and being polite and I started to like him like a little girl with a high school crush. WTF was wrong with me? Not sure, but I liked him and he came over again.

This time we had sex. I didn't even change my sheets or lay down a towel.  Things were going fine until I had him on this back digging him out like a jackrabbit and noticed that my dick felt a little wetter than usual.  I pulled out and saw the condom had torn; I'd practically been fucking him raw the whole 15 minutes up until that point.





OMG I thought. I hoped up and went to the bathroom to wash myself off, like that would make a difference.  We ended up stopping altogether due to me being so awkward after that.   I felt bad, but at least he gave me a choice. He kept telling me he was undetectable and I'd be cool since there was no blood, but I had a nervous smile about it the whole time.

We never had sex again, but we still talk and a few months later I was sweating bullets thinking about getting tested. I resorted back to being an ignorant hormone driven hypochondriac and abstained from random hookups for what lasted all of two weeks.

Then it hit me. What made me so much better?

I practically had more sex partners than most people have in their lives at age 23. Some who's names I remembered and some were so numerous at once, like in the hotel with "DB", I wouldn't recognize them on the street.

I'd played with fire time and time again, stressed myself out thinking I had STD after STD when I didn't.  I remember once hearing a bunch of "get tested" commercials on the radio it seemed like they were far more frequent than usual and seeing HIV everywhere after an encounter in 2009.  Since I believe everything is linked and God speaks to you not through your ear like some story out of the bible, but through daily signs in life (like when I got a speeding ticket and I walked in my dad's house to tell him EXACTLY when the police pulled some guy over IN the movie) the irony was unbearable.

This time however, I had no signs, no gut feeling and I knew what I was getting myself into. The irony was the time I knew what I was doing and I thought I was being careful is when I had direct exposure to the virus.

In the end, 3 months went by and I walked out of my doctor's office with a clean bill of health.

Again I dodged the bullet that comes in the form of a daily pill and that would turn my life into managing a game of numbers (CD-4/Viral), and I vowed not to hook up randomly again.

Instead I woke up today, on World AIDS Day, and hopped on adam4adam with the same hard dick that has landed me in hot water time and time again.  I hope to if not settle down, slow down. I'm getting a little old for the random hook ups and I've learned too many lessons in the past to keep making the same mistakes.

I hope to one day have all of this behind me and comfortably wear the color red on December 1st in support of other and not just myself.

- CGN