“Tell me why you have two different colored eyes Rhys.”
“It’s difficult to talk about. I lost one when I was nineteen. The doctors did all they could but they couldn’t save it.”
“Was it difficult for you?”
“I tried not to think about it much even when they were working on the good one to stop the infection from spreading.”
“What kind of infection was it?”
“The doctors were not sure, some thought it was an infection others thought it was broken nerves. They all said I was a brave little soldier.”
“You must have been brave, to go through with that. Rhys, how do you feel about me?”
“Darlings?”
“I know. I don’t want to put you on the spot but I feel something is developing between us and, and… and this is hard… You see I don’t want either of us to be disappointed later….”
“Don’t talk like this, come let’s lie down a while.”
“No Rhys, stop. Before I lie down with you, you must know something about me. My ex-boyfriend gave me herpes.” There, I said it.
“Take your shoes off darling and come lie down. What’s it like?”
And I tell him. About the outbreaks which come every couple of months, about the Acyclovir which doesn’t always help, how I’m generally safe when there’s no outbreak but I would only make love with a condom to make sure.
“My poor darling. My poor darling. You mustn’t worry, it will be ok.” Sometime later we both fell asleep.
And there should end the story. However, this is a sexless relationship. Though he was my best friend we were just that. Good friends who share abed only to sleep. And here I was wanting it, needing it and just not getting any. I consoled myself with the fact that he is an older man hitting his fifties and just doesn’t have the stamina. Until I catch him on my birthday night when I should have been otherwise engaged with my girlfriend slow dancing with a hot young bitch. Who looks as tempting as I did but obviously didn’t have herpes.
Edited out of the book The Eye of The Hurricane:
Bloody liar, its not the first time he has lied right to my face. I am still not over the incident on my birthday last year when a girls’ night out leads me to him slow dancing at Indies in another woman’s arms. He didn’t even stop when I tapped on his shoulder and asked him to cut in. She pulled him back into her arms and they continued totally oblivious to me.
“He’s dancing with me.” She says. And later, she has it out with me outside. “He’s here with me tonight. He invited me here. He sleeps around, he fucks around and he is screwing my friend.” The bouncer has to hold her back. She’s all ready to fight me. A girl whom I have never seen before. Ready to tear my eyes out because I ask my own man to dance. And Rhys says nothing, does nothing.
“You should have been at the hotel with your girl friends,” he says they next morning.
“Who is she, Rhys?”
“It doesn’t matter Tara.” We don’t speak for one week. I forgive him because he is embarrassed trying to tell me he doesn’t know what to do about us. He can’t bring himself to say ‘herpes’. He doesn’t know what to do about ‘you know what I mean Tara’. I don’t know what to do either so I let the dancing girl incident drop. He needs to let off steam. But then one day the security puts a call through to him in his room and I’m there. He pretends the connection is bad, but I could hear her still speaking as he hangs up on her.
“I’m sorry, no we have no openings at the moment. Terrible sorry, try another hotel.” As if. Whose going to call the manager of a hotel at seven in the evening looking for a job.
He accepted me but only so far. And that wasn’t enough. I muster the strength to move on. To find the man who’ll accept me just as I am. Not half way, but fully. Totally. And I marry him.
I must tell him. We are sitting at his table in his kitchen, sipping wine. He says nothing at first and I think maybe he doesn’t understand. Another I don’t want to explain a second time. Time to get my bag. He pours me another glass of champagne. Does that mean I’m staying?
“I’m not an angel myself. I can tell you. I went to prostitutes.”
“Really?”
“Let’s go to the bed and we’ll talk some more.”
“Ok” I must be fucking dreaming.
“Bring your glass, let’s take the rest of the champagne with us.”
“Ok.”
“I feel like I can talk to you”
“You can talk to me. I like talking. I can go on and on and on.” And that’s what we do. We talk the whole night, about everything. About Shaka, about Rhys. He tells me he once got gonorrhoea from and ex. Why do they give these things such awful names?
And I married him. Why? He desired me physically, made a real point about it and well… he accepted me. Question is why am I getting a divorce? Because, well because at the end of all this I have come to realize that my life with herpes is not limited to finding a man who will who’ll love me, want me and accept me just as I am. It’s about finding a man whom I love, whom I desire beyond words, full blown romance and all that, can’t breath when he is in the room, panic attack when he says he is crazy about me and I feel ‘damn me, I love this guy too and I am petrified’. Almost enough to run away from him. Strong enough to thrash it out risking it all, just to come back to the point that life would go on, yeah sure enough, but what a waste of a life it would be. What a sad waste if we aren’t together.
So I find this guy who without putting it too mildly is Mr right. My heart knows, my body knows instantly. My head needs a bit of time convincing. I asked him to write me a couple of lines on the experience and this is what he had to say.
One day the phone rang, it was my best friend, he was best man at my wedding and in dire need of some advice on a sexual matter. He seemed very concerned that he had been dating a woman he was very keen on but she hadn’t told him that she had herpes. I asked if he had contracted it and he confirmed that he had. I then asked him “what’s the problem you wish to speak about?” “Herpes,” he said. “I’ve got herpes and I feel so dirty.” “Feel dirty?” I asked. “Why would you feel dirty? I’ve had shingles and as far as I know it’s another form of herpes except it’s not generally transmitted by having sex. It’s a virus that travels along the nerve system, so really you have shingles of the genitals. So what’s the problem? He still seemed to despair and thought I was taking the issue too casually. No matter how I tried to explain how unimportant it was, if he truly cared for this woman there were worse things in life he should deal with it the best he can and get on with living.
Maybe I was not very sympathetic and maybe because it was not me it didn’t seem all that important. Well, as throughout life one never knows what’s around the next corner. I was about to get a taste of being in my friend’s shoes. 2007 was about to change my life. I met a lovely lady who immediately set my heart racing. Christy came to me a little shy, I have something to tell you of importance. What’s the problem I asked? Christy said, I have herpes and although I don’t think I am infectious you should know. So what’s the problem I asked, if you mean the herpes, I don’t have a problem with that. I love her and my attitude towards herpes remains there are worse things in life.
So there ends this odyssey. All I can say is using those borrowed words of Garth Brooks.
And now I’m glad I didn’t know the way it all would end
The way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance.
This journey hasn’t been easy. Far from it. But pain was a way of bringing forth understanding and wisdom.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know the pain.
PS. One does not need sex. It’s amazing what celibacy can do for one’s insight. I’ve gone four years without it, prior to that the spell was broken only to conceive. And I am a very passionate and sexually open individual. My boyfriend said one month ago, “it just seems like such a waste that you’ve been unable to share all this passion”. (Referring to my ability to come and come and come again over and over….) And I said, “it never bothered me, however if you were to leave my life now, it probably would.” Life gives to you when you don’t want it anymore. So let’s relax. Let’s not compromise. Work on yourself, read The Teachings of Buddha, and what is yours shall know your face. And remember – there is still eliminating to do, even from those who do not run. Don’t sell your self short.
©Christy Charles July 2007
If this article has interested you you may want to read the book THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE. A wonderfully written story of a young girl quest to find a man who’ll accept her just as she is. That is with a sexually transmitted disease.
“She has a secret, one she must tell every man she meets until she finds the one who won’t run when he hears it. A true story of an island girl against the hurricane force winds of her fate”
* Permission was granted by Christy Charles to post on the Sexual Health Buzz blog ~ Angela ~ Be sure and check out the rest of the Herpes Stories, ok?
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