Features

HERPES her pain

I NEVER THOUGHT it would happen to me. Things like this happen to the sluts, 'the walking mattress' my girlfriend and I would term them. You know the type, the girl who had a new boyfriend every other day. But not me. My Herpes test came back positive and as the tears ran down my face, Dr. Walton told me "It's not the end of the world."

Approximately 40% of Jamaicans it is believed have Herpes." I have never been 40% of anything in my life. I have always been an A-student, worked for and got everything I wanted and wished. I could have dealt with anything else, even a baby, but Herpes, a disease! I had been a good girl. Raised in a devoutly Christian home in Mandeville, my dad was a pastor, I was sheltered and shielded from sex.

When I got on to the University of the West Indies Mona campus I can safely say that the only thing I knew about sex was the exact placement of the vagina and the penis. Afterwards my sexual activity came by way of my friends. They told me all about the great sex they were having. One of my really good friends had fallen in love with somebody who felt the same way about her. It was really beautiful to behold.

The wrong somebody

In my desire for that kind of intense relationship, I met somebody, the wrong somebody, I lost my virginity to him and found out when it was too late, it was a bet on Chancellor Hall's Block 'Aye' to see who would get the virgin. After that, I plunged head, heart and body into schoolwork. Boys were now a distraction. For my efforts I graduated from UWI with a First Class Honours B.A degree. I started working the week after I left school in Public Relations, things were going great.

One day I stopped at Twin Gates Pharmacy to pick up some magazines and while standing in line the physical manifestation of tall, dark and handsome walked in. For the first time in my life a man left me breathless. He noticed me as I was noticing him and walked right up to me. It took him a whole minute and a half to get my phone number.

We began dating almost immediately. He was great. He was the perfect boyfriend. He was in a good job that unfortunately had him travelling a lot. He had ambitions and plans for the future - all of which I hoped included me. I honestly thought they did. We started having sex. Things I thought I would never do, they were too freaky, he got me to do them. I had released my inhibitions, let down my guard. He told me he hated condoms and we were in a relationship, why should we need them. I thought well "You're right, why should we need them?"

However, I never went to his house, and I never had his home number, only his cell and office number. I asked my friend about it and she told me, that he was hiding something. "Either he is a serial killer and store the body dem at him yard, or he is a serial cheater and have di wife at him yard," she said. It caused a huge argument.

When I did ask him why was it that in a year of being together I had never been to his house he told me all sort of things. He lived in Spanish Town and I lived in Kingston, so it was more convenient; and he lived with a female housemate who he said loved to gossip and all sort of explanations.

One day he took me over there. It was at night, we made love and he took me home early in the morning. He took me to his house two more times after that, but just to pick up stuff for work. Then there was Valentine's Day. I got a huge bouquet from him, but I never saw him that day - he had to work he said.

Surprise

For his birthday, I decided I was going to surprise him. I turned up at his home unannounced, wearing the sexiest dress I owned and in my 'overnight' bag were sexy lingerie and a bottle of Champagne. The grille was opened and I walked in the doorway, only to see a young woman, sitting in my boyfriend's lap. A few older persons (who I later learnt were his and her parents) were heaping congratulations on them.

I don't know how I left his house, or how I got back to my own. The car outside my door suggested to me that I drove home. I think Jesus himself drove me home that night. A few days later, with not a single call from him, a young woman came to my office. When the receptionist told me her name, I did not recognise it. Having been distracted from work I thought that she might have been a client - so I had her sent up.

Walking through the door was the same young woman who sat in my boyfriend's lap, the night my world came crashing down. We talked. She told me that what I walked in on was their engagement. They had been together for the past five years. He had cheated on her before. He has two children to prove that.

I told her I no longer wanted him. He was all hers. I asked her if she was going to still marry him, she said maybe. Before she left she told me to go to a doctor. He had given her Herpes two years before. My friend took me to her doctor. She actually made the appointment and sat outside while I was being tested. Two weeks later she followed me back to get the results.

The doctor tells me that it could be worse. I could have AIDS. The fact is that as far as I am concerned I do have AIDS. It's the same thing, you cannot be cured from it. That was two years ago. I have had four outbreaks since.

I have not had a boyfriend or sex since then. Who would want me? I am dirty.

K.D. Kingston