on Sharing, Maybe Even Too Much
This story has since been featured in Chicagoist.
Our third or fourth time in bed together she bit her lip and said she had a confession to make. I tensed up and cupped my nuts protectively to prepare for possible bombshells: crabs, herpes, warts, a psychotic ex, a nameless rash. But it was none of that. Instead she said, “I’m not really single. I have a boyfriend.”
A boyfriend! Was I angry? Hell no. I felt like I had won a Get Out of Jail Free ticket. I pinched myself, then her, then myself again and wondered what I’d done to deserve such good fortune.
I was 21 years old and not looking for anything even remotely serious. I also didn’t know the boyfriend, so, you know, fuck that guy. This was hardly a scandal in my book.
Still, the thought of possibly having some disease ravaging my genitals lingered in my mind long after I left her apartment. I laid awake on most nights thinking about it. I turned down dates. I rebuffed advances. I made the sign of the cross before pissing every morning. Weeks later and without a single symptom, I decided that I had to find out.
Awkwardly walking into the clinic and covering as much of my face as possible with a baseball cap, I check in and fill out some paperwork, I briefly speak with a nurse. She hands me a container and a small bottle of water, then directs me into a room and tells me how much of the cup I need to fill. She points at the line marker and says, “Fill it up to at least this line right here. See me when you’re done.” She exits and shuts the door behind her.
Now, there are a few things that you should know before I continue. Some basic thoughts going on in my 21-year old tiny Homer Simpson brain while standing alone in this room. At this precise moment in my life, I was certain of only three things:
I was eager to find out if my life was ruined, and wanted this experience over and my results back as quickly as possible.
I had not studied for a single college exam or researched any term paper in years, let alone Google how one properly gets tested for an STD.
At the end of every sexual encounter, I was usually wiping semen off of someone.
I look at the cup, down at my junk, back at the cup, unzip my pants, and get to work.
If you were to look at the immediate care building from outside at this very moment, you would see a perfect grid of steel and glass divided off into square rooms. Inside each of those rooms would be someone who’s smart and sensible, confidently urinating into their plastic cup knowing exactly how one properly gets an STD test. Except for one little square in the grid where a 21 year-old Mexican kid is furiously masturbating into his own plastic cup, looking up at the ceiling and silently saying, “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” And asking nobody in sight silent, mimed questions like, “What am I doing here? What the fuck am I going to do if this thing comes back positive? Goddamn, do they really need this much?”
Seven minutes later, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve finished. I pull my pants up from around my ankles, zip up, then notice that I have only filled about 10% of the minimum needed. I drop my pants and get back to work. I’m in this room for probably 35-40 minutes. It took like four sessions for me to get maybe ¼ of the cup filled, nowhere near the marked line. I give up. I cannot continue. I am simply out of semen. I crack the small bottle of water open and take a sip. Boy, am I parched.
It takes a lot for me to get embarrassed. I’ve had people walk in on me taking a dump; I’ve been barged in on during sexy time; I’ve waved back at people who were waving at someone else; I’ve struck out at improv classes and open mics. Those moments seem like nice, little vacations when compared to handing a registered nurse a cup of my own semen when she wasn’t expecting it.
After setting my sample on the counter, she begins to enter my information into her little computer database thingy. She looks over at the container while typing, then back to her screen, then back to the container. After a brief pause, she grabs the cup and brings it right up to her face to get a better look. Upon realizing what happened, she drops the cup in shock. Thank the Lord Almighty it didn’t spill open right then and there. She picks it up, composes herself and waves me over, asking that I lean in real close.
“Sweetie, I don’t know what you were thinking, don’t want to know what you were thinking. I need a urine sample. That’s how we … that’s … oh, baby, what were you thinking?”
“Well you didn’t you properly explain what I was supposed to do! This isn’t my fault! Show me in your little pamphlets where it says to piss in this thing! Go ahead, I dare you! I come in and fill out paperwork and you take me to some room without any direction. I don’t know what’s going on! I was raised Catholic! You’re preaching condoms to a guy who was brought up on abstinence! I mean, what the fuck! Also… also, while I have you here, what you’re saying is that you can’t run the test with this? So I still need to pee in a cup? Oh, ok. Ok, got it. Then may I please get a new cup, because this one is ruined.”