Heart Emoji Guy: A New Way to Break Me, Part Three

 

Part of how I'm dealing with my oversize herpes emotions is

painting abstractions of the virus under a microscope. Pretty?

The unmatching that night seemed so mild, so good-natured, that I guess I forgot to block his number after the date.

But then, the following Wednesday, four days after our pleasant and cordial mismatch, I woke up from a dreamy morning nap to see that Heart Emoji Guy had texted. No heart emojis this time:

“So you called me there to infect me with herpes? what the fuck is wrong with you?

You got the wrong one, I am not the one.”

I’m not sure why I wrote back, but I did. I wanted to stand up for myself a little, to let the ashamed teen self at the core of this issue know I’m still on her/my side.

“I hope I can find someone who is less stigmatizing about STIs. I still deserve to be kissed, just as you deserve to have your limits too.”

I cried on and off all morning. The kitten was sleeping by my face and I got tears all over her. I felt sad for myself having to field this weird freakout, but also felt sad got HEG, for all the guys who get tangled in Reddit threads or something and decide women only exist to trick and harm them. I cried on my cat because we all have to be so afraid of each other all the time. It’s so hard and it’s not fair.

I blocked HEG, but he borrowed a phone:

“Kiss you n get herpes, you damn fuck?

Only thing you deserve is an ass whooping.

That’s why you are an ugly looser, you stupid fuck..

Karma

I know where you live..”

The 2/3 elipses kind of undermined the menace. I cannot overemphasize how sweet and mild this guy was in person. This is one of the worst things about dating—violence can come out of nowhere and there’s no etiquette, no strategy, no kindness or finesse can keep potential partners from exploding into shame bombs. I know I’ve done it myself, though without the threats. Still, I’m sorry with my whole heart. Shame bombs can go right to hell.

Herpes is such a common, minor thing, it’s so stupid for people to get so upset about it. It’s a virus nearly everyone could be carrying, but that doesn’t matter. They’re GOING to freak out about it sometimes, and I don’t want to be in denial about that anymore.

So I went where I often go when I’m struggling with being a good citizen of sex: Planned Parenthood. There, the nice nurse practitioner lady told me its fine to kiss if I haven’t had an outbreak on my face!

I’d thought about doing daily Valtrex to eliminate the worry a little bit, but the nice lady told me that according to the CDC, there’s no evidence that that would reduce transmission of HSV-1. She gave me a prescription to keep on hand in case I have am outbreak again.

“We all worry about our bodies.” She said.

I’m so grateful for her! I’m so grateful for the couple of dates who have kissed me with abandon post-disclosure. I’m so grateful for the epic, transformative, transcendent kisses I’ve experienced in the past. I took a break from swiping for a week or so, but my inbox is getting back to full again.

One disclosure at a time.

One date at a time.

Staying hopeful is the best and most that I can do.

Actual Casual Sex Part Two: A Lot to Think About

“Do you have a condom?” I asked as we started to aim for upstairs.

“No, do you have any? I mean, you said you hadn’t been fucked in a long time so I didn’t think we’d need one.”

“I mean yeah but I’m not crazy!”

(Seriously people, it’s basically legal to bounty-hunt abortion seekers in Texas these days, is there anything LESS HOT than trying to shirk safer sex? There might be one thing less hot, stay tuned.)

He admitted he *might* have a condom in the car so I smacked his ass and sent him out the door to go get it. I felt impatient and not exactly hopeful.

But yay! He had one and we went upstairs.

“Okay I want you to kneel down.” He wasn’t so much dominating as he was gently instructional.

It was nice to have a dick in my mouth again after aaaaaalllll this time. I really missed the taste (Didn’t make him have the condom on for this part, probably I should have.) and the fullness in my throat.

“Deeper now,” he said, guiding my head with his hand. The tip of his dick hit that part of my throat that makes me feel a little squirty and a little scared. I gagged in a way that I didn’t mind but that definitely shifted me away from my own room and into porn-mind.

“I want you to spit on it.” Yeah no. I ignored that request and I humbly ask that everybody look at porn just maybe slightly less.

Realizing I wasn’t going to be spitting on anything, he shifted to helping me do the best possible job, which I really appreciated. Love any time spent getting better at penises, learning about angles and rhythms and…

“Okay now I want to see how tight that pussy is. Take your pants off and get to the edge of the bed.”

Ahhhhhhhhhh he felt sooooo good. We fit together so nicely and he was both confident and competent enough that I didn’t have to worry about a single thing in the entire world for a few minutes.

“Move back onto the bed, I want to fuck you right.” And ohyes, he did. I hung onto the bars of the headboard and made all the noise and felt. Just. Relief. Welcome, hooray, thank you.

He started talking about how he was going to take the condom off and come inside me though, so I said “Wait, what?!” and wriggled out from under him until he convinced me it was fine, it was on, he was just talking shit.

(Again! So gross! Be a good citizen of sex!)

A lot of his talk was so much fun though:

“You deserve this. You said you haven’t been fucked since 2018? Tell me about 2018.”

“It was…this guy...from down the street…and we liked to watch…Gilmore Girls…afterward we…argued about the…midterm elections…”

And:

“You like this, don’t you? You watch a lot of porn, don’t you.”

“No just a little…Hentai… once in a while…I don’t…really need it…I have a good imagination…”

And:

“I love all this hair you have on your pussy. Don’t shave, do you understand me?”

(Okay points for that but I probably would shave for The Coach if he asked me nicely.)

And:

“This pussy is mine now, right?”

“Um, no. It’s actually mine.”

But then there was this moment that I can’t quite get my head around. Now, I don’t mind being objectified as a white woman, that seems totally fair, a little bit satisfying and corrective. And I should not be in the business of yucking anybody’s yum or getting protective of a grown man while he is CLEARLY having a good time.

But:

“You like that. You like that n****r dick don’t you? It’s okay, you can say it.”

After I winced and looked away, he dialed it back to “You like that big, black dick, don’t you.”

“We don’t need to make it about race.”

(Okay. I am attracted to black guys (and also, white guys are fucking terrifying) but I also spend maybe too much time worrying that they’ll think I’m fetishizing them, that I’m Allison Williams from Get Out. I should think a whole bunch about this later but first let’s finish the scene.)

After that jarring/heartbreaking moment, we got back on track.

“Okay are you ready? Can I fuck you harder now?”

“Oh yes PLEASE.”

It felt so good to wrap my arms around his big sexy strong arms, his muscular shoulders, to kiss him one more time and feel him let go inside me.

And then he was dressed so fast. He made noises about owing me cuddling another time, but I knew I wasn’t going to take him up on it. I put my pants back on the come down and lock him out.

In a warm, fuzzy, kinda-shocked-at-myself daze, there was exactly one person I wanted to talk to about this. Not super-advisable, but my guard was all the way down so I texted The Coach.