Waiting for an STI result can be a confronting time for anyone. Greg Page relates a personal tale of hot sex, hot crotches and hot trashy magazines in his doctor’s waiting room as he waits to find out what comes next.
[4]Illustration: JP GilmourDoctor’s waiting rooms, as we all know, can be uncomfortable places. They can be even more uncomfortable when you have this burning, itching sensation in your crotch that you know isn’t just the rub from that new Colt jockstrap you purchased last week, the new “09” logo Aussie Bums you ordered online, or a reaction to that bottle of talcum powder that your Aunt Mavis gave you as a Christmas gift two years ago and you started using because it slightly eased your suffering “down below”.
Every three months it’s the same thing. Firstly, I have to try and get an appointment with my doctor. He’s a busy guy – he’s only in the surgery three days a week because he has golf one day a week and the other day, well, apparently that’s his “off day”.
Then there’s always the waiting. I make an appointment for 10.30am, so I show up promptly at 10.28am. Invariably I am told: “Doctor’s just running a bit behind today – it might be a good idea to go and get a coffee.” The getting of a coffee, which takes ten minutes, helps keep me occupied for the next hour or so. So does reading the dog-eared copies of Who Weekly, OK!, NW and Famous that are strewn across the table in the waiting room. So far I know all of Rihanna’s darkest secrets, why Lindsay Lohan has gone on a grapefruit diet to please her lesbian lover and why Suri Cruise (that’s Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter to you) is desperate to have play days with Kingston (Gwen Stefani and Gavin Ross’ son), as well as Shiloh Nouvel (one of Ange’n’Brad’s many sprog). To be honest, it’s brain-numbingly depressing to be so well-informed on things that matter so little in the big picture.
I put the trashy mags down and think back over the last three months to more pleasant matters. I had some damn hot sex, actually. That makes me smile. It also goes some way to make up for that infernal burning sensation that just makes me want to run a steel-pronged comb through my pubes. I think of the sexy guy I met online with a mysterious accent, skin the colour of a double-shot latte and the body of some Israeli soldier who does porn movies on his weekends off from the Gaza Strip. Sigh. Then there was the American couple I met at the sauna in the hot tub. So chatty, so friendly and, OMG!, so well-hung. When they invited me upstairs to a private cabin for “some fun” I could barely contain my excitement under my towel. I kinda think they liked that.
Then there was the sexy Aboriginal flight attendant with the killer butt who just kept begging me to come around and ride his Virgin Airways. So I did, on a regular basis.
Which brings us to my regular testing and this doctor’s waiting room. It’s time to get my bloods done and also to get my full STI test too. That’s a standard. Last time round I did it, everything was fine. I think even my doctor was surprised, especially when he asked me how many sexual partners I had had in the last three months and I took a few moments to count them in my head (two hands with only ten fingers weren’t really an option). When I said: “Roughly 50”, he peered over his glasses at me as if he were going to chastise me, and then simply said: “Well, I remember what it was like to be single once!” And then I was free to go.
This time round though I’m dreading the worst. Some STIs are pretty common, like gonorrhoea which, let’s face it, few gay men in Sydney have even managed to escape getting at least once or thrice. There’s also the looming specter of syphilis, which I’m reliably informed had pretty much been eradicated in Sydney until the Gay Games brought thousands of horny gay athletes and their admirers to town and then it just snowballed again from there. See, I always knew that sport was in some way detrimental to your health!
Oh, my doctor is calling my name. Time to go in and face the music.
He sits me down. “Just the usual then?” he quips in that “I’m-a-doctor-so-I-can-make-lame-jokes” kind of way. I said, “Yes, my bloods and a full STI test to go, thanks!”
And we begin. Blood first. I chew on a tic tac to help stop me from thinking of all my precious blood being siphoned off into greedy little vials that will go to some pathology clinic hidden away in some building somewhere and never been seen again, except as a few remarks and numbers on a piece of paper that will be returned to my doctor within three working days.
“Do I need to do throat and anal swabs?” he asks as we wrap up my blood-to-vial transfusion.
“Yes,” is all I can manage, but then feel myself weaken, as I always do in the presence of someone who has a degree in medicine with a framed piece of paper in their office to prove it. “I think I may have something because it’s been pretty irritated in my crotch the last few days.” My doctor gets me to go and pee in a jar (“Middle stream and half full, please!”) and then swabs me from my throat and my butt. Feeling that cool bit of instrumentation pinching my anal cavity is also a kind of rude shock –you think you may be getting something more, and something more exciting, but it’s just a little pinch and then it’s all over. Kind of like very bad group sex, really, where someone tries to get it up and fuck you and then goes soft at just the wrong moment.
“We’ll have the results in three days,” he remarks flatly whilst getting me to do the most important thing – sign the form so I can claim the bulk billing and he can pay for his next imported golf putter, presumably. There’s not much I can do in the next few days except wait and put up with the discomfort. I realise that it’s not wise to be having sex with anyone at this stage, so I borrow some porn off a mate. “Twinks, hunks, or dirty?” he asks without so much as blinking an eye. I won’t tell you which one I opt for, except to say that it wasn’t twinks or hunks!
“So why do you need porn anyways?” he asks me in a questioning tone. ‘I thought you always said that it was the saddest thing in the world to make love with you best friend, which in your case would be your right hand!”
“Doctor’s orders,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“I see,” he replied knowingly. “Well, just after Mardi Gras I had to go sex cold turkey for a fortnight after I caught gonorrhoea in my throat from sucking this guy off at the party in the women’s toilets. I swear I didn’t have sex with anyone else that weekend – I was too trashed – so it must have been him. The worst thing is that I didn’t even swallow!” I giggle, but find myself scratching my pubes at the same time.
A day later my doctor calls, late in the day, as per usual, and in his usual brisk manner.
“Your results came back positive for syphilis, so you need to come and see the nurse tomorrow to get your first penicillin shot,” he informs me. I remember how unpleasant this experience is. I had to do it once before about five years ago when I caught it from my partner – it was our first (and last) threesome. We originally thought the rash was because we’d had sex at the beach and gotten sandy cracks, but it actually was much worse than that. Thankfully, although the actual shots for syphilis are mightily unpleasant, they are also mightily effective.
At least I know why I’ve been so irritable and I’m in fine company, according to Wikipedia, which notes that Hitler, Mussolini and Al Capone were all alleged to have had syphilis. It also tells me that dementia and mental illness are late stage symptoms of it as well. Charming.
I make my appointment for the nurse for as early as possible. I also tell myself that I’m never having sex again and only sticking to porn, voyeurism and gardening. Still, I know myself and within a few weeks (possibly days), I’ll be off the wagon again and looking for love in all the wrong places. Hopefully, this time I won’t be scratching, itching and rubbing myself in the worst possible way afterwards. Wish me luck – and see you in the doctor’s waiting room again in three months! I can’t wait to find out what new, LA-style diet Lindsay Lohan has jumped on the bandwagon of next!