The Lie

by Chad Kultgen

  I woke up the next morning to find Annika still asleep in my bed. I had experienced something with her, with this prostitute, that I had never experienced with any other girl. I left the island knowing that I would think about her often and hoping that I might see her again on my next trip to Viking’s Resort.

  The flight back was uneventful. There was a girl sitting next to me who obviously had no idea who I was, and I thought about striking up a conversation with her about where she was going and where she was coming from just so I could tell her about my stay at Viking’s Resort. Instead I slept like a baby all the way back to DFW.

  chapter four

  After what I did to Erin, something changed in me. I felt ashamed of what I had done to her and I despised myself for being capable of doing something like that. But I couldn’t change it. I thought about Heather a lot and about how I used to think about relationships and love and I started to think that I finally knew what Brett was talking about. I hated that I couldn’t go back to believing in love and believing in the possibility of there being a girl out there who could make me happy.

  I felt like I’d found that girl, and she turned out to be exactly what Brett always said she was, a fucking cunt who only cared about money and status and all of that shit. And every girl I walked past on campus made me think that somewhere there was a guy who she’d dump if he ever gave her a cubic zirconia. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind that they were all the same. And I think in retrospect that’s probably why I treated Erin so badly. She represented the one girl who clearly wasn’t like Heather, the one girl who actually did love me through it all and knowing that was the case was stopping me from feeling the absolute hatred for all women I needed to feel to get over Heather. I was so fucked up, and I hated Heather for doing it to me.

  I was glad Brett was back from his trip to Whore Island. I thought if I hung out with him it might take the edge off how shitty I was feeling about everything, maybe lessen the contempt I was feeling for pretty much every woman on the planet.

  The day he came back, I met him at the fountain outside Dallas Hall as one of his classes was getting out and we sat down so he could tell me all the twisted details of his vacation. It was a pretty insane story. He kept insisting that I would have loved it. I kept telling him that I didn’t think I would have because it seemed disgusting to me—not the idea of whores, but knowing that a million other dicks have been where you’re putting yours. Once he got through all of the stories of the different girls he’d had sex with he said, “So on the last day, man, I actually did something really fucking stupid.”

  I said, “What?”

  He said, “I was drunk and not thinking and I nailed this whore bareback.”

  I said, “Are you fucking serious?”

  He said, “Yeah, I know. Stupid, right?”

  I said, “Yeah, really stupid, man.”

  He said, “I know, I know. I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear, though. I’ve been over it a million times in my head. If she’s pregnant I don’t think there’d be any way to trace it back to me. With the number of guys she probably fucks it’s pretty unlikely they’d call up every guy who’s been to the island over the past month and make them submit to paternity tests, right?”

  I said, “Pregnancy is the least of your problems, man. What about fucking AIDS?”

  He said, “These whores were clean.”

  I said, “You realize you just said, ‘These whores were clean’? Whores, man. They’re whores.”

  He said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m getting tested tomorrow. I’m sure I’m fine, but I know you’re right and I’m getting tested.”

  I said, “Jesus Christ, good luck.”

  He said, “Thanks. So what’d you do while I was getting AIDS?”

  I said, “I fucked Erin.”

  He said, “Oh fucking shit. You’re getting back together with her, aren’t you, you asshole?”

  I said, “No.”

  He said, “You just hit it and quit it?”

  I said, “It was weird. I went over there a few nights ago, drunk.”

  He said, “Nice.”

  I said, “And I told her what she wanted to hear just so I could fuck her basically.”

  He said, “Welcome to being a man, finally.”

  I said, “It wasn’t because I was horny or anything, though. I just wanted to do something vile to her because she was the last girl who really loved me, I guess, and I wanted to ruin that.”

  He said, “Who in the fuck are you?”

  I said, “I’m being serious, man.”

  He said, “So am I. That’s some bold shit. So after you fucked her, did you just leave or did you stick around?”

  I said, “I came in her face and then left before she came out of the bathroom. She called me a few times but I never answered or called her back.”

  He said, “And the student becomes the master.”

  I said, “I think I finally get what you’ve been saying about girls all along.”

  He said, “Kyle, I know this is going to seem like I want to fuck you or something, but I don’t. Your cathartic rebirth into the age of reason should excite me but it’s actually kind of weird, man. I don’t know how I feel about the new you. I get that you got dumped by Heather, but you might be taking this whole thing a little far. I don’t know how well it suits you.”

  I said, “I don’t give a shit if it suits me. I just want to hurt any girl I can before she does it to me, I guess.”

  He said, “Okay. Okay. That’s valid, I suppose. I guess I just question what’s behind all this. I know I’m not one to be talking here. I’ve done more foul shit to bitches than anyone, but before you sink down to my level make sure it’s what you want. I always kind of liked the fact that you believed in love and all that stupid shit, and let me tell you something, there is a point of no return in this. You can only treat women like pure shit so many times before that’s all you can do.”

  I said, “That’s all I want to do.”

  He said, “Okay,” whipped out his cell phone and dialed a number, then said, “Maybe you can watch me give this stupid cunt AIDS in my Jacuzzi.”

  chapter five

  It was a few days after I had sex with Brian that I was walking by Dallas Hall, which I like rarely did but they made some error on my course schedule and I had to go to the registration office and deal with this stupid bullshit. So I was walking by Dallas Hall when I saw Kyle for the first time since we had broken up. I got like cold sweats and I got jittery and I just felt like really weird. I didn’t think I would have had that kind of a reaction to seeing him. I would have thought it would have been more like pure rage and like I’d want to go over and kick him in the balls for being such an asshole, but it wasn’t like that.

  He was sitting by the fountain talking to Brett, who I also hadn’t seen in a long time. I thought he was going to be at the party that I had sex with Brian at, but I don’t think he ever showed up. I heard that he was the new ATO president, which was cool. I thought about stopping by and saying hi to Brett and just like totally ignoring Kyle but that seemed like it would be bitchy. And also I wasn’t sure if Kyle was like mad at me or what his deal was. I mean, I knew he was like having sex with all of like the grossest skanks from every sorority on campus, but I didn’t really know what his deal was in terms of how he felt about me. So I just kept walking.

  I tried to walk close enough to hear what they were talking about without them seeing me, but that was too hard so I just walked by without hearing what they were saying.

  When I got to the registration office I had to wait for like forty-five minutes because I guess there were a lot of people in the elementary education program who had this same class screwed up on their schedules. So I had to sit in the waiting room for a long time.

  I thought a lot about Kyle and about how when I saw him again I remembered that he was kind of cute and he was a pretty nice guy. I wondered if he would want to get back together, not that I would actually
ask him or anything, but I just wondered if he would ever even think about doing it. I figured if I still hadn’t found a new boyfriend by the time there was like two or three weeks left that year I would just call him up and be like, “Hey, I’m sorry, we should totally get back together,” and I would just have to deal with the fake ring until he could get me a real one. I mean I wanted a real ring and everything, but once we graduated it probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Like I probably wouldn’t be dealing with any of my sisters or anything after graduation so nobody that I would be seeing on a daily basis would know it was fake or anything. Whatever. I was basically just killing time by thinking about stupid shit I guess.

  I wondered what would have happened to me if I had never seen Kyle talking to Brett that one day our freshman year. Like if I would have ended up with some other guy who was really cool or something. Then I started thinking about all of the guys in the different frats and there weren’t really any guys who were better than Kyle in terms of personality. They all had like way more money and were cooler and everything but they were all kind of assholes who cheated on their girlfriends or did weird shit like Brian did. Kyle actually wasn’t a bad boyfriend at all and he would probably have even been a good husband, but he gave me a fucking fake ring. It’s like, how do you even get around that? I think I would probably dump Johnny Depp if he gave me a fake ring, unless he like made it himself or something weird like that, which I could totally see him doing.

  The more I thought about it, the more it seriously pissed me off. Like Kyle and I could have been totally happy together. Up until the ring I really did love him. Why did he have to give me a fake fucking ring? Even if he would have just gotten me a smaller ring and said he was going to replace it later, that would have been a lot easier to deal with than a fake ring he was going to lie to me about for the rest of our relationship. What a fucking idiot.

  Anyway, whatever. Everything turned out like it turned out and now I’m much better off, but I remember sitting in that registration office just wishing he hadn’t fucked everything up so bad.

  chapter six

  Every six weeks I was required to take a blood test in order to remain a viable candidate for sperm donation. As luck would have it, the end of one of my six-week intervals coincided with my return from Viking’s Resort. Two days after my return, in fact, I was tested, and roughly a week later I was scheduled to visit the South Texas Fertility and Family Medical Center to donate. I had received no notification from them to indicate that I shouldn’t come in so I assumed my test results had yielded a clean bill of health.

  I arrived at the Fertility Center, entered suite 602 just as I had done dozens of times before, and noticed there was a new woman behind the desk in addition to the one who had been there since I started my donations three years prior. I said my hellos and signed in. I waited the ten minutes or so I usually waited for someone to tell me which of the donation rooms I’d be in, and instead a nurse came out whom I had never met and told me that a Dr. Greene would now see me. I obviously became aware of the fact that something was not good. I hoped I was not HIV-positive, despite my jokes about AIDS.

  Dr. Greene, it seemed, was one of two actual MDs who worked daily in the Family Medical Center, more specifically in the sperm donation portion of the center. He explained to me many things that I already knew. He explained that they are required to do mandatory blood tests every six weeks for recurring donors. He explained to me that this ensures the health of any children born using a donor’s sperm. He explained to me that engaging in high-risk behavior is not something the South Texas Fertility and Family Medical Center recommends for current or prospective sperm donors. And then he explained something to me that I was not yet aware of.

  My blood test had come back positive for herpes simplex virus type 2, more commonly known as genital herpes. Dr. Greene further explained to me that although the South Texas Fertility and Family Medical Center was grateful to me for all I had done in order to help people who desperately wanted children but were unable to produce their own, they would no longer be able to accept my services in the future due to the results of my latest blood test. He thanked me for my time and gave me a pamphlet entitled “Take Charge: Don’t Let Genital Herpes Stop You from Living Your Fullest Life,” which featured a man and a woman on the cover lying in the grass next to each other smiling as though they were having the best time of their lives even though the implication was that one or both of them had genital herpes. Dr. Greene shook my hand and explained to me that there was a number on the back of the pamphlet I could call if I had any questions or needed anyone to talk to. Then he stood up from his desk and showed me out.

  I sat in my car flipping through the pamphlet for a few minutes. I was surprised at my own reaction to this development. I was aware that herpes did nothing to you physically; that is, it posed no real health risk in terms of a disease. Of the sexually transmitted diseases that were incurable it was easily the best to get. The others all resulted in malfunctioning genitals, blindness, death, et cetera. Herpes, though, wasn’t actually that bad. The pamphlet I read claimed that one in four people had it. I was unsure if this statistic was drastically inflated to make the readers of such a pamphlet feel better about their situation or if it was true. In either case I found I didn’t really care all that much about my brand-new case of herpes. I was disappointed, of course, to learn that I could never donate sperm again, but I had done well in my three-plus years of donation. I had seventeen known offspring who had been registered on the Donor Sibling Registry, and I’m sure there were others who were unaware of the website. I could take pride in the numbers I had already accumulated.

  Furthermore, as I drove back to the Alpha Tau Omega house I realized that I had an entirely new weapon in my arsenal against whores. Gone were the days when the most degrading act I could force a whore to perform involved eating her own feces or eating my feces. A whole new era had dawned for me. Now any act that involved unprotected sex with me delivered with it a chance to be infected with genital herpes. I would make this fact known to every girl who wanted to fuck me, and it was my prediction that this would stop none of them from going through with whatever act I demanded of them. Even if I were in the middle of the most heinous outbreak in history with herpes blisters covering every inch of my cock, I surmised that the whores at SMU would suck my dick, take it in their asses, and even let me blow a load in their cunts, because herpes or not I was still my father’s son.

  When I got back to campus, I called Kyle. He had expressed concern about the results of my test. I told him that I had herpes but that it wasn’t as dire as it might seem. He placed far greater weight on the scenario than was warranted. I assured him that I was fine and that it would not impact our friendship or my life.

  After Kyle, my next call was to a girl I had fucked once before who had been in the same sorority as Heather her freshman year but then dropped out of Greek life after having a bad experience with ecstasy and alcohol that left her hospitalized for twenty-four hours. I remember her specifically telling me that she had read many articles about my father and about my family and thought we were the equivalent of Dallas royalty. Her name was Kaitlin. I asked her to come over and she obliged.

  Once she arrived, I took her to my room and made the necessary small talk for the necessary amount of time and then started kissing her. She offered no resistance so I took off all of her clothes and all of mine. I stood before her wishing to display a cock that was covered in red blisters, but I had yet to suffer my first outbreak. I wondered briefly what that experience would be like. Then I explained to Kaitlin that I had contracted genital herpes. I further told her that I refused to use a condom and that I wanted to fuck her in the ass.

  She bargained with me, which was unexpected. She claimed that if she was willing to risk getting herpes then I should risk getting her pregnant so she could potentially at least have a chance to be the mother of my child. Her ultimate offer included her allowing me to fuck he
r without a condom in any and all holes I wanted, but I had to cum in her cunt.

  I laughed at her and told her to leave my room. Unprepared for my hardball tactics she acquiesced and allowed me to fuck her in the ass unprotected and then shoot my load on her tits and face. As she was getting dressed she asked me if I really had herpes. I told her I did. She claimed she thought it was just some weird role-play thing I was doing. I assured her it was not.

  As she left she asked me if she could get herpes even though I wasn’t in the middle of an outbreak. She claimed to have read something that indicated the virus was not transmittable unless the carrier was in the midst of a full-blown outbreak. I told her that I thought her information was correct, that she most likely hadn’t contracted herpes from me, but, of course, I hoped she had.

  Before she went I made her a deal that when I was experiencing my first full-blown outbreak, I would call her and I would fuck her in the cunt if she still desired such an act. I was careful with my wording of this deal, to leave room for myself to still pull out and blow a load in her face, but she seemed satisfied with the terms and told me to call her when I got my first visible outbreak.

  It was almost unreal to me how far these whores were willing to go in order to have a chance to be a part of my family, to be a part of what my father’s father had created. Not that any woman has ever had the same drive or industriousness as a man, but it was shocking to me on that day how blatant the female desire to achieve material wealth without working for it was.