by Bert Murray
“I like your earrings.” I stared at her oversize gold hoops.
“Thanks. They were a high-school graduation present from my father. And these, too,” she said, holding up her wrist to show me six silver-and-gold bangle bracelets.
Another rich girl. Elerby seemed to have a lot of them. “Oh, so you’re a Daddy’s girl, huh?” I teased.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she said, grinning. “So, are you here with anyone?”
“Nope. Just me.”
“I felt really weird walking in here without a friend. I just broke up with my boyfriend, and I’m not used to going out by myself.”
“But you’re not really here alone, because you’re meeting a friend.”
Nicole blushed. “Yeah, but like I said, I knew she’d be late.” She finished her beer and looked at my bottle.
I kept staring at her striking green eyes. Something about them fascinated me. All of a sudden, I realized why I was so drawn to them. They were almost like Jasmine’s eyes. More almond-shaped, but still very sexy.
“Want another? My treat,” she said, signaling to Ted.
“Sure. But I got it,” I said, reaching for my wallet.
“No, I insist. After all, you’re keeping me company, remember?” She ordered two beers from Ted and pulled a credit card out of her Coach bag.
“When did you break up with your boyfriend?” I asked, still looking at her eyes.
“About two weeks ago.”
“Why’d you guys break up?”
“He was good-looking, but he had no passion. Hooking up with him was kind of like stamp-collecting. Utterly boring.”
“I just broke up with someone, too. Well, technically, she just broke up with me.”
“Sorry to hear that. But that means you’re available. And that’s a good thing,” she said, smiling.
Her eyes remained on my face. We continued to talk for a half-hour. She spoke about her family. She was the youngest of three sisters and was her father’s favorite. She loved to travel to the Caribbean and was going with friends to Aruba for Christmas break. She seemed fascinated when I told her about what happened with Jasmine and Karl. There was never an awkward silence. Finally, the lights blinked on and off, signaling last call.
“It doesn’t look like your friend made it,” I said, looking around.
She blushed again. “Fine, you caught me. My friend was never coming. I saw you sitting at the bar. I just had to talk to you.”
Her bluntness excited me. No bullshit! She knew what she wanted. I didn’t want her to leave. “So, what do you think about going back to my room?” I wanted her.
Nicole didn’t hesitate. She hopped off her stool and held out her hand for me. “Lead the way.”
We walked back through the quad to my dorm. I put on Abbey Road.
“Wow, my father listens to this kind of music. Sixties stuff. Don’t you have any Duran Duran? Or Madonna? Something new?” she asked.
“Oh, so you’re a ‘material girl,’ huh?” I said, making air quotes.
She smiled. Nicole was hot. I was hard. I leaned over and kissed her. Then I pulled away to gauge her reaction. She put her hand behind my head and pulled me back toward her. I fell on top of her.
For a minute I felt disloyal to Liz. But the kissing was animalistic. I lost myself in the moment. I fumbled with my belt while she pulled down her panties and lifted her skirt. I entered her. She said she had two orgasms. I felt like a total stud.
When we were done, she put her panties back on and gathered her coat and bag. I was shocked that she was leaving so quickly. Not even five words.
“We’ve got to do this again, Calvin.” She headed toward the door.
“Colin,” I said.
She turned around.
“Huh?” she asked.
I was irritated. Hell, she couldn’t even remember my goddamn name. “My name. It’s Colin.”
“Well, Colin, I’m glad we met. I had fun. Like I said, we should do this again.” She walked out of my room.
Sex with Nicole felt cheap. It was cheap.
I missed Jasmine more than ever. And I even missed Liz.
11.
THREE DAYS LATER, Liz called and asked if I wanted to go to her place and watch a movie. I walked to her dorm room, hoping she didn’t know about my night with Nicole. It was hard to keep a secret at Elerby.
“Hey, Stranger,” Liz said, standing by the door. She took my hand, pulling me into the room.
“What are we watching tonight?” I asked, lying on her bed.
Liz sat next to me and played with my hair.
“What do you feel like watching?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Put on whatever makes you happy.”
She smiled. “Okay. Great. I love choosing.” She looked at me affectionately. She got up and walked to the closet. She crouched and began to look through a basket filled with VHS tapes. “How about Rebel Without a Cause? Guys seem to love that movie, and I wouldn’t mind staring at James Dean for an hour and a half.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
She walked to the television and VCR perched on top of her bureau. She popped the tape in and waited for it to rewind. After she hit “play,” she came back to the bed and lay next to me.
The movie hadn’t been on for more than five minutes when we started to make out. She rolled on top of me, and I could feel her grinding against me. Suddenly, she stopped and stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you OK? You seem really distracted.”
“I just have to pee. I’ll be right back. You don’t need to pause the movie. I’ve seen it 10 times.”
I walked out of her room and went to the bathroom. When I began to urinate, I felt a horrible burning sensation. Shit! It was like I was pissing razors. It took me forever to finish, because I had to keep stopping from the pain. I zipped up and walked back to Liz’s room.
Whatever caused the burning couldn’t be anything good. I started to think about all the sex I’d had that semester. Jasmine. Liz. Nicole. Fuck! I didn’t use a condom with Nicole! I probably wasn’t the only guy who’d had a one-night stand with her this semester. But wait, didn’t she say she’d just broken up with her boyfriend? Yeah, she did, so she was probably safe. But wait a minute—what if he had something and gave it to her?
I couldn’t stop worrying. This is all I needed. Had I caught something from Nicole? Or could it have been from Jasmine? I remembered how Jasmine didn’t want to use a condom when we first had sex. If she didn’t want to use one with me, how many other guys did she not use one with? She could have been carrying any fucking disease. Jasmine cheated on me with Karl. And who knows how many girls he’d screwed. Fuck. If I got something because of Karl, it would be so insane. That son of a bitch.
I realized I was driving myself crazy.
“There you are. I was starting to wonder what happened to you,” Liz said when I walked into the room.
“What?” I asked, still lost in thoughts of STDs.
Liz looked puzzled. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry, the bathroom had a long line.”
“Really? How strange. Usually it’s the women’s bathroom that has the lines.”
I lay back down on the bed. Liz rolled on top of me and started to kiss my neck. There was no way I could have sex. My dick hurt too damn much.
“Colin? What’s wrong? I know something’s wrong.”
I didn’t know what to say. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I suddenly got this splitting headache. It came out of nowhere.”
“Oh, you poor thing. I have aspirin. Do you want some?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
Liz walked to her dresser and found a bottle of aspirin in the top drawer. She poured two pills into my hand, and I swallowed them without water. I hoped the aspirin would help with the pain.
“You know what, I think I better go back to my place and lie down,” I said, standing
up.
“You can stay here if you want.”
I knew she didn’t want me to go. I also knew she was worried that she might have done something wrong.
“Thanks, but I just need to lie down in a dark, quiet room. I’ll call you later, OK?” I said, stroking the top of her head.
“Yeah. Feel better. Call me if you need anything. Promise?”
I kissed her forehead and went back to my room. As the night went on, the painful urination got worse. It was torture. I didn’t know what to do. I lay on my floor in the fetal position, praying for the pain to go away.
12.
THE NEXT MORNING, it was better but still there, definitely not gone. I’d taken more aspirin. I went to the health center, which had a reputation for blowing things out of proportion. Students said, “You walk in with a cold but you come out with cancer.”
The receptionist told me there was only about an hour’s wait, which was good considering that the average wait time was 2½ hours. I’d forgotten to bring something to read. While looking around for a magazine, I noticed a large white binder sitting on the side table. On the cover was a note telling students to use the pages to write down feelings and thoughts and make drawings.
I settled back in the metal chair and began to flip through the pages. One student had written a poem about getting pregnant and being scared. Another had sketched a cartoon of President Reagan forgetting where he’d put his jar of jelly beans. On another page somebody had written a prayer, hoping to not have caught an STD from a one-night fling.
There was something comforting about the book. It was filled with glimpses into the lives of hundreds of other students who were scared, confused, sad, even bored. I wasn’t alone.
I picked up the pen that was attached to the binder by a ratty rubber band. I looked for an empty space and added my own words of wisdom for others: “Don’t think with your dick.” It was the best piece of advice I could think of for future generations of Elerby men.
When I got tired of reading about other people’s problems, I returned the binder to the side table and began to pace the room. I lingered by the wall filled with various pamphlets. The headings made my heart race. Crabs. Herpes. Genital warts. Gonorrhea. Chlamydia. Syphilis. What if I had something so bad that I’d be damaged goods? No one would ever want to have sex with me again.
I started to think I had every disease I read about. I felt a fever, cramps, swollen glands and an itchy rash. I had it all. How could so many bad things happen to one person? I grabbed my balls through my jeans. I guess I was just checking to see that they were still there. Then I saw myself in a mirror on the wall and quickly let go.
My name was being called. I prayed to God I didn’t have anything too serious. I swore I’d never have another one-night stand. I took one last look at all the diseases I’d probably contracted and followed the nurse into a small examination room with only one window. She told me to sit on the table. The paper covering crackled as I sat down.
The nurse was a sweet-looking elderly woman with white hair. She wore thick glasses and a black name tag on a chain around her neck. The name tag read “Nurse Ruth Hanson.” She took my temperature, and I breathed a sigh of relief when she said it was normal. My blood pressure and breathing were good, too.
Nurse Hanson then asked if I was sexually active. Wasn’t everyone in college? I told her I was. She asked me how many sexual partners I’d had in the last six months. It was uncomfortable revealing details about my sex life to a woman who looked like my grandmother. She told me I could have genital herpes or chlamydia. I began to sweat. I was scared shitless. I remembered that Karl’s friend Gary from the football team had gotten genital herpes in freshman year. He said it was the worst. It had hurt like hell. And once you got it, you had it for life. I was too young to have that happen to me – what would I do?
Nurse Hanson explained that the doctor would come in to give me a test and I’d get the results in a couple of days. In the meantime, I’d begin taking an antibiotic and some other pill that would help numb the pain.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor finally came in. I held my breath. He muttered hello and immediately picked up my chart. “While you’re here, we might as well test you for all the STDs,” he said, still reading though my file. “Have you ever been tested before for anything?”
I shook my head and Nurse Hanson drew some blood with a large syringe. The doctor opened one of the cabinets and pulled out something that looked like a giant Q-tip.
“We just need to take a swab from your penis. Pull down your pants please,” he said very matter-of-factly.
I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. “Okay.” I couldn’t believe this. It was like a TV movie. Nicole wasn’t worth it. I was terrified.
“Try not to move. It will hurt less,” said the doctor.
Shit! An incredible stinging sensation shot through my dick. The pain I felt urinating was nothing compared with this.
Nurse Hanson walked out of the room with three vials filled with my bright red blood. I felt lightheaded.
“Now we need a urine sample. Go to the bathroom and fill this glass up halfway,” said the doctor.
Was he fucking kidding? He wanted me to pee after what he’d just done? I walked down the hall to the bathroom with the plastic cup in hand. It took me forever to fill it a quarter of the way.
A few miserable days later I got the results. It turned out that I didn’t have chlamydia or herpes. The doctor said it was probably a urinary-tract infection. He told me to continue taking the antibiotic for the full seven days and to come back in if I didn’t feel better. I was euphoric. I had my life back. There was no need to worry about anything anymore. I was clean. No STD at all. At least this nightmare was over. George was right. All things must pass.
13.
A WEEK PASSED. I was completely healthy again. It was 10 at night and I was stretched out on my bed flipping through the latest Rolling Stone. I stopped to read the cover article on Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.
There was a soft knock on the door. I figured it was Liz. I opened it. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Jasmine. Gorgeous as ever.
I lost it. The first thought that went through my head was that I wanted to kiss her. Feel her tender lips against mine. Know her body again. But then reality set in and I remembered everything. The chances of ever spending a night with her again was slim to none.
She was wearing a brown sweater and jeans. Her blond hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, and the tips of her ears were red from being outside. “Hi, Colin. I need to talk to you. Can I come in?”
I was too shocked to speak. And I have no idea what I would have said if I had been able to open my mouth. I just stepped aside to let her in.
“I saw you last week in the quad,” she said, sitting in my desk chair as if nothing had happened.
I sat on my bed. I tried to pull myself together. “I’m surprised you saw anything. You and Karl barely came up for air.” I felt bitter.
She frowned. “Jesus, you don’t have to be so nasty.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked sarcastically.
Jasmine began to pull at her pink crystal necklace. I knew that when she played with her necklace, it meant she was nervous. Good. I was glad that she was uncomfortable.
She hung her head and started to cry. One part of me had the impulse to walk over and comfort her, but another part felt nothing but hostility.
I couldn’t move. I was a frozen snowman, brittle arms at my sides; if she touched them, they’d break off and drop to the floor.
“Jasmine, I’m really busy,” I mumbled. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here?” I didn’t want her to leave, but I wanted her to think I couldn’t care less.
Her eyes were bloodshot. It made the green stand out even more.
She looked up at me. “I just thought you should know that Karl and I are done. He was totally wrong for me. I couldn’t help myself. I knew he was a mistake right from the beginni
ng.”
So she really got to know him and she realized how selfish he was. So he didn’t look so good to her anymore. I knew it would happen. How great! I had to hide my excitement. “You ended it?”
“Yes. I ended it this morning.”
“What was wrong with Karl?” I knew the answer to that, but I wanted to hear it from her mouth.
She scowled. “What a jerk! He needs to get real. He’s way too arrogant. He’s in love with himself. And I so need someone who can express his feelings.”
“Then why’d you leave me for him?”
Fuck. That slipped out before I could think.
She paused for a second and cocked her head slightly.
I bit my fingernail.
“Do you really want to know?” she asked, wiping her nose on an old napkin she pulled out of her coat pocket.
“Yes.” A wild hope shot through me. Maybe I could still turn everything around.
“You’re not right for me either. Colin, you’re too easily manipulated by people.”
“I am?” What was she talking about? “I’m not.” It wasn’t true.
“What about your dad and Karl? Even me. You’re too nice. You’re not in charge of your own destiny. I need a man who can grab all the bulls by their horns.”
“You’re crazy. That’s bullshit. You think you know everything, Jasmine. I didn’t know you were a shrink now, too.”
Who did she think she was? First she fucks my best friend. Then she shows up at my door and dumps on me. She had some fuckin’ balls.
I had to restrain myself from cursing at her. I had to calm down somehow. I picked a pen up from the red milk crate I used as a table. I chewed on the cap. It was a bad habit I’d had since junior high school.
“Wait a second. You need to chill out. Don’t take what I’m saying as criticism. I think you misunderstand me. You’ve got great qualities. Karl has none of your sensitivity, for example. I love that you’re a romantic,” said Jasmine.
I removed the pen cap from my mouth. Why was she telling me all this? Did she think we were friends just having a conversation? My stomach was in knots.