Surprisingly my biggest worry was not actually the testing itself; it was the dressing for it. I had booked the day off anyway and so I wasn't sure whether to go into simple jeans and nice t-shirt or to actually mean business and go in my I'm-gonna-sue-you suit. On one hand I wanted to look casual and unworried and the jeans were loose and comfortable. However, I didn't want to look like a guy that slept around and was doing this for business reasons. It took an hour of umming and ahhing and three starts at breakfast before I decided on some casual chinos and long-sleeved t-shirt. Smart, but not too smart.
I couldn't believe I was dressing for a sex test � what was I hoping for? A date?
"You look very pretty, is that new lip gloss?" said my sister as I came down. Ciss was working on her latest college essay and had already been given orders by Nonna about how she had to make sure I actually went to the hospital. I give her the finger and she laughed.
"I'm going I'm going." I muttered crossly and grabbed at my car keys and wallet. No cell phone. I found it on the dresser. One missed call from Richard.. "See, look, no running away gear."
Ciss waved
"I'll tell Nonna." She then put on her ear-destroying headphones and rolled up the volume of her mp3 player.
The drive to the hospital was quite pleasant. It was my regular route to the courthouse with two blocks added. This meant passing the seminary. I drove past it deliberately slowly trying to get a glimpse of somebody. Okay, trying to get a glimpse of Daniel if he was there. He hadn't called at all through the years and although I was being stupid in even thinking he would I still could shake off the feeling of being concerned. I might have given the guy a serious fright before I left but I still had fond memories of working with the guy and there wasn't a better study buddy in the whole state.
Still. No Daniel. Must have got his own church now.
I carried on driving the blocks and pulled into the winding drive of the hospital.
Two hours later I was feeling thoroughly poked and prodded. They had measured me and remarked my average height They had weighed me and remarked my average weight. In fact I seemed to be average in everything, even blood pressure and simple urine tests. In fact I was so glad they let me keep my underwear on I don't think I could have stood hearing another "ooh you're average".
So after being medically molested and declaring "absolutely average" I was ushered down the corridor into an examination room and was sat on the examination bed naked from the waist down with a blanket over my knees awaiting this Doctor Singh whom the Nurse described as "perfectly lovely".
"Joshua De Luca?" came the voice from the door. "Sexual health check?"
"Yeah that's me." I leaned across to get a view of who exactly was going to be messing around with the parts I tried to keep hidden in public.
Through the door came the familiar white coat and the stethoscope of a doctor on a clinic rotation. A handsome dark-skinned man. The coffee-coloured skin and dark hair told me Indian but the faintly blue eyes told me that there was something else there. He had a cheerful, jokey expression that immediately relaxed me but there was something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"Good, I was beginning to wonder if the nurses had simply forgotten. I'm Doctor Singh."
Our eyes met and the penny dropped.
Oh hell.
In the few weeks after I left the seminary and moved in with Nonna, I had the showdown with my father. It had been at Nonna's house and it hadn't been pretty. There was shouting, slammed doors and at one point my father struck me across the face. He had threatened to disown me.
The encounter pushed me off the rails. In the days I worked my way through college entrance exams and attended every law lecture that God provided and in the nights I exorcised my demons. I drank until I couldn't walk; I smoked until I was sick and I occasionally experimented with pills. I also hit the world of clubbing and being picked up.
Not that I was a complete whore. I remember everyone I have ever slept with, just about, but I wasn't exactly discriminating with my choice of partners. I would deliberately dress provocatively, make myself available and it never surprised me that guys were only to happy to pick me up. There seemed to be a regular group of us at the bar who got picked up regularly and dropped just as quickly. To put it bluntly, I was a slut who got off on being used.
In the early days, I had met and slept with a guy whom I had taken a liking to purely on the way his ass looked in jeans. I had been further interested by the chocolate-hued skin. You didn't actually see many of his tone around here; it was mostly white with a smattering of black and Chinese so I was interested. We exchanged both drinks bills and pleasantries and danced with whoever felt like it.
When the music got heavier and the bodies got closer, we found ourselves near the back of the bar and exchanging a little more than pleasantries. I found myself pressed up against the cold wall, pants down on my hips and three fingers worming their way into me. My mind had been hazy with alcohol and I let him turn me around and press into me insistently. The realisation and shock had then finally struck me that I was getting fucked in a bar by someone I didn't know and didn't give a damn about.
I was a mess.
I felt faintly sick at the thought and as he groaned his release in my ear, my knees buckled.
I came to full consciousness only a few second later, cheeks wet with tears, propped up against the very same wall I had just been panting at. He was knelt beside me and pressing what looked like a glass of water into my hand.
I tried to push it away but he had insisted.
"It's water and I'm a doctor." He said coolly. "What happened, bad trip?" I could see the faint look of disgust on his face.
"No, I haven't taken anything �" I drank the water and rejoiced at the ice in it. "I just realised what a mistake I'm making."
He looked scathing at me and I saw his fist clench.
"Look I don't know what fucking thing you are trying to pull �" he started angrily and stood up. I reached up and nearly dropped the glass he had given me.
"No, it's not you � it was great." I still felt sick. "I just, I just realised that I'm deliberately trying to destroy myself." I had grinned at him. "Sorry, man, didn't mean to get heavy."
Long story short I didn't leave the bar and change my life. I sat and chatted with the guy in a booth for the rest of the evening. Not particularly in-depth but it was nice to talk to someone who didn't either see me as a disgrace to society or a drunken twink. He said he was in the middle of his residency and was a little older than I was. I told him about being a solicitor and omitted the seminary training. I left the bar that night with the name of a gay support group and he left with my number at the office I worked at as he mentioned he was having issues with his landlord and I felt I owed him something. At closing time we shook hands and introduced ourselves.
"Josh"
"Anand"
We still ended up fucking in the bathroom on the few times we met afterwards but I'm only human.
It was definitely him.
"Okay, before we get started Mr De Luca, I'll need to ask you some questions, you don't have to answer them, but it will be easier for us in case we find something." He grinned at me and our eyes met.
"Yeah that's fine." Blue eyes blinked at me.
"I know you." He said; eyes narrowing as he reached for the record board. "Chill 'n Swill?" He started writing down his and my details on the clipboard
There was nothing else for it. I would have to admit it now; it would be lying to a doctor otherwise.
"Er yeah, I was the guy who cried on you." I said staring at my blanket covered knees. I heard the scratching pen stop.
"Ah." He looked up. "Lawyer Guy."
There was about twenty seconds where we just said nothing and stared. I was too afraid to say anything and I think he was too embarrassed about work and social life meeting up. I was halfway to getting up to leave when Doctor Singh's beeper went off.
He jumped nearly a foot in the air and almost toppled off the stool dropping his beeper in the process. He reached down to grab it. I jerked at the same time and consequently tore the covering paper on the bed. The blanket slipped sideways and I made a grab for it. As we both tried to ist up we cracked our heads together.
An ice breaker.
We both burst out laughing as he checked the beeper.
"Nothing important." He picked up the clipboard. "So aside from knocking me out how have you been doing?"
As I told him what had happened to me and gave him the reasons why I had come today he examined me. On my back with my legs in the air I told him about the whole off the rails thing. With his head between my legs we discussed the difficulties of training for our respective jobs. Then just to cap it off we discussed the pros and cons of the Chill n Swill with his fingers up my ass inspecting my prostate.
When he had taken the various samples he need, I sat on the edge of bed doing up my shoes and waiting. He finished writing up his findings then spun to face me.
"I can find nothing wrong with you so far, based on the physical examination. We will send your bloods off today and we should get the results in about a week of so, but you have every reason to think positively � unless you have had unprotected sex?" he asked me again and this time I knew he was just doing his job.
I may have been stupid at college but I wasn't that stupid.
"No, never done it without a condom." I slipped on my shoes. "So you seeing anyone?" I made sure my voice rose suggestively. It never hurt to ask.
He looked a little surprised a first and gave a smirk. White teeth sparkled at me.
"Are you asking out your doctor? That's highly unprofessional." He stood up as I shucked on my jacket. I shrugged.
"Sadly not, but I change over to night shifts in two days and that's for two weeks which will put the kybosh on any �" he placed the clipboard by the bottled samples ready for the nurses. "� extra-curricular activities."
That didn't matter too much. Besides, there wasn't any kind of particular spark between us; it had been about scratching that familiar itch and he seemed like the kind of guy that didn't really do the whole relationship thing. However at least now I had a sort-of friend. I held out a hand and my business card.
"Not for anything in particular � but if you wanted a drinking buddy." There must be an easier way of saying "I'm not doing this to do you".
He took the card and shook my hand warmly; okay maybe that was the easier way.
"Your tests will be ready in about a week; you will probably get a letter from me and probably one from the support group asking how my service was."
"And I shall tell them it was well worth it." I smiled and opened the door, my lower half feeling slightly odd from the probing. "I'll see you around."
"Yeah." He followed me out with the samples and dispatched them to a waiting nurse. "See you."
As I walked through the hospital I felt a little worse for wear, I hadn't expected my slightly murky past to be dredged up like that. Although I was glad to see Anand and in some way straighten things out, it took me straight back the uncomfortable world where I had been a cheap fuck. The feelings of failure from those times had started to bubble up and the familiar nausea was coming on. I managed to walk back to my car when phone rang. It couldn't be. Incredulous, I flipped it open.
"Hello?"
"Josh, I've been worried, your sister said you'd gone for some tests, is everything okay?" Not Anand, Richard.
"Yeah it's all good at the moment." I slid into the car, the nausea was bubbling down. "Just, you know, tired."
"It's not good, you sound sick! Are you even safe to drive?" In my minds eye I could see his right arm gesturing wildly. "You have to come around!"
Actually company would be nice right about now.
"Yeah. Okay."
I fired up the car and left the hospital.
I didn't look for the seminary.