Personal

   Now that I realize, I had confused two very different notions. One was being alone. The other was being lonely. I had thought once that I loved being lonely. You know, just a misunderstood soul wandering about, having deep thoughts about humanity and myself. I thought that I loved to be away from everyone because I had so much within me that it was better for others to be away. I was so full of myself, I didn’t even notice how I really felt, and deluding myself into thinking I loved the sound of silence, the sound of the void awaiting all of us. It was all a big confusion and the worst thing is I think I had always known but I wanted to believe so bad I was a special human being, with characteristics no other could have. The truth is no one is unique, not at all.

 The truth is I hate being lonely because it makes me feel sad and depressed. When I’m lonely, I slowly slide down to a point where everything is awful and I stop liking anything and everything. It has always been difficult for me to like myself, to take a look in the mirror and be positive, somehow, about what I see. When I’m alone that’s always difficult, but I’m able to pull through. But when I’m lonely, the story is different: I hate myself so much right then and there. I would want to smash the mirror I’m looking to or my head, if what I’m doing is only imagining myself. It can be awful sometimes, but I guess darkness hasn’t got the right angle yet, as I’m still here.

 I hate people or at least think I hate them all. Always so happy about nothing, proud about a bunch of things I find utterly ridiculous. If I were brave, I would be a bully, someone who wouldn’t think twice before smashing someone head against a wall. But I’ve never being that person never had the amount of courage needed to speak up or to act according to my emotions. And if I do, it’s usually too little too late.  In this era of bullies and bullying, I have never being the one to do it but haven’t really being a victim of it. Shall I cry and despair because they mocked me behind my back or because I was a laugh playing sports? No, that was my reality and I lived with it. That’s what I did and I think I would do it all the same again if I could.

 Because many of these problems started in school, that’s obvious. Before that I had no intention or need to look at myself and then at others and compare what I saw. But even at age ten, I already knew that there were people that were deemed “better”. You know the kind, those damn people who were smart, bright, and very witty with the words and had a very physical self also. They had it all and if they screwed it up they could try it again and again until they were successful. Me, not so much. Once I sucked at something, usually I would suck at it for many years. Even teachers knew that.

 After all, I was educated in the European tradition and they don’t fuck around with education. Not at all. They want their students to know it all and know it good. Which was a shame because I didn’t get all and what I did know fluctuated in time. I was never the perfect student, not even if I was good at a couple of subjects. That only meant I had a lifeline I could use not to be completely fucked by life, but I was fucked only that less violently, if you will. I would have given it all to be one of those nerds, to humiliate everyone at least once. A jock? No, that would have made even me laugh very hard and it wouldn’t have made sense at all. The point of it all was that no matter what, I was lonely and that affected it all.

 If I had had friends, not like occasional “let’s talk” people but real fucking friends, maybe everything would have been different. Maybe if someone had needed me back then I would be, at least, much more confident now and even with a more tenacious personality. Of course, that would make me a very different person but that’s kind of the point. If I hadn’t been alone and feeling the loneliness even from that age, I do think that the road would have been at least a bit better. But well, that’s me, always thinking about what could have been. The truth is that I don’t believe things can just change, I don’t think that I can be spontaneous and positive and social just out of nowhere. That would just scare the fuck out everyone around me, I know as much.

Anyway, that’s what being lonely is. You just don’t believe in change and also because change doesn’t exist when you’re a human being. I have never really seen anyone change and if they do it it’s not because they have actually modified their way of seeing the world. It’s because they have been scared to death by the apparent closeness of death or failure or something that they dread. Changing out of fear is the only real modification people do in their lives and that doesn’t count as you are probably faking in it all, just not to be targeted by whatever you’re scared about. Like if I became very social out of fear to die a lonely crazy guy.

 It’s all applicable anywhere in your life. You can feel both lonely and alone in every situation you face.  The all-mighty love, for example. That thing people feel in their guts, like a balloon that, if not controlled properly, can explode inside of you and make you feel like garbage. Well, that balloon can make you feel very lonely when the other person doesn’t even know you’re there or, worse, doesn’t really care about your existence. Because those couples that last a hundred years, that’s just two people scared shitless that they will never find anyone else in their lives to put up with their shit. So they play it safe and stay with the same person for years and years and years until society pressures marriage upon them.

 Romantic, isn’t it? Yeah, it is. But the real way to feel lonely in all this love context is simply when no one even looks at you. And don’t I know it? I have profound experience on being “looking” for so long that it’s no longer funny. I believe I have gone through most stages a man goes through sexually and romantically without even sharing them with anyone. It maybe why I hate other people, especially men. Complaining and whining about how their life is awful because their boyfriend spends one less hour with them now that he owns a company. Well, I feel so bad for you… Fuckers. That’s what being lonely does to you: if you don’t die, you turn into a very cold and bitter bitch.

 And I have to say I like it. After all, my personality saves me everyday and makes me be “en garde” all day, all the time. Not that I have a lot of things dawning on me or anything but I think I’m an expert now on how to manage some feelings. I have been sad many times before, feeling that anxiety and the need to leave it all and just go. But I know how to control all of that, and swallow it all in order to keep going. Why? I have no idea. I’m not one of those people that’s in love with life or the beauty of it or some of that stupid stuff. I just do it because I have a survival instinct that just doesn’t let me do anything against myself. And I guess that’s good or at least not bad. I mean, I don’t feel lonely every second of my life.

 At times, many times, I do feel happy and I love the few but very important people I have close to my soul. Now, more than anytime before, I have them all in my heart because I need them. It’s selfish, of course it is, but that’s life and I’m not larger that life or better than it. I’m just a tiny part of the whole scheme, so I just do as I feel. Granted, men only want me to fuck me and that’s it, so there’s no love then or in the near future but that I don’t care. The rest of my life is still standing on tiny little sticks and I’d rather have all of that settled on cement before I advance to more “ethereal” subjects such as love. There will be a time for me to do all of that but it isn’t now. You’ll know, I guess.

 My fear, however, is that I engulf so much trying to get by that someday I would explode trying to defend myself against all those things I have in my head. Because I’m no ignorant: it’s still all there, trying to get me every single second. It rests for a long time and then awakens again, ready to fight me to check on my defense. Battles and battles have been fought and they have always concluded when those feelings surrender and they realize I’m not weak enough for them to win. And it’s not that I become the winner, they just decide no to keep fighting. I dread of the day they stop doing that, surrendering. That day when they will not stop and when just keep going, certain of their victory.

Drunk gentleman

   The moment I opened my eyes, I realized how much I had to drink the night before. I didn’t even tried to sit down or stand up; I just opened my eyes and then shut them again. Although I didn’t really remember everything that had happened the night before, I was glad to know I had gotten home and that my cellphone and my wallet were in the nightstand. Those were the most important things to know, that I was alive and ok and in the right place. But my head was spinning so much I decided to close my eyes and try to get some more sleep. It had to be a Saturday or Sunday so I didn’t have to be anywhere or to do anything. I turned around, feeling cozy and warm and then, when I stretched my feet a bit, I felt someone else in bed with me.

 My eyes opened immediately but everything I could see was a head, short auburn hair and a tattoo on the shoulder, that happened to be uncovered, as he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt. I was only wearing my underwear but that didn’t matter, as that was my bed, in my home. Who was that guy? I had no idea and I didn’t wanted to be rude and wake him up just to ask. After all, he was there for a reason. Normally, any friend or friend of a friend would stay in the couch, which was very comfortable. But, somehow, I had decided not to leave him there but instead ask him to sleep with me. I then raised my head a bit and looked at the nightstand again and at the floor. There was nothing on my side that would indicate intercourse.

 Then, I remained still for a moment as I checked mentally if any part of my body felt funny. As I did that, I realized how bad my memory was at retaining any kind of information. Not only I couldn’t remember a single thing from the night before, I had to practically touch myself to know if I had sex with the man that was sleeping beside me. That made me feel like shit, as if I did that kind of thing every time I went out. I then turned around and closed my eyes and tried to think of something to do, a way to know who he was or why he was there. The best idea would be to write my friends and ask them if they knew, although that would reflect very poorly on me. Anyway, I fell asleep in no time because of how tired I was.

 It always happened that, when I had too much to drink, I would have the wildest and weirdest dreams. That time was no exception as in, the probably one hour that I rested my eyes, I dreamt about some strange creatures that I was supposed to kill with a team of others. We were using laser weapons and the guy that was sleeping beside me was there too, covering the left flank. It was like being in a movie, people shooting all around. I was having a lot of fun there but then the dream changed and I was in a room observing two people having a fight. They couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t do anything to intervene. The yelling and their insults made me wake up, sweating a bit.

 I sat on my bed, trying to catch my breath, realizing it had only been a dream. It was a nightmare that always came back, a remembrance of a past I always tried to forget. Then, I realized the guy on my side was not there. For a second, I thought I had just imagined him but then I saw his clothes on the floor and realized he was still around. It was exactly at that moment when he came in with a tray, my only tray. There was some orange juice, a sandwich made in the toaster and a banana. But that really wasn’t what surprised me most. The guy had the body of a model or even better. Instinctively, I pulled up the sheets, as I didn’t wanted for him to see my body, which was very far from his in terms of beauty and acceptance. He had some other tattoos and he was only wearing some black briefs.

 The beautiful man passed me the tray and told me he had already had breakfast. The only thing I could do was to smile and listen to him tell me how had the idea to make me breakfast after all I had done for him and how he had found everything he needed in order to make a somewhat decent breakfast. As I drank some juice, he laughed and said he thought of giving me some cereal but he remembered me saying that I couldn’t drink any milk. Again, I just smiled, as I had no idea at what point I had told him any of that. For that matter, I had no idea in what planet I could have met a guy such as him and why he was “thankful” to me. I just ate my breakfast and, in between bites, asked him if he had eaten something yet and he said yes.

 He looked at me as I ate, which was strange already, never minding those big green eyes, the tattoos and the body that seemed to have been taken out from a fitness magazine. When I finished, I decided to be honest. First o f all, I thanked him for his kindness but then I had to confess that I didn’t remembered much about the night before. I told him I could imagine I had a lot to drink because I really didn’t know where I had met him and why he had stayed with me, even in bed. His reaction was strange as he laughed and looked even better looking as he did it. He looked at me straight in the eye and I have to say I couldn’t hold his look for a long time. His bright eyes hurt a little.

 He showed me his hand and told me his name was Steven and that we had met in the bathroom of a club where we were both having some time with friends. Steven said that, when I entered the bathroom, I seemed to have been drinking for a while already so he had no idea what I had done before he met me. Anyway, he wasn’t there alone but with another guy. He said that guy was someone he had met at work and who was very obsessed with getting high and drunk. As I came in, he was apparently trying to convince Steven to get high with something he was keeping in a small bag, but he didn’t told me what it was. I apparently went to a stall and they kept arguing outside.

 Things got pretty bad as the guy who was with him started to scream and push him. Apparently, Steven had opened the little bag and thrown all its content into the drain. The man went crazy and he punched Steven on the face. He bled a bit and it was then when I came out. According to Steven, I just went insane when I saw him on the ground bleeding. I went straight for the guy and told him to get the fuck out, the guy pushed me and then I punched him hard in the face. Two, three, four times until he could stand up. I even kicked him in the stomach and we just left that place. I didn’t even tell my friend or anything, we just left for my place and I told him I would take care of him for good.

 Steven smiled as he remembered all of that. He knew I was just being nice and maybe my reaction was due to the fact that he was a very handsome man. And, without any hesitation, I told him that that wasn’t the case. Yes, he was beautiful, but I reacted like that because I had seen too much violence in my life to let people keep doing that to each other. I guess my answer wasn’t the best way to solve it, but that guy would probably think again before punching someone like that just because they wouldn’t have some of his shit. Steven just smiled as I said that and I realized I had talked very passionately so I decided to thank him again for the breakfast. He took the try back to the kitchen and I used what little time I had to put on my t-shirt.

 He reentered the room as I put it on and he asked why I was doing that. He told me that I was in my house, so it was a bit strange that I decided to cover myself as if I was doing something wrong. I told him the truth that I felt little ashamed to be next to him. I had a belly, I had no perfect body like he had and it would make me feel less weird if I wore the t-shirt.  I pulled it down and sat on the bed, waiting for something although I didn’t know what it was. He was doing exactly the same thing by the door, just standing there like waiting for something to happen but not knowing exactly what. It was a bit uncomfortable.

 Finally, I decided to get into the bed again and pull up the sheets. Then, he walked up to the bed and lay down too, this time with his face towards my side. I was looking up. We stayed like that for a good while until I decided to take off the t-shirt and turn towards him. He smiled again and I just got closer and kissed him. I wasn’t going to meet a guy like that ever again. We kissed for a long time and he told me, between kissed, that I had been a gentleman the night before, as we talked in the taxi and in my living room. We had already kissed but because he had leaned forward. Now, it had been me.

 We had sex afterwards and starting going out rather frequently. But that story and its outcome, will not be told here.

Sex sells

   Because it does, doesn’t it? When Michael had the idea to make his own website, every single person he knew thought he was going insane. But what they weren’t thinking about was the time he had wasted on so many other projects that had only failed one after the other. He had gone to law school but he had never been hired by a proper firm, only as an intern and they had told him, in very few words, that he should be as far from the word of law as he could. It was a bit brutal back then but he understood what they meant. In any case, he had tried to make anything and everything in order to be his own man and have a life of his own, to make his parents proud. Because what he wanted was to repay them for all their efforts to raise him.

 Michael opened a cupcake store, which had to close only a month after it opened because absolutely no one bought anything. He had learned how to bake for several months and it all when to the trashcan in a matter of days. Then, he decided to team up with a buddy from college and open a dog walking business. They did everything an owner could want like bathing them and walking them, doing exercises and so on but they failed miserably once his partner let one of the dogs escape and the owner sued him for it. Michael had also tried to make it in the call center world but they told him in the interview his voice was not the right one for the job and in a Burger King they told him he was tall enough, but they failed to tell him what his height had to do with anything.

 So many tries and failures had made him a little bit bitter and more of a loner that ever before. He had never been the kind to go out a lot or something like that. He would prefer to stay home and watch movies. So maybe that’s when the idea came to him. Like any man his age, he watched porn from time to time, when being specially aroused. He had never really paid any attention to the movie as such, only to the act they were performing. He must have been really bored that day because he remembered thinking it all look so fake, so prepared and too rushed for his taste. It was gay porn by the way, for reasons not worth explaining as they explain themselves.

 The thing was he watched the same clip, which was about fifteen minutes long, like ten times. He watched every single part with detail and then realized sex sells. It was that easy and he had never thought about it. But then he realized he hadn’t thought of it because of how people perceived pornography, no matter if it was between two men, two women or a straight couple. If you said that you worked in porn, must people would think you’re a pervert or that you just want to be having sex all day long and that’s not what it is and that was something Michael understood that night, when he decided to properly investigate.

 So, must of the films done in the country were low budget and that’s why their production was such garbage. He knew the video he saw must have been made with a handheld camera and some sort of small microphone and not much else. He investigated further and found out these productions companies, which normally only made very few clips a year, sold what they did to larger companies in the United States and there they were marketed online or, not very often, in sex shops all around that country. But that had to imply to movie was good because if it wasn’t people would make it here and just sell it here or upload it online or something. The thing with all of this was to win money and to make it a proper business, to make it a proper job with everything correctly labeled.

 The next thing for Michael was to find the money for it. He had some savings from his earlier jobs and knew he could convince some of his friends but before that he had to have an idea in order to sell it properly. He came up with a film called “The spy”. At first, it seemed like some ridiculous thing but then you realized it had everything a person would want in a movie: sex, drama and even a bit of romance and comedy. He wrote it with the help of a friend that went to film school. His name was George and he was the first person to tell him how insanely great his idea was. He promised to help Michael with cameras and lights and so on if the movie got made but, as a student, he had no money to share with him to do the movie.

 Michael decided to pitch it to every person he knew, no matter if the movie was gay porn or if he want it to do it in a way he had never seen porn being made. Most people just looked at him as if he had turned insane in mid sentence. Others were interested but only because it seemed like such a crazy idea. And the only people that were on board, two men and a girl from George’s film school, told Michael they could help with the production and give only a small amount of money. It was a beginning but they needed much more in order to make the movie as such. He tried to remove things from the script and George got the cheapest but best camera he could find at that price and they still weren’t close.

 Their next step was to go to the local production companies and offer them a place in the movie if they had money to invest. But all of them were very harsh; telling them you just couldn’t get in into an industry and try to change out of nowhere. They told them they had to have experience and a way of doing things that wasn’t too out there because in porn, differently than in movies, people just wanted the same thing that they had always seen and no one would invest in a movie that, in appearance, seemed to be more like an art film than a porno. Michael was disappointed but George told him most people in cinema were just like that, as they hated competition specially when the competition was good.

 Their last resource was to get financing from abroad. So Michael wrote hundreds of emails and sent them all the same day, hoping to be shooting the movie soon. In the mean time, they had created profiles for the characters and, to make things cheap, they had decided that everyone in the crew would appear on the movie but without getting paid, only their names on the credits. One month passed and it was a long wait. Michael was beginning to lose hope but George always tried to cheer him up, trying to make him focus in things about the movie they had not yet thought about like lighting, costumes, makeup and so on.

 Finally, when all hope had been lost, Michael received a letter, a proper physical letter, from one of the biggest production companies in the United States. They had agreed to finance the movie but only if it was done according to certain standards they had, mostly things they could agree on easily on a contract. The next month, it was all about flying to Los Angeles and signing the contract. There, an executive told Michael that his vision for pornography was very interesting and that, if the film was a success, they could be thinking about working with him again. They were so happy that day, that George and Michael had a nice dinner to celebrate and, at the end of it, they shared their first kiss ever. They realized right there; they had feelings for each other.

 But production started days after that so they put all their focus on the movie. They got some good looking but different guys to participate in the movie as actors and they shot it in the streets of their cities, except the sex scenes of course. For those, George’s friend Alexa had a thing for everything related to art direction. She transformed a room in an old house owned by Michael’s grandparents into a perfect replica of what Michael had imagined for the movie. It was supposed to be the place were the two lovers escaped to be together, away from all the looks. The scenes when they had sex were incredibly easy to film and they even got some money from a condom company because they would show a close up to one of the wrappers.

 Filming lasted for a whole month and, at the end, they had a great party to celebrate their success. They announced that a friend of George’s that had already graduated was going to make the editing of the film. He was very good and told George he wanted to be part of the film. The production company sent a guy to monitor their progress and everything went as planned. Another party was held when the movie was displayed as a “new feature” on the website of the production company. In only one week, a million people paid to see it. The movie was an absolute success all over the world, making the actors stars and the crew simply heroes.

 They would be hired again for more movies, one of them being a proper sequel to “The spy”. George and Michael began dating and eventually got engaged. They never moved to the United States, even at the insistence of their job. They knew what they did was special because it had another scent to it, if you will. Michael was proud of his achievement and shared it with everyone. Some people left his life but others were just proud of him too, even his parents who wouldn’t see the film but celebrated it all the same.

Blood test

 As far as I could remember, I had never had blood taken from me. I had never been sick and, being a man, I had never being pregnant. So the thing was very new for me and scary. It’s kind of silly to be scared of such a silly thing but aren’t we always scared about the things that we don’t even understand? Because I didn’t even know why they wanted me to give my blood after just a routine check-up. The doctor said it was good, once in a while, to do something like a full scan of the body to be sure nothing was off, nothing was out of place. But taking blood from my body seemed very invasive.

 I am the kind of person that takes days to talk to you, even if I have seen you for a year, at work, at school or wherever. I am the kind of person that always tries to be in relationships were the other person wants more love than sex. I’m the kind of person that would never put on a bathing suit in front of someone else or shower in a public place or something like that. I would die first to be honest. So giving away a sample of blood was just as if someone had forced me to give up something that was only mine and it didn’t felt right. Besides that, I had never done it and felt silly because I knew it was something positive to do. After all, he doctor was right: I needed to get to know what was happening inside my body. I had not being in a doctor’s office for five years or more and if he wanted to know what was going on, he was the doctor after all.

 I woke up really early to give my sample. I tried not to think about it until the moment was imminent. So I just woke up, showered, put on some loose clothes and walk out home. The weather was strange: it seemed that it was going to rain but it didn’t, as if the sky was waiting to make a more dramatic storm later in the day. I just thought the weather sometimes behaved like a moody human. I walked to the bus stop and waited there for the bus that would take me to the hospital. It was such a sad thing, to be going to a hospital. I thought tight there that I pity every single person that has to go to a hospital every single day of his or her lives. All that sadness and stress and just negativity…

 I mean, I’m not the most positive guy you’re going to find, not at all, but I do try to be objective and working in the health sector must not be an easy task, maybe if you are the head of a pharmaceutical company or something. When my bus stopped, I walked inside like a zombie. I hadn’t had anything to eat, as asked by the doctor, so I felt a little like walking on air. The bus was filled with people so early in the day so I just stood up by the exit and waited for my stop. As I did so, I noticed that most of the passengers in the bus were women and then another fact of life hit me in the face: women are so under appreciated. Not because they carry life but because they keep it going. All those ladies in the bus were proof of that and I felt bad as a man.

 One of them was talking about the day she was going to have. I couldn’t hear the whole conversation, but I could guess she was a housekeeper. She was telling another woman that she had asked her boss to give her two days off as she was feeling really tired and had many things to do at home. The other women asked her if her husband helped around the house and she answered that he did but that things were still backing up. She hoped to get those two days to run some errands and just be with her children for some more time that week. That was all I heard before I stepped out of the bus, twenty minutes after I had gotten in. I felt bad for her but I thought that at least she had a steady job. Things could always be worse.

 As it was very early, there were no traffic jams on the streets and no overcrowded sidewalks. The few people around were workers of stores or vendors that were installing their posts in strategic places for the morning rush. People were going to need their coffee, their newspapers and their dose of sugar and they were going to given them all to them. I walked past them and then through a couple of blocks where not a single soul was seen. It was the perfect time of the day to shoot a zombie apocalypse scene. I imagined it and smiled for myself. I finally got to the hospital and went straight to the second floor, where I was charged for my blood test. Then I sat down and looked around.

 Besides me, there were only two other people: a teenager with his mom and an elderly couple. The teenager was obviously checking social media and seemed very focused on it. His mom seemed moved her feet and legs without stopping. By her outfit, it was obvious she worked in some office and that she needed to get there as soon as possible, which was curious because wouldn’t you open up your morning to be with your son? Then there was the elderly couple, two lovely older people that were chatting about their pills and if they had them all in the woman’s purse. She pulled them all out and I was surprised to see at least ten little orange bottles in armrest of the chair. They were saying their properties, as no one ever knew the names.

 The teenager was called first and then the couple and when more people were coming in, I finally got inside too. I got into a small cubicle were a nurse checked my arms for the best vein and the she told me to look the other way, as it may look a bit too scary. I did exactly that, as I was not really looking forward to see my blood spilling out of my arm. As she did her job, she told me that the results would be available in two weeks. I wanted to complain but my arm hurt too bad and she told me, after putting a circular sticking plaster where she had put the needle on.

 When the pain passed, I asked her why it took so long to have the results. I told her it was just a routine procedure for my doctor but she told me that all exams were the same and that they checked the blood for every possible disease I could have: hepatitis and several sexual transmitted diseases includes syphilis and HIV. When she said the last part, I got even more scared that before the needle went through my skin. I didn’t ask anything else or said anything at all. She just gave me a sheet with which I could claim the results in two weeks time. Five minutes later, I was already outside walking home. Somehow, I didn’t want to take the bus back. I had too many things in my head and only wanted to vent a little before freaking out once again. 

 As I stopped to buy something to eat, I thout about the reason why I was freaking out. Exactly five months ago I had gone to a party and, strangely for me, I had gotten really drunk. The friends that had invited me there were just laughing their asses off because they had never seen me drunk and because, strangely enough, I was a very funny drunk guy. I told just, funny stories I didn’t even know I had and I talked to people straight away, even going so far as to ask them if they have had sex that day. Bare in my mind the party was attended by, at least, forty people and only knew a couple of them. I drank a lot and, the next day I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t vomited or anything gross like that all night.

 What was weird was that I woke in one of the bedrooms of the apartment were the party was held and I happened to be only wearing my underwear and with someone besides me. Now, I didn’t know if something happened and to this day I have no idea. It was just as if all memories produced after two in the morning had been erased by the computer that was my brain. I only know I grabbed my clothes, put them on and just got the hell out of there. Days later, I spoke with one of my friends that had been in the party and he just said he found me funny when drunk. But he never said anything about me kissing or talking in a “unique way” to someone. So I didn’t mention it and I had forgotten everything about it until the day of the blood test.

 The following two weeks were torture. Every time I had a moment to think about my life, I found myself wondering if I had sex that night of the party and if it had been unprotected. As I didn’t recall anything, and I didn’t really stayed in the room the next day to see if there was a condom wrapper around, I just didn’t know anything. I just knew I was very nervous and jumpy every time someone was looking to talk to me about anything. Days were long sometimes and I just wanted the hospital to call me and tell me they need me to pick up the results earlier but maybe that wouldn’t have been a very happy call.

 Anyway, I waited as patiently as I could and when it was time, I went to the hospital and asked for my results. It was very frustrating that I had to wait several minutes for them and that I had to go through them with a doctor different that the one who had asked for the damn exam. She must have realized what was going on inside my mind because she just said “You’re fine, honey”. I felt like an elephant had ben lifted from my back and I could finally worry about other things, like my life in general and the fact that I suffered from anemia.