pep

Afterwards, on the street, smoking one of his cigarettes, I asked, "Wait, so you have HIV right?" The question was asked as if I knew the answer because I did and because I didn't want him to answer otherwise, to think that I had thought something else. He said, "Yeah. You do too, right?" I said, "No." And he seemed really surprised, as anyone would be given the behavior I had just engaged in.

I had gone to this party in Chelsea. There was an open bar and often those things attract me to them, cheapskate and drunk that I am. I made some conversation with this person outside for a bit and he asked me if I wanted to go inside with him to do some bumps. I did, which was a mistake given that my friends were all leaving and that this person liked me and that I didn't really have a way out should I want an excuse to leave. So I did some coke, got really horny, and danced dirty with this guy. He told me naughty things he wanted to do to me in his apartment in Harlem. I told him that was too far. He suggested we go to Unicorn, a video booth place, around the corner. Let's go, I said.

In the video booth, porn was playing. I never saw the hot stuff, the fucking. Whenever I glanced away from the scene I was involved in to look at the one on the television, the scene was either just ending or just beginning, two guys sitting next to each other on a couch, dressed. It started with him sucking my dick and should have stayed there, but he was encouraging and I was excitable, and so I fucked him, did so without a condom. It was awkward to do in a small video booth, his head kept on bumping against the wall, but that only excited me more. The seedy scene, this stranger bent over, seeing my dick fuck this dude - it wasn't a scene I was involved in - it was a hot scene that I was enjoying watching, not really thinking that I shouldn't be barebacking this stranger who encouraged me to cum in him, that clearly he had HIV and assumed I did also if I was being so reckless. And so it wasn't until after I came, after I left the set where the scene took place, that I sobered up, that some blood left my penis and returned my brain and I realized the potential consequences of that moment of fun.

After he told me his status, I waved goodbye, headed toward the L, and felt like shit, sunk lower and lower, thinking about whether I should take PEP or not, whether I could afford to at this point, and whether it would totally make me miserable for a month, that it might be better to just chance it and not take the medicine. I had settled on this decision today and was getting dressed to go the mermaid parade when I talked to Diego, who was really concerned and insistent that I go to the clinic, saying that he would go with me, not letting my (i)rationalizations go uncontested. So he guilted me into going. I went and got PEP (all for free!) and I am really happy I did, and really happy with this boy for basically making me do something that I should have done. I am really fond of this boy lately, incredibly so today, and I worry that I have upset him with my reckless behavior in a way that he likes me less. He is the main person I thought about last evening on my subway ride home, thinking about how that would probably ruin things with this boy I like a lot should I get HIV.

So I took my first pills this afternoon and feel slightly queasy, feel like I am seasick. To make up for missing out on the parade and Coney Island, I biked to Riis Beach and went swimming in the ocean by myself. This cute young guy, volleyball player that I had been checking out, came up to me. We took off our swimsuits and swam around naked, touching dicks, sucking them. I got out of the water, too cold, sat on the sand for a while, and then biked home, really loving that I have created this beach life for myself here, that the thing I miss about Florida does exist here, that there is pretty coastline to bike along and a pretty beach nearby. I thought about some other stuff too, but that probably goes without saying.