I left off with the fever, but let me set two things straight before I continue: 1) I dated a lot before I met The Boyfriend(tm), thus requiring me to come up with clever nicknames to help my friends keep them all straight. The Boyfriend(tm)'s nickname was Top Gun Guy, and I use it in here because, frankly, I'd forgotten it when I wrote Part 1. 2) This portion of the story requires a bit of reader participation. I don’t think it’s that difficult unless you have an exceptionally low score on the Purity Test, or, like me, you lived an incredibly sheltered early life that you’ve tried hard to remedy, but shamefully embarrassing things continue to crop up, as exemplified in this second half of this story. So here’s what I require of you, dear reader: be naïve. Whenever “Oh freaking duh, Christie,” pops into your head, think, “La la la, happy little reader, frolicking through the orchards!” Got it? Awesome. So let’s carry on.
Tuesday night I went on this date. I don’t even recall this guy’s name but he scored music for movies. He didn’t say, “I’m working on a script.” He said something like, “I’m working on a score for a script,” so I let it slide and met him for…drinks.
At that time I either didn’t fully understand that “drinks” was code for “dress slutty,” or I wore something akin to a pinafore and ribbon in my hair, because he proceeded to spend two hours talking to me as if I were a little girl. I half expected him to ask me what time my mom was picking me up and if I'd babysit for him (yeah, we know what that's code for––perv). It only got worse when he said, as the date came to a close, “You really seemed intelligent on your profile.”
Apparently my love for icanhascheezburger.com offended his East Coast sensibilities. Prick.
That’s when I asked him, “Will I hear from you again?” hoping he’d be honest and say, “Dear God, no way, no how. I’m only walking you to your car so I don’t feel guilty tomorrow, when I read latimes.com and see that you got raped and murdered, and then raped and murdered again.”
Instead, he lied through his revolting industry smile: “Of course.”
Part of me wishes he’d called again, just so I could fuck with him: “Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re okay! My insane ex-boyfriend ignored the restraining order and said he followed you home. I begged him not to take a tire iron to you!” The other part’s glad I never heard from him again. In total, though, he made me sick––or so I thought as I drove home, sweating and shaking. I really felt like crap by the time I stumbled in the door, and, at that point, I really thought men were crap too. Where did that jackass get off talking to me like I was twelve? If he liked chicks that young, you could totally tell in my pictures that I did not look like a tween––the hourglass figure being a dead giveaway, dude, not to mention the complete lack of Hannah Montana listed in my Favorites. Hence, I named him The Pedo.
All men were on my “Hope You Choke on Broken Glass” list as I crawled, shivering, beneath my covers and went to bed. I was so bad off the next morning that I cancelled class. But it got worse (cue the naïveté). My lips felt weird, so I went to the bathroom. And I’m going to be very clear about this description: I looked in the mirror at my face and saw two bulging, scarlet cold sores, one on my upper lip and one on my lower lip.
“What. The. Fuck.” I pursed my lips in anger and the two cold sores came together, forming Super Mega Cold Sore. It was a lot like Voltron, except without the giant metal robot.
I hadn’t had cold sores in years. Like six years. Where the hell had they come from? Oh man, stupid, stupid cold. Next thing I knew, I’d have a bulbous red and runny nose. I’d probably start sneezing. And I had another date, this one with that damn Top Gun guy who would take one look at me and say, “Yeah, I’ll lose you forever,” and bolt.
GAAAAH!!!! Why was I dating? So what if I was single at thirty-one? Plenty of women didn’t marry nowadays. It didn’t mean I was a spinster. Except most of them did it by choice, not because they were sick and had lips that looked like a Jessica Simpson collagen injection gone horribly, horribly wrong. I was already on my way to being a spinster. I even had the J. Crew teacher wardrobe down. Next year, I’d simply go do my Ph.D. and never deal with men again, unless they were colleagues or students (looking back now, that was a dangerous plan because I’d probably go the way of Mrs. Robinson rather than fucking another professor).
I don’t know why but I still got ready for my date with Top Gun Guy. I swore I wouldn’t get close to him because no matter how much of a dick The Pedo had been, I wouldn’t give this new guy my cold. And I’d look lovely. And I’d be charming. And then I’d go home and I’d cry because this was it. No more dating.
From the closet I pulled out my sexiest––yet politest and most appropriate––skirt and sweater (basically my teaching uniform because I was dragging my ass at this point and I lacked “fashion imagination”). I made sure my hair and makeup were perfect. Then I spent the next hour smearing on Abreva and hemorrhoid cream to bring down the swelling. When that didn’t work, I tried about fifteen different lipstick shades, finding one that best covered those volcanoes of lip puss that I knew would erupt all over my date, sending him screaming in horror and disgust, possibly scarring him forever. When that wasn’t enough, I actually put on eye shadow and made my eyes look all Brigitte Bardo-y. Still, nothing drew my attention from those two horrible red blobs that made my lips swell like I’d sucked on a cactus.
Ooh I hated this! My eyes started to water as I recalled the first time I ever got a cold sore. I was five and drawing in kindergarten. I picked at it until I started crying and bleeding onto my pink construction paper. Mrs. Sarota called my grandparents and they picked me up, keeping me home from school for a few days, because they were afraid my cold would get worse.
And now I was going on a date, a date I really didn’t want to go on because I was so fucking tired of hanging myself up on a meat hook for display at the market, not to mention I never measured up to all these Internet guys' expectations. So here I was, setting myself up to only to get knocked down yet again, and handicapped even more by the Plague boils on my mouth. But I put on the politely sexy heels and drove to the restaurant. I didn’t even have an appetite, the Advil hadn’t kicked in, and I swore that I was sweating and would reek by the time this guy arrived. Wow, how many other ways could I drive him away? I was really racking them up. Lisa got an ear full the entire way as I tried to talk carefully, afraid my sores would crack and unknowingly bleed down my chin, drying in crusty brown streams. I’d probably introduce myself while looking like I’d just feasted on the neck of a stray cat and tossed it into the dumpster not a minute before he arrived.
The worse part was, I was waiting outside, still on the phone, when Top Gun Guy was walking up.
“Lisa, he’s here. Gotta go.”
“Ask him if he makes Greek food because I want Greek food––”
“Yeah gotta go.”
“Does he look hot?”
“Bloody fucking gorgeous.” Click. Oh god, he’s going to see the cold sores and run. These are not the DSLs you’re looking for. “Hi! I’m Christie."
We sat down to dinner. I still remember his black velvet jacket. He dressed (and still does) very nicely. Just like his pictures, he didn’t misrepresent himself in any way. Unlike me. I had a complete hair transformation a couple days prior. My own mother hadn’t recognized me at first, as I’d gone from blond curls to sleek chocolate brown Russian spy hair.
But there was one thing I hadn’t thought of with this fancy dinner thing: my retainer. I had to take out that damned retainer. The obvious answer was to excuse myself and go to the restroom, remove it and come back to the table. I actually did consider this. Then I looked at him and thought, What the fuck? If he can’t deal with a retainer, he’s a pussy. Pussy. God, I wonder if he likes eating pu––
“I have a retainer,” I quickly said.
“Okay,” laughed Top Gun Guy.
“I’m going to take it out so I can eat. Pardon me.”
“Sure, no problem.”
I popped it out rather skillfully so no chains of drool showed, and we had a lovely dinner. By the end of two hours, I think I’d made him laugh. He’d kept me captivated. We did discuss World of WarCraft, but I wasn’t thinking about raid strats or specs, I was thinking of how fun it would be to distract him from video games, and exactly what he looked like without that velvet jacket on. Or that dress shirt. Or those pants. I admit this freely: it was complete and utter objectification on my part, and it was glorious.
He walked me outside, we started to say goodbye, and I realized that I really liked Top Gun Guy. I could keep talking for hours, which would probably be bad, because at some point I'd explain precisely how limber I was and further embarrass myself. It was good that we parted now. He told me later that I shot him “Kiss Me Eyes," and that’s why he leaned down to me. I instinctually leaned up––then screamed in his face.
“GAH NO!!”
Top Gun Guy jumped back like I was going to accuse him of date rape (more like he’d press charges against me). “Sorry, sorry, I thought, I mean I’m really sorry––”
“No, no!” I flapped my hands, like they’d carry me away from this humiliating situation. “It’s not that. I have cold sores. They hurt.”
He stopped apologizing and stared at me. Then squinted at my lips. I probably winced because I felt like I was a slide under a microscope, and I knew I’d be discarded for this. No guy wanted to date some girl with volcanic puss-filled lips.
“Oh, no worries. I didn’t even notice until you told me.” Top Gun Guy gave me this goofy, embarrassed smile. “So, can I call you to go out again? Maybe this weekend?”
What?
“Yeah. Yes. Please. Yes.” Oh, god. Do I sound desperate? I sound desperate. Girls with cold sores and retainers are desperate.
And that was Wednesday because Thursday I had my annual female exam.
“Full battery of STD tests, please,” I told my OB/Gyn as I sat there shivering. Stupid Advil. Even stupider speculum. It made me not want to ever have sex again, but I had to remind myself that I'd never slept with a man who's penis resembled cold metal that stretched the hell out of my girlie parts. But I did wonder if I was jumping the gun. It wasn't like I was going to sleep with him on the *cough*third*cough* date or anything. He probably wouldn't even call because, after getting some distance, he realized that my lips looked like something out of Outbreak.
“Well, you look fine down there, but we’ll call you if anything comes back positive (insecurity forces me to say that nothing came back positive). You are running a fever though,” he told me.
I hugged my sweater more tightly. “Yeah, I’ve had a cold since Tuesday. Somehow, I managed to have a good date last night though.” Why the hell did I say this? Like my vagina doctor gives a shit. He’s got like eight other vaginas to stretch before he goes home and has to deal with yet another vagina.
“Good for you, young lady.” (He’s this old crotchety old man––get it? Crotchety? Haaa…ha. Fine, not so funny. Fuck off.)
“Yeah, I spent the whole day stressing and he didn’t even notice the cold sores until I had to tell him,” I laughed.
The doctor stopped making notes on my chart and squinted, much like Top Gun Guy had, at my lips. “No wonder you’ve got a cold. You’ve got herpes.”
Her…her–what? “No, I don’t,” I snapped indignantly.
“Miss Cleveland, cold sores are symptoms of the herpes simplex virus.” He said this as if it were common knowledge. And I sure felt like a common idiot. “Probably had ‘em since you were a kid, huh?”
I…had…herpes…
“Eighty percent of the population has cold sores. Let me write you a prescription for Valtrex. Make them go away faster. Keep it around for when you feel the tingling.”
Thirty-one-years-old and I hadn’t known that a cold sore was the herpes virus. I’d gone on an amazing first date with an amazing guy with herpes littering my lips. Pucker up, baby, I’ve got herpes! Oh, god, and everyone except me knew this! All my friends were like, “What, you didn’t know?”
NO! I didn’t friggin’ know! And if you all know, then Top Gun Guy knows, and he was probably just being nice and saying he’d ask me out again, just like that douche from the night before! No one wants to go out with a girl whose lips are pouting an STD! It’s always more fun to assume her lips have been in a dirty place rather than inheriting it from some adult when she was only five-years-old!
Thursday: he didn’t call or e-mail. Why should he? Herpes simplex might be more than an STD. One day, it might “turn on” and suddenly make all us infected folks turn into brain-consuming zombies. Who wants to take that chance, let alone possibly catching herpes?
Friday: I would close up shop at Match.com and Chemistry.com. Done. Ending. Fin. I took out my disappointment on my students. I made them read Althusser. I’m sure somehow they deserved it. It made me feel better, anyway.
Then, my phone rang. You can guess who it was. And he shocked me again. He wanted to know about my plans for Saturday night. Saturday night? Prime weekend real estate time? The second date was for a weekend day, or sometime during the week. You never risk the best night out on someone you’ve only met once.
But apparently he did, even if she had a retainer and cold sores.
