Terry shook his head. “No, he’s dead-set on it. Like it’s gonna prove something, you know?”
“Prove what?” Hector asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. That he loves me? That he’s ok with me having HIV? But I already know both those things. We’ve been together for five years! We live together!”
I wondered whether they’d gotten together before or after Terry found out he had HIV, but I didn’t ask.
“Ok, but like,” Trina said, “whether to use condoms is a two-person decision. He doesn’t get to make it alone. If you don’t want to go bare, or you’re too worried to, then you don’thaveto.”
“But he gives me these puppy eyes!”
We all snickered.
“Look,” threw in an androgynous-looking person with a chestnut-brown undercut, “Fan and I have been together even longer than you guys have, and I’ve never felt comfortable without a condom. He’d probably be fine with it, but me? No. And I think he gets that, as much as it’s possible to get it while being negative.” He snorted, and little titters crept across the room, though I wasn’t sure what they were laughing at. I must have been visibly lost, because a few people looked at me for a moment and smiled. “We have a running joke that everything we say about someone who’s negative gets ‘but then, they’renegative’ silently appended. Because the mindset is just…” The person who’d been speaking gestured with two hands, placing them far apart to indicate a huge space. “They don’t get it, even when they’ve lived with us for forever. And by the way, I’m River, they/them.”
Unsure whether to reply to that, I opted to nod silently.
“Ok but being realistic for a second,” threw in another man, this one in his twenties with thick, dark eyelashes, “can you just sort of side-step the issue? Like, I dunno, tell him you can’t get hard without a condom at this point?” Terry visibly winced, and the guy’s eyes widened. “What?”
Trina reached over and patted the young guy’s knee. “Kev, the older guys don’t like to think about erectile dysfunction,” she told him matter-of-factly, causing at least three guys to make noises like they’d been kicked in the balls. “Makes them worry talking about it will make it real.”
The young guy - Kev? - harrumphed. “It still might be easier than fighting it out over the issue.”
Terry sighed. “Honestly, it’s not far off the truth. The last time we made love he suggested it while he was prepping, and I practically had a panic attack thinking he was just going to hop on and go to town. It…wasn’t sexy.”
“Maybe that’s it, then,” River said. “It’s not sexy to you to put him at risk. That’s really all you should need to say. Enthusiastic consent or gtfo, you know?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Terry shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t really expect you guys to have a solution or anything, but I don’t think anyone else really gets the level of fear, either. Like, I could fuck up Red’s whole life if we make this decision. Sure,he’scontent to listen to the science, and like, I know the science is real, but I just don’t know if I could live with myself if it actually happened.”
“Oof,” Kev said understandingly. “And that’s why I havent had sex since I found out. It’s like I’m borrowing guilt from a futureKevin whomightget someone sick, someday. I already feel guilty about it and it hasn’t even happened!”
Warm chuckles and nods all around the room. I felt myself nodding along, because yeah, I felt that.
The conversation continued for nearly an hour, and I sat back and just…listened. Listened to people living with the same disease as me, whose thoughts and worries ranged from absolute mundanity (“Yeah, but how do I convince him to make the bedeveryday?”) to the profound (“I guess I just feel like if someone had to have HIV, I’m glad that it was me instead of someone less able to cope who might have buckled under the weight.”). By the time the meeting’s time slot was almost up, I was laughing and smiling along with everyone else, despite the small voice in my head asking what the fuck I thought I was doing having a good time like I wasn’t HIV-positive.
And somehow, when Hector asked if anyone else had anything to say, my hand crept up. “Go for it, Henry,” he said, nodding at me.
“I…” I stopped and cleared my throat. “I’m Hen - he/him - and uh, I was diagnosed with HIV a few weeks ago. I’m kind of a mess about it -” and here the room murmured understandingly “- but I guess my biggest question is how you let go of the fear. I’m terrified I might infect someone else, especially my boyfriend. Terrified to the point of panic attacks and stress-barfing over leaving the house. I’ve done all the reading, and I know fear is ‘normal’ or whatever, but you can’t all be living like this. So…how are younot?”
“Were you with your boyfriend before you found out about the HIV?” asked Kev.
I felt my face flush red. “Uh, it’s kind of a long story, but the short version is we got tested for each other knowing there was already a risk. The risk panned out for me; not for him.”
“So he’s not poz,” River summed up with a nod. “Yeah, that’s rough. My partner is negative too, and honestly, I don’t think I’m evernotat least slightly worried about giving it to him. I don’t want that for him, you know? But at the same time, the more I live with HIV, the more I realize that our collective consciousness is sort of stuck in 1995. Back when HIV was a death sentence, people got ostracized for it, and we knew so little about it that the whole thing was justscary. And that’s not the case anymore. Mostly. So…wait, what was my point.” They paused and tapped their fingers to their forehead like they were trying to focus. “Oh, right. The fear never goes away, for me, but it became less intense once I realized that while no, I absolutely don’t want to infect Fan, if it were to happen, his life wouldn’t be over any more than mine was over when I got diagnosed. And fuck that, my life isnotover!”
Applause greeted this announcement. “Hell yeah!” cheered a quiet man who hadn’t spoken enough to introduce himself the whole hour.
“Ooh, you got Cris to talk,” Trina said with a grin, reaching over me to high-five River. “That’s how you know you said something good.”
Cris pursed his lips at her disapprovingly, but only held it for all of two seconds before resuming his normal, neutral face.
Their antics were almost enough to distract me from my worries. Almost. Maybe if I kept coming back to this group often enough, the less-worried mindset would penetrate my subconscious?
24
Jamison
Week 17 - Friday
