sex diaries

The Guy Battling a Sunburn and His Girlfriend’s HPV

Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week, the Guy Battling a Sunburn and His Girlfriend’s HPV: male, writer/editor, 24, Bushwick, straight, in a relationship.

DAY ONE
11 a.m.: Weird start to the day. Wake up with my lady and an enormous hangover. We had sex last night, though I can’t remember much about it. I ask, and she says she came. Open my laptop to find a Facebook message from my ex. She’s sent me a few lately, which makes sense, since I saw her for the first time in a while about a month ago. It was the first time we didn’t hook up since breaking up.

3 p.m.: Lady and I get back from our weekly writing group. I feel like death and lie down. Before long, she undresses me (while lying down) and starts going down. I’m a big fan of oral, almost more than sex sometimes, so I let her continue until I’m about to come, and then we switch to having sex. First she’s on top, then I get on top, in missionary position. After a while, I get behind her and pull out to come on her chest and stomach. She doesn’t have an orgasm, so I go down on her. I remember taking a break with my hands at one point, and her pushing my head back down. She comes and we take a shower together, then nap.
6 p.m.: Lady goes home to hang out with roommates and do some work. I go out with my friends and talk to a few girls but keep my distance. I talk to one of my female friends about her boyfriend cheating on her several times; she is physically shaking when she tells me about it. We all part very late and make plans for the beach the next day.

DAY TWO
10 a.m.: Wake up (alone). Pack my bags for the beach and go to my friend’s place. He drives us out there. My lady stays at her place to work and see friends.
11:30 a.m.: We get to the beach. It’s a mix of gorgeous girls and the worst of humanity New York can offer. There’s also a pirate in drag with a crazy-looking parrot, garters, and a rainbow-colored Victorian dress strutting around the beach and talking to folks. I make a comment about getting fat and poke my stomach: “What is this?” My one friend answers: “Age.” I wonder if that’s what’s happening to my sex drive.
3:30 p.m.: Everyone’s tired, and I’m starting to sunburn. We leave the beach.
4 p.m.: I realize that I’m way more sunburned than I initially thought. We stop for seafood.
5 p.m.: We all get back from dinner and then set home. I go buy aloe vera, and my roommate rubs it on my back then shows me a photo of her friend, topless, while her friend is sitting there. She gets uncomfortable, and I make a complimentary joke to make things less awkward.
8 p.m.: My lady comes over again, and we fall asleep early, no sex. I’m way too sunburned to even consider it.

DAY THREE
7:20 a.m.: We wake up. I get up and start dressing, then look at her, lying naked in my bed, not wanting to get up. I love her skin. I wake her up again, and we make breakfast and leave for work.
5:30 p.m. I get home. My lady will be hosting friends at her place tonight, and I need a night in, so we won’t be seeing each other. I start looking at porn in the living room, debating whether I want to jack off or not. I decide I do, and go into my room. I watch two blow-job videos and then a sex one. Forget to bring tissue into my room and end up putting boxers on with one hand and having to sneak past my roommates’ bedrooms to the bathroom.

DAY FOUR
Between 3 and 5 a.m.: I have a dream that I’m having sex with someone I dislike very strongly … in front of my brother. He’s lying in his childhood bed and we’re across the room in mine. I have a hard time keeping it up, and then I flip her around and do it, no problem. I wake up. Weird. I consider jacking off, but I can’t think of anyone but this girl I don’t like. I fall back asleep.
11 a.m.: At work, I keep thinking about the dream and if it means anything.
1 p.m.: I get a text from my lady: “Call me.” I hate when she does this. I call her — she had an irregular pap two weeks ago and went back to the doc today. “Turns out I do have HPV,” she says. I keep it together and ask her some questions: What kind? What do we do next? What should I worry about? etc. At the end I tell her I have to go back to work. She starts crying, and we talk for a few minutes. I try to calm her down. Once we hang up, I walk over to my desk. A really hot girl walks by my office. Nothing feels weird. I decide to stop smoking and start exercising again. They say 80 percent of people get rid of it on their own …
3 p.m.: I’ve done some more research on HPV, convinced the lady to stop smoking, and sent her a bunch of info that seems helpful. She asks if she can come over tonight and says she can’t have sex till Friday (they’re doing another test). I lament. She replies saying she can give all the blow jobs I want. I’m pretty happy with us for being cool about this. It’s reassuring for our relationship, and for my own sense of being able to deal with things.
3:30 p.m.: I decide I need to e-mail my ex, who I haven’t had sex with in almost a year, and tell her just in case. I send a long, apologetic e-mail explaining the situation, how I’m probably carrying it, and I don’t know where I would have gotten it — from her, someone before her, my current lady, or someone in between them. I tell her she should get tested. She lives in France now, so I have no idea what kind of health insurance, if any, she has. She replies 30 minutes later saying, “Thank you. I’m glad you told me,” and saying she has to go get medication this week and will ask about it. I send her another e-mail thanking her for being cool about it. She replies and asks if I want the results from her test, to narrow down how I might’ve gotten it. I say yes and thank her again.
9 p.m.: My lady comes over and we hang out and eat dinner, then watch part of a movie. We talk about the test results briefly, and she gives me some of the gory details, like how the doctor said if she noticed anything “mustard colored” over the next few days, not to worry about it. She puts some aloe on me, and we fall asleep.

DAY FIVE
11 a.m.: I have today off, so I wake up late. She’s already up, and we eat some cereal together and take a shower. She puts aloe on me and says I’m starting to peel. We hang out for a while, and she goes home. It’s a very uneventful day for me.
9 p.m.: The lady and I go out and get a few more drinks and talk about the test results and our relationship and try to put everything in perspective. She’s moving into my place next lease, after some roommates leave, and nothing has changed. We get pretty drunk and go home to pass out.

DAY SIX
9 a.m.: I wake up and am a total lizard: My shoulders, chest, upper arms, and upper back are all peeling like crazy. I actually wake up to my lady peeling pieces of skin off my back. We make some breakfast and then go back to my room. She starts grabbing my crotch then going down on me, and we start having sex, with her on top. I notice that she’s bleeding, too much to be normal, and we stop and shower, where she goes down on me. I come into her mouth, then I ask if I can go down on her. She says no, because of the blood. We finish showering and she puts lotion on me.
12:00 p.m.: Lotion was a bad decision. I’m peeling like crazy and have a terrible hangover. Lady and I help set up an event I’m hosting at a bar near my house.
11 p.m.: The event is over, and we go to a bar. I end up giving a very Chicago/Ira Glass–looking guy the finger and yelling “Fuck you” as he walks out for telling my friend and me he hoped we’d die of cancer and AIDS. This has nothing to do with sex, except it makes me feel pretty good about myself, and some people tell me it was pretty cool. The lady grabs my arm and strokes it. Pretty stereotypical.

DAY SEVEN
11 a.m.: Not as bad a hangover as yesterday. We wake up, go out for brunch, and go to some friends’ studios for Bushwick Open Studios. We walk to a bar and are each given two free Jamesons on the rocks.
5 p.m.: The train is down, so we walk for fifteen minutes and get dinner/lunch at a vegan bakery.
8 p.m.: We go to an art show. Most of the art sucks, but some girls are checking me out, so I guess that’s all right. I see the person I dreamed about earlier in the week and try to make small talk (remember, I don’t like her). Then some guy is talking to the lady outside, and he lights her cigarette. I walk up and join the conversation, realizing he’s just being nice, or maybe now he’s hitting on me, or both of us. We talk for maybe twenty minutes, then the lady and I go home and pass out by ten. Still no sex, but it’s the first night that I can actually lie on my side and cuddle her without feeling like I’m being rubbed down with a baking sheet.

TOTALS: one act of actual intercourse; two acts of failed intercourse; two acts of fellatio; one act of attempted cunnilingus; one act of masturbation (with porn).

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The Guy Battling a Sunburn and His Girlfriend’s HPV