The Man Who Clapped Too Loud

(The following events took place in Apr of '09)


It has been exactly one week since I marched into the doctors office knowing the worst was yet to come. It has been exactly two weeks since Rene broke up with me.

She was a beautiful blonde haired girl of twenty one that I was dating. Had all the right measurements. Smart, artistic, rich parents, lived in a suburban palatial estate in Georgetown, complete with her own basement apartment and separate entrance. She out drank me and we fucked like rabbits. Life was too good.

The first time we had sex I came over to her place for dinner. I only knew her a few days at this point. On the night we first met there was an intense makeout session on my friend's porch and I masterbated in front of her (at her request, of course). This was at 4am, but a nosy neighbour decided to take his dog out for a walk and that put a stop to that before I could finish. Even though I was in a drunken stupor there was still an ounce or two of shame as I bent down to pick up my pants which were around my knees. Then there was the additional shame of having a raging hard on as I did this. I really had to pull my pants UP and OUT to zip up! I was standing there with a goofy look on my face and this cock monster pressing against my jeans, sticking out like a broken bone. It was getting late and she had art class or something in the morning so I drove her home and we made a date for the next night.

I brought condoms and a bottle of wine to our first dinner. I didn't show her the condoms though, I'm a gentleman. After we ate her carefully prepared veggie samosas and garden salad we started going at it and oh boy! It was hot.

We moved to her bedroom and proceeded to tear our clothes off--and it wasn't to play doctor. My heart was racing, my head was spinning. I hadn't had sex for a year, and when you wait that long you fear that the shooter won't work or you'll pump once and explode--something's bound to going to go wrong. What if I couldn't perform up to this lovely young woman's standards? There was only one way to find out. Somehow I stopped kissing her long enough to suggest that I had a pack of condoms. Real suave.

I thought I was being sexually responsible but she was some care free hippie girl. "I don't want to use a condom, it feels better without one, no? I'm clean, I just got tested like six months ago," she said.

"Yeah, I'm definitely clean too," I said. "I was tested recently." I just met this girl a few days ago and already my first lie. I guess there was one good thing about not getting laid in a year: 100% disease free!

Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, gee, a lot can happen in six months but my judgement was clouded with passion and I was all in.

I sliced into Rene (stayharddon'tcumstayharddon'tcumstayhard) and we quickly found our rhythm. The greatest feeling is when you allay the sexual fears within; then one can sit back and enjoy the natural pleasure of a woman's flesh. Instantly Rene and myself had great sexual chemistry and our love making turned into a Dionysian frenzy. I Put one of her legs up and hit that hip bone like it owed me money. "Shuuush..." Rene whispered, "We have to be quiet, my Mom's upstairs."

Be quiet at a time like this? It was near impossible. I slowed down a little but I was building up to climax so to hell with her Mom and all her rules about being quiet. I can't help that your daughter is a beautiful nymph with an ass that could stop traffic. You know, one day subnormal worms and gophers and other underground creatures will be feasting on my skull and then where did those rules get you? And besides, this was a huge dream house like the ones given away on that t.v. show with that guy who has the amazingly techni-coloured pretty boy hair. Anytime you see a guy with a $75 haircut with all the bells and whistles you can guarantee he's a douche with a soul like barndung. I hope he goes bald. I need him in my life like a barricuda needs a bike. But anyways, back to the story...

I was so proud of myself. I finished on Rene's stomach like a good little boy and we bathed in post coital sunshine.

"I bet you want to sleep over, huh?" She said, sensing my desire. Read my mind.

"Su--" I was about to answer, "But you can't, my Mom won't let guys sleep over."

I slipped out her screen door and took a cab back to my friend's place where I was staying that night. The perfect date. I laid in bed and kept replaying the night over and over, her moans of pleasure reverberating through my head. "Still got it, kid," I thought to myself. This is what living's all about, baby!

For some reason, after a month of dating, she didn't want to see me any more. She was always over at my place, neglecting her friends, her school, getting drunk and having sex with ME. She came to her senses. She cut me off so suddenly, with no warning, I was ill prepared. My heart fell into my feet and my head into my hands. She said I was a bad influence; that I brought out the destructive side in her after she just got cleaned up. Baby, I was thinking the same thing, but give me some honesty to chew on.


I quietly took my seat in the waiting room, leafed through an old fashion magazine, looking for women that resembled Rene. I was called in after just a few minutes; an unusually slow day.

“Taylor!” The nurse exclaimed to the mostly empty room, and to this day I still feel slightly awkward hearing the sound of my name. Taylor Nezbit. It’s kind of a pussy name isn’t it? Not something luxurious and suave that rolls of the tongue like Rock Hudson now is it? Even though the man is gay as the day is long, hell of a masculine name isn‘t it? I go into the doctor's office and sit and wait some more. My eyes are fixed on the bland décor consisting of ‘sunset landscapes’ and ‘wild animals staring into the distance’. Nice touch.

Dr. Grant comes in and we make some small talk--turns out he used to live with his immaculately perfect family (pictures on his desk tell me so) in the same neighbourhood as I now reside in--The Kingsway. He I'm sure occupied one of the stately homes directly to my north, not one of the low rise apartment buildings right on Bloor St in my own personal hell.

After the small talk we got down to business. Now the questions that I’ve been waiting to pop for about a week are going to be answered (that’s how long it took to get a goddamn appointment). Now that I had my moment it didn't feel right, the whole situation felt funny. “So, I...uhh have had to pry my penis hole open every day for the last week when I want pee. I grab the head of my penis with my index finger and thumb and pull it open with a pincer grip; and once, the other day, there was the littlest speck of blood right in the tip. BUT, just a little down there means a lot, right? I have no discharge but there is a slight pain and uncomfortable feeling. It just looks a little bit swollen inside there,” I said--'there'--being the INSIDE OF MY FUCKING COCK!

It’s not Halloween but that’s scary stuff. Getting a disease in your brain or your cock has got to be the worst. So the doc gets up and says, “This is going to be torture. Drop ‘em!” I knew exactly where this situation was going.

I had to drop my drawers and lay down on my back. He was putting on the gloves. Nothing good comes when the doctor puts on the gloves. I shudder to think. I’m laying on my back and nervously laughing and panting as he gripped my flaccid member (with a pincer grip), “ha..ah..ha.ah..ha...Just give me a second to mentally prepare doc!”

He didn't wait. This is our health system at work. It's a whole fucking sack full of swift medical justice let me tell ya. He stuck some kind of swab about an inch down into my penis and I let out the yelp of a lifetime. “AHHH!!!” The scream only lasted but a second and it was done, but let me tell you, everyone in that waiting room heard this beastly wail of mine. The nurses too. "Just another clap test," they’d say as they passed each other in the halls.

Boy it was painful. Like getting pierced or like a bee stinging the inside of your pipe. I hope my worst enemy doesn’t have to go through that. I hope they go through much worse but that is neither here nor there.

I was worried there would be a week delay before I got the results of the swab and this disease, whatever it was, would be left to fester inside me. I was actually getting worked up the night before, "I know I have a goddamn STD, I don't want to wait for your goddman tests to tell me!" I pictured myself yelling at Dr. Grant. But that was not the case.

“Taylor, you have Chlamydia. It's common, don't worry. I’m going to prescribe these pills; take them all at once. There’s four small ones and one big one. The big one stays in your system for ten days.”

How easy is that? Medicine takes care of our problems so we don’t have to. Sounds good to me, doc! I mean seriously, kids look at what happens when you get Chlamydia: You go home and take these four small pills and one large pill. All at once, not one this day, two tomorrow. There’s no routine involved--just gulp ‘em down. I gulped mine down with red wine. That Chlamydia will be gone in a week!

It really is quite a benign disease in the grand scheme of things. Not like genital warts which lasts forever or, obviously the HIV, so I think I lucked out. Chlamydia is the most common says my doctor. See, I’m educating myself too. I look at it like this: In the family of STD’s the Clap is the favourite uncle who always gives you the coolest birthday presents compared to HIV who is your absent father who sodomizes you and says he’ll never do it again but after a few months does it again anyways and now you‘re caught in a vicious cycle. Kind of like that. If you’re forced to choose...I mean come on it’s a no-brainer.

The real drama began when I left the doctors office. I swear I was almost happy getting the Clap so I had an excuse to call Rene. Yes, getting the Clap was just a simple worthwhile excuse to call and hear her voice. If I didn't know what love was, it was definitely something like that.

She seemed mildly surprised when I called and told her. Well to be fair, she called me (because I texted her first when she wouldn’t answer her phone). I texted that I had to tell her something ‘important about our health’. What the fuck could that be she must have been thinking when she called five minutes later.

“Hey, how’s it going?” She said in a slightly friendly, slightly detached voice. I couldn’t tell if she was uncomfortable or just didn’t give a fuck about talking to me anymore. Maybe she didn’t think twice, but it’s alright.

“Well, it’s going okay I suppose. I only want to rip my fucking eyeballs out, chew them up and spit them out at passerbys. I’ve been falling down drunk and high on blow, smoking like a chimney the last two weeks. Everything reminds me of you. I just want to obliterate any memory of you. I think that if only I didn’t go to the bar that night I would never have met you. If only my friends and I left and I never approached you and commented on your jacket. Sometimes I can’t even eat. You believe that? I haven’t felt like this since I was a teenager. I would still fuck you even though you have the Clap. Hey I have it now too so who fucking cares? Heck, I’d still fuck you even if I was clean and I knew you were poisoned. I just can’t get enough of you. I just can’t get you out of my head and no I will not make a Kylie Minogue reference here. How did it come to this? From a soaring peak to a cold hard rock (Hudson?) bottom. How’s that generic tramp stamp on your back going to look in thirty years when you got a cigarette hanging from your mouth, a bottle of Jack in your hand, and a dick up your ass? You're only twenty one and you've already sat on a mile of cock. You’ve been with--and I quote--twenty-five to thirty guys. Twenty five TO thirty? You actually gave me a five person range. It could be twenty six but it could very well be twenty nine. That’s disgusting, and you’re a disgusting vile girl. May you go blind and become infertile from the Chlamydia that you infected me with.”

“It’s going okay,” I muttered instead.

“I have something kind of important to tell you.”

“Oh, okay.” She said.

“Yeah I think you should go to a clinic and get checked out because I think I got something from you. The doctor said it was Chlamydia.”

Jackpot!

I just laid it out there--it was the loudest silence for but a second, right after I dropped the C bomb. I’ve been waiting for that screaming silence all week. She really wasn’t too phased by the whole thing. Damn, cold as ice.

Obviously, she was a little shocked: “I’m going to go to the doctor tomorrow.” Then she mentioned that she was going to have to make a few awkward calls tomorrow to the--ahem--two guys she thinks infected her. Who fucking knows if that’s true or not; I try not to even think about those little details.

It’s ovahh! We exchanged a few pleasantries about how we find this whole situation funny in our dark little way.

"You sure do have bad taste in men," I said and it was the second last time I heard her laugh. The last time I heard her laugh was when I asked her: "Does a group of people in a room together who all have the Clap constitute as applause?"

I just wish we could enjoy the laughter together instead of the tears...well, my tears. There was a change in the way she spoke to me, a terrible finality during that last call. It can never go back, the spell has been broken. She'll never look at me again with those green eyes and flash a coy smile. Everyday that seeps into the past we get farther and farther away from getting back the magic we had. That’s the lingering sadness now some month and a half since our break-up. Why, oh WHY does it have to end (screaming on my knees with outstretched hands). I don't want it to end Mommy!

Why do relationships die? Two people make an investment together on a long shot and sooner or later one of the parties wants to cash out. Is it better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all? A question of the ages. I'll let the Immortal Bard sort that one out. In this case I can, at this moment, say that I wish I never met Rene. Now I try to forget but trying to forget is impossible so I give in to the thoughts and exhaust them until they have no raw nerve endings left--they’re fried. I’m starting to feel the heal of time and it itches. What is a person to do but drink and smoke the pain away (scratching) until some other lucky lass hitches her wagon to mine and the whole process begins anew.