I followed the nurse into her room deep inside the sexual health clinic.

“So,” she said, “is there anything we’re looking for, or…”

“Just a check up,” I said. “It’s been a couple of years…I probably need looking at.”

“Ok, so just a routine check-up?” She glanced at me but said nothing about the pause in my voice.

“Sure,” I said.

She read the screen of a laptop turned far enough away from me so I couldn’t see it.

“On the form you filled out you said you’ve had unprotected sex in the last 3 months. Is this correct?” she asked and I said it was. She also had some paperwork in front of her I recognised as the forms I’d filled in while sitting in the waiting room. She looked a little uninterested. A little bored. I was about to shatter that.

“How many have you had unprotected sex with?” she asked.

“Oh,” I hesitated. “I…uh…do you need an exact figure?”

Her face stayed pointed at the screen, but her eyes shifted towards me. “You don’t know?”

Dammit. I was hoping this conversation was gonna be a little less inquisitive.

“No…I mean, well, no, not for sure.”

Now I had her attention. “You mean to tell me you don’t know all of the people you’ve had sex with recently? That you can’t name them?”

“I probably can’t name half of them,” I laughed, even though it was true.

Maybe she’d think I was a joker and leave it.

“Give me a rough figure.” She didn’t think I was funny and she wasn’t going to leave it.

I stared at the palms of my hands like they were about to give me the answer. “I…14. Maybe. I think.”

“You think?” She spat the question at me.

“Well, I thought it was 12 but my son says there was 2 I have no memory of.”

She held up a finger. “We’re going to get back to what you’ve just told me in a moment. I need to process that.”

“It sounds a lot more fucked up than it is,” I said.

“Really?”

“No. It’s as fucked up as it sounds.”

“Oh wow,” she said, picking up her pen and writing something on my forms. “You’ve had a busy 3 months.”

“3 months?” I said. “No, this was over 9 days.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” She dropped her pen. “9 days?“

I shrugged. “It’s been a wild time.”

“Wild?” She stared at me. “Don’t you care about your health? You’re playing with your life.”

I didn’t know what to say so I stared back.

“Don’t you care?” she asked.

I had to think about the question. “It’s not that I don’t care,” I said eventually, “it’s just that this how I am. Anything fun, exciting, addictive, I can’t keep away from it. My family have told me that if they win the lottery they’ll drip-feed me money otherwise I’ll flame out.”

“Flame out?” she asked.

“Y’know,” I said. “Like, party myself to death.”

She glanced down at the papers. “Yes, I think I see. But…wait, do you have a wife or girlfriend?”

“No ma’am,” I said. “No one wants me.”

“Apparently 14 others do,” she said. That made me chuckle.

“Ok, let’s finish this form and then we’ll talk about the next steps,” she said. “I…I’m going to ask a question that I already regret: have you had sex with a man recently?”

I scratched my head. “Does it count if they used to be a man and now they’re not?”

She dropped her pen and put her head in her hands. “Technically…I…no…I think it doesn’t count.”

“Then technically, no, I have not had sex with a man.”

She folded her hands in front of her and looked at me for an age. “I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and I thought no one could surprise me anymore. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Congratulations?” I ventured.

“Don’t you want to settle down? Have a normal life?” she asked.

Something in me shook loose. “Don’t you think I’ve been trying for 20 fucking years? Are you telling me you’re not getting men my age in here, all the time, men who have given up on relationships because every time they try they get knocked back and fucked over, so they go out and do what they gotta do just to try and feel something? There’s something my generation of man says about women; she’s not your woman, it’s just your turn.”

She blinked, held her hands up. “I’m a nurse. You need a psychiatrist.”

“No I don’t,” I said. “I know everything that’s bad for me, and yet I seek it out. I’m not a man who can have a relationship. I burn too bright, and I find women who burn brightly, and then they torch me when I fall in love with them and then I go off the rails and end up telling my woes to a very surprised sexual health nurse.”

This time she laughed. “Ok, we’re off track here a little. I need to clear some things up. For instance, your last sexual partner. Did you know…Her or…”

“Yes, I knew her,” I said. “Kinda.”

She sighed. “Kinda? How did you meet her? A dating app or bar or something. Where is she from?”

“She’s Vietnamese,” I said, and as I said it, I saw the nurse close her eyes like she had a bad headache.

“Vietnam?” she asked and I said yes. “So you went to Vietnam? A country and people who have a hepatitis B problem.”

“No,” I said, trying to sound as offended as a man who’s fucked 14 people in 9 days and ended up in a clinic can. “I met her in Bangkok.”

To her credit, she gave up trying to look shocked anymore.

“Alright look,” she said. “I’m going to run bloods and urine on you, test you for everything, and then I want you back in here in 2 weeks for another screening.”

“Is that normal procedure?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But for you, I’m making an exception.”

***

Update: all I had was chlamydia.