It's the fourth time my number has been called and I have been ushered into yet another room. For one glimmering second, I thought this would be it. My AIDS test. Take a little blood, do some tests, give me my unbearable fate: wham, bam, thank you, mam. But instead, a mountain of a man (no seriously his body was a triangle of rolls leading up to his graying hair) sat his desk and facing me, he introduced himself as Mr. Cocksure, and the woman who had nicely waved me in as a nursing student.

I should have known by the happy smile and optimistic attitude.

I sat down, unable to concentrate on one specific thing. My eyes darted between the walls papered with hundreds of posters and pamphlets of men kissing men, and men kissing women, (I didn't notice any women kissing women) with blazon copy of suggestive words like, SECRET?, Partner, HIV, HPV, Cervical CANCER, WARTS, AIDS AIDS AIDS!!! In front of me, resting on my area of the desk was a large binder of laminated clippings pulled out of news papers, books, and the internet. The page was open with the heading, "Alcohol increases the risk of HIV". While these weighty words bore down on me, constantly reminding me of the impending death sentence of a positive test, the student nurse sat by eagerly, pen in hand.

"Now," man nipples said to me, glancing at what had become my folder, (that in my short time at the hospital had gone through about 6 hands). "Nicole, I'm going to be up front with you. I'm direct. I'm honest." He looked at me with a pseudo (or maybe I am just bias) concerned look.

"Ok, I said, I'm ready for it." And truth is, I was. After I revealed I had really wanted to get an HIV test to my room mate Court, and proudly repeated off the statistics I had learned in my Human Sexuality class from the previous semester. Which made Court almost convinced she had AIDS, it almost was a relief, because I had felt the same way after hearing the haunting statistics of how easy it was to become HIV positive.

Jabba the Hut began what was I am guessing was a well rehearsed speech he gave to every poor person who walked into the clinic for THE TEST.

"Don't marry a man you love, marry a man who loves you. That way he can take care of you" he started off, "because a man will say anything to get between your legs." His voice began to rise like a televangelist. `The pussy has all the power!" he cried. "God can't do what that pussy can do."

He asked me, what did god do when he wanted man? I knew the answer, but I had begun to become irate with the whole hospital system. The pause was long. `I don't know, I'm not religious".

"He made a woman with a pussy."

I nodded, OK.

His voice by this time was moving rapidly fast, my foggy pot brain couldn't keep up, and before I knew it, the air had grown silent. "I'm sorry, what?" I asked.

"What has the power?"

"Oh," I paused, "the pussy?" I had never referred to my own vagina as a pussy. The word reminded me of a transvestite who referred to the hollow region between her legs as a pussy.

"And who has the pussy?"

"Me."

"All right girl, stay with me," he spit out, positioning his hands in front of his face.

His left hand made a giant claw-like octopus(ssy), which devoured his two fingers on his right hand. This he demonstrated, is why the vagina, a big hole, was eight times more likely to to become infected then a little hole (in the penis) that was about to explode with pressure anyway.

I nodded. Yeah, ok. I have come to realize that sex has its consequences.

"What does that article say?" he asked.

For the first time in my life, I was not leaning forward, but back cooly in my seat. This mans energy was so intensely sour I wished I could have leaned for the door, which was close behind me. "It says, Alcohol increases the risk of HIV". I noted that the picture the newspaper had chosen had an odd picture of three alcohol bottles in a row, each with it's own letter of H, I, or V emblazoned on the front, as if drinking beer was like drinking HIV. I smirked, trying to hide my smile at the silly photoshop work.

Mega man leaned closer, his massive form hovered over the desk, as he took control of the book, flipping to the next laminated page. "Ok check this out, this is what happens when you suck the dick of a man with Herpes" he said, sweeping his hand over the the pictures of tongues with red rash blisters, and gums with were bruised with fluid bulbs, lips were covered in what looked almost like pleasant dew drops, but in reality were multuous sores that blistered the lips so much that the girl could only form her lips to like that of a blowfish.

He flipped the page.

Herpes festering out of anuses like mold spores.

He flipped the page.

I was excited to see it was of more herpes, only this time, Vaginal.

The vagina that took up most of the page looked like a spelunking cave, textured and cavernous. Mr. Cocksure pointed, "Blisters all up in the pussy, see that? That's for life! We can't treat that!"

He flipped the page.

Penises with blisters, rashes, limp and useless in their owner's hand.

He flipped the page.

Various other body parts appeared. Pussy eyeballs.

"You can go blind!" Hands. "You can get it on your hands!"

He flipped the page, and there began the saga into syphilis. In front of me lie pages of reptilian skin, itchy and agitated, body parts engulfed in a flame of sores.

My smile and optimist attitude about visiting the clinic had evaporated in that little office. He turned, the page, talking rapidly about pussy. "OK", I said, surprising myself, "I've taken health classes, I get it, I've seen it. I just want to take the test and go home."

"You will, after you're done seeing me", he said, barely missing a beat of his presentation. "This is what happens when a man with syphilis sticks his dick in your booty", he said pointing to the scaly skin of some unfortunate woman.

"My booty", I spoke up, "is exit only."

The nurse let out a surprise laugh, which gave me a break from the intense warmth that the oncoming tears were preparing to soothe. The nurse continued to chuckle, but the man would not step off his soap box.

I'm sure he felt that he was about to drive home his point. "Do you know what else a penis can give you? Three letters..."

"HPV" I said. He began his grocery list of HPV facts. I interrupted, hoping to move the session to a close. "I know, my aunt had it," I said as a matter of fact-ly. He didn't look interested. "She died," I added for extra effect, though she survived.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, continuing on into more shock value pictures that I'm pretty sure were the most extreme cases of every STD, the same ones shown in my 9th grade health class like urban legend to keep teenagers out of each other.

I threw my body into the back of the chair, hungry, and frustrated after spending three hours waiting for them to draw blood.

"Nicole," cocksure said, putting his laminated project down. "How were you when you became sexually active?"

"15", I said, unsure of where he was going.

"First time you sucked dick how old was you?"

"15."

"And now you're 19, right? That's four years years of sucking cock without a condom! And you think you're not in trouble."

And I wasn't. Four years of cock sucking an not one STD, thankfully. Three weeks later as I came out of the results office, feeling fresh and clean, I saw the irritated faces of those waiting through the system. A skinny older man stood at the front desk, stomping his feet for effect, "I don't want counseling!" he moaned, "I just want them to take my blood."

The nurse looked on unsympathetically, "Sir, it is against the law to test you without first counseling you." True or not, the man shut his mouth and elected to go through the session.

I wondered what the fat guy would say to this man. If he still did his "Pussy Power" speech, or mixed it up with a little "Dick Dominance" performance. It was his language that finally spoke to me. It spoke to me so much that I have been unable to have sex since. I know, eventually I will get over it, but even then I will be Safety Sally.

I appreciated him for saving me down the road. Maybe even for talking dirty to me. Unfortunately, when he called me into his box for the results, I straight up asked for a different person. Though a slap in the face was what I needed, I did not need that man to slap me in the face with syphilis, or worse, AIDS. Instead the Spanish-speaking consultant gave me simple a simple 'no' for all tests. A word I could understand in both languages.