Two Thousand Pounds Per Square Inch (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 5) (3 page)

I thought about this. That's what I'd thought I'd been doing with Web—deciding what I would and wouldn't do with a guy. But Web hadn't followed the script. And even if I'd regretted it afterwards, I'd kind of enjoyed it at the time.

"What's the other way?" I said.

"The other way is to think of safe sex as information that helps you make choices," Brent said. "You know what sex acts are riskier and what aren't. And you might do different things with different guys in different situations. If it's some guy you just met on Grindr, you might not suck his dick without a condom or let that guy cum in your mouth. But if it's a guy you're dating, and you've been together more than three months and you've both been tested and are both HIV-negative, you might make a different decision."

I thought about this. I'd done things with Otto that I hadn't wanted to do with Web. And if I ever had another boyfriend, I'd probably want to do those things again, and maybe other things too.

"The truth is," Brent was saying, "I think for most guys, safer sex is a little of both. We decide what level of risk we're comfortable with. And then we make adjustments both ways based on the guy we're with—how likely we think the guy is to have a different status than us. But that's easier said than done. If you allow yourself 'exceptions,' you might make them for the wrong reasons—because you're drunk, because you're in the heat of the moment, or because a guy is a really good liar. The sad thing is, sometimes people are the least safe in the riskiest of places, like in bathhouses or with total strangers. Do you know what serosorting means?"

I shook my head no.

"It means when HIV-negative guys try to only have sex with HIV-negative guys, and positive guys only have sex with other positive guys. People think that then they don't have to use condoms. And the fact is, studies show that it might reduce your chance of being infected a little bit—not a lot, but a little. Unfortunately, a lot of guys don't know they have HIV—they think they're negative when they're not. And one really shitty thing about HIV is that a person is
most
infective in the weeks right after he's become
infected, but before his test results show up positive—up to eight times more infective. And remember, there are also all those other sexually transmitted diseases out there. Before you leave, I also want to talk to you about being vaccinated for hepatitis B. Every gay or bi guy should be."

"Wait," I said. "Those guys who try to serosort. They're all just going to become infected?" That made me both sad and angry, but I wasn't exactly sure who I was angry with.

"A lot of them, yeah," Brent said. "But there's a new treatment called PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis. Remember what I mentioned before, PEP—taking antiviral medications to stay negative? PrEP is taking some of those medications all the time, even before you might be exposed. The fact is, it's very, very effective at keeping people HIV-negative—like maybe more than 90% effective, possibly even better if you take the pills absolutely every day. Of course it doesn't protect you from other sexually transmitted diseases, just HIV. But along with condoms and regular testing, it gives us another way to fight this disease." He hesitated. "Russel? Did it ever occur to you that you might one day meet and fall in love with a HIV-positive guy?"

I thought about that. It never
had
occurred to me. Which was really kind of hypocritical considering I'd been thinking that
I
was HIV-positive until about five minutes before. What kind of guy was I that I wouldn't be willing to date myself? HIV-positive guys probably weren't
all
like Web. They were probably mostly just like everyone else.

"The truth is," Brent said, "you're probably safer having safe sex with an HIV-positive person who's on meds and actively treating his disease than having unsafe sex with someone who doesn't know his status or who thinks he's negative based on some test from long ago. Anyway, condoms and PrEP are two of the tools you can use to stay negative. This is all stuff you need to talk about with your doctor."

I nodded again, lost in thought. On the coffee table, the dildo jiggled.

"Russel?" Brent said.

I looked up at him.

"Here's the bottom line," he said. "For a gay or bi guy today, if you want to stay HIV-negative, you have to
choose
to stay negative. If you don't make that choice, you'll probably become HIV-positive. Some studies show that half of all gay or bi guys could very well become HIV-positive by age fifty."

There was that word again:
half
.

"But if you do make the choice to stay negative," Brent said, "you probably
will
stay that way."

I thought about everything Brent had said to me, and I kept thinking back on all the sex I'd already had, with Kevin, then Web, then Otto. What
was
the right choice for me?

That’s when something suddenly occurred to me.

I wasn’t nervous. Well, I was nervous, but not like before. It was partly that I'd gotten a good result on my test, but it was more than that too. Here we were talking about cum and condoms and fucking, and I didn’t feel like I was deep in the Marianas Trench, like my head was going to explode from all the pressure. I actually felt pretty good, because now HIV and AIDS didn't seem like such big scary mystery. Well, okay, it
was
still big and scary, but at least now I knew how to protect myself.

It was Brent. Or at least it was the way he was talking about these things. Like sex was just a normal part of life, like these were all just basic facts. Which made total sense. I mean, if I couldn’t talk about these things, I probably wasn’t ready to be
doing
them, right?

"Oh," Brent said. "I just realized I never talked about rimming."

"Rimming?" I said. And suddenly, the pressure of two thousand pounds per square inch was back, pressing down on me yet again, making it all but impossible for me to breathe.

Please note: This story, written as a result of research and in consultation with experts, includes some of the latest information about HIV/AIDS, but it should not be considered medical advice or a recommendation for individual behavior. Consult your own doctor and other sources of information to make as informed a decision as possible when it comes to your own sexual behavior.

The Real Story Safe Sex Project is an all-volunteer educational effort created and organized by author Brent Hartinger using entertainment and popular culture to spread information and awareness about HIV/AIDS and safer sex among young gay and bisexual guys
.
If you enjoyed this story or found it helpful, please consider posting a review at
Amazon
,
GoodReads
, or help spread the word in some other way. To read or watch other contributions to the project, or if you're a writer, filmmaker, or artist interested in contributing your own effort, go here:
brenthartinger.com/therealstory

Brent Hartinger is an author, playwright, and screenwriter.
Geography Club
, the first book in his Lambda Award-winning Russel Middlebrook Series, is also a successful stage play and a feature film co-starring Scott Bakula and Nikki Blonsky. Brent's other books include the forthcoming gay teen thriller
Three Truths and a Lie
, and the forthcoming supernatural thriller
The Divide
(co-written with Michael Jensen). He also has a number of film projects in active development.

In 1990, Brent helped found one of the world's very first LGBT teen support groups, in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington. In 2005, he co-founded the entertainment website AfterElton.com, which was sold to MTV/Viacom in 2006. He currently co-hosts a podcast called Media Carnivores from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his husband, writer Michael Jensen. Read more by and about Brent, or contact him at
brenthartinger.com
.

If you'd like to support the author, please buy or recommend the books in which Russel Middlebrook first appears, and which include much more about the guys and experiences referenced in this story.

ALSO BY BRENT HARTINGER

Russel Middlebrook: The Futon Years

(Adult Books)

*
The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know
(Book 1)

*
Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams
(Book 2, 2015)

The Russel Middlebrook Series
(Young Adult Books)

* Geography Club
(Book 1)

* The Order of the Poison Oak
(Book 2)

* Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/

Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
(Book 3)

* The Elephant of Surprise
(Book 4)

Other Books

* Three Truths and a Lie (2016)

* The Divide (2016)

*
Shadow Walkers

* Project Sweet Life

* Grand & Humble

* The Last Chance Texaco

As always, I couldn't do any of this alone.

The book jacket design for this project was generously donated by Philip Malaczewski. He's wonderful to work with. Contact him at
[email protected]
.

Jay Gladstein, M.D., donated his enthusiasm and expertise to this project. He's also my ex, so in addition to knowing everything about HIV/AIDS, he obviously has incredible taste in men (I do too). Contact him at:

Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

5901 Olympic Blvd, Suite 206

Los Angeles, CA 90036

[email protected]

Olivia Ford, the executive editor of
TheBody.com
, an excellent HIV/AIDS and safer sex resource, generously contributed her knowledge. You can contact her at
[email protected]
. If you have more questions about anything HIV/AIDS related, you can ask them on TheBody.com's "Ask the Experts" forums:
TheBody.com/experts
and
TheBody.com/gaymen
.

Finally, a special thanks to my partner of two decades, Michael Jensen who, as usual, had to read 50,000 drafts of this thing. But again as usual, with every draft he read, he helped make it a little bit better.

Oh, and while I did consult with the above-mentioned experts, let me emphasize that any factual errors or other mistakes that ended up in the final story are entirely my own damn fault.

Buddha Kitty Books

PO Box 30542

Seattle WA 98103

www.brenthartinger.com