33
FRANK
"Frank."
Pleased to be leaving the waiting room, Frank stood up quickly. Irrationally, he feared the lady with the clipboard would call out his last name as well if he didn't make himself known immediately.
Despite arriving very early for the walk-in clinic open for people without appointments, he'd already sat among the strangers for almost an hour. In that time he'd watched, and tried not to watch, people arrive in the clinic. If the other people who joined him in the waiting room were as embarrassed as he was, they didn't show it. Many walked in with confidence as if they'd been there many times before. Some came in with their partners. All of the couples were heterosexual combinations. Frank wondered if they were all riddled with symptoms and disease.
The specialist GUM clinic was a part of the health service that he'd never used before.
The lady with the clipboard had shoulder length black hair, and at a glance, she appeared to be in her mid-forties. He followed her along a corridor and into consulting room number four, according to the badge on the door.
"Come and sit down, Frank." As she sat at a desk, she flashed him a smile and then proceeded to look at the form he'd filled in.
Name, contact details, and a questionnaire about his sex life and his reason for attending the clinic. Ticking the boxes made it easier than having to tell this lady in words. Face-to-face, he might lose his nerve and say something different entirely.
"My name is Maggie." She looked up from the form with her finger in place halfway down, as if that was the point she'd reached. "It says here you last had sex three months ago, you've had sex with men and women, and you've come for a complete check up including an HIV test." She looked back at the form, running her fingers down to the bottom, turning over the page and scanning the information.
Frank nodded when she looked at him again.
"I see you've not been to this clinic before. Have you been tested for sexually transmitted infections somewhere else in the past?"
Frank shook his head. "No." He wondered what that said about him; he'd taken it for granted that he was fine and healthy because he had never had any symptoms and of course he'd been with Ash for a long time. Both he and Ash had other partners before; it had simply never occurred to him to question whether either of them had something without any symptoms.
"Is there a particular reason you're here today?"
"I slept with a man, about six months ago." He paused and thought about the time scale. "No, it was longer ago than that, last September. A few days ago, I discovered he's HIV positive. He never told me at the time."
"I see. Did you use condoms?"
"We didn't. We just..." Frank couldn’t believe he was about to tell a stranger about his sex life. "It was just blowjobs, but I guess you can catch it like that, can't you?"
"We can discuss safer sex in a minute and I'll get you some leaflets."
The lid came off, the simmering anger, fears, and confusion that had bubbled since Saturday. "He came in my mouth. I swallowed it. He should have told me, shouldn't he? He knew at the time; he should have told me. Isn't it a crime not to tell people and then go and have sex with them?"
"Since then you've had sex with how many women?" She looked down at the form again.
"Two." Frank looked down and his hands in his lap. "One-night stands. About three months ago. I could have passed it on."
"Did you use condoms with the women?"
Frank nodded, full of shame and regret. At the time he'd finally accepted things were over with Ash. In fact, they'd become friends, sort of. At the same time, he couldn't stop thinking about Chris.
"I only had that one time with a man." Just one time; it had been so special, and Frank had so hoped to rekindle something with Chris again at some point in the future when he was ready for it.
"Are you still in touch with those women?"
He hung his head in shame and examined his hands. "I could probably contact them, but they were just a couple of one-night stands, you know how it is."
A nurse in a sexual health clinic could hardly be judgemental about someone having a few one-night stands; she probably heard it all the time.
What should Frank have done differently to protect himself and the people he was with?
That night with Chris had been magical, possibly the best night of his entire life. Not just because of the sex but because of how he felt the entire time he was with Chris.
Frank had spent months regretting walking away.
He certainly wasn't ready, though, so, on a couple of occasions, Frank had picked up women. Why not? He was a single man with needs and desires. Those one-night stands only confirmed beyond any doubt that what he experienced with Chris was unique.
Frank couldn't just replicate that sense of the perfect fit with anyone who was willing.
"The tests are simple. We just require a urine sample and some blood, and we'll have the results back within a week. It you can provide a sample, the toilet is just across the hall." Maggie handed him a clear plastic beaker.
When Frank returned carrying a container of pee, Maggie was talking to another man in the room. He wasn't sitting in the patient's chair, but leaning against the far wall, and the NHS lanyard around his neck suggested he was staff.
He stood up straighter when Frank entered the room. "Hello, Frank. I'm Greg; I'm a nurse here at the clinic and specialist HIV adviser. Maggie said you might have concerns about HIV because you've had sex with someone who is positive."
Frank handed Maggie the sample and sat down. "Yes, I don't know where to start. I have never thought of it applying to me."
"Have you looked up information online?"
"No." Frank was fearful of the horror stories he might find when he didn't know what might be relevant to him. He just knew he needed to be tested.
Moving around the room, Maggie did something with the sample and washed her hands. She then sat back at the desk, where she began writing.
Frank paid little attention to her.
"When you are with someone, anyone, they could have the virus or other STIs and not know about it. So you should be familiar with the risks and how to protect yourself. I'm going to give you some leaflets," Greg said.
"Yes, I know about condoms. But I didn't think, at the time. He should have told me. It's the law, isn't it?"
Maggie and Greg exchanged glances, and Greg pulled up a chair, sitting close to Frank. "There's no law that says he must tell you. If he's known for a long time and was taking his medication, then it's quite possible his HIV status is under control. For most people on medication, the viral load is so low it's undetectable and, therefore, he can't transmit the virus."
"Say that again?" The information came too fast for Frank to process.
"Did he tell you if he's undetectable?"
"No, we didn't discuss it." Frank reflected on how he'd walked away without a proper conversation with Chris. Not for the first time.
"If his medication regime is working and his viral load is undetectable, he can't pass on HIV, no matter what you do with him."
"I didn't know that. I thought it was highly contagious."
"Lots of people think that, but actually, it's not. And even though there is no cure, with advances in medicine, his life expectancy in the UK is as good as anyone's."
"I'm ready to take your blood." Maggie had various items ready in front of her on the desk, cotton wool, plasters, syringes.
Frank held out his arm, and Maggie examined his veins before wrapping a tourniquet around his upper arm.
"Do you have any questions?" asked Greg.
Frank suspected he'd have many when the information had settled in his brain for a while. "Are you telling me he can't pass it on even if I turn into a vampire and drink his blood?"
"If he's undetectable. You'll have to ask him. If so, bathe in it if you like." Greg smiled. "But I wouldn't recommend it, not least because there's a whole load of other things you can catch from blood or sex."
It was a lot to process under the watchful gaze of two nurses and the bright overhead lights. He didn't need to think about things to know he'd been too hasty to walk away from Chris.
Yet again.