"Hey Thom, do you know anything about that new experimental HIV drug
they are working with at UCSF?"

That e-mail text was from a friend, and that is all it said. But I have
been around; I knew what it really meant.

My e-mail reply to him was, "Have not heard of it, why?"

We both got our answers to each other's questions without even
discussing the actual issue at hand, which was that my handsome, middle-
aged, college-educated, six-figure-a-year-earning, HIV-negative, "only
a top" white friend disclosed to me via his red flag question that he
is now HIV positive, a new victim to a seroconversion he never saw
coming all those times he was "coming"!

He's a total top, which he made clear to me over and over again through
the years as a sort of medal he wore with great pride on his chest --
like this medal alone was a bulletproof shield that could stop even an
AIDS bullet. But what he failed to tell me when bragging was that he
only topped bareback. Interesting, the secrets we keep when feelings of
shame come into play. So all this was happening while new news on the
cusp gives information that there are high levels of HIV in rectal
secretions. So barebackers: Red alert Red alert! How is that for a
nasty game of Russian roulette?

My first thoughts on my friend's situation is, Why in the hell are you
sticking your uncovered penis into a raw hole in the first place? I'm
reminded that his now ex-partner is positive and that having
unprotected sex made them feel closer during lovemaking. Then I think,
Who was really screwing whom in this relationship?

My friend's story is not unique. There are all sorts of people who
believe they are in some way blessed -- that they are fearless,
invincible creatures, and they will take risks just to blow that load.
After all, my friend was of the same mindset. His choice to engage in
that slight risk activated the HIV switch that now has my friend on a
new path in his life that he screwed up on his own.

Worried, I take a walk to think and ponder what mental work lies before
me with my friend. How much therapy will I have to endure to help him
on his way? How many tears will I wipe? In time, which will I wipe more
-- his tears or his XXX when he is too sick to make it to the toilet?
Dear God, why am I still cleaning people's asses so far into this
epidemic? Maybe that is my job as a long-term survivor of AIDS -- to be
my friends' support through better or worse, in sickness and in health,
until death do us part. Funny, we cannot get married, but we sure do
follow the same guidelines of marriage for the ones we love.

On my walk, I run into a guy I know from the gym -- a little hottie in
his forties. Legend has it he too is a top. Since this is fresh in my
mind, I tell him the story of my friend. He responds, "Wow, that really
worries me. I mean, I am negative but sometimes guys just want to sit
on my dick, and I think, OK, well, whatever. I mean what can I really
do?"

So many stories, so many conversions. I realize now how potent HIV
really is for so many uneducated people. It appears to me from my
latest interactions that sometimes people just end up screwing
themselves for the sake of screwing someone else.


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