Nasty (30 page)

Nicola was in shock. The baby was also upset; she was kicking more than usual. Nicola held her head down low. If what
the journalist suggested was true…she could possibly be carrying the disease. She thought back at the year she screwed anything in sight. If she was positive, she’d have a hell of a time contacting folks.

Then she thought about the people she loved and cared about who might be affected: Carlos, Jonathan, and her baby. The baby was due in three months. Nicola ran out of the house to go to the hospital. She had to know. There were too many people she needed to protect with the information.

N
icola felt warm. A thermometer’s reading proved she was running a fever. She had been feeling weak all day long. Getting ready for her fouryear- old daughter’s first day at pre-school and preparing dinner for Carlos and his business partners later that evening, even with a full staff to boss around, had drained her tank. A cough that would not respond to the antibiotics her doctor had given her three weeks ago was really wearing her down.

Out of breath, she barely made it up the stairs to her bedroom. Coughing all the way, she checked on Cisely. She and the nanny were having a good time together. She looked at her precious child. The excellent prenatal care provided by her obstetrician and the anti-viral medications she prescribed for Nicola during the pregnancy protected her baby. After her last lab test at eighteen months, Cisely was officially HIV free. She was a healthy, smart little girl that her daddy Carlos spoiled absolutely rotten.

“Hi, Mommy. Did you buy me the new toy I told you about?”

“No, you have to ask your daddy for that.”

“But you promised, Mommy!”

“Me and your daddy will talk about it later.” Her beautiful little girl, with two long plaits, pushed out her bottom lip and
turned into a little ogre. If she didn’t love her so much, she would have pushed that lip right back in. Elsa, the nanny, had a concerned look on her face.

“Mrs. Singleton, you don’t look good.”

“I don’t feel good, either. I’m going to lie down and take a nap.”

Nicola barely made it to her room. She lay down on the bed hoping that sleep would revive her. It usually did. When she opened her eyes two hours later, paramedics were shoving an oxygen mask over her face. They were preparing her for transport to the hospital. Carlos was screaming for them to help his wife.

A week later Nicola was still in the intensive care unit, barely hanging on to life. The doctors explained that Nicola was no longer just HIV positive. She now had AIDS.

Carlos was upset. After four years of taking the pills and hoping that they could keep the disease at bay, the worst had finally happened. Watching the love of his life fighting to stay alive was too much for him to bear.

Nicola’s condition slowly improved. They all thought she wouldn’t make it, but she proved everyone wrong. After a month in the hospital, Nicola came home. She was frail and had lost weight. But she was determined to live as long as she could. With Carlos by her side and her little girl to love, maybe she could beat the odds.

Two years later, Nicola was still fighting for her life. On her first day back home from her most recent stay in the hospital, Nicola sat propped up in bed watching Carlos count out his supply of pills for the day. Still only HIV-positive, he enjoyed normal health. From the beginning, he decided not to skip
doses. Counselors explained that non-compliance would only encourage the development of full-blown AIDS.

“Carlos, you’re one lucky bastard.” Nicola stretched out and yawned.

“I’m lucky you and I and Cisely are together, I know that.” He bent over and kissed her on the cheeks. Though he fought hard to keep away from death, he never once thought about abandoning her. For better or worse. In sickness or in health. Those vows meant everything to him.

“Bring the mirror over to me, baby.” Carlos hesitated. She looked like hell, but he brought it to her anyway. “I look better today than yesterday, I guess. What day is it?”

“Tuesday, baby. It’s Tuesday.”

Nicola’s mental functions would come and go. Her memory was like Swiss cheese. The private duty nurse brought Nicola her afternoon dosage of pills.

“I wonder what these things are gonna do to me?” She swallowed them all in one long gulp and washed them down with water.

Nicola’s problem from the beginning of treatment was that doctors had had a hard time finding the right balance of medications. She did not tolerate the varying combinations of drugs. It didn’t help that behind Carlos’s back, she would miss dosages, thinking she could avoid the nausea, diarrhea, and bleeding abnormalities that made her life miserable. Her persistently low CD4 count, a measure of how sick her immune system was, made her vulnerable for opportunistic infections. Folks with normal levels rarely contracted these devastating illnesses.

In eighteen months, since she’d had her first AIDS-related illness, she’d had three episodes of pneumonia, the last time
requiring ventilator assistance. Three months ago, blurred vision and altered mental status, brought with it a diagnosis of toxoplasmosis, a rare parasitic infection. Dark scarring lesions of Kaposi’s sarcoma covered her once beautiful face.

Carlos looked at his wife, still lovely in his mind, as she primped in front of the hand mirror. She was literally wasting away. Without an appetite, pounds melted off the body that men had once worshipped. She was ninety-two pounds when he brought her home from the hospital. Looking at her deep sunken eyes, he felt it in his bones that he was bringing her home to die.

Today was a good day for Nicola. She was lucid for the first time in a week. Often the dementia would cause her to hallucinate. Always patient, Carlos would hold her in his arms while she had long conversations with invisible people.

But as luck would have it, Nicola did respond to a new treatment protocol that doctors suggested she take. This time around, Nicola followed the doctor’s orders. Her appetite improved and she gained good solid weight. The hallucinations went away.

Carlos, inspired by Nicola’s health, felt their lives normalize again. Not knowing how long she’d be in what appeared to be remission or whether he might develop AIDS himself, he planned a year-long trip for the entire family.

He took Nicola, their daughter, Cisely, and suitcases filled with medications on a cruise around the world. Carlos was determined that for whatever time they had left together, they would spend it in happiness and joy.

Through teary eyes, sitting next to her daughter, Cisely, Nicola watched the young soprano’s angelic face effortlessly sing “His Eye is on the Sparrow. ” “Sing it till there isn’t a dry eye in the house,” were Nicola’s only instructions to the vocalist. She often hummed its melody to Carlos while cradling and rocking him to sleep. It seemed to comfort both of them. Now that was no longer a concern. Nicola’s man, the one she loved so deeply, had left her forever.

The vocalist continued to sing. Her five-octave voice made every word come alive. Nicola could feel the Eternal’s presence with her. It comforted her so. She thought back over the last two years.

Nicola’s faith had wavered so many times since Carlos had developed AIDS after they’d returned from their cruise. It had reached rock bottom when, on a bone-chilling February morning, Carlos had lapsed into a coma. Doctors had put him on a respirator and he was fighting for his life. That was the day she’d wandered into the small corner church and first heard the song about the Lord and his sparrows.

She’d heard it many times before, but somehow on that day it took on an especially deep meaning. She understood finally and completely of how the Creator watches over even the
smallest of his creations. Surely, just surely, he would watch over her family. With that promise of support, she could face Carlos’s inevitable end as well as her own. She never doubted the Lord’s love again.

Within a week of that revelation, Carlos’s condition improved dramatically. They had successfully defeated death once again. They both enjoyed a brief remission from their illness. It was the last time for Carlos. He developed a rare form of meningitis two weeks ago and never came home again.

Link took Nicola’s arm. It was time to go to the cemetery. She smiled up at him and Mama Ophelia. From the very beginning, when Carlos had his first AIDS-related illness, they had been her rock through the whole ordeal. Jonathan escorted little Cisely out the church.

When Jonathan arrived in Florida to attend the funeral, Nicola really leaned on him. She, Carlos and Jonathan had all become very good friends over the years. Jonathan was now a successful infectious disease specialist. Thanks to the medications, he was still enjoying good robust health.

His book for teens, that he started writing after he discovered he was HIV positive,
Just Say No, and If You Can’t, Wrap It Up,
was scheduled to be released in a few months. The revealing tell-all book advised young people to practice abstinence and if that wasn’t possible, then safe sex was the only intelligent alternative.

Jonathan helped Nicola plan the ceremony. He requested that the presiding reverend read the poem “Footprints.” Its message, that the Lord carries you when you have long lost the will and power to stand on your own, had often inspired him in times when he felt hopeless in regards to his own diagnosis.

After the reading, the soloist sang the “Sparrow” song a capella
as gravediggers covered Carlos with dirt. Then…it was all over. Family and guests returned to their cars.

Link and Ophelia offered to help Jonathan, Nicola and Cisely back to the limo. They all refused. This was the last time they would all be together. They just wanted a few more minutes alone.

All three of them sat together in silence, holding hands. Out of nowhere, three small birds flew on top of Carlos’s gravesite. Were they sparrows? Jonathan, Nicola nor Cisely knew. All they did know was that somehow things would work out for them.

Whatever life had in store, they could face. For the Lord was carrying all three of them. He was watching over them just like He watched and cared for the tiny little birds, whether they were sparrows or not.

A smile fell across their faces. They rose up, arm in arm, and together they walked away from Carlos’s gravesite toward the waiting limo.

Originally an aspiring screenwriter, Dr. XYZ is a pseudonym for a credentialed physician who practices in medically underserved urban communities. In
Nasty
, she has subtly peppered a steamy, in-your-face, erotic tale with nuggets of preventative health facts. Most of the
Nasty
stories are based on scenarios she has witnessed in real life.

For additional information about AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases, contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

1-800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636),
www.cdc.gov
TTY: (888) 232-6348, 24 hours/every day
Visit the author at Dr. XYZ’s website:
www.drxyz.net

You’re a physician writing in a somewhat “risqué” genre. What made you want to write this type of book?

To answer that I have to flash back to my younger days. My best friend and I were the reigning nerds of our middle school. To break the monotony and social isolation attached to that label…we passed the time by devouring any literature that even hinted of erotica. Disappointed in what we found…we wrote our own. We even competed in “which nerd could write the nastiest story contests.” Guess who always won? Yours truly…Dr. XYZ.

My writing career abruptly ended when my friend’s mother, “Mrs. M,” read one of my “juicy” yarns. Appalled by the contents, she broke up our friendship. It was only after I promised never to write in a “disgusting” manner again, did she allow us to hang out together.

When I became a full-fledged licensed physician, I moved to Los Angeles to practice medicine. Like most folks who travel to the West Coast, I got bit by the script-writing bug. In my spare time, I wrote PG-rated movie scripts that were not selling. My friends urged me to go back to the “hard core” literature I was so good at when we were all teenagers. Though I still loved reading erotica, whenever I tried to take their advice and pen down a “steamy” story or scene in a screenplay, I could still hear “Mrs. M” yelling at me, “Don’t you ever write that filthy garbage
again!” I would immediately delete whatever I was writing. My career in erotica was doomed.

That all changed about six years ago. While waiting for my brother-in-law in a hospital lobby, I reviewed the brochures that were laying around for patients. Written beautifully, with easy-to-follow instructions, I knew most folks usually never read them and unfortunately missed important preventive health messages.

I then thought about my mom. She had raised nine of us and had often complained that some of her toddlers would eat anything out the garbage…but nothing from the healthy food she served on plates. She’d often comment that she came close to putting her healthy meals in the garbage can, thinking that then her kids would eat. She stopped short of actually doing this, realizing that my dad would probably have her committed.

Instantly inspired by my mother’s dilemma, the thought hit me like a bullet to my head:
Why not put public health messages in a hot sexy novel?
To make a long story short…“Mrs. M” stopped haunting me…and well, the book
Nasty
was born.

What’s a G-Shot?

Well first, I got to tell you what and where the G-Spot is. It’s a highly sensitive area in the vagina…that can evoke quite a bit of pleasure when stimulated. You can find it by self-examination. Ladies, if you feel inside along the “front” (same side as your clitoris) of your vagina, it’s an area that will feel “coarser” or “rougher” than the surrounding vaginal surface. Hint: the G-spot is easier to locate if you’re “excited”, so a little self-stimulation would help, and if you have a patient partner…all the better. Ain’t nothing more fun than a “let’s go find my G-Spot” party!