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The doctor told us that Shivani has been tested positive for Herpes simplex virus. She asked
if Shivani had ever had these sores before and she refused. It was the first time that they had
occurred. The doctor concluded that it was the first outbreak given its severity and no
previous history, meaning that it had been contracted recently only. The doctor further
prescribed a blood test for me to see if I had got affected with it as well.
When we got home, she sat at the couch helplessly; weeping and I stormed in to our bedroom and slammed the door. I had never had sex before with anyone and so said Shivani, then how could an STI creep in out of nowhere. I sat and thought for a while, then stepped out and asked Shivani calmly if she have had physical relations of any sort before marriage but instead of answering she glared at me for some seconds and went back to crying profusely. Her actions had said it all.
I called up Rachit, the most reasonable and calm person in all my friends. I narrated out the
whole episode to him and broke down at the end. I felt so betrayed by my wife. But he
instead scolded me for having such a regressive mentality. He said, “Your wife is a
wonderful person, so what if she had any physical relations with someone else before you,
that doesn’t make her a bad person. Besides instead of pointing a finger at her, you should
ponder over your own past, what all you did before getting married.”
“Hey, I had a few affairs but I never got intimate with anyone, you know that, you can’t
accuse me on that.” I retorted immediately.
“And what about when you were in Thailand? What did you do with that stripper in the back
of the club? Remember anything Chirag?”
“What happened in Thailand? I seriously don’t remember anything Rachit. Bro, what are you
talking about?” I was suddenly a bit afraid.
“You told us the next day that you had an amazing sex with her, what was her name, yeah,
Regina. You said it exactly like this as I told you. You were drunk and thus you would’ve
forgotten about it. See its highly probable that you might have caught the virus from her and
passed it onto your wife. In fact, she’s the victim here of your misadventures. ” Rachit said
matter-of-factly.
And it suddenly dawned over me that I might have been the one who got the virus home. I cut the call, and went to Shivani, I was feeling so guilty, how would I tell her that I was the one who wronged it.
“Shivani, I think I should tell you something and please don’t be mad, I just got to know
about it and I already feel so ashamed. I might have been the person who gave you herpes,
and I might have contracted it when we went to my bachelor party in Thailand. We had went
to a strip club there and rest you can understand.” I hung my head.
Shivani was speechless; she did not say a word and just kept staring at me almost as if she
could see through me. I think she wanted to forgive me but she maybe was not being able to do so.
