I cheated on my girlfriend within the first two weeks of our relationship.  A friend of a friend, this girl and I made out at a gay bar while watching a drag queen dance to Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World”.  I guess she was the only girl I was thinking about that night.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that this act marked the beginning of a year’s worth of cheating on, lying to, and manipulating my now ex -girlfriend.  Each instance of cheating marked a new level of danger, a new height of my keen abilities of sneaking around, and worst off was that I felt no remorse.  I was addicted to the risk, and the chances of my ex-girlfriend being exposed to my web of deceit became greater with each additional person with whom I cheated on her.

The shit hit the fan in late August of 2012, but the act of cheating that brought the truth to my ex-girlfriend’s eyes was in June of that year.  You see, I was poor, but I had what I thought was a great idea to make money.  Porn!  Yes, I could keep enjoying the risk of cheating (with men and women, as I am bisexual) and make money while doing it!  It was the best of both worlds.  Well, ever the clever undergraduate student, I turned to the number one place for high quality employment opportunities, Craigslist.  And low and behold what I saw but an advertisement for models for Broke Straight Boys.  Could this be true, messing around with hot straight men and getting paid?  Sign me up!  Well, it was too good to be true.

Upon calling the number on Craigslist, the man, who identified himself as Brian only, said that in order to be offered a job, I had to ‘tryout’.  By coincidence apparently, the studio was booked, but he thoughtfully offered to come to my home and watch me masturbate.  The point he said was to see if I could ‘cum’ in front of another man.  We arranged a date and time and I was so pumped!  I was bisexual and could cum in front of men, thus the job was a shoo-in for me, I thought.  He arrives at my home, explains to me more about the job, and asks me to ‘perform’.  I am more than happy to oblige.  I begin, but then he starts to touch me.  He then says my chances of getting the job are much better if I perform oral sex on him and let him cum onto my chest.  I think, ‘that’s odd’, but oblige.  Once all is said and done he leaves and I’m feeling damn good about myself.  Finally money will start rolling in and I can continue living on the ‘edge’, so to speak. Two days later he informs me I didn’t get the job and disappointed, I forget about it.  Back to Craigslist to hook-up!  Then came September.

You see, I graduated from undergrad in the spring of 2012 and figured it would be good to get my MA.  I applied and was accepted to a program in Paris, France and set off at the end of August.  My ex is still unaware of my cheating at this point and her and I are planning to stay together and at the end of my MA I’ll move back to the USA and be with her (all the while cheating the entire time I was in Ireland, according to my plan).  My flight was Houston – Toronto, Toronto – Paris and I give my tearful goodbye to my ex.  I land in Toronto for my brief layover and I have an urgent message of my girlfriend waiting on Facebook.  She is crying hysterically and saying to call her right away, which I do. She tells me some guy had contacted her under my name on Facetime and told her I had given him HIV.  He would not identify himself, but only as a ‘friend’.  To describe the feeling I felt at that moment is not suitable for words.  Had I contracted HIV, and worse, given in essence death sentences to not only this ‘unknown’ man but also to my girlfriend, who despite it all, I really did love?

The show was over.  I told her everything.  The cheating, the lying, the manipulation.  I held nothing back and she didn’t deserve to have anything held back.  Well, needless to say I got tested the day after landing in Kiev and the HIV test was negative.  With that danger out of my mind, the path now was to figure out who this individual was and why he had ruined my adventurous life and my relationship with my girlfriend (I was too blind to see at the moment that it was me myself who ruined everything in the first place).  Here’s what happened.  ‘Brian’, the guy who had come over for the porn tryout, had stolen my Ipod Touch.  I barley used it and so had not even noticed it was gone.  For two whole months he had followed my texting, Facebook messages, and electronic correspondence with my ex, and waited until the day I left to drop this massive lie onto our heads.  He was back into my life in the worst way possible.  I guess I deserved it though.