It's like that. You slap around for months and nothing, then along comes some cute boy whose butter wouldn't melt, and ouch goes your prick and prick goes your conscience.

Ah, the perpetual influx to oust unwanted "love bugs", all creeping in nervy and downcast behind newspapers, plucking ticket numbers from the machine, before slumping invisible. One boy scarce out of shorts, another almost in the grave: the younger gay ones already eye each other up.

At last, my number flashes up on the display and the earth mamma receptionist shrieks out my given name as if in the gospel choir. Yes, it's me, I've got the clap, and I'm coming. Ground open please! Through to the inner sanctum and more silence: save the slapping on of rubber gloves behind closed screens.

"Right, what seems to be the trouble?" says a youngish man in a white coat with a ring on his finger. "And you don't mind having this medical student in with us do you?"

Don't mind that one, cute.

"When did you last have sex?" he asks. "And the time before that? And before that? I see."

The moment arrives when you have to refer to your, well - it. Penis sounds too dusty, willy too cosy and cock too rude. I declare, disembodied: "I think I have an infection in my urethra. Green stuff's oozing out and it tingles a bit. It's like a cold, but down below."

Before you can get any further, gloves are on, your pants are down and he's checking under your foreskin and trying your bollocks for size. The student is invited to hunt for crabs. Doc advises I get at least my most recent brief encounter along too before all this gets out of hand. My response: "Sorry, don't know his name or number, doctor. Can't even recall his face! You see, the room was - dark."

We talk about anal sex as if discussing the price of bread. We consider the low risk associated with oral sex and the need to avoid giving blow jobs if you've cuts in the mouth or you've just brushed your white ones. I then flummox him by asking how dangerous it is to get cum in your eyes, a common occurrence for gay men these days, of which I have seen nothing in the literature. He's never been asked, but thinks it unwise.

"I can't look at the vials filling with my blood," I confide as the nurse pumps up my arm, then pricks and draws blood.

Then the final humiliation: despite dying to pee in the waiting room, your poor cock's now so traumatised it refuses to issue more than a measly drop for the wee jar behind the screen. Then, soon back in again for the doctor's diagnosis, and his final pronouncement: "One of these twice daily for a week - and don't ejaculate whilst you're taking them."

What, literally?

"And we'll need another swab in a week's time to give it the all clear," he concludes, impassive. "You must come in for the HIV result anyway - counselling available on request. Next."

You stagger out - knowing that you've done a responsible, sensible and truly necessary deed - grabbing unfeasibly large fistfuls of condoms from the basket on the side-table as you go. Just one more week and: back in action!

CHECK IT OUT LADS!

It's always wise to call a sexual health clinic if you need help or advice. Please only go to the clinic if you've been asked to, or you have made an appointment.