I knew better.

My mother raised me better.

Nice girls don't do things like that.

I never should have gone to that bar on the edge of town.

I knew not to take a stranger home, but I was drunk and he was cute and it was the last

cold snap of the spring and the heater in my drafty old apartment was broken.

I fell asleep with my back pressed against his solid warmth, but I woke up in the dark

before sunrise and I was cold again.

He had slipped out sometime in the night.

I felt deflated and a bit foolish.

That's what you get, I told myself.

I grabbed an extra blanket and closed the window.

It was a couple of days later that the itching started.

It was intense and originated somewhere deep inside me, somewhere that couldn't be scratched.

It was manageable at first with a tube of cream from the drugstore, but the itch eventually

burned through every temporary solution I applied.

It radiated from the tender center of my body in drove me mad.

Nothing helped.

I tried not to scratch the delicate flesh down there, but it got to the point that I couldn't

help it.

And then the smell began.

I hid myself in embarrassment and started avoiding people.

...