STEPPING into my office a bit late a few weeks ago”, I ran into Tonia, one of the new participants in the management course that just got on the way. She smiled hesitantly and asked if she could see me as soon as I was free. At the agreed time, she sat opposite my table complaining she seemed to have caught a mysterious bug and that it hurt like hell when she went to the loo. What bad timing for her. A single mother, she’d just parted with her partner who had no scruples as to who he went to bed with. To put her mind at rest, I advised her to see a doctor. So she did. She was placed on some antibiotics which eased her discomfort. The doctor suspected a urine infection but promised to run tests so as to be sure. He then gave her an appointment for when she must have finished her medicine.

Looking a lot perkier a few days later, she told me she ran into a male colleague at the university and had agreed to go out with him over the weekend. Only there she was the following Monday looking really glum instead of glowing from her weekend date. Now what?

“Labi, (the male colleague) took me out on Saturday as we arranged”, she explained. “We had dinner, then ended up at his club, he told me he hadn’t made it to altar yet and I told him about my daughter and my broken relationship. We got on so well that I let him into my flat when he brought me home. I’d missed sex so much that we made love for hours before he left. But I wasn’t in love with him and I hoped he would take the relationship as a one-night stand. I prayed he would have forgotten all about it whenever we saw each other again.

“You can then imagine my anger when I woke up to a pounding on my door the next morning. I found my colleague at the door looking embarrassed. “Last night should never have happened”, he spluttered.

“I’ve got a partner and we have two kids”. I was enraged. Why were men such shameless cheats? He saw my anger and panicked. ‘Please let’s keep this to ourselves’, he begged. ‘I love my family and any scandal will destroy what has taken years to build.’ I imagined his poor partner’s pain if she knew. How could I make her go through what I’d just experienced with my ex? I promised him she wouldn’t find out and he looked so grateful. It was pathetic. Just think how I would have felt if I really fancied him?

“On my way here this morning, I went to see the doctor for the result of the test he ran. He informed me I had gonorrhoea and the antibiotics he prescribed should clear it up. Can you imagine what that meant?

The man I’d lived with for years, who I had a child with, had given me an STI! I felt so dirty and ashamed. As I hurried out of the doctor’s office, I remembered I was only half-way through my antibiotics when I slept with my colleague. What if I still had the infection and had passed it on to him? And what if he infected his poor unsuspecting girlfriend?”

I told her she had to warn him even if the cheating creep would have to confess his indiscretion to his girlfriend and destroy their relationship in the process. Tonia reminded me she’d given her word, his partner would never find out about their fling – and she was the superstitious type who didn’t like breaking vows. “Don’t worry aunty C,” she sighed.

“I’ll think of what to do.” And her solution? At the close of day the next day, she told me she’d decided to sleep with the colleague who dumped her one more time. Why, I wanted to know? Was she seeking some sort of warped revenged? “The only way I can find out if I’d infected him was to have another unprotected sex with him. If he had caught my STI, then he would re-infect me. I’d get retested afterwards and if it’s positive, I would have to own up. If not, then his poor girlfriend needs never find out about our many sordid romps! It is crazy, I know but do you have a better idea?” she wanted to know. Why was she taking so much pain to protect a man who’d had no qualms about using her for sex? She said her concern was really for his partner. I really admire her courage – most women wouldn’t care a hoot hurting a man that had used them so shamelessly. But’ Tonia is different. I wished her the best of luck, eagerly waiting for the day she would let me know how successful her little scheme was.

It took her about three weeks to get the cheat back in her bed. “I’d run into him and he announced that his partner was weeks pregnant with their third child. I was shocked. I knew as of fact that if she did have gonorrhoea, her baby could be blinded. Could I let an unborn child suffer too? So this weekend, I went to my colleague’s club with a friend who was a member.

“He was shocked to see me and a bit relieved when I was my friendly self. I asked after his family as he freely bought me drinks and snacks and drank freely too. I wanted both of us to be slushed when I seduced him. Since it was already in the open he wasn’t available for a permanent relationship, he willingly went back to my flat with me. It was the most awful sex I’d ever had. I felt so cold and calculating because this time, I knew he was cheating his partner with me. Yet I had no choice. I could have cried when he went on and on in his drunken frenzy, but finally it was over.

“I felt so degraded and hurriedly saw him out of the flat! So, we’ll have to give it a week to find out about the test I just had with my doctor to find out if the antibiotics he prescribed had worked. I deliberately held back so that if I still had STI, the test would have picked it up. Well, I’ve just had the result and thank goodness it’s negative – he didn’t have gonorrhoea – his family is safe and I could relax at last. I hadn’t infected his girlfriend or their unborn child. The whole experience had taught me a lesson though. For a start, I’m staying single and trusting no man again. That doesn’t mean I won’t have sex when it’s on offer.

I’ll just have to invest in some condoms! That will take time getting used to. I haven’t used the blasted thing since I was with my partner – but it’s either that or live through the nightmare I just got out of again.