By Dani Katz

I may have been a freshman, but I wasn’t naïve enough to think that the gorgeous star of our Division 1 NCAA Championship basketball team wasn’t screwing other girls. But, beyond comparing cleavage, waistlines, bone structure and fashion sense, I hadn’t given it much thought.

Until, the itching, that is.

It intensified over a week or so, until finally, I locked the bathroom door, dropped trou and folded myself in half, determined to see just what the hell was causing such a sensational ruckus down there.

And then I saw it – them – EWWWWWWWW!!!!!! An entire eco-system of tiny, insects had made themselves at home in my panties, and it took everything I had not to freak the fuck out.

I knew what they were because we’d just learned about pubic lice, aka: crabs, in my Human Sexuality class, the very same one in which I met the freakishly tall lothario who gave them to me. Still, I knew I needed a prescription, and I wondered what other sort of disgusting viral entities he’d gifted me, so I asked my roommate to drive me to the ER, and because I was quivering and teary-eyed, and she was rad anyway, she did.

“Yup, it’s crabs,” announced the ER doctor, peering at my pubes beneath the world’s brightest spotlight, while surrounded by half a dozen interns peering at the spectacle that was my infested girl parts.

“See how they hang on to multiple follicles at once?” asked the doctor, parting my forest with a pen, giving the herd of curious med students a better glimpse of the bugs populating my pussy.

Drowning in shame, feeling slutty and dirty and cheap and tainted, I got dressed, paid the bill, filled the emergency prescription for anti-crab shampoo, dropped the glass bottle on my toe in the shower and watched all sixty-bucks worth run down the drain. That was it; I’d hit my limit. I collapsed under a stream of scalding hot water in a pool of my own blood, and burst into inconsolable tears.

After I shaved off the entirety of my insect-vile pubes, I went about washing the sheets and the towels and every stitch of clothing I owned, and it still took another year before I started to feel clean.

I didn’t blame him or hold it against him because I was young and green and figured everything was always my fault, even though I hadn’t been with anyone else and I knew that he’d been with just about everyone else. I guess part of me knew how icky it was, and just felt bad for both of us, for all of us, who had to deal with the shame and the yuck and the inconvenience and the expense. It was a gentle lesson, as far as STDs go, and I consider myself lucky.

Over the years, a few people have asked how I got that scar across my toe.

“Crabs,” I say.