Do you remember the other night, when we were holding each other and talking about the future? We had just gotten back to my house after spending the evening with Scott and Meg, and we were talking about how we would someday be getting married . . . that we would someday have children . . . that someday we would be able to come home to each other each and every night. Do you remember when we started talking about making love, and I said that I thought it would be a good idea if we both got tested for "everything"? Do you remember how much asking you that upset me?

I've been keeping a secret from you, honey. From you, the man I trust more than I have ever trusted anyone. The man I want to spend the rest of my life with, who I feel more comfortable with than I have ever felt before in my life. The man that I can say anything to, no matter how difficult it is to say it.

Well, I can't say this.

Do you know why getting tested scares me so much? Do you know why I get tested every six months? It isn't because I'm cautious.

It's because I dated someone who may be HIV positive. Not only that, but we had sex. A lot.

But notice I say that this person "may be" HIV positive, not that they are.

I've told you about Carolyn, my ex-girlfriend. My relationship with her started out as a completely physical thing. All we did was have sex . . . all the time. Eventually, we started to fall in love.

And after we had fallen in love, after we had slept together many times, after I had been dating her for almost two years - and sleeping with her longer than that - she told me that she was HIV positive - and that she had known since before she met me.

It killed me to think that this woman who I had shared my life with, who I had been implicitly honest with, had never found it necessary to tell me this - even though we were having sex three or four times a DAY - unprotected, of course. When I asked her why she hadn't told me earlier, she said, "Well, the chances are very slim that you could contract it through lesbian sex anyway, so I don't know what you are so worried about."

The funny thing is that first and foremost I was worried about her. I got tested, and I was negative, so at least for the time being, I was safe.

But then I found out later that she had lied about being positive - because I had been trying to end our relationship, and she thought that if I thought we both had the virus that I wouldn't leave her.

That was when I did leave. The thought that she had made something like that up hurt me even more that her "hiding" that she was positive had hurt me before.

And then, after that, she told me that she had gotten tested again - and this time she really was positive.

Yet she was still sleeping around; still having unprotected sex with a lot of people - so I didn't know whether to believe her or not.

Since then, she has gone back and forth - one time I'll talk to her and she will say that she is positive, and the next she will be negative - and I don't know what to believe.

I've gotten tested fairly regularly since dating her. I've been extremely, really psychotically, careful when I have had sex. I really haven't even had all that much sex since the whole thing happened.

But now I've got you . . . and I can't not make love to you. But I'm also scared to death of how you'll react when I tell you this. You are the most amazing man I have ever met in my life. I love you more than I ever thought was possible, and I don't want to do anything that will push you away - but I owe it to you to tell you that there is a chance. That's why I suggested getting tested. If I can hear just one more time that I am not positive, then I'll believe it - being told four times should be enough, don't you think? It's been two and a half years, is that long enough to wait before moving on with my life?

All I can do right now is hope to God that these tests turn out okay and that nothing changes between us. If I do turn out to be positive, then I just hope we can figure something out - together.

I love you, sweetheart, and hope you can deal with this the way you've dealt with all of the other issues from my past that keep popping up - with love and understanding.

Love Always,