Is it herpes? Or am I just very paranoid?

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting anything and I'm very nervous. This is going to technically be a bunch of questions rolled into one.

Here's my situation: I've been having unprotected sex with a new partner for about a week and a half. I'm on two different forms of birth control (the pill and the implant) so as long as my partners (of which I haven't had many) promise me that they're STD free, I don't use condoms. Probably not a wise decision, but that's not what this is about. Yesterday I when we had sex, I was going down to give him oral, when I noticed a small abrasion on the shaft of his penis. It was smaller than a grain of rice, and appeared to be scanned over. But the scab has a yellowish appearance, making it look infected. I asked him if he'd hurt himself, and he told me that one of the previous times I'd given him oral, one of my teeth nicked him but it felt so good he didn't say anything. I brushed it off, gave him oral, and then we had sex. He came in my mouth, and I noticed the abrasion again. It looked white, like a healing wound that's gotten wet. I noticed that it looked like a sore. I asked him again if he was sure it was from me, and he said yes. We parted ways, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I looked up "herpes lesion on penis" and literally the first result on google images looked pretty much exactly like it. All the other pictures looked much more severe, but the fact that the first picture, which was labeled as "mild herpes" looked so much like it scared me. I texted him about it, and he reassured me that I shouldn't be worried. He told me that he's sure it came from the first time we had sex, but I found it strange that such a small wound from over a week prior wouldn't be healed all the way.

Maybe this isn't enough information, but do you guys think it could be herpes? I do trust this guy, but we're both college students, and I know that young guys are willing to lie in order to have sex. That, or I figure he could have it and just not know. If it is herpes, would I for sure have gotten it? If I did get it, how soon would I start seeing symptoms? How soon would it show up on an STD test? I plan on getting tested on Monday when my campus health center opens back up, but I worry that I do have it but it'll be too soon to get a positive result so I won't be diagnosed... I really don't know much about it, so I apologize if this isn't enough information or if my questions would be easily googled or something like that. I'm just very very anxious about this and I don't know where else to turn. Thank you so much!

Welcome, @veryanxiousasker. It might be HSV, but the only way to know for sure is if he were tested. Most STD panels don’t test for HSV, so it’s possible he has it and doesn’t know it. Or it could be something else entirely.

Transmission is not a given with each encounter. It’s certainly more likely with an outbreak, but I haven’t seen any statistics on how likely.

Most symptoms from a new infection show up within a week or two. Not everyone gets symptoms though. Some people have no symptoms at all.

A PCR swab test of an open lesion would give an immediate diagnosis, but since you have no symptoms, then it would show up on a blood test within a few months (if you even have it). By 16 weeks after the encounter, 97% of those infected would test positive on a blood test. Some people would test positive sooner. It all depends on how fast ones body produces antibodies, which the blood test tests for.

When you go to the clinic on Monday, ask for the IgG test. Some clinics still use the IgM, which is notoriously inaccurate.

This handbook is a great place to start for basic info: https://westoverheights.com/herpes/the-updated-herpes-handbook/