Her mother pulled her aside to tell her the facts of life. She was sitting on the red kitchen stool in the corner of the kitchen. When she was very young about five or six years old, her older cousin had told her “The Facts of Life” and she was not looking forward to hearing about it again.
She cried when she asked her dad if it was true. Her cousin had not been gentle with the information. He said, “The boy sticks his thing inside the girl and that’s how babies are made.”
This information terrified her for some reason. “I guess I never even thought about it before,” she said to her dad. “Cousin asked me if he could see mine and he’d show me his. But I don’t want to have a baby.”
Her dad lied to her that day and told her, “No, it’s not true. You did the right thing by telling me.” Now she supposed she was going to get the real answers from her mother. She had just started her period, so she figured it was going to be more information on that bloody subject, but her mother surprised her…
“…and some women just don’t feel anything unless the man licks her down there,” her mother began. She couldn’t understand what her mother was talking about. She was no where near ready to going all the way. The most she had done was kiss a boy behind the bleachers at school… and the neighbor boy under water at the pool. She didn’t even have pubic hair yet, so what was all this talk about cunnilingus?
A few years later she was called to the red stool again for some further instruction. Her parents were having a big party and lots of show business people were going to be there. Her mom tried to explain, “Sometimes women like women and men like men. So be polite, but stay away from Berta.”
Later that night at the party Berta got Kristie cornered on the red stool in the kitchen. “You are so very beautiful,” Berta said attempting to stroke Kristie’s peaches and cream complexion like a wanton vampire. “I’d like to take some photos of you. Maybe you could come over to my studio sometime?”
Just at that moment Kristie’s mom came in and saved her from having to be rude. Kristie saw the opportunity to bolt, so she headed over to talk to a guy she fancied.
As the years wore on into her teens, she decided that she really liked to make out, get felt up on top, and she loved to ride the finger, but she had never seen a grown man fully erect and she didn’t care one bit about intercourse or the frustration the guy was feeling after all that foreplay. She carried on like that for years content to kiss and dry hump without so much as a care for her reputation as a prick tease and finger rider.
In her late teens her mother called her to the red stool again. This time it was to say, “I know you’re not going to stop doing it, so we better get you on some birth control.” Kristie informed her that she was already on birth control pills and also using condoms. “My mama didn’t raise a dummy,” she told her with a smile.
The final time she was called to the red stool was right before she was moving out into her first apartment. Her dad was explaining about the metal fuse box where the electricity comes in and how you might have to change a bulb or something in there. Her idea was, “That’s what I have boyfriends for.” Thankfully she was never called to the red stool again. But she did try to learn as much as she could about the facts of human sexuality in her adult years.
(First published 11/16/11)
