Several times I came within a gnat’s ass of interrupting, and making them aware of my presence. There have been moments when I wish I had. Those moments are few and far-in-between. Most of the time, as warped as it may seem to you, the reader, I thank my lucky stars that I stayed hidden and kept my trap shut. I give thanks to the gods of chance, that had me come home a day early, made me park my car in the garage, and who encouraged me to nap on the couch. Otherwise this would be a very short essay, and my life would be infinitely more boring.
As I best recall, the portion of their conversation I inadvertently overheard went something like this:
“What’s wrong with me!” my sister’s anguished words echoed in my ears, breaking my heart.
“Nothing baby. Trust me, what you’re telling me is perfectly normal. Don’t believe all you read and see on TV, love isn’t like that. It’s certainly nothing like some of that trash you’ll find on the Internet.”
“Kyle says it’s me. That I’m a cold fish.”
Kyle. That would be the aforementioned student-athlete first boyfriend. I was going to have to kill that asshole, for making my sister cry.
“I did everything he wanted, Mom. Everything! I tried to be a good girlfriend. I used my mouth on him. He was my first. Everyone said the first time was bad but it would get better. It’s not getting better! I hate it. It hurts. What’s the big deal with sex?”
Everything he wanted? That dick-head was having sex with my sister? Fuck! He was toast. It wouldn’t just be swirlies for him, either!
“Honey, don’t buy into the whole lie about sex. It’s great for the guys, but it’s our job to put up with it, and pretend. You know that movie, When Harry met Sally? That’s what we do. We let them do what they want, and we make them think it’s amazing.”
“But Mom, my friends say it is amazing.”
“We all lie about it, baby. It’s society. We’re told on TV and at the movies, in the books we read, that sex is this mind-blowing incredible experience. The incredible part is making a baby, and creating two wonderful children like you and your brother. The rest is all make-believe. Trust me on this. What you’re saying is perfectly natural.”
Teri seemed to be calming. The sobbing had diminished to almost nothing, and she was no longer hiccupping through her half of the conversation. “It hurts, Mom. It hurts a lot. Especially when he put it in my bottom.”
Son-of-a-bitch! That scum-sucking low-life had ass-raped my sister. When I was done with him, we’d see how he liked that.
“You made him use a condom, didn’t you?” Mom asked.
I didn’t hear Teri’s response, but from Mom’s reaction, it sounded like that was a ‘yes’. Good for her.
“You should have come to me sooner, baby. I can help you. First of all, we’ve got to get you some good lube. It hurts when they stick it in. Using a condom can make it worse for us unless it’s pre-lubricated. Before your dates, if you think you’re going to have sex, we get ourselves ready. Every night before I went to bed, I did. Your father loved doing it, and it almost never hurt if I was prepared. As long as you’re not in pain, it’s easy to make them believe they’re God’s gift to us.”
I heard Teri sniffing. “His stuff tastes terrible. Awful. It makes me want to vomit.”
He made her swallow? That low-life motherfucker! Dead meat. He was dead meat.
“Shh. I know, honey. It tastes like bleach and bitter, salty phlegm. The texture is almost as bad as the taste. There’s a trick to it. Once you learn to take him all the way into your throat, you won’t taste it at all. Then you can pretend that it’s raspberry sorbet, and beg for more.”
Teri gave a little laugh, and I calmed. “Chocolate mousse?”
Mom chuckled along with her. “Whatever you want to imagine. That’s what we do. Lay back, let them have their fun, and dream that we’re somewhere else doing something nice. I think of that place on the beach, when we went down to visit my sister. I’m out sunning myself, under a gorgeous sky.”
“So it’s not just me? You swear?”
“No, it’s not you. If you want, we can call your Aunt Brenda. She’ll tell you the same as me. Most women don’t like it. I’m sure there are some that do, but they’re the weird ones, not us. There are people who enjoy pain, who like humiliation, there are all kinds of weirdoes in the world.”
This all was a frightening revelation to me. I thought girls liked it. I really did! They sure seemed to!
I wasn’t a virgin when I came to this college, and my first year was alright, but the last year and a half had been amazing. Simply incredible. I’d had two serious girlfriends. My first one caught me completely by surprise. She was old. A lot older than me. She was almost thirty, and had gone back to school to get a degree after getting divorced.
Rachel (not her real name) had taught me everything there was to know about sex. At least I had thought so. She was sexy, and loving, and very, very willing to share her knowledge with me. I spent entire days in bed with her, while she taught me all the ways to make her feel good. For nearly a year, all my free time was spent with her, a lot of that in her big bed.
She had certainly seemed like she liked it. The way she cried out and screamed for me, the way her body shook and trembled, the look in her eyes when we were connected, it had felt real.
Was I that easily fooled?
I thought I was in love with her, until I found out that I wasn’t the only one she was teaching. She swore I was her favorite, that she was just getting things out of her system after seven years of misery and a failed marriage. Rachel told me I ‘rocked her world’, and that she’d soon be done with her phase. But she also told me she wasn’t ready to settle down, and that she was too old for me.