by Nancy Thayer
When I got home, I called out to Mother that I was there, and she called back, “Good. Now I can go to sleep.” I saw the light in her bedroom flick off. I thought about taking a bath, but I didn’t want to wash off any of the lingering sensations from my skin. So I just took off my clothes, and crawled into bed and lay there hugging myself. I could hardly sleep, I was so excited. I had learned from experience that masturbation can provide a quick, vivid, tense explosion of pleasure, like a shot from a gun, but I had not been prepared at all for what I had experienced with Michael. And it seemed to me as I thought about it that what we mean by sex is simply happiness, the kind that meanders and blossoms and unrolls over us and in us all at once, leaving us flushed and calm and grateful.
I could not sleep all night, I was so happy—about what had happened, about what would happen. I’m still dazzled by the knowledge that no matter what unkindnesses life doles out, it also has provided us all, in advance, with this miraculous source of pleasure. It seems a decent gesture on life’s behalf, magnanimous and democratic, the best and most exquisite gift.
We spent almost every night together for two months. We walked along the river or went off in his car, or occasionally, when Mother was out, knew the luxury of my big soft bed. Michael had a job with a local landscape contractor and spent his days working in the sun. I spent my days inside, waitressing. I worked from seven in the morning till three in the afternoon, when I would rush home, put on my bathing suit, and sit out in the sun with a book and a glass of iced tea. But some days it rained, or there were errands to do, and I never did manage to get a good tan. It only mattered because I felt like such a pale, cool creature next to Michael; but when Michael lowered his brown body over mine, it was like the sun coming out all over me. His skin was browner, more glowing with the day’s heat with each passing day; oh, how I welcomed that warmth! When I slid my arms around his body, it seemed I could feel precisely how the muscles of his back and arms grew firmer, more substantial, as the days passed. At times I felt almost maternal, as if I could sense that here was a boy changing, even as I held him, into a man.
I loved his body. I loved it. I loved the feel of his body against mine. I ran my hands over him, over his back, arms, chest legs. I cradled his sex. I longed for clay and stone, to sculpt a permanent reproduction of this masculine perfection. And I dreamed of new, uncaptured shapes. Could I ever express in tangible materials this pure, easy, complete, sensual happiness that seemed to bloom out from us into the air? What form would it take? Would it be rounded, burgeoning, and complicated, like a braid? I would sand and polish the surface to a silky fluidity. For we did glow, Michael and I, with the pleasure of ourselves. It seemed that sometimes we coalesced with our heat, like two different metals, into a new and shining mass.
Afterward, Michael would roll onto the ground next to me, and we would lie there, holding hands, panting. Sweat shimmered on our skin, and as it disappeared into the cooling air, we watched the leaves above our heads grow dappled with the failing light, then gray, then seem to vanish completely, as if night had dropped a curtain: so the world arched above us deep and soft.
When we were together by the river, or in bed, we seldom talked, except in that funny, intimate language that lovers use about parts of the body and what we’re doing with them. Yet there was no awkwardness between us. Michael taught me how to enjoy silence, and I was glad for this, because like a blind person whose other senses expand and heighten, I found myself luxuriating in a clearer, more complete physicality once I stopped searching for and using words. At times, as I walked along the river, my arm wrapped around Michael, his arm enclosing me, I pictured myself as some kind of fruit: blunt, plump, dumb, juicy. I wanted nothing more.
Yet I often wish now that I had spent more time talking with Michael. In many ways I don’t know him. He hides himself. He is aware that there is a black streak bred into him, like a vein of black running through a block of marble, and it frightens him. It worries me. He is smart, so smart that he has achieved cynicism young. He is handsome, much loved by his parents, lucky in the world, and yet he is angry at himself and those who love him. He feels they are forcing him into a mold he cannot fit. In this we differ: his parents are ultratraditional, mine are divorced, and ultraflaky. I think I prefer my parents, perhaps because they aren’t quite so certain of what is True and Good and Right. Michael feels so pressured by his family, by their very love. Talking about them sets off a gloomy stain that darkens his face and our life. When we were alone together along the river, that black streak always receded, and all that rich intensity became sexual. That was what I wanted.
But now I wish I had talked to him more, drawn him out more, because I keep thinking of him while I’m at college. I keep thinking of not just his body and the pleasures it brought, but of him, Michael, the person. He is more important to me than I thought—it may be that I love him.
We parted so casually. That last night together, he walked me back to my house around midnight—I had to leave early the next morning—and stood there with his hand on my arm, just below my shoulder. It was not childish, not a simple holding of hands. It was a grown-up gesture, an unconscious gesture of detainment. But why couldn’t we speak of it? We said so little. We were such fools.
“Well, write me.”
“Okay. And you write me. I gave you my address.”
“Okay. Well, have fun.”
“You too. Good-bye.”
Then he was gone. I went inside, leaned against the front door and thought: Stop it! Stop feeling this way! He is seventeen years old! He’s a kid! You’re a kid. Call him your first love, call him your summer love, but don’t fool yourself by thinking he’s anything more. Go to college. Sleep around.
Well, I have—and here I am, back home, certain that Michael is what I want.
But does he want me—and in the same serious way?
I suppose I should talk with Mother about this. We’ve always been so close. I could always talk with her about anything. About sex, for instance. We’ve discussed sex. When I was a little kid, Mother was determined that I would not grow up thinking that sex was something dirty or terrifying. Once in the third grade a friend of mine started teaching me “dirty words.” Mother fought fire with fire. She made up a little song, with my help, that we used to sing occasionally on road trips or on housecleaning binges. It went:
Does your vagina come from Virginia,
Does your penis come from France,
Do your ewes have uteruses,
Is there a scrotum in your pants?
BOOBIES BREASTS NIPPLES BALLS!
SPERM OVARIES DECK THE HALLS!
By the time I was nine, Mother had told me all about menstrual periods, masturbation, the function and appearance of every bit of male and female reproductive apparatus, childbirth, contraception, abortion, social disease, and slang sexual words. I was a veritable storehouse of information, and consequently I was very popular and self-confident. I could make myself the focal point of a group of kids at any moment I chose, simply by quietly revealing the secret of whatever word or fact seemed mysterious at that point. When I was fourteen, however, I was quickly relegated to second place by Katie Potter, who was doing it instead of just talking about it. Katie was admired and envied by many, including me. It’s one thing to talk about sex and giggle about it, and quite another to be alone in a dark basement rec room with a warm living human boy. In spite of all my knowledge, I was terrified. I knew that if I had sex, I would get pregnant, or get syphilis, or herpes, or I’d ruin my reputation, or worst of all, I’d take off my pants, and the boy would look at me, burst out laughing, and tell me that some part of me was absurdly misplaced. So it wasn’t until this summer with Michael that I actually knew what all the talk was about.
When I turned sixteen, Mother said to me, “Mandy, I’ve told Dr. Laughlin that he has my permission to prescribe birth-control pills for you whenever you ask. And he is not to inform me that you’ve asked for them. I want to give you
your privacy in this particular matter. Of course you know I hope you won’t take the Pill—it can have bad side effects; we’ve been through all this. On the other hand, I hope you will take the Pill if you start”—and here my own mother, who had sung that crazy sex song when I was little, began to fidget around for the proper word, as if we had never discussed sex before in our lives—“sleeping with someone. In any case, it’s up to you; Lord knows I’ve told you everything I know.”
The first few nights when I came home at midnight from being with Michael, I felt that the scent of sexual satisfaction must have preceded me by a good hundred feet, broadcasting the news of my activities to any adult or animal in the area. Each night I would call up to Mother that I was home, and each night she would say, “Good. I’m glad you’re safe. I’m going to sleep.” Once, after about two weeks of this, she said, “You’re staying out awfully late awfully often. I hope you’re not falling asleep at your job.” I reassured her that, on the contrary, I was a powerhouse of energy; she looked at me sharply for a minute, then left the room, muttering that she had to make a note about something.
One rainy afternoon when the restaurant was closed and I had the day off, I scrounged around in Mother’s record collection and found an old Kingston Trio album. One song seemed to have been written for me. It was about two lovers who walk along the Seine at night, and after I found the record, whenever I did the dishes or cleaned house, I found myself humming, “When will I again, meet him there, greet him there, on the moonlit banks of the Seine.”
But Mother never did say, as I expected her to, “Why on earth are you mooning about this way? Where do you go every night?” She just continued to wait up, call out good night, say she was glad I was safely home. Because she didn’t question me, I grew shy about the subject. And what happened, what continued to happen, between me and Michael seemed so extravagant, so extreme. It was so much more than I expected. I didn’t know how to explain it to Mother properly. I was afraid to say, even to myself: I think Michael and I are in love.
I should talk to Mother now. Maybe she can help. She’s always helped before, in her own way. At the beginning of the summer, before I started seeing Michael, a weird thing happened, and if I hadn’t been able to talk to Mother, I’m not sure how I would have sorted it out.
I was asked to babysit the first Saturday night in May for the Halsteads. The Halsteads really are crazy people. When Dr. Halstead moved to town and bought the huge stone house on Cherry Street, he had a beautiful sign painted and hung on the end of his driveway, announcing that he had named his house Bedside Manor. Mrs. Halstead and Mrs. Moyer are good friends, and for Mrs. Moyer’s birthday, Mrs. Halstead made Dr. Halstead sleep at the Moyers’ house so she could have a huge party for Mrs. Moyer. I had to take Nina and Nicholas Halstead, who are old kids, eleven and twelve, to a movie, because I can drive, and I was supposed to keep them out as long as possible, then bring them up the back stairs of the house and stay with them until I was sure they were sound asleep. Because Mrs. Halstead gave Mrs. Moyer a surprise she didn’t want her kids to know about. What a surprise—a male stripper!
Mrs. Moyer isn’t the kind of woman who would ordinarily appreciate a male stripper, or at least I didn’t think she was, but then I know most of the women who were at that party, I’ve babysat for them over the years, and I never saw any of them act the way they did that night. Mrs. Vanderson was there, which wasn’t surprising, because she loves parties so much, and Mrs. Aranguren was there, and Mrs. Bennett (she was the only one who didn’t act like a fool), and of course Mrs. Moyer and Mrs. Halstead, and about five other women I’ve never babysat for. They started the evening with a buffet supper and champagne—when I arrived to pick up the kids for the movie, I saw two cases of champagne in the kitchen, and by eleven o’clock, when we returned, most of the bottles were empty. As I went up the stairs to put the kids to bed, I heard the women laughing, and I shook my head thinking how awful they were all going to feel the next morning.
I wasn’t sure what to do after I got Nina and Nicholas to bed. They fell asleep right away, in spite of the laughter coming from downstairs. I sat in Nina’s room for a long time, wondering how to slip out without bothering anyone.
Finally I came out of Nina’s room and walked down the hall to the stairs, and bumped right into the stripper. He was gorgeous, and he was wearing a skintight black tux with no shirt and a gold lamé bow tie. He couldn’t have been much older than I was, perhaps he was twenty-two, and he looked shocked and embarrassed to see me in the hall.
“I’m the babysitter,” I said, trying to be polite.
“Well, I’m the stripper,” he replied, and grinned. “It’s an easy way to make a buck,” he added.
“I suppose,” I replied, although what did I know about it all?
We stood there for a moment longer, insulated by the thick carpeting and the elegantly papered walls, while the women’s laughter rose up the stairs and curled around us.
“Well,” he said, grinning again, “I guess I’d better go do my act.”
He walked away from me and flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs, giving Mrs. Halstead a signal, and she started the music. It was that old da-da-dah stripper music from Gypsy, and that boy did such a sexy entrance down the stairs that I’m surprised the banister didn’t melt.
I knelt in the corner of the upstairs hall, where I could peek around and watch the show. No one saw me, and they were all too drunk and wound up to care if they had. So I got to watch the guy do his act.
He was good. But I also saw the faces of the women watching him, and I wish I hadn’t. It made me sad. All those women, in their forties. I thought it was pathetic that they were so interested in a boy’s body. Surely, I thought, they were past all that.
As soon as the stripper music ended, some disco records came on, and that guy could really move; he was fabulous. In the first place he was actually a fine graceful dancer. But of course there was more than that. He was sexy. When he started doing bumps and grinds and taking off his clothes, I stopped looking at the women’s faces. And he flirted with the women, as if he thought they were all unbearably attractive. I don’t know how he stood it. I thought they all looked stupid; I was embarrassed for them. They laughed and clapped and whistled and yelled, “Take it off! Take it all off!” And he did.
In the most tantalizing way possible, he took off his jacket, cummerbund, trousers, shoes, and socks, until he was out there dancing in front of them in nothing but a gold lamé jockstrap. In spite of myself, I was fascinated.
Then Mrs. Moyer said, “Honey, I’ll give you fifty dollars to take that off,” pointing at the jockstrap. I nearly fell down the stairs in shock. Mrs. Moyer, who’s always campaigning for politicians and being serious about local issues! The stripper told her, teasing, slowly moving his hips as he talked, that he couldn’t take off that last piece of clothing; it wasn’t part of the act. However, he could be raffled off at the end of the act. The money would be split—half would go to him, half to Mrs. Moyer for her birthday present. Whoever won him could go into the guest bedroom and have him at her service for three hours.
The women laughed nervously at that—but something different was in their laughter then, and although Mrs. Halstead was doing a great job acting like an auctioneer and making the raffle one big comedy act, some of those women got deadly serious during the bidding. Well, I wasn’t even drunk, and I hadn’t made love with anyone yet, and I still couldn’t help but wish I could enter the bidding, too. He was so sexy. But of course I didn’t have any money, not that kind of money. I was relieved to see Mrs. Bennett, who up till then had been laughing too but generally seemed embarrassed, lean back in her chair with a look of disapproval on her face. She didn’t bid even once, which made me glad, because I’ve always admired Mrs. Bennett. The highest bidder was Mrs. Aranguren, who is so exotic-looking that I couldn’t imagine her ever bidding for sex, but she paid three hundred dollars. She didn’t look the slightest bit ashamed when
she went up the stairs with the boy’s arm around her waist. In fact, she gave everyone in the living room a big grin and wave, and yelled, “Eat your hearts out!”
I had to scurry off to the back stairs which led down to the kitchen so that Mrs. Aranguren and the stripper didn’t see me when they reached the second floor. They went into the guest bedroom and shut the door and I never did hear another thing about it.
I went down into the kitchen, where Mrs. Halstead was starting to make coffee, and she asked me, since I was still there anyway, to help clean up the mess. And it was a mess. But I got to hear the women discussing the stripper. Some of them were pretending it was all an intellectual or political coup: women’s lib. Mrs. Moyer said it was great that they had got to yell “Take it all off” and “Let’s see your buns and boobies” to a man. But some of the other women were sad. One woman, whom I was glad I didn’t know, cried, “I’ll never see such a handsome male naked again in my life. I hate getting old!” She sat down, or rather fell down, into a chair and bawled until another woman sort of carried her out to a car and drove her home.
I never dreamed that sort of thing could happen here in Londonton, and in fact Mrs. Halstead told me she had had to import the stripper from a bar in Southmark. She didn’t say how much he cost, but she indicated that he was pretty expensive. I helped her clean up the kitchen, and then I drove home, feeling stunned and depressed.
Mother was waiting up for me as she always does, sitting in bed reading. When I came in, she called out for me to come in and say good night. She patted the bed next to her, and I plopped down with my head on a pillow and talked to her the way I have so often done after a night out. I told her about the party, every detail, and we both got to laughing so hard that Mother nearly fell out of bed.
