by S. J. West
“Oh we love you,” I tell my little brother. “We love you enough to take you down a peg or two when you’re acting obnoxious.”
Will sticks his tongue out at me.
“That’s mature.”
Will looks at me and smiles a smile that immediately puts me on edge.
“Why are you smiling at me like that?”
“Because I know something you don’t,” he says in a singsong teasing voice.
“And what would that be?”
“While I was helping Uncle Malcolm get supplies for class this afternoon, he told me you would be helping out in class tomorrow. I just find that funny.”
“Why funny?” I ask, apprehension settling in. “What are you studying in sex ed tomorrow?”
Will’s grin blossoms on his face like a flower in full sunlight.
“And ruin the surprise for you? Never. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Exactly what kind of supplies did you have to get today?”
Will’s smile immediately disappears. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Will says seriously. “Catch you later, Jasp. I need to go.”
Will phases home, and I’m left feeling nervous.
What exactly did I agree to help with in Uncle Malcolm’s class tomorrow?
When I get back home, I crawl into bed and immediately text Leah. I tell her everything that happened. I ask her why she thinks Aiden didn’t try to kiss me.
The first kiss is monumental! He probably wants it to be extra special since you guys have had to wait so long for it.
All I need are his lips pressed against mine. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Leah.
It’ll happen. Just give him some time.
My phone vibrates in my hand indicating I have a new message.
A small white envelope appears on my screen with the name Aiden attached to it.
“Oh my god…” I say out loud as I automatically sit straight up in bed.
I’ve gotta go. Aiden just texted me…
!!!!! Details. Later. Bye.
I sit there staring at my phone screen. It never even occurred to me that he would contact me this way. But why not? The ban concerning our contact with one another has been lifted by my parents. My mother even told Aiden he was welcomed into our home anytime. Why not talk to one another by text?
My hand shakes as I hit the blinking envelop and I read his message.
Just wanted to tell you I had a wonderful time tonight. I hope we can do it again soon minus any more tests. And I wish you the sweetest of dreams while you sleep.
I smile in complete and utter bliss as I read his message at least ten more times.
Finally, I work up the nerve to respond.
I hope you have sweet dreams too. Can’t wait until tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to start counting minutes now instead of days.
After I hit the send button, I wonder if I was a little too forward in my message.
Almost immediately I get a message sent back.
1200
I stare at the number and it takes me a few seconds to realize what it is. When I look up at my clock on the nightstand, I see that it’s 9 o’clock. My phone vibrates again.
1199
I smile as I realize Aiden actually is counting the minutes until we see each other again. His next message reads:
Get some sleep, beautiful. I’ll see you tomorrow. 1198…and counting…
I lay my phone on my nightstand and turn off the light. I sigh in contentment and drift off to sleep happier than I have been in my whole entire life.
The next morning when Leah and I pull into the parking lot at school, Hunter is nowhere to be seen.
“Wow,” Leah says, “I guess he actually listened to you yesterday when you told him you loved someone already. Who would have thought Hunter Manning would accept defeat so easily?”
“I’m glad he did,” I tell her, pulling into my usual spot and switching off the engine. “I just need to make it through classes today. You don’t know how tempted I feel to play hooky and track Aiden down like some love sick stalker.”
Leah giggles. “Listen, after tonight no one will second guess that the two of you are meant for one another. Once we take a glimpse into your future, it’ll seem ridiculous to your dad to keep the two of you at arm’s length anymore.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say with a sigh. “And I hope I can find a way to get Aiden alone because if I do, God help that man he’s getting kissed whether he wants to or not.”
Leah laughs.
“Do I need to warn him to bring some Chapstick tonight?”
I smile. “Maybe.”
“Just…” Leah begins but seems to second guess saying what she was about to say.
“Just what?” I prod gently to get her to finish.
“Just be careful, Caylin. Aiden’s a man. And like I’ve told you before, he wasn’t exactly known for his self-control where women were concerned when I first met him.”
“I know, Leah. I kind of gathered that from the questions Uncle Malcolm asked him at dinner last night. Plus, from the way Aiden answered, it sounds like he hasn’t had sex in a long time.”
“I have no idea about that,” Leah says. “It’s not exactly information I would be privy to.”
“I don’t care if he has or not,” I say but don’t exactly mean.
I know I have no right to feel jealous if he has been with other women in the last three years. It’s not like we pledged our undying love to one another with that one…yet amazing…exchange of smiles at Chandler’s concert. He didn’t owe me a vow of chastity just because we saw each other. Yet, I find it impossible that he would want to have a relationship with anyone else after that. I couldn’t even look at other guys after that night.
Hunter wasn’t the only boy who tried to get me to notice their existence. I had quite a few guys try to get my attention, but none of them held an ounce of interest to me. The only man I wanted was Aiden. The only person I wanted to kiss was Aiden.
“Got any pointers about kissing?” I ask Leah.
Leah blushes. “Umm, well, no not exactly. Just relax when you do it. Let Aiden take the lead. He’ll know what to do.”
“Is Josh a good kisser?” I ask.
“I thought the two of you kissed when you dated.”
I shake my head. “No, we never got that far. I’ve never been kissed. I wanted Aiden to be my first.”
“No wonder you’re so fixated on him kissing you,” Leah teases. “I’ll try to hint around that he needs to do it sooner rather than later.”
“No, don’t, Leah. I don’t want to force him into doing something he’s not ready for yet. And who knows, maybe tonight will be the night. I think I just need to learn some patience.”
“That’ll be the day,” Leah mumbles under her breath, but I hear her clearly enough.
I roll my eyes at her and say, “Come on. The sooner we get this day over with the sooner I can see Aiden.”
My body might be physically sitting in my classes but my mind wanders elsewhere each class period. I can’t stop thinking about Aiden. It’s like every thought I have is saturated with him. It’s not until I have to go to Uncle Malcolm’s sex ed class that I remember Will’s cryptic warning from the night before.
When I walk in, I notice two cardboard boxes sitting on Uncle Malcolm’s desk, one of medium size and one large. Uncle Malcolm is fiddling with something on his tablet when I approach him.
“So what’s the lesson for today?” I ask, setting my books on his desk.
Uncle Malcolm peers at me from over his glasses. “What? And ruin the surprise?”
“Depends,” I say, crossing my arms. “Is it a good surprise or a bad one? From what Will said last night, it sounded like I might need to run out of here as fast as I can.”
“Will over exaggerates,” Uncle Malcolm says off-handedly, returning his attention
back to the tablet in his hands.
“What exactly do you want me to do in here anyway?”
Without looking up from his tablet, Uncle Malcolm says, “Just take a seat in the back for now. I’ll let you know when I need your assistance.”
I do as instructed and sit in a desk in the back of the classroom.
Will and the rest of his class come in soon after and fill up the rest of the desks.
Will smiles at me and mouths the word, “Doomed.”
I just shake my head at him assuming he’s over exaggerating just like Uncle Malcolm said.
“Ok my impressionable young boys and girls,” Uncle Malcolm says, laying his tablet on his desk. “Let’s all quiet down. We have a lot to cover this period.”
After everyone gives Uncle Malcolm their undivided attention, he taps the screen of his tablet and a holographic image shoots up into the air over his desk. It’s a movie title: “The Miracle of Childbirth.”
“Now, I know a few of you may think you’re old enough to have sex. Wipe that thought out of your heads,” he says pointing a finger at the class. “You are not old enough and this video will show you why. Sex leads to babies and most of you are barely out of diapers yourselves. There is absolutely no way you can take care of a child either financially or emotionally. And why ruin your lives for a few seconds of fun because girls,” Uncle Malcolm looks over the rims of his glasses at the girls in the class, “these boys sitting next to you will not be interested in giving you pleasure. They will be in and out before you know it and BAM,” Uncle Malcolm says hitting the top of his desk with the palm of his right hand causing everyone, including me, to jump out of their seats from the loud sound, “there you are pregnant. Did you know you have to carry a baby for 40 weeks? And after growing a child inside you for that long you have to give birth to it. Now, I know most of you have seen romantic movies where childbirth looks like a wonderful experience, but this video will show you the reality of it. Pay close attention, boys and girls, and maybe afterwards you can tell me if a few minutes of having one of your classmates on top of you is worth it.”
Uncle Malcolm starts the video which follows a woman as she checks into a hospital on the day of the birth of her daughter. At first, the movie doesn’t seem too bad. The couple is happy and looking forward to meeting their daughter for the first time. There’s a computer generated sequence showing a solitary sperm swimming up to an egg and what a baby looks like inside the womb in eight week intervals.
Then it happens…
The woman is rolled into the delivery room screaming at the top of her lungs, obviously in a great deal of pain. The doctor keeps offering her some medication to ease her plight but the woman stoutly refuses.
“Take the drugs,” a girl sitting beside me whispers, urging the woman in the movie to soften her torment.
The birth of her baby is like watching a train wreck happen right in front of my eyes. I can’t seem to make myself look away as we watch the head of her daughter crown between her legs. I feel like I’m watching some sci-fi movie where the main character is giving birth to an alien baby.
The doctor urges the woman to push with the next contraction. The woman lets out an ear-piercing scream that could probably curdle milk just as the head of the baby emerges enough to see its face. The rest of the body seems to pour out of the mother along with a lot of blood. The doctor lifts the baby in the air and lays it against the mother’s bare breast just as it lets out its first cry.
The movie ends.
I look around the deathly silent room.
The boys all look like they want to puke and the girls look permanently shell shocked.
“So,” Uncle Malcolm says coming to stand in front of his desk and sitting on his favorite corner of it, “any questions?”
One girl up front slowly lifts her hand.
“Yes, Jenna?”
“Did she survive?” Jenna asks, her voice quavering, obviously thinking the woman had perished from the experience soon afterward.
Uncle Malcolm looks over his glasses at her.
“Just barely,” he says gravely with a straight face. “And remember, you little ungrateful heathens, the next time you want to back talk your mother think about what she went through to bring you into this world. So, show some respect to her instead of a smart mouth. She deserves better treatment from you. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Jenna slowly nods her head in full agreement.
“Now, if that wasn’t enough to make you understand the consequences of having sex, I suppose I need to teach you ways to at least provide you some protection from the miracle of having a child of your own.”
Uncle Malcolm looks at me and tilts his head toward the boxes on his desk.
I’m not sure I want to know what’s in the boxes, but I get up and walk up to the desk because I did promise to help.
“Now, Caylin is going to come around with a box,” Uncle Malcolm says. “I want you all to pick out one of each item in the box.”
Uncle Malcolm points to the medium size cardboard box to the left. I lift the lid and stare at the contents inside.
“I don’t remember having to do this when I took this class,” I say.
“I know,” Uncle Malcolm replies. “That’s why I wanted your help today.”
I look up at him and see a smirk on his face.
I grab the box with both hands and begin to walk around to the other students. Jenna is the first to see what’s in the box. She flushes profusely but takes out one banana and one bright red condom.
“Now,” Uncle Malcolm says, “we are all going to practice stretching a condom onto the banana. A condom can provide you not only protection from pregnancy but from sexually transmitted diseases. Though, just not having sex at all is the best way to prevent either, but I know how you humans can be, absolutely no self-control.”
“Why is he always saying that?” I hear the boy I’m standing in front of ask the boy sitting behind him. “It’s like he’s not human or something.”
“Well look at him,” the girl sitting across from the boy says, her eyes completely glazed over as she looks at Uncle Malcolm, “he can’t be human. He looks more like a Watcher.”
“Pfft,” the boy says, “a Watcher wouldn’t waste his time teaching us sex ed. Besides, I know all the Watchers and he’s not on the list.”
The boy’s statement brings me up short. I haven’t actually asked Aiden to the Valentine’s Day dance yet, but I feel confident he’ll say yes when I do. Since Aiden is still head of the Watcher Headquarters in Memphis, the odds of him being recognized by my classmates is close to 100%. It’s something I hadn’t even considered.
But, did it matter in the grand scheme of things?
No. I didn’t care if they recognized him or not. I just hoped they had enough decency to not bother him with questions or want his autograph.
Watchers had basically replaced movie stars in the eyes of most young women of the world. Almost every Watcher had a following. Websites dedicated to Watchers were quickly shut down by Joshua. He had a viral program that sought out sites and destroyed them almost immediately. The Watchers didn’t want to be worshiped. They just wanted to do their job and eventually fade from human memory. Once they were able to set the world on the path it was meant to go down, I knew the plan was to slowly decrease their presence among humans and become anonymous again. I doubted it would happen in my lifetime but in a hundred years or so Watchers would only become legends in the memories of humans.
When I got around the room to where Will was sitting, he smiled at me.
“Got a big one in there?” He says, making the two guys on either side of him chortle.
I look in the box and smile. I reach in and pull out one of the Chiquita mini bananas that must have fallen in by mistake.
“Here, little bro. Hope you can handle it.”
I toss him the mini banana and a condom. His male friends laugh hysterically until I hand them the same sized bananas. Will snickers.
When I walk back up to Uncle Malcolm’s desk, he says, “Caylin, would you please hand me a condom? And grab one of the larger bananas to hold for me while I demonstrate how to properly roll one on.”
I try to keep my face completely blank, but I’m cringing on the inside. I knew Uncle Malcolm wanted my help in his class for a reason, but I didn’t think it would be to show me how to properly apply a condom or scare the bejesus out of me with the “miracle of screaming your head off to bring life into the world” video.
I stand in front of the class holding the banana while Uncle Malcolm shows the students how to properly roll it on. I feel completely mortified, and it doesn’t help having some of the juvenile delinquents in the class failing miserably at hiding their laughter.
After Uncle Malcolm is through, I promptly throw the banana in the trashcan and stand off to the side of the classroom closest to the door while he helps those far less experienced and coordinated in handling two things at one time. Thankfully, Uncle Malcolm had a lot of extra condoms because most everyone broke their first one. By the end of the class period, every student has applied a condom successfully at least one time.
“Before you leave,” Uncle Malcolm says to the class, “I want to reemphasize what you saw in the video today.”
Everyone groans.
“Caylin, would you please pass out what is in the second box?”
I hesitate. I’m not sure I want to know what’s in the second box if it’s supposed to emphasize what we saw in the video.
I walk over to his desk and cautiously lift the lid off the second, larger box.
Lying inside are three layers of baby dolls.
“For the next 24 hours, I expect you all to treat these dolls like you would your own babies. You will have to feed them, change their diaper, rock them, sing them lullabies, and play with them. Everything you do, or don’t do for that matter, will be recorded in their internal memory cores. If any of you think you will simply throw these things in a drawer or closet and forget about them, think again. I will personally comb through each dolls memory to see what was done to them. If I’m not satisfied with what I find, you will have after school detention for the next month and completely fail this course. And I promise you, it won’t be like any detention you have ever had in your short, little lives. Is my threat understood?”
