by Lee Wardlow
I choked on my spit and Rhonda chuckled. “We’re pretty straight forward in this family. You’ll learn. So, are you sleeping with Cal?”
“No,” I declared, mortified at her questioning me.
“Virgin?” She asked. Her eyebrows raised over eyes that were very much like her brothers. Brown and unremarkable until you got close. Then you saw specks of color in them that were green and gold and truly beautiful.
I nodded quickly.
“Nothing wrong with that. I’ve only been with Lyle. It’s kind of nice having only been with one man. We went to the same college together. We were going to get married after graduation, but Dad couldn’t make it home. Then I was like I don’t need a piece of paper to be married which pisses off my father and makes me happy,” Rhonda declared.
We decided we were settled enough last year and got pregnant pretty, quickly. Then this but we’ll be okay.” She looked at me long and hard. “You’re pretty quiet.”
“I am,” I agreed.
“That won’t do. I’m a talker.” She smiled at me. I decided that I liked Rhonda.
“I just moved here this summer,” I told her finding that Rhonda was easy to be open with just like her brother.
“That sucks. High school is hard enough without moving during your sophomore year.”
I told her about my grandma. She smiled at my description of her. I told her about my writing on Dystopian.com. “Can I read it?” Rhonda asked.
“Anyone can.”
She nodded. “I’ll look it up. I like you.”
She figured out from us talking before Lyle and Cal got back that I hung out at school with Tyson, Cal and Cal’s friends. She hugged me when they got back with the food. “Girls can be catty, but you need a good girlfriend.”
“Don’t I know that,” I whispered.
Cal looked at us strangely.
“Mind your business, Calvert,” Rhonda told him. He rolled his eyes at his sister because she too had used his full name.
“Hey, hon. I’m here if you need a sister or a girl to talk to.” Then she squeezed my shoulders. We walked to the table and sat down. She was wearing hot pink pajamas and her hair was tied back but she was really, pretty, even without make-up. I liked her natural style. She liked color I thought from the choice of pajama color and the blanket color too.
She sat by Lyle and I took the seat by Cal.
He held my hand under the table while Lyle passed out food to each of us on a paper plate. His mom was right. We had helped Rhonda’s mood and she had helped me. It was a good time at their apartment. The problem was, I lost track of time because we had watched a movie or two after the food was gone.
Cal drove me home at six-thirty. I had left my phone at home so my parent’s calls to it were useless to them. I knew they were probably worried, but I was having such a good time.
“Want me to go inside with you to explain?” He asked.
“Nope, I can face this on my own.”
He leaned over the seat and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. “Get before your dad comes outside. He’s at the window.”
“Shit,” I responded. Then I saw him too. My dad was not happy with me.
“I really think I should go inside and apologize. You made my sister happy. I really appreciate that.”
“I’ll explain. If I had my phone I would have called.”
Cal frowned at me. “You could have used my phone, Abby.”
“I didn’t think of that. I was having such a good time, Cal.”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Go, before he comes outside to drag you inside.”
I laughed. “Mom wouldn’t let him do that.”
I got out of the car and peeked in one last time. Cal winked at me causing that familiar flutter of emotion in my belly to stir and take flight. I smiled at him then told him goodbye one last time not wanting to leave but I had to go inside and face the music and procrastinating wasn’t going to help my dad’s mood.
At the front door, I looked back because Cal was still sitting in the driveway. His hand rested on the steering wheel, in a casual, cool sort of way. He was waiting for me to go inside. I waved. He smiled. Finally, I opened the door and went inside. Cal wasn’t leaving until I was gone. I peeked through the sidelight and watched him backing out.
Then I turned and saw Dad at the entrance to the family room. Mom was walking down the hall. She didn’t appear to be as angry as he was.
“You’re grounded for a month,” he said with barely controlled anger.
I started to protest then I saw her hold her hand up telling me to be quiet. “Where have you been?” She asked me and I knew in that moment that she wasn’t angry at all.
“Cal’s sister lost her baby yesterday. She was six months pregnant. She was sad. His mom thought Cal and I could cheer her up. She’s a lot like me. We have so many similar interests, but she’s talkative. They are so different than us.”
Mom’s eyebrow raised at that statement. “They say what’s on their mind. Kind of embarrassing at times,” I explained. She chuckled knowing how easily I embarrassed. What she didn’t realize was that I liked their openness. We always had to keep up appearances. I didn’t like that about us.
“So, you can’t tell time?” Dad asked. His tone was still harsh.
“I was having such a good time with them. I lost track of time. Cal asked what time I had to be home and it was already six-fifteen. I’m sorry, Daddy.” I tried smiling and cocking my head to the side looking sweet and innocent. I hadn’t called him Daddy in over six years.
He scowled. “That isn’t going to work,” Dad declared. “If you’re going out with Cal or any other boy you have to follow the rules, Abigail.” He knew how I hated my full name.
I knew if I rolled my eyes at him, he would just get angrier, so I refrained from any rude gestures. “Fine,” I said but I couldn’t keep the pissy tone out of my voice.
Mom glanced at Dad then she looked at me. “One week. You can go to the game with us but no after game activities.” Dad was really, mad now. “Tyson, it’s her first offense. Cut her some slack.”
He started to walk around me to head to upstairs then he stopped on the bottom step. “No Cal, Abby during this week. He doesn’t bring you home. He doesn’t come here to hang out with you. Nothing, got that?”
This time I did roll my eyes at him.
“Would you like for it to be two weeks?” He asked.
“Nope,” I replied. “I’m good with one week.”
Dad went upstairs after that. I glanced down the hall where Mom leaned against the wall. Her long legs were bare in short cut offs that she wouldn’t be caught in outside of this house. She wasn’t wearing shoes either. I liked her like this. All natural and pretty.
Her hair was pulled up in a high ponytail. Her tank top was tight on her slender frame. She was hot. I had a MILF for a Mom and I loved this look on her. I wished she would dress like this more often. Dressed down. More natural. I shook my head and followed her to the kitchen.
“So, you like Cal?” She asked as I slid onto a barstool.
“I do.” I decided not to tell her how much or what we were doing in his room. Not much but enough that she might not like it.
She glanced over her shoulder at me.
“Abby, you can talk to me about anything.”
“Like what?” I asked not picking up on the subtle or not so subtle fishing trip she was on right now.
“Boys,” she said.
Mom had this discussion with me when I was eleven when I had started my period. She gave me the birds and bees story then Grandma gave me the scoop.
My grandmother was cool. She wasn’t so different from my mother in looks, just a few more laugh lines and age spots. Her hair grayer. She called it aging gracefully. She wasn’t like Mom she didn’t mind the grays. She didn’t get facials. Her cream came from the corner pharmacy.
Gran didn’t mind talking about sex. She didn’t beat around the bush either. “Don’t get
pregnant in your teenage years, Abs. Too many options to protect yourself. Don’t leave it up to the boy to protect you either. Take responsibility for yourself and your own health.” That is the gist of what Gran told me over and over. She wanted to pound it into my head.
She and Tyson were the only two to call me Abs.
Mom was somewhat embarrassed by Gran’s straightforwardness. She had been that way with her too. Grandma was of the mentality that every female should be an informed kind of woman.
She explained blow jobs to me when I was fourteen. Not that she wanted me to be giving them at fourteen. She thought I should know what they were and why men liked them. Why maybe I shouldn’t swallow or even allow a man to come in my mouth without knowing his sexual health. Who at fourteen knows their sexual health? I had asked her.
Exactly she responded. She had a point to make and it was important. She thought being informed made you safe from sexual diseases. She wanted me to always make sound decisions including about swallowing.
I just sat there on the barstool in her kitchen and stared blankly at my grandmother. I can tell you that baking Christmas cookies with my Gran, would never be the same holiday tradition again.
I don’t know why she chose that time to explain that even blow jobs aren’t completely safe if the guy is carrying an STD. I went home from Gran’s house with more knowledge and bad dreams of penises with diseases for a couple of months. I never told on Gran. She was just trying to be helpful and I loved that woman more than anything. Our secret blow job talk was safe with me.
So, having a discussion with Mom about sex was awkward. “I know,” I responded.
“You aren’t doing anything with Cal, right?”
“Nope,” I replied feeling my face flush with embarrassment that she would even ask this. “He’s not even trying anything Mom.”
“Good,” she replied. I saw her shoulders relax. I wanted to chuckle. “You’re only fifteen. Don’t rush things.”
So, I took the plunge that most kids probably don’t. I asked the question that most girls probably aren’t interested in knowing. Mom turned and looked at me in horror when I asked if Dad was her first and only. Now Mom was on the hot seat. I could see that I had made her uncomfortable which forced me to stifle a giggle.
“Abby, I want to be honest with you. I had been with a few other guys before your dad not that I want you to test the waters like I did. I think,” she stared off into space like she was remembering her younger days, “no I wish that he had been my only one.”
“Had Dad been with anyone before you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Again, that doesn’t mean it was right.” She walked over to the island and leaned on it. She looked at me, her daughter. “Abby, sex is special and should be shared between two people who really love each other. It feels really, good but if its with someone that you don’t care about when its over the next day you don’t always feel so special about yourself. Make sense?”
“You did the walk of shame one too many times, Mom,” I teased her, using the term I had seen in a movie or two.
She sighed and straightened. “Something like that. I can’t make you wait for the one. My wish for you is that you wait for him, the guy that you will spend your life with but if you don’t let me know and we’ll talk about birth control but not at fifteen or sixteen. You just don’t know how to handle the consequences if birth control fails.”
Then we both looked at the entrance to the kitchen where Dad stood looking more than horrified. “I’m not having sex, Dad. Relax.”
He was somewhat reassured by that declaration but not completely at ease. I knew that Dad wasn’t ready for me to be dating yet so walking in on a conversation about birth control and sex had created a whole new level of heart attack for him.
If this was Tyson having this conversation about dating and sex, he would be more comfortable though. I just want that noted that my father was a sexist.
“Why is there this double-standard for me and Tyson?” I asked voicing my frustrations.
He stared at me like I had three heads and should understand. Mom chuckled. “Because you’re his little girl,” she answered for him when Dad didn’t.
“But I’m not. Not anymore,” I replied. “Ty and I will be sixteen next month. He could have already had sex for all I know, and Dad would be patting him on the back and saying way to go son.”
Dad snorted at me and not in a good way. “I wouldn’t go that far, Abby.”
“You wouldn’t be as concerned,” I grumbled.
He agreed with me. “Because Tyson wouldn’t be carrying the consequences of his actions for nine months.”
Mom tossed the towel in her hand down on the island. “Someone else’s daughter would though Tyson,” she snapped at him. Then she scowled harder. “That child would be our grandchild still, you moron.”
He ran his fingers through his dark hair in frustration.
“Tyson whether it is Abby or Ty if either of them had an unplanned pregnancy the consequences are the same for each of them. Their life is affected. Get that through your head right now,” she told Dad. “Ty doesn’t get to walk away from his responsibility just because he’s a boy and doesn’t carry the baby. So, if he’s having sex, he needs to know he should be using a condom.”
My brother walked in at the point of mom declaring that if he was having sex, he should be using a condom. His eyes were round and afraid. He was loud so everyone stopped talking and looked at him.
“What did I do?” He asked.
“Are you having sex?” Dad asked.
“Fuck no,” he said. “If I were, I do know to use condoms.”
“Watch your language, Tyson,” Mom warned him.
Somehow, I thought my brother wasn’t telling the entire truth here. I knew my twin well even if Mom and Dad weren’t picking up on his tells.
“Sit down Tyson,” Dad told him.
My brother grumbled but did as he was told. We were about to get another lecture about sex and protecting ourselves because we were at that age where hormones were affecting our judgement. I glanced at Tyson and he scowled at me like I had caused this somehow.
Dad started exactly with what I thought he would.
“You’re at that age where hormones are affecting your better judgement,” he started the lecture. It took everything in my being to not roll my eyes at Dad. My feet swung back and forth, and I let my mind wander. I heard Tyson sigh a time or two. Mom giggled.
“It’s not funny, Kat. They are horny teenagers.”
I wasn’t horny. I was falling in love, I thought. I didn’t know. I was a teen who knew nothing about this emotion. Cal was my first boyfriend. I knew he made me feel things that I had never felt before. Was that love? He used the word like. No, he had said he was falling for me.
At our age that was probably enough.
We liked kissing and making out.
Dad used the word second base. What the hell did that mean? I glanced at Ty and his eyes met mine. He was bored. He wasn’t listening either. “No one gets a home run in this house,” Dad warned us. “Not at sixteen.”
“I know nothing of sports so using these analogies is useless for me,” I interrupted Dad.
Mom burst out laughing. Dad was flustered. “I’ll explain it to her later, Ty offered. “We’re neither one having sex so why is this conversation happening right now?” My brother asked.
“Because I walked in on a conversation your mother was having with your sister about birth control.”
Tyson’s head shot around, and he was glaring at me. I could see fire in his eyes. I knew that he was ready to go after Cal if he thought he was having sex with me. “Relax,” I told him. “It was hypothetical conversation.”
He wasn’t relieved at all.
I turned back to Dad. “Are we done? I have a writing assignment to work on,” I lied not thinking about my brother having the same English class as me just at a different time.
He frowned at me but didn�
�t give me away.
“You can go,” Mom replied before Dad could object.
“Thanks,” I said and slipped off the barstool. Only problem was Tyson followed me. Down the hall, up the stairs to my room. His footsteps a heavy weight letting me know that he still had things to say.
My brother had seen us on the sofa together. Granted we weren’t doing anything more than kissing. He could most likely only hear groans and kissing noises, but he was still troubled by this after hearing about Mom and me talking birth control. He had nothing to worry about with me and Cal. Not yet. I wasn’t ready for that type of relationship.
Tyson followed me into my room and shut the door. I went to my bed and sat in the middle moving my backpack in place like I really had homework to do but I had done it all yesterday.
“Cut the crap Abs. I know you don’t have an assignment to do. I have the same English teacher.”
I waited for Tyson to join me on the bed. I knew it was coming. He plopped down at the foot and sat crossed legged, Indian style. “So, are you having sex with Cal?” He asked.
“Not that it is any of your business, but no I am not? Have you had sex?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered. “But I’m a guy.”
I frowned at my brother. I was somewhat troubled by this news. “That’s sexist. When?”
“Missy Cantrell end of year party right before we left to come here.”
Missy was two years older than us. I frowned at Ty. She was known for her reputation of being loose. I shook my head at him. “Did you use protection?” I asked him.
“I did. She has stockpiles of condoms in her room.” I didn’t hear about this because I didn’t go to the end of year party. My friends wouldn’t have gone either.
“Is it worth it Ty just to say you aren’t a virgin?”
He appeared uncomfortable. “I don’t buy Mom’s save yourself shit, Abs for myself but for you I think it’s a good idea.”
I frowned at him and shook my head.
“Abs, you’re different.”
“How?” I was exasperated with him. Mom. Dad. All being overprotective.
