The Facts of Life

It was a warm day in late May. The fragrance of new mown grass lingered into the dusk where crickets took up a ritual chant under every window. School would end in a few weeks but spring fever had us in full grip.

I broke from the throng of can kickers and headed toward our front door, though something wasn’t right. The wrong lights were on, the drapes not apart quite enough. It was because of Mom, of course. She wasn’t home to make things right. She lay in a hospital bed recovering from having the blue, bulging snake-like veins stripped from her painful legs.

I opened the door and hurried to the bathroom. I had to pee. I pulled down my pedal pushers and undies and sat, relieved to let go. Then as I wheeled off the strip of toilet paper, I saw it. A red splotch, square in the center of the crotch of my underpants. Oh God! What should I do? Why wasn’t Mom here to help me?

I blinked back a tear, pulled up my pants and took a deep breath, dreading the task ahead.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, Den, what’s up?”

“Daddy, I think I started ministrating.”

He nodded solemnly. “Okay. Hold on. I’ll go get Barbara.”

Whew! Barbara would take care of everything. She was young and pretty and lived across the street. I babysat her little boy, and she always treated me like a grown up, though I was only in sixth grade.

Soon, she arrived with a brown grocery sack under one arm. She took me into my parents’ bedroom and laid out on the bed an array of horrible looking devices.

“This is the belt,” she said, stretching the elastic. “You take the pad and hook it up like this.” She looked up at me while sticking the ends through the two metal clasps and pulling them snug. “When you change it, don’t’ flush it down the toilet, fold it like this and wrap toilet paper around it and put it in the waste basket. Wear a loose skirt and no one will know. If your stomach hurts, take a couple of aspirin. It’ll be okay, don’t worry. All girls have this.”

How horrible. I lurked around for a week or so feeling nervous and self-conscious wearing my poodle skirt and soon, thankfully, Mom was home. But the horror was only beginning. It was time.

Time for the big talk. One night, a few weeks later, everyone disappeared after dinner and Mom called me into the living room and said, “I need to talk to you.” Yikes. She’d never said that before.

“Now that you’ve gotten your first period, I need to tell you the facts of life - how girls get pregnant.” She paused. I shrunk a bit and gazed innocently into her eyes. “The man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina.”

What? He what? He puts what where? Vagina? Was that down there somewhere? Oh my God. How awful. “Okay,’ I said, as though I understood.

“So, be careful if you are ever alone with a boy.” I nodded sagely and went outside to play.

I walked down the sidewalk, kicking at stones. Alone with a boy? First off, where did this horrific act take place? On the kitchen table? Was it like an operation? Why would people even do this? Did it hurt? It was unthinkable and gross. No need to worry about me, Mom. Nosiree, aint’ gonna go there, by golly.

A few years later, when I was entrenched in a long-term high school relationship, I began to understand the motives behind the behavior. Oh, I held off, just barely, until college. It was the old, “everything but” routine, and I found out it wasn’t all that bad. Pretty good, in fact.

That’s when it happened. My little sister, Robin, four years my junior, with whom I shared a bedroom, lay in the dark in her twin bed next to mine. “Den?”

“Yeah?”

“What are the facts of life?”

“Oh, Robin, don’t ask me. Ask Mom.”

“No. I don’t want to, she’ll get all weird. You tell me.”

I cleared my throat. Penis in vagina? God no. “Okay, when a man and a lady are married and in love, they like to hug and kiss and touch each other. And it feels good. So, sometimes, the kissing makes them get excited, and they take off their clothes and get in bed together and kiss and hug some more. Finally, and they really want to do this, the man (no, don’t go there!) sticks his thing inside the lady. She has a place down there. It’s where babies come out of and feels good for both of them. Then all of a sudden, the good feeling grows and gets better and better and then some stuff comes out of him into the lady. The stuff has sperm in it, like seeds, and it connects with an egg that the lady makes and that makes the beginning of a baby.” Phew. Silence.

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, thanks.”