by Caryl Rivers
Of course, we all wondered how this red-hot couple was ever going to produce any kids. By the time they worked their way up to it, they’d be in the Holy Family retirement home.
“How can we get a boy into the Big Sex Talk?” I asked Con. “Hide him in the heating ducts?”
“No, we’ll dress him up as a girl. Get him a uniform, the works. It’ll be a gas!”
“Just which boy did you have in mind?” I asked. I thought I knew the answer.
“Sean’s already said he’d do it.”
I thought a stunt like that would appeal to Sean’s sense of the absurd.
Sean had certainly been busting out senior year; the zany side of his personality had all but eclipsed the moody, mystical side. I wondered if Sean wasn’t trying to pack a whole lifetime of silliness into the months before the door of childhood closed on him so inexorably. The rest of us had a bit more time to act like kids—if not to be them. The boundaries of childhood were more elastic with us. Sean, as a priest, had to be sober and good, had to set an example for all of us who were not in a special relationship with God. A priest had to act with dignity—he couldn’t crack up and horse around; a priest who did that would surely be a scandal to the laity. When he was a priest, Sean couldn’t ever be crazy again.
It was easy enough getting Sean into immaculate Heart. Kids from Sacred Heart were in and out all the time, delivering messages. We just got Sean a courier pass and when he came in the front door, we hustled him upstairs to the Messenger room. We had everything in readiness. Con locked the door and Mollie pulled a shopping bag out from under the table.
“Strip down to your shorts,” Con ordered.
“Here?”
“Well, you certainly can’t do it in the girls’ john.”
Mollie pointed to St. Theresa. “If she can hang out in her bra, you can stand around in your shorts,” she said.
“What the hell,” Sean shrugged, and he peeled off his clothes, until he was standing there in only his socks and his jockey shorts. I tried, dutifully, not to stare at a bulge in a strategic spot.
Con gave Sean an appraising look. All that weight-lifting he had done junior year had broadened his shoulders and developed the musculature of his torso. He was lean, but well-formed. He straightened his shoulders and let his muscles ripple, showing off shamelessly, I thought.
“This is a first!” Con exulted. “A naked man in the Messenger room!”
“I am not naked.”
“Well, almost.”
“O.K., if you really want something for your journal,” he said, and hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts.
“Don’t you dare!” I gasped. Even Con seemed thrown off balance a little.
“Flashing in front of the Little Flower is a No-No,” Mollie said.
Sean looked at me, and he had that impish grin I knew so well on his face.
“’Course, it’s nothing new to Peg,” he said.
Mollie and Con stared at me. I felt myself turning eight shades of red.
“We played doctor,” I explained.
Con raised an eyebrow.
“We were five years old, for heaven’s sake!”
“O.K., let’s get the show on the road,” Mollie said. She reached into the bag, pulled out a bra, and strapped it onto Sean’s chest. The cups hung loosely against his skin.
“We’ve got to pad him,” Con said.
“If I’m going to have bazooms, I want big ones,” he said.
“Like father, like son,” I muttered.
“Stuff him with Kleenex,” Con ordered. We rolled up balls of Kleenex and stuffed them into Sean’s bra until he started to look like Jayne Mansfield.
When we had him finished, I stepped back to look and burst out laughing. The Kleenex-stuffed bra, against Sean’s hairy chest, was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever seen. Sean grinned and struck a pin-up pose. “Eat your heart out, Betty Grable!” he said.
“God, Sean, if I didn’t know you were such a straight arrow, I’d say you were a born transvestite,” Con said.
“A what?”
“Transvestite. Guys who like to dress up in women’s clothes. They have whole shows full of them in Paris. Guys wear gowns and furs and sing and dance.”
“That’s weird,” Sean said.
“Well, Sean, if you’re going to be a priest, it could be a big money saver,” Con said. “You could be Father McCaffrey in the morning and Mother Superior in the afternoon.”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Sean said. “Where’s the dress?”
With a lot of struggling, we finally got the uniform dress on Sean. It was a bit tight in the shoulders, but otherwise it fit O.K. Mollie got out the black curly wig the drama club had used for Charley’s Aunt and put it on Sean’s head and combed the curls into place. Then I put on a touch of lipstick and rouge (we weren’t supposed to wear any makeup except clear pink lipstick, but everybody did) and I told him to look at the ceiling while I put eyeliner under his eyes.
When I stepped back to appraise my work, I was astonished. Sean, as a girl, was a knockout. With his even features, those green eyes, and the long, silky eyelashes, he was actually beautiful.
“You’re gorgeous!” I said.
“Lemme see.” I handed him the mirror. “Not bad,” he said. “I think I will ask myself to the prom.”
“That’s really depressing,” I moaned. “I go out with a guy that’s prettier than I am.”
“There’s only one problem,” Con said. “Get a load of those legs.”
We looked. Sean certainly wasn’t very feminine from the knees down.
“My God, Sean, you look like King Kong,” Con said.
“Can I help it if I’m hairy? Everybody in my family is hairy.”
“We’ll have to shave his legs,” Mollie said.
“Oh no you don’t. Nobody’s shaving my legs. People will call me a fairy.”
“Sean, you’ll give the whole thing away with those legs.”
“Nobody gets near me with a razor.”
“I got an idea,” Mollie said. She disappeared for a few minutes, and came back with a pair of knee socks. “I had to promise to do Sally Gimbel’s math homework for a week to get these,” she said.
Sean pulled on the knee socks, and we gave him Mary Mulloy’s extra pair of oxfords—she wore size thirteen and had to get them specially ordered.
“You look great, Sean,” Con said. “Just follow us and for God’s sakes, don’t cross your legs.”
The Big Sex Talk was scheduled for two o’clock, and by the time we came into the auditorium most of the students had already assembled. Con, Mollie, Sean, and I took seats in the back row. Some of the girls turned to stare at Sean, who seemed utterly cool and calm.
“You’re too damn pretty,” I said. “They’re jealous.”
He reached over and pinched my thigh. “Lesbe friends!”
“Sean, cut that out!”
He chuckled. He was really getting into the spirit of the thing. If we could pull this one off, immortality was within our grasp.
We sat there waiting for Father Milliken to come out, but we got a big surprise. Father Milliken wasn’t going to give the Big Sex Talk. Instead, it was to be Mr. Ralph Kasten, the author of a book called Straight Talk for Teens.
Sister Robert Mary walked out onto the stage with Mr. Kasten, a rather short, squat man with dark hair and glasses. I didn’t like him right away, because he looked like Joe McCarthy.
Sister Robert Mary left the hall—the nuns never stayed for the Big Sex Talk—and Mr. Kasten started in. He rambled on for a while about the sanctity of Christian marriage, and I yawned, thinking he was going to be even duller than Father Milliken. But then he said, “Girls, I want to be frank with you about men. They have animal instincts. Men are animals.”
That perked us all up, especially Sean. He growled like a bear. I hit him.
“Shut up!” I hissed.
“Men have th
ese chemicals inside them, chemicals that drive them, forces they cannot control,” Mr. Kasten said. “And these drives can be for the good. It is why men are sea captains and architects and pilots and women are not. Women don’t have these same drives, not as intensely,” he said. “But these same forces that enable men to create civilization can also turn them into brutes. As women, it is your duty to control these drives, to keep them in the confines of Christian marriage.”
“Inside marriage, these drives are good. They propagate the race. And as Catholic wives, you must submit to these drives. I must warn you of them, for some girls weep or faint when they first encounter the male drive. On your wedding night, the man you thought you knew will be another person. He will rip the nightgown from your body. He will seem like an animal, but he cannot help himself. It is all part of God’s plan, because it will enable him to place inside your body the seed of another life. Women are vessels to carry the male seed, which is called sperm, until a new human life emerges.”
I looked at Sean. If I married him, would he rip the nightgown off my body in a frenzy of animal lust? I began to feel a little tingly in a place where I shouldn’t. Mr. Kasten sure had Father Milliken beat by a country mile.
Sean looked at me and the impish grin was back on his face. When nobody was looking, he leaned over and bit my earlobe.
“Ouch!”
“I can’t help it; I’m just an animal!”
I giggled and Con jabbed me in the ribs.
Then Mr. Kasten went on to tell us that we girls were responsible if boys sinned, and he ran through the familiar list of No-Nos: don’t ever sit on a boy’s lap, no tongue-kissing, no parking, no sleeveless dresses, no open-toed shoes (that was a new one), no touching below the neck. And Mr. Kasten said he would be happy to see girls for individual conferences in the teachers’ room.
After that, the sophomore class put on a skit, yet another saga of the thrilling life of Mother Marie Claire, and then the girls started to leave the auditorium.
“Peg, I have to pee,” Sean said.
“Can’t you hold it?”
“No, I really can’t.”
“O.K., come on.”
I walked with him to the girls’ john in the corridor outside the auditorium and checked to see if it was empty.
“O.K., all clear.”
Sean went into the bathroom and I stood guard outside the door. Just then Sister Robert Mary turned the corner and saw me.
“Oh Peggy, will you do me a favor, please?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Take this note up to Sister Claudine for me.”
I took the note and hurried of. I knew I’d never make it back before Sean came out. He was a fast pee-er.
I was right. When Sean came out of the bathroom (he told me later) he felt a stab of panic because I wasn’t there. He figured he’d just go on up to the Messenger room, but as he was walking down the corridor, he felt a thin, bony hand grasp his shoulder. He jumped and let out a gasp. It was Sister Justinian, and no wonder he jumped. She had fingers like talons, and when she got you in that special shoulder grab of hers, you felt as if you had been carried off by some prehistoric bird and were about to be eaten alive.
“Why are you out of class?” she demanded.
“Uh, Sister, I—” Sean stammered.
Then Sister Justinian relaxed her grip. “Oh, you must be going for a conference with Mr. Kasten.”
“Yes, Sister,” Sean said with relief, “that’s where I’m going.”
“Come along, then,” she said, and Sean found himself being propelled down the hall by Sister Justinian’s sinewy hand.
“Not many girls are coming for conferences,” she said. “That is impolite, with Mr. Kasten generously donating so much of his time.”
She didn’t know it, and neither did Sean, but nobody was coming because the word was already out on Mr. Kasten. Victoria Grabowski went for a conference, and she said he asked her all sorts of questions about what she did with her boyfriend.
“He even asked me if my boyfriend put his hand under my blouse,” she said. “Father Milliken never asked anything like that. Not even in Confession!”
Sean and Sister Justinian got to the door of the teachers room, and Sister Justinian just stood there, her eyes glittering like a bird of prey. Sean prayed that she would go away, but she didn’t and Sean knew he was trapped. There was nothing he could do but go in.
“Hello,” said Mr. Kasten as Sean entered. He was sitting on the couch in the corner, and he beckoned for Sean to come sit down beside him.
“What’s your name, young lady?”
“Shirley,” said Sean.
“Well, Shirley, do you want some Straight Talk for Teens?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Now, what is your problem?”
“My problem?”
“These things are hard to talk about sometimes, but you can relax with me.” He gave a hearty chuckle. “I’ve heard it all.”
“You have?”
“Oh yes. So you see, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just feel free to tell me everything.”
“Well, I, uh—”
“It’s your boyfriend, right?”
“Yes, sir, it’s my boyfriend.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sean.”
“Do you love him?”
“Oh yes, sir. More than anybody else in the world.”
“Sean. A nice Catholic name. But he too has drives, isn’t that so, Shirley?”
“Yes, sir, he sure does.”
“And he is pressuring you to do things? Things you don’t want to do?”
“Uh, well—”
“Sexual things. Let’s have some Straight Talk for Teens.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now what does he want you to do?”
“Well, he, uh, wants me to neck.”
“And does he want to touch you improperly, Shirley?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Well, that’s understandable, Shirley. Boys have drives. And you are a very beautiful young woman.”
“I am?”
“Oh yes. Beautiful women carry a special cross. They ignite the passions of men the way their plainer sisters never do.”
“Oh,” Sean said.
“May I ask you a personal question, Shirley?”
“Sure.”
“Did you develop early?”
“Develop?”
“Yes. You are quite—developed, you know. And girls who are developed have a special obligation to help keep men pure.”
Sean stared down at his Kleenex-stuffed chest.
“Sir, I just developed fairly recently,” he said.
“Ah,” said Mr. Kasten. Sean looked at Mr. Kasten’s ruddy face, and noticed that the man seemed to be starting to sweat.
“Now tell me, Shirley, just what it is that your boyfriend wants you to do?”
“Feel me up,” Sean said.
“I see. Exactly what does that mean to you?”
“Well, you know, touch me.”
“Where?”
“Here,” said Sean, pointing to his chest.
“And does he unbutton your blouse?”
“Uh, yeah, sometimes.”
“Now, Shirley, do you understand what such touching does to a young man physically?”
“I have a good idea,” Sean said.
“It causes a rush of blood to his organ. You know what I am talking about?”
“Yes.”
“And it releases a force in him which he cannot resist. You must resist for him, see that his body remains a temple of the Holy Spirit.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Mr. Kasten, Sean noticed, had moved closer to him on the couch.
“You certainly are a pretty girl, Shirley. Do you know, I think you are the prettiest girl I have seen at Immaculate Heart High School.”
“Oh, I don’t thi
nk so, sir.”
“Yes, oh yes, no question about it. Now, what else does your boyfriend do, Shirley?”
“Well—”
“I understand how hard this is. I will help you, with Straight Talk.” Mr. Kasten reached out a sweaty paw and patted Sean’s hand. “Does he put his hand under your panties? You can be frank with me, Shirley. I’m here to help.”
“Well, yes sir, sometimes.” Sean tried to edge further away from Mr. Kasten, but he found himself wedged against the arm of the couch. Mr. Kasten seemed to be inching closer and closer.
“What does he do then?”
“Do? Well, you know.”
“Please tell me exactly, Shirley. I have to know so I can help you.”
“Well, he sort of plays around.”
“Does he ever try to insert his fingers into your sexual aperture, Shirley?”
At this point, Sean told me, an evil spirit must have taken possession of him totally. He looked at the beads of sweat on Mr. Kasten’s lip, and the bulge that had grown in the crotch of his pants, and Mr. Kasten looked so utterly ridiculous that Sean couldn’t resist jerking his chain, like he always did to his father.
“Yes, sir, he sure does.”
“How many?”
“Ten.”
“Ten?”
“Oh yeah, he gets ‘em right up there, both hands. And the other stuff, too.”
“Other stuff?”
“Oh yeah. Hairbrushes, playing cards, Coke bottles. Even once, a monkey wrench.”
“A wrench! Shirley, do you allow him to perform these perversions on you?”
“I wasn’t crazy about the wrench. All the motorcycle grease, you know. He sort of kept turning it around and around.”
“Good God!”
“I liked the Coke. It tickled, you know it’s all fizzy.”
“There was Coke in the bottle?”
“Yeah, Coke is very clean. Kills germs. They used to use it for cough medicine.”
“Shirley, did you take pleasure in these things?” Mr. Kasten was breathing real fast.
“The garden hose was not great. I liked the banana.”
“Shirley, my child, you need help! Let me help you!” And Mr. Kasten planted his hand on Sean’s thigh.