Sinder 1: Experimentation

by Jane Devreaux

  She stares at me, stunned, as if I just spoke Chinese, and she takes her attention back to the white screen and announces:

  “Well, I think we need to talk about single-parent families, same-sex parents families, illegitimate children, natural and adopted children, reconstituted families, divorce…”

  I gape at her speechless. She’s thought about this for thirty seconds and it inspires her all that. We’ve barely started and I already feel like an idiot next to her. This presentation, it’s going to be Hell. And as to prove her my cupidity, I repeat like an automat: “Divorce?”

  “Yes, divorce. You know, it’s the thing that allows two married people to split. It’s part of life, happens to everyone a day or another…”

  And on top of that, she’s making fun of me. It’s done, I hate her. This girl is a bitter pompous sod. I wish I could set her back on her heels, but I can’t think about nothing better than what could be coming out of the pastor’s mouth.

  “It doesn’t happen to everyone. If people communicate and are honest to each other, they can get through this kind of situations.”

  Her dark eyes sink into mine as if she took pity on me and was about to reveal that Santa doesn’t exist. Why did I say such nonsense? I have to quit listening to Marcy’s arguments justifying why we’re so wise for our age.

  “You know what buddy? Your balls are on fire and you can’t think straight anymore.”

  What?

  It’s my turn to eye her, astonished and grimacing. She dropped this out on me like that, not the least embarrassed by the garbage coming out of her mouth. I can’t believe this! Is virgin written all over my face or what? Good God, of course, everybody knows about it. I crawl like a freaking puddle at Marcy’s feet and everybody is feeling sorry for me.

  “You know what…you’re right.” I hear myself whisper.

  I can’t believe I just said that, and I still go on, as if the words couldn’t stay confined inside my head anymore, “Marcy, she’s really gorgeous…well, she’s the perfect girl…there’s no better one…It’s just that…she’s not really ready for…well you know what…”

  Shoot, as if I needed to justify myself.

  “And you really think that a girl with a broom stuck up her ass can screw your brains out? In your dreams man, it’s not compatible. You know what awaits you? You’ll give in to this no sex before wedding crap and once you’ll have drained the beast, you’ll realize what a monumental mistake you’ve made.”

  Here she goes again. Her words are worse than a slap in my face. How could I know what I’ll feel when I do it? What will happen between Marcy and me at that moment? And she still has more to add.

  “You want my advice? Get yourself a girl, whichever one, empty your balls, and turn your brain back on.”

  Does she want to end me or what? This girl has such a vocab, really! Does she really think I’m this stupid, that I don’t know all this? And once more, the word virgin comes slamming into my head. She knows I need it so bad that I can think about nothing else. She reads me like an open book. I’m dying of embarrassment when I think about this, I have to put an end to this and right now. And that’s when the idea pops into my head. Sandre is not hot nor does she have anything exceptional, but a girl must be hiding somewhere under those wide clothes:

  “Would you like to….do this for me?”

  The moment the words come out of my mouth I already know that I should not have said that. Her too big and too dark irises glare at me. Why did I have to think about such nonsense? I’m so desperate that I’m ready to make an indecent proposal to the worst creature I’ve ever met.

  What an idiot! At that moment, I don’t know which I hate more, her and her shocking lines or my hormones that could convince me to do it with the only girl at school that isn’t attractive at all. I need to fix this, if she tells anyone about it I’m a dead man.

  “Um…I didn’t say anything…just forget about it. Ok?” I end up mumbling all the while starting to scrawl on a piece of paper.

  Ridiculous, I could have found better to brush off the horror that came out of my mouth. I really suck when it comes to it.

  What follows is a real nightmare. I try to act like nothing happened and so does she, but I’m still dying of embarrassment. I’m still a virgin and it’s written all over my face!

  She surfs from site to site and I pretend to be taking notes. When we decide to stop there and work separately over the weekend to debrief on it on Monday, I’m relieved. I would rather not see her ever again, but I can’t afford another bad grade.

  When I get back home, I go straight to my room, ignoring my mother who’s keeping herself active in the kitchen. I know I should go and say hello, but I can’t face her right now, not with the ideas I have in my head.

  I’m on automatic mode. I don’t even know how I ended up in my bed where I’m now lying and staring at the ceiling. Sandre’s blood-chilling insanities are still going wild in my mind. I remember her huge terrifying eyes, her cynical smile that keeps defying me. A specimen like Sandre River, throwing my inexperience into my face once again is not an option. Decision taken, this weekend I’ll get it on with the first girl that passes by, no matter who she is or what she looks like.

  I know I have to get down to help set the table, but now that I’ve decided this, I need to think about something else, otherwise my mother will see me coming for sure. She’s a lawyer and she always figures everything out.

  I stare at the ceiling for a moment and then my eyes get lost on the numerous pictures of Marcy and me hanging proudly above my desk. She’s the one who put them there so I’d think about her all the time. No, I can’t think about her otherwise I’ll change my mind. I know I’m about to do something terrible but my body can’t wait anymore. I feel like I lost all control. If only Marcy could understand, if only she knew the effect she has on me.

  My lessons! That’s a better idea, think about your lessons. And wham, the old Salomon and her stupid presentation come to taunt me again, with Sandre and her unsettling horrors. I hate her, I hate her.

  I can hear Colin, my little brother, singing peacefully in his room on the other side of the corridor. I try to figure out what game he’s playing to try and get all those monstrosities out of my head. Then, the sound of footsteps on the stairs makes me shudder. It’s my mother, I’m sure she already knows there’s something wrong. I should have gone to say hi, to tell her a few anecdotes about my day before coming upstairs.

  Shoot, I suck!

  I take a deep breath. I have to be strong or she’ll figure out what’s going on in less time than it takes to say it. My mother’s super proud that I’m with Marcy. For her she’s the ideal girl who teaches me good values, and keeps me from making stupid teenagers’ mistakes. And sex is one of them. She’s a woman, she can’t understand what my body’s demanding, what it’s requesting. I’m sure my mother doesn’t know what sexual urge is.

  She appears on the doorstep. As always impeccable in her anthracite Guess suit still perfect after a whole day. I don’t know how she does it to stay impeccable from dawn to dusk, even her hairdo is still perfectly slicked into a bun that never takes her more than five minutes to do.

  My mother’s a gorgeous woman; she’s the ideal woman; the kind of woman that every man dreams of having in his life. No, actually, me, I’d like the same, but cooler and bolder, because I know that at times, my father gets fed up with always having to do the right thing.

  Physically, we look a lot alike, the same blue eyes, the same super straight brown hair, the same straight nose, but I have my father’s character.

  Impossible for me to stay still and concentrate on anything.

  I foolishly jump when she whispers, a little too bossy:

  “Everything alright Honey?”

  I immediately straighten up and hurry to kiss her putting on a big fake smile. I know I’m not believable, but it’s the best I can do.

  “Of course mom.”

  “Your hormones have been
getting to you again.” She says with the worried look I hate.

  Crap! How does she do this? Can’t she occasionally act like nothing’s going on, like she hasn’t realized I became a horny teenager? Just do as if she hadn’t noticed anything, like all mothers do. When I think about Steve’s one; who doesn’t say a word, even when she catches him masturbating. I envy him. Mine would have a heart attack, no, worse, she’d send me to the pastor to confess my sins.

  “Mom, stop this.” I respond trying to take the same bossy voice as her.

  She puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and with her convinced to always be right lawyer’s smile she adds:

  “Be patient honey. Don’t do anything you could regret. You’ll see, it will go away.”

  And here it is, she’s said it. Why does she always have to do this? What does she know about this anyway? She isn’t going through puberty for what I know. But I don’t care! I don’t need to be blamed nor reassured, I just want to do it and take back the control of my body.

  4 — Sandre

  I can’t sleep. I’ve been staring at moving shadows on my ceiling for two hours and have been going over the whole conversation with Josh. “You balls are on fire and you can’t think straight anymore.” “Once you’ll have drained the beast, you’ll realize what a monumental mistake you’ve made.”

  I SAID THAT!

  Well Ok, it is like me to do so. I just did what I always do: sting where it hurts, test the limits, provoke…all this to keep him from wanting to get closer. But here, it wasn’t just anybody. I didn’t have to do this to make sure he’ll never talk to me again after the presentation. I mean nothing to him. And he means nothing to me. HE…MEANS…NO…THING…TO…ME.

  What a klutz! I fucked it up bad!

  It was so weird to discover him in my world. He seemed more real, more accessible, too much maybe because I really lost it. The words are just playing over and over in my head: “Empty your balls and turn your brain back on.”

  What an idiot!

  I made him vulnerable and it made him almost irresistible. His steal eyes staring at me in panic, his full lips red from embarrassment, his angular jaw exacerbated by his anxiety…but why does he have to have this effect on me? I can still see him sitting so close to me that it makes me shiver again. His soft, warm skin against mine. Come to think of it, it’s crazy; he opened up to me like an old kindergarten friend. An old kindergarten friend!

  But of course his Marcy is too beautiful, too hot and so on, and so on… Everybody knows it, nothing to add there.

  What mess did I get myself into? This guy’s in need of a good lay like crazy. I can’t believe that Marcy’s wasting the merchandise this way. Fuck, am I stupid or what? What got into me to bring up this topic?

  Never talk about sex to a virgin. It seems so obvious to me now that it’s too late. Come to think of it, how beautiful that bastard is! Having a body like that should be forbidden. I wish I could see him naked.

  Suddenly, I start seeing things from a different angle and a horrible vision of all the bitches from high school laughing at me while prancing about on my ceiling makes me shudder. If they knew that I just blew off high school’s sexiest guy. How many of them would have sold their soul for such a proposition? And I dare blaming Marcy for wasting the merchandise.

  Fuck! JOSH ANDERSON HAS ASKED ME TO SLEEP WITH HIM, better than that, to deflower him. It almost gives me palpitations in my lower stomach when I think about it. Me, I could have had Josh at my feet and I blew him off.

  Well in order to do so, I’d have needed to set him off first. I can hear my mother from here: “Honey, men are handled by their balls, if you’e not on top of your game in bed, he’ll leave running.” How could she say things like this to me when I was only 14 years old? She’s a sexologist, but still. Yet I must admit that she might be right.

  And it comes to me like a sudden urge. I need to inform myself and fast. I jump off my bed, put on a pair of leggings and one of my father’s big sweaters and go back to the kitchen. I turn on the old scrap heap that serves me as a computer, unlock the door to my mother’s workroom and turn on the switch. On the walls, high school students’ pictures have taken the place of my mother’s doodles. There’s only a table in the center of the room, entirely covered with shots that I haven’t had the time to organize yet. I ignore Josh’s close ups that are making eyes at me and go straight to the huge library that entirely fills the back wall.

  All my mother’s reads, perfectly in order. All those publications she spoke so passionately about as if she had a totally common occupation. Maybe I should have listened to her at that time?

  I know exactly where to look. My finger passes the book covers. There is the whole collection from the sexologist Barbara Keesling: Super sexual Orgasm, How to make love all night, Getting close,… the French ones from Gerard Leleu1, Le traité du désir2, L’art de la fellation3, Comment le faire jouir de plaisir4 and less known authors and titles that make you shudder like Dare…to have anal sex. I take a deep breath and fill my arms with half the books of the sex section.

  I get rid of my load on the worktable next to gramps (that’s what I named my mother’s old laptop) which is purring calmly. I take out some papers and pens as if I was about to do my homework and I get down to business.

  After three hours of going through the books, I’ve scrawled on approximately ten pages5 and have a more precise idea of the thing.

  Actually, I’m reassured; I wasn’t as ignorant as I thought, I just had a few lacks in vocabulary.

  And it wasn’t even that terrible. The technical terms used by the specialists make the thing a lot less frightening, but the way they talk about it is sometimes surprising. As if it was a sport that needs discipline and practice to get better at. It’s a little confusing. They even advise to practice alone? For that, the guys sure are way ahead of us.

  In the end, I went to bed after 1 am. I was totally beat, but still impossible to find sleep. How do you want to get some sleep when you have made discoveries that are turning your lower stomach upside down?

  When my alarm wakes me up, I don’t even know if I’ve slept. I think I’ve dreamt about Josh pleading me to help him, but it’s so close to what happened yesterday that I’m no longer sure about it.

  I hastily put on some clothes, tie back my hair in a high ponytail, and accentuate my eyes with dark blue shadow and black kohl. I end up with a blue shirt with fine stripes that usually embellishes one of my father’s dark suits, but I don’t care about how I’m dressed. I rush to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine. It starts noisily as I rummage through my mother’s desk, hidden in a corner of the workroom.

  I know exactly what I’m looking for, but I have trouble remembering where she keeps it. Finally I find the old notebook with a red leather cover. I was hidden in the back of a drawer under a pile of leaflets. I go through the dog eared pages. My mother has always been the kind of person who accumulates useless contacts and hides them so my father doesn’t discover them. He can’t stand it. Wonder why.

  I finally find her gyney, doctor Redfield. I’ve never met her but I know she’s a woman. That’s better; I don’t really feel like getting my lady parts played with by an old pervert. I go back to the kitchen, pick up the phone hanging on the wall and dial the number as I clear my throat.

  “Hello, it’s Mrs. River, I would like an appointment for my daughter.”

  I have the voice my mother takes when she wants to be taken seriously, and it seems to be working. The secretary on the phone asks me politely if I need it fast. Of course, she must be used to my mother’s bad habits; unable to foresee anything Mrs. River.

  “Yes, if possible.” I replied with the same tone as her. “Would tomorrow, end of morning, be ok with you?” She goes on with the same cheerful tone.

  How annoying it must be to do this job!

  “That would be great.” I reply still imitating her. “Tomorrow 11 am then. Will you be coming with your daughter?” She insists.r />
  I start to panic. Don’t tell me it’s the kind of thing you have to do with your folks when you are still underage.

  “No, I have a lot to do at the moment. She will come alone.” I explain praying for her not to raise an eyebrow.

  “Very good. Got it madam. Have a nice day.”

  I breathe loudly as I hang up. I can consult a gyney without my parents’ approval then, that’s for the best. A good thing done.

  After drinking hastily my coffee and eating two slices of white bread that have dried up all alone in the cupboard, I leave for school.

  I have trouble thinking about anything else. I wonder how the others manage not to look like they suck the first time. Maybe they just settle for sucking? But if I decide to take the plunge, it’s out of question for me to settle for mediocrity.

  Ah what beautiful words! The English teacher has told us that the other day talking about our grades. I still don’t think it can give any motivation to anyone. Anyways, just to say that I, I want to take that idiot to seventh heaven. I want him to ask for more; I want to hold him by the balls.

  Is it really what I want? Yes it is. Yes, yes and yes! Even Marcy will look so common next to me, when he discovers what I can do to him. Ok, maybe I’m overstating a little!