Nan Ch. 01

Nan

My Nan died peacefully in her sleep several months ago after a long and eventful life. Her death was not unexpected given her very advanced years and rapidly declining physical health but it still hit me particularly hard. She was the only person in my family that seemed to understand me and love me without judgment. In a lot of ways her death was a blessing, she was mentally switched on right to the very end and just went to bed one night and never woke up.

The retirement home where she lived, just packed up all her personal stuff into boxes and put them in storage before reallocating the room to someone new the same day of her death. Such is the corporate ruthlessness of the end-of-life business. Due to the grief and trauma surrounding that event, it has taken me all these months before I could face the task of going through any of Nan’s personal effects which she left to me in her will.

One of the first things I found was Nan’s notebook. In her later years, she would scratch away in her neat spidery handwriting at every opportunity. What the book revealed was a collection of personal stories about important events in her life. It generated a flood of memories each time I recognised a story which somehow relieved the grief I was feeling and helped me come to terms with her death. It was not until I was about three-quarters the way through unpacking the boxes that I hit the motherlode. It was an entire box full of identical notebooks all completely full of Nan’s scribbles.

The story I am about to tell is one of the first ones that Nan wrote. I have no idea if it is true or not but given that all the other stories in her notebooks that I do know about or have been able to verify have proven to be remarkably accurate I have no reason to doubt that the events described took place. This story happened at Indiana University in 1950 where I know my Nan was a first-year student at the time which adds weight to its authenticity.

Nan’s Story

I had been at university for over a month and was sitting quietly in a semi-darkened lecture theatre waiting for the lecturer to turn up. A group of frat boys sat down behind me. They were talking about the girls they could see sitting down the front in the well-lit part of the theatre. Being rich boofhead jocks, it was an immature and crass conversation rating the girls based on their looks and what base they thought could get too. I don’t think they realised I was there or otherwise they may have been a bit more discreet. Adeline who I happened to know quite well was a plain girl who was sitting right down in the front due to her short sightedness wearing coke bottle glasses. They very quickly called her at five minutes before moving on to Brie sitting next to her. She was very pretty and had a different guy on her arm every week. This caused a heated discussion until a consensus was reached at forty minutes. The conversation continued in this vein until the lecturer eventually turned up.

After the lecture concluded and I was finishing off my notes when the boys behind me packed up their things and started to leave. The last one in the row directly behind me managed to spill all his lecture notes over the floor. The others just laughed and left him there scrambling around on the floor trying to pick everything up. Some of it had fallen under my seat and eventually my better nature prevailed, and I took pity on him and picked up the missing handful of papers and handed them back. He grabbed the papers but before I let them go, I said.

“That was a very interesting conversation you were having before the lecture.”

It took him a half a second to turn bright red.

“You heard that?”

“Yes. What I want to know is what is this obsession you have with allocating each girl a number of minutes?”

The shade of red deepened even further and eventually he blurted out.

“It’s the number of minutes that Professor Kinsey would need to interview each girl for his sex survey. The less time the less experienced.”

My mouth fell open in shock and I let go of the papers. He grabbed his stuff and exited the building as fast as he could.

That evening I was in the dormitory with my two roommates Elizabeth and Barbara when I naively asked if either of them have heard of a Professor Kinsey. They both immediately knew exactly what I was talking about. Kinsey was famous or infamous depending on a person’s point of view for the publication of his report into the ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male’ which had been published only a couple of years beforehand. It had caused such a sensation when it had first come out. I knew absolutely nothing about it, which was a testament to my conservative, insular middle-class upbringing. Both Beth and Babs took great delight in unmercifully ribbing the poor innocent virgin girl about all things sexual. Babs had a steady boyfriend and Beth has some brief encounters during high school although nothing serious had ever happened to either of them. As far as I knew, both were just as virginal as me.

Beth told us that she had heard that Kinsey was preparing another report on the ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female’ and he was looking of females on campus to interview. We joked around about that, daring each other to sign up to be interviewed. Somehow it morphed into a game of chicken, and no one was prepared to back down so the next morning, Beth who seemed to know most about it all dragged us off to the Zoology Department and signed us all up. I had a full day of lectures and tutorials so my appointment was at 5:30pm that evening.

As the end of the day approached, I became more and more apprehensive about what I had signed myself up to. I effectively knew nothing at all about sex apart from the very basics about which bits were which and what fitted where. I was completely convinced that I would make a complete fool of myself due to my inexperience. I packed up my things and headed off to my appointment with a plague of butterflies fluttering around in my tummy. Although my anxiety was topping out the thought of chickening out was not an option due the risk of being ridiculed by my room mates for the next three years. I found the building I needed with just a few minutes to spare and headed up to the interview room and quietly knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

I turned the handle and entered a modest size room with a small table containing a clipboard and pens with two chairs either side. There was a window along one wall with the blinds partly drawn to dampen the late afternoon sun streaming in and a bench along the other wall with a tray containing a jug of water and a couple of glasses. The man pouring himself a drink was strikingly handsome in his late 20’s or early 30’s and his friendly demeanour somewhat helped to calm the butterfly’s battering the insides of my tummy.

“Hi, I’m Paul. Would you like a drink of water before we start?”

“Yes. Thankyou.”

I took the glass offered and quickly gulped down a mouthful of water. It was more to have something to do to distract me from my embarrassment rather than any genuine need to quench my thirst.

Paul moved across to the chair with the clipboard and sat down and indicated for me to sit in the other chair opposite.

“Before we start, how did you hear about this survey and what do you know about our institute and the research we are undertaking?”

“I heard about it from my roommates.”

I promptly regurgitated everything that they had told me the previous evening. Some of the information was completely wrong and Paul was kind enough to set the record straight. The Institute was independently funded and separate from the University as a result of a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The aim of the study was to collect a baseline dataset on female sexuality to match and compliment the previously published scientific report on the sexuality of the human male. They intended to interview thousands of women over the next few years from all ages and demographics to get a broad representative picture as possible. He assured me that all the information collected would be strictly confidential.

I was put somewhat at ease by the explanation, not that I had anything salacious about myself to divulge in any event.

“Shall we get started?”

Opening the clipboard revealed a neatly typed double sided list of questions and a grid like answer form which he placed on the table ready to fill in. He did not even bother to look at the list of questions before launching in.

“How old are you?” – “Eighteen.”

“What is your occupation?” – “I’m a student.”

“What State were you born in?” – “Illinois.”

“What is your race?” – “White.”

“How would you class yourself?” – “Middle class.”

The background questions went on for a few minutes with Paul filling in the relevant section on the answer grid to each one. Then out of the blue the first real question.

“How old were your when you had your first period?” – “Thirteen.”

“Thirteen and how many months?” – “Thirteen and three months.”

“Do you ever miss a period?” – “Not since I turned fourteen.”

“When did your last period start?” – “Nearly three weeks ago.”

“Describe your first sexual experience and how old were you at the time?”

That question threw me. I didn’t know how to answer.

“What do you mean?”

“It could be anything. Your first kiss, your first sexual dream, first orgasm, oral sex, intercourse. Anything really.”

“I have never had sex I am still a virgin.”

There I had said it. It was out in the open and it was clear I was wasting Paul’s time. Paul could see my discomfort and was not in the least bit phased by my candid admission. To reassure me that it was OK to be a virgin he said.

“We are trying to capture a snapshot of humanity and a no sex result is just as valid as a ten-page sexual history. Tell me about your first kiss. Surely a girl as attractive as you have kissed.”

“I have never been kissed or kissed anyone. My family are very conservative and don’t encourage touching or kissing and certainly never in public.”