The second step is staring at her now and nodding, so Gail unfastens her bra, and quite frankly is a little pleased to do so because she knows that what she now reveals to the woman opposite, the one breaking the cell’s monastic vow, are, in Sienfeldian terms, ‘spectacular,’ though she thinks of them as utterly useless and burdensome.
“Watch me, Gail.”
Gail had been drifting off, trying to summon other sexual events in her young life. She, herself, had masturbated, of course, but rarely and never satisfactorily, and she once thought she might have seen her parents in a compromising pose, but her father had kicked the door shut and she was never sure. What else? She didn’t think dogs could count and the stuff on celluloid never piqued her interest, so that left Jimmy’s grope at her breast in grade 8, a grab that left Jimmy bleeding on the ground and later brutalized by the brothers. So now I have this, she thinks, a pleasant, likeable, happy girl with her mouth now slightly open, her eyes unusually hooded, now shivering her ass in time with her fingers. She looks silly, but in her complete abandonment, she looks sexy, too, so Gail takes another step in her journey and steps from her chair and asks her friend, holding her spectacular left breast in her hand, “Would you like a taste?”
The explosion, noisy and wet and, for a moment, paralyzing, is over in seconds, but Ags holds the breast to her mouth for another minute until Gail gently pulls it away, leaving a child to slowly become a woman again.
Let us now visit the trendy coffee house on the corner of Signal Street and Givens, but before we go in, let’s look through the window and wait, they will be here soon.
Gail arrives first and sits down. We know her so let’s just observe her demeanor. She is composed, business-like and focused, like at a chemistry experiment.
Now Tom Brooks, for that is his name, stands by the table. Tom is an athlete, not an elite athlete, he cares too much about his studies for that, but a good one, and an active one and that’s why his 6′ tall body is muscular and toned. What does he look like? Well, let’s read Gail’s thoughts, ‘nice looking, sensible looking.’ Odd term, ‘sensible looking,’ but it’s on the mark: Tom has a neat, well proportioned face with nothing particularly distinguishing save for the look, the fix of his face, which is part intense, part curious, with just a hint of cynicism, in other words, a sensible face, one that will never be thrust unwanted into another’s business, but one that can be trusted, one that will be consulted from time to time for its speculations on things, perhaps even for the knowledge it can emit, though the face shows only 22 years. And another reason to call it a sensible face? The eyes in the sensible face notice that Gail has nothing in front of her on the table (though he did notice …, well, more on that later), so he asks her what she would like, and then they are together, or at least, across the table from each other, a table on which stands two large steaming cups.
We’re inside now, in time to hear Gail say, “I am a tabula rasa, a blank slate. I know nothing about the subject of sex and I’m compelled to announce my bona fides from the onset.”
There, it is done, she got it out, her admission of absolute ignorance on so mundane, yet so fascinating a subject is out in the open, but the confident smile that seemed to suggest that this admission is a good thing, slips from her face when Tom says,
“Then I am to speak and you are to take notes?”
Well, no, of course not, she says to herself, but only to herself, because to him she says nothing, she can think of nothing to say, so she fumbles in her purse and comes out with her note book and, when she licks the end of her pencil, Tom laughs, surprisingly hard, a good laugh, a kind laugh.
Then he turns serious. “This is 35% of our mark, you know.”
“But it’s a journey of discover,” she has prepared her argument, “we aren’t expected to be experts, it’s all about what we learn and how we learn it. Plumbing the depths of my abysmal ignorance on the subject can be just another ‘how’ of the journey.” She didn’t much like her words, true as she thought they are, so she tries to deflect his attention from them by adding, “did you know that the word plumbing is a derivative from the Latin word for lead?”
“Alright,” he said, with resignation, “let’s begin in the abyss of your abysmal ignorance,” and they did and spent an hour there and when they left the restaurant they both thought they had exhausted pretty much everything that could be considered academic on the subject (Gail, of course, had brought copious research notes). But even though Tom’s disappointment had been obvious, both knew it had been a somewhat promising start, they had laid down their base, and they agreed they would begin in two day’s time on ‘clothing.’
Clothing. It was his observations, or at least the ones he cited when they met again that got the ball rolling. The bare midriffs, the tight pants, the tank tops, the gossamer thin bras that seem to excite the nipple, they are all having an effect, but a counter-productive effect, men are turning away from the scantily and provocatively attired women of today, bored, as if the women are trying too hard, trying with too much desperation.
“Is that how you react?” There, her first direct question, the first personal question, and if she stays on the offensive maybe he will leave her alone, maybe he won’t reach into the chalice of her innocence to reveal the utter incompetence of her socialization.
The sensible face thinks only for a second before saying, “Well, if there was one in a crowd of prissies, then the eye might go to her, but if the crowd was all like her, then ya, you’d probably just pass by.”
You might pass by or you might pass by? Coy, isn’t he, “And by prissies, you mean women dressed like me.”
Well, the sensitive face can blush and apologize, “Sorry, a word for contrast.” But the gloves are off now, partially off, and the dialogue is taking shape, an interesting exchange, really, but in the absence of any polls or scientific data, mere speculations, and then the subject became more interesting.
He got down to the underwear first, really just alluding to it, but she got specific, and immediately regretted that she had. “So the world wants to know,” she thought she was being terribly clever, “is it briefs or is it boxers?”
“Briefs,” he says without hesitation, “and you?”
“Briefs.” Her own word sounded strange to her, surreal, am I taking about my underwear? But, really, it’s just another step on a strange journey.
“But women don’t have briefs, do you, aren’t yours more specific?”
“Specific?”
“Aren’t your large cut, French cut, Polish cut, low cut, side cut, high riders, low riders, high riders, side riders, thong, bikini, spaghetti, dental floss.”
Gail laughs and remembers the Undergarment Shoppe when he interrupts her, “And your choice is?”
She had never talked about underwear before, not with her mother, certainly not with her brothers and, needless to say, never with a stranger, sensitive face or not. She shifts uncomfortably on the bench seat and is considering her response when he says,
“Look, Gail, this is our second session and I’ve asked you about your panties and you’re having a hard time with that. What’s going to happen when I ask you about masturbation, how you do it, where you do it, what you think of when you’re doing it. And what’s going to happen when I ask you about your fantasies, you peccadillo, your fetishes, and how you like to be fucked. What are you going to say then?” He waits for a response but she says nothing, seeming to be searching the table top for an answer. So with his finger, he drew the line in the sand, well, on the tabletop. “I want the marks, Gail, I’m in this for the marks, so either we agree right now to get down and dirty on this, that we tell each other every fucking thing we need to in order to reach the destination of this exercise, or we should call it a day here and now and try to find other partners and another assignment.”
It couldn’t have been more plain, more starkly plain and she is smart enough to realize that she has a lot to learn and this guy, this sensitive face across the table, may be the best teacher she can find and besides, she needs the marks, too, so the words she chooses, or more precisely, the words she blurts out aren’t all that difficult,
“I have never had sex, I have never been felt, well once, sort of, I seldom masturbate, never successfully and I wear plain, white cotton panties.” She is speaking to her tabletop but when she looks up, she is met with an encouraging smile.
“I’ve had sex, not often, I like to masturbate and when I do I often think of women, but never in plain, white cotton panties, they’re usually in something sexier than that which are often red.” He smiles, no blush. “So why do you wear just plain, white cotton panties?”
Her confidence is gone now, and she now knows why she wears plain, white cotton panties, because ‘I’m a skinny, sexless, unimaginative twit who hasn’t the sexual imagination to wear anything else.’ She thinks these words through before saying them, but she does say them and it surprises her when she does.
“Do you really think that?”
“Yes,'” she says, “I think I do.”
“Does it bother you that you haven’t the sexual imagination to wear anything but plain white cotton underwear?”
“Not until now.” And that is true, her underwear had never been an issue with her, not until now, but now she wishes they were pink or light blue and maybe a little lower in the cut so she could have something to say.
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