She was frank in discussing her sexuality, her training letting her answer more freely than would a normal patient. But as she told her great uncle about how often she engaged in sex, she still wasn’t able to control the tell tale blush that appeared in her cheeks. Nor quell the hardness of her nipples.
I slowly examined her vulva, this examination of a woman’s external genitalia that often gives the patient the time to relax somewhat before the actual penetration of her vagina. This looking for warts or ulcers or scars or swelling only a prelude to the invasive speculum that was to follow.
“Have you had a Pap smear lately?
“You haven’t, why not?
“Any problems with your period?
I slowly brought the speculum, a prewarmed and lubricated speculum, towards Amanda’s groin. I saw her acknowledgement of the instrument in her eyes, knew that she’d let me know if I caused her any pain or if there was a problem. But even with her being a Doctor I noticed the involuntary tightening of her vaginal muscles, the attempt at rejection, as I carefully slid the instrument inside her. I talked softly to her as I widened the probes jaws. Her breathing was different when I shone my light up deep inside her redness.
Then, after I’d removed the instrument from her vagina, my fingers, I used two in my granddaughter’s case, slipped slowly inside Amanda as I continued to ask my questions. Her sleeve, moist and open allowed my fingers total access as they probed towards her ovaries. “Okay?” I asked, looking up after hearing a slight gasp from Amanda. My other hand probed across her abdomen.
“Uh huh,” she whispered in a little girls voice.
It was over quickly. But five minutes later, with my granddaughter dressed and sitting across the desk from me, I could still feel the lingering effects of my erection.
An erection that, of itself, hadn’t been either good or bad, perverted or sick, it had simply been. My penis couldn’t have cared less that it was related to the person in question. That’s not how pricks were designed!
*****
“I’m meeting him there tomorrow.”
“Todd?” Amanda nodded yes. We were sitting on the couch in front of the fire again, wine glasses in hand, later that night . We were sitting a little farther apart than we had been the night before, the afternoon’s medical examination seemingly had demanded that a larger physical distance be kept between us.
“Meeting him where?”
“Ausable Chasm.”
“Huh! Why are you going there?”
“You have to promise me not to tell anyone.”
“What? Tell no one you went to Ausable Chasm? How come?”
“Promise.” Almost an order. But there’s a suppressed giggle behind it.
“But…” I had no idea why a visit to one of the North Country’s biggest tourist attractions would ever warrant being a secret.
“Promise!” And so I did. My answer, after a suspicious examination of my face by my young descendant, checking perhaps to see any sign of untrustworthiness, prompted her to start talking.
“You probably have never heard of this before…” she began hesitantly. “But it is held every year … around the world … it’s called World Nude Day…”
“World Nude Day?” I’m laughing as the words escape my mouth, interrupting her.
“It’s a new thing,” Amanda quickly interjected. She was blushing.
“You and Todd are going to wander around Ausable Chasm naked?” She can hear the incredulousness in my voice.
“Everyone’s doing it. It’s a statement … a statement about–”
“You’re just making this up to tease your old Great Uncle aren’t you?” I accuse.
“I am not!”
“You’re really going to go to Ausable Chasm and parade around naked?”
“I’ll be painted.”
“Painted?”
“On certain parts.” I don’t try to hold back the laughter that spills from my lips. “It’s not funny,” she insists.
I teased her for the next twenty minutes but all the time I was doing it I was also aware of the feelings of jealousy that were coursing through my brain. Lucky fucking Todd I muttered to myself. And I was also remembering a Nude Day celebration forty-two years earlier. Finally, just before midnight my beautiful grandfather announced that she was tired and that it was time to hit the hay.
“Yes,” I agreed as we both rose from the couch. “Night … love you,” I whispered in Amanda’s ear as I gave her a quick goodnight hug.
“Me too,” she answered, then gave her great uncle a kiss on the lips before turning to go to her room.
I waited until she was halfway through her bedroom door before I stopped her with, “You know Amanda…”. When she turned, a questioning look on her face, I finished, “I celebrated my first World Nude Day forty two years ago.”
“Whaaaaaaaaat! Wait!” There’s a big smile on my face.
“You’re making that up, aren’t you?
“Where was it?
“With who?
“Are you lying?
“They didn’t have Nudists back then.
“Not up here anyway!
“If it was true why haven’t I ever heard the story before?”
The questions flooded out from my granddaughter’s lips. But she wasn’t going to get any explanations from her uncle this night. “I’ll tell you all about it when you get back,” I promised as I went into my room.
“Uuuuuncaaaaaaaaal Joe!” I heard complained through the closed door. I ignored her!
But later, as I lay awake in bed awaiting sleep, the memories of that far away day came flooding back…
THE PAST – June 11th 1968, Philips Creek, N.Y.
“A beer?” Susie offered as she flicked off the top of a Genesee Cream Ale bottle. I’d never had an alcoholic drink at home before and couldn’t stop my eyes from darting around the room to make sure no one was watching. And since we were alone of course no one was.
“We’re the only ones here you dodo,” my sister chastised, then brought the bottle to her lips and took a quick swig. “Haven’t you ever had a beer before?” I didn’t miss the sisterly disdain.
“Of course I have,” I answered that night long ago, my maleness offended at her tone. “Give me one,” I ordered. With a laugh she complied.
At twenty, Susie was two years older than me, and had come back to the North Country for a fleeting visit to her family after finishing her sophomore year at N.Y.U.
And the second she’d walked through the door of our family home, after an absence of nearly two years, I‘d been enthralled. First of all I almost didn’t recognise her. We all, my mom and dad, and sister Nancy and I, all struggled to control the gasps that exploded from our lips when she’d come through the front door. And she’d come a week early.
“You’re coming next week, not today,” mom protested as we all tried to get our minds around this new Susie that stood before us. Is this what all these hippies we keep hearing about look like we all wondered.
“Something came up, I have to be in Washington next weekend … so I figured I’d just come up now.”
Unfortunately my parents and my sister had plans for the weekend, plans long made to visit mom’s sister’s family in Massachusetts. They had been packing the car when Susie had arrived. And if Susie hadn’t come a week early, or if mom hadn’t organized that weekend away, what happened between my sister and I probably never would have been.
“I’ll hang with Joey,” my sister said casually once the situation had been explained to her. “You guys will be back Monday won’t you? We’ll have most of next week together.”
“Monday night,” mom agreed. And so, on a Thursday night in early June nineteen sixty-eight I found myself alone with my sister. Once the others had gone Susie announced that we might as well spend the weekend at the old Philips farmhouse. That it’d be cool, that we could hang by the pool. Cool? Huh?
“But we’ll be alone up there,” I remembered complaining to her at the time. “Don’t you wanta see your friends while you’re here?”
She simply ignored me. Five minutes later, with two boxes of food and a duffel bag of my clothes thrown in the back of Dad’s old pickup, we were off. Susie did have me stop at Brucker’s Gas Station, reappearing two minutes later with a case of Genesee Beer. I didn’t say a word when she hopped back in the cab. Fifteen minutes later we were at the old homestead.
And that’s why I was sipping from a bottle of Genesee Cream Ale two hours later. Nervously sipping mind you. But it had been a great two hours. I was a country hick, totally enrapt, as I listened to my sister describe life in the outside world.
“Are you a virgin?” A question that came out of left field from Susie. We’d been discussing the Beatles two seconds before. Before that politics and the coming conventions. What kids in the big city were doing, wearing. I had a million questions.
With anyone else, or if I hadn’t already consumed five beers, I probably wouldn’t have answered the virgin question. But I had. I was an open book that night. I nodded yes.
“Nancy wrote me at school that you were going with that Poplin girl. She said she thought you were fucking.”
I’d never heard a girl say fuck before. And I knew my younger sister Nancy had never used the word either. I wanted to tell Susie that she shouldn’t use the word, that it wasn’t ladylike. But I didn’t. Instead I shook my head no.
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