quit wasting my time. Come back when you feel the need for serious discussion.’ He
swivelled his chair around to face his desk and raised its roll top.
‘Father -‘
‘Eh? Haven’t you left?’
‘Please, sir. I have been thinking about it all the time.’
‘Thinking about what?’
‘That. Losing my virginity. Breaking my maidenhead.’
He glowered at me. ‘”Hymen” is the medical term, as you know. “Maidenhead” is from
that list of Anglo-Saxon synonyms, although it doesn’t carry quite the curse that
the shorter ones do. But don’t talk about “losing” anything, when in fact you will
be achieving your birthright, that supreme status of functioning female that your
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biological inheritance makes possible.’
I thought about his words. ‘Father, you make it sound so desirable that I should run
right out at once and find someone to help me break my hymen. Now. Right away. So,
if you will excuse me?’ I started to stand up.
‘Whoa! Steady there! If that is your intention, it won’t hurt to wait ten minutes.
Maureen, if you were a heifer, I would say that you are ready to be serviced. But
you are not; you are a human maiden faced by a world of human men and women, in a
complex and often cruel culture. I think that you will be better off if you wait a
year or two. You could even go virgin to your marriage bed – although, as a
physician, I know that does not happen too often these modern days. But – what’s the
eleventh commandment?’
‘Don’t get caught.’
‘Where do I hide the French purses?’
‘Lower right-hand drawer, and the key is in the top left pigeonhole, all the way
back.’
I did not do it that day, or that week. Or that month. But it was not many months
thereafter.
I did it about ten o’clock in the morning on a balmy day the first week of June
1897, just four weeks before my fifteenth birthday. The place I picked was the floor
of the judges’ stand at the race track in the county fairgrounds, with a folded
horse blanket to pad the bare boards. I knew the area because I had sat up in that
judges’ stand on many a frosty morning, clocking Father’s practice miles, my eyes
lined up on the wire and his fat stopwatch in my hand – I had needed both hands to
handle that big watch when I had first done this, at six. That was the year that
Father bought Loafer, a black stallion sired by the sire of Maud S. – but (sadly!)
not as fast as his famous half-sister.
In June of 1897 I went there prepared, resolved to do it, with a condom (a ‘French
purse’) in my handbag, and a sanitary napkin – homemade, but all of them were in
those days – as I knew that I might bleed and, if anything went wrong, I would have
to convince my mother that I was simply three days early that month.
My partner in this ‘crime’ was a high school classmate, a boy named Chuck Perkins, a
year older and almost a foot taller than I. I was not even in puppy love with him,
but we pretended that we were (perhaps he was not pretending, but how is a girl to
know?) and we had been progressively seducing each other all that school year –
Chuck was the first man (boy) with whom I opened my mouth to a kiss… and from that
I formulated another ‘commandment’: ‘Open thy mouth only if thou planned to open thy
limbs’ – for I discovered that I liked it.
How I liked it! Chuck’s mouth was sweet; he did not smoke, he kept his teeth clean
and they were as sound as my own teeth, and his tongue was sweet and loving against
mine. At later times I encountered (too often!) men who did not keep their mouths
and breaths sweet… and I did not open my mouth. Or anything.
To this day I am convinced that tongue kissing is more intimate than coition.
In preparing for this meeting I had followed also my fourteenth commandment: `Thou