way to my mother, who would tell my father, and then there was just no telling. So
you had better leave me alone until school starts, huh? You see, don’t you. dear?
I learned that the hardest problem of all in dealing with a man is how to stop
dealing with him when he does not want to stop. A century and a half of quite varied
experience has not given me any answer that is totally satisfactory.
One partly satisfactory answer that I did not learn until much later than 1897
requires considerable skill, great self control, and some sophistication: the
intentional ‘dead arse’. Lie there like a dead woman and, above all, let your inner
muscles be utterly relaxed. If you combine that with garlic on your breath, it is
likely – although not certain – that he will save you the trouble of thinking of a
reason to break off. Then, when he initiates a break, you can be brave about it. A
‘good sport’.
I am not suggesting that lively hips and tight muscles constitute ‘sex appeal’. Such
qualities, while useful, are merely equivalent to sharp-tools for a carpenter. My
sister wife Tamara, mother of our sister wife Ishtar and at one time the most
celebrated whore in ali Secundus, is the epitome of sex appeal… yet she is not
especially pretty and no one who has slept with her talks about her technique. But
their faces light up when they sec her and their voices throb when they speak of
her.
I asked Jubal Harshaw about Tammy because Jubal is the most analytical of my
husbands. He said, `Mama Maureen, quit pulling my leg. You of all people know the
answer.’
I denied it.
`Ali right,’ he said, `but I still think you are fishing. Sex appeal is the outer
evidence of deep interest in your partner’s pleasure. Tammy’s got it. So have you
and just as strongly. It is not your red hair, wench, or even the way you smell,
which is yummy. It is the way you give… when you give.’
Jubal got me so stirred up that I tripped him, then and there.
But in Lyle County in 1897 one cannot simply trip a darling man and have at it; Mrs
Grundy is sitting up in every tree, eager to catch you and publish it. So the
preliminaries must be more complex. There are plenty of eager males (about twelve in
every dozen) but it is necessary to pick the one you want – age, health,
cleanliness, personal charm, discretion (if he gossips to you, he will gossip about
you), and other factor, that vary with each candidate. Having selected him for the
slaughter you must cause him to decide that he wants you while letting him know
silently that it is possible. That is easy to phrase but to put it into practice…
You’ll be honing your skills for a lifetime.
So you reach an agreement… but you still haven’t found a place.
After picking a place to shed my virginity I resigned that aspect of the problem. If
a boy/man wanted my immoral carcass, he would get his grey matter churning and solve
it. Or he could go chase flies.
But I did risk chiggers and (once) poison ivy. He caught it; I seem to be immune.
From June to January three boys ranging from sixteen to twenty had me, and one
married man of thirty-one. I added him in on the assumption (false) that a married
man would be so skilled that he could set off those fireworks without fail.
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Total copulations: nine. Orgasms: three – and one was wonderful. Time actually spent
copulated: an average of five minutes per go, which is not nearly enough. I learned
that life can be beautiful indeed… but that the males of my circle ranged from
clumsy to awkward.
Mrs Grundy apparently did not notice me.
By New Year’s Eve I had decided to ask Father to submit my name to the Howard
Foundation… not for the money (I still did not know that the payments could amount
to enough to matter) but because I would welcome a chance to meet more eligible