Page 30 of Devil in Disguise
“Plus, I’m your mother. This is the stuff you tell your mother.”
“Excuse me. Teen movies? You don’t tell your motheranything.But all right, then. He says we’ll work on it. He says I probably just tensed up because it was, you know, new, and I was a little nervous. And something about him being big,” she went on in a rush. The two ladies turned their heads again, and she said, more distinctly this time, because who cared at this point, “He said he was extra-large and I’m little and a virgin, so we might have to work on it. But that there are ways to do that. For him,” she clarified. “When we have time to be together and be relaxed about it, he says. Even though I can’t see how that’s ever going to berelaxing.‘Here, let me examine your vagina for tightness!’”
“Honey,” the older of the two ladies next to them said, “do you mind if I butt in here?”
Jennifer said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Please excuse us,” just as Dyma waved her hand and said, a little wildly, “Sure. I have no secrets, apparently. Say whatever.”
“I had the exact same problem with my husband,” the woman said. She had a close-cropped head of determinedly silver hair, wrinkles around her eyes and everywhere else, and the kind of daring earrings that said she might be old, but she took no prisoners. “We got married young, and we waited. Kind of old-fashioned, but there you are, it was a different time. And on our wedding night, it wouldn’t go in. He was as inexperienced as I was. We thought …” She looked around and lowered her voice. “Maybe he was hitting the wrong hole or something.”
Jennifer gave a choked laugh, and the woman laughed, too. Merrily. “Oh, we were mortified. I went to the doctor, finally, after the honeymoon, in floods of tears, so embarrassed I thought I’ddie,convinced I was a mutant and my husband was going to ask for an annulment. Fortunately, my doctor had heard of Kegels.” She nodded with decision. “That was a new thing back then. That’s your answer. Kegels. And, I hear, lots of lube.” She smiled again. Sparklingly.
“I thought Kegels were for strengthening those muscles,” Jennifer said.
“Strengtheningandlearning to relax them,” the lady said. “Both! It’s a two-for-one deal, because Ialsostarted having orgasms!” Which caused her companion to give a pained little sigh …
… Wait. That looked like her daughter. How mortifying wouldthatbe to hear about your parents? It seemed embarrassing mother-daughter conversations happened everywhere. You weren’t even free of them when you wereold.
“So you see,” the woman went on, “we didn’t need an annulment at all. In fact, it’s been almost sixty years now, and you could say we’rebothstill very happy, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, uh, thank you,” Dyma said.
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “Very, uh, helpful. We’ll just … Time to go, Dyma? We’re taking my daughter to college,” she told the woman, in a clear attempt at a return from the conversational Twilight Zone.
“Oh, that’s a wonderful day,” the woman said. “Good luck, dear. It sounds like you have a very special young man.” She winked. “In more ways than one. It turned out that was my trouble, too. Imagine that! Enjoy!”
15
Not Gender-Neutral
They madeit out to the car again, somehow, and as soon as they were inside, her mom started to laugh. After that, she laughed some more, while Dyma got them back on the freeway again.
Dyma said, “Dead. I am dead.” But she had to laugh, too. “Mom. Shewinkedat me. She had to beeighty.And she said that in front of herdaughter,I’m pretty sure. The poor daughter’s probably wondering if it’s too late to get adopted.”
“Too bad the mom’s … married,” Jennifer managed to gasp out. “Because hello, Grandpa Oscar!”
“Plus,” Dyma said, “helpful information! Who knew I should be crowdsourcing my sexual dysfunction?”
Her mom wiped her eyes. “The terrible thing is, I long to tell Harlan about that, and I can’t.”
“Mom. No. You cannot. No way. And wait. What did you mean back there, that Owen told Harlan we weren’t having sex? He talked toHarlanabout it?”
“After the Colts game,” Jennifer said.
“So when they say ‘locker-room talk,’ they reallymeanlocker-room talk? Wow.Wow.That is so not all right with me.”
“Not Owen’s fault. I asked Harlan to ask. About protection,” Jennifer hurried on, “since you wouldn’t tell me.”
“Excuse me? I justdid?And remember? No need! No penetration! Also, I can never go home again now, because I’ll die of embarrassment, if Owen told Harlan. And I don’t evenbelievein embarrassment!”
“He didn’t explain, though. See? I didn’t know. He just said you weren’t having sex.”
“Oh,” Dyma said. “Well, good. I won’t have to kill him, then. And donotsay anything to Harlan, Mom. I mean it. No.”
“All right. I promise.” Jennifer sighed. “Oh, man. I obviously need to do some more Kegels myself, because I think I peed a little.” And this time, Dyma was the one who had to laugh.
The second half of the drive was better. Even navigating through the complicated maze of the University of Washington campus wasn’t too horrible. And once they had Dyma’s stuff on a cart and were wheeling it into her dorm, she was getting excited.
All these people moving in. Calling to each other, waving. The ones with their parents, who’d be freshmen like her. She wasn’t the only one who was new. People who weren’t white, even. People talking in otherlanguages.“Toto,” she muttered to herself, “I don’t think we’re in Idaho anymore.”
