Sex is out of the question. O-U-T, out!!!

I thought my parents wouldn’t be happy about my cohabitation with Ryan prior to marriage. Getting engaged before moving in together probably helped appease them; plus, the whole memory loss situation exploded the weekend I became betrothed. I don’t know how they would’ve reacted under normal circumstances, and I don’t want to guess. Sex never has topped our nuclear family’s list of conversation topics. Mother and I like to keep it light with gossip about my gross imprisoned cousins, new Southern Living recipes and clothes. I dreaded Mother’s discovering that I am sexually impure until it had to come out a couple years ago.

“Well I know you have…urges,” she sighed.

That went way better than I thought…

Mother hails from a different era and stays true to her Methodist ideals. Once I asked my parents if they had sex before marriage.

“I tried to get her to have sex with me, but she wouldn’t do it,” Daddy said.

Now I wonder what my grandfather meant when he responded to Daddy’s request for Mother’s hand in marriage.

“I know you’ve been rushing her,” Granddaddy noted.

I attended a Southern Baptist church for 18 years, so my sexuality blossomed later than my peers. This became particularly apparent my senior year of high school, when a duo of rancid freshmen started harassing me every day during lunch. (Because of a combination of depression, laxative abuse and general misanthropy, I had lost all my friends by that time.)

To round out my more difficult AP courses, I signed up for a freshman PE class. One day all the fourth block PE teachers took their classes on a “field trip” to the bowling alley about a quarter-mile up the hill that went past the Board of Education trailers. Once herded inside, we could bowl with whomever we wanted. I sat down in a random empty lane and began to tie the laces on my rental shoes when two pairs of pimp-white Adidas sneakers scooted into the bench across from me.

“I really like your shirt,” a male voice said. With my torso folded over my thighs, I looked up to find my aforementioned foes, who I was bummed to discover also had a fourth block PE class. I believed they had matured overnight and truly were complimenting my sheer bell-sleeve top with red and orange swirls in the center and turquoise floral designs on the sleeves.

“Thanks!” I nodded, returning my gaze to my shoelaces, stopping midway to realize they could see down my shirt—and bra. “Ugh,” I mumbled.

“You know what my friend told me the other day?” one of them asked.

“Wutt,” I spit.

“You gave him head the other night.”

“Phuffh,” I stomped away, flopping down with the special education group on the other side of the building.

The incident made me so mad that I brought it up to Mother and Daddy that night.

“There are these jerks at school who have been torturing me. Today, all the PE classes went bowling, and they were there. They’re the nastiest skanks.”

“Well we don’t want any skanks messin’ around hurr,” Daddy commented.

“Anyway…when I was tying my bowling shoes, they were looking down my shirt, and then the really ugly one said, ‘Bobbin, I heard you gave my friend head,’ or something like that. Isn’t that rude?”

“You shoulda told that skank that if you had given him head, it woulda been the best damn head he woulda ever gotten,” Daddy remarked.

“What’s head?” Mother asked.

“A blow job,” Daddy explained.

My mouth fell to the floor in shock, as Daddy and I never discussed anything of a remotely sexual nature. Plus, I hadn’t touched let alone seen a penis before. Daddy probably knew I was a prude at the time, but became more serious about the preservation of my purity when I decided to take a road trip to Maine with my college boyfriend Buckley*. Before our departure, Daddy called a family meeting including Buckley in the living room.

“Now you listen to me,” Daddy leaned toward Buckley, eyes firing like Vietnam. Buckley cowered, hiding in the floral pattern of the upholstered rocker. “You will NOT. Have SEX. With my DAUGHTER.”

“N-no sir!” Buckley nodded.

“Look at me, son,” Daddy continued, leaning toward him more. “Sex is out of the question.”

“I know, sir. We don’t do that…”

“OUT of the QUESTION. O-U-T, out!!!” Daddy waved, spelling each letter with his hand.

“Yessir,” Buckley slurred.

Time progressed, along with my parents’ acceptance of my urges, I guess. A prayer altar sits at the foot of their bed. I wonder what Daddy prays about. At one point I would say he knelt and fretted over my morality and righteousness. But now Daddy has more important things to discuss with God.

*Name has been changed.