Time will tell

Wednesday 24 February 2010

I walked through the corridor at school this morning feeling really refreshed. My cold is not gone, of course, but staying home yesterday helped (even if all I did was type on the computer all day) and my voice is still raspy and sore but least I can talk today. I had on my black sweater and black tights and a really cute bronze-coloured wool skirt and my black booties and I felt really good about myself, like nothing was going to let me down. This is what an imbecile I am.

At homeroom is when the notes get passed round. You get passes to the nurse, to guidance, for early dismissal... and from your friendly neighbourhood school administrators. Mine was in an envelope--

'Sorry about your illness-- hope you are feeling better today. We have considered the girls' letter and are eager to meet with your panel this afternoon in the main office conference room. Please check in with the office this morning if you are able to make it.'

This cordial little note was signed with the principal's initials.

I sat and stared at it till the bell rang. Jessy met me in the corridor and saw me with the note in my hand. 'You got yours?'

I nodded. 'How many are there?'

'Just the exec board got them,' she said-- meaning the four of us who act as officers of the girls' club. The school administration are apparently mistaking the girls' social club for the GAGA movement. The GAGA movement doesn't exactly have officers, so maybe that's why.

I suggested we invite two of the other girls who are not in the club but who have been vocal about the bigger (GAGA) issues. Jessy agreed. We reconvened the nucleus of this meeting over lunch and agreed on the six people who would make up the board. From then on I began to feel nervous. Before eighth period I went into the lavatories and rang Mother. 'They're calling us in this afternoon,' I said.

She knew what that was about. She asked who was on the panel and I told her and then she said, 'Do you need me for anything?'

I thought about it. I really did feel like I needed guidance, you know. But I would be brave. 'No, Mother. It'll be all right. We have a legitimate cause, you know. We'll just say that we expect something good out of it.'

'Something good will come out of it, Janine. Because you are right.'

'Thanks, Mother.'

'God bless you, good girl. Call if you need me.'

That made me feel better. And I was not late to history class.

Rather than to all wander in to the meeting at different times, we all met in the front hall, just lingering as though we were waiting for a bus, and then at 2.20 we turned and marched en masse in to the conference room. The APs were already there, the child-study team guy was there, and my guidance counsellor, as on the other day. The principal came in a moment later. We had not even sat down yet. 'Ah,' he said, 'so this is it, then? The delegation?'

None of us responded to that. It sounded insincere. We were waved to sit down and there were not enough chairs, so someone got two more and we were able to sit in a semicircle at the end of the table. The AP (not Mr H--, but the female one) began by reading over the letter, of which we all had copies. I just nodded a lot.

Mr H-- said, 'We know that you girls have some issues with what you perceive the administration does regarding sexual-harassment cases in this school.'

The girls all looked at me, but I just nodded. Becky sat next to me, taking notes-- she was writing down their exact words (from which I have got most of this). The principal, who was sort of near her, leaned his head over to read what she wrote. It didn't matter-- truth is truth.

Mr H-- said, 'We want to assure you that none of this is personal, that no-one on this administration has anything against any of you personally, no matter what might have happened in the past.'

We all just nodded again.

'And we want to assure you-- to reassure you-- that we will continue to do all we can to ensure that you girls-- that all students in this school-- have the safest, healthiest learning environment that we can possibly provide.'

And we all just nodded again. Say nothing, that was what we had decided. Let them make the first move.

'Your letter addresses some specific concerns,' the other AP said. 'Such as... rude comments-- what you called "sexual innuendo" coming from teachers as well as students. Can you give some specific examples?'

I looked round and they were all looking at me. I pointed at Sherry first. Sherry nodded and gave an account of how she an administrator called her a 'player' because some boy she did not like was able to corner her in the cafeteria and kiss her against her will. Becky mentioned that her PE teacher (the male one) had told her to move her 'fat butt' during class. I mentioned Mr H--'s comments to me in the office about Sherry's detention. Jessy spoke up and contributed her experience about one of her teachers laughing when one of the boys in her class called her a 'foxy piece of ***'. (She actually said the word too. Sometimes Jessy can shock you.)

The administrators before us all stared with their eyes wide open or else looked down at the table. That guy from the child-study team was writing everything down at full speed.

So was Becky.

'The letter,' I said, 'requests you as the administration only to enforce what is already your job to enforce. We know the code-- we've seen it. We are wondering why the teachers and administrators don't seem to care about it.'

The (female) AP said, 'This thing about your teacher--' she wagged her finger-- 'Jessy, is it? When did that happen?'

'About a month ago,' said Jessy.

'And you didn't report it? Why not?'

'I said something to the teacher about it,' Jessy said. 'I don't think anything got done.' She looked at me then. Deliberately I would not look at her.

'Well, we can't do anything if we don't hear about it,' the (female) AP said.

'Are we supposed to be put in the position of having to report teachers to their superiors?' I asked.

They all looked at me. The principal-- not looking at me then-- said, 'If that's what it takes, yes.'

The other administrators all agreed with that. Then the AP said, 'You say that students have harassed you too.'

'They have,' I said. The principal asked us to give details. We had (written down in our presentation notes) four cases which were enough for examples. None of the cases was minor-- like, in this blog I mentioned my sister being gawked at. That's going to happen, but really it's just rude and stupid. The cases we mentioned were more like guys making rude comments on a girl's appearance when teachers did nothing about it, guys asking girls for sexual favours (not just dates) during school time, and administrators not taking seriously any girls' complaints about anything like this.

The female AP fixed her eyes on me and asked, 'Why do you wear a skirt to school every day, or nearly every day?'

I fixed my eyes on her. 'Why do you?'

'I don't, not always,' she said. She hadn't today.

'Neither do I,' I said.

'I have noticed you've been wearing skirts nearly every day since the winter break.' ('Winter break' is what American public schools call 'Christmas'. It's okay to declare it a public holiday, but not okay to say the name of the occasion for it.)

I said, 'I don't think it matters what I wear. I'm a lady, and I wear skirts. I'm still entitled to respect, which I am not getting.'

'Do you ever think that your choice of wardrobe invites a certain kind of attention?' she asked me.

'That's a sexist comment,' Becky said immediately.

'Yes it is,' Jessy said immediately after that.

'It's not a girl's fault that she has the body she has,' Sherry said. 'Or even that she's a girl to begin with. The whole point of discrimination is that you can't hold us to a different standard because we're girls.'

'And happen to dress like girls,' Jessy said. She had worn a nice skirt today too.

'I never thought I dressed inappropriately,' I said to the other girls, as though I were sincerely disappointed, you know. Then I turned round and looked at the AP. 'I thought I was dressing to look serious, and to show respect for the school, the teachers and what I have to do here.'

'That hardly matters to a bunch of teenaged boys,' Mr H-- said then.

'"Boys will be boys",' I said cynically then. 'Is that really what you want to say at this point?'

'Now, then--'

'So,' Jessy said, 'we should change how we dress and act because some idiot teenaged boys don't know how to act properly?'

'Maybe you need to,' the (female) AP said then.

'It's our school too,' said Bonnie, one of our other girls.

Mr H-- scoffed at us. 'Do you really expect to change that much of how all teenaged boys act? Unfair or not, wouldn't it be more sensible to play it a little safe?'

We all sat there with our mouths open for a moment. Then I pushed back the chair. 'Are we done, then? Is that what you're saying?'

'Tomorrow I'm wearing a swimsuit,' Jessy smirked then.

'No you're not,' the AP said. --and we all started to push back the chairs.

'Hold on,' the principal said.

We all stopped, pushed back from the table. 'Sir,' I said to him, 'if this is an educational institution, and it's supposed to be preparing people for the real world, is it too much to ask that you as an educator actually try to educate these miscreants?' He smiled when I said that. 'I mean-- I have been to places in the world most of these students haven't. And I know for sure that the way they behave, at times, would never pass anywhere but here-- maybe here. And, Sir, you know it too.'

He was nodding.

'And I was raised that if I have something good to offer people, I should try to share it with them. If what I have to offer is a good example, I'm going to try to set that good example. And I'm not wrong, Sir-- I'm not incorrect, and I think you know I'm not doing it out of ego.'

He was nodding.

'Because, Sir, you know as well as I do that if these... miscreants go out into the real world and see a young woman in a skirt, if they're standing there with tongues hanging out tossing sexist comments at her it's not going to fly. What if it's an employer or a bank lender-- or a police officer?'

'Police officers don't wear short skirts,' the AP said then.

I looked at her. 'Is it that you don't see my point, or do you just like mocking me?'

'I'm not mocking you--'

'I see your point,' said the principal, and then he looked round at the others then. 'I'm only uncomfortable because a student has to teach it to me.' Then he looked at me and smiled. 'But that's not something I mind, if it's a point well taken. So, Janine. What do you propose that we do? Be specific.'

I smiled a little back at him. 'Thank you, Sir,' I said. I couldn't resist glaring at the (female) AP then. Oh, and I glared at Mr H-- too. 'Well-- we're not asking to be treated like goddesses. Some girls at this school are completely inappropriate, and some boys are very gentlemanlike. But I do think that you, Sir, could speak to some teachers, maybe at a faculty meeting, let them know students have complained, let them know you take it seriously, and most importantly let them know that you believe it's a point well taken. That it's part of the... mission of a school to teach proper behaviour, for the real world.'

He nodded. 'I can do that,' he said.

'And please take it seriously when a girl comes in sincerely concerned about being treated impolitely. Some people won't say anything, some people will make a little thing into a big thing, but some of us will actually have a point to be well taken, Sir. And it only hurts when you're a girl and you realise no-one really takes you seriously, or like as long as you show enough leg it's not important. And it might be hard for some people-- I was taught not to use foul language and it's difficult if you ask me to repeat what someone might have said... but if that's what it takes maybe I could-- I don't know-- write it down or something.'

They all smiled then. Becky's hand was flying over the paper-- she was getting most of my words exactly. (The rest I have tried to remember.)

'But if it's serious, Sir-- and forgive me for saying this-- then you have to take it seriously. Look, we try to take you seriously, when you say we are under all these expectations. We do our work, we attend dances and club meetings, we are not inappropriate or disrespectful-- if I may say so, we're the students who hold up this school. We help make it look good. We're not your enemies.'

He was nodding. He tends to be quiet and to listen more than he talks, which is good. Jessy said, 'All we ask is that you respect us, Sir. And show us you do, by how you act, by how the school acts.'

He looked at her. 'I can do that,' he said. Then-- the moment of truth-- he looked round the rest of the administration at the table. 'Can we all do that?'

They all nodded. --the [female] AP last of all.

He asked if anyone had anything else, and no-one did. Then he said, 'What I would like to do, Janine, is to ask this group to meet back with us next week, so we can iron out some details. I think that if we're codifying a finer point about behaviour and expectations, we should have your input. Can we say... Wednesday next week? Can we all be here?'

This was agreed. The principal thanked us all, we girls thanked the administrators, and everyone got up to go. Then he asked me to wait a moment behind. The other girls lingered in the corridor-- Jessy leaned in the open doorway. Likewise the [female] AP stayed behind with the principal in the conference room. I got the feeling it was always going to be like this now, no one-on-one meetings without seconds present-- not because of the fear of inappropriate conduct (no, not at all!) but because of jurisprudence-- it's become all like a courtroom now, somewhat cold and formal even though there is grudging respect. We don't trust the school and the school doesn't trust us. Then the principal put out his hand.

'I'd like to thank you, Janine, for giving us a lesson we probably do deserve to hear, especially from a student.'

I took his hand and we shook on it. 'Thank you, Sir.'

'I'm not going to be blind, or proud, and say we haven't made mistakes. I only hope that working through these issues we can work as a team. Your eyes and ears in the hallways are as good as anyone's-- you, and your club, and all the girls you few here are representing. And you're right-- in some ways you very much uphold the good name of the school. I won't want to see that get tarnished.'

'I hope we can work through it too,' I said. 'All we want is to help.'

He nodded, and then followed me out to the corridor with Jessy. 'Majoring in English, hm?' he said, and then stopped and smiled at Jessy. 'See if you can convince your sister to take up law.'

Jessy laughed. 'Oh, she won't hear of it!' And we all laughed.

...

Girls Against Grobians Association

Friday, 15 January 2010

Our meeting was organised on very last-minute notice-- basically Jessy and I spoke to as many girls as we could, especially those whom we thought would be sympathetic to Sherry's situation. By the way, that was about every girl in the school, whether they're dating or not, whether they've ever dated or not, even if they've never been kissed or have done it all the time, because it's not the rule about Public Displays of Affection we're riled-up against, but the way Sherry (and I) got treated because of it.

And we invited everyone to our house-- our house, because it's got the only rec room we know of that can hold 25 girls for any kind of actual meeting. After school we were able to use someone's mom's minivan and we borrowed a bunch of folding chairs from church. We set them up in the rec room, round the long table that we usually use for a buffet. Mother prepared a side table of homemade cookies and fruit punch and soda with ice and paper cups and coloured napkins. People started arriving at about 6.45. By 7.15, thirty-one girls had showed up, including Jessy and me and the seven other girls of the club, who were sort of hosting it, so that's two dozen girls we didn't know would be even slightly interested.

Looking out over the room I realised we had a pretty good cross-section of the best people at school-- honour-roll girls, band girls, theatre girls, athlete girls, a couple of cheerleaders and even a few who are not known for great grades or great involvement but who are typically maligned for their looks or by their boyfriends or maybe just because they are not so stellar as students.

As president of the club I started it like we would usually start a regular meeting, and then we went off our formal agenda and gave a report on what had happened with Sherry, what had happened in Mr H--'s office when he called me down, and what had happened when Jessy and Paulette and Rita had brought flowers and a cupcake down to Sherry in the detention room after lunch. The girls were all impressed by that-- they had not all heard of it. In fact no one seemed anything but interested. I mean they were sitting at the edge of their chairs hearing what Sherry and I and Jessy had to say.

Before taking questions I made the loaded proposal that we girls-- 'young ladies' as I called us-- had both the right and the responsibility to do something, to say something, to request a change in the way the whole school, even the administration, treats us. I said that civility at the school is at an all-time low, that even the teachers do not show us the respect we deserve, and that the crime of getting unexpectedly kissed in the cafeteria is nothing compared to the crime of just wearing a skirt to school or using good manners and speaking English properly. At that half the girls in our rec room reacted with agreement. 'We all know the boys are guilty of it too,' I said, 'but it starts with the administration and faculty. We can expect a bunch of churlish imbeciles to treat a lady poorly. We should not have to put up with it from adults who should be setting a better example.'

The girls all agreed with this at once. Then someone asked, 'But what can we do about it? You know if we said anything, they'd just make light of it or brush it under the carpet.'

'We insist,' I said. 'We stand up to it and demand to be treated with respect. Look, we're not asking to be treated like goddesses. None of us is perfect. But we deserve to be treated like a little better than just air-breathing mammals with mammaries.'

They all looked up at me when I said that. One or two giggled a little. But they all knew what I meant.

Jessy said, 'Has anyone here ever been cursed at, or treated rudely, or like your feelings don't matter? By anyone at school?'

Hands went up. No one didn't raise her hand. I smiled round the room at everyone. 'So... wouldn't you like to do something about it?'

'How do we insist?' someone asked.

'We act like we deserve it. We behave like ladies. We dress properly. We speak properly. We treat other people with respect, even if they don't respect us. We... intimidate them.'

Girls all looked up at that. I honestly think they had never expected they had the power to do that. Maybe they just didn't read enough Jane Austen!

'Look,' I said, 'maybe most of you don't really know about me... and my sister, but we were raised to believe there is power in being a lady. No one can deny you that-- only you can deny it. If you act like you don't care how you're treated, expect to be treated badly, because you're letting people do it. But if you act like you expect to be treated like you deserve....' I smiled at everyone again. 'The most powerful thing in the world is a pleasant-looking young woman with good manners and half a brain.'

They were all silent as they contemplated that. Finally someone said, 'That sounds so old-fashioned.'

Other people giggled. 'Yes,' I said, 'it is.'

'And what's wrong with that?' Rita finally said. 'You know it's what we all want to be. Even if it's old-fashioned. Why is it bad?'

'It's not bad,' someone said.

'It sounds so... simple,' one girl said. 'Sugar and spice and everything nice.'

Girls laughed. I laughed too. 'Yes,' Jessy said, 'but that's exactly what it is.'

One girl whom we did not know well spoke up. 'Well, that's fine for you,' she said, looking at Jessy. 'You ARE sugar and spice and everything nice. You're disgusting.'

People laughed. 'Disgusting' is what some girls call other girls who are a little too appealing, too sweet, too cute. Jessy is like that--a little TOO perfect. She was blushing. 'She also doesn't date,' one girl pointed out.

Jessy and I looked up then. 'No,' Jessy said bravely, 'I don't.'

'Why not?' someone asked her.

'Because,' said my little sister, 'I haven't met anyone I want to date yet.'

'Picky, picky,' one girl teased, and people laughed.

'What's wrong with being picky?' Rita said, turning on that girl then. 'Is it better to settle for someone who's not as good as you'd like a guy to be?'

The room was silent. Girls thought about that. 'Well, it's only dating,' someone said.

'You could just be lonely,' someone else said.

'I'm not lonely,' Jessy said, defending herself. 'I have my friends, and my family, and I have all of you. I'm never lonely.'

'Yeah,' someone said, 'but we all have... needs.'

Girls giggled at that. Of course I knew what she meant by 'needs'.

'Yes,' I said,' we all have romantic and emotional needs. But all of that becomes so much more valuable when you wait till it's a little closer to perfect.'

'Waiting till marriage?' one girl teased, and people laughed.

I waited till they were all sort of looking back at me and then I said, 'And just what is wrong with that?'

The room went dead quiet. I wasn't blushing. I think that was when I realised just how much power I had. Or, have. 'So what is this,' one girl asked then. 'Virgins anonymous?'

I smiled at that. 'Not anonymous,' I said.

'Coming out of the closet?' someone else teased.

They all looked at me. I sat there with my ankles crossed and my skirt on my knees looking back at them. 'I hardly think it's any big secret. I mean, if you're a nice decent girl from a good family who isn't married... what else would you be?'

They were quiet then. Probably half the room was suddenly feeling a little guilty. The other half of the room was suddenly feeling very empowered.

'I wouldn't have it any other way,' said Rita. 'You know, till I met Janine I had never really thought of it. Then she told me about Henry....' She and I smiled at each other then. 'What was it your stepmother said?'

I nodded at her. 'If he's willing to put a ring on your finger, show up at church, promise in front of all his friends, family, and God to love you for ever, all before he gets to sample the goods, he must really love and respect you.'

People actually sighed at that. (I am not making this up!)

'That's what I want,' Becky said.

'That's what I want too,' Josie said.

'Me too,' someone else said. By this time some of them were sniffling.

I remember a story my stepmother told me about when she had her own apartment at Delaware and she invited a new friend over for tea. She used to play classical music CDs and had a cute old-fashioned sofa and wing chairs and posters of Rococo art on the walls of her little parlour, and she was pouring out for her guest and the girl suddenly broke out into tears and said Mother was just like the way all girls wanted to be when they were about eight years old. And it made her cry, because Mother was still like that, and everyone else had changed. And she said she wanted to be able to get back to that, but she couldn't any more. And Mother told her, 'You can if you truly want to.' And that day her new friend literally changed her life, because Mother was pouring out tea for her in her little parlour.

I am not sure if that kind of epiphany actually occurred here at Terncote, but I like to think it's at least started. Jessy, Rita and I were able to get most of the girls to make a kind of pledge to each other and to themselves that we will all try harder to act more ladylike and to treat each other, and everyone else, with more respect. Everyone in the room promised to not ignore each other in the halls, but rather to say 'Good morning' or 'Hello' whenever we see each other. We promised to tell our friends how much we care for them and to hug each other regularly, even in school-- and so daring the administration to forbid us from showing friendly affection. One girl asked if we had to do the 'lady kiss' --that almost-kiss that the chicks in 'Mean Girls' do so insincerely. I said, 'Only if it's really sincere.'

At once most of the girls said that they wanted to, that it would seem really cool. 'That will really blow them away,' one girl said, and she is right-- it will.

'And we don't tolerate that stupid little "friend hug" that guys insist on,' I said, 'when it's really just an opportunity for guys to look like they can get any number of girls round the middle. It's a form of possession, and they're not entitled to possess us or even look like the do.'

Everyone had something to say about that. Some girls related their experiences with feeling possessed and we all agreed we don't like it.

Later I said, 'We can act as though we don't need rude people-- including guys,' I said. 'I mean, the one thing that will make them all want us more is if we act like we don't need them.'

Girls laughed. They all knew about that one. But it's not playing hard-to-get. It's only behaving with self-confidence and respect.

We also talked about clothes and manners and how to wear a skirt and go up the stairs and how to wear heels and walk in them, and Rita and Jessy both demonstrated how to walk and stand and sit properly and even as they were all fascinated by this-- since I'm pretty sure no-one's ever taught them before-- someone made a joke about going to 'charm school'. And we all laughed. But we did make a pact-- all thirty-three of us-- that we will dress better from now on and behave properly as ladies just to see how it will change how we are treated.

Jessy wanted to make Mondays and Thursdays 'legs days', meaning that we should all wear dresses or skirts, just to resurrect the convention as a form of ladylike behaviour. But actually not everyone has enough wardrobe for that, so we'll meet again after Valentines' to see if we can actually establish that, especially for the warmer weather.

Of course we club girls still wear our club skirts and blue tops on Thursdays. From now on I think the other girls will understand it better.

One of the girls (I do know their names but am not mentioning them all here) stopped me on the way out and said, 'Now I see where you get your reputation.'

I got a little red but asked her, 'What reputation is that?'

'Well,' she said, 'you're... a princess.'

I blushed. 'I am not.'

She laughed. 'But you are, Janine, you are. Everyone thinks so. It's not bad, honest. I think they all secretly admire you.'

I went beet-red then. 'I don't want to be admired!'

'Then why did you invite everyone to your beautiful house and show us how to sit with ankles crossed?'

I shrugged. I felt embarrassed. Was this all about ME after all? 'I just think it's a good thing when young women act properly,' I said. 'It makes it easier for all of us.'

'But, the thing is, it's not that easy. It's hard to act like you deserve respect.'

'Yes it is,' I said.

'It's a challenge,' she said.

I nodded. 'Yes it is.'

She leaned in and gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. 'Thank you,' she whispered. 'I promise we'll be friends.'

I hugged her back straight away. 'I promise too.'

...

On becoming 18

Saturday, 12 December 2009

Today is my first 'full day' of being... 'legal'. Well-- I must go back.

I was born at 12.04 in the morning, so actually when I woke up yesterday I had been 18 for about 6 hours. Before leaving the house Jessy gave me a little plastic tiara to wear and then helped me do my hair for it. 'You're the birthday girl,' she said seriously.

'This is going to be embarrassing,' I said. 'They're already hating us for the skirts.'

'No one hates you for anything,' she insisted.

At school they (people, mysterious people) decorated my locker with wrapping-paper and stick-on bows and bits of ribbon and a big sign that said 'She's a big girl now!' I still do not know exactly who it was who did it because Jessy was riding in to school with me. Apparently I am one of the eldest girls in the class (as I was at HOH too), since I can't remember anyone else having an 18th birthday yet this year. Jessy got pictures of me in front of the locker, which was really a work of art, and they're on my FaceBook as well as on Jessy's and then they're tagged on everyone else's too. As silly as it looked, it was pretty touching.

A couple of my teachers knew it was my birthday and lent their best wishes. At home in the evening some friends came over and Mother hosted the party. There was angel-food cake and whipped white ice cream and Dr Pepper and they made me wear the tiara from school all evening. Lisa was in her glory, sitting through a big-girls' party and being able to be more of a hostess (or, in her case, a presenter) than an underaged guest. She got up and read a poem she wrote-- all right, four lines, and the rhymes were imperfect, but she is six, and it was very touching. (I put the text of it-- and her pic-- on FaceBook, so it won't be here.)

I type this now sitting up in my bed and feeling very tired from a pretty intense day and the only thing I can wonder is what will happen when people read this blog and encounter me on AOL where I usually am. Oh, I am 18 now. I am... 'legal'. People will assume things.

First, exactly what does it mean that I am 'legal'? Legal for what? I may vote next year, but I may not drink. I may get married, move out of my parents' house, get any job I can be hired to, contract a loan, own my own car, drop out of school or enrol anywhere else. These are profound things, but I'm pretty sure (after 16 months on AOL) that the people who say I am now 'legal' don't mean any of these things.

The more important thing is that I don't FEEL any different. This could have been my 16th birthday, or my 15th. There wasn't anything exclusively '18th' about the day at all. I am still in school, still at home, still with the same friends, still driving Daddy's car, and so on. I mean I have never made any plans for any profound changes that would happen on the day I turned 18. Was I supposed to? A few weeks ago Daddy happened to mention that we would 'have to' go to the investment counsellor and have my name added to my accounts as a primary signer, meaning that I would be able to withdraw from my trust fund on my own, without asking Daddy. But I cannot imagine ever, ever doing that. It's all his money-- he put it aside for me, and I always figured that was for when he was no longer with us, not when I turned into a just-18 brat who could claim everything he worked so hard for and buy a blinged-out SUV with it. He hasn't mentioned it since (since he can be as bubbleheaded as I can be at times) and I really don't have any incentive to mention it myself. I really don't care about the money. Mother said, 'It's your responsibility as an adult now.' She knows, because she was a young bride and at one time she had to step into so much of all these responsibilities when Mommy died.

I will put in here that my stepmother and Daddy do NOT have a prenuptial agreement about the money. She could take him for all she could get if she chose... but she never would, because she loves him too much to ever leave him, and that is obvious to us all every day. I wouldn't have a prenuptial agreement either, no matter how much money or possessions or real estate I had. I just would not marry anyone whom I had to worry about in that way. Maybe that's naive-- but now you know why I am such a prig about myself. I would always prefer to be happy and innocent of a great offence, and not live in suspicion and guilt... and nothing you say is going to change my mind about it.


The people who approach me online will be pleased to find out I am 'legal' now. For them, this means that they are allowed to chat with me about sex. They will ask me about my own sexual experience, what I think of other sexual issues, what I want or fantasise about, and most importantly what I want to do online (meaning masturbate) with them. Oh, and I can share pictures with them, especially pictures of me naked or engaged in sex acts.

Does any of this sound like anything I would ever have done at any age? But you can't reason with such people. Because, my being 'legal' is not about what I want or do or say at all. It's about THEM. What they're most interested in is what they can get away with, not what I want. In many ways I cease to be a lady to them-- or a child. Now I am a target, an eligible candidate for their prurient interests. See, that's all it's about. They want to know whether they can apply their nasty, immature, self-centred, illogical and inappropriate fantasies to me or not. They actually believe that because I am now over 18, I have magically changed somehow into a totally different person. On December 10th I was a child who could get them into trouble. If they chatted with me, shared anything with me, even just said hello, I would get them into trouble. I was 'jailbait'.

Now see how illogical this is. Was it ME getting them into trouble? Was I the 'bait' that lured them in? Was I the active party in any of it? Or is it more likely that THEY were to be the guilty party in all of it? Weren't THEY the ones seeking an exceptionally young chick to chat with (as in 'barely legal')? Weren't THEY the ones who wanted to apply their fantasies to me? Weren't THEY the ones who wanted to suggest the topic (sex) and to chat with me online about it? What on earth had I do to with any of it, except that such people seem to believe their fantasies are best 'shared' with someone else?

Now you will know what I believe about this kind of fantasy? It's all one -sided-- if I chose to play along, they wouldn't want the truth about how I would react or what I would say if they should happen to do this or that. They really only want me to fulfill their idea of how it should go. In a way I am just acting to script that I haven't seen yet. So it's very likely I won't live up to their fantasies anyway. In fact I would say that no girl ever would be able to. You'd have to be a total cretin to just follow along with what the guy is saying and do whatever he says, and then I have to wonder where the fun is in that for him. It's like saying, 'I imagine you will take off your bra now and show your beautiful D-sized breasts.' And the girls takes off her bra now and shows her beautiful D-sized breasts. It really would not matter if I were a B or a C, or if I were not wearing a bra at all. He doesn't want reality, he wants me to go, 'Okay, I shall now take off my bra and show my beautiful D-sized breasts.' And he will go, 'Very nice. Now spread your legs and--' and so on.

The sad thing is that 99.9 percent of men who will approach me on AOL with ideas of fantasies will never take the effort to read even two sentences of this blog, so they won't ever know a thing about me. I shall continue to do as I have always done and chose to interact with only the polite and intelligent people who care enough about whom they chat with ti get to know me as a person. And yes, that is many more people than some might think. And no, it has nothing to do with the name of the chat room I am in. I am still a person and still a lady and still entitled to respect. I am not baiting you into jail and I am not responsible for what you want to chat about and what's on your mind. And if you think that because it is now December 12th and I am 18, so that makes it 'legal' to say offensive, rude, impertinent and inappropriate things to a lady you have just met, then you will get the same reaction from me as you would have got on December 10th.

...

Janine, the protectress of chastity

Friday 16 October 2009

Today I had a strange opportunity to find out a few things I'm not sure I wanted to know... but I am glad I know them.

I was walking the corridor in school towards lunch and happened to come up behind my sister... just a few steps ahead of me. I recognised her by her hair, of course, when the hall was crowded, and as it thinned out I found myself feeling envious of her again. I adore her hair-- it's thick and curly, natural blonde of course but very dense and deep golden colour, in curls that are as big as your two fingers together, flowing off her temples and past her ears and down well below her shoulders. Today she was in just jeans (nice snug ones) and a plain pale-blue pulli with a little black tanktop over it, and her black heeled maryjane shoes, not much differently than any other girl at this school really. I was in a skirt... as usual, not much differently than I usually am.

Jessy got about five yards ahead of me and did not know I was behind her. She has a very cute little prance, holding back her head a little, walking not quickly at all but almost as though she doesn't know how prissy she looks. She tends to walk slowly like she has all the time in the world. I tend to walk fast and it was hard to keep behind her. Guys at school tend to ignore me-- oh, they do look, and then they recognise (or assume) that I am just a stuck-up priss and avoid me. They usually find some way of putting me down-- I am too short, my nose is too long, my hair is a mess, whatever-- basically to avoid having to admit they feel inferior to me. Jessy doesn't come off as stuck-up. In fact guys are absolutely mesmerised by her. Well--

I went round the first corner after I realised she was in front of me and two guys spun their heads round at her so fast they bumped into each other. I sort of bumped into them and got round them. Two other guys were standing in a doorway and glanced at her as she passed. One of them said something I won't type here. The other said, 'Any day, man, Any day.'

'Not much there,' the first said-- I had just reached them then.

'The rest is worth it,' the second guy said.

'You got that straight.' They saw me then and went back into their classroom. I don't think they recognised me as her older sister-- I think they just tired of the scenery. Once Jessy had gone by there wasn't anything else they cared to look at.

In the front hall on the way to the lunch room a guy was standing with his girlfriend and turned to watch Jessy go by. The girl stopped talking to him, waited, and then said, 'Honestly, you can be such a pig sometimes.'

I hid a laugh at that.

Right before the lunch room doors there were two guys coming the other way. 'Well hello, precious,' one of them said to her.

She blushed (she told me later) and just smiled a little, to be polite. The other one turned and said, 'Well don't be scared, honey.'

She was past them to the doors. The first looked back at her and said, 'Mm, hm. Just as good from the back.' I was just about to where they were then and they turned back round and saw me there. 'Well, hello, precious,' the first one said.

I laughed. 'Good line,' I said. 'Used that lately?'

The second one laughed out loud. I was past them and went into the lunch room. A guy near the end of the queue turned round and stared at Jessy as she approached, looking her up and down as though she were a model or a horse to buy. She stopped, glanced over her shoulder, tossed her hair a little and started over to our usual table where her friends already were. The guy turned and watched her go. Jessy has a terrifically cute little bottom-- I have often said she is built like a ballerina or a gymnast and her muscles are toned from years of dance classes, working out and swimming. My bottom is good too for the same reason, but with Jessy, being as slender as she is, every curve of her body is more conspicuous. If a guy does not mind small-breasted girls she is absolutely the most gorgeous thing in the whole school.

I find that is often the case, which is probably why I am a little jealous of her. I have the opposite problem and because I dress so modestly, not choosing to show off what only God can claim responsibility for, I look like I am trying to hide myself. But Jessy cannot be accused of showing off at all for she has so little it would seem like a silly accusation to make. Instead she is blessed with sheer beauty, a pleasant happy face, indelible yet modest smile, brilliant blue eyes with long thick lashes, that hair-- oh, that hair! -- and a trim little middle a guy could just about close his hands round. What I presume is the real attraction is that she is petite, like that-- she is cute but also seems vulnerable, breakable, and-- dare I say it-- submissive. I don't know why but guys always seem to prefer a submissive, even stupid girl, someone they can quickly and easily dominate physically and then emotionally since, I guess they assume, it's the same thing. Strange as it seems to girls like me, many guys seem to believe that they are so irresistibly desirable that any 'sane' girl would do anything just to bask in their attention. We hear it all the time-- any time they assume a girl is too 'stuck-up' they will come at us with, 'I have what you need', as though we should be desperate for someone, anyone, to give us that experience. They don't realise that a girl doesn't always think like that-- in fact very few of us do. We want guys for emotional reasons, often social reasons, but even when we have them we rarely need the sex, at least not straight away. We get the guys of our own dreams and then become very careful, lest we break the bubble. We believe that if our guys love us, they will let us proceed on our own schedules. And that's another thing-- a woman's schedule is not subject to what a man wants. It comes from nature, or from God. Some girls are ready for sex at 14. Most-- in fact maybe 95 percent-- are not. Some of us are not ready for it at 18.

I'm not ready for it, and I happen to know for sure Jessy won't be before I am unless she happens to be married first (which is a distinct possibility). But these guys won't ever be sensitive enough to what a woman wants to be aware of that, or the reasons why. Sometimes I amuse myself with imagining what my sister would be like in the clutches of some awfully amorous guy and what he would do when he got her to what he thought was the point of no return. She would lash out in a fury that he would never forget. You just don't mess with Jessy-- and the LAST thing you want to do with her is to assume she wants what you want just because you want it. She is NOT submissive at all. In fact she is a lioness... and you just don't mess with one of those or it's the last thing you ever do.

Jessy stopped to sit at the usual table and right before they all saw me coming two more guys came by and stopped right behind her. I held my breath-- I could tell by the guys that this wouldn't be good. 'Hey,' one of them said to her, 'you're, um, Jessy, right?'

Josie and Rita looked up and saw me then. All our eyes went wide.

'Yes,' Jessy said to the boy then.

He was not bad-looking, actually almost cute, and would have been really appealing if not for the extremely baggy jeans and South Pole hooded sweatshirt. 'Yeah, well, um, you want to go out sometime then?'

Jessy got a little red, and then she saw me. I hesitated, suddenly looking round the room for anyone else to talk with so I didn't have to step past this and interrupt. 'Oh,' she said, 'well, um-- I mean-- What's your name, then?'

The guy told her, and then began some facile attempt at introducing himself, saying he was into ska, liked 'boarding' and wanted to go to New York 'where the real action is.' I realised she did not know anything else about this guy at all, and all he knew about her was her name. I do not know how he had got that information.

This unfortunate encounter was doomed to be just another instance of 'possession by attention' so I stepped in to bail her out. 'Hey,' I said, and stopped right beside her.

She turned at once as though she had just seen me. 'Hey,' she said. 'We're sitting here, then?'

'Sure.' I turned and pulled out the chair next to hers lest these two guys take up with her at the table as well.

Jessy turned to her new admirer and with the most gelatin-sweet smile you ever saw said, 'Well, I'm sorry, but I really should eat. Maybe we'll chat later.'

'Oh, yeah, right. I got you then.' And he turned to go.

His friend immediately slapped him on the back as though he had made the most admirable conquest. 'Gettin' into that!' he said.

'D*mn straight,' the first idiot said. 'I'll be getting deep into it.' And they were gone away then.

'Sheesh, child,' Josie teased her as we sat down. 'You really know how to pick them!'

I laughed. 'Well what could be said is that they really know how to pick Jessy.'

She looked at me. 'Did he say what I think I heard him say?'

The other girls laughed. '"Deep into it",' Rita repeated.

'Oh, can you wait?' Josie teased. We all laughed then.

Jessy went bright red. 'I really don't know him at all,' she said. 'He just came up to me, and--'

I rubbed her back. 'You did fine, love. Welcome to the wonderful world of rude guys.'

She was still blushing. For a moment she leaned over as though to lean on my shoulder. Then Josie suggested we all go up for something to eat.

I do worry about my little sister. I know I often go on about how gorgeous she is, as though I have some kind of weird attraction to her. Well, my attraction to her is that she is a kind of role model to me, she is beautiful and virtuous and clever and sweet, and she is my sister, so naturally I adore her. She is my closest relative and always will be. And I know she admires and respects and feels attracted to me in the same way. We are each other's soulmates. And I will always worry about her, how she is doing in school, in her job, and in her love life. And if I can protect her from harm and evil I will.

The idiot in the South Pole shirt is about the worst example of a guy I can imagine that would show interest in her. He is evil-- probably put up to it by peer pressure, not his genuine feelings. He sees Jessy as a potential conquest, a shot at having a nice blonde virgin all to himself. This is the kind of guy that makes me want to get out the bow and arrow and go hunting, like Diana, the goddess of chastity, to find this guy in the woods and put an arrow where it'd make him never be able to abuse another girl again.

The lesson is simple-- if you mess with my sister, you have me to deal with. Good hunting.

...

An appointment for pleasure

Tuesday 15 September

We've all heard the expression 'self pleasure' and we all know what it means. What I don't understand is why it's such a terrible thing to admit. Oh, sure, I don't think we should reveal all the details. There is such a thing as having dignity and good taste. But I'm sure most of us have done it, to some degree, and so I don't see why it's such a big deal to admit it when it's appropriate to admit it.

There are exceptions of course. I knew two of them at HOH. One was a very sweet, very friendly girl in Jessy's class. She was a good Christian and kind of shy, and once in a casual conversation when someone said 'Oh everyone does it' she got very red and admitted that she didn't. We all immediately felt very bad about having assumed that and apologised to her, and one girl in the group actually suggested that she didn't have to try doing it just because everyone else seemed to have done it, and I really do not think she has done it since either-- which for her would be a good thing. There really is no point in converting someone when it's not something that 's so necessary to life, you know.

The other girl was a funny, outgoing sort of person, in the class below Jessy's-- so at the time this would have been like 8th grade. She carried a certain notoriety round the school because in her ethics class she had delivered a paper on masturbation-- its definition, reasons for and against, religious and cultural aspects, plenty of Wikipedia sources, and her own opinion (that is, experiences) included. Fortunately this was an all-girls' school. The other girls in the class were all either aghast or else all in giggles. The teacher was not amused and our friend was sentenced to one-on-one counselling during seventh period once a week till the end of the school year. She was NOT asked to leave the school however and is still there (in what the US would call 10th grade), but she probably keeps her intimate opinions more to herself these days.

Then, of course, there are the rest of us. As sad as we were to leave HOH, Jessy and I have acclimated ourselves pretty well to a big regional high school in the eastern US. There are things that are done and not done here, just as in an independent girls' school in England. For example, you don't mention masturbation in mixed company. You don't say the word 'orgasm' in a classroom. And, apparently, you use the word 'pleasure' as a verb. (You won't see me doing that one... ever.)

Jessy would clear of her time on Monday night and on the way home from school (in the Regal-- I drove) she admitted she had been feeling 'rammier' than usual recently. ('Rammy' is our stepmother's word for it-- apparently it's Australian for 'horny'.) 'I don't why,' she said, 'but I just can't wait for this to be over.'

'Are you going to celebrate?' I teased her.

'Oh, you'd better believe I am.'

I got a little red then. But I knew what she meant and could well imagine her 'celebrating' on her own.

'Don't you ever get like this?' she asked me.

Now we do talk about absolutely everything. Aside from a few mild fantasies and whatever I choose to chat about online, I don't keep anything from my sister-- and even those things, if she were to ask about them, I would tell her. She is my best friend and, in a way, my soulmate-- we know each other better than anyone else knows either of us. So I can admit anything to her. 'Sometimes,' I told her.

She thought. 'We should plan something, then,' she said.

'Plan something?'

'Like, when we get home tomorrow. What we can do about it.'

I was ready to laugh. 'What,' I said, 'we're going to make a date to indulge ourselves?'

'Yes!' she said excitedly, and turned half sideways in the car. 'Can we? Come on, Janine-- it'll be fun.'

I made a face. 'So, we're going to plan to come home from school tomorrow, strip off, and--'

'Yes!' she said. 'I thought we could take our chaises out back somewhere nice and just... have fun.'

'Um... you do mean you would do it and I would do it, right?'

She made a face then. 'Ew. Of course. I mean-- ew.'

I laughed. 'All right,' I said. 'Well-- I suppose we could do something like that.'

'Good!' she said, and turned back round in the seat and shifted impatiently.

All day today she was a little too eager for it. We met eyes once at lunch and then she gave her head a pretty toss and blurted out, just as though it were apropos of nothing, 'Oh, I can't wait to get home today!' Other people looked at her and, of course, thought nothing about this. I knew exactly what she meant, and I blushed.

On the ride home (I drove again-- there was no way I would let Roger drive us today) she was practically bouncing in the seat. She kept coming up with cute little details-- where she wanted to put her chaise, how far from the house it should be, what she would wear, and then take off, you know. I laughed at her, but she didn't seem to care.

The day was stupendously beautiful, warm, sunny, with fair breezes and no clouds. It was ideal sunning weather. Tuesdays Mother goes to take Lisa to ballet practice and then she and J.J. sit and wait for her, so they are never home before 4.00. Daddy was working at the studio in Delaware, as he often does in the middle of the week. As I pulled up in front of the house Jessy raced up the front steps, discarding her clothes as she went through the foyer. I followed her purse, skirt, shirt, tanktop, and bra to the back doors. Out on the terrace she was already dragging a chaise out towards the garden gate.

'Come on!' she cheered, and stopped at the top of the steps to wait for me.

I laughed. 'Are you serious?'

She caught her breath and stood still for a moment. 'Janine, I have been waiting for this for like eight days.'

I laughed again. 'So? It's been longer for me.' My period is almost always a few days before hers, you know.

She smirked at me, her hands on her hips. 'Well, you're not as rammy as I am right now.'

I smirked back, from thirty feet away. 'Who says I'm not?'

She giggled. 'Really?' When I just shrugged at her she squealed. 'Then come on!' And she picked up the chaise and, in her low-heeled black pumps, her multicoloured stockings, and her bright red panties she carried the chair down the steps to the lawn.

To tease her I took my time, gathering a pitcher of cold tea with ice and two glasses on a tray and then leaving it on the side table of the back parlour as I got out of my things. Like her I kept on my stockings and panties and shoes. Then I stepped out back with the tray.

Jessy was just taking the other chaise over to the steps. 'Oo, good,' she said, of the tray, and I followed her down and out the gate. Out on the side lawn she arranged both chaises about five feet apart in bright sun along the outside of the garden wall, not over by the trees where we usually sit but where no one would see us from Lisa's window, the back of the house, nor even from the gate without stepping out. The tall marsh grass just beyond our shoulders screened us from the bay and the boaters (mostly fishermen) out there. Even as I settled into my chaise a pair of jetskis zinged by. They would not see us here in (almost) our altogether.

'Mmmm,' Jessy sighed loudly, exaggerating her comfort. 'This is lovely.'

I poured out and then set the tea tray on the grass between our chaises. For a long while we just lay there soaking up the sun. Neither of us had put on tanning lotion-- we are both so well tanned by now that an hour or so in the sun won't make much difference either positively or negatively.

'I wish we could do this all morning,' she said.

'But we've done that.'

We were both lying there with our eyes closed, sighing again and again. 'Mmmm, I know,' she said. 'I just love summer I guess.'

I smiled. 'I do too,' I said.

She started first, just caressing herself. I heard her sighing in little whimpers and would not have to open my eyes. I began then too. She was right-- it was a lovely opportunity to savour such sensations and neither of us would rush.

I won't give all the details except to say this. Once I read a romantic little novel, a long time ago now, where the author referred to the way the girl knew just when to lift her bottom to have her panties taken off. At the time I did not get it-- I had imagined they were standing up kissing and it seemed like lifting your bottom a little then would make it harder for someone else to push off your panties. I hadn't realised what the author had meant till I had begun exploring myself in my own bed, and I can say that after a certain point, peeling down your own panties has got to be the most erotically-stimulating thing in the world. For obvious reasons it's a threshold that, once it's crossed, you haven't got anything else stopping you, and knowing that makes all the difference in the world.

I imagine that for two people making love in bed it's the same kind of threshold... though I can't speak from experience on that one.

I do not know which of us arrived first, for we were both pretty well into ourselves by the time I did. Jessy isn't afraid to make noise, if it's only a natural reaction-- I tend to be a little more guarded. As I have written before, she also doesn't mind watching me or even encouraging me, and I find that a little tacky and embarrassing sometimes. I have seen her do herself, but it's not as though I have been watching. She will do herself if I'm in the room and think nothing of it, so it's a little hard to overlook sometimes. I tend to at least begin on my own, quietly, though as I have written also she has come in and discovered me like that and then stayed to watch me go on. I really have learnt to not mind that so much. She is only my sister, and she loves me. It's only self-pleasure. And I'm sure most of us have done it, to some degree, and so I don't see why it's such a big deal to admit it.

...

Windows and the soul

Tuesday 1 September 2009

We have beautiful windows in this house. Daddy, the architectural purist, got them from a place that does traditional-house restorations. They are true early-1700s-style, with the correct flat 1-inch-wide mullions. They are not 'double-hung'-- only the bottom sash slides up. They are single-glazed (one piece of glass per pane), not double, so we rely on real inside shutters for added insulation against the cold (and for security). All the panes are the same size-- in the Colonial period the carpenters orded glass panes from England and made the windows to fit them. And they do not have regular full-sized screens.

All three of our houses, the one in New Jersey, the one in Delaware, and Terncote here, have the same kind of windows. When he was building the beach house in New Jersey, which was the first one, Daddy devised a system by which the screen only covers the bottom sash and the sash slides down outside it. The sash has pins that you slide into the frame to lock the window in place. The screen has pins you can slide back to remove it. I usually leave my windows locked up at the first notch (about 12 inches). My room is up stairs so no one can get in and there's just enough of the sea air to make the room very pleasant day and night.

It was very late when I went to bed (actually early this morning-- I won't say what hour!). I had left the door to the side gallery open as usual and the windows at the first notch, and the room was cool but not chilly. At about 6.00 am I found myself incomprehensibly awake. The dawn sunlight beamed in from above the ocean in a brilliant white light. Outside, birds were chirping. Trees in the side yards hissed in the breeze. The bay lapped patiently at the bulkhead. Far out across the channel and the island, the surf along the beach was the incessant white noise that is a background to everything you hear here. And I lay on my back in the bed, sleepy but alert, my legs apart under the sheet draped lightly over my naked body. I was intensely comfortable.

The inevitable came over me and I soon found myself massaging gently, with the sheet pushed down past where my hand needed to be. It got very powerful very fast and soon I was pushing harder and harder and getting anxious. I whined a few times-- I had not thought I could have been too loud till I realised Jessy was looking in from the door. Seeing me so engaged she whispered, 'Are you all right?'

I only murmurred impatiently, still going.

She nodded and tiptoed into the room, looking round for a moment. I usually sleep on my back with the empty pillow to my left, and she sat there on the edge of the bed and kind of watched me go on. Oh, she knows what I look like doing this, especially what my hand was doing. She looked down on my face with a sweet expression half of sympathy and half of devotion, the kind of devotion only a sister can have. I went on, holding my left arm up over my head, holding back my hair I guess, and wriggled a little to give my other hand more room. I think I whined again-- it was so slow in coming!

'Do you want me to help you?' she whispered, looking down into my eyes.

That gave me a start. 'Help me?' What did she mean?

She nodded and reached up and took my free hand, pressing it tenderly between her palms. 'Just relax. You're doing fine.' And she smiled a little.

I nodded, nearly breathless, and slowed down just a little. That did help. I had been too impatient.

'There, there,' she said, squeezing my hand.

'Oh, Jessy....' I sighed very deeply, relaxing, and it came.

She held me for the whole thing, till I was done trying and had no strength left to fight back the aftermath. When I had given it over she turned round and looked about the room, at the windows standing open, at the morning sun streaming in, at my pretty light-blue sheets pushed down till they covered my thighs and no higher, and at my hand still in place, my palm covering myself as though I were trying to be modest. And she looked back down at me and smiled. 'If you need for me to bring you anything, I will.'

I smiled up at her with a happy sigh. 'No. You don't have to. I'm fine.'

She leaned down and kissed my forehead, patted my hand and then let go, turning on her bare bottom and getting to her feet. 'I'll bring this closed, just a little, then... if you want.'

I nodded. 'Thank you, sweetie.' We met eyes then. 'I love you.'

She responded to that immediately. 'I love you too.' And then she tiptoed out, like an angel, as silently as she had come in, leaving me grateful for my afterglow.

...

An end, a beginning, and an event in between

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Jessy and I have been here on our own these last two days, 'chilling' (as she says. I never say that). I have resumed swimming 25 laps a day-- in fact I swam it twice yesterday. A lot of good it will do-- after Saturday I won't get a chance to swim, sunbathe or go to the beach till we get back from England. But I am really pretty well-tanned (and I mean all over) by now anyway.

Wait-- it gets worse.

Since we've got home (meaning here at Terncote, that's Virginia) people have been ringing us to get together. We haven't wanted to-- Josie was supposed to come over today (and didn't-- wait) and we have made some plans to go tomorrow night (Thursday) to see HP6 again, down at Lynnhaven, with a group of the girls. Otherwise we are content to do nothing, mostly outside, for as little time as we have left to do nothing.

It was hot yesterday-- there was a threat of rain which didn't happen. I was in my room for a while, escaping the worst of the heat, typing in my novel, and also compiling the stuff I will take on our trip. Jessy updated her FaceBook, which is what she does most of the time. I urged her to get her summer reading done. She's reading 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', which I have read (had to read it last year as before I started at school here in fact), and I have offered to help her do the paper, but she has not seemed interested in it. This is how she is-- she procrastinates till the pressure's on and then does a stellar job in half the time you'd expect anyone to do a so-so job. Well-- I am like that to.

This afternoon I was lying out on my chaise in the side yard. I didn't have anything with me, no book, no sun lotion (put it on in the house) no towel... and no clothes. Neither of us has been dressed since we went to bed on Monday night. Earlier my phone rang and it was Stephen, who left a voicemail message (he never texts) that he wanted to see me, 'to talk'. I knew what that meant. He is going off to UMES in about two weeks-- he will be gone before I get back from England and that will be it for us for the school term. I had expected to drive up and visit him a few times... but there really isn't going to be any kind of 'relationship' in any even slightly exclusive sense. We are friends, and I truly hope we always will be, but we are not really girlfriend-and-boyfriend and I think we're both aware of that. I was only touched that he wanted to see me in person to discuss it, which is only out of respect, which is how it should be. I sent a text-message to him that I would like to see him later, this evening maybe, but I wondered if he would get it. Then I turned off my phone and went outside.

I think Jessy was up stairs at the time. I really don't think anything would have happened the way it did if she had been out in the pool... which is where I thought she was. Neither of us recalled a car pulling up. Normally the gate in the front wall is closed and you need a passcode to get in. The wood beyond where I lie out in the chaise has a chain-link fence the other side of it, with barbed-wire (it was there when we got this property) and there is a perimeter security system here that James Bond couldn't get through. On the other side is the softball field, which is semi-developed as a kind of park or preserve-- that is, mostly tall grass, some shrubs, whatever trees were there, you know. There is also a tall fence round the softball field-- it's not open to the public though the security system is really only on the building there. The house system goes through the fence between the softball field and us.

On the Bay side is our dock, a rocky and swampy beach, ooky beach grass and a lower version of our wall with another gate. That gate, like the one in front, is on the same axis as the front and back doors, so that if you opened them all you could see straight through the house from the road to the water. This is the Baroque style and something Daddy intended, you know. It's really pretty elegant.

I was lying on my back with one hand over my eyes, half-asleep in the early-afternoon sun. I was so divinely comfortable that I might have stayed there all day. I can get like this, when I don't even know that I don't have any clothes on. And so when I heard the voice I wasn't immediately concerned.

'Janine.'

I turned my head a little and finally had to move my hand up to see. It was Stephen.... walking slowly down from the garden steps. I got an elbow under myself-- and then realised. Oops! Well! --this was an all-new experience for both of us!

I was embarrassed-- I certainly blushed! --but I was not afraid. Why should I have been afraid of Stephen? This is a guy I have dated, on and off, as it's been, because I already respected him as a gentleman, because I knew he respected me, because the whole relationship between us has always been based on trust and admiration and genuine friendship. Though I have had many pleasant moments in his arms (and many pleasant kisses) he has always been mainly a friend, and I really do trust him.

'Sorry,' he said, just about stopping about twelve yards away. 'Are you all right?'

I leaned back on my elbows-- oh, yes, I did cross my legs! --and made a red-faced smile at him. 'Um, yes,' I said.

'I'm sorry... the side gate was open. I was over there-- I'm sorry.'

He was trying very hard not to look at me, but the thing is, no guy could have ignored what he was seeing. To me it just depends on WHY the guy wouldn't ignore it. Stephen does have older and younger sisters, and he's seen as much of them as he was seeing of me, even if only by accident. It was just that he'd never seen ME like this, and I'd never let any guy see me like this (or even close).

'It's all right,' I finally said. 'You, um-- wanted to talk?'

He looked right at me-- at my eyes-- and smiled. 'Well, yes, but-- it can wait.'

I shrugged, gaining my courage back. 'I'm too comfortable to get up... if you don't mind.'

He smiled more. Now he came closer. 'Well... maybe we shouldn't talk about it now.'

'Why not?' Yes-- I really asked that.

'Well, just because.... Well, I wanted to talk about the next couple of weeks, that's all.'

I nodded. 'Okay....'

So he went on, telling me basically what I already know, about his going away to college and me going to England and we really weren't going to have much time between now and after then, so it was probably best that we don't expect too much of each other. 'Although, Janine, I have to say, you kind of make it hard to think about it, well, now.'

I laughed. 'Stephen,' I said, 'it's just me. We're friends. That doesn't change, does it?'

He was sitting in the grass now, about six feet from the chaise, beside me, not quite facing me, so that he had to half turn round to look at me. This is how he shows respect. If he'd wanted to ogle me he wouldn't have had to say a word. He wouldn't have had to pretend he was here for anything else. But Stephen is a gentleman. And that doesn't change. 'No,' he said. 'It doesn't. I just feel like I'm letting you down-- as a friend, even.'

'You're not,' I said. 'You're moving on. You're going to a really terrific new part of your life. In some ways so am I. Believe me... I would respect it a lot less if you tried to make something happen that wasn't going to be able to, and then just attempted to string me along for the odd date every month or so. I mean--' I smiled right at him then-- 'if we want to see each other, or go out to something, we can still have that, right?'

He looked right at me (at my eyes). 'Yes,' he said. 'I would like to think we can.'

'Then we can.'

Now he stared. I didn't mind by now. 'Janine,' he said, 'you do make it hard to think about it all now.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'It's just that I'm going to England and staying in someone else's house, and so I won't have a chance to get any sun for the next two weeks. You've got to know how it is there.'

He laughed. 'I guess so.'

We looked each other in the eye. 'I was expecting maybe Josie,' I admitted. 'She's been coming over here recently.'

'And she does as you do? Like this?'

'Oh, sure. Well, you know that Jessy invited her.'

He smiled. He does know about Jessy from what I've told him. 'I might have guessed.'

I thought of something and then said, 'Do you want lunch? We might have something here.'

He nodded. 'Sure... if that's okay.'

I shrugged, looking down at him. 'It's only lunch.'

'Okay.' Then he got up. 'Um... I'll go round to the door. I can wait for you there. If you'd like to....'

I smiled right at him. 'That would be very good of you.'

He smiled back. 'All right.' And he turned and walked away from me, not looking back, till he had gone round the front corner of the house.

I didn't wait a second and ran full-tilt for the garden, ducked in the back door and galloped up the stairs. 'JESSY!' I yelled.

'Whaaaaaat?' she called in a babyish voice. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with the computer (on FaceBook), naked of course.

I stopped and leaned in her doorway, catching my breath. 'You didn't know my erstwhile boyfriend was in the yard?'

She looked up. 'Stephen? He's here?'

I made a wry face at her. 'Walked right up to me whilst I was lying in the chaise.'

Her mouth dropped open. 'You're kidding!'

I shrugged smugly. 'Not much I could have done, right?'

She giggled. 'Oh my God! Well--' she giggled more-- 'at least it's Stephen!'

And that is the great thing to be grateful for then.

In some shorts and a t-shirt I went down front to let him in. Jessy came down, dressed too, and we fixed sandwiches in the kitchen and sat round the table talking, about England, the ice-cream place, the animal shelter, people we know. Stephen never brought up the awkward situation again-- and he will never hold it against me. Someday when he's away at college he will tell someone that on the day he was amicably breaking up with his high-school girlfriend he happened to see her sunning naked in the yard. A perverted guy will say, 'Did you tap that?' --or whatever guys say, you know. And Stephen will say, 'No. That's not how I am. And it's not how she is either.'

Right, Stephen. It's not. You are a gentleman and I am a lady. And that doesn't change.

...

An unwanted phone call

Thursday, 4 June

I arrived home this afternoon to my father standing in the foyer beckoning me with his finger. 'Janine,' he said, not amused. 'Come up here.'

I had just walked into the house and followed him up stairs to his little library on the third floor of the tower, at the back of the house. He sat down at once, turned to the computer, and brought up a .jpg picture of an instant-message conversation I had had online, late at night, a few weeks ago. I read it-- thankfully it was not long! --and my face went white. Then it went red. 'How did....'

So he told me he had got a phone call this afternoon from a police detective in Ohio. Yes-- that scared me. Then he explained further that the police detective had received the TOS complaint I had filed in response to the instant-message in question. The message was from a guy in Ohio, with a screen name that included something about a fireman, asking me for-- shall I say-- something immoral. I had reported him after about four comments-- that was all-- and the sheriff in Ohio had ended up investigating it. They wanted to know my age, because as you know I always just say 'under 18.' The police detective's point was that sometimes that's not enough to protect me.

I started to say something to my dad about that but of course he just told me to shut up a moment. His point, and the detective's point, was that in Ohio a 16-year-old can solicit and accept solicitations about sex. The guy was not guilty of a statutory crime, only a case of immorality and rudeness. Once again AOL and the rest of the world enable crudeness and victimise me.

The IM read that the guy asked me, 'How young and how nude?' That's from one of my usual rooms. Normally I don't mind this question. But of course-- as all my online friends must know by now-- I answered the first part first. I had typed, 'under 18'. The guy must have known his rights because 'under 18' didn't stop him from asking the next thing. The police officer had seen the 'under 18' that I had promptly and clearly typed and investigated it in case I were like 12 or something, you know. For a moment I almost wished I were.

My dad started to smile and pointed out two things about the message, still sitting there in small text, a .jpg file from a scan of a faxed piece of paper with the violator's screen name mostly blacked out with Sharpie marker. He said, 'There are two things that impress me about this.'

I was blushing. 'Okay....'

'The first thing is that you were polite. No baiting, no arguing, no attempting to debate a pointless point with him. You answered his question-- at least half of it-- and you asked him about what he wanted till he explained it.'

'But that's all I would ever do,' I said.

'I know,' he said, 'because you won't judge people.' He smiled at him. 'You're a good Christian, Janine. Even when you're wading among the slime of humanity. I can't fault you for that.'

I nodded. 'Okay....'

'The other thing is that, according to this, you stopped it the moment you knew what he wanted was wrong. Wrong, not only because you thought it was illegal, but because you found it offensive. And then, of course, you did your civic duty and reported it so the next girl wouldn't get hit with the same thing.'

I was nodding. 'But that's all I would never do,' I said again.

'I know.' He put out his arm and pulled me over to sit sideways upon his leg, like I used to when I was much littler. 'You're a good girl, Janine. I have always known that. And this, this right here--' he turned and poked at the screen-- 'this shows me why I don't worry about you. Because you know what to do. Because you are not... sucked-in by it all. Because you are better than them, and you uphold that.'

I nodded, still blushing but not for the same reason.

He bounced me a little on his leg like he did when I was about four. 'This is why I am very happy with you,' he said, and he squeezed me closer.

'I love you, Daddy,' I said.

'I love you too, good child. Now, go-- get off my leg before it falls asleep and you'll have to help me down the stairs.'

I laughed and got up. 'I'm sorry about the online thing,' I said.

He looked at it again. 'Yes, well.... Do try to be a little more careful. I don't mind the unclothed thing in the house, in your room, but I don't think it's so wise to advertise yourself to strangers too much.'

I nodded, standing up straight. 'No. You are right. I'm sorry, Daddy.'

He waved me away like a little gnat. 'Be gone with you. I want to email this detective back and tell him what we talked about.'

'Okay. Thank you, Daddy.'

He turned the chair round to the computer. 'Thank you, child.'

I descended the stairs and moped round to my room with the embarrassment fading and a more immodest blush of confidence, even pride, growing. 'What was that about?' asked my sister Jessy, sitting up on her bed with her own laptop, already naked as she so often is after school.

I made a smug kind of smile at her. 'Do you ever say you're naked when you're chatting online?'

She wrinkled her nose. 'Not to strangers. My friends don't ask.'

I nodded. 'Good,' I said, and went into my room... to type this.

...

Conversation

Tonight, Saturday 15 November 2008

People on AOL really drive me crazy sometimes. I have been hosting the 'Naked YF At Home' chat room for a while now, at least since it was summer and the 'Home Nudist' room was usually full, mostly of non-nudists who come in trolling for pics of our naughty bits. The 'Naked YF At Home' room was started as an overflow place, hopefully for girls about my age who do as I do and want a safe place to chat about it where there is an active bolt-holder who will boot out the naughty people. However after all this time I have concluded that there are no girls about my age who like lying outside or lolling about the house naked and like to chat about it, and that there are really only men who like to fantasise about seeing, and probably doing a lot more than seeing, a girl about my age doing that.

One of the questions the men seem compelled to ask me is what the male members of my family think of this. They tend to assume that my male family members 'like' to see me, usually hinting not so subtly that my being naked round the house inevitably arouses my father and brother in a sexual way. I then explain that my brother is 2-1/2 and really doesn't care what we look like, clothed or not (the exception is in my blog, 7 October). And I explain that my father now has three daughters and certainly knows the difference between the relationship he has with each of us and the one he has with his beautiful young, very legally married wife.

Nevertheless the men online all claim that I am lying or living in denial or else that Daddy is 'less than' a 'real man' because he doesn't find naked teenaged girls attractive. I always say that no 'real man', no Christian, and no GOOD parent would have any even remotely sexual attraction towards his own child. That's just sick, and I tell the men online who assume it is true that it's just them assuming that because they think weird sick stuff like that is sexy, or else because they would be guilty of it themselves and they don't want to feel like the only one who might be wrong. It's what my father calls the 'Hilary Clinton school of morality' --to blame the other party for what you yourself are guilty of-- but that's another issue altogether.

One guy online this afternoon, however, put it to me like this: 'I bet if you sat on your father's lap you'd find out.' This comment got me very distressed. I didn't like thinking about it in any way and yet I couldn't seem to forget about it. Finally tonight, after supper, for which I put on my robe (and socks of course), I ascended the steps to Daddy's little office in the third floor of our tower and knocked on the open door.

(I am of course not sure I have all my dad's words right, but I went over this and it's as close as I remember.)

'Hey,' he said, looking up from the computer screen.

'Hey,' I said, closing the robe round myself, and sat on the edge of the sofa there.

'This is just email,' he said, and leaving it on the screen he turned in the chair to face me. 'What's up?'

I shrugged, looking out the window at the black sky. It had gone dark more quickly because of the front coming in. It'll be raining in a few hours. 'I kind of had something to ask, but I'm not sure about it now.'

He nodded, leaning back in the chair and looking at the window too. 'Well, you don't have to feel uncomfortable asking me anything, but if you do, then don't ask me till you're not so uncomfortable about it.'

I shook my head and then bravely faced him. 'Do you mind it that Jessy and I are like this so much?'

He smiled. 'Like you were this afternoon, and, yesterday? No.'

I shook my head again. That wasn't the question I'd really wanted the answer to. 'Does it....' No, I couldn't ask it that way either. 'Do you like seeing us like that?'

Daddy smiled more, and then looked down, sort of at my knees in the robe. 'Well, I do,' he said, 'but I'm not sure it's how you think I do. Or, how you are afraid I do.'

I made half a smile then. 'What does that mean?'

He looked up then, not quite at me, and rocked a little in the chair. 'All men like to look at pretty girls. All men like to see naked girls. But there are two ways of looking at them.'

I was listening. 'Okay....'

'Some men are easily excited by anything that reminds them of sex, even if it's totally inappropriate. Like these guys will catch a glimpse of their own daughter in the shower, and then they turn away and go, "Oh, man, I want to look but I can't!" And they turn away in a second, like it hurts them to see her in there.'

I laughed. 'But you've seen us like that, even in the shower, and you always turn away too.'

'Of course I do, but it's not because I'm afraid to look at you.' He smiled. 'It's because I'm teaching you that that's what a gentleman would do, any gentleman, not just your father. It's form of showing you respect.'

I nodded. 'I know,' I said. 'You always show us respect.'

'You're my child,' he said. 'Would I not respect you?'

I smiled. 'No, you always would.'

'I would. But I would respect anyone's daughter if I inadvertently saw her naked in the shower or something like that. I would just think, that's some good man's daughter in there; if I have any respect at all for women, or for men and fathers, I don't treat her like a sex object. She doesn't belong to me, and there's no agreement about it.... It would just be a cowardly kind of Peeping-Tom thing to take advantage of the opportunity to see some poor girl like that against her will. Even a husband.... Would you marry a guy who stood there ogling you in the shower?'

'Ew, no.'

'Well, then, see? But you know this. A gentleman never imposes on a lady. I mean it's hardly noble.'

'No,' I said. 'It's not. It's like the opposite of noble.'

'And it goes both ways. If you choose to be naked in front of me, because you trust me and respect me, I have to show you the same level of trust and respect back. It's not about me and what I want. It's about what you feel comfortable with. And if that's what you feel comfortable with in front of me, I'm just going to respect you for showing how much you trust me. Does that make sense?'

I nodded. 'Yes, of course. I mean, it's not like we think you would treat us any differently like that, because we're still your daughters.'

'Well, yes. And you do know me, Janine. I have always treated all your friends the same as I treat you, with the same kind of respect. I mean we laugh and joke around a lot, but really the fact is still that I'm still a gentleman and you are still ladies, and there is always a line to be drawn; but believe me, Janine, it's not because you and your friends are potential... I don't know, "conquests" for me, but precisely because you are not.'

I nodded. 'I know,' I said, feeling much better about this whole topic now.

'I mean, you know, I can't watch porn. I can't watch it at all.'

'Daddy--!' I giggled-- and blushed.

'I mean, I have seen some of it, not so much watched it, really--' he saw me looking wryly at him-- 'other people's bachelor parties, when I was younger-- okay, Uncle Rick's-- and it always makes me think that that poor girl there is some guy's daughter, who used to have her school pictures taped on the refrigerator and brought home cardboard cutouts of the Easter Bunny and had a beautiful new dress for Confirmation and curls in her hair and dimples in her smile. How could I ever think of someone like that as a sex object?'

I smiled, but I had tears in my eyes from that. 'I know what you mean,' I said.

'And I know people talk about your stepmother,' he said, 'being so young and beautiful and all, and that I must be some kind of perverted old fool. But I swear to you, her age had nothing to do with it at all-- I might have married her if she were ten or twenty years older than she is, because I married her because she's such a good teammate and so unselfish and so positive of a person, and that's what I needed seven years ago and that's what I want for the rest of my life. And the fact that she was committed to staying a virgin until marriage didn't make me want to rush things at all, not how people said, but it did make me value her like nothing else in the world. It takes a special kind of woman to commit to something like that, and that's something that she and I have always tried to impress upon you, and your sister, you know.'

'I know, Daddy. You know how I feel about that.'

'I just hope you will keep to it.'

I nodded. 'I promise I will.'

He sighed. 'And so, in answer to your question, I do like seeing you and your sister's bare bottoms out there--' I laughed then, still blushing-- 'because you represent to me two happy girls, good girls, who aren't afraid of anything, especially not their own family. There isn't anything sexual or inappropriate about it, not to me. I know what naked girls look like. I've seen a couple of them myself, you know.' He smiled a little.

I know there were probably more than two, more than Mommy and our stepmother, because of what I have heard. No matter how hard a parent tries, if he is well-known enough someone will have said something about him that he wouldn't want his kids to hear someday. (At least Daddy is no Billy Ray Cyrus!)

'It's just that I would be a bad parent indeed, Janine, if you DIDN'T feel comfortable lying out there like that. It's your way of showing you trust me, and this family; and I always draw myself up to anyone's trust in me. It's just what I feel is right. It's noble, it's respectful, it's gentlemanly, it's Christian. What kind of father can't be trusted by his own child to accept her as she is, unconditionally?'

'Yes. I know, Daddy.'

He smiled at me. 'Besides, you know, you and Jessy are just so cute--!'

I laughed and pretended to swing at him.

...

Conversation (August)

The problem with this blog is that it's all keyed by date, so if I neglect to type up something in time and enter another blog text first, the earlier entry will get shuffled in the calendar. This is a conversation that happened in late August, less than a month after we came to this house and the whole nudity thing was still new for Jessy and me, and in light of some recent AOL chat topics I have decided to (finish it first and) include it now.

Something had been on my mind for a while and I needed to ask Mother (my stepmother, who is only 10 years older than I am) about it. The text is from my journal at the time which was not online yet.


Tuesday 19 August 2008

Jessy and I have been lying out beside the pool for about three weeks now, but I was not naked this evening when I went in to the kitchen for a glass of iced tea. I was, however, not totally dressed at all-- I was in plain pink panties and a black t-shirt.

Mother was in there finishing up her kitchen things and I offered to help, so I picked up a damp cloth and began wiping down the counters. 'Did you two have a pleasant afternoon, today?' she asked. 'I saw you two out there looking like pampered princesses.'

I laughed. 'I'm sorry, Mother. Do you mind that we do that?'

'No, no, of course not,' she said. 'You're exploring yourselves. That's your right as girls.'

I know what she meant, and it isn't anything risque at all, you know, just the idea of two sisters who have discovered the innocent pleasure of lying naked under the warm summer sun. But it did make me think of something else. 'Mother? Can I ask you something? I really don't know how to say this, but....'

She smiled and looked at me. 'You may always ask me anything. I might not know the answer, but....'

'Do you think it's a sin to masturbate?'

Of course no one would expect that question! The poor lady really thought about it and then managed to say, 'Well, what do you think?'

I thought too. 'I don't know what to think,' I said. 'The Bible says Osiris sinned by spilling seed on the ground. But that's not the same for girls... women. We're not wasting anything that's needed.'

Mother nodded, thinking seriously about that. 'That's a good point,' she said.

'But it's also the sin of pride,' I said.

Mother nodded at once, knowing exactly what I meant. 'Yes,' she said, 'it is.'

'It's pride,' I said, 'because God has put me in a state of life, a situation, where sexual gratification isn't called for. And I defy God if I say that doesn't matter, like if I come up with a way to get around what He wants for me. It isn't much different than premarital sex.'

She looked at me. 'Well, it isn't, but there is still a difference.'

I shrugged. 'Maybe....'

'In premarital sex you sin with someone. You both take advantage of this way of getting around what He wants for you, and, what's worse, you take undue risks upon yourself. Besides if you felt that strongly about each other, if you were that much in love, He has already provided a way for you to take. Right?'

I nodded. 'Yes.'

'And, of course, if you really don't feel that strongly about each other, it's only lust, and lust is a sin.'

'Yes,' I said.

She leaned in the corner of the kitchen, folded her arms across her tummy, and looked at me. 'Why do you-- Why would you masturbate? Why... might anyone do it?'

I leaned back on the opposite counter and thought. 'Well... some people might do it because they're sexually frustrated.'

She was still looking at me. 'Are you sexually frustrated?'

I blushed. 'I don't think so,' I said carefully. 'I mean... there could be other reasons for it.'

'Of course,' she said.

'I mean, people might just be curious about it, about their bodies, about what happens when... well, when some things happen.'

She nodded intelligently. She's not an idiot, you know. 'Do you think it's wrong to be curious?'

I looked at her. 'No.'

'Then, you would have to decide which it is,' she said. 'If it's lust, it's certainly wrong; you won't ever hear me countenance sheer lust, Janine, no matter what form it takes. We've all been guilty of it at least a little bit; maybe even you have, but we acknowledge our sin and atone, in our own ways, and we move on, relying on our faith in God to guide us away from sin, and we should not be lustful people in general. But if it's just a young person trying to find out a little about the body God has given her, and some things happen, how is that wrong?'

'I guess it's not,' I said. 'But what if it starts out that way, and then changes into something else? And the person does it too much, and likes it too much, and then starts thinking that maybe it's just a sin and a way to get round what God has given her, and then she feels guilty all the time about it. And she can't stop thinking that she is guilty of cheating on God, and cheating on her husband some day, because she is denying her husband the one thing he has a right to, and that she is no longer pure and good, but sort of naughty and bad. Because she already knows what she will feel like on her wedding night now, and you can never go back once you know, as you told me once. You can't un-ring a bell. And that can't be a good thing, Mother... can it?'

Mother looked down sadly. For a long moment I couldn't ask her why and yet I wanted her to answer me, to just give me some answer, any answer, because I would have done whatever she told me is right to do at that moment. She even sniffled, and all at once I felt like we would both burst out crying. Then she finally said, 'Oh, Janine, you sound like me when I was your age!' And she turned round and snatched a tissue out of the box on the counter, looking away from me as she blotted her eyes and nose.

I had tears in my eyes too. I couldn't move from the counter and just leaned there, trembling all over. 'I'm sorry, Mother,' I said softly.

'No,' she said away from me, 'don't be. Don't be sorry at all. Don't think of yourself as anyone who ever has to feel sorry for doing what you think is right, Janine.' She turned and looked at me with her eyes full. 'You are a precious, beautiful person, sweetheart. Don't be so hard on yourself. God doesn't punish you for being curious, or for feeling weak, or for feeling sexually frustrated. A good God wouldn't do that.' She sniffled and then blew her nose a little. She is so cute that when she blows her nose she makes a little squeak. 'You are a good angel, Janine. Go and be the good angel God already knows you are, and don't be hard on yourself if you feel curious or frustrated and you slip up and fall into the temptation sometimes. I promise you your husband some day will forgive you, God will forgive you, and I am not anyone you should ever ask forgiveness from.'

I wiped my eyes with my finger, sniffling. 'I love you, Mother.'

'And I love you!' And we stood in the kitchen and held onto each other for as long as we could.

...

Mother gets her hair washed

Monday 13 October 2008

We are off school for Columbus Day, a holiday we did not celebrate in England (duh). I awoke somewhat early and offered to make waffles for everyone, seating J.J. in his chair and setting the table for all of us and even putting on Mother's apron over my sleep shorts and long-sleeved coverup shirt. Afterwards we all sort of split up-- Mother had phone calls to make, so did Daddy, Jessy has homework to do (which really means FaceBook to edit) and the little ones and I cleaned up the kitchen and played rag dolls in J.J.'s room till he got tired and went in for his morning nap.

Afterwards I had a nice warm shower-- thanks to the solar-boosted hot-water system! -- and sat in the middle of my bed reading in 'Evelina' and listening to classical music-- Rameau, the French Baroque, the kind of thing Mother and Daddy like because of its blend of intense logic and delicate beauty, though I chose it mainly because it's the kind of thing Fanny Burney, a.k.a. Madame D'Arblay, might have heard while writing this book, her father being such a musical historian and her husband being so French and all.

At the minuet I closed my eyes and just sat there and listened. It's so elegantly simple, and yet a very complex step, six in eight, and eight in thirty-two, going round the room in your imagination (and in the actual ballroom, since I have actually danced it a few times myself) and back to the top, perfectly logical and fun at the same time. Then, no sooner than it was over, little Lisa, like me not quite dressed either, appeared in my dressing-alcove door and said, 'Mother won't come out of her room.'

I turned and looked at her. 'What?'

'Her door is locked. And Daddy's in there too.'

'How do you know he is?'

She shrugged, twirling on her heels like she does. At least she was dressed-- I had on nothing but the sheets. 'Well,' she said, as though not wanting to say anything, 'I heard their voices through the door.'

I confess I looked at the clock-- that was probably unfair and impolite of me, you know. But I was already blushing a little. (Why?) 'Oh,' I said. 'Well, maybe... she's having... a nice morning bath.'

Lisa stopped at the side of the bed and toyed with the edge of a sheet. 'Oh,' she said, thinking. 'You said boys and girls aren't supposed to have baths together.'

I shrugged too, making sure she saw me do it. 'I'm sure he's not in there with her! Just washing her hair.' We both laughed a little. 'Mother does like that. Besides, it's much different when they're married.'

'Oh,' she said, recognising that this was one of those things she wouldn't understand because she is five.

The one thing I had recognised is that, though my room connects through a wardrobe to my parents' dressing room, there is enough masonry in the thick wall between my suite and theirs that.... I won't finish that.

'What are you doing?' Lisa asked me.

She leaned up to see into the book. I showed her-- all words of course. 'Fanny Burney,' I said.

'Oh. Why do they call her "Fanny"?'

'Well, her name is Frances, but in her time "Fanny" was a cute nickname for "Frances".'

'Do I have a nickname?'

'"Loquacious Lisa",' I said, and then leaned over and kissed her head. Then I thought of something. 'Where's J.J.?"

'Having his nap,' she said. 'It's his morning nap time. And Jessy is in her bed too. No one wants to DO anything.'

I looked again. 'Hmmm,' I said. 'And it's almost eleven.... We should be getting ready for tea. Do you want to help me?'

She nodded eagerly, so I closed the book on my feather bookmark and got out of the bed.

I was dressed (mostly) and down in the kitchen boiling for tea when Daddy came in and seated little J.J., changed and cheerful, in his chair. Mother came down the front stairs, practically skipping as I heard, and bounced in to the kitchen from the other end, happy as a little girl and cute in snug jeans and a black t-shirt, with her thick curly blonde hair still slightly damp from-- you guessed it-- washing it. Lisa smiled up at her, coming back from carrying in the platter of raisin muffins. 'Hi. Did Daddy do a good job?'

Mother looked round with a face like you can't imagine-- somewhere between pleasant surprise and sheer fright. 'Did he what?'

'Washing your hair,' Lisa said simply, stamping one foot as though there could have been no other idea.

'Oh,' said Mother, and glanced over at me behind the kitchen counter, while I nodded in an exaggerated 'you'd better understand me!' way. Fortunately she got it. 'Oh, yes, well, mothers sometimes like to have someone wash their hair... the way they do for girls like you.' And she leaned over and kissed Lisa's head, and while Lisa smiled happily that her guess had been right, Mother met eyes with me in spite of her deep red blush.

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