Given the current situation, I don’t think twice about removing the object of her disgust. As I’m walking toward the stairs, however, Linda stops me again. “Actually, no. Come here.”
Oh God.
“What do you need?” I ask from outside.
“You can come in; I’m dressed.”
I open the door and find her sitting on the edge of the tub, sulking, her arms crossed. “Maybe this isn’t the best time.”
“This is the perfect time,” she replies. She looks down at the tiles, huffing. “I got my period. For the first time.”
This wasdecidedly notthe best time. “Ah, well, shall I go find Giada or Elisa? Or would you like to phone your mother?”
“For goodness’ sake, no!” she stops me, rolling her eyes.
“Perhaps a female point of view would be more useful.”
“I don’t need anyone’s point of view, least of all my mother’s. She’d insist on giving me the famous ‘talk.’”
“The talk?” I ask, dazed.
“You know, all the things I need to know now that I’m a woman. How babies are made. Mortifying.”
“I agree.” We men have no similar rite of passage, fortunately.
“As if I even need it!”
“Ah,” I say, taken aback, as I sit next to her. “So you already know how babies are made?”
“Obviously. By having sex,” she replies naturally. “The man’s penis penetrates the vagina and ejaculates seminal fluid, then the spermatozoa fertilize the egg as it descends the fallopian tube.”
Described like this, the act rather loses its appeal, coming in second only to a cricket match in the rankings of tedium. “And do you know what all these things mean?”
“Of course, I read the anatomy book in the library. My mother still sees me as a seven-year-old girl, she’d just recite the story about the birds and the bees. She doesn’t realize I’ve grown up.”
“And don’t you think that telling her that you’ve got your ... er ... menstruation ... would be a way to make her understand that you’re growing up?”
“No way! She’d just get paranoid and keep me miles away from any male animal or plant being. I’m not allowed to go out with boys until I’m eighteen.”
“Might you be exaggerating just a little?”
“Look, Michael, what’s the appropriate age to have sex?” she asks me point-blank.
Am I the only one who hears the fallout sirens? What do I say now? Linda looks at me with the same serenity with which she might have asked me the difference between a hedge fund and an investment fund.
“I don’t know if there is a right age,” I venture. “I can speak for myself: My first time was when I was nineteen. Even though I was considered ‘late’ compared to my peers.”
“Why did you wait so long?”
“I was in love with a girl who didn’t love me back, and I needed time to forget her,” I admit. “It took me years.”
“But if she had loved you back, you would have had sex with her much sooner, right?”
What torture. “I don’t know, but I certainly would have enjoyed it much more than I did with the girl with whom I actually lost my virginity.”
“You didn’t like her?”
“She was nice, but we didn’t have any chemistry. And without chemistry, the first time is a mess. It’s like speaking two different languages: slobbering, toothy kisses; bras that don’t come off and the embarrassment of not being able to ask for help; nails that scratch in places that should never be scratched; tension when putting on the condom that slips all over the place, falls, unrolls; you take another one, then that one breaks; and then you panic because you only have one left. Your hands shake; you’re both kind of embarrassed ... Looking back on it now, it’s almost comical, but in the moment it was terrifying.”
