Chapter 3

Reluctant to open the door Laura stood on the porch. She could see lights through the blackout blinds. Startled when the door opened, she heard her aunt say, “The door’s always unlocked Honey, this is a nice neighborhood. Did you have an enjoyable time tonight?” It was 12:32. Her aunt had been standing at the door expecting her at this exact moment. If you only knew what I was doing she thought.

Ushering her inside the door Beth could see the conflict written on her niece’s face. “You just need a little time sweetie,” she said. She could see that Laura was in a hurry to get to her room but sitting down on the couch she patted the seat beside her.

“Come sit beside your auntie for a bit Laura and tell her about your first evening at the USO.” At her niece’s reticent actions, she said, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a young woman with all those MEN.” She winked.

When Laura drew back, she said, “Come on sweetie we didn’t have a USO during the First War.” Her eyes were playful. “I’m not as old or as you might think I Laura... nor as judgmental.”

Responding to her aunt’s determination she walked to the couch and sat beside her. Having been in Chicago for just a couple of weeks she already felt more comfortable there than in her own home. Josh and Beth were lively people who enjoyed themselves. They liked to be with others and seemed to understand how to make people comfortable.

They had already had one party in the two weeks she was there. There was no pretense, everybody just gathered around the piano and sang songs. Laura’s parent’s home was stern and joyless, but Josh and Beth were comfortable. It rocked.

At that party, one couple, the youngest there, left the room and went into one of the bedrooms. Laura thought they might have had a stealth marital spat and had gone to the room to work it out. In about a half-hour, they came back into the room. There was a smug, self-satisfied smirk on the man’s face while the wife, now with rosy cheeks, smiled brightly with sparkling eyes. At first, she didn’t put together that the man and his wife had sex in the bedroom. But she noticed knowing and approving looks being given them by the other couples had given when they returned.

“Skootch a little closer darling,” Aunt Beth said pulling Laura until she was snuggled beside her. “You and I need to have a little woman-to-woman talk.”

No longer able to hold her smile Laura sniffled. As Beth pulled her even tighter the deluge began and lasted for quite a while. When she regained her composure her aunt said, “I have a story to tell you kiddo.”

“When I was your age Laura, if anybody had told me that Elizabeth Chadwick would fall in love with Joshua Cross and marry him, I would have told them they were insane. I grew up in New York City in a liberal, ‘let it all hang out family whose only limitations were to do no harm to ourselves or hurt others. We were encouraged to be open-minded and curious ... to not look down on others or judge them by our standards.” She chuckled.

“By Joshua’s standards, I suppose he must have thought that I grew up in Babylon. He was from a strict, Midwestern fundamentalist, Christian family. Had Josh stayed in Iowa and married an Iowa girl I wouldn’t have been surprised if he would have turned out to be just like your father is today.” She laughed again. “He was a real sodbuster.”

With a wry grin, she continued, “I hope I don’t shock you by telling you that my family was nudists.” Looking with amusement at her niece’s awestruck eyes she said, “There were no such places as nudist colonies when I was growing up. That happened in the 1930s. But we often went around the house in our “all-together”—all of us. My upbringing couldn’t have been further than your Uncle Joshua’s.” She giggled. “Your uncle wasn’t comfortable taking his shirt off to work in the sun much less going swimming for crying out loud,” she said with a chuckle.

“Life has a way of clearing up mysteries when everybody lets it all hang out Laura,” She rolled her eyes. “I sense that before you met Billy you never saw a boy’s penis unless you were babysitting.”

Laura’s face reddened at her aunt’s unexpected and shocking words. She felt like running from the room. But there was still an amazing sense of comfort in being with this beloved woman who was speaking with such easy candor. Her words about nudism, though jarring still made the one-way conversation more intimate than what Laurie was accustomed to.

“I’m sorry sweetie,” Beth said, “Josh and I have been holding back since you came to live with us. I vowed to him that I would hold my tongue for a while before speaking plainly to you.”

She paused to assess her niece’s level of acceptance. “Perhaps you had to experience what you did tonight to be ready for Elizabeth Chadwick Cross’s philosophy of life ... I’m just not used to holding my tongue with people who have been brought up with as many restrictions as you have Laura.”

Wrinkling her brow and smiling she went on, “Frankly we were both surprised when Jericho decided to send you here. But God bless him for realizing how stifled you were in Cedar Grove. Deep down your dad has always been envious of your uncle. As twins, they were very much alike, but we are so much freer here. I think Jericho would love a little bit more freedom for himself.” She laughed. “Even though he knows how sinful we are. Anyway, when one spends most of one’s life walking around the house naked in mixed company one tends to have a more liberal view of things, particularly things of a sexual nature.”

She laughed again as if she were a little uncomfortable about what she would say next. “We know what you might have been doing tonight, Laura. Josh is very conversant with Mary Molnar. He knows that your friends go to the USO most Friday and Saturday nights together. And he knows what they do.”

Taking in Laura’s perplexed expression she continued, “As a matter of fact we’re both working with Mary and some of her friends on a solution to provide a place that could allow you to do what you do there with the boys in a more comfortable environment. As you might have found out a doorway in an alley isn’t exactly an ideal place to enjoy sex.”

When Beth said that she and Uncle Josh knew what she was doing at the USO Laura’s heart fell. But when she felt Beth’s arms hug her more tightly a warm feeling began to replace her sense of panic. She always loved being with Uncle Josh ... even had some sexual fantasies about him. In a way, she had been jealous of Aunt Beth. But she always enjoyed being with her. With what had gone on at her first visit to the USO and knowing Beth had been aware of what might have happened she was embarrassed. At the same time, she was both relieved and confirmed by this wonderful, open-minded woman. “But we can talk about that later sweetie when you’re more comfortable with it.”

Going on with the story:

“I fully understand what you went through with Billy Laura. When I heard that Josh had signed up, I remembered how fearful I was that something would happen to him over there. But because he decided to complete the semester, I had more time with your uncle Josh than you did with Billy Ingraham.”

“We talked about getting married, but Josh refused to complicate my life if he didn’t make it back.” She cleared her throat. “We decided that we were going to have sex and live like a married couple.”

She scanned Laura’s face. “I expect that you and Billy considered the same thing.” With an appraising smile, she went on, “Since you were raised with so many more restrictions than I was Laura I expect that you probably felt adamant about maintaining your virginity.”

Having cried herself out Laura listened to Beth comparing their situations. She was beginning to realize that though her aunt was her senior by twenty-two years she began looking at her as a wise friend whom she was beginning to trust. Confessing to having sex with Uncle Josh before they were married broadened Laura’s understanding of her own decision not to have sex with Billy.

At the time she rationalized that she was being virtuous, something Billy reluctantly supported. When she learned of his death she felt like a mean witch, punishing the man she loved in a completely forbidding way. She also understood that while she was stroking Brian Hotchkiss’s penis to orgasm, she hoped that Billy might have had some real kind of sex before he died with a prostitute but, more hopefully, with a girl or woman that would care about him as a person.

It was dawning on her how even in its simplicity sex was a complicated thing. It could both “build up” and “tear down.” She was beginning to understand that sex in and of itself wasn’t bad if you understood and respected it. She marveled that an intact hymen could be a false security blanket while a broken one could either be the gateway to freedom, the pathway to promiscuity, or something of both.

“There was no USO at the time Laura. And it was difficult for unmarried people to cohabitate. Women had not even won the vote yet! But girls like me were fiercely independent and wildly curious. When I went to the pier to see your Uncle Josh off it wasn’t going to be just a goodbye kiss. I genuinely wanted to give him something to remember me by. So, we found a niche at the wharf, and I let him take me. To avoid fumbling I didn’t even wear underthings.”

The smile Beth gave Laura was like sunshine. “Our coupling was desperately glorious. And as I walked him to the ramp, I saw others with looks of enjoyment from their own sexual experiences.” She chuckled. “Some even had unbuttoned flies, and some had semen stains on their pants.

As we walked, I told Josh ‘Don’t bring any diseases back home my love but take care of your own needs.’ He said to me, ‘I don’t want you to give your heart to others Beth but there are thousands of young boys who will be going over there to die.’ Laughing a fatalistic chortle he said, ‘Tell those more adventuresome friends of yours that most of these boys are virgins and shouldn’t meet their maker in that condition.’”

Awed Laura said, “He was giving you PERMISSION?” It made her feel like she needed to do penance in the hope of absolution.

Beth said, “We’ve always been open-minded and forward-thinking sweetie but yes he was giving me permission.” Hugging her niece tightly she continued, “What you did tonight at the USO I, along with a number of my friends who called ourselves Dear Girls for Doughboys, did the same thing at the departure wharves of the New York docks in 1917 and 18.”

In the presence of such open-mindedness, Laura felt confirmed by what she had done in the alley. At the same time, she felt inadequate for not going further. “But I’m still a virgin Aunt Beth.”

With a wise shrug, her aunt said, “God bless you, sweetie. You must be incredibly careful. I’m sure you know about the birds and the bees?”

“Oh, Aunt Elizabeth I feel so stupid. I know how babies are made, but I haven’t a clue how to prevent it. And I’m frightened. I should have learned about it with Billy but ... Now I’ll have to learn with ... with a STRANGER.”

The older woman’s knowing chuckle was both mystifying and encouraging. “Oh, my dear niece,” she said with a shake of her head, “there’s an answer for every dilemma. Like I said, Your Uncle Josh and I have always been open-minded and forward-thinking. He’ll be able to help you with a better understanding of sex.” Smiling and wrinkling her brow, “If you’ll only be open to it of course.”

Laura said, “Uncle JOSH?” She couldn’t believe what her aunt might be suggesting. Fantasies about her uncle that she’d imagined since puberty fast-forwarded through her mind and made her realize the sensation of wetness wicking into panties. Can she be saying what she is?

Giving Laura’s hand a squeeze she went on, “But first we must make an appointment with the doctor to get you fitted with a diaphragm, so you won’t get pregnant.”

She might have dozed off a couple of times during the night but so much was going on in her mind it felt like she hadn’t slept at all. Her aunt was her mother’s age yet for the first time in her life a mature woman was talking with Laura as though she were an adult. At home, there was never a “birds and bees” talk, just admonitions about being a “good girl” and the “wages of sin.” With Billy sex felt like a beautiful thing. But why did she feel guilty when Billy caressed her breasts and fingered her vagina?

Though she’d been raised on Christian fundamentalism she had heard talk of wayward preachers who had come “short of the glory of God” by fornicating with women in their churches. She had to look up the word “fornicating” in the dictionary. She heard Mary Jane Rusnak was a “loose” girl who was a classmate. The boys who claimed to have “known” her referred to her as a slut. She obviously must have been fornicating. The girls in school all had the same opinion of her. And were some of them fornicating?

Then she thought is it a worse sin for girls to fornicate than boys? Girls can get pregnant by fornicating without protection of course so their fornicating must carry consequences that males don’t have to deal with, unless at the end of a shotgun. When a girl fornicates without protection, she is playing Russian roulette? A boy can control it by deciding to put a rubber thingy over his penis, but a girl doesn’t have the same option. If there were rubbers for girls, we could fornicate without fear of becoming pregnant. She was assessing what chancy a thing sex was.

Suddenly a light bulb went off in her mind; DIAPHRAGM—her aunt had said “the first thing they had to do was to get her to the doctor and have her fitted with a diaphragm.” She’d never heard the term before, wasn’t sure what Aunt Beth was talking about, and was too embarrassed to ask. But Beth was talking about it.

Laura had been a typical girl who snooped in her parent’s drawers. She had seen condoms in her father’s drawer. Billy called them “rubbers.” But in opening the drawer numerous times over three years they seemed to be the same three. She had played with the foil packages enough and had made creases in them. They had never been used. Nothing on the label said anything about “fitting.”

“Fitted,” she thought. In a failed attempt to penetrate her, Billy had rolled a rubber thing over his hard penis while trying to convince her to go all the way with him. How would a doctor “fit” me for a diaphragm if that is what it’s for? The rubber rolls over a penis. What would the doctor fit the diaphragm over?

She decided to stay mum with her aunt, just letting whatever happened there explain itself when she went to the doctor’s office.