Chapter 22: I May Have Miscalculated!

February 22, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Jesse

“You could have a VERY happy fifteenth birthday if you wanted,” Libby teased as we walked to class after lunch.

“You’re already coming over after school and staying for dinner!”

“I could bring some friends!” she giggled. “You could be wildly fucked by four teenage girls!”

“I think you’ve mistaken me for my dad! He’s had birthdays like that.”

“You’re seriously not interested?”

“Oh, I’m interested,” I smirked. “I just think it’s a bad idea. I’m very happy with what you and I have.”

“You’re very strange, Jesse Block!”

“If that’s news, I’m not sure how you missed it for the past year!”

“It’s not news! Should I send the girls to your dad on his birthday?”

I laughed and shook my head, “My dad needs NO help getting girls!”

“He’s really had birthdays like that?”

“Back in college Aunt Elyse and his girlfriend Stephie arranged for him to have five girls in one night. And while it wasn’t his birthday, he went to Saint Martin with seven girls!”

“Whoa! If he can do THAT, no wonder Mia is so happy! I suppose I’ll just have to take care of you by myself!”

“You do a VERY good job,” I said, a stirring below my belt reminding me of what I could have after school.

“Can I ask you a serious question?”

“Sure.”

“Did your dad tell you that stuff? Or your moms? Or?”

“A mix. You know I’m allowed to ask questions, and Dad is pretty open about stuff that happened in the past. He won’t tell me names, obviously, but I know some of the crazier things he’s done. But like I’ve said, that’s not me.”

“So, and I am NOT objecting, you’re happy with just fucking me until one of us decides we want to date exclusively?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? You are LOTS of fun, you do anything I want, and let me put it anywhere I want!”

Libby laughed, “Because I like fooling around with you!”

“And Juliette!”

“Duh! But she doesn’t like guys at all, and I think I need something like your dad’s arrangement - a guy and a girl who all want to fool around together. But if I found a girl like that, I don’t think you’d be interested, would you?”

“Maybe for fooling around, but no, I want to marry one person and have a family together, like my moms or my Uncle Kurt and Aunt Kathy. I just think that’s how it should be.”

“Why?”

“We’ll have to talk later,” I said as we went into the classroom.

During our Algebra lesson, I was thinking about what Libby had asked, but also wondered which three girls she would invite to fool around with us. I wasn’t going to do it, but I was curious as to which girls she had in mind. I had to concentrate hard to keep those ideas out of my mind and pay attention to the lesson on solving simultaneous equations. I got through the class, and the two that followed it, and when school let out, Rachel, Mia, Libby, and I walked home, as there was no hockey practice, despite our upcoming championship game on Saturday morning.

“How are things with your mom, Rachel?” Libby asked.

“No change,” Rachel groused. “I swear, she should just have Jesse’s dad fuck her sixteen ways from Sunday and get over herself!”

“You know it’s not that easy,” I counseled. “Nobody thinks your mom can actually handle that. It might make things worse.”

“How so?” Mia asked.

“If her mom totally loses her mind, she could call the cops,” I said. “Rachel was only fifteen.”

“Stupid fucking laws!” Rachel growled.

“Yes, the laws about fucking ARE stupid,” I chuckled.

“I don’t understand how I can go to the clinic and get birth control pills or have an abortion if I needed one, but it’s illegal for me to have sex!”

“Technically, it’s not illegal for you to have sex,” I said. “It’s illegal for anyone to have sex with you.”

“But that works out the same way! I mean, you and I would both be guilty, right?”

“According to Patricia and Aunt Melanie, it depends on how the particular law reads, but they say that mostly they don’t bother kids who are close in age, so long as both of them are under 18. But if you’re sixteen and your boyfriend is eighteen, he could go to prison.”

“That is SO dumb! When all of us can vote, we have to vote for people who agree with us!”

“Unfortunately, there are too many parents with daughters who want to keep the law the way it is,” I said. “Not to mention the people who would be happy to outlaw all sex outside marriage, which, is actually the case in Illinois.”

“What?!” Mia gasped.

“There are laws on the books which make ‘open and notorious’ fornication or adultery misdemeanors. You’re a criminal, Mia!”

“Oh, come on!” she protested.

“Ask my dad,” I replied. “He’ll tell you. A mean, evil woman tried to get him arrested for fornication and adultery, but they dropped the investigation. That was when DCFS wanted to take all of us away from my dad because he has two wives and girlfriends.”

“What?!” Libby gasped. “When?”

“I was four, so it had to be the Summer of 1990. This dumb woman from DCFS tried to get me to say I was being abused but there was no way I was going to lie! She tried to trick me, too, but I was smarter than she was even though I was only four!”

The girls all laughed and we’d reached Rachel’s house.

“Happy birthday, Jesse!” Rachel said.

“Thanks.”

She hugged me and surprised me with a quick peck on the lips, then went inside. Libby, Mia, and I continued towards my house.

“What was THAT about?” Mia asked.

“She’s a friend,” I replied. “That hug and kiss were like being in the sauna together naked. It’s something friends can do without it meaning anything. Hasn’t fucking my dad taught you ANYTHING?”

“What?”

“Not all nudity is about sex,” I replied. “Not all kissing is about sex. Heck, not even all sex is about sex!”

Libby laughed and shook her head, “Only you could say that!”

“What ARE you talking about?” Mia asked.

“Sometimes you have sex just to have sex because it feels good. Sometimes you have sex to make babies. Sometimes you have sex because you want to show someone how much you love them. Sometimes you have sex to be close to someone. And there might be other reasons, too. I would have thought you learned that from my dad! I hope you weren’t foolish enough to fall in love with him or think he’s in love with you!”

“Uhm, no.”

“And do you think Libby and I are in love with each other?”

“I don’t know.”

“We aren’t!” Libby declared. “The first time was because I wanted to lose my virginity, but after that, it’s because it’s a way to be really close to my best friend.”

“Which is why my dad has sex with girls like Suzanne or Maria Cristina. Sure, he loves them, but he’s not IN LOVE with them.”

“Do you think he loves me?” Mia asked.

I laughed and shook my head, “That’s not for me to answer, but you should already know the answer to that question. If you don’t, then you have to admit you’re fucking him just to fuck. Maybe you are, but you should know why!”

“How the heck did you learn all this?” Mia protested. “You’re only fifteen!”

“Because despite your assertions to the contrary, I’m wise beyond my years!” I said smugly.

“Oh shut up!”

Libby laughed, “He’s an insufferable prick at times, just like his dad!”

“You’ve been talking to Mom Two!” I replied.

“Duh!” Libby giggled. “She’s bisexual! Who else do you think I would talk to for advice?”

“I can’t believe how openly your family talks about stuff like this,” Mia said.

“Don’t worry,” I chuckled. “Dad doesn’t publish his score sheet!”

“Score sheet?” Mia asked apprehensively.

“He’s teasing you!” Libby said through her laughter.

We arrived at the Compound as everyone was starting to call it and Mia went to the main house while Libby and I went into the coach house. We dropped our books in the kitchen and went up to my room for a fun birthday celebration before the one with my family we’d have later.

🎤 Steve

“Can we talk?” Mia asked. “I mean before?”

“Sure,” I replied. “‘Indian’ room?”

“Yes.”

I got up from my desk in my study and we went to the ‘Indian’ room and when Mia sat in a basket chair I sat in one next to her.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I had a weird conversation with Jesse on the way home from school.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down,” I chuckled. “Many of my conversations with Jesse are weird!”

“He said something really strange - that not even all sex is about sex.”

“An interesting kōan,” I replied.

“‘Kōan’?” Mia asked.

“In Japan, and other Oriental countries, a kōan is a question, story, or dialogue which is meant to create ‘doubt’ and to practice or test a student’s progress in Zen. It’s related, at least in a way, to Socratic dialogue. The usual silly one that is trotted out is ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’ or some such nonsense. A very wise Buddhist monk gave me a much better one - ‘Make your whole body one great inquiry. Day and night work intently at it. Do not attempt nihilistic or dualistic interpretations’.”

“Which means what?”

“It’s very close to what Socrates said, that the unexamined life is not worth living. The same monk, Yoshiro, told me that the correct focus of my inquiry should be developing knowledge of myself, knowledge of others, and knowledge of the world around me. Do you know the Bible?”

“Some stories, but that’s all.”

“There’s a statement by Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel which says ‘and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free‘. Yoshiro, a Zen Buddhist monk, told me ‘Know yourself; know others; know the world. Your senses will tell you. Use what you see, feel, taste, touch, and smell to create a true picture of yourself, others, and the world. That true picture will set you free‘. Socrates said, effectively, the same thing. And they killed him for it.”

“What?!”

“Education has really gone to hell since I graduated from High School. I want you to read the Apology of Socrates and Plato’s Republic. Both are on the bookshelves in my study. I’d send you to the monk if I could, but he’s in a remote prefecture in Japan.”

“I’d be happy to go to Japan!” Mia declared.

“Oh, I’m sure,” I chuckled. “But if I’m paying for a trip to Japan, I’m the one who is going!”

“Bummer!”

“So did I answer your question?”

“Sort of. Jesse seemed to think it wasn’t an unanswerable question.”

“I didn’t say it was,” I replied. “I simply compared it to that silly kōan, which, by the way, has an equally silly answer.”

“How could it? I mean, a one-handed man can’t clap? Well, not as you would normally define it.”

“True. The answer is, at least as I see it, is that it’s the sound of the wind in a deaf man’s ears.”

“Because the deaf man can’t hear any more than a one-handed man could clap!”

“Exactly. But as I said, the point of a kōan is to challenge your ideas and make you really think.”

“I just don’t understand how sex can not be about sex!”

“Then you need to think more about it. I suspect Jesse had more to say, and I’d encourage you to think about what he had to say.”

“He joked about you keeping a scorecard!”

I chuckled, “That would be a supremely bad idea for a host of reasons, the most important of which is I know someone who did that and I found it offensive in the extreme. Think about how YOU would feel if I compared you to other girls.”

“Don’t scores in gymnastics and ice skating compare you to perfect, not to others?”

“And in karate kata competition as well. But even so, that’s a risky road to travel.”

“You wouldn’t tell me a grade or score if I asked?”

“What possible benefit could that be to you or to me?” I asked. “And before you answer, think it through.”

Mia was quiet for a moment before she answered, “There isn’t a real upside for either of us.”

“And why is that?”

“No matter what you said, I’d wonder if you were telling the truth. You could tell a ‘little white lie’ to avoid hurting my feelings.”

I nodded, “‘Do these pants make my butt look fat?’ is the usual example given for when it’s OK to tell a little white lie. We talked about that at a Rap Session years and years ago. My friend Jorge did an awesome job of philosophizing about it. Anything else?”

“If you told the truth, and the grade was low, you could really hurt my feelings, even if what you said was true.”

“Yes.”

“But wouldn’t you want to know?” Mia asked.

“Me? Absolutely. And I would take the grade or score as a baseline and do my best to improve. But you and I are two very different people. Can you think of a reason why it would be different, apart from our personalities?”

“Isn’t that really the only thing?”

“Well, yes, and the fact that you identified that is a good thing. But let’s say that the only way to improve your score was to do things you didn’t like, or which crossed a line you could never cross. How would giving you a score or grade help in that case?”

“You’re talking about blowjobs?”

I shrugged, “It doesn’t matter what the thing was, but it has to do with our limits. That said, there ARE limits to what I would do, and lines I wouldn’t cross, even if I felt I’d underperformed. The thing is, the more narrow your limits, the less opportunity you have to improve, to the point where it might be impossible. In a sense, it’s not unlike karate, albeit that’s about skill, dedication, and spirituality. Sometimes you can’t overcome something, and have to accept your limits because you can’t improve your grade, so to speak.”

“Could you give me an example?”

“There is someone at our dojo who wants to advance past their current rank, but they do not have the temperament, despite having the skills. And while it’s true that temperament can change, some issues are very difficult to overcome AND it’s possible that promotion might actually harm the person as they would then expect the next rank, and so on. It’s why neither our Sensei nor I would ever promote someone past yellow belt without the student demonstrating competency.

“The yellow belt is, in effect, automatic, and shows the student had the dedication to move beyond the first few months of classes. The skills necessary are easily mastered, so there usually isn’t a question. It’s no different from the first developmental hockey team you played for when everyone got to play and they switched the goalie gear to a new kid every period. That lasted one or two years, and then you began playing positions. At that point, skill mattered.”

“OK, I think I get that. Do you like having sex with me?”

“Do you think I’d continue if I didn’t?”

“Well, given you have so many girls available, I guess not.”

“But you could see that happening, right?”

“You mean like a girl putting out for her boyfriend to keep him happy even if she doesn’t like it?”

“That’s one possibility.”

“Me giving you a blowjob to make you happy?”

“That’s another one.”

“Do you ever do that?”

I chuckled, “The answer to that question might cause you a bit of dyspepsia!”

“A bit of what?”

“It’s a fancy word for ‘indigestion’. In other words, it might bother you.”

“Why?”

“Are you ready to take the next step into adulthood and maturity?”

“I want to say yes, but now I’m concerned about what you’re going to ask me to do.”

“Sorry, it’s simply some mental images which might cause you discomfort.”

“Oh. Then, yes.”

“I allow certain special girls to use a strap-on to peg me.”

“A what to what?”

“Wear a harness with a dildo and put it in my butt.”

“What the...” Mia gasped. “Seriously?”

“Yes. It’s not something I particularly like or even want to do, but it makes them happy so I do it. But the lesson here is NOT that you should do things you don’t like. The only point of telling you was to answer affirmatively about whether or not I do things I don’t like.”

“But you told me not to do that!”

“That’s true. You’re you. I’m me. We each define our limits and boundaries. I always advise people to never do anything they’re not comfortable with doing. I elect, with full knowledge and understanding, not to follow my own advice. But that’s me, not you, and you should NOT take me as an example. You might, someday, find yourself in a situation where you decide to do things you prefer not to do, but you have to evaluate the context. And the context is always important. But, remember, you always have the right to say ‘no’ or ‘stop’, no matter when or where you are, or who you’re with. There can never be a time when ‘no’ is not acceptable.”

“Once you’ve started, isn’t it too late?”

“Never. If you decide you don’t want to do what you’re doing, you say ‘I want to stop’ and that should be the end of it. That’s what I’ve taught my kids. It’s something every single kid should be taught from day one. That said, they should also be taught that if it feels good, and nobody is being hurt, and everyone consents, then it’s OK to do it!”

“Jesse.”

I nodded, “Yes. He’s been taught that, as have my other kids.”

“Do you want to go fuck?” Mia asked.

“Do YOU want to?” I asked. “Or is that what you think I want to do.”