Chapter 9: Nancy Lee and Julie

Wednesday, May 19, 1971

My breakfast arrived a few minutes later, delivered by another first-time Nurse’s Assistant named Nancy Lee Pirkle. She came in the door talking, and never stopped. She said she was sixteen, and graduating ninth grade. She was a year older than most of the other kids because she missed most of fourth grade due to mono and had to repeat it. Her mom and dad, Rita & Cale Pirkle, ran Pirkle’s IGA in town. She had two older brothers, seventeen and twenty-one, and an older sister, who was nineteen.

“I see your folks finally figured it out after you,” I quipped.

She just nodded as she continued to talk. I don’t think she got it. What Nancy Lee wanted was to get through school so she could get married and have babies. And she certainly looked like she was built for having babies.

“I can’t wait! I want to have lots of babies,” she told me excitedly.

“Have you already picked out the dress?” I asked.

“Huh?” she replied, a confused look on her face.

“What I mean is, do you have a boyfriend or a special guy to help you have all those babies?” I asked.

“Oh!” she squeaked as she blushed. “Well, there’s this guy, Jimmy Templeton. He, like, uh, kissed me. Behind the stadium last year.”

I raised both eyebrows as I looked at her, trying hard not to laugh.

“He hasn’t spoken to me in, like ages,” she continued. “But I still think he’s kinda cute.”

Everything else was typical teenage angst and drama. Nancy Lee seemed to be a fairly well-adjusted teenager with a loving family. She was, however, a little on the immature side. Maybe it has something to do with being the baby of the family.

It wasn’t that I avoided touching/reading her, but I didn’t see the need nor did I have the desire. Any contact was minimal, and I noticed I could control that by thinking about it. She continued to talk the whole time she was feeding me.

When she finished feeding me, she pushed the tray out of the way, popped up on her knees on the bed, and excitedly asked, “Do I get to kiss you now?”

“Whoa! I should have seen this coming!” I thought. I had already realized that Nancy Lee Pirkle was practically simmering with repressed teen hormones. But I had been listening to her and focusing on avoiding any real contact with her.

“Nancy Lee, I like to show my appreciation for someone taking their time to come feed a guy who can’t feed himself. That is, if they don’t mind. May I kiss you?” I asked her.

When I said that, she didn’t reply, she just lunged, landing on top of me. I was sitting up to eat, and she had somehow managed to trap my arms under her leg, so there was no way for me to stop her from mashing her lips to mine. Her initial contact was so hard, I wondered if it had drawn blood.

“Ow-w-w!” I yelped, as I twisted my head away.

“Oh no! Oh ... Oh Michael! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Please. I’m sorry,” she cried. There were big crocodile tears on her cheeks.

“Hey-y-y. No big deal,” I told her as I pulled my arms out from under her, and reached for a napkin to wipe my lips.

She was holding her head in her hands, not looking at me as she cried.

“Come here!” I told her as I held out my arms to her. The moment she touched me, I was flooded by her emotions. I didn’t have to be empathic to read Nancy Lee’s desire. But what I read wasn’t raging hormones, lust, and love; what I felt was a massive amount of insecurity. Afraid of not finding Mr. Right or getting to have all those babies. I was concerned. Nancy Lee was attractive, insecure, and ready.

In my last life, I had been a father myself. So when I felt her insecurities, the warning bells began to clang inside my head.

“This is scary. She is primed and ready. The first swinging dick that comes along and pays her any attention will have her on her back in no time. I really needed to talk to Catherine about this,” I decided.

Meanwhile, Nancy Lee wanted her kiss. However, I decided she needed to learn something about how boys should treat her, as well.

“Nancy Lee?” I said.

She looked up, her eyes damp.

“Nancy Lee, I just turned sixteen they tell me, so I guess we’re about the same age. And I don’t know many people, but I sure enjoyed talking with you. I was wondering if maybe, after I get out of here, you and me could maybe go out to the movies or something?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath, followed by an, “Ohmygod!”

“If it’s all right with your folks,” I quickly added,

There was a little squeal as she hugged my neck.

“Ohmygod! I’ll have to ask my mom! Ohmygod! They haven’t let me date yet. Maybe ... I’ll have to ask. Ohmygod!” she said/thought. It wasn’t clear to me which was which. Her words, thoughts, and emotions seemed to merge together as her excitement rose.

“I’ll have to ask my mom!” she squealed as she jumped from the bed and ran for the door. Remembering the now empty breakfast tray, she ran back, grabbed the tray, and started to run out again, when I said her name.

“Nancy Lee?”

She stopped again and turned to face me. Her face a question.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked, smiling.

Now she was puzzled. She had the tray...

“Your thank you kiss,” I reminded her.

Her eyes lit up as she rushed back to the side of the bed, leaning cautiously this time, towards me. She was still holding the tray between us.

I took the tray from her hands with my fingertips, setting it back on the rolling table. Then taking her hands in mine I pulled her close and kissed her lips briefly, then trailed small kisses all the way back to her ear, where I whispered, “Thank you for feeding me, Nancy Lee.”

She sighed, then giggled as she ran from the room.

“I gotta go call my mom. Like now!” she cried.

She left the tray.

Catherine walked in a few minutes later.

“Good morning, Catherine,” I told her, feeling chipper.

Catherine walked over to the bed, leaned down, and kissed me on the cheek.

“Good morning. You seem in a happy mood this morning. I see you have you eaten,” Catherine said.

“Yeah,” I replied, stopping short as I remembered Nancy Lee.

“Well? How did it go?” she asked, waiting.

“Interesting!” I replied, but volunteering nothing else.

“Come on, Michael! Don’t make me drag it out of you. What happened?” she warned.

“I have got to get her to tell me how she is able to do this,” I thought as I sent her my memories of what had transpired with Nancy Lee.

“You’re right. Interesting is the correct description!” she told me, her brow furrowed in consideration. “Am I to take it that you asked out a young girl who is primed and ready to explore her sexual side with the first, and I quote, ‘swinging dick’ that comes along ... just to protect her?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

“Well, then you’re going to have to explain the logic of that one to me. And if you tell me you are doing it just to get some teenaged nookie, I will be very disappointed in you, Michael,” she said with a frown.

I sighed theatrically.

“May I ask you something personal?” I asked her. “And remember, I am older than you.”

Catherine hesitated and nodded.

“I’ll give her credit; she didn’t ask ‘what’ before I asked her,” I thought. Answering a question with a question was a personal pet peeve of mine.

“While you were engaged, did you and grandfather fool around any?” I asked as I watched her closely. On a hunch, I tried to read her while I waited for her to respond, even though she was now sitting in the big chair at the foot of the bed.

She blushed! And she was beautiful as she did. I was captivated by her erotic memories of her and a young man, I assumed was my grandfather. I think I blushed too.

“Wait! You don’t have to answer that!” I said quickly, before she could answer the question.

“You saw? Even from over there?” she asked tentatively.

I just nodded.

“I’m impressed, Michael. In case you haven’t noticed, I have been very careful to keep my distance from you. It’s a habit I learned from being married to your grandfather. I had to, or I would have gone crazy with him reading me all the time. We both learned that a certain amount of privacy was important for my sanity,” she explained.

“I will keep that in mind and try to extend the same courtesy to you,” I offered. “I say try, because at his point, I don’t always feel in control.”

“Thank you,” Catherine told me. “However, I will tell you that it has been a long time since I have been able to talk this freely with anyone. After all, if someone can read your thoughts and feelings, there’s no point in hiding anything, is there? And, after all those years with your grandfather, it is refreshing to be able to do so again.”

I smiled. I could tell she wasn’t finished.

“Just remember, it can go both ways. If the person is well trained. And I was,” she said as she paused again, this time with a mischievous grin on her face. “I’ll bring you some condoms for your next shower!”

Zing!

“I’ll be damned! Well, she got me there,” I thought.

“Touché,” I finally told her. “And thank you for the reminder about the condoms.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, still grinning. “Now, tell me how my adventures with my fiancée and your plans for Nancy Lee are related.”

“Catherine, I was just reminding you that WE were young once...”

I watched her raise her eyebrows at the word ‘we’, but went on.

“ ... and that we were created to respond to certain stimuli. What you did and what Nancy Lee wants to do, is biologically normal. It’s intended by our creator. What’s irrational is what our minds tell us about it. And our minds tell us whatever we were programmed with, usually by our parents and society. Hence, the problem.”

“Go on,” she told me as if giving me enough rope to hang myself.

“Somewhere along the way, probably intended as protection, we were told that what is normal is wrong. Never mind how it was rationalized, we were told it was wrong. However, saying it was wrong doesn’t change millions of years of biological evolution, nor does it change what was created by God,” I explained.

“Now I’m not saying every young person physically capable of reproduction should go out and have a baby, but to deny the fact that she can, is absolutely ridiculous. Instead, that capability should be acknowledged, and then they should be allowed to ask questions freely, without fear. We, as adults, have created this environment for them. And it is this absence of a safe environment to explore our sexuality that is creating so many problems.”

“Oh, really? Go on, you have my attention,” Catherine said without animosity

“Instead of being able to ask mom or dad... ‘Hey folks, what’s the big deal about making love?’ or ‘Why do I feel the need to rub my dick?’ or ‘What’s the white stuff that comes out?’ we have created an environment that screams ‘don’t let us catch you doing ... whatever.’ Or how wrong it is to ask the questions that we need answers to, to understand, and better control ourselves.

“And you know what? Teenagers are not dumb. They want answers and will find those answers somewhere. In the backseat of some jerk’s car, under the bleachers after school, in their own bedroom, before their parents get home from work. They can’t help it. They’re genetically programmed to look for those answers. So if we, as parents, or grandparents, or family, or teachers, don’t provide the answers, how can we complain when they go somewhere else for them? Or the results of that possibly ill-fated quest with someone even less informed than themselves? Or worse, with someone looking to take advantage of that ignorance?”

Catherine stared at me, but didn’t say anything. I could tell she was carefully considering everything I had said.

“Do I wanna fuck Nancy Lee?” I continued. “Not really. She’s not my type.”

Catherine looked at me strangely, nodding her head for me to continue.

“Am I willing to help Nancy Lee?” I asked rhetorically. “Yes, I am. And I’ll do it by talking with her and demonstrating to her, how men and women should treat each other. With kindness and respect. To teach her that she is the one in control of her body. And that NO means NO. And if someone disagrees with that, to run away.

“But to teach control, you have to give up control,” I reminded Catherine. “You have to allow the student to experiment with what they are learning. You also have to provide a safe environment to do that in. And most important of all, to do it WITHOUT condemnation or recrimination.”

“How do you mean?” Catherine asked me.

“Okay, let’s take Nancy Lee as an example. She’s sixteen and already physically able to have babies. What she lacks, is the emotional maturity that comes with understanding and experience in dealing with her own sexuality. The way it is now, one day soon, regardless of her upbringing, the occasion will arise that her biological itches will coincide with the opportunity to have those itches scratched, usually by someone that doesn’t give a damn about her, or the results. And so, they’ll try to cram what should have taken much longer to learn, all into one lesson in the back seat of his old man’s car.

“On the other hand, if someone that both understands what she needs and cares for her, will answer her questions honestly, is willing to help her experiment to find her limits, and not condemn her if her limits are different than mine or yours, thereby helping her discover her sexuality, then yes, given the right circumstances, I could make love to Nancy Lee.”

Catherine’s left eyebrow arched, just like Mr. Spock’s.

“But now the issue changes to trusting the teacher. If her parents have fucked up and created this exact scenario, and they refuse to acknowledge that they have created the situation. AND if they don’t or are unwilling to change radically in order to help her ... well, let me ask you, who IS going to end up being her teacher?”

Catherine didn’t answer, as she considered my question. So I went on.

“And if you were responsible for choosing someone for Nancy Lee? Who would it be?”

I just stood there. I didn’t recall getting out of bed. But there I was, standing next to the bed, breathing a little harder than usual. It reminded me of a preacher after delivering a sermon that he strongly believed. I leaned forward and touched her hand that was lying on the arm of the chair.

“So, she chose me!” I thought with some satisfaction. “However, I would rather not be in the position of having to be ‘the choice’. Why don’t her parents do their job?” I thought, just a little pissed.

Then the rest of her thought hit me. For not only had she chosen me for Nancy Lee. But also for Nicky and Jennifer, and maybe any of the other cousins that might want to explore their own sexuality. The thought staggered me and I slumped back onto the bed, lying across it with my feet still on the floor.