My parents were swingers. They were very sex positive, but they didn’t ever give us specific information about their own sex lives. What they did, or with whom. They were gone from our home a lot. Having jobs during the daytime and sometimes going to parties afterward. I don’t want to make it sound like they were neglectful, because they weren’t. When they were around we had their undivided attention. Which was the polar opposite of the situation with Jane, whose parents were wealthy alcoholics.

Her parents were always happy. Because they owned land that other people worked, and were always drunk. They made promises that they had every intention of keeping, but rarely did. They were generally at home. Well, at home physically, but not mentally. We usually played at my house, because Jane’s annoying housekeeper made us feel guilty about making a mess. Neither house was empty because we both had older siblings. They were often tasked to watch us. But being older siblings, they usually had better things to do than watch younger siblings.

We had been running around and playing outside in the grass and dirt. Then we came inside to play hide-and-seek with my brother. We were hiding from him, together in the same closet, which may not have been the best move.

(Liz is assuming that he was actually looking for us. – Jane)

“How did you get so dirty?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Jane said, brushing off her legs.

“Where are your panties?”

“I didn’t wear any today.”

Jane’s housekeeper did the laundry as part of her assigned duties. But was passive aggressive and only did Jane’s when she first separated everything and put her dirty socks in the dirty sock basket, and dirty dresses in the dirty dress basket, etcetera. Since Jane was rarely home when the housekeeper was there to delineate the basket order of the day, none of her laundry ever got done. Jane was sort of Oscar Madison to my Felix Unger...

“You don’t want to get dirt up inside yourself,” I said.

“Why, who cares?”

“Bacteria and spores grow in dirt. If they get inside you, they can cause an infection,” I continued.

“Okay...”

“No, not okay ... If you get an infection in your lady parts, you will have to go to the doctor and he will have to remove...”

Having a conversation while hiding is a good way to be found. We were, which ended our conversation. My brother “caught” both of us, but said he tagged me first. So he and Jane ran off to hide as I counted “Mississippis.” The game continued, probably until dinner.

Mom and dad came home and we had dinner. It had been over a year since mom stopped asking and just assumed that Jane would be staying. They never minded. Then after we ate, my brother and parents went to the den to work on a science project or something of his for school while Jane and I cleaned up.

“How would a doctor remove my lady parts?” Jane asked.

“What?”

“You said that if I got an infection the doctor would remove my lady parts.”

“I did not,” I protested.

“Did so.”

“When?”

“When we were in the closet. You looked at the dirt on my legs–”

“Dumbass.”

“What?” Jane said, confused.

“You dumbass, I didn’t say the doctor would remove your lady parts. I said he’d have to remove the dirt from inside your lady parts.”

“That’s different.”

“Oh really?” I said, “You think?”

Even back then I was fluent in sarcasm.

“With this,” I said.

I was holding up a small paring knife that I had been removing from the dishwasher to put away.

“That would hurt,” Jane said seriously.

“Oh yeah, a whole lot.”

“Then he’d take this,” I said. Holding a turkey baster from the drawer I put the knife in.

“Why?”

“To suck up all the blood.”

I put the turkey baster back.

“Then,” I said. “He’ll take a big bowl, and a spoon like this.”

I was holding up a grapefruit spoon with it’s sharp little teeth.

“He’ll scoop your lady parts out and microwave them.”

“Microwave?” Jane said.

“To twenty-thousand degrees to kill all the bacteria and spores.”

“Twenty-thousand, that’s hotter than the sun,” Jane said

“No it isn’t, the sun is like a billion degrees...”

Of course we were goofing around, and not very good at science. After looking through the kitchen and trying to decide which cooking utensils a medical doctor would use to remove Jane’s lady bits. Just exactly how he would do it, and how much it would hurt her as he did, we joined the others in the den.