Chapter 14

School the next day started just as it usually did, with the kids arriving in twos and threes, while Flossie finished writing the lesson on the board. While they waited for class to start, the kids usually just chatted quietly with each other, about this or that.

On this day, though, almost all the older kids had things on their minds that they didn’t want to chat about ... at least not with everybody there. With the exception of Ruth Ann, all the older girls present in the room had thoughts of a hard penis in their minds. The appearance of that penis was different from girl to girl, but the look on their faces was remarkably similar. And the boys had visions of breasts in their minds, for the most part. Those breasts had to share mental room with the feeling of spurting (or almost spurting, in Jesse’s case). Even though Moses hadn’t been at the swimming hole the night before, his one-time exposure to Johnnie Sue’s breasts had been a powerful thing, and he had stroked his rod every time he got the chance since then.

Flossie could tell they were distracted, and she had a pretty good idea of why. She was less and less sure that this ‘health class’ was a good idea. But, she was stuck with it now. Things had already gone way past the point where all she would likely suffer was a ride on a fence rail, her body covered with hot tar and white feathers. She hadn’t meant for things to get nearly as ... in-depth ... as they had yesterday. She hoped they’d lose interest after a few more days.

When Flossie waved at the last of the little ones, going off to home, she closed the door and turned around to find her older students sitting quietly in their chairs, already attentive. They had pulled them into a circle again, and again, the girls were on one side and the boys on the other.

There was a complicated mix of emotions and motivations going on in the group. The Wilson children were quite aware that, if anyone found out what they’d done together, they’d be in the biggest trouble of their whole lives. That didn’t lessen the desire to do it again. But it was a secret they intended to take to their graves. The emotions it caused in them, however, were in the here and now, and their thirst for more sexual knowledge drove them to seek it. What they were trying to figure out was how to ask questions, without giving themselves away.

It was much the same with Johnnie Sue, Luthor and Jesse. Best friends though they might be, they knew that wouldn’t cut any mustard with adults, and it probably wouldn’t mean anything to the other kids either, if they found out what the three had done. Moses would probably cut them some slack, because he had participated that one time. The others wouldn’t. But they had questions too, based on experience they shouldn’t have, and they were trying to figure out how to ask them.

Flossie launched into the dry description of how a sperm, with its little tail, swam along until it found an egg, and then penetrated the egg, at which point a baby was officially made. Then she described how that egg attached to the wall of the uterus and began to grow into the baby that eventually came out. The literature she had read gave special emphasis on describing how long and painful the process of birth was, since this was believed to encourage girls to wait as long as possible to actually risk pregnancy.

She was about to switch to venereal diseases, when she noticed Moses’ head drop and then rise again. He was nodding off. She looked around. Most of the boys were gazing here or there. Only Johnnie Sue was looking directly at her. Ruth Ann seemed to be dozing too.

“Of course this is all just boring, right, children?” she extemporized.

She got two “Uh huh”s and a “Yes, ma’am” before the kids realized what they’d said. She sighed.

“Do you have questions left over from yesterday?” she asked. They perked up almost as a group.

You could have heard a pin drop.

“Well, if there aren’t any more questions, I suppose our health class is over.” said Flossie.

There was a chorus of wails and cries of “Noooo”.

“Well,” said Flossie impatiently. “If you are not going to ask any questions, and are just going to fall asleep if I give you the lecture ... what in the world am I supposed to do?”

Jesse’s hand shot up.

“Yes Jesse?”

“Well ... um ... I was just wonderin’,” he started, looking bashfully around. “I got this dog named Daisy, you know? and this other dog named Boomer ... he comes around when Daisy is in heat, or at least that’s what Daddy calls it. When does a woman get in heat?”

Flossie smiled. “There is a difference between humans and other animals,” she said. “All animals have a regular cycle, just like women do with the egg I mentioned. The ovaries - that’s the name of the special place a woman’s eggs are kept - release an egg about once every twenty-eight days. That would be when she comes into ‘heat’ I suppose, except that people don’t behave like other animals do when that time comes.”

“So ... other stuff Boomer does to Daisy ... people wouldn’t do that?” he asked.

All Flossie could think of that a dog would do was mount the bitch, so she shook her head slightly.

“I think that most animals do it the same,” she said. “It may look a little different, but in almost every case, it’s the same.”

What she meant was that, in almost all cases, the male put his penis in the female’s vagina, inserted the sperm, and that was pretty much it. What she actually did was validate a behavior that, if she’d known what he was talking about, she might have prevaricated on. Jesse had been trying to work up to asking a direct question about Boomer licking what Jesse was now sure was Daisy’s vagina, rather than her butt, and he relaxed as he realized he didn’t have to ask the question any more. She had already answered it. Luthor, who at the mention of Daisy and Boomer also expected Jesse to ask about the licking thing, received the information in much the same way.

There was quiet for a while longer, and then Bernadette tentatively raised her hand half way.

“Yes, Bernadette?” asked Flossie.

“There was something I heard in school ... when we were still in Atlanta, and I never understood it.”

“What was that?” asked Flossie.

“I don’t know if I’ll get in trouble for saying it,” said Bernadette.

Flossie smiled. “We’ve already been over this. The idea is to learn. There isn’t any such thing as a stupid question.”

“Okay, then ... said Bernadette, moving around in her seat. “These girls were talking about something they called a blow job. What is that?”

Flossie’s heart fell. Why, oh why, had she ever decided to do this crazy thing?

“I don’t know if I can explain that,” she said weakly.

“Why not?” asked Ruth Ann, aware somehow that the explanation would be very interesting.

“Well ... it’s a little like ... masturbation, I suppose,” Flossie said. “It doesn’t have a real purpose in reproduction ... making a baby.” She looked at all the expectant faces in front of her. “I suppose you could call it something that ... well I mean some people call it ... fun.” She almost groaned, characterizing something like that as “fun” in front of children. “Maybe not fun,” she said quickly. “More like ... well I don’t know why people do that, to be honest,” she finally said in frustration.

“Do what?” asked Hilda Mae. “You never said what it is.”

“Well...” said Flossie, trying to delay the inevitable, “I guess the proper term for it is oral sex.”

“Oral,” said Johnnie Sue. “Doesn’t that mean mouth?” She looked confused.

“Yes,” said Flossie miserably. “It’s where the mouth is used to provide sexual stimulation.”

“Sex with the ... mouth?” whispered Johnnie Sue.

There was a general shifting of bodies in seats, and a mixed look on faces, from flat disbelief, to something very akin to horror.

“Why would anybody do that?!” asked Ruth Ann.

Flossie slumped. How did she get into these messes?

“I suppose because it feels good. Or at least some people think so, I mean,” she said heavily. She didn’t know what to say now.

“How, exactly, does that work?” asked Ruth Ann, driving another spike into Flossie’s heart.

“You children must remember that all this is just between us ... here at school. Please understand that if any of the parents found out we talked about this ... well ... there would probably be no more school... ever!” she moaned.

“We know that,” said several children.

Flossie knew more about oral sex than her students, primarily because, in college, some of her girlfriends had tried to convince her that oral sex was the best way in the world to control a man. If done properly, it left him limp, and unable to press on to the baby-making part. And, if the man could be convinced to service the woman, she had a great deal of fun too. It wasn’t characterized as birth control in these conversations, but that was the intent. Fun could be had without that penis getting where it would do some real damage. That was fine, though Flossie had never actually taken the next step - actually trying it. That was because she just didn’t go out on dates. She went to a few parties, but always alone, and she always left alone and went straight back to her room. What she was thinking now was that there was no earthly reason for children this age to know anything about that kind of thing. But it was another one of those damn cats, let out of a bag you couldn’t get it to go back inside.

“All right,” she said finally. “I’m going to talk about it, but you must understand that this is not part of a normal health class. You shouldn’t even know about this kind of thing until you’re grown up.”

That was her disorganized way of telling them this behavior was for adults, and not for children. It made sense in her own mind, but it didn’t come off quite that way to the children.

“Sometimes, when a woman doesn’t want to have sex with a man ... maybe because she’s in heat and doesn’t want to have a baby just then ... she uses her mouth on the man’s penis.”

She stopped to see what the reaction was. There were a lot of wide eyes, but no questions.

“I suppose it’s a little like when he rubs his penis - masturbates. It feels good to him, and he can have an orgasm while she’s doing that.”

“And the sperm comes out during an orgasm,” whispered Bernadette, looking somehow much less startled than Flossie would have expected her to.

“Yes,” said Flossie.

“But ... wouldn’t it get in her mouth?” asked Johnnie Sue.

“Yes,” said Flossie, not knowing what else to say.

“But then it would be inside her,” said Bernadette, looking very serious. “And if it was inside her, wouldn’t it still make her have a baby?”

Flossie almost laughed, but controlled the nervous instinct.

“No, it doesn’t work like that. The egg drops down into the uterus. There’s no connection between the stomach and the uterus, so sperm in the stomach simply seems like ... food ... I guess ... to the body.” That hadn’t quite come out like she intended. Then again, she hadn’t intended to talk about oral sex at all.

“So that’s what you meant when you said the woman does this if she doesn’t want to have a baby,” said Johnny Sue. “If the sperm stays in her stomach, then she can’t have a baby.”

“Yes,” said Flossie. She didn’t know whether to say anything else or not.

Moses raised his hand. “Is that what they mean when they say somebody’s a ... cock sucker?”

Flossie felt her face flush. “Usually, that’s a name they use as a curse word ... to vent anger. But I suppose it came from what a woman does during oral sex.”