Toby shrugged, "Well…"
"Well, what?"
"Don’t you think there were reasons for it?" Toby eyed Jean, his face a mask.
"What are you saying?" Jean asked warily.
"You know very well what I’m saying," Toby replied. "It worked so well because it fit our needs! EVERYBODY’s needs! We needed the experience, and you needed the sex!" Toby chuckled. "We needed the sex, too…"
Jean assumed a hangdog expression. "Well, maybe — if you look at just today, just this time — but can’t you see that it’s wrong? You have to look at the bigger picture! Nothing good can come of this…"
"Come here," Toby patted the bed. "Tell me what is so bad about what we’ve done."
"Don’t patronize me!" Jean bridled.
"Don’t patronize ME!" Toby shot back. "I need to see this situation from your perspective! Right now, you’re talking gibberish! Get over here, sit down, and convince me!"
Jean, well aware that she might just be walking into a trap, crossed the room and sat on the bed. Toby rearranged himself so that he was lying crosswise on the bed, propped up on his side. "Turn toward me — don’t talk to the wall."
Jean turned toward him, dropping her left knee flat, sitting sort of half-tailor-fashion, with her right foot still on the floor. "My, you’re bossy!"
"I have to be, apparently, sometimes," Toby replied. "Okay, so, what crimes against nature have we committed?"
"Okay, no need to be melodramatic!" Jean grumbled. Toby just looked at her, pushing the comment right back at her. "Ummm, most of the issues are with outside our little group, but inside…" She thought about it. "Inside, there is the issue of respect, I guess. I’m a parent — and, technically, you’re a child. It’s a role thing. We tore it all up today, doing this. Now, theoretically, we’re contemporaries — even possible mates — but I’m twice your age!"
"So I need to do the Miz Flanders thing?" Toby replied. "That’s awkward…"
"Well, exactly!" Jean replied. "But if we continue to do what we’re doing, then we start treating each other like we’re romantically involved — it’s a more casual thing that says we’re intimate to anybody who is listening — and it make it difficult for me to exercise any authority over you…"
Toby raised an eyebrow. "How much authority have you exercised over me in the past?"
"Well, none, basically," Jean replied, "or not much. But I COULD have!"
"Really?" Toby replied. "Your authority over me comes second-hand, from Ma. I assume that if you tell me to do something that it is what Ma would want. But I can CERTAINLY choose to ignore you if I don’t think you’re exercising that proxy correctly!"
"Well, okay, maybe," Jean replied. Why did he have to be so smart? "But do you? Did you, before today? Things have already changed…"
"You have to deal with me as an equal," Toby agreed. "That’s so bad?"
"Well, no…" Dammit! He was tripping her up! "Maybe that’s okay, between us — maybe even from the outside. But what if we go beyond that? What if we start sending signals that we’re intimate? People will get the wrong idea…"
"The wrong idea," Toby pounced, "meaning that they might assume that we are having sex? But we are!"
"But we can’t admit it!" Jean wailed.
"No?" Toby replied. "Why not?"
"Because!" Jean whined.
Toby just eyed her for a moment, but she was getting too hyped up, so he reached out to rub her leg. "Relax. Think it through. I’m listening — but I’m going to argue, if only to be the Devil’s Advocate. It’s more to keep you honest than anything else…"
Jean steadied down. The most embarrassing component of the situation was that, viewed from the outside, just listening to the conversation, HE was the adult and SHE was the child! She HAD to get back on top, somehow… "Okay. In the first place, it’s probably illegal. Yes, I know that you’re above the age of consent — but I think those laws have some words in them that say something about how old the other person can be — meaning that I should be around your age to be protected by the law."
"Okay, that’s messy. Are you sure?" Toby asked.
"No, but ignorance of the law is no excuse," Jean replied. "Technically, though, we could ALL be child molesters — and there are PLENTY of media witch-hunts going on for THEM! Think about those stories you’ve heard about teachers who had sex with students…" Toby made a mental note to run a Web search. "The other issue is perception," Jean went on. "The whole thing smacks of incest!"
Toby frowned. "It isn’t."
"No, but if I have sex with my son’s friends, what’s to keep me from having sex with my son?"
"Good sense?" Toby offered. "Genetics?"
"Genetics is the scientific reason we don’t sleep around inside our own families," Jean replied, "and it is the basis for the moral reason — even though the moral imperative was put into place before it was science. SOMEBODY noticed that peeing in the gene pool tended to cause defective children and put a stake in the ground — but now it’s religion, and it’s morality, and it’s pounded into people’s heads as dogma without anyone even bothering with the fact that there is a good, scientific reason for it. People with big mouths and flat heads don’t care about science — they only care about perpetuating their prejudices, and they aren’t any too careful about whether the basis is factual or not! In fact, for some of them, the more mumbo-jumbo it is, the better it is, because you have to take it on faith!" She sighed. "Your mother will tell you that in this day and age, incest isn’t terribly dangerous because it isn’t happening over several generations — one throwback mating generally won’t hurt anything. But we don’t do it — or at least, we don’t admit to it — because the law and religion and science are ALL against it! Soon, it just won’t be possible, because they’ll be genotyping people at birth, and arresting daddies in the delivery room!"
Toby grinned at THAT picture. "Technically, having sex with a relative who is on birth control should be okay, scientifically…"
" … But it won’t keep you from being lynched!" Jean rejoined.
"People in the south…" Toby began.
"Probably didn’t as much as their reputation indicates," Jean argued. "Actually, I think it’s a case in point — slave owners had sex with female slaves — maybe male ones, too — but I think the whole thing got kind of skewed somewhere when someone decided that blacks were like children…" She shook her head. "All that has to happen is that it sounds sort of close — and then all Hell breaks loose! It doesn’t matter whether it’s the truth or not — if you get a public outcry, some prosecutor will go looking at old laws enacted by the Puritans in the seventeenth century, and we’re off to jail!"
"So you’re saying it doesn’t happen?" Toby asked.
"No, I’m saying that if it does, it’s kept under wraps, VERY tightly!" Jean replied. "People who get caught go to jail — and are marked for life as sexual predators! And while we’re NOT doing that, people will make the mental leap and we’ll all be in trouble! They’ll go looking for legal reasons to prosecute — but that will be NOTHING to the stigma!"
"Okay, so, this is all irrelevant in about four months, in my case…" Toby offered.
"Legally? Yes. Morally? No," Jean replied. "Everyone will assume that we did it before it was legal — ESPECIALLY if we were to start acting intimate right after your birthday! It just doesn’t work!"