I turned and went into the house.
When they left, the paper was in the gray barrel. There were four circles. One around each of the masturbation pictures. One around the teen holding the older man's cock. And one around the whole paper. As they say, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” whoever the hell they are.
IV.
I gave her two pages, with pictures on both sides, folded up to go in her pocket. Many were female masturbation pictures, including some with orgasmic facial expressions. Two showed men jacking off, one of them ejaculating. One was a close-up of an open pussy with obvious honey-colored liquid strung out to a fingertip. Two lesbian shots, four more 69's, and the rest were various intercourse poses. She took them with obvious embarrassment and put them away. I said that the last four digits of my phone number were printed on one of the pages and that the first three numbers were the same as hers. I suggested that she might be more comfortable talking to me over the phone at first; that is, if she wanted to talk to someone about sex.
She nodded and walked away. I didn't know if she nodded because she was acknowledging she heard me, or if it was because she did want to talk to someone, or if she wanted to talk to me. Oh, well. I was getting quite used to waiting.
Monday at about 4:15 she called. She was at a friend's house and the friend's parents weren't home. The friend was there, but not listening. I asked her what she wanted to talk about. She hummed and hawed but never picked a subject. To help her out, I suggested I just start talking and she could interrupt me with questions. She said that was okay.
I talked about the differences between boys and girls. Not just physically, but emotionally. After emphasizing erogenous zones I started into masturbation. “Everyone masturbates, Yurenka. Some people say that they don't, but everyone does. Boys are more famous for it than girls are, but every boy and every girl masturbates. The reason is that it feels good. Men do it and women do it. And there are many reasons to do it. Curiosity is the first reason because we hear stories when we are young about sex and we want to find out if 'it' works for us. But there are also times when we know we need to relieve the nervous tension we feel in our bodies, and that does it. Of course we usually do it while imagining some sexy situation and try to time our imaginary sexual peak with our orgasm. People who don't know how to pleasure themselves don't know how they should be pleasured by a lover, so they miss a lot of satisfaction from sex. We sometimes masturbate when we are sexually frustrated. For example, some men get so excited that they either can't hold back or are too mentally lazy to hold back their orgasm. They come, but their lover or wife didn't come yet. The guy rolls over and falls asleep and the lover/wife lays there and quietly fingers herself to orgasm. How sad that is, if it happens very often, for both of them. He doesn't even understand the tremendous joy his woman will provide for him if he waits and really makes love to her for her benefit, and she gets no real sense of having participated in a joining that should have turned her every way but loose. She feels incomplete with a lover like that and he may be too stupid to know what he is causing both of them to miss.”
Very quietly Yurenka said, “I think that's how it is with my mom and dad.”
“We can talk about that more later, if you want, but I have one more example of why people masturbate. Sometimes people either masturbate each other or for each other. Either one is very exciting, very pleasurable, and can help avoid a bad situation like pregnancy. In fact, that's why oral sex is popular with many people. No babies. Lots of pleasure.”
“You use words I don't understand, Mr. Thorpe.”
“Just call me 'Jay', Yurenka. Like what?”
“Like 'oral sex' and 'cunn-something'”.
“I'm trying to use polite words. For every sex act there are tons of other terms that are far more popular than the words I'm using, but I don't know if you want to use that language. Do you happen to have the first pictures I gave you with you?”
“Yes, I have them all here.”
“Well, the top left picture of the girl holding the man's penis, or cock, may be a situation where she is going to masturbate him until he comes. Or you could say she is going to 'jack him off'. The picture just below that is oral sex. That specific one is called '69' or 'eating each other out'. He licks her vagina or pussy and sucks on her clitoris or 'clit' until she comes and she licks and sucks on his cock until he comes. Of course he could suck her off first and then she could suck him off, but some people like to do each other at the same time. And many people, like me, like to do it either way. The bottom picture on the left shows a woman licking and sucking off another woman. That is also oral sex and is considered a 'lesbian' act. Women who love other women are called lesbians. Men who love other men are called 'gay'. People who love people of their same sex are called 'homosexuals' if they don't also love people of the opposite sex. If a woman loves both men and women she is called 'bisexual' or two sexes. Same if a man loves both women and other men. There are more words and phrases for sexual things than anything else in the world because there is nothing else in the world that is so important to all people as sex is.”
Yurenka said, “I have to go now.”
“Next time you masturbate, Yurenka, don't feel guilty about it. Enjoy it. Love how it makes you feel. Love the touch of your hand on your sex and imagine it's someone else's hand touching you. And love how you feel after you come. Please call me again when you feel like it.”
The seeds were planted.
Seeds take time.
V.
She called again on Thursday, during the morning. She was not feeling well so her parents left her home from school when they went out to work on whatever lawns they do on Thursdays.
“Are you really not feeling well, Yurenka?” I asked her.
“I'm okay. I guess I just felt lazy.”
“So, are you really in bed, now?”
“Yes. I've been reading.”
“ Penthouse Letters, I wonder?”
A long pause.
“Yurenka? You there?”
She said, “How did you know? I mean, why did you ask me that?”
“Because if I was curious about sex, and if I found a magazine in the trash, and it had all kinds of sexy stories and pictures in it, I'd be in bed, naked or close to it, reading the stories and looking at the pictures, and wanting to come.”
She hesitated, and then: “That makes me feel like you can see me.”
“In my minds eye, I can. Even though I've never seen you without clothes on, I still sort of know what you look like. After all, there are over five billion people in the world. A little over half of them are women. All of them have breasts and vaginas. I've seen thousands of naked women in every possible pose; real or pictures, magazines, movies and the Internet, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, you name it. I know you have a slim build. You have dark hair on your head and a dusting of hair on your arms. Your eyebrows are lush. From that evidence I would presume that you have a healthy growth of pubic hair. Of course I don't know how far under you it extends, or if you shave it into a shape that you like, but I doubt that part. From the little difference in the color of your lips versus your facial skin I would guess that your nipples are not dark, nor are your labia. How am I doing so far?”
“What's a 'labia'?” she asked cautiously.