12.(52-53): Educate Brenda 5 - College Choice/Birth Control

Slim Novel 12 - http://adventuresofkimi.blogspot.com - See Homepage

52. College Choice

Fall 1943 finds Ali, Saturday morning, looking over her U.S.-penny coin collection to which she is adding a shiny silvery zinc penny of 1943, the first year they are not coppery brown. She is happily gloating over it when Brenda and Dr. Stan come in after a good-mannered doorbell ring. During daytime, Ali does not lock her door and her 3 intimate acquaintances – Brenda, Dr. Stan and Eddie – know it, but do ring on entering in case she is without clothes or doing something she would not want to be surprised at.
   Ali has gotten over her jealousy at Brenda and Dr. Stan. She treats it like a Win-Win. He was desired and getting him would have been a Win. But getting your desired guy ends freedom for a gal. So not getting him is a Win too.
   “Hi guys!” Ali exclaims and to Dr. Stan, “Your weekend off-duty?”
   He nods Yes, and Brenda grabs his hand and pulls him down on sofa beside her, facing Ali in rocking chair across the sofa table.
   “Brenda and I were discussing her college application, Miss Ali, and she wants a second opinion,” he says, trying for an inside doctor's joke but missing because he has a wrong audience.
   Ali looks at Brenda, “What's your idea, Bren?”
   “All our gang wanna go out a town but I'm the odd girl out. And it's you-all's fault,” Brenda says, shooting a side look at Dr. Stan, who smiles sheepishly.
   “First off, what kind of college course do you want to do, what are you planning to major in?” Ali actually has a good idea but wants Brenda to speak.
   “I want to be a nurse, so I can help Stan boy here,” Brenda says and Ali notes Brenda's new familiarity and guesses they are already petting. Recently, Brenda has stopped confiding her sex life to Ali as she used to and that, to Ali, is the give away to their new status.
   “Here's my take, Bren. I'm against specialization. Go for a general education with majors in English and Science and with strong math too. 'At's my advice”
   “I agree with Miss Ali. I can attest to how much a doctor loses by specializing too early. Better to get culture than to be a narrow professional Philistine.”

   “If you say so, dear,” Brenda is almost giggly as she holds hands with him on the couch and Ali thinks, Boy is she far gone!
   “OK. Since that's decided, how about the college? I know you said you don't want out of town. But that still leaves girls colleges in New York – like Barnard, our own Hunter, or Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville?"

   “I'm not sure. My dad says he's willing to pay for the best and Hunter is a free city college but Barnard and Sarah Lawrence are Ivy League. Whatta you think, Ali?”

   “I think too much has been made of that. The trouble with it is the money, the competition, the change of place and the inconvenience and time spent trying to get in. Here you are, next door to Hunter College, free and available without testing or having to be a straight-A student. And going there you get me and Professor Edwardes, and Dr. Stan can carry your books, like Kalamazoo. From my standpoint a community college where you are among friends will allow you to just love getting educated. And we'll have the Sunday seminars.

   “Dr. Stan chimes in. “Miss Ali is making sense. Besides, I prefer you here.“

   Brenda is blushing inside her makeup. She decides to apply to only one sure school and save her father the money.

      
53. Birth Control


Next Day, Sunday, as Brenda is sitting down on sofa for an Educate session, Ali asks, "Did Dr. Stan get in your pants yet?"
   "Aw, Ali, you and my mom both keep harping on that stuff."
   "Well, how far?"
   "Stan has too much class to force a girl, Ali, you know that. We just smooch and I let him touch me and guide my hand to satisfy him. Sometimes he gets real wet."
   "How much do you know about getting pregnant, Bren?  I just realize I neglected that?"
   "Oh, don'tchya worry about that, Ali. As soon as I started my periods, my mom sent me to Sister Barbara."
   "A nun?"
   "Yeah, but Sister Barbara is a nun like none.  She's pretty, though she can't show make-up.  She has a good rep with Catholic moms like mine, who want a daughter to get good info but through the faith. She kinda gives a private class for tips - she's supporting a poor old mother.
   "So what did the good sister teach you?"
   "Well, about a girl's egg popping out of ovary once a month and how to figure by counting from first day of the period and taking temperature mornings. Barbara even slips in about making a guy use a rubber and how to waste his semen. But I'm sworn to secrecy about that because if Father O'Dowd found out, Barbara'd be exiled to religious retreat at maybe the North Pole. Gee, she must a been a real swinger before she became a nun?"
   "Oh wow! Someday you got to intro me, Bren." Ali straightens up. "OK, so far so good. You are still virgin and you only pet. But you are far gone on this guy. What if he wants it real bad? Could you still say No?"
   Brenda puts her right hand over her eyes, hesitates, and then confides, "I would give that guy everything - I love him forever. The only reason he hasn't pinned me to the mat is he's too much a gentleman."
   "Well, at least you're honest Bren."
   Ali then proceeds to teach all she knows. First, she goes to kitchen and comes back with a vaginal speculum gynecologists use, and a small hand mirror and flashlight.  Also an assortment of several size rubber cups and her poster. And she adjusts a 100-watt stand-up goose-neck lamp.
   "Move back to the end of the sofa Bren, so I can demonstrate. This won't take more than 5 minutes and it's the key to your becoming a super woman."
   Brenda moves back on the sofa to its end closest the door. Ali goes to sit at the other end. On sofa table to their right are the materials.
   Ali starts. "Most girls are too dumb for birth control and too many get knocked up at the wrong time. Sister Barbara said it right but most girls can't benefit because no imagination. Just from your first day seeing blood and taking temperature and looking in your box - I don't mean Pandora's, I mean vagina - at the mucus, you can pinpoint the egg popping out. Once you see the signs - You don't think! You really know! You know you can't get pregnant until after your next friend comes - I mean your menstrual period, which I call my friend.  So that gives three weeks: two from the egg popping out till you see your friend and the one week while you're bleeding - when you can be sure you won't get pregnant no matter how many guys plug you."
   "Wow Ali!  Are you really sure? All it takes is one miss and I stop wanting to be a Miss."
   "Absolutely! Science showed it and I tested it. But you still got maybe up to ten fertile days that starts after your bleeding stops and goes till your egg pops. Now, allow me."
   In front of the astounded Brenda, Ali lies back with skirt hitched up, knees bent and thighs apart, and swiftly slips the speculum into the slit between her thighs , in upside-down handle-up position.She spreads it to open wide inside her vagina facing Brenda, with the speculum sticking out of her. She grabs her hand mirror and, lit by the goose-neck lamp which Brenda adjusts and using the mirror, she points up what she is demonstrating. 
   "What you are looking at, Bren, is the neck of my uterus, called the cervix. And it happens I am in the thirteenth day since I first saw my friend - and look at all that clear mucus dripping out."
   "Gee, Ali, don't you get your panties wet?"
  "Yeah, Bren, that's why they say about a girl wetting herself when she is ripe for sex. That is my normal mucus that starts coming out ten days after the period began and builds till the moment an egg pops - usually the next two to four days, but I can't be sure until I see this mucus stop coming and at the same time see a rise in my morning temperature. Once I see those signs I can be real sure the egg has already popped out of my ovary and I can be sure I won't get pregnant having sex with a guy from then."
   "Wow, Ali, I gotta learn this. Can you loan me one a these thingamajigs so I practice at home?"
   "Not loan; give.  And we'll go over this together until you are a world beater at it."  Ali pauses and continues. "Now, important point. Once you get these signs of your egg popping out, then you got - as scientists say - a handle on detecting it. Like you can start noticing other things - good appetite or not, lust or loss of it, depression or elation,  - and those things when they suddenly change tell you if you are, when you are and when you can or cannot get knocked-up pregnant. So, in a pinch, if you are on a desert island with Mr. Wrong and no thermometer and no speculum, you still can avoid getting knocked-up by just going by how you feel."
   "Brenda thinks a moment. "Yeah, this is great, Ali, and thanks a mill but, still, what if I can't help giving in to Stan on the wrong day?"
   Ali picks up the rubber cup. "Honey, allow me to intro you to my honeycup.  It‘s another woman's friend." She holds it out in front of Brenda's nose. "Sniff!"
   "It's sweet, Ali.  How come?
   "Because it was soaked in raw honey."
   "Why raw honey?"
   "Raw, no chemicals; because bacteria, other bugs and sperm hate honey and avoid anything it's attached to."
   "So how you use?"
  "I'm gonna teach. She picks up a poster she had designed in Tokyo and hands it to Brenda - we go over this until you get it perfect. Now to slip this honeycup - it's usual name is contraceptive diaphragm - inside your snatch, my word for vagina, and position it perfect so it blocks the guy's sperm! Here’s a quick demo." Ali folds the diaphragm into an arc and expertly slips it into her between-thighs sexual slit and tucks it back in place. 
   "Can you feel it when it's in you, Ali?
  "No, because it's perfect size for me."
  "Can the guy feel it when he's in you?"
  "No."
  "Wow! I want one."
  "OK, but you gotta know how to use it well and I gotta fit your size.
Just briefly now, lemme explain the way I would use it if I were a wife or a prostitute - Ain't really much difference, dontchyathink?"
   Brenda laughs but, knowing Ali, does not comment.
   "I'd put it in every morning, walk around with it all day, and - most importantly - sleep around with it all the time."
   "But don't it get smelly in there?  My tampon smells horrid even after two hours inside."
   "Not when it's a honeycup, honey. If it was just the untreated rubber, it would smell bad and also you'd have to use special jelly. But the honey frightens all the bugs away - that includes sperm.  Actually the mechanical block is 99.9%. Then you just keep it in and you are always ready for your Freddy, if you get me?"
   "Gotcha, Ali.  Gee thanks. I am really gonna learn this well. With Stan now, I can get by without it 'cause he's a real gentlemen, but it's gonna give me a lotta peace of mind and later, when we marry, I'll be in control of our baby making."
   "That's the ticket, Bren. OK. School is out. Lyez eat pizza. I asked Nicola to deliver some slices and I have choicest Chianti in the fridge."
 End of Section; for next, click 12.(54-55) Playing Hooky - the Primeval Ooze