Grandma's Christmas Secret

"Don't be ashamed, Kelly. It's a good thing. I wish all my granddaughters were that in touch with themselves at such a young age. I won't name names, but some of your cousins could learn a lot from you."

Kelly did feel safe in assuming Megan never masturbated. Maybe that was why she was so crabby.

"Plenty of girls did it in my day, too," Grandma went on. "It was utterly unmentionable then, and I'm sure we all thought we were the only girl in the world who did it; certainly I did."

"You weren't scared it would make you go blind?" Kelly teased.

"Not once I'd done it once and didn't go blind. Or grow hair on my palms."

"Not on your palms." Kelly couldn't resist.

Grandma laughed. "Exactly. And yes, once I discovered how unusual I was down below, I did wonder if that's why I was. But I guess I figured it was too late anyway. Besides, I liked the way it looked and felt, like I had a dirty little secret I carried everywhere. That's one thing about a more oppressed time, no worries about what you look like naked when you don't expect anyone to see you that way until you're married."

"Didn't you ever wear a swimsuit?"

"A one-piece one with a skirt, perfectly normal back then. Now, are you sure you're ready for the whole story?"

"I'm game if you are."

"Good girl. Put some rock and roll on the stereo there, and let's get started."

Grandma had a console hi-fi that Kelly was pretty sure was older than she was, but it still worked perfectly. "There's some Chuck Berry in there," Grandma directed as Kelly got down and opened the record cabinet.

Kelly pulled out the first one she saw. "Chuck Berry is on Top," she read. "So they had puns back then too."

"And how," Grandma acknowledged. "I bought that one in college, when I finally had enough pocket money for albums. I'd played all my 45s to death by then. Put it on."

Kelly did, and then settled herself in the chair again for the story.

"Now, I've told you I had a Marcus of my own," Grandma said. "His name was Jimmy. I did know your grandfather, since both our families moved to the neighborhood in ninth grade. This is when the suburbs were new, of course. We called your grandfather 'Cap' back then."

"He never liked Carleton, I remember," Kelly said.

"No accident that we didn't name your uncle that," Grandma acknowledged. "It was a family tradition that died with him. And they called me Lindy back then. I always thought Melinda was an old lady name, and frankly I still do. Anyway. When high school started, we were all new in town. But high school was just as prone to cliques then as it is now. And Jimmy, he was one of the cool kids from day one."

"Did he wear a leather jacket?" Kelly asked. "And I suppose Grandpa had a crewcut and carried a slide rule everywhere?"

"Don't believe every stereotype you hear, my dear," Grandma said. "But Jimmy did use to roll up his t-shirt sleeves with little boxes to make it look like he was carrying cigarettes. And I never wore a poodle skirt in my life, I'll have you know, but I did wear the long flowered dresses you're probably thinking of, and cats-eye glasses. And there was a malt shop, called Teddy's. Your grandfather used to go there to study after school, and he'd look up from his books at us girls and our fellas now and then. And that might as well be where I start the story. I was just gone eighteen, so it would've been March or April of '57..."

*****

Cap was a mainstay in the booth nearest the door at Teddy's -- farthest from the dance floor, but with a nice view of the girls spinning around and their skirts floating out gracefully. He'd mastered the art of making two cherry cokes last all afternoon, so there were no complaints about him hogging the booth. There was the occasional haughty laugh from some popular girl or other if he made the mistake of making eye contact with her, but Cap was used to all that.

Lindy was one popular girl who never put him down. Her worldlier friend Ruth was not. "Look who's taking up space as usual, huh!" Ruth said as she held the door open for Lindy, who followed.

"Hi, Cap!" Lindy said with a welcoming smile that was nothing like her friend's sneer. "Don't mind Ruthie here, she's sore because Mrs. Murphy told her to redo last night's math homework."

"Tell the world my business, why don'cha?" Ruthie snapped. "Where's Bob and Jimmy, anyway?" She looked around the dancefloor and the other booths, but neither Lindy's steady nor her own fellow of the week was anywhere to be seen.

"I haven't seen them," Cap said. "But if you need a hand with your math, I can help out."

"Help from a nerd like you?" Ruth shook her head in disbelief.

Lindy slid in and took a seat across from Cap, her long dark curls bouncing delightfully around her face. "Cap, that's really sweet," she said, touching his hand. "Ruth, you do need the help, at least if you want to graduate with us. Sit down and let the man help you."

"Man?" Ruth snapped. When Cap was polite enough to ignore her, she said, "Oh, very well. Cap, what can you teach me about trigonometry?" She reached into her satchel and pulled out a sheet of paper that looked like it had been dipped in red ink. "I keep telling my mother I'm going to marry an engineer, why do I need to know anything about it? But she's having nothing of it."

"Want to impress an engineer, Ruth?" Cap asked. "Learn to talk a little like one. A little math goes a long way."

"Everybody knows men like their girls a little on the dumb side," Ruth said.

"Do we really?" Cap looked at Lindy as he said it, and got a conspiratorial smile from her. That had his heart flying as he opened his textbook to yesterday's lesson and went over it step by step with Ruthie.

She stopped insulting him long enough to listen, and after fifteen minutes or so she was able to stumble through the first homework question and get the right answer. When she looked at Cap's own paper -- he'd gotten a perfect score -- and saw the same answer, she dropped the nasty façade once and for all. "It's right! Cap...thank you. And I'm sorry, all right?"

"Consider it forgotten," Cap said. "Go ahead and try the next one."

"Why don't you go dance while I work?" Ruth suggested. "I'll try harder if I can't just fall back on you."

"I haven't got anybody to dance with," Cap said, matter-of-factly and with no sign of self-pity -- he knew where he stood. Then, as if struck with a stroke of genius, he smiled. "Unless...Lindy?"

"I'd love to!" Lindy said. "Ruthie, can I get out?"

No one at school knew Cap's mother had insisted upon his taking ballroom dance lessons. So Cap welcomed the disbelieving looks as the queen of the smart kids let the nerd lead her out on the floor. They soon turned to a different sort of disbelief as Cap effortlessly led Lindy through moves she couldn't have taught to Jimmy in a hundred years.

"Who the heck knew little Cappie could cut a rug?"

"Never mind that, how'd he get Lindy to even look at him twice?"

"Think he's bird-dogging her from Jimmy?"

Lindy didn't hear a word of it. She was too lost in the moment. "Cap, where'd you ever learn to dance like this?" she asked.

"Madame Pelletier's." No point in hiding it anymore, no doubt word would be out at school tomorrow anyway.

"Oh, Cap, if that's so, why don't you ever show anybody? Why don't you ever come to the dances at school?"

"Like I just said, I never had anyone to dance with until now. No offense, but I know where I rate and I know where you rate."

"Cap, that's a terrible thing to say! We're friends, of course you can dance with me!"

"That so, Lindy?"

Lindy looked over her shoulder to see Jimmy glaring at them both, resplendent as ever in a t-shirt and basketball shoes.

"Oh, dry up, Jimmy!" Lindy said. "It's only a dance." Then she turned her attention back to Cap, who looked horribly nervous all of a sudden. "Never mind him, Cap," she told him. "He's just acting big, he won't rattle you."

Jimmy wasn't so sure about that. He slunk off to Cap's usual seat, where Bob was watching Ruth redo her homework. "She gonna give me the royal shaft or what?" he snapped at them both.

"For Cap?" Ruth remembered her newfound respect for him just in time, but he was still Cap. "No, Jimmy! He just asked her to dance so they'd leave me alone to work on my math here. And speaking of which..." She leaned up and kissed Bob on the lips and squeezed his thigh as high as she dared to do in public. "Love you both, but get lost, huh?"

Bob took the hint right away, which made Jimmy laugh and follow him. "Quite a gentleman you were there, Bobby boy, but if you're lookin' to go steady..."

"I ain't," Bob said. "I know Ruth. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"And you just got ditched for a math book!" Jimmy laughed so hard he had to grab onto the jukebox to keep his balance.

"Only came here to get a malt anyhow." And Bob was off to the counter to order, leaving Jimmy to glare at Cap until the song ended.

When it did, Lindy hugged Cap. "That was wonderful! Cap, you ought to dance more often."

Cap's heart was already flying from her touch when a slow song kicked in on the jukebox. All at once his arms ached to hold her. "Well, if you're up for another," he said, opening his arms.

"Forget it, pal!" Jimmy gave him a shove and grabbed at Lindy's wrists. "My turn, doll."

"Jimmy, there's no need to act like a baby!" Lindy said. "Since when do you even like to dance anyway?"

"Since now. Sides, are you my girl or aren't you?"

"Last time I checked, I didn't see your name anywhere on me." Lindy reluctantly slipped her arms around him and tried to give Cap an apologetic look, but he wouldn't make eye contact as he retreated to his booth.

"Guess I ought to help you search for it, then, huh?" He leaned in for a kiss. She let him, figuring it was easier than arguing about it in public. When she didn't say no to his suggestion, he pressed on. "How about it, doll?" he whispered in her ear. "You let me play with them that one time in the car!"

"Didn't I tell you that's as far as I'll go?" she reminded him, having spent months by then just barely rebuffing his increasingly bold hands and ignoring her increasingly strong urge not to stop him. "I'm into college, you know, I don't want to have to miss my first year and go visit my aunt back east."

"You won't have to!" He leaned in again and dropped his voice to the barest of whispers. "I got some rubbers. The new lubricated kind."

Lindy pulled back. "You bought some already?" she hissed under her breath. "Without asking me first? What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Well, you're best friends with Ruth, aren't you?"

"Let me go!" She pulled his arms from around her waist and stormed back to the booth, only to find Ruth and Cap had left.

The next day at school, Lindy didn't ask Ruth where they'd gone or if they'd gotten up to anything but trigonometry. She had long ago decided she was better off not knowing the details of just what Ruth got up to or with whom.

Wherever they'd been, though, it had obviously been a delightful time. "Honestly, Lindy, he's a wonderful boy!" Ruth said over lunch. "And Jimmy's a bully, you know that. I think you ought to go out with Cap instead."

"Oh, go on!" Lindy laughed off her mild jealousy.

"Well, I mean, he won't ask you unless he's certain you'll say yes, but I can tell him you will if you want."

"Don't you dare! He's a sweet boy, but...well...he's a boy! Not a dreamboat like Jimmy."

"Jimmy who surely spent yesterday afternoon trying to get under your skirt again?"

"Well, you're one to talk!"

"That's my style, not yours, right?" Ruth touched Lindy's hand to mollify her. "I mean, I sure wouldn't judge you if you did want to go all the way with him. But you don't want to, do you?"

"Who says I don't?"

"Well, do you or not?"

Lindy sighed. "I'm afraid. Aren't you? Of getting in trouble before we're off to college?"

"I'm careful," Lindy said. "I always tell the fella, if it ain't on, it ain't going in."

Lindy burst into peals of laughter. "If only your mother knew!"

"Ask me if I care what she knows," Ruth said. "But look, there's protection if you want to do it."

"So Jimmy told me yesterday," Lindy said. "The new kind with lubrication, he said, whatever that means?"

"It means they're a lot more comfortable!" Ruth had long ago decided to embrace her reputation. "The dry ones, they rub too hard against your tight. It can even be painful if the guy goes on too long."

"Against my tight? Don't you take your tights off before you...you know..."

"Not your stockings, silly," Ruth laughed. "Your...you know...down there?"

"Afraid of the word 'vagina', are we?" Lindy had never felt like the racier of the two before, but uttering that word in public was a wonderful kick.

"No, I'm not afraid of it, but it sounds so...medical. Clinical. Who wants that in bed? Anyway, Lindy, if you do it with Jimmy or anyone else, definitely get the lubricated kind. Now, if I might ask...do you want to?"

Lindy shook her head. "I spent all last night thinking about it, and...I think maybe I am old enough. But Jimmy's not the one."

"Thank heavens you finally figured that out, sis!" Ruth put an arm around her friend. "Always knew he wasn't right for you."

"You and most of my friends," Lindy said. "And, if you could let Cap know..."

"He's helping me with my trig again this afternoon," Ruth said. "I'll let him know."

"Thanks," Lindy said. "I won't go to Teddy's, then. That could be awkward."

"Huh, yeah!" Ruth laughed.

"Ruth, one thing," Lindy said. "Dare I ask, just how well you knew Jimmy before..."

"Lindy, you're my best friend, but that's none of your business." She kissed Lindy's cheek as a peace offering.

Lindy learned a few new four-letter words that night on the phone when she told Jimmy it was over. But that only added to her sense that it was the right thing to do. With his outraged invective still ringing in her ears, she forced a smile as she hung up the phone in the hallway.

"Everything all right, sweetie?" asked her mother, who had just finished washing the dinner dishes.

"Never better." Lindy knew the news would be welcome with Mother, at least. "I just dumped Jimmy."

"Oh, good!" Mother hugged her. "You know your father and I didn't like that boy at all."

"What's all this?" came Father's voice from the living room, and Lindy turned to see him looking curious in the doorway.

"She's done it, Bill. She's washed her hands of that Jimmy boy."

"Wonderful!" Father said. "I'll sleep better tonight. But tell me, is there someone new on the horizon?"

"I think so," Lindy said. "You know Cap Donnelly?"

"Oh, he's a great young man!" Mother said.

"Indeed," Father agreed. "Which is why that's just about the last name I was expecting out of you, Melinda."

"Bill, that's a terrible thing to say!" But Mother laughed as she said it, and Lindy was sure she was thinking the same.

"Guess I've had enough of bad boys," Lindy said, in spite of her own naughty thoughts of Cap ever since her conversation with Ruth.

"I couldn't be happier," Father said. "Do let us know if he asks you for a date, understood?"

"Of course, Father." And Lindy was relieved to escape upstairs to her room.

She sat down at her desk to finish her homework, and did her best not to give either of the boys another thought. But it was no use. The lunchtime confession to Ruth had left her feeling quite hot and bothered all afternoon and even through dinner, where as usual there'd been little attention paid to her anyway. Now that she'd said it out loud, she was free to acknowledge what she'd tried so hard to deny for months if not a couple of years.

Lindy didn't want Ruth's lifestyle. But she really, really wanted a taste of it. Just one partner would do, thank you very much, as long as he was the right one. Jimmy wasn't the right one, but his hands had felt delicious on her breasts and his kisses had caused a wonderful hunger in her...what had Ruth called it? In her tight.

The word made Lindy laugh, but she rather liked it just the same.

She had discovered how to satiate that hunger on her own years earlier, while balancing on a tree branch one memorable afternoon. Something about it had told her to tell no one, not even her best friends at her old school, and to this day she'd never even told Ruth. Somewhere along the line she had heard all about the dire consequences, which had only added to the intense guilt she'd felt every time she did it. For years she'd done her best to kick the habit, but she just hadn't been up to the challenge.

Lindy didn't know just when the guilt had stopped, but at some point it had. Maybe it had been the day it finally dawned on her that if she hadn't gone blind or grown hairy palms already, she likely never would. Thanks to furtive looks in the gym locker room, she had known by then that she was unusually hairy elsewhere. The thought had occurred to her that this could be the cause. If so, she'd concluded, the damage was done. And it was good damage, for Lindy loved knowing she was a bit different.

Right now, guilt was the furthest thing from Lindy's mind as she set her pen down and got up from her desk. She'd been hoping to hold off until her homework was done, but her imagination was running too wild to have any chance at that happening anyway. After making sure her door was locked, she unzipped her jeans and pushed her panties down along with them, and lay back on her made bed and spread her legs.

Like my body, Cap? My legs, my hips, my...tight? She found she preferred that to the v-word just now, even if it still sounded a bit silly. It would certainly be tight around Cap's hard cock soon enough. She saw him hurrying off his clothes, both of them somehow feeling perfectly comfortable with the whole thing, and then she imagined him on her and in her.

Lindy closed her eyes and rubbed her fingers harder in a circle around what she didn't yet know was her clitoris. She didn't know what it was, but she knew just what it could do. As she imagined Cap having her way with her and the both of them enjoying it thoroughly, once again she felt that burst of joy that had for too long made her feel guilty.

No wonder Ruth loves sex so much, Lindy thought as she got up and put her panties and jeans back on. Still feeling tickled at her newfound openness to entering that world herself, she was feeling refreshed and energetic as she resumed her homework.

A long and frustrating weekend came and went -- with Lindy's imagination and her fingers getting a nice workout -- before Cap got over his bashfulness. She was alone at her locker just after lunch when he appeared over her shoulder. "H-hi, Lindy!" he said.

"Cap!" She closed the locker and turned around to greet him. He was wearing a blue oxford shirt and, for once, carrying his books in his backpack instead of his arms. "How's Ruth doing on math?"

"A lot better. I'm really happy for her. But listen..." He looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was listening in. "I know you just broke up with Jimmy, but...can I treat you to a malt at Teddy's after school?"

Lindy was as relieved as she was pleased -- she'd begun to think he'd never work up the courage to ask. "I'd love that, Cap! But I insist you dance with me again." She giggled.

He took the request seriously, which amused Lindy but didn't surprise her. "I'd be proud to! I just hope..."

"Jimmy won't bother us. He knows he'll get kicked out if he does. Cap..." She took his hand and gave it a playful squeeze. "Thanks for asking. Meet you at the Lincoln statue?"

"I'll be there with bells on! Gotta go now, physics! See you soon!"

With bells on? But his awkwardness only turned Lindy on all the more. It was all nothing Jimmy would ever say, after all.