The Shop Girl and the Priest

"Yes, please," I said not even realising that was an option, just stopping myself from saying "Anyone but that old fart my parents seem to worship who believes no one under the age of forty can possibly be ill or require treatment.'

The next evening, I had one of the last appointments with the lady doctor and explained my dysmenorrhoea symptoms that had just started and the suggestion from the pharmacist that a CHC could make life easier.

She smiled and nodded, tapping away at her computer and I guessed was reading my notes. She raised her eyebrows.

"Doctor Duggan never suggested that?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"No," I said trying to hide my tone for her colleague, "He told me I would 'probably grow out of it' and should just take painkillers." I reached into my pocket for the half empty Ibuprofen packet.

The lady doctor rolled her eyes and gave a bit of an involuntary shudder, which even with my limited medical experience I took to be disbelief with a side order of disgust.

"THAT MANY‽" she hissed, and stared at the screen and shook her head again. "Well I don't want you taking that much ibuprofen EVER!"

Next, she took out a blood pressure cuff and tested me, asked me lots of questions -- including if I was sexually active (which I wasn't of course, not a single boyfriend ever, not even at work) then typed up a prescription which she printed out and signed.

She nodded at my uniform jacket,

"At least you won't have a problem getting it filled," she said. "Your store pharmacy is the latest of the late duty chemists. I always recommend them."

I thanked her and she smiled back, telling me to get back in touch if there was a problem, adding that while the conceptive would stop me getting pregnant, I should still use condoms until I was confident of the sexual health of any new partner.

I thanked her profusely, but said that there was nothing like that in my life, or any sign of it. The doctor looked at me with narrowed eyes. "I can be a bit of a cow when I'm on," I said. "Never really been asked out... not by anyone, really."

"Then take this with you as well," she said opening a drawer and passing me some 'good mental health' and 'sexual health' leaflets. I read them as I walked back to the store to get my prescription filled.

Trudie was on duty and took it from me with a smile,

"You won't know yourself, honey," she said as she handed me across a six-month supply, disappearing to a room at the back, returning with a plastic cup of water, "Take the first one now," she said. "You'll just be in time."

I did. She gave me a big smile and I was extremely grateful.

Trudie was 'one of the girls,' and wore black leggings under her white smock rather than the work trousers, showing off her very shapely bottom. She had short but fashionable hair and her right arm was virtually covered by a full sleeve tattoo that she was extremely proud of. The departmental gossip was that she 'played for the other team,' but I knew from listening to her chat in the toilets that her boyfriend was called Mark and was roofer, and ladders weren't the only thing he liked to get up once or twice a day.

I walked home, in through the kitchen door and had a nice smile from Mum while my mad just looked at his watch and narrowed his eyes and shook his head at me, not bothered to take me to task on my lateness.

Karen was sat at the table and was talking at length about the exam cycle she was about to start, and it was evident that I, the educational pariah, wasn't clever enough to join in, therefore not part of the conversation, so Dad ignored me and smiled at her just to confirm it.

I went upstairs, took off my uniform and put my five packs of CHC pills in my bottom drawer, sliding the just opened sixth foil packet into the Stephen King I was reading in place of the bookmark. Taking them became my religion,

There was a small change in me for that cycle, but bloody hell what a change for the next one.

Yes, I still came on, of course, but there was such a reduction that I moved to smaller sanitary products, once my maxi's and super-plus ran out, of course. I had a few aches and pains, but NOTHING compared to what I'd had before.

I slept better, had no 'accidents' and all of my work friends told me that I seemed so much happier in myself.

My parents announced that I'd finally 'grown out' of my attitude;" only I hadn't grown-out of it, I'd taken pills: pills I probably could have taken two years before and taken my exams normally and gone on to take my A-levels at school, as my sister would start doing in a year's time. I decided I was going to get straight back into it the next September.

Every time I'd suggested retaking my exams previously, my parents would roll then close their eyes,

"You CAN'T go back to school, you've been out too long!" Mum said, looking across at Dad just in case.

"The FE College is..." I was cut short with a hateful snort from my father, as if such a thing was not even worth consideration.

"THAT college has a terrible reputation!" he said indignantly.

"Not that I've heard," I said. "Lots of my friends went there and got their qualifications."

"It's a hive of drug taking and teenage pregnancy, so I've heard," he threw back at me with his usual folded-arms 'end of conversation' gambit.

"None of my friends left there pregnant, and certainly none of them take drugs."

"That you know of..." he gave a knowing grin and tilt of his head.

"You've met most of them, Dad, you tell me."

He looked really cross that I was disagreeing with him, but since I'd been earning a wage and bringing in money to the household, I figured I was entitled to an opinion. Dad must have seen the look in my eye and started a different tack.

"I don't think I could go through all that GRIEF," he did a very dramatic shudder.

"I'm much better now. I never bothered you before I had my health problems."

"Well..." he grumbled, "You'll... you'll still have to work evenings and weekends to keep your housekeeping rolling in!" He raised his eyebrows with a 'you didn't think of that did you' look to add to his usual disappointment.

I looked through to the front room where my younger sister was sat, and was about to ask about her having to bring in HER housekeeping now she was sixteen when the thought obviously struck him, too, and he left the room and stayed out of my way for the rest of the evening, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

I went up to my room to Google GCSE retakes and the A' level courses that my friends had all taken.

I'd lost touch with almost all my peers who had stayed at our old school, gone on to college or training courses. I watched their progress through Facebook, especially as they reported that they'd been accepted for this university or that, and I could only watch as I slowly became part of a different world, a world of 'five days out of seven' retail drudgery, and no more dreams of further or higher education, a degree in history, a life involving the one thing that still interested me.

Time flew by and it was with shock that my shift realised my eighteenth birthday had passed without recognition nearly three weeks previously, with a card and clothes from Mum and Dad, always clothes, and stuff that Mum liked, nice smart Baptist clothes, that looked decent and were bound to be hard wearing and good value.

I had a very cheap general use greetings card from my sister, just signed 'Karen,' plus a similar card from my grandfather with a five-pound note.

"A five-pound note!" Dad would say. "That might not seem a lot, but to Grandfather, that's a big sum. You really must write back to him and thank him!"

I bought a message-less card from the shop, wrote 'Thanks, Jaime' and posted it back to him.

My Aunt and Uncle sent a card, having already paid twenty-five pounds into my on-line bank account. If they'd given me cash, my Dad would have found some way of making sure that it went on more sensible clothes. No way could I buy my own laptop or IT. I just about had my own phone, but Dad insisted it was on his account.

Always happy to have a reason to have a party, my best friend at the shop, Cheryl, hastily arranged a celebration for me in a large room at the community centre on the estate near the store, not telling me but one of the girls in the office got my home phone number and asked my parents to bring me along but to keep it as a surprise. This was good, because I'm sure that if it had come as a family invitation to 'a party,' they'd never have come.

It was a rather lovely night, and I cried as the cheer went up for me as we entered. The DJ played Stevie's 'Happy Birthday to ya,' then Cliff's 'Congratulations,' and all of my colleagues came and hugged me.

My Dad was his usual pleasant and positive self while in company, and even danced with Mum, but he was looking at his watch from a little after nine o'clock. He managed to stick it until ten, telling everyone that my Mum had to be up early for church the next morning.

I thanked everyone, turning down the offer of a lift or a taxi share from several of the others, especially after I caught the look from my dad.

Once we had arrived home and I'd taken the piles of presents up to my room, he sat down in his chair and looked at me gravely.

"Jaime, I have to apologise."

Apologise? MY Dad?

"What?" I said. "What for?"

"I... that is we..." he looked across at Mum so she could share the blame. "We railroaded you into 'that job' in 'that shop'," he said. "At the time we were cross with you and thought a bout of hard work would teach you a lesson, enough of a punishment to... would be enough to sort you out..."

Mum looked at Dad with a very real and surprised look that all but screamed, 'What do you mean WE?'

"Sort me out?" I squeaked. "What‽"

"Three years ago, you were talking about which university you were going to and what your degree was going to be," said Dad. "You could have gone BACK TO SCHOOL..."

"Darling," said Mum, interrupting Dad for once. "You were top of your stream in school, then one weekend you turned into an evil bitch queen who whined like an angry puppy. Then you..."

Dad interrupted her back, even though it was his mantra she was repeating.

"You go to work at that... that HORRIBLE shop and mix with those scruffy OAP's and soap and reality-TV-fixated single mothers and you become a NICE girl again!"

His look said that NICE was something he really hadn't thought I'd ever be. Time for some home truths, I thought.

I was eighteen years of age, and had spent more than one and half of them working at a supermarket they'd railroaded me into that they now had issues with.

"And you know why that really is?" I snapped, just as he was about to launch into his next jibe, "Your precious and all-knowing Doctor Duggan could have prescribed me a pill that would have sorted it out, but NO!" My Dad looked really uncomfortable with this discussion, "No, I just got told to take painkillers that even he said would only take the very edge off the pain, and I was told to live through it. The real reason I'm feeling better and aren't in seven days of pain, is because Doctor Nicolls prescribed me the pill and I'm loads..."

"YOU'RE ON..." my dad stuttered, "YOU'RE ON THE PILL?"

My bottom lip flapped and I took a deep breath.

"Is that ALL you got from that conversation?" I stuttered back.

"I'm... I'm going to jolly well speak to that GP surgery!" he snapped. "Dishing out THE PILL like it's so much bloody... candy!"

"Have you listened to a word I've said, Dad?"

"Yeah, you're on the pill, like... like some bloody..."

Mum's jaw dropped and eyebrows raised in horror and tried to shush him.

"Like some bloody WHAT, Dad?" I said. "Like what?"

"Oh..." he snapped realising the corner he'd painted himself into. My mum looked at him with some thunder.

"What Daddy means..." started Mum, trying desperately to rescue the situation, but I interrupted.

My eighteen years of listening to my Dad waxing lyrical at the TV news or the Daily Mail headlines was that young 'shopgirls' were, like my previous manager had stated, all waiting to get pregnant and spend the rest of their lives on benefits with free housing. Dad would then add that he'd had to work hard forty hours a week for a pittance, but his hard work had meant marriage, children, success, a house, a car, holidays... blah blah blah.

In the old days he would throw in his usual bullshit of 'Educated at the school of hard knocks, then the university of life but still made a success of it without degrees and all that', until his nephew and two nieces went to real universities and graduated into better jobs than his.

As soon as it became the option of choice for me, his disparaging remarks about higher education were more specific. Mum and Dad went to parents' evenings where he was learning about certain high-profile jobs that even he couldn't slag off or claim was less important than his. They were given leaflets on the way forward for their children, and Mum began to buzz with the thoughts that HER daughters could go to universities and graduate into one of the professions.

Dad was obviously threatened by this, my dysmenorrhea came along at the perfect time, and he could be even more disappointed and let down to a totally new level. Here I was ready to go back to college and start again, and he was back on the attack rather than his usual groaning sigh.

I was on the pill, but fortunately I'd grown up with his opinionated bollocks and I could almost predict what he would say next and finished the sentence,

"What Daddy means is that single girls that take the pill are sluts," I said. Mum put her hand to her mouth while Dad's mouth flapped a bit. I looked at him with raised eyebrows, suggesting that he might wish to enlighten us, to reaffirm what he'd always blathered on about regarding single mothers.

"Weeeell..." he began. "It's fair to say to say I'm a bit disappointed that Dr Duggan's advice has been ignored."

"His advice was to let me suffer."

"He SAID you'd grow out of it, So..."

"It's three and a half years since, and I haven't. So, let's have some clarification Dad, do I take it that you want me to stop taking the pill and go back to being in pain and misery with raging hormones?" His mouth flapped a bit but he saw how I was boxing him in but tried to change the subject. "WELL?" I shouted at him for the first time, and even Mum looked at him for an answer.

He paused,

"Dr Duggan is an EXPERT," said Dad with raised eyebrows and folded arms, and in his most parochial tone.

"An expert that left me in pain and misery for three years with no sign of an end to it," I said. "While a three-minute discussion with a soap-fixated and tattooed 'shopgirl' in THAT SHOP, then five minutes with a GP that isn't still living in the 1950's and thinks sick people should just smile and work through it actually cured me!"

Mum looked ashen, and I'm pretty sure she got what I was talking about, but not Dad, and he just sighed and shook his head like I REALLY didn't understand what was best for me.

"Is it just a cure for sluts Dad?" I let that hang.

My sister was at a cinema trip with some school friends and had declared she wouldn't be seen dead in the company of 'Jaime's FRIENDS from THAT shop,' and Dad had given her the money to go, -- something he'd never done for me, but she would have loved this discussion!

I waited for his next words of wisdom, but he clearly didn't have any. He broke eye contact with me while he tried to regain the moral high ground; I wasn't going to let him.

"So," I said grandly, "I'll stop taking the pill then every time I'm ill or feeling down and racked with agony, I can tell my boss at the shop that I'm a bit slower and running to the bathroom every forty-five minutes, it's down to YOU because you'd rather I was suffering and in pain, yeah?" I took out my phone, "I'll just give him your number and you can explain it to him? Shall I, Daddy?" I used Karen's childish tone to call him that.

His bottom lip flapped as I picked up his very own arrows of outrageous fortune and threw them back at him,

"Okay, how about this? Seeing as I'm no longer suffering agonising period pain, how about I continue taking the pill, but stick pins in my arms to make up for it? Punch myself in the stomach for the last week of the month. It's obvious that seeing as I didn't get the right exam results you still think I deserve be in pain."

He was struggling now. I was eighteen and no longer taking his shit.

He looked at the fireplace, closed his eyes, came to a conclusion, smiled and shook his head, here we go...

"All the time you live in MY HOUSE..."

I shook my head in disgust at him this time and stood up, my squeaking chair shutting him down for a moment,

"This will never end, will it?" I said. "I got it wrong two years ago and I'm never going to be allowed to forget it or make it good, am I?" He looked up at me, "AM I!" I screamed at him. He gulped and looked stupid, just like on the rare occasions Mum told him off, "If I even mention I'm going to retake my exams you get all wicked stepmother and tell me I've got to pay my way, or it's 'too awful for you to even consider.' I notice that the delightful Karen doesn't have to 'pay her way.' No, she gets bloody pocket money -- I never did!" Mum put her hand to her mouth and looked at me with really sorrowful eyes and I knew she'd definitely got it.

Dad didn't, and looked away, still not having an answer for me.

"I'm sorry that you think so little of me and that I've been such a disappointment to you," I growled and with the first tears pouring down my face,

He looked at me again with real anger in his eyes, and I could see it was because he, the all-knowing master of the house, had been shut down and proved wrong. I was so furious with him that I went for the killing blow.

"My failure, the shame I brought onto this family by not scoring all A's and B's in my exams, is down to the Sainted Doctor Duggan -- YOUR expert," I said pointing a finger at him, "if he'd not been such an old fart and insisted on me being a sweet and unsullied virgin, unspoilt by modern day pharmaceuticals, I'd now be finishing my A' levels and preparing for my preferred University. God forbid you let me follow loads of my friends to college?" I stood up between them both, "And as for me working in THAT supermarket -- my punishment, the prison sentence for my failure, that's solely on you two." Mum was crying now and Dad looked at her as if she was letting the side down. I stormed up the stairs slamming my bedroom door.

How like my bloody Dad.

My work friends that had helped me sort out my life out, they had helped me grow up.

My snobbish parents that had thrown me in amongst them to punish me for not reaching their expectations, didn't like those lovely, normal, honest people, and for the final nail in the coffin they had to bring me down from any pleasure or positivity minutes after my surprise birthday party.

I slumped back on my bed feeling the crump of paper of the accumulated presents I'd dropped on my bed when I first got back.

I looked at the label on the first, 'To Darling Jaime. This is purely medicinal and hoping your evenings won't be so long and boring anymore. Luv, from Cheryl.'

I tore off the paper from the long thin box and was shocked to find a 'Jessica Rabbit seven speed thrusting vibrator,' and I giggled and looked at the instructions on the box. Cheryl was my best mate at the store, an early-thirties, fiery redheaded single mum with the kind of energy and vitality that I could only dream of, who exuded the kind of sexy self-confidence I could only dream of.

More of a big sister, Cheryl had noticed my monthly pain early on and told me over lunch that she too had suffered bad period pain when it was 'The Crimson Tide,' and over and above childbirth the absolute best cure was an orgasm.