Sarah and Valerie, both 18, were in the final year of high school. They had been friends since childhood, but they were as different as night and day. Sarah, my daughter, was a brunette with a sweet innocent face, a good girl. Valerie was blonde, about the same height and weight as Sarah. But she seemed a lot more free in her speech, perhaps a bad girl. Which interested me. Since both of them were cheerleaders, they had lithe athletic bodies.
But unlike Sarah,Valerie always seemed to wear the skimpiest of clothes when she came over to visit my daughter. This time she had on extremely short and ragged denim cutoffs and a yellow jersey that did little to hide the fact that she was not wearing a bra. Also, she had a silver tongue stud.
And oddly enough, Valerie, even though she was not going to college, was smarter than Sarah. So she used to help Sarah at night with her homework, and I paid her $7 an hour for the service and drove her home afterwards so she would not have to walk.
"I have a question I've been meaning to ask you," I said to her that night on the way to her home. "What's the idea of the tongue stud? What's the point of it?"
"Guys like it," she replied.
"I've never seen a guy with one."
"Guys like it on girls."
"Why?"
"Guess."
I thought for a minute. I was afraid to say what I was thinking. "Does it have anything to do with sex?"
She smiled. "You got it."
"Really? Oral sex?"
"That's it."
"Amazing. I would never have guessed."
"But you did. Right away."
Halfway to her house, we passed the deserted WalMart parking lot. "Why don't you pull in here for a few minutes," she said.
"Why?"
"I'll tell you."
"Okay." I pulled into the parking lot.
"Park somewhere and douse the lights," she said.
I did so.
"Would you like a demonstration?" she asked.
"Of what?"
"My tongue-stud."
"Doing what?"
"Guess."
"You're kidding me."