Ballet One
I'd taken up classes when I was 5 years old. My beautiful mother, Natalya, was an émigré from Russia and had trained at the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. Then, on a tour in the 80's to Canada she had defected; not because she hated the Soviet system but because she met my father Andre, a Quebecer. He was a dancer too, but had decided to leave the profession and become an agent. He was still so strong, doing his work-outs daily as if still performing. I used to love to watch him, see the muscles flex and straighten over his beautiful, manful physique. He always had the capacity to make me laugh and was never serious, unless working.
My mother however, had a Russian countenance and used to appear so staid. It was just her way, though there was never a day when she did not tell me how much she loved me and was proud of me. That mask of seriousness, almost primness, was until my 18th birthday.
She suddenly began to confide in me and not just some minor piece of information or concern...
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We were in the bathroom at the time. I had just had a shower, a welcome one after a tough rehearsal for The Swan, and was standing with a bath towel around me. She was rising from the toilet having just had a pee and was wiping herself with paper. Although the action was something I had seen many times, as we were always very open with each other in our toileting, her face had a different look about it, as if there was something she needed to say.
"You know, when I met Andre," she said, moving to the sink and washing her hands. There was a smile forming on her face that made her nose wrinkle up in that cute way I'd noticed since a child. She had used his proper name as we never used 'dad' or 'papa', or mama for that matter; somehow avoiding such labels. "It was love at first sight," she continued, as she dried her hands on a small green towel, the smile widening and with a strange glazed look in her eyes; something I had never seen before.
"How romantic!" I had exclaimed, undoing the towel and beginning to rub my tired legs dry.
"Oh yes. I looked at the huge bulge in his ballet tights and just knew I had to have him, and I have ever since that day," she said excitedly, breaking years of apparent primness in just one sentence.
"Natalya!" I said sharply, standing up suddenly, the towel dropped and forgotten, shocked by her explicitness but acutely aware of that strange look in her eyes again. I had always thought these things were not talked about, well at least in our home.
"What is wrong? It is time you learned about men, women too for that matter, and especially your own sexuality. I have left it too long really but laws are laws and the powers that be think sex begins at 18," she said, terribly seriously but while looking at me with that glint in her eye. "You have a beautiful body that is sadly unused bar the usual teenage masturbation..."
Should I nod in agreement, keep quiet, ask questions, should I be embarrassed even though I did not really feel it? What should I do? This was so unusual, so unlike her. But then, was it? My mind was racing, playing back moments in time, looking for clues.
There had been frequent times in the past when they sent me to my Uncle Vanya (yes, his mother was mad about Chekhov) and his lovely young wife, Yvette. Andre would hold me and tell me how much he and Natalya both loved me but they needed 'private time'. It was not until I was older and Yvette's daughter, Christine (or Cri-cri as I called her) told me in no uncertain terms what was going on that I understood. I had complained each time, which was at least once every two months, about not being able to stay at home.
"Look honey," she had said only recently, "They're having private time, which means they are fucking each other's brains out as noisily as they like for three days. No silent fucks because they are afraid to wake or alert you to the fact they like humping. What heaven! I am so envious. I have to use my vibe and that is never as good. Mum and dad have no problems doing it here with us around, the show-offs that they are. I'm surprised you haven't noticed them."
I'd felt such an idiot, denying that my 40+ year old parents had a sex drive, but I was also intrigued by my cousin's admission that she did it too. Plus, the poundings on the wall and the low moans that I thought I was hearing in my dreams made sense. Well they made sense as much as I knew about sex and that was very little. But what was a vibe? I'd never heard of it. I had obviously looked quizzically at her.
"You do know what fucking is, don't you?" she quizzed, her eyes a look of amazement.
"Yes," I said, almost indignantly, but in reality only had the descriptions of other girls bragging in the locker room, one poor quality sex film seen at my friend Vanessa's house, and what our biology teacher's student under training had taught us when delegated the task. Every year Miss Arnold got a student teacher to do the sex bits. She was a tweedy, stuck up woman who had clearly never been able to cope with a 'dick in her cunt', to borrow from Yvette's phrasebook.
"Ah, so it's the 'vibe' you don't know about," she replied, suddenly reaching into her bedside top drawer. She took out a long soft plastic thing about 9" long with a strange rabbit-like protrusion on the side. "This," she said proudly, "is known as the Rabbit © because it fucks me like a bunny." She said, laughing. "The little ears on the side pleasure my clitty when the big dick is in my cunt. Want to try?"
"Of course not!" I had snapped, embarrassed at both not knowing and at her explicit language. I didn't want her to know I rubbed myself almost every night lately given how hungry my clitty seemed to be for satisfaction, and ewww, what a thought that she might be implying I do it in front of her.
"Ok, ok," she had said, calming me down, "But when you want to try it, it is there; along with a whole range of other gadgets. Mom borrows them sometimes. Just make sure you clean them properly when you've finished. There is both a bottle of lube and another of cleaner at the front of the drawer." She paused, suddenly looking concerned and thoughtful. "Look we are the best of friends and not just cousins, so come to me when you need advice, ok? You know that what you say stays between us, no matter how naughty or outrageous? I can be trusted."
