I have mentioned in other stories I have written here that I worked for many years as an English professor at a small but expensive New England college. I retired at the age of 65 as a result of the college's policy of mandatory retirement—a stupid idea in an age when most people live longer than they did in the past and most retain their brain capacity. I continued to live in the same town and the same house that my late wife and I had occupied for 30 years. But to keep myself from becoming bored, I developed a new hobby and vocation by writing mystery novels. To my surprise I was able to find an agent, who in turn found a publisher. And again to my surprise, the books sold.
But after four of them, I started to get bored with fiction and thought it would be a good idea to write a nonfiction book that would involve a lot of research. But what would be the subject? In my inactivity, I began to watch "Oprah" in the afternoons and was astonished at some of the things she was able to reveal about the sex lives of American students in high school and even middle school.
I didn't want to get into the deeds of middle school students for obvious reasons, but I thought it would be fascinating to research the sex lives of high school students. But how? Obviously they didn't go around bragging about it—except to their friends of course.
The answer was to come in the form of a knock at the door.
To relieve my boredom, I also had been teaching a two-hour a week class in writing at the local high school, so I knew quite a few of the students. One of them I knew was Catherine Green, or "Cathy" as she liked to be called, since she lived only a few doors down the street from me.
One of Cathy's jobs during the summer was to mow the large lawn in front of her parents' house. Her father was president of the local bank, so the family had money, and the house and yard were large. Whenever I heard the power mower start, I would go out and take a walk up the street. I enjoyed talking to Cathy, and she would always stop the mower to talk. But the main reason I went out was to take another look at her. She always wore extremely sort denim shorts and a loose T-shirt. Her breasts apparently were small, so she never wore a bra, and thus I admired her "points."
She had just graduated from high school at the age of 18 and was planning to go to Boston University to major in government. We had a nice chat about her future plans, and then I headed off to the store—but turned once more when she turned away to take another look at her lovely bottom.
Anyone who thinks a man loses interest in sex at a certain age is naïve and greatly mistaken. Cathy was someone who could arouse a lot of your interest in sex. She was about five foot six with long brown hair, which she always wore in a simple ponytail. She never wore any makeup, but she didn't need to. She had an absolutely beautiful face and looked a little like the movie actress Natalie Portman. She also had a lovely tan, which was very unusual, since we lived in what was called "the whitest state in New England" because of our long winters and short summers. I asked her one time how she got and kept that lovely tan, and she told me "The tanning salon in the mall. I can get an all-over tan that way without any tan lines, since I don't have to wear anything when I'm in the tanning bed."
What a picture that made in my mind.
At any rate, the day after the mowing, there was a knock on my door. I answered it to find Cathy there, in her usual garb of short shorts and a yellow cotton T-shirt. And of course her points.
"Hi," I said, "What brings you here?"
"As you know, Mr. Baxter, I have a full scholarship to Boston U, but I'm trying to get money during the summer for my other expenses, and I wondered if you might have any odd jobs I could do?"
I thought about it. "Hmmmm. Actually, I don't think I do. I retain a landscape guy on a yearly basis, and he does all the lawnmowing and stuff like that, and I can't really think of anything else."
"Okay, but if you do think of anything, give me a call. I really need to make some money, and jobs are scarce."
"Will do." She turned, and I watched her cute little bottom walk away.
But then I thought about it. If I was going to write a nonfiction book about the sex lives of typical high school students in America, I would need an inside source, someone who was intelligent, articulate, and best of all, candid. Who fit that description better than Cathy?
I called her later.
"Listen, Cathy, I was thinking about it, and I do have an 'odd' job for you. It pays well and would not take up much of your time. If you would like to come back over, I'll talk to you about it."
"Great!"
She was there in ten minutes, still wearing the same garb of course. I invited her in, gave her a lemonade and took her into my home office.
After sitting her down, I explained to her what I was planning to write and that I needed an "inside person", so to speak, who would candidly be able to tell me what was going on in the sex lives of typical high school students.
"I won't use your real name of course," I said, "We'll make up a name for you, like 'Becky' or something. The job pays twenty-five dollars an hour and there would be two two-hour sessions, one on Monday afternoon and one on Friday.
"That's a hundred dollars a week! Fantastic! That's as much as I hoped to make by working at some place like Mickey D's for a lot more hours than that."
"So you'll take the job—and give me honest candid answers?"
"Yes—of course!"
"You can tell your parents about it. Don't tell them the subject. Say that it's confidential, but that you're helping me with the research—at the standard researcher rate of twenty-five dollars an hour."
"Okay."
"Today's Sunday. So do you want to start tomorrow, Monday, around 2 p.m.?"
"Yes, that would be fine."
"See you then."
Cathy was right on time the next day and wearing her usual garb of short denim shorts and an orange T-shirt.
"Hi!" she said with a smile.
"Hi yourself."
I took her into my office and sat her down. "I shouldn't do this," I said, "but would you like a glass of wine?" I wanted to loosen her up a bit and make her less self-conscious and more talkative.
"Yes, that would be nice."
I had the decanter filled with white wine and two glasses ready. I poured both of us a glass, handed Cathy hers, picked my legal pad and pen and sat down. She drank some of the wine.
"First things first," I said with a smile. "Is it true what you told me: That you have no tan lines with that beautiful tan?"
She laughed. "Yes, it's true." She stood up, turned around, unzipped the front of her shorts and pulled the back down about two inches, below where the top of her bathing suit would be. "See?"
"Yes." I not only could see that she had no tan lines; I also could see that she was wearing yellow cotton panties. "What about the other side?" I asked.
She turned around and with the same smile on her face lifted the front of her shirt up to her shoulder blades, exposing her lovely breasts.
"Good God, I didn't mean you were supposed to show me your breasts!"
She laughed. "I'm sorry. I like to shock people," She pulled her shirt down and sat back down. "You weren't offended, were you?"
"No, just surprised. You have beautiful breasts."
"They're too small."
"Says who?"
"My boyfriend Roger."
"He doesn't know what he's talking about. He has no eye for beauty. They're lovely, much better than big heavy breasts."
"Thank you. I'll tell Roger you said so."
"Please don't. Let's get on to the serious questions. Did you consider yourself a typical American high school girl?"
"Yes, but smarter than most."
"But typical sexually?"
"I guess so."
"When and what was your first sexual experience?"
"Ahhhh." She thought about it. "I gave a boy a blowjob when I was fifteen."
"Lucky him. Did you have more sex with him?"
"No, I just wanted to see what it was like?"
"Did he come in your mouth?"
"Yes."
"And did you swallow it?"
"Yes, I wanted to see what it tasted like."
"And what did it taste like?"
"A little peppery. It was like swallowing an oyster."
