True Tales From My Childhood - "My First Time"

I must have been 12, because I remember turning off the television after watching the premiere episode of Manimal and thinking, "Wow - that show is going to last a long time. Who doesn't love it? And that Doctor Jonathan Chase sure is a dish!" My uncle came into the villa with his whip in his hand, and I knew the albinos in the north molybdenum fields had gotten a taste of the lash once again. Uncle Mac looked at me sternly and said:

"How old are you now, boy?"

I told him, sheepishly. He sniffed both in disgust and from the Pixie Stix dust ringing his nostril.

"Reckon it's time we made you a man."

I nodded, uncomprehending. My uncle often spoke of such things. He had told two native snake charmers he was going to make them men, which apparently meant they had to feed him grapes on the verandah after he had had too much sangria. He had told my dog One-Ear that he was going to make him a man, which meant siccing him on the head of cabbage Uncle Mac thought was getting suspiciously large. He had even told the wife of the local despot that he was going to make her a man, which meant dancing the cha cha with her while the band at her wedding played a polka. I waited to see what he meant with me.

"We're going into town, boy," he said. "We're going to get your cherry popped."

'Town' in this instance meant the collection of 20 or so huts a few miles down the Irrawaddy, but I nodded again. I knew he and my father must have discussed this, so I went along. Dad would be in Sikkim negotiating with the king for the use of a cadre of Yeti as day laborers (you can pay them in mongoose feces, and they don't unionize - it's actually against their religion) for the next two weeks, and I guessed the time could not wait until he returned. I knew, also that when my uncle said "going into town," that could mean only one destination: Madame Ostrowsky's Den of Pleasure. And that destination gave my father too many unpleasant memories. He went there often after Mom took off with that seven-fingered clown from Rangoon (a memory which has led to me to places like this in my adulthood), and he always returned smiling and sobbing at the same time - I never figured it out until much later. Anyway, after he got the lesions and had to start wearing the catcher's mask, Madame Ostrowsky (in reality an ex-colonial officer named Liam) banned him from the establishment. Uncle Mac, rash-free, continued to head down there every Saturday night and return every Sunday morning just in time to disrupt Reverend Smith's sermon and urinate in the collection plate.

We took the jet skis downriver and parked at the only pier for two hundred miles. It was a Wednesday afternoon, so the townspeople were surprised to see my uncle. They ran screaming into their houses, which Uncle Mac waved aside with a jovial, "They always make a fuss when I show up - I reckon right now they're planning some big fete for later!" We walked through deserted mud paths until we reached the biggest hut in town - Madame Ostrowsky's. Uncle Mac bellowed that he was here, and pushed aside the two midgets drunk on rice wine who served as saloon-style doors to the place and entered.

It was unlike anything I had ever seen. Wicker and bamboo everywhere, two lazy fans circling above, men sprawled in various states of undress and stupefaction along the walls, women dressed like geishas trolling through the human maze, some carrying trays filled with what looked like glass tubes, some holding violins and trombones on which they played slow, mournful jazz, and still others leading various barnyard animals around on leashes. The women were spectacularly beautiful - I had never imagined women could be this beautiful, not even when my uncle and father would dress up and put on shows for the plantation workers. They looked like they had been sculpted by a master, who spun them on wheels and added perfect curves right where they were needed. I gazed at them, deciding first that one was the most beautiful - no, that one - but what about that one - and here comes one down the stairs! I was instantly aware of a heat flowing through my body, a heat unlike anything I'd ever felt before, even hotter than when my best friend Siegfried put crushed jalapeño in my underwear. I looked desperately at my uncle, but he had drifted over to a tall, spindly, nattily-tailored gentlemen and was conversing quietly with him.

I raced over just in time to hear Uncle Mac say, "I say give him to Stella," to which the tall man said, "You're daft." I tugged at my uncle's sleeve and he spun around, a blazing smile on his face.

"My dear boy!" he boomed. "Madame Ostrowsky here and I were just discussing your predicament. I think today you will see Miss Stella."

"Now, MacGillicuddy ..." said Madame Ostrowsky.

"Hush, Liam," said my uncle. "He's a strong lad. Stella won't hurt him."

He told me to go to the top of the stairs, take a right, and knock on the first door on the left. When I was given permission, I was to go in and do everything Miss Stella instructed. I had become very good at knocking and waiting to be told to enter a room ever since the "Uncle Mac and Miss Cavendish and the large plate of elephant testicles" incident a few years earlier, so I nodded eagerly (an eagerness I did not feel, I can assure you, as my stomach was doing flip-flops) and dashed off. I climbed the stairs, still unsure what was expected of me. How would visiting Miss Stella make me a man? What made a man? Did it have anything to do with what my uncle was doing to Miss Cavendish and the elephant testicles? I doubted that I wanted to be a man that badly. But I did not want to disappoint my uncle or my father, who had doted on me since that awful day when my mother said, in front of all of us, "Giuseppe treats me better than any five-fingered man ever could! We're going to live in the Philippines and bring laughter to the Tasaday!" I suppose the least I could do for them was to become a fine man. If visiting Miss Stella made me that, I owed it to them.

I knocked gently on the door and waited. A soft voice told me to enter, so I did. Miss Stella's room was even more exotic than the lobby. It smelled of lilac and seemed to be slightly hazy. In the center stood a four-poster bed with a gauzy covering hanging over it. The room was lit only by candles, which seemed to my unromantic soul a serious fire hazard. Miss Stella sat on a divan to my left, and she took my breath away.

As she stood, I saw that she was taller than my father. His encephalitis and club foot make him seem shorter than he is, but she was very tall - well over six feet. She wore shiny leather boots that ended about halfway up her thighs, and the heels added another eight inches to her height. She had a black leather thong on, and a bustier laced up the front, pushing her breasts upward and outward. She had long, black hair, completely straight, and flaming green eyes. Her face was unadorned by makeup, but her natural beauty almost overwhelmed me. The heat I had felt downstairs was threatening to knock me senseless. Miss Stella must have seen that, for she took my hand and led me quickly to the bed, where I sat on goose-down pillows into which I could have easily melted.

"Drink," she commanded, in that soft, silky voice, and held out a glass to me. I sipped the delightful fruity concoction and felt much better. She eased onto the bed beside me.

"So, MacGillicuddy brought you," she cooed. I nodded, unsure if my voice would work. "Oh, he's quite the legend around here. When you're older, I will tell you some stories!" She laughed, and the sound was like wind through chimes. She continued, "So, ______ is your father?" I nodded again. "Wonderful! I will make you forget your mother, dear. That is what I'm here for."

She stood and pulled a chest out from under the bed. I swallowed nervously and croaked a question: What was I to do?

She looked up and smiled. "Don't worry. Miss Stella will guide you." She opened the chest and took out a box. "Here we have the apparatus," she said. "This will teach you."

She placed the apparatus in between us. I shifted uncomfortably on the pillows as she set it up. She explained all the parts to me and the rules of engagement. I didn't realize becoming a man was so strictly informed by rules! We sat with the apparatus in the middle, and she instructed me. She breathed deeply and huskily when I did the right thing, saying things like, "Yes, right there," and "You hit me in just the perfect place," and she was playfully stern with me when I did the wrong thing, saying "My dear boy, you're not even close!" and "That was clumsy placement!" As I got better, she became less playful and more focused, because she saw that I was becoming a master - in such a short time! It became less of a game and more of a battle of wills, and with each slight move I made, she squirmed more urgently and I gained confidence. Finally, after hours of a thrust here, a parry there, and Miss Stella and I getting more and more heated and more and more in synch, I made my final move, and she cried out in part pain and part passion, and simpered, a beaten woman:

"You sank my battleship!"

Then, I knew I was a man. It has been my my favorite game ever since. Thank you, Miss Stella. Thank you, Uncle Mac. And thank you, Dad. I'm sorry I had to feed you to the hippo. But that's a story for another day.