Sister Mary

(Not me, but could've been)

(My usual entries are about sexuality, my physical condition and other thoughts, but every once in a while I'm going to discuss incidents which happened in my life and changed/impacted my view of same. This is one such time, and though it may read to some people like a letter to Penthouse, it happened and was an eye opener for me in many ways.)

By my third year of college I'd established a bit of a sexual reputation among my friends, though as a group we were all very active and open. Not a bad reputation. The opposite, in fact. Open to virtually all things and not shocked by much,  but also quite considerate of the people I had sex with.

In the fall semester of that year a new student arrived in the dorms and was set up as a roommate for one of my regular group. At first we thought the woman - whom I shall call Mary in the time-honored tradition of naming any nun in a story "Sister Mary", although in this case "Mary" lacked a more experienced nun's worldly cynicism.

This Mary was probably the most naive nineteen year old I'd ever met. Before or since.

Mary never discussed her upbringing, at least around me. Nor her family, other than to say she was raised in the San Fernando Valley a few miles north of LA. Not the sort of neighborhood I'd associate with naivete.

The first time Mary joined outside the dorms our little posse was at a nearby college bar. At the time I was drinking screwdrivers. Mary, being a good nineteen year old, realized she couldn't legally drink and - having seated herself next to me - asked how to order a drink without alcohol. We told her to order it virgin, which she thought was quite funny. But by the time the waitress got to Mary she hadn't yet decided what to order, and hearing me order a screwdriver she promptly asked for a virgin screwdriver.


The waitress paused, then leaned down and said "would you like an orange juice, honey?"

We laughed, of course, but it embarrassed Mary. She came to me at dinner at the dorms - I worked some meals at the food hall to make spending money - and sat nearby, as friends of mine regularly did. At one point, during a lull, she came over to me and stood by the desk I used to check people's meal cards, and said she wanted to ask me a favor, that she wanted me to help her avoid stupid things like what had happened at the bar. I reassured her we'd all done stupid things, but would be happy to help her out.

"It says you put the left foot in..."

A few nights later I was over at the bar again - yeah, I went a few times a week - with three of the women I knew, all of whom were level headed but also pretty wild in the bedroom themselves. And after a round or two all three took a vote and decided I needed to introduce Mary to sex. At the time I thought it was a funny, but awful, idea.

(I still do, thirty years later.)

But a few weeks later on we all were at a Friday night dorm party and I mentioned that the movie Caligula was playing at a theater not too far from campus, and that I wanted to see it (again). Caligula was the first big budget porn movie. It hadn't started out to be a porn film, and boasted quite a few reputable stars, but it was absolutely changed to become full-blown porn. Rather good porn, in fact, in my college-level opinion.

I've mentioned before that not only did I take a "Sex in Cinema" class with a couple of women I knew (girlfriends of my dorm mates), but had been to a few porn films (this was before the internet) with both guys and girls on several occasions. And the university even was open-minded enough to include x-rated films in the midnight Friday movie series they ran. Lots of stories associated with those, and I may go into some of them in later columns.

But this is about Mary. Who decided she wanted to see Caligula. In my mind, then and now, this was roughly the equal of a fan of Looney Toons cartoons wanting to tackle Apocalypse Now as their first feature-length movie. But she really, really wanted to see it.

And I agreed, but only after telling her in a frank discussion that I wasn't going to offer instructional commentary, was likely to get an erection, she was likely to be stared at (women didn't go to porn films, even art ones, back then) and she shouldn't be embarrassed at anything she saw on the screen. I asked her if she'd ever been sexually aroused and her response was "I think so".

(Several of us genuinely thought she was putting us on at first. Comments like that one made it seem like she was, but I believe she was being honest and hadn't ever had anyone talk to her about sex before she came to the dorms.)

So we went to the movie, and she was less shocked than intrigued. I took that as a good thing. Afterward we went back to the dorms and she was full of questions. About men's penises, about sex, about ejaculation, about lesbianism. At first it was awkward, but I just started telling her what I knew at that point. (I admit, now, I had a lot to learn. Still do. But at the time I considered myself an expert. Gotta love Youth.)

And, eventually, she asked if I got hard during the movie, which I had. I told her so, and she asked, bluntly, if she could see. It surprised me, and I told her it probably wasn't appropriate and that, in any case I'd lost it hours before, but she insisted she wanted to see an erection. I frankly didn't want to have sex with her - and never did - but her real need to understand and fit in were palpable.


But at the time I was soft, and told her so.

She looked disappointed and then asked if she could watch me get an erection. Without any real reason to say no, I agreed. She got very excited and kept thanking me. I pulled off my shoes and socks, then stood up and unbuckled my belt. Her eyes were fixated on my zipper, and I began to get second thoughts. It probably wasn't a good idea, but I dropped my pants and underwear, stepping out of them and letting her see my cock.

Now. Every man dreams of the other person just falling all over themselves to tell you what a gorgeous cock you have, how wonderful in every way it is. This is exactly how Mary reacted. This, her first adult penis beyond - maybe - her father's. She was amazed. I'd love to think it was me and it was warranted, but even in college I knew - from observation and experience - there were far better penises than mine. It was fun, but sad in a way.

As promised, I sat down on the couch next to her and let her fondle me a bit. It helped with the erection. I still had my shirt on and she was fully dressed. But she ran her hand through my pubes, noting they felt like her own. She was fascinated by testicles and amazed they rose and lowered, moving on their own. She'd always assumed balls just hung there, and was frustrated I couldn't exert any control over their movement. And she held my penis as I got harder. She wanted to feel the sensation of it enlarging as well as - she was the first person to tell me this - feel it as it got warmer as it got harder. She loved that it heated up. (I felt like a battery-driven toy.)

Then she wanted to masturbate me. I reluctantly...and almost inconceivably...said no. I was getting a bit weirded out by being this girl's instructional toy and told her she'd have to wait. Plus, what the Hell would I do or say when I came? She knew men did, of course, but how to clean up the mess, etc. I redressed and, as soon as I could, I left. Jacked off in the men's bathroom when I got back to my dorm.

Things were relatively quiet for a while, until she asked if she could watch me pose nude for a mutual friend of ours. Art project of what I'd today call "questionable" taste, but at the time I enjoyed it. I'll call our artist friend Laura. Laura, highly amused by the whole "innocence" thing, told Mary- in advance - it was okay. I think she wanted to make me squirm. Nasty sense of humor. But since Mary had already seen everything I told her it was okay.

So, once again Mary was full of questions, and Laura had to visibly bite her tongue quite a number of times as Mary asked me embarrassingly frank questions about my anatomy, and sexuality in general. I'd promised her honest responses, but hadn't expected an audience...nor such a discussion while naked in front of two women, neither of whom I'd fucked.

We got through it and I told Mary that was enough and that she needed to find someone else. I really worried it would become physical and wanted no part of that. It pretty much strained our friendship - kind of indicative of what might have happened had it gone any further. If she couldn't deal with my saying enough at simple nudity and honest discussion, I'd hate to think what might have occurred had we had sex. We never really talked again, and months later she drifted off and befriended a kind of bohemian artsy group. I have to believe she lost her viginity with them, as the last tine I saw her she'd visibly changed, both in demeanor as well as appearance. Or maybe she HAD been fucking with us and this was who she truly as. I'll never know.

But the impact it had on me was kinda cool, which is why I'm relating this to you now: sex is something I've learned to never judge in other people. Whatever their preference, as long as no laws are broken and everything's consensual, is their business not mine. Just as mine is none of theirs. I'm very honest when asked, if the questions are asked sincerely. I have secrets, but have people I can discuss them with.

And, in a way Mary was responsible for that.