[I preface my stories because I have received complaints that I don't always write stories that fit people's ideas about how a story ought to go. This story is about three sisters and the extended family connected to them. The category says "First Times, Memories & stories of people's first times". It doesn't specify First Times doing what. It contains discussion about teaching their young daughters about periods. It contains hetero sex between the sisters and their husbands, oral sex between two of the sisters and two husbands they aren't married to. It also contains the details of a secret. The story is set in Southern California.]
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Almost all our friends know what I do. They don't all say it the way I do, but they know. When I was in college years ago my own mother asked me what I was going to be when I graduated. I said I was becoming a sex educator and therapist. A year later I had graduated and started working within the local school system as an educator. Mom told everyone who asked that I taught high school.
On my own I discovered that telling anyone I was a sex therapist ended almost any chance I had with a nearby woman. I did finally meet one who wasn't put off by what I did. She was a physical education teacher at a neighboring high school and had put up with misconceptions about her life too.
We dated for months, got to be really good friends and on one of our monthly camping/hiking trips we decided to move in together. In the phone call she made to tell her mother we were moving in together her mother asked what I did for a living.
"Mom, he teaches for the district. He teaches the health and sex ed classes."
There was a long pause in the conversation and I never did find out what her mother said. When the call was over I asked about it and she said, "She's decided she likes you. You aren't a lesbian."
"Oh, but I am. Lesbians like women. I like women. Generally, lesbians are more oral in their sexuality and so am I."
"I've noticed. Let's not have that discussion with my mother. Ok?"
I nodded. Six months later I met mom. We were invited to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. I met the whole family. Jo, my lady, has two sisters who are a bit more traditional than she is. Carol, the oldest married the guy she dated all through high school while they were in their sophomore year of college. They now have two daughters. Next in line is Patricia, who got a teaching degree and taught second grade for ten years. After teaching four years she married a man who is now an administrator for an insurance company. They have two daughters. Every Sunday the whole clan sit together as an extended family in church in the same pew with Mom and Dad. Jo and I are missing.
During the Thanksgiving meal Carol asked Jo, "What do you guys do on the weekends?"
"We hike, go camping, explore things we can recommend to parents, and lots of other things." Jo said.
Carol's husband said, "When I was a kid we went camping as a family. It was lots of fun. Where do you go?"
"We went to Sturdevant Falls two weeks ago. It was just a trickle this time of year but it was still fun."
"I went there as a kid. We went swimming in the pool."
The sisters had not gone camping as children. From mom's comments she thought camping was dirty and girls should be clean. Carol's husband, Jack, asked me to keep in touch with our hiking and camping plans.
Jo warned me on the way home that Carol would never allow the girls to go camping. Carol shared her mother's opinion about dirt.
Two weeks later we planned our next camping trip. We wanted to go out to Twenty-nine Palms and camp at Joshua Tree National Monument. It would be cold at night but the sky would be spectacular. I called Jack and told him of our plan. He told Carol during dinner with their family and their girls wanted to go. One of their girls was interested in astronomy and even had a telescope. He called me back and we made plans to go together. Carol had not decided if she would go.
She went. I did most of the cooking and Jo, Jack and I set up camp. We brought extra blankets, good air mattresses and made sure everyone brought lots of clothes to layer. The campground was almost empty. When it got dark we set up the telescope and looked at the sky. We started by looking at the moon. At about ten Janice, their ten year old, saw a shooting star. It was the first one she had ever seen. Ten minutes later her sister saw one too. Then I helped them see a satellite passing over us. Even Carol got excited about all the things there were to see. None of us went to bed until after one in the morning.
Jo woke me in the morning as she often does when we camp. She wrapped her warm mouth around my morning hard on and quietly drove me crazy. Usually I can just make all the noise I want but with Jo's sister and nieces less than twenty feet away I needed to stay quiet.
After I gave Jo her morning juice she licked her lips and said, "I've had my breakfast. Now we need to feed everyone else." We got up, dressed and exited our tent. There was a thin layer of frost over our campsite. I started the fire and got it going good and strong. Carol came out of their tent and quickly went to the nearby bathroom. I smiled, knowing that when she sat her naked butt on that toilet she would want to scream. That toilet seat was frozen. A few seconds after she went inside I did hear a yelp.
When she came back I had a steaming cup of coffee waiting for her. She accepted it with gratitude. I added eggs to the frying pan along with the potatoes and onions I had already put in. Jo crumbled bacon we had cooked at home into the mix. Jack and the girls were soon out of their tent and hungry.
As we ate we talked. The girls wanted to know when we could go camping again. They wanted to know where as well. Jo had thought ahead and brought one of our camping notebooks. They looked through it and picked a good spot. We sat around the campfire and planned the next family campout.
It was after one in the afternoon when we left Joshua Tree. We had only planned an overnighter for their first trip. The next trip would be a three day, two night trip to a beach near San Diego. We would introduce the girls to hiking on the beach while we were there.
Jo was impressed with how well her sister had done on a campout. On Monday I got a call from Jack.
"We've got a problem and I don't know what to do." He said.
"Can I help?"
"I hope so. Janice is ten, you know. She's panicky because her best friend started her first period while we were gone, camping. Now she's asking lots of questions and Carol doesn't know what to say."
"And?"
"And... you're the professional! What can we do?"
'Get off the phone. Go to the library and get a book called, "What's Happening to Me?" Sit down as a family and read the book together. It answers ninety-nine percent of her questions. It is illustrated. It does tell the truth. After you read it together hand the book to Janice and Jenna and let them read it by themselves."
"Then what?"
"Carol should go to the store and buy supplies for the first periods. She should show the girls how to use the supplies and give the supplies to the girls."
"Show them?"
"Yes. Show them."
"I'll tell her you said that."
"Tell her I am willing to coach her and you in how to do all this. If it isn't done soon their first periods will be a trauma they don't need."
"Thanks. This being a parent doesn't get easier does it?"
"Yes! When Janice is thirty-three and living somewhere else it will be easier."
"You promise?"
"Yup."
Jo had listened and when I got off the phone she said, "Mom never talked to us. My best friend in sixth grade showed me. The very next day I started. I was surprised but not scared. When I asked my sisters they both said that when they started they thought they were dying."
"That is so unnecessary."
"Mom never talked about s-e-x either."
"You discovered it on your own?"
"Not really. I knew sex had something to do with making babies so I didn't want to do anything that might make babies. I talked with the older girls at school. They introduced me to no-risk sex."
"No risk?"
"Eating pussy carries no risk of pregnancy."
"So your introduction to sex was an introduction to lesbian sex?"
"Yes. Our whole field hockey team would get together after practice and go crazy. Word got out somehow and the boys at the school started calling all of us lez or bitches. I wasn't a lez but I was terrified of boys."
"I wouldn't ever want to be a teen again. It's so stressful."
"If I could go back now, and keep my knowledge from now... I think I could really enjoy being a teen."
