We knew our family had a special ritual for when someone in the family turned eighteen. It made us feel nervous but the ritual was a secret and no one had ever been able to break into that secret. Eighteen is the age for sexual consent and we were afraid we would lose our virginity to a family member. That idea was a real turn off.
My favorite cousin and I had birthdays two days apart in July and we were to go through the ritual. We were given no choice. The ritual started back in the nineteen thirties or maybe earlier, so we kind of decided it might be some kind of variation of the usual spanking and rolling under the bed. Folks in that era were just coming out of the flapper twenties with really short skirts and plunging necklines. They had turned very modest, making their skirts longer and necklines higher and tighter.
My cousin, Millie and I did some studying on the internet trying to find some reference to eighteenth birthday rituals around the world. We weren't sure of our national heritage so we looked at all kinds of European country records.
Millie said, "Sally, I'm not finding anything. Incest has always been taboo in our family the best I can find. It is pretty much the same in all countries but is still practiced in secret. I just can't image anything like that in our family."
"Well, Millie, I guess we will just have to wait and see. It is unusual for them to combine the celebration for the two of us but it is unusual, according to Mom, for there to be two birthdays so close together. She said since some family members were coming quite a ways to participate they didn't feel justified in having separate parties. At least we will have each other for support. I hope."
A couple of things we each had noticed from the past was who attended the rituals. We had been around for them. We had seen five of our relatives go though them, three of them were girls and two were boys. We were not allowed to see those people for a quite a while afterwards; usually at least three weeks. That made us wonder if they had been hurt and it took a while for them to recover so we weren't able to see them. That left no hint.
One other thing that made us a bit nervous, well, a whole lot nervous, was the gender fact. When a boy was going through the ritual, most of the attendees were women and most were women over thirty. There would be a few younger women but very few.
When a girl was going through the ritual, all kinds of obscure male cousins, uncles and even guys-in-law would be present, besides the father, brothers and relatives we usually saw. There were of course the mother, close aunts, sisters, girl cousins and sisters-in-law, if any.
We got the impression there was more interest in watching or participating in the ritual for girls than for boys. We also noticed much of the interest was across gender lines.
We were scared.
Finally the day came. It was to be the day between our birthdays and it happened to occur on a Saturday. That would make it possible for those farther away to come. And come they did. There must have been fourteen guys and not all of them were relatives. Maybe they were boyfriends. I don't know how they qualified but I guess they were sworn to secrecy. We figured this was really going to be some kind of spectator sport and we were going to be sorry they were going to be making sport of us. There were about eight women in attendance also.
We had been given dresses and underwear that were supposed to be special for the celebration of our eighteenth birthdays. Millie's was blue and mine was white. There wasn't much to them and as we dressed in my house, we wondered why they were special. The material was pretty flimsy and the seams were more basted than actually stitched. The underwear was a mystery too. The bras and panties were obviously homemade and very shabbily made.
There was no elastic for the panty waist and in fact they were held in place by a small Velcro fastener that worked by folding the material at the waist to fit and then attaching the Velcro pieces together. The bra was also fastened with Velcro in the back and really gave no support. There were no shoulder straps.
We had both been raised very chaste and had never been allowed to date until we were eighteen. Our lives and conduct had been carefully monitored. Therefore, we were in a state of emotional despair at what we really considered revealing clothing. They left us barefooted, so the three items we were given were all we were given.
At nine o'clock that morning we were escorted to the old barn we had on the place. It was no longer used as a barn and had been transformed into a kind of meeting place. We had a lot of potlucks and corn shuckings and such that were held in the building. They gave us some sort of paper house slippers (I think like they have used in some hospitals or prisons) to wear across the dirt.
As the door to the barn was opened ahead of us we could hear a lot of laughing and carrying on but as soon as we were ushered through, things got kind of quiet. On one side of the barn there was a platform with two chairs. On the other side were some risers where most of the "spectators" were seated.
We were placed in the chairs facing the assembly. They were wide chairs made for the wide bottoms of most of the older men folk who were usually in charge of the dance, or meeting, or whatever happened in this old barn. If either of us had sat to the side of one of the chairs, probably someone of our size could have sat next to us and had plenty of room. In other words only one chair was needed for Millie and I but we were each in a chair. Later I found the wideness was needed to spread our legs.
We were extremely embarrassed by being place before these people, mostly men, in the first place. Wearing such transparent and flimsy clothes doubled our discomfort. I looked at Millie and she was red and my face felt like it was on fire. I wanted to jump up and run. I looked at the door. It had the slide bolt closed and was being guarded by Uncle Henry, who had a big grin on his face. There was no getting passed him.
A big birthday cake was rolled out and lifted up on the platform to a table. Everybody sang a happy birthday song of local origin. The cake was cut and everyone was given a piece. There was milk and coffee. The audience stayed in place and it was passed to them. There were no candles to blow out. Millie and I were somewhat distracted by getting refreshments. We ate while everyone else was eating. Then things were cleaned up and we once again were the center of attention. I began to shake. Something was about to happen that I didn't think I was going to like.