This series makes more sense if you've ready Chapters 1 and 2, but in case you haven't, here's a summary of the characters and plot.
18-year-old Caylee lives in a gilded cage, over-protected by her parents and sheltered at her all-girls religious school. They live in a huge house in the suburbs with a backyard pool (Caylee is involved in extra-curricular swimming and diving). Her parents are spending the summer in France and have asked Caylee's cousin Matt to "babysit" her. Matt is 20 and just finished his second year at university. His sister Hannah was supposed to join them for the summer but is spending time with her secret girlfriend instead. Caylee has asked Matt to help her catch up to her peers a little by learning from him about social, romantic, and sexual situations.
N.B.
In Canada, our legal age for alcohol and similar products are much lower (18 or 19) compared to young adults in the U.S. who wait until they are 21.
Chapter 3
Day 3 - Sunday:
On my third day, I caved to Caylee's requests to join her in the pool. I'd brought a couple of swim trunks along. The pool had a diving board but I was more into the hot tub. Sometimes I would sit there and watch Caylee dive. She was actually really good!
Over supper, Caylee peppered me with a bunch of questions about typical high school stuff -- friends, parties, what we kids did for fun. It was really shocking to me how sheltered she had been. I was happy to be a source she could trust.
We again put on a movie after cleaning up our dinner dishes. During the day, I had been using my laptop and during our post-movie chat, Caylee motioned to it and asked if now would be an OK time for her to borrow it.
"Of course! What do you want to look up? Want a hand?" I offered, eager to continue being helpful.
"It's super embarrassing." she mumbled in the general direction of her feet as she sat cross-legged and pulled the laptop into her lap where I couldn't see the screen -- she was facing me with a couple of couch cushions in between us, scrunched into one of the corners of the huge sectional as far back as she could.
"Well I've told you a lot of super embarrassing stories from my teens years right?"
This got a smile out of her. "True" she admitted.
"So...?"
"OK so as I'm sure you've guessed, I'm still a virgin. Between the all-girls religious school and my parents' strict social rules, I don't see that ending any time before I go to university!"
"That sucks." I sympathized, contemplating what that would be like and realizing how depressing a situation it was. I remember what it had been like to be 18. I was pretty damn obsessed with sex nonstop - had been for many years before that too! I had already lost my virginity to one of my classmates during the summer between Grade 10 and Grade 11. Picturing a virgin Caylee at university was like seeing a lamb off to slaughter.
"And of course a lot of my girl friends brag about their boyfriends -- they have the freedom to go on dates and some of their boyfriends have cars and stuff that they can make out in. So obviously I feel pretty left out. And like I said, some of it goes right over my head."
She took a deep breath. "Problem is, I'm still a teenager, same emotions and feelings and... desires and stuff." Caylee didn't want to seem to meet my eyes anymore. Wow, she must be really embarrassed, I thought.
"Of course you are!" I tried to reassure her. "There's nothing wrong with you, it's your parents that are putting these super tight fences around you."
"Right, well there is something wrong because I don't know how to correctly... make myself feel good, ya know?"
I had to puzzle this out for a second and then I clued in to what she was talking about. I knew I had an important job to do here -- this young woman was already feeling a lot of shame about her body, ingrained from years of her parents' shitty values. I wanted to help her turn that around, not make it worse.
"I'm really sorry to hear that Caylee. Getting yourself off is always a good option for teens when they don't have girlfriend or boyfriend or hell, even when they do. Everyone should be able to make themselves feel good."
She finally looked up and met my eyes and hers were brimming with tears. "You don't think I'm a complete moron for not being able to figure stuff out? I mean, even our stupid school had sex ed but it was back when we were like, 10 years old and completely focused on A -- periods and B -- the evils of sex and the wonderful benefits of abstinence. So I have like no information to go on."
"I don't think you're a moron -- I can only imagine the kind of guilt and shame that might be holding you back because your parents and your school don't understand that sex is a natural thing. I mean, if a higher power created us then they created us to have these urges right? And yes,the world has changed and people aren't ready to have offspring in their teens anymore but the point is that our bodies are still driving us in that direction. Honestly, I think masturbation is an awesome solution for people who want to keep their virginity!"
She giggled at this one. "That actually makes so much sense! But I doubt anyone at school would agree with your theory."
"Sadly, no. OK so let's tackle this. What do you think is the biggest barrier? Are there myths or things you've heard that you're wondering about? Is it the emotional barrier that's preventing you from relaxing or what?"
She thought for a moment and confessed "I have like, tried, you know. But I do think I'm missing info about how to do things properly to achieve... results, let's say. I need an instruction manual. I feel like I'm blindly poking around in the dark. Literally."
"OK well let's start by searching that -- an image of female anatomy so you at least know what's what and what's where." I came to sit beside her, took the laptop back, and quickly pulled up a search. "Also, I know you feel super embarrassed, but try to use the words if you can. Once you know them. By results, do you mean being able to give yourself an orgasm?"
Silence. I looked up from my searching to see Caylee looking a little stunned.
