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To which I would unfailingly respond, as follows: "There was no penetration--no what most people call sex, in other words. The way I look at it, Aunt Muriel, I'm still a virgin."
This must have sent Muriel running to my mother to complain about my reprehensible behavior.
As for my mom, she was subjecting both Richard and me to the "silent treatment"--not realizing, in my case, that I liked it when she didn't speak to me. In fact, I vastly preferred her not speaking to me to her constant and conventional disapproval; furthermore, that my mother now had nothing to say to me didn't prevent me from speaking to her first.
"Oh, hi, Mom--how's it going? I should tell you that, contrary to feeling violated, I feel that Miss Frost was protecting me--she truly prevented me from penetrating her, and I hope it goes without saying that she didn't penetrate me!"
I usually didn't get to say more than that before my mother would run into her bedroom and close the door. "Richard!" she would call, forgetting that she was giving Richard the "silent treatment" because he'd taken up Miss Frost's lost cause.
"No what most people call sex, Mom--that's what I'm telling you," I would continue saying to her, on the other side of her closed bedroom door. "What Miss Frost truly did to me amounted to nothing more than a fancy kind of masturbation. There's a special name for it and everything, but I'll spare you the details!"
"Stop it, Billy--stop it, stop it, stop it!" my mom would cry. (I guess she forgot that she was giving me the "silent treatment," too.) "Take it easy, Bill," Richard Abbott would caution me. "I think your mom is feeling pretty fragile these days."
"Pretty fragile these days," I repeated, looking straight at him--until Richard looked away.
"Trust me on this one, William," Miss Frost had said to me, when we were holding each other's penises. "Once you start repeating what people say to you, it's a hard habit to break."
But I didn't want to break that habit; it had been her habit, and I decided to embrace it.
"I'm not judging you, Billy," Mrs. Hadley said. "I can see for myself, without you belaboring the details, that your experience with Miss Frost has affected you in certain positive ways."
"Belaboring the details," I repeated. "Positive ways."
"However, Billy, I feel it is my duty to inform you that in a sexual situation of this awkward kind, there is an expectation, in the minds of many adults." Here Martha Hadley paused; so did I. I was considering repeating that bit about "in a sexual situation of this awkward kind," but Mrs. Hadley suddenly continued her arduous train of thought. "What many adults hope to hear you express, Billy, is something you have not, as yet, expressed."
"There is an expectation that I will express what?" I asked her.
"Remorse," Martha Hadley said.
"Remorse," I repeated, looking straight at her, until Mrs. Hadley looked away.
"The repetition thing is annoying, Billy," Martha Hadley said.
"Yes, isn't it?" I asked her.
"I'm sorry that they're making you see Dr. Harlow," she told me.
"Do you think Dr. Harlow is hoping to hear me express remorse?" I asked Mrs. Hadley.
"That would be my guess, Billy," she said.
"Thank you for telling me," I told her.
Atkins was on the music-building stairs again. "It's so very tragic," he started. "Last night, when I was thinking about it, I threw up."
"You were thinking about what?" I asked him.
"Giovanni's Room!" he cried; we'd already discussed the novel, but I gathered that poor Tom wasn't done. "That part about the smell of love--"
"The stink of love," I corrected him.
"The reek of it," Atkins said, gagging.
"It's stink, Tom."
"The stench," Atkins said, vomiting on the stairs.
"Jesus, Tom--"
