Page 31 of Ghost

Not wanting to make eye contact with her, I fidgeted with the bag. “No.”

“There’s nothing down there that needs your attention, Porter. Look at me when I’m talking to you,” she said.

I looked up. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re sixteen,” she said. “We need to have this talk.”

“I know about sex, ma.” As if it would save me from continuing, I poked both halves of the cookie into my mouth.

“Have you had sex?” she asked.

I chewed the mouthful of cookie, wondering if I should tell her about Patty. I wanted my first sexual encounter to be memorable. Something I’d talk about with my four half-brothers while we smoked cigarettes and drank warm beers. Instead, it was something I’d chosen to forget. It had only been seven months. It seemed like a lifetime had passed.

If I couldn’t recall the details surrounding that night, I wondered if I could convince myself it didn’t happen. A drunken dream. A sexual tale conjured up by a half-drunk teenage boy with a hard on and a mind filled with sexual desire. But the memories wouldn’t go away. The underwear and jeans I threw away stood as a reminder each time I searched for a pair of jeans to wear to school.

Lying to my mother wasn’t something that I’d ever done, and Patty Wilson’s stinky pussy wasn’t going to get me to start. I drew a long breath, reached for another cookie, and braced myself for her reaction.

“Yes,” I murmured.

“Porter Quentin Reeves,” she screeched. “You’re sixteen!”

I slumped into my chair. “I’m sorry.”

It was true. I was sorry. Not for the hand jobs or the blow jobs, but for the sex. I wished I could take it back, primarily because of the putrid stench that caused me to throw away my clothes.

She forced a sigh. “So am I. I shouldn’t have yelled.” She reached for another cookie. “Who was she? Will you tell me?”

I didn’t want to. I doubted she’d be happy with my choice. Patty’s mother was a barfly, and was talked about more than religion, politics, or the weather in our town. She wasn’t married, and never had been. If the stories about her were true, she paid her rent with money she made from having sex with the ranch hands that flocked to town seeking seasonal work.

I looked away. “Patty Wilson.”

“Dear God,” my mother gasped. “We need to get you to the doctor.”

My heart shot into my throat. “Why?”

She pushed herself away from the table. “If she’s like her mother, she’s liable to have a plethora of diseases. Did you wear a condom? Please tell me you wore a condom.”

I didn’t. I wondered if the foul odor was a hint of the many diseases she carried. “I uhhm.” I offered an apologetic shrug. “I forgot.”

Her eyes widened to the point I feared they’d fall from the sockets and roll across the table. “You forgot?” she bellowed. “Forgot? Porter, you don’t forget the condom. That’s like forgetting to get dressed before you step out into a blizzard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Her face distorted into a look that could only be described as disgust. “We’ll get you to the doctor on Monday.”

I reached for another cookie only because I didn’t know what else to do. “Am I going to be okay?”

The look on her face faded, but not completely. She looked like she did the night she tried oysters for the first – and last – time. It was as if she could taste what I’d spent two weeks smelling.

She swallowed hard, and then forced a cracked smile. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

With a cookie in my left hand, I reached for my backpack with my right. I wanted to go to the upstairs shower and scrub my dick until I knew it was clean of everything Patty Wilson left on it.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“No,” she said in a stern voice. “That’s not all,”

I broke the cookie in two and waited for the wrath of my mother to come down upon me. Instead of attacking, she pinched a small piece of cookie between her fingers and gingerly placed it in her mouth.