Sex Ed
I’m organizing my CD collection alphabetically by artist, like every Saturday. The Cranberries, Janet Jackson, La Bouche, No Doubt, Selena, the Spice Girls, and TLC are among them. I have a stack of cassettes by Michael Jackson, New Kids, UB40, and various Disney movies.
A cheerful knock at my open door catches my attention. Dad stands in the doorway, holding a semi-ripe banana. I assume he’s brought me a snack until I realize he has a condom in the other hand. I recognize the small, teal square with the white letters, just like the one I keep in my—
“I found this in your dresser drawer,” he says casually. (He’s referring to the condom, not the banana.) “I thought you might be curious about it.”
My face burns. So that’s what you do while I’m at karate? Dig around in my underwear drawer? Are you reading my diary too?! My secret hiding place has been plundered, but I’m too mortified to protest. I’m thirteen years old and just as many shades of red.
I don’t tell him I took the Trojan from his basement workbench, where he keeps odds and ends for his science projects. And I don’t tell him that having it makes me feel cool, like Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes from TLC, who wears a condom as an eyepatch in one of their music videos.
Kneeling beside me, Dad tears the wrapper and pulls out the white rubber circle. His mouth is moving, and I’m sure he’s speaking, but I hear nothing as he positions the translucent balloon over the tip of the yellow-green fruit. This isn’t happening. I pray for my sister to walk in, for the phone downstairs to ring, or for me to spontaneously combust.
I want to cry out that he’s got it all wrong. That I had zero intention of ever using the condom. That I can’t bring myself to even speak to boys, much less get near their bananas. That Todd from Social Studies once tried to talk to me, and I hid in the girl’s room for half a day. But my lips are suddenly numb.
I dissociate, reciting the lyrics to “Waterfalls” by TLC in my head. My friend Kim can recite the fast part. Kim is short, so we call her Lil’ Kim, like the rapper. I used to have a Lil’ Kim CD, but it mysteriously went missing. Then I found it in a shoebox in my Dad’s bedroom closet, along with my Missy Elliott CD. He doesn’t know that I know...
“And that’s how a young lady can protect herself from getting pregnant,” I hear as he wraps up his lesson. He tosses the condom and wrapper into my pink flower trashcan, peels the banana, and devours half of it in one bite. “Any questions?”
I can only stammer in response.
“What are you listening to?”
I glance at the cassette in my hand—the Salt-N-Pepa single of “Let’s Talk About Sex.”
“The Pocahontas soundtrack!” I lie, shoving the cassette into the stereo boombox I got for Christmas.
“Well, don’t forget to clean your room,” Dad says, standing up to leave. “It’s chore day.”
No, I won’t forget to clean my room, Dad. And I won’t forget to clear out my underwear drawer.
-Laura Plummer
Laura Plummer is an award-winning American poet, essayist, and filmmaker from Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online publications. Visit lauraplummer.me.