Michael Jaeggers - Honeymoon hotel

"Sue, darling, is that you?" Mrs. Ogden's voice came from the living room.

She sighed, that was all she needed to make the evening a complete – an inquisition. "It's me, Mother."

"Come in here, please."

Sue had no inclination to talk to anyone at the moment; all she wanted to do was go upstairs, take a hot shower, and go to bed with her own thoughts.

"Sue? Are you all right?" Her mother's voice was insistent.

"Yes, Mother." Sue took off her sweater and put it on the hallway bench. She glanced at her hair to make sure it was clean of hay and not too mussed, and checked her clothing for signs of disarray. Then she went into the living room where the older woman stood before the fireplace.

Mrs. Ogden's eyes flickered over her daughter as if she were evaluating a stranger's honesty or trustworthiness. After a moment, she blinked and held a tightly wadded handkerchief up to her mouth.

Puzzled and alarmed, Sue asked, "Mother? What's happened? What's wrong?"

Mrs. Ogden seemed reluctant to speak. Then with big tears looming up in her eyes, she reached out for Sue and said, "Oh, darling. I should have told you before, but it was go embarrassing for me." She sighed deeply, wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief, and sniffed. "I just didn't want to embarrass you, too. But I can't avoid it any longer."

"What is it?"

"Sit down, dear." She motioned to the couch, then sat down beside her daughter. The older woman's face was flushing as she sought to put words to an obviously distasteful task. "I've never spoken to you about… about your marriage duties and marriage night. I must do so before you find out for yourself. This is something a mother must pass on to her daughter. It isn't something you will find in those horribly nasty dirty marriage manuals with their filthy pictures and diagrams… or those Communistic sex education classes they tried to put on in the high school. I'm so relieved that my woman's club was instrumental in getting rid of all that smut. After all, this is something that should be taught and discussed in the home."

She was appalled. This was the last thing she ever expected to hear from her usually reserved mother. The older woman was undergoing almost a Jekyll-Hyde transformation as she warmed to her subject. Earlier embarrassment had evaporated – being replaced by something akin to hatred and anger.

Mother said, "I think you know that men and women have different reproductive organs."

Sue was amused in spite of herself, but she realized she must bite back her smile. She wondered what mother would say if daughter was to tell her that the first time she had ever seen – in living colour and stereophonic sound – a full-grown male's erect "reproductive organ" had been that afternoon on the couch… that Mother was sitting on the exact spot where Marylou's "reproductive organ" had damped the leather some 12 hours earlier… that Sue's own "reproductive organ" had been rubbed by Dick's "reproductive organ" only an hour before.

Mother continued her lecture. "May I suggest that you use your… ah… reproductive organ as just that. Get pregnant right away, as soon as you can, then you won't be bothered by Dick. Sex, after all, is enjoyable only to men; it is something we women must bear with fortitude – no matter how distasteful."

Sue swallowed, confused. "But, Mother," she protested, "sex is supposed to be beautiful between a husband and wife."

The older woman closed her eyes and shook her head. "Sex is only beautiful in that it leads to procreation. Remember the Bible: it says, 'Woman submit to your husband.' That word 'submit' means just that. Sex is a cross we women have to bear. Nothing is fair or equal about it. For example, on your wedding night, you will give your virginity to Dick. He will take it joyously. And what does that gift cause you? Not joy! Pain! Your hymen will be brutally ripped, the pain will be excruciating… and then you will begin to hemorrhage. I have even heard stories of women bleeding to death on their marriage bed. Once – you remember? – I broke my leg and the bone popped out of my skin?"

She nodded, remembering the afternoon when she was only five years old; she'd had nightmares for weeks after seeing the blood, the white bone, and hearing the sounds of her mother's screams.

"You remember how I finally passed out from the agony, and when they tried to move me I came to again, and how they had to give me morphine to ease the pain?"

Wide-eyed and wondering, Sue said quietly, "Go on."

"Well, the pain that afternoon was nothing compared to the agony I suffered when your father took my virginity… even though he tried to be gentle. That, of course, was before he became an insensitive alcoholic brute." The older woman's eyes narrowed in recollection. "It was always painful. It hurt every time he insisted on my performing what he called 'marital obligations." She held up her hand as Sue opened her mouth to speak. "Wait, don't interrupt. My mother suffered the same way, and her mother, and her mother's mother before her. Your poor Aunt Margaret! It is a fact of life you must learn to accept, and that is why I say to you, 'get pregnant as soon as you can'."

Sue was slow putting her thoughts into words, but finally her feelings came tumbling out. "But… but don't most women enjoy making love with their husbands?"

"Whores! And don't disgrace that beautiful word 'love' by using it in that filthy context. 'Making love', indeed! 'Making war' would be more like it, for the woman is always defeated, degraded, and brutally subjected to all types of indignities. Can you image… (No, of course you can't, and pray God that you'll never have to!)… what it is like to have some foul breathed, wine-swilling, cigar stinking beast crawl like a spider over your naked body?" She shuddered from the thought of it; and Sue – watching her mother's genuine horror – couldn't help thinking about what had been said.

Sue was fairly sure that her mother was telling the truth – at least the truth as the older woman saw it. Perhaps there was an inherited physiological trait that had been passed on through the female genes in her mother's family. She had read and heard about such things. Perhaps it was painful! Maybe there was some almost insignificant anatomical or neurological difference in the female line of her family. And, abruptly, as the horrifying thought came to her, Sue clutched the arm of the couch: Could the trait have been passed on to her? Would she know agony… instead of passionate enjoyment? Would she have known excruciating pain if Dick had continued his penetration?

Her mind was a maelstrom of confusion and fear. There were so many questions she wanted to ask now… and no one to answer them. Sue wanted to ask if Mother had ever enjoyed a male's caresses and fondling, but such a question was embarrassing and at that moment almost senseless.

Then, almost as if reading her mind, her mother said, "I think almost all women enjoy 'sparking' with a man – the touch of his hand upon your arm," and the older woman blushed, "or a gentle kiss. The body responds, of course. But the act of sexual intercourse itself is degrading." A moment later she began speaking more rapidly – almost irrationally. "Remember what Saint Augustine wrote, 'Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations.' And remember what I said. Sexual intercourse should be used only for procreating the race. Birth is painful – horribly so – but the act of conception, of mindless copulation, is equally painful. Get pregnant, my darling, as soon as you can."

There was more of the same, but Sue's mind could not absorb any more. Sue knew her mother was wrong – terribly wrong. That statement about only "whores enjoying sex" was almost pathetic. Marylou certainly was no whore – nor was Sally. Then there was Cynthia and Donna, both of whom had been friends of Sue's for almost all of her 22 years; both had married earlier this summer. They certainly weren't "whores", but they had made some ecstatic reports about what their husbands did to them in bed.