French Silk(132)

"I've heard."

"From who?"

"I can't remember, but she said it was huge and hurt like hell when he put it in."

Mary Catherine was aghast. "You know somebody who's actually done it?"

When pressed, Lisbet couldn't produce an actual name, so the accuracy of her statement was doubtful.

"I can't wait to do it," Alice admitted as they left the shop and continued down the sidewalk.

"Even though it hurts?" Mary Catherine thought the whole business of sex sounded unappealing and unladylike.

"It only hurts the first time, goose. After he busts your cherry, it's okay."

"What's a cherry?"

That sent the other two seventeen-year-olds careening into the exterior wall of a jazz joint, collapsing in a fit of giggles.

Invariably their conversations revolved around human sexuality. They were told by the nuns that it was a grievous sin to contemplate such matters, so that was largely what they contemplated. Mary Catherine and her two very best friends had speculated on everything from if the nuns shaved their pubic hair as well as their heads, to exactly how the male anatomy was constructed.

They sneaked copies of novels by James Joyce, James Baldwin and James Jones—Lisbet had remarked that there must be something to the name that made the men who had it highly sexual—and pored over the passages describing copulation, which had been conveniently underlined by previous readers. But sometimes even those were annoyingly euphemistic and vague.

It seemed to Mary Catherine that the more she learned about sex, the more there was to learn. To vent her frustration, she added each tidbit of knowledge to her diary. After her prayers each night, she faithfully confided everything to the leather-bound book with the small gold lock. Tonight, she would be able to fill pages with impressions and new vocabulary words.

She and her friends meandered through the Quarter, a trio of striking young women, whose ripe young bodies seemed out of place in the austere school uniforms. Their slender calves seemed designed to wear high heels and silk stockings rather than the despised oxfords and bobby socks.

They arrived at Jackson Square and paused to flirt with a sidewalk artist with a red goatee who was indolently soliciting business from the tourists. Of the samples displayed, his best work was a colored chalk portrait of Marilyn Monroe.

"He's probably done another one of her in the nude," Lisbet said knowingly. "He keeps it hidden away in his ratty little garret. At night he takes it out and jerks off while he's ogling it."

"Do you think any man will ever jerk off while ogling a picture of me?" Alice asked wistfully.

"You'd better go to confession twice this week," Lisbet said. "You've got sex on the brain."

"Me? You're the walking encyclopedia on the topic. Or at least you think you are."

"I've been exposed to much more than you have. I've seen my brother—"

"He's here again."

Mary Catherine's quiet observation brought the two other girls to a standstill. They followed her absorbed gaze to the statue of Andrew Jackson in the center of the square. More particularly, to the young man who was delivering a fiery sermon to a few pedestrians, one unconscious wino, and a flock of pigeons.

"The Lord is sick and tired of his children sinning," he declared, slapping the worn Bible in his hand. "He looks down here on Earth and sees the lying and the cheating and the gambling and the drinking and the fornicating—"

"That's another word for f*ck," Lisbet informed Mary Catherine in a whisper.

Mary Catherine shrugged her off impatiently. She was drawn to the young preacher not so much by what he was saying, but by the passion with which he was saying it.

"His judgment is near, ladies and gentlemen. He ain't gonna stand for our sinning much longer. No, siree." He plucked a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his shiny navy blue suit and mopped his forehead, which was perspiring beneath a lock of dark blond hair.

"I weep for sinners to be saved." Gnashing his teeth and closing his eyes, he threw back his head and appealed to heaven. "Lord God, open their eyes. Sweet Jesus, have mercy on the weak. Give them strength to fight Satan and his wily, wicked ways."

The girls entered the gate and moved closer for a better look. "He's kind of cute," Lisbet said.

"You think so?" Alice asked, eyeing the preacher critically.

"I do."

Lisbet turned to Mary Catherine, who was still staring enraptured at the sidewalk preacher. "Hmm. I do believe Mary Catherine is smitten, Alice."

She blushed. "I've seen him here before. Last Saturday my daddy brought me to Café du Monde for breakfast. He was here then, too. There was a larger crowd. He laid hands on some of the people."

"On their what?" Alice asked, crowding in closer to Mary Catherine.

"On their heads, stupid," Lisbet said scornfully. "It was their heads, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Mary Catherine replied. "When you get saved, he lays his hands on you so you'll receive the Holy Spirit."

"Let's get saved," Lisbet suggested excitedly.

"We're already saved." Then with less conviction, Alice asked, "Aren't we?"

"Well, sure. We've been baptized. We go to mass. But he doesn't know that." Lisbet turned to Mary Catherine. "Go get saved."