By: Kasey C.

It was just last year that I came out to my mother. It’s not what you're thinking, I'm not gay. However, I'm sure my confession was no less shocking to her. I came out about sex; you know, the "hippy-hippy shake," the "love tango," or as my mother prefers to say, "being intimate.” I'm sure people wonder why I would do such a thing. But if you knew my mother, you’d understand. She’s one of those women who just won't let things go.

"Kasey, just tell me, are you?” she’d ask during our phone conversations. “I won't be angry, I just need to know! I just HAVE to know!"

Finally, one day I gave in. "Jesus Mom! YES! YES, we are having sex!” I confessed. “We've been together forever. “We're engaged...of course we get it on!"

"Get it ON?! GET IT ON!?" my mother replied in horror.

You would think that I had murdered the homecoming queen. There was silence, then a sigh, then more silence, and finally a few "oh lord, oh lord’s". These caused me to cringe. The last thing I needed was for her to call on her best buddy, the Dom, the one who could make anything happen. After hearing my mom’s prayers, the Dom might cause me to wake up with a Barbie body – sure I’d still have a vagina, it just wouldn't open. Although, Barbie does have great proportions; so perhaps it wouldn't have been that bad.

"Mom?" I said, to little response. “I've killed her,” I thought to myself as I glanced at the screen on my cell phone to make sure she hadn't hung up.

Finally she responded. "Well I guess that I knew, deep down; deep down I always probably knew. I mean I guess I knew, shouldn't I have known?" This was the flighty woman I knew and loved growing up. In the face of disappointment, my mother always wondered what she coulda, shoulda, woulda done. In her mind, the good Christian would have known when her daughter was thinking about having sex. In fact, not only would she have known...she would have sewn her daughter's holy hole shut before that evil older boyfriend could penetrate it.

"Mom, listen. It was sex. Would you have run home to your mother and told her that you were fooling around? It would have ruined it. Did you honestly think that I was going to tell you about it? You would have locked me in my room where I would have collected dust for the rest of my teenage years? There was nothing to worry about. It wasn't like I was a hooker on the street just screwing everyone that looked my way.”

"Don't talk like that. You're a nice girl; nice girls don't talk like that."

“Fine…sexual relations…a hooker on the street having sexual relations!” I said; and we laughed and for the first time since I answered her question. I exhaled.

"So you've done it. You've had sex. You aren't the angel virgin that you once were,” she said. “I am so wrong about you kids...the people in this town probably think that I am so blind."

"Mom,” I started, “some of my friends were dropping their pants at thirteen. At least I waited until I found someone that I'll probably marry. And besides where do you get off judging me? You and Dad did the exact same thing! You were living with him before you were married, and if my math is correct you were four months pregnant when you got married!" She gasped at the realization that I was old enough to do simple math.

Mom hadn't always been the spokeswoman for all that is good and holy; and even now she falls short of “perfect Christian” status. It was only after years of pill-popping and heavy drinking that she fell into religion. I was in high school at the time and I think religion was her saving grace. It gave her something to believe in and that made it easier for her to get though life without relying on her old vices. However, since becoming a born again Christian she's had difficulty balancing her old self with her new self. The latest version of my mother pops bread and drinks grape juice every second Sunday; however, sometimes she still says hilariously inappropriate things. Even when people laugh, she apologizes repeatedly for fear that she may have offended someone.

"Please tell me that you were at least 18!" she said as she dodged my mention of her shotgun wedding.

This is where the conversation got rough. I had answered her basic question and she knew I was no longer "pure." Did she really need to know the details? I visualized her at home, sitting at the kitchen table with her yellow Trinity Broadcasting notebook. She was undoubtedly doodling her initials - big happy S's and C's - her favorite thing to doodle. I could imagine the anger slipping across her face as I said, 'Well, let me see if I can recall. Oh Yes, I was 16 and if my memory serves me right, I do believe that it was the night before your birthday...yes that sounds about right." She would begin stabbing at the paper. The happy S’s and C’s would become pictures of Jeremy, the evil boyfriend; and the flames of hell would be raging around him.

No...there would be no details, I decided.

"It doesn't matter how old I was. We did it, and that's that," I said.

She takes a big breath and I could tell that she was about to go off on another one of her tangents. I guessed her direction and headed her off before the lecture began.

"And before you ask, let's just clarify that no, I am not pregnant, and I do not have STDs."

"Well how do you know?" she asked.

‘Ah yes...way to make me feel like a hooker Mom...How did I instantly become a dirty whore?’ I thought to myself.

“I asked how do you know?" my mother repeated.

"Because Mom, when you get your first Pap test at the gynecologist they test you for...

"THE GYNECOLOGIST! YOU’VE BEEN TO THE GYNECOLOGIST!? AND YOU DIDIN’T TELL ME!?"

“Typical,” I thought, “the woman is more upset that I'd had a shoe horn shoved up my vadge without informing her than she is about anything else”.

"No I didn't tell you about it,” I said, “but I want to ask you why YOU didn't tell ME that those doctors get paid to torture their patients with foreign objects?"

As my mother droned on about vagina doctors Jeremy came in from the garage. I was glad that he was there. He is my partner in crime…the one who wields the penetrating penis. Jeremy and my mother have had a rocky relationship. Just as she is two sided in her personality she is also two sided in her feelings for him. One day she loves him and the next she wants us to break up. She's been downright rude to Jeremy but he has survived her with a grace I admire. This is just one reason that I know he's a keeper.

I put the conversation on speakerphone so Jeremy could hear. As soon as he realized what we were talking about, he stopped what he was doing and stood with his mouth ajar. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he whispered.

He, too, is scared of the power of my mother's prayers; and the Ken body would be far too traumatic a fate for him to handle. Personally, I would adore the full nights of sleep without the "Hey, yah wannah's"…what a glorious thought!

At this point my, my mother broke through my distraction.

"So...my daughter, my Petunia blossom...she’s been DEFLOWERED … sex…she’s had sex...HAVING sex...That Jeremy, I could just tie his wiener up!"

"Yeah...that's right Mom, and yah know what? I wish I wouldn’t have! I can't get a wink of sleep in without him begging for it! So I suppose you've gotten what you wanted...I'm a nun...a non sexing lady..."

I wink and give Jeremy a smile. He just shakes his head.

"Well...now I bet that's rough for Jeremy...Don't you like it? Is he not a good lover? Doesn't he...satisfy you?" she asks as I watch Jeremy throw his clothes on the floor rather than in the hamper.

Ah yes...the "other mother" had returned...the best girlfriend who wanted all the dirty details. Before we started making plans for mother daughter bikini waxes, and before I had too much time to imagine a mother without split personalities, I answered, "no that isn't it at all. It’s just I'm usually so stressed with school, work, internships and the fact that JEREMY doesn't know how to put his dirty clothes in the hamper...egh...I'm just too busy to have sex."

Hearing me loud and clear, Jeremy picked up his clothes and placed them in the hamper. He gave me a smirk to let me know he thought he’s scored points…points he could trade in for sex later.

“Anyway, life is stressful for me right now,” I continued to my mother. “I have priorities that, unfortunately, are higher on the totem pole than sex is at the moment. I mean come on, we’ve been together for five years…I’m no spring chicken.”

At this my mother snorted…she actually snorted.

“Well you are far too young to be experiencing that sort of thing. I bet you were like I was when I was younger…before having you kids. You know - it probably hurts.”

“Mom it does not hurt, we are not going there. You --“

“Lubrication,” my mother interrupted. “You need to lubricate. You need to get the KY Jelly. Do you use the KY Jelly?”

I paused in horror at the direction this conversation had just taken.

“Kasey…Do you know about the KY Jelly?” she asked.

She didn’t - did she just…no…my mother…MY uber-Christian mother, my “put your hand to the television screen and pray with the 700 Club televangelists” mother, my “Joan Crawford obsessed, call me Mommy Dearest in public so the neighbors are afraid to walk on our lawn” mother, just asked me if I knew about “the KY Jelly.”

I’m gonna need a drink to get through this one…and it’s gonna have to be something far stronger than grape juice.