one woman in the corner said, “Under the hood?”
I wanted to laugh as I felt the second wave of rum hit my bloodstream but felt too self-conscious.
Clarissa shook her head. She waited and when no one produced an answer, she slowly drew her finger to her head and pointed. “Your orgasm is up here,” she said tapping her temple for emphasis. “It doesn’t really matter what you have going on down here,” she pointed to her pubic area again. “You have to be up here.” She moved her hand up toward her head. “Or there’s no orgasm. Your orgasm is in your brain.”
Some women started to whisper among themselves. I yearned for Mahjong to make eye contact because as the rum started to tear down my barriers one by one, I was eager for my secret to finally be revealed. When I looked over at her she was drawing pictures of gaping mouths with long curling tongues hovering over the penises she had doodled on her order form.
“Again, I reiterate,” Clarissa said, “if you’ve never had an orgasm, today is your birthday!” Several of the women in the room laughed. I took a deep breath and polished off the stein trying to make eye contact with Mahjong again.
“Mahjong,” I whispered. “Are you paying attention?”
She looked up at me through her red eyelashes. “I have two of everything she has on that table.”
Mahjong could talk about sex anytime, anywhere. She was frank and honest when it came to everything in life, often to my embarrassment or social discomfort. She was born Mae Wong but at some point during our time in high school she said her name to someone who didn’t quite catch the correct pronunciation and responded, “Mahjong? Like the game?” The name has stuck ever since.
I still remember the day we met. It was on the fifth anniversary of my father’s death, which was also my 17th birthday. A boy from school named Glen asked me to go to the movies with him. My mother said that dating was something only the besharam did. It was a conspiracy brought on by condom companies to sell their products and make Westerners more promiscuous than they already were.
When I told Glen I wasn’t allowed to be alone with him, he cleverly disguised our date by including me within a larger group of kids already going to the movies. My mother, unaware that there would be boys present, acquiesced. The movie started and not two minutes into the playlist Glen slipped his hand onto my knee. The feel of his hot fingers on my leg startled me. I pushed his hand away. Ten minutes later he put his arm on the rest between us and brushed his hand against my right breast. This time I was so alarmed that I screamed out loud.
“Relax Leena,” he whispered in my ear. “I actually like your exotic looks. I’m the only one in school who does.” I couldn’t process what he was saying because I saw the silhouette of his hands approaching me in the flickering lights of the movie theatre. Glen attempted to lift my sweater up and slide his hand under the fabric despite the fact that I was clawing my fingers into his palms. My nails were so deep into his flesh I was sure I was going to draw blood and have to find a way to explain the stains to my mother.
“Stop it!” I whispered and then with more panic and insistence, “Stop it! Glen, no! Stop that!”
“Don’t make me call the usher on you!” I heard a voice from the row above us shout. “Cause they will hose you horny bastards down!”
“Doug was right.” Glen growled at me, finally giving up. “Indian girls are all stupid virgins!” Then he threw his middle finger up in the air to the person behind us, and without one look back at me turned to Debbie Anderson sitting on his right and began to grope her instead. They left after the movie in the same car stranding me at the theatre.
I stood in the parking lot uttering every Hindi curse word I knew my mother would hurl at me when I tried to explain what happened. As I contemplated which would be worse, showing up three hours later than my curfew because I walked home or showing up in a police car because I got arrested for hitchhiking, I heard the voice from the row behind us shouting at me to get my attention.
“Where you heading?” she asked.
“I live on Elm drive,” I said, wiping tears from eyes.
“I live right near there. Want a ride? If you’re worried about stranger danger, I assure you I’m strange but you’re in no danger.”
“What’s stranger danger?”
“You’ve never heard the term stranger danger? Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?”
“She told me not to talk to anyone.”
“Well that’s good advice too. My car is over here. Come on. My name is Mae.”
“I’m Leena.”
“Well Lee,” she said extending her fingerless gloved hand, “I’m happy to meet you.”
“Did you come here alone?” I said suddenly aware that she was all by herself at the movies.
“Yup. I don’t hang with the high school bunch much. I’ve seen you in school before.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I’d seen her too, mostly hanging out alone, wearing weird clothes and always smelling like some strange kind of herb. It didn’t really matter though. That night she was my salvation and for the next fifteen years my truest and dearest friend.
Clarissa clapped her hands to bring the ladies back to focusing on what she was saying. I fidgeted with the pillow underneath me causing it to quack and burp against the wooden floor. I felt even more uncomfortable and self-conscious. I looked at Mahjong. She had started to doodle vaginas on the opposite side of her order form. When she caught me staring at her, she smiled and lifted the purple penis to her lips flapping her tongue around the top of it.
“Okay, where was I ladies?” Clarissa said when the noise level had subsided. “Oh yes. Your orgasm! It’s all up here,” she said pointing to her head again. “I can’t stress that enough. You have to play the movie up here or it won’t happen. I don’t care what it is, just make it work up here and your orgasm will come…no pun intended!” Clarissa didn’t wait for anyone to laugh, she redirected her attention and everyone else’s in the room to her tattered piece of paper. “True or false, it can take between ten and fifteen minutes for a woman to reach orgasm.”
Almost every woman in the room shouted true in response and Mahjong lifted her head long enough to say “Fuck that, I need an hour!”
“True or false, approximately 80% of all males reach orgasm within two minutes of entering the vagina.” Clarissa had barely finished asking the question when Mahjong shouted, “It’s true! But he never gets a second date from me!”
Clarissa smiled. “You’re right, it’s true. And what a difference! Ten minutes for us and two minutes for them. That’s a whole hockey period! Or at least it can feel like one!”
Maybe that was the reason I never understood hockey, no matter how many times Manny tried to explain it to me. I would hear the word “icing” and all I could think about from that moment on was cake.
“Moving on, true or false, approximately 50% of couples experience sexual difficulties.” Suddenly everyone was quiet again. As the rum floated through my veins toward my brain I reasoned that with Manny our sex life might not have been a
