Read Online Odyssey In A Teacup by Paula Houseman - Free Book Online Page A

time, or figure-hugging underpants. It came out wherever and whenever the opportunity presented itself. He and Glen had that in common. As for me, I acted like a good girl. Always got in at midnight ... but Glen-the-Gentile got in long before.
    Yep. I was no longer virgo intacta . It happened one Saturday night a month after Glen and I started dating, in the back of his mate’s panel van. I’d told Ralph, Maxi and Vette in advance that this was to be the night. Ralph suggested we all ‘come together’ for a powwow the following morning.
    We couldn’t meet at my place because Maxi the floozy/strumpet/ putana still wasn’t welcome there (Sylvia held grudges, sometimes for years), so we met at a coffee shop at Henley Beach.
    Ralph, Vette and I were already seated when the floozy/strumpet/ putana breezed in and plopped down on a chair.
    ‘Details please.’ Maxi wasn’t one to waste time on chitchat.
    ‘Well ... it hurt. But I was like ... that’s it? That’s what I’ve been waiting for all this time?’ I sighed. ‘It was a real anti-climax.’ Uh-oh. Poor choice of words. Ralph’s eyes lit up like two glow-worms.
    ‘Come again? Oh, wait. You can’t if you haven’t already.’
    Both Maxi and I went on the attack.
    Me: ‘Wow. Real sensitive, Ralph.’
    Her: ‘ You set us all up for a fall with your bloody Masters and Johnson!’
    Ralph: ‘Hey, it’s not my fault if the first time isn’t all it’s ... cracked up to be.’
    ‘Well, it wasn’t my fault, was it?’ Maxi hit back.
    Ralph became flustered. Seems he had forgotten he was her first. He got defensive.
    ‘It’s only in romance novels that the woman writhes, moans and arches in ecstasy the first time she does it. Masters and Johnson aren’t unrealistic. They show you what’s possible, in time .’ He stared at Maxi as he made his point.
    ‘Er ... how do you know all those descriptions about the romance novel heroine?’ asked Vette.
    Ralph faltered. ‘Um, uh ... we’ve talked about it.’
    ‘No. Maxi, Ruthie and I have. Never in front of you, though.’
    Ralph turned red.
    ‘Ha! You’ve ... blown it, numbnuts.’ Maxi then drove her point home wordlessly:  . A little off-centre, but it was an up yours to he who had his head up his.
    ‘Glen wants to marry me!’ That defused the tension.
    ‘Huh?’ x 3.
    Vette said, ‘But ... but you’ve only been dating for one month and—’
    ‘I know—’
    ‘Even if you date him for two years, Ruthie, as if Sylvia’s going to let that happen.’ Ralph wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
    It was at the tender age of eleven when I started sprouting breast buds that Sylvia issued her decree: ‘You’re not going to marry out.’ Que? The only form of coupledom on my radar at that point in time was my very first Hestia bra, but her insistence that I end up with someone Jewish always seemed nonsensical, given my childhood environment.
    Sylvia and Joe were married in Cairo and arrived in Australia about three years before Myron was born. Growing up, we weren’t exposed to much Yiddishkeit (a Jewish way of life). We celebrated Easter, Joe put up and decorated an artificial Christmas tree every year, and one of the strongest memories I have is of him belly dancing around the lounge room to the strains of ‘Ya Mustafa’. Sung in French, Italian and Arabic, it’s a strange love song where the man tells his girl that even though she sets him on fire with a match, he loves and adores her like tomato sauce. According to Glen, we had a love like that (the tomato sauce part. I’m no pyromaniac, but he said I most certainly did light his fire, baby, José Feliciano-style). Isn’t that what every mother would wish for her daughter? Not Sylvia. Ralph had called it right; when Glen and I had been together for two years, she started pressuring me to dump him.
    ‘You have no future with him. And the longer you stay with him, the harder it’s going to be to remain a good girl.’
    That’s