The Magic Box

"My mother. She is the best. If she could still perform all the high kicks and jumps of her former cheerleader self, I'm sure she would not be a 50-something fighting old lady aches and pains like a bum hip, lumbago, or sciatica. She would probably have ACL and meniscus ailments, but not the other stuff." I flipped to the slide of my mother in the early 1980s, and could that girl jump. The next photo that floated onto the slide was my mother cheering in college. The photographer caught her mid-air, mid-jump, and I was consumed in this this emotional plasma of pride and wanting to cry from love and happiness. The next slide that floated onto the screen was Mom teaching English, wearing respectable teacher duds, and then a new slide breezed across replacing my mother-the-teacher. This was my mother at 45, and she was demonstrating a herkie to a group of girls sitting on the floor. She always explained the mechanics.

"Ladies and gentlemen, can everyone do a runner's stretch?" The young ladies and gentlemen watched my mother first sit on her ankle, then move it just behind her bottom. She would then gracefully lean over her extended leg, "No bouncing," she would say. "This is a precision move." She would sometimes touch her ear down to her kneecap, sometimes allow her forehead to kiss her knee. After a slow count from an upright position and back down, leveling her spine, she would turn to her cheerleaders, and if a smile could be transcendent or beatific, hers was. "Didn't that feel great?" She would scan the room, making eye contact with every single girl or boy. "Let's switch legs."

Eventually, we moved from stretching to the trampolines. And by the end of the first 15 minutes with my mom, every person in the room was bouncing around doing herkies. And within 20 minutes, the bouncing herkies contained perfect posture, pointed toes, strong arms, loud voices. Within 25 minutes, the students were back on the floor, and with the momentum from the trampolines, there were so many jumps. Some landed, some didn't, and some were so close...just with a few more tries would do the trick. Within 40 minutes, a Zen calm swept the room. My mom stood in front of her squad, conducting them with a whistle instead of maestro's baton, and she would count them down, "Three, two, one," and the only sound was the synchronized thuds of cheerleaders' shoes leaving and returning to the ground, over and over. And these herkies were perfection.

I clicked the projector remote, moving on to the next slide. My dad took this photo. It's my mom teaching me to do my first herkie in kindergarten. I cleared my throat. "Whew! All that jumping," I said breezily. I looked around the crowd who had come to my sports medicine lunch and learn. "In case you're wondering, yes, I can still perform all the jumps. My mom, though, well, she's a patient," I said. "It's all about stretching, taking care of the joints, and doing what we can from as early as we can. Cheer isn't just a group of girls and boys yelling in front of a crowd anymore. It is a sport--a very popular sport--and as with any sport, there are injuries, and with any sport involving higher impact force on the joints, the injuries are long-ranging, and some are long-lasting." I talked for a while longer, listened to the murmurs of some of my male colleagues and actually heard one speculating that I could probably get both my ankles behind my head. Nice. Whatever. I knew it was Chad. I wanted him. He wanted me. It was eventually going to be a Five Alarm Fire, if we ever managed to hook up.

My parents called during my drive home from work. "Happy 30th birthday, honey," my mom said. "Jack, come here. Let's sing." And they sang. Dad left the room, and my mother said, "I'm so very proud of you. You are so very special to us." These are what I like to call the "You Are So Very" conversations. This was the preamble to the menstruation talk when I was in fourth grade. The reproduction talk in fifth grade. The sex isn't just for reproduction talk in seventh grade. The here's what you do if you're in a bad situation with a boy talk in eighth grade. The talk about having every right to say 'no' before my first date in ninth grade. All the big talks started with, "You are so very..."

"I am so very 30 years old now," I said. "I'm going out with friends from work, college, and med school tonight. We're hitting some clubs, and I got lucky, Mom. I don't have to work tomorrow!"

"You are so very beautiful and intelligent. There's something I've been waiting until now to tell you." She paused. "Do you remember that movie, 'Gremlins?'"

"Sure," I said. "That's a weird question. Don't get them wet or feed them after midnight? Something like that?"

"Right. Right. Well. You know how your father and I have been like two peas in a pod since we met? I had been teaching for a while. When I met him, I knew he was the one. Like right away. I was consumed by these feelings, and when you have feelings that powerful, you have to modulate them. I didn't understand how everything worked, and then it took me a little bit to train myself. Kind of like the herkies."

"Mom, you sound like a...I don't know...something. I get that you're trying to tell me something, though."

"Tell you what, honey," she said very slowly, each word costing her something she wasn't ready to share. "Go out tonight. Call me any time day or night. You are so very everything to me."

After hanging up on what was one of the stranger conversations with my mom, I threw on a barely-there sort of dress, heels, did a smokey eye to perfection, and grabbed the door on the first ring.

"Ready for tonight, birthday girl?" asked my friend Liza. Freshman college roommate, best friend, and owner of an organic juice bar.

"Yep," I said. "You only turn 30 once." We slid into her car and made our way to the bar. We were strategic about this. We wanted to have one stop shopping. We chose downtown, and we had already decided on the two to four bars of the evening. The first bar just happened to have a great menu and DJ.

My friends and I ate, drank, danced, and just as we were grabbing each other by any handhold, I saw this specimen enter the bar. He was with friends. They were cute, boyish grins, floppy hair they hadn't made peace to part with from their fraternity days. They were not exuding alpha male, "I'm going to take over this bar and every board room" vibes. They just were who they were, and they seemed comfortable in their own skins.

Liza said, "You want to stick around a little bit and see where things go?"

"Sure," I answered. Coming through the door (right behind the fraternity guys) with bluster, however, was Chad. He was the combustible kryptonite from work who wondered about my ankles.

Chad. He worked out. A lot. There's the old joke about what you call the guy who graduates last in his med school class. The answer is: Doctor. Chad is this guy. He could break, re-break, manipulate, any bone in the human body and get it back into place. He had a natural ability, and dumb or not, his strength made him incredible in orthopedics and sports medicine. And he always smelled good. I wasn't too proud to admit a bit of a lady bone for him.

"Cher," he said. He knew where we were going tonight, and he slid into the booth next to me. "Happy birthday," he drawled, leaning into my ear, like it was our secret alone. Oh, man. He knew he had me, and I was covered in goose flesh.

"I need to freshen up my lipstick. You want to dance a song before I hit the ladies' room?"

"Delighted," he said. And I was sloppy, drunk, turned on, and not going to walk away from riding this pony to pound town. We ground up against each other, were the worst people in the bar, and it was only around 10 p.m. We pawed each other, not even attempting an iota of propriety. We made it most of the way through "Disturbia," when my lips were so, so, very dry. "Mmm. Lipstick," I said, leaning into him, onto him, thinking I was blowing and whispering into his ear, but probably nearly shattering his eardrum to be heard over the club music.

We ambled off the dancefloor, found the ladies' room, and locked ourselves into a stall. "How do you want to do this, Chad? Whatever you want. This is a one time thing, so make it good." He pushed my dress up, dragging my panties down my thighs with his thumbs, and I could hear the low whistle of appreciation. He unzipped his pants with the excitement of seeing Santa for the first time. I don't think I've ever seen a condom applied as quickly.

And here is where I wish I had pushed pause--before he took his responsibly sheathed dick and entered me. I wish there were a pause button or a rewind button or any kind of button.

The second his penis entered my vagina, I looked at his face, expecting to see the sex face of so many of my former partners. The look that nothing but the gentle squeeze of a vagina can provide. Instead what I saw was panic, fear, and pain.

He turned a pale color I only associated with terminal patients. And the sweat beading his forehead. And then tears streaming down his face. And then he was gone. I looked down, and the only part of Chad that remained was the bloody condom that had begun to slide down my leg. I flushed the condom, wadded up some toilet paper, and furiously began to scrub my leg.

I fished my cell phone out of my bra and called my mother. "Mom," I said, desperation fueling my low voice. "Mom. Something happened. I think my vagina ate someone. I think my vagina killed one of my co-workers. Mom. What is happening? I'm not on drugs. I was drunk, but now I'm sober (mostly) and scared." I paused to stop the hysteria just waiting in the wings. "Mom? Are you hearing me?"

"I remember the first time that happened to me. It's only happened a couple times, though," she said.

"What?" I wanted to shriek, but I was in a public bathroom.

"Where are you? I'll pick you up," she said.

I went back to the booth with my friends, and the unassuming former fraternity guys were sitting with everyone. Liza said, "Hey! There's the birthday girl."

"Liza, I am so sorry to cut things short. My mom called. There's something wrong with my dad. She's coming to get me," I said.

One of the sweet fraternity guys said, "I can wait outside with you, if you want."

"Sure. That would be nice," I said. While I waited for Mom to pick me up, it turned out Charlie (that's his name) had a sister who cheered, and my mom had been her coach. We swapped numbers. Charlie walked me to the car, made sure I was tucked in and gently closed the door.

I looked at my mother, saying nothing. She said nothing. We drove to my condo, let ourselves in, and I popped some popcorn. "If you are ever given any kind of date rape drug, your vagina will kill your rapist," she said. "You are so very fortunate to have this kind of defense mechanism."

My eyes widened. "Mom. I'm a doctor. I took an oath to do no harm."

"Let me give you something to ponder. If your vagina stopped a serial date rapist from raping and potentially killing 100 other young women, have you done harm? Have you ever thought through the moral dilemma of sacrificing one for many?"

"Mom," I said, soberly. "My vagina killed someone who wasn't a rapist tonight."

"But, correct me if I'm wrong, you were inebriated and unable to make the best decisions for yourself at the time?" She eyeballed me. "Your brain knew you were in a vulnerable situation and put your vagina in charge of keeping you safe. Drunk sex, now that you're 30, puts your vagina on high alert."

"But I love drunk sex," I whined.

"Not anymore, you don't," she said.

"Why hasn't your vagina killed Dad?" I asked.

"We have a very tender, loving, emotionally controlled and moderated sex life," she said. "My vagina hasn't once tried to devour him. You're going to have to practice. It's like cheering. Slow, controlled, exquisite in execution," she said. "You can do it, honey. I know you can do it."

"Does he know about your muff monster?" I asked.

"Don't be crass, but, yes, he knows, and he loves me. I love him, and I think he's safe, and my vagina thinks he's safe, and we're happy. I want that for you," she said.

"How many times did this happen to you?" I asked her.

"It's happened more than once. Before I met your father," she answered. "In two situations, I really thought I was going to die. I was so scared about the guy, and I was scared of my body after the encounter." She took my hand in hers. "No one in my family ever told me about this. No one told me what to expect. I didn't know." She hiccupped once, and she was crying. "I didn't want that for you."

We were quiet for a while, eating the popcorn in silence that was maybe only a little bit companionable. "Sexually, all was well until I turned 30, and nothing untoward happened until after I had turned 30. Since you had never said anything, I thought maybe the gene skipped you. I wondered if turning 30 was the trigger, and now I know, I guess it is."

We sat there in silence. I picked up a photo of her from my coffee table. The photographer on this one was me. My mother was in her 40s. It was black and white, and she was stretching over both legs. It was a closeup. Her face. Eyes closed, head resting directly on her shins. Her head was turned toward the camera, dishwater blonde hair picking up the light in the room, draped gracefully along her neck, spilling across the top of her shoulder, pooling like a silken pillow where her head rested on her legs, a knowing smile barely concealing a terrible truth she would not reveal to me for at least another ten years.