by DF Lewis

Virgins don’t have nipples on their breasts.

There were two men in the back room and one of them had come out with a statement which made the other realise that this was not the routine conversation at all, but one where nothing could be proved or disproved — and very little in between. And he who had spoken took off his hat and continued . . .

My first love was my mother. She was also the first to tell me of the likes of God — a real eye-opener. As a baby, I used to crawl over her body like a large pink fleshy spider with half its legs missing. She took me into the bath with her, where I sucked at her useless paps. I shared her bed, because my cot was far too small for both of us. It was easier to kneel and pray by a proper bed, in any event, whilst she fed me tampons like holy wafers.

My father had died the day I was born and was passed from coffin to coffin like a hot potato, until finally stuck fast up the chimney flue where, I was told, he became the corpse of Santa Claus — but, like all children, I thought it all sounded pretty hollow.

My second love was my sister. She was older by a long chalk and she took over where mother left off. She told me that virgins cannot grow nipples on the boobies and that was why hers were unfinished moulds of semi-solid cones, the heavy-duty crucifix dangling between each one. But it was her face I remember most, like a flat-faced vixen, with a widow’s peak and eyebrows which crawled about across her forehead from ear to ear.

Being told my sister used to change my nappies, I felt certain she must have innocently examined my privities which a baby knows no reason to conceal. A little later, when I was fully potty-trained, she invaded my secret places to see if her first impression could be believed. She tried to tongue me up, but I had no ulterior motive to respond. In fact, I recall being surprised that she apparently wanted to suck out my wee-wees, because what else was that part of my body for?

She showed me her own nether regions but, again, I had no interest in them. I merely wanted to play ludo or snakes and ladders. . . .

However, time is a destroyer or healer of all things. Both of us, under our mother’s very nose, dilly-dallied behind curtains and, as the clock struck five for high tea, almost reached fulfilment.

But the problem of breasts remained. Even I, a boy, had vestigial nipples, whilst she couldn’t even grow the eeni-meaniest end products upon her swollen mammaries. She’d stare at herself in the mirror for hours, stripped to the waist, like a snake-charmer humming tunes that fitted more with the dark sweaty seed-beds of working-class people than the brightly lit chambers of the civilised world of nobility and nonchalance to which I was accustomed.

Technically, she told me, she was still a virgin since the congress between us so far had been innocent. I was now mature enough to suggest she obtain a boy friend, but she said she didn’t want complete strangers mucking about inside her. I was not fully knowledgeable about the ways of the world, so I could only agree with her. Keep it all in the family and any outsiders at arm’s length. So I tried to muscle up, but no amount of foreplay gave me sufficient get-up-and-go.

She tried fingers, every finger of her hand; even the coal-tongs hanging by the roaring log fire in the lounge were brought into service. But her titties, although ripe enough, did not nipple forth into what she considered to be her Godgiven birthright.

The man finished talking, a look of resignation on his face. The listener responded by pointing out that virginity had nothing to do with nipples and, come to think of it, the sister could never have been a virgin in the first place, because there were no such things as virgins, anyway. It was all a myth since God had fucked them all before they were born.

The main speaker replaced his hat and left the smoke-filled room, whilst he sadly recalled overhearing, all those years ago, the muffled prayers of his sister to that same God for a spanking new pair of nipples in her next Christmas stocking. His eyes were full of tears, since he now began to realise that his dearest sister had been little better than circus freak, with nothing between the ears.

The one who had listened so patiently, upon trudging home through the crisp and even snow, smiled to himself. He wondered:- If the speaker’s father was really Santa Claus, who was Santa Claus?