Based on all of the snickered comments, off-color jokes and endless references that we heard from adults, all indications seemed to be that girls had something very special in their pants.  What that might be wasn’t immediately obvious to us as ten year-old boys, at least not as obvious as breasts – which seemed to be everywhere. 

What boys had in their pants was no great secret, at least it didn’t seem so to us.  It was bulging and awkward and kind of funny.  It was the brunt of a thousand stupid jokes.  You peed with it and, if the older boys were to believed, you did secretive, “nasty” things with it.  Somehow girls were also involved. 

Girls on the other hand, seemed to have nothing there.  If anything, they seemed to have a space that was missing something.

We were all from big families and so most of us had sisters at home to spy on.  My sisters were much younger than I, not much more than babies, and although I frequently watched my mother change their diapers, I didn’t see much to get interested in – girl babies just seemed to have one giant butt crack from front to back.

But some of the boys had older sisters who laid out in the sun in swimsuits and, if legend can be believed, were sometimes glimpsed dressing through doors ajar, or even caught stepping naked out of showers!  Can you imagine?  How lucky can you get?

But nothing like that ever happened to me.

Until Becky Seaman that is.

I’ve changed her first name because she might be out there reading this right now, but I’m keeping her last name intact because that’s what it really was:  “Seaman”.  Although a bit variant in the spelling, the irony is just too delicious.  Becky Seaman was part of the Catholic school contingent, a group of kids that we didn’t see as often and who were generally wilder and more worldly than us public schoolers.  Becky was a year or two older than we were.  She was pretty, petite and shy.  I never really knew her, never talked to her.  She lived in a nice house on the lake but her driveway came off the main road rather than our neighborhood so I seldom saw her.  She never came around to play. 

•     •     •

Across the street from my house, there was an empty field.  One day a construction crew showed up to build a new house.  First they bulldozed and dug a big hole, then they built cinder block basement walls, then they poured a concrete basement floor.   Each day, when the construction crew went home, we would descend upon the site and play in this marvelous kingdom that was being built.  Even as the first floor was laid down and the bare studded walls put in place, our kingdom became more and more exciting.  In fact, until they finally put locked doors and windows in, we had it all to ourselves.

•     •     •

I’m not sure who set up the deal, but one of the boys was able to get Becky Seaman to agree to come to the basement of the new house one day after school.  For twenty-five cents apiece, she would pull down her dress and let us look at her.  That was it.  No touching, no “funny stuff” (whatever that was).

On the appointed day, six young boys gathered in the basement of the new house, waiting for the Catholic school bus to arrive.  Sunlight filtered in through the unfinished floors and walls.  Buckets of nails, stacks of lumber and the butt-ends of 2x4’s were scattered about everywhere.  We were filled with an anxious, exciting, yet fearful feeling – probably how bank robbers feel just before they rob a bank.  Quarters jingled in our pockets nervously.

Eventually we heard the bus pull up.  We heard the sounds of conversation as kids stepped down off the bus.  Then it pulled away, the conversations faded and all was silent.  Time passed – it seemed like an eternity – and just when we thought that one of us should sneak up the stairs and peek, we heard soft, tiny shoes stepping on wood and the timid voice of Becky Seaman asking: “hello?”

One of the boys cleared his throat and said softly: “We’re down here”.

Becky moved across the half-finished floor towards the steps to the basement.  Good Lord!  We could see right up her dress as she passed above us.  We could see tiny white cotton panties beneath a plaid Catholic dress.   Our hearts were jumping out of our chests as she descended the steps.  If this was what this whole “sex” thing was about, I thought, this is pretty intense.

“Do you have the money?” she demanded before she even reached the bottom step.  We all mumbled and dutifully fished quarters out of our pockets as she passed her hand around.  She stood on the bottom step   counting the money to make sure that she had received a quarter from each of the six boys.  Assured, she pulled her panties down to her knees, hiked up her skirt and stood there in front of us. 

“You’re all going to hell,” she said calmly. “You know that don’t you?”  (Somehow that this would send me to hell didn’t come as a complete surprise, although I wondered why she thought she would be escaping the same fate.) 

We bent down and looked but there wasn’t much to look at, just a fold in the skin like my little sisters had.  What was different was that she had some downy, dark hair growing - sort of like the hair in Billy Falsetti’s armpits. 

One of the boys started to reach toward it but she stepped back.  “You can look at it but you can’t touch it,” she said sternly.  

“Well then,” one of the older boys asked, “can you open it up a little bit with your fingers?  I can’t see anything.”

“Only if you give me another quarter,” she demanded.

This wasn’t part of the original deal, and it struck me that this could become real expensive real fast, but I dutifully fished another quarter out of my pocket like the others and handed it to her.  Given the moment, it seemed like a small price to pay.

She pulled apart the folds of skin and stood there proudly like the owner of a 4-H champion.

I leaned in and looked carefully.  Other than the hair, which was mildly upsetting, I didn’t see anything in there that looked like new information.  If anything it looked like something was missing and what was left was shriveled, wrinkled, pink and puckered up inside.  It was kind of wet. It distinctly looked like what boys had turned inside out. 

After a few more moments, Becky pulled up her panties, gathered her belongings and hiked up the stairs without comment.  We stood there in silence as her soft shoes stepped across the missing planks and disappeared.  We could have probably looked up and seen right up her dress through the holes in the floor but we weren’t in the mood for it. 

The six of us waited until we were sure she was gone.  No one spoke.  No one looked at each other, we were too embarrassed.  One by one, we filed up the steps and went home.

I sat on the porch that afternoon for a long time and thought about what had just happened.  Something seemed wrong.  Something didn’t add up.  There was something important that I was completely missing.  What was all the big deal about?  Why did adult refer to it so often?  If anything, breasts were much more interesting.

Here I had just spent 50 cents and was more confused than ever, while she had made three easy dollars in a couple of minutes, using nothing more than what nature had given her.  

Eventually I would come to realize that what I had just experienced was one of the harsh realities in the complex relationship between men and women.