Pick Your Battles

Pick Your Battles

When summer had ended, the four found themselves parted by geography again.  Jerry and Rachelle could share a room in Austin, but in Atlanta, Chad and Julie attended different schools.  

As the new semester at Emory commenced, Julie did draw the anticipated looks.  However, this new attention was more like sinister eyes glowing in the dark around a campfire, than the limelight of a theater production.  She had managed to get it turned on; now she couldn't turn it off. 

An early project for Julie was to corner Dr. Busch.  She felt like he was the person who should be required to answer new and burning questions.  Eventually she cornered him at office hours.

When they had made obligatory greetings, she launched out.  “Dr. Busch, how do I know what a hymen is?”

He regarded her with a quizzical gaze.  “A fold of skin that marks a girl's virginity.  Are you still looking for yours?”  Julie had taken the precaution of wearing a skirt, and he probably couldn't see... the thing, despite the fact that he DID know what to look for. 

Julie confidently followed up.  “Well, then, at the onset of menstruation, how does the blood get out?” 

Dr. Busch could see that there was ample room for confusion.  “As a woman's body matures, the hymen thins out, and eventually it tears away on its own, like a tearaway football jersey.  There are many ways it is reported.  'I took my own,' 'I lost it riding a horse,' 'I was running and it broke,'  and you can imagine the contortions of gymnasts.” 

Julie didn't feel like she had pinned him down at all.  “So, do ALL women lose their virginity, whether they copulate or not?” she asked.

Here, Dr. Busch tumbled to her concern.  “Virginity at various ages would be a hard thing to observe for statistical study, Julie.  Think about it.  Living people lie easily about the thing, and cadavers cannot give you a sexual history.  Then there is the observation that around 20% of women experience some kind of abuse growing up.”  He caught her eye.  “Presumably so!”

Julie felt an ire, staring straight into the eye of this arrogant PhD.  He knew something, but he wasn't going to say.  It galled her that the person to deny it was someone who had never even HAD a hymen. 

Bitterly, she proffered him the cigars.  She wanted to shake his smug self confidence, but all she could do was say, “I hope you like Cubans.”  It is proper to learn even from an enemy.

Dr. Busch's Latin was not restricted to medicine.  “Cave,” he warned himself.  “Memento vivere.”  One must continue to live.  He was not an utter fool, and he knew that he had to face his pupils and his peers.  Out loud, he dismissed her by thanking her, and she found herself out in the hallway again.

She was dissatisfied with this resolution, but it was all that was available.  She did not expect to find the relevant teaching assistant again.