Every boy is really two boys. One is the sweet slave of
womanhood, the other a rebel in the bootless cause of male pride.
It is only a question of which boy prevails in a given young
man's soul.
Benjie Beanstock would be the only boy heading for the lockers
today. The others had done their last chin-ups and broad-jumps
for the year. But Benjie had gotten himself involved in a
different kind of exercise: some wild scheme of Miss
Ashley's-she's one of the girls' phys-ed teachers and a
gymnastics coach, and she was once on the Olympic-team, and her
first name is Kate, and the girls adore her and the boys admit
she's something - and now here was Benjie, approaching the
deserted locker-room to change into gym-clothes before being
received as the guest of dishonor in Miss Ashley's class.
Gotten himself involved was right: technically, Benjie was a
volunteer, a free agent. Technically he was doing a favor for
Miss Ashley, who was charming and vivacious and had, yes, that
compact gymnast's body and a face that was truly pretty - let's
say beautiful - and who was a teacher in any case, and you looked
at her manicured fingers (which all her girls imitated) and her
earrings, and you smelled her perfume, and, considering this and
that, you couldn't help wanting to make her like you. But, all
the same, he was the favor-doer here, definitely, even if Miss
Ashley wasn't being abundant in her gratitude, and if he thought
better of it now, at the last minute, even as the pretty
gym-teacher was preparing for him, and her seventh-grade girls
were gathering in the gym above-well, technically, he could walk
away from it right now and be on the street heading home in a
flash.
Technically, he didn't have to do what he was doing, didn't have
to be unlatching the heavy door of the locker-room, didn't have
to be staring into that shadowy place, taking in the spooky
absence of stripped and stripping boys, the strange stillness
where he was used to big-time din. Benjie never loved the hoarse
vulgarities, the obsessive taunts, everyone calling everyone
faggot, everyone saying "pussy" just to hear it said; for that
matter, he never loved the stripping, the shower, the nearness of
bodies too much like his own, everyone checking out everyone's
body-hair, making fun of the smoothies, calling them pussies,
calling them girls, the unpleasant male odor everywhere. But he
missed their familiarity now. He missed that unsteady brotherhood
of boys which was secure at least in this place, so formidably
off-limits to females. The locker-room was cool for this time of
year, and its tile and metal and concrete surfaces made Benjie's
every sound, his footsteps, his nervous breath, echo down the
aisles.
Then, as the main door banged heavily behind him, Benjie yielded
to the truth: he wasn't free at all. Gotten himself involved
didn't cover it at all. What was technically true was so far from
true it was stupid to go over it. A favor? He was doing Miss
Ashley a favor? He knew how ludicrous this way of seeing it would
soon appear to anyone who dropped in. Miss Ashley knew what she
was getting when she chose her "volunteer."
There'd been a test. All the ninth-grade boys took it. It was
supposed to help Miss Ashley collect what she called "profiles"
for her research on her doctor's degree. She was planning to be a
doctor of psychology or something of that kind. But the test was
very strange, not quite one thing or another, with some questions
that sounded tricky and IQ-ish, and others that were plain
snoopy. On one you had to tell the weight of two bricks if one
brick weighed six pounds plus half of itself. On some you had to
choose which you preferred of two equally unpleasant
experiences-coming upon a corpse versus carrying a load of
bricks, for instance. On some you had to pick from a list of
attitudes towards various situations the one that "best expressed
your own feelings." There were plenty of word-ratio questions,
strange ones, however, in which the answers didn't seem logical
so much as psychological: you couldn't be wrong in your answer,
just highly revealing.
Scattered throughout the test were questions about nakedness-not
a lot, but such things stand out, especially with fifteen
year-old boys. Would you rather see another boy naked or have him
see you that way? What about a girl? Which would be more
embarrassing to you: having to be naked in front of a roomful of
girls or a roomful of boys? Older girls? Younger girls? Grown
women? Is your family doctor a man or a woman? Do you think real
men don't cry? In your opinion, is it 1. Easier/ 2. Harder / 3.
Neither easier nor harder/ to grow up as a male than as a female?
Do you think girls on the average are smarter than boys? Less
smart?
And after the test an interview with Miss Ashley.
"Do you have any idea what that test of mine was testing for,
Benjie?" Miss Ashley asked. Benjie said none at all, except that
it was connected to her becoming a doctor.
"A doctor of psychology," Miss Ashley explained. "That kind of
doctor." The test, she said, had been specifically designed to
identify "certain forms of cooperativeness in young men." The
enigmatic phrase was not meant to be instantly enlightening.
Benjie gave the lovely teacher his most polite look of
puzzlement: God forbid she should mistake his lack of
understanding for a failure of her teaching-skills.
He was afraid to look Miss Ashley in the eye, so he stared
straight ahead, at her chest. This probably wasn't a good idea
either, but Miss Ashley was wearing her gym-shirt and, the way
the light hit it, Benjie detected the wonderful margins of her
bra under it, and for all his conscience and chivalry, he
couldn't tear his gaze away.
Miss Ashley noticed. He noticed her noticing. But she went on
unruffled. "Let me start a different way, Benjie. You'll
understand me soon enough. My real concern in life isn't actually
boys at all. No offense intended. You're a very sweet young man,
and your test-score makes you even sweeter to me, for reasons I'm
getting to. But my real concern is girls, and how they grow into
women, and how full of deceit and harm that process, which should
be so beautiful, actually is in our culture."
Benjie was thinking that he should nod, more out of politeness
than out of agreement with what Miss Ashley was saying, just to
show that he was listening and was bright enough to follow, when
it occurred to him that he did understand what she was saying,
understood all too well really, and that somehow he was destined
to help Miss Ashley help the girls she cared about so much - all
because of things he admitted on that strange exam of hers. He
went ahead and nodded.
"I'm glad you understand, Benjie," Miss Ashley said. "In any
case, for the last few years I've had this little project. It's
little enough. But it's a contribution I can make in my present
position to the cause of freeing girls from myths about
themselves, and in particular myths about well, about men and
boys like you, Benjie. Like you."
"So, Miss Ashley," Benjie said, "if I'm just a boy or man or
whatever like everyone else, what did the test have to do with
it? I mean, I'm the boy you wanted to talk about this with."
"Just the right amount of scrappiness," Miss Ashley said. "You're
a doll, Benjie, and I'm offering you a chance to be played with.
In a good cause. The best. But where were we? Why the test? I'll
tell you the truth, it's a time-saver and maybe a heart-ache
saver too. The girls I'm talking about - the ones whose lives I
know I can affect, especially if I have your help in it - they're
young still. My seventh-graders. Thirteen, you know, most of
them. What I've been doing is, at the end of every school-year, a
kind of last-class treat, what I've been doing is look, Benjie,
this is hard even for me to say, you're a sweet boy, and anyhow I
have nothing against boys, you are what you are, but what your
test made clear to me is that, more than any other boy in your
class, you know what a lie masculinity is, what a myth the
superior power of males."
"Did I say that?" Benjie asked, trying to sound whimsical.
"Benjie, your test did. Yes, it did. You may not want to admit it
now, but your test told me what you truly are. I'm not saying
it's really so simple. Every boy knows the truth about the myth,
and every boy also tries at least some of the time to keep the
falsehood going. Every boy. Even you try to keep the falsehood
going. In a way, you're trying that right now. But you do it less
often than most, and with less conviction when you're at it. You
know it's a fool's errand. I mean you know it more of the time
than lots of boys and men. I read that in your test. You're ripe
for this outing, Benjie. And, as I said, time is a ruling factor
here. I can tell you from my own experience that bringing an
obstinate male to his knees Benjie, don't tell me that word comes
as a total surprise!"
"I guess it doesn't, Miss Ash , Miss I guess it doesn't."
"Of course it doesn't. To his knees . So, then, moving on: it's a
wonderful thing for a grown woman, or even an older girl, to
vanquish an impertinent male. But I'm talking seventh-grade
adolescents here, some bold, most timid, but in any case not
quite sure they understand the weakness of males even when the
evidence is in front of their noses. They do see it, Benjie. I'm
sure you're aware of that ."
Benjie nodded - that is, noticed himself nodding.
"And that's what makes it so tragic, Benjie. That's what's awful
in girls' lives: they learn to deny what they plainly see. It's
heart-breaking."
"I guess so," Benjie obligingly imparted. "I guess it is
heartbreaking. Sure.."
Miss Ashley had risen from her desk. Benjie nearly jumped: it was
her sudden movement, but also the revelation of her lithe figure
and the fact that she was wearing a body-suit under her
athletic-shirt and tights under that, and the sharp, slender
bones of her hips showed prominently and the terse mound where
her legs met swelled gently in her snug clothes.
"What I'm asking of you, Benjie," the flutelike voice of that
delectable body said, "is simply to share with my class a thing
you already know. I mean, the fact that as a boy you're
vulnerable to them, to every young girl and every grown woman -
vulnerable, helpless, breakable. Call it what you want."
"Miss Ashley!"
"Go on, then, say."
"Miss Ashley! Wow!" Benjie said.
"Right," Miss Ashley said. "Wow is right. If you have any
questions...."
"Didn't I hear you say before that you've already done this kind
of thing?" Benjie said.
"Yes, that's right. I lost my thread. That's what I was
explaining. Yes, twice now. The girls in your grade were the
first. Maybe you noticed the difference when they came back to
school in the fall. A real transformation. I like the boy to be a
few years older than my girls."
Oddly enough, he had noticed something different about his female
classmates, but who could have explained correctly? Summer
growth-spurt or something made enough sense. "Are you saying,
Miss , er Ashley, are you saying that you would want me to be
naked in your gym-class."
"Well, naked is a big part of it, a prerequisite, you might say,
yes."
"God!"
"Benjie, you half like the idea. Deep down you welcome it. I
don't mean to embarrass you, but I have read your test, let's
remember, and I have a strong feeling that there's something in
this idea of mine that doesn't entirely displease you. If you're
being honest with yourself, that is . I know it cuts both ways
that you're bound to have mixed feelings. Of course I know that."
"Naked. God!"
"I think you have it, B.B.," Miss Ashley said. "Naked, and then
some."
"And then some . And then some . God!"
"I'm being honest with you, Benjie. I want you to understand that
I'm not being frivolous. I have a serious wish, towhich I've
given several years of serious thought: I want the girls to see
how fragile you are. How easily broken ."
"Wow! And you've done this with other boys, like last year and
the year before that?"
"That's right."
"Excuse me for asking, Miss Ashley, but couldn't you get into
trouble for this? I mean, you actually got the school to require
us to take your test."
"It's a close run, sure. I do as much of it as I can on the
up-and-up. I'll be giving you a parental-consent form, as a
matter of fact. Most of the folks in this community are glad to
have me here Olympian and doctoral candidate and, I hope, a good
teacher and I haven't kept my feminist views secret either. I'm a
firebrand, but everyone's favorite firebrand, it seems. Most
people are willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, and a lot
of people - I mean men as well as women - plumb agree with me.
And even though I never lie about what I'm doing, I don't get too
explicit about it with just anyone either. I know there's this
hysteria about sex in the air. So, yes, I'm running a slight
risk. But the reward is high, believe me. Will be for you too. I
know you, Benjie."
"Will what you what you and the girls do to me, Miss Ashley, will
it hurt?"
"Oh, I think so, Benjie, more than likely. The emphasis will be
on the precariousness of what is called virility. Let me tell
you, it makes an unforgettable impression on young girls to see
how defenseless males actually are. And, if you think about it,
you'll see that this demonstration must involve causing you some
pain. But this is hard to explain to you, but if you are the boy
your test revealed you may understand intuitively your
imagination may understand well, the pain you'll feel will not be
like other kinds of pain you may have experienced. Not like
banging your head or skinning your knees, not like a toothache,
not even like a stomach-ache. It will be in your boy-parts, and
it will be caused by a woman and by girls, and it will be you may
not be able to imagine this but it will be beautiful to you."
"It won't hurt that much?"
"That's not what I'm saying, Benjie. It may hurt that much. But,
believe me, after a little while I'm pretty sure you will be very
happy about it."
"About being hurt? I can't imagine that at all," Benjie said. But
he knew that he was not being truthful. That was the strange
thing. Miss Ashley was right about his intuition, and he couldn't
explain it either. But something about the thought of girls
making pain in his "boy-parts" gave him a premonition of addled
bliss. Pain, and this pain in particular, with its accompanying
humiliation, its helpless exposure, remained frightening to
Benjie, but he knew all the same that he was drawn to it. The
fact that Miss Ashley had perceived this in his answers to
questions wildly indirect just proved to him how deep-seated the
predilection was. And so, in order to prevent himself from
running in terror from the attractive trial Miss Ashley was
describing, Benjie made a dizzy proposal, convinced that crossing
the terrible frontier and reaching the point of no return would
make him resolute forever. "If you would show me what it will be
like right now, Miss Ashley, then I won't be able to back out
afterwards. I'd have taken the big step here and now and you'd be
the witness, so what would be the sense of changing my mind?" All
he wanted was to lock the escape-hatch tight.
"Show you? I'm not sure what you mean, how I could do ."
"I give you my I take down my pants and give you my you show me
what you will do to me in class how it will hurt . Like that,
Miss Ash ."
"Oh, Benjie, I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible. Wouldn't be
appropriate, rather. That would just be idle recreation. I'm
trying to teach my students something. The time in class has to
be the first ."
"I see," he said, not seeing. "Well, okay then."
"Look, Benjie. I'll give you this much: you're here because you
have a penis and a scrotum containing two testicles. I know it
means a lot to you to have me say it."
"Yes, yes," Benjie replied with much feeling. She'd spoken as
quietly as a school-teacher, as aloof as a person who already had
a doctor's degree, but this way of telling him she knew what was
under his clothes - knew and had a right to know - put him
instantly in tatters. She might as well have torn his clothing
off, seized his penis roughly in her hand and forced him downward
into one of those twisted poses he hated to look at in the
stroke-mags. Later Benjie would be unable to relive this glorious
shame often enough. His own penis insisted upon it, and there
would be a constant chill in his groin and stomach which he
identified with Miss Ashley's presence and the cool of her likely
touch down there, and again and again, more times a day than he'd
ever wanted to do it, he had to masturbate to make that woman's
possession of him tangible.
"Take a week," she said, "get back to me. Whatever you decide.
But, if I've figured you right, Mr. Benjamin Beanstock, I think
you'll choose to join my girls and me in a highly rewarding
experience. You give it some thought, won't you?"
"Will I cry, Miss Ashley?"
"Take a week to think about it."
"Wait, please . Will I? Cry, I mean."
"That will be up to you, Mr. Beanstock. There's a chance you
will. But, once again, I know you won't understand until it
happens but they will be beautiful, your tears. Anyhow, maybe a
week is a bit too long ."
"Don't give me time to think, Miss Ashley." Benjie felt strangely
drugged. "Saying what you did, do you see I'm hard, Miss, ."
"Benjie, I don't want you to speak this way. I haven't been
seducing you. I have no interest in that. I simply knew the sort
of boy you'd be. That sort of boy is saying yes now, isn't he?"
"Yes," Benjie said.
"Good," Miss Ashley said. "But I do have one more thing to ask
you. You are circumcised, aren't you, Benjie?" Benjie dropped his
eyes and nodded. She was knowing even more of him.
"Here's that consent-form," Miss Ashley said. "Have your mom sign
it, Benjie. When I see you next time, I'll have some details for
you about preparing for class."
The consent-form Benjie delivered to his mother was a masterpiece
of elusiveness. Benjie had volunteered, it said, to participate
in a lecture demonstration to be conducted by Miss Ashley before
selected members of the school community. The purpose was to
observe, using students without particular athletic training, the
different advantages and limitations enjoyed by each of the sexes
in connection with the use of certain standard pieces of
gymnastic equipment. In order to make observation as precise and
unambiguous as possible, the male participant would have to be
minimally clothed for portions of the exercise. Mrs. Beanstock's
son understood this requirement and had expressed his willingness
to comply. Strict standards of decorum and supervision would of
course be observed. The chances of injury from the planned
activities were small and almost certainly limited to temporary
soreness and strain such as might result from participation in
any athletic event.
"What's this, Benjamin? They've got you to agree to swing naked
from high-bars?" his mother laughed.
"I don't think they're expecting that, exactly," Benjie said.
"Why you, Benjie? I don't see you as Tarzan, darling."
"I passed a test," Benjie said. "Highest grade in my class. Next
thing I know, Miss Ashley's having me in for a talk. Has to do
with her doctor's degree."
"Doctor's degree. I just hope she knows first-aid. An
exhibitionist you're not, Benjie," his mother laughed. She was
signing the form. "You must have a crush on this woman."
"I guess there's some crush in the picture, mom," Benjie said.
"Just don't crush anything you may need later, dear," his mother
said, lightly handing him the signed form.
"I'm sure they'll be leaving that to others," Benjie said with an
edge of private sardonic, aware all the same that the author of
the consent-form he was just then holding would have appreciated
the equivocation.
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