The next week-and-a-half of school dragged on rather slowly; all I could think of was Angeles Watson's slumber party and me in a roomful of scantily-clad preteens. One fantasy had me arriving at midnight; since it was so late I ended up spending the night, servicing all the girls while I was at it. However, I realized the probability of that becoming reality was about nil:

1) Suburban parents were highly unlikely to open their door at midnight,
2) they were even less likely to invite me to sleep with the girls, and
3) even if the party lasted until noon, it would take a superhuman effort to screw a dozen virgins in one night.

I wasn't too thrilled about going to the party in the afternoon, so I finally decided to make my arrival at about 8 o'clock. By that time all the boys should have left, and the girls would probably have changed into their pajamas, although they'd be wide awake and full of energy.

Angeles's mother opened the door and invited me into the house. Mrs. Granados introduced me to a friend, a Mrs. McCain, who was helping out with the logistics of the party; and to her mother (Angeles's grandmother), a Mrs. Rivera. "It's too bad you couldn't get here earlier," declared Mrs. Granados. "The art teacher ... what's her name?" "Mrs. Arthurs," I supplied.

"Right, Mrs. Arthurs, and Angeles's teacher from fifth grade, Mrs. Pelletier, were here in the afternoon," the woman explained. "You could have talked to them."

"Yeah, sorry; I was kind of busy and couldn't make it earlier," I said. Left unsaid was the fact that I can think of no worse way to spend one's time than to socialize with fellow teachers. Social interaction with the kids is fine, and socializing with parents can be interesting, but fellow teachers tend to talk about nothing except problems with their students and disagreements with the administration. "If it isn't inconvenient, I'd like to wish Angeles a happy birthday and give her this present."

Mrs. Granados offered me a slice of birthday cake and said, "I'm sure you'll want to give her a big birthday kiss, too."

"Pardon me?" Did she suspect I had a thing for her daughter?

"Angeles will be so pleased that you've come, and she'll be expecting a kiss," Mrs. Granados repeated. "I know some people get all up tight when adults show children any kind of physical intimacy, but in our culture, the Latino culture, it's normal for children to kiss adults as a kind of greeting. It doesn't really mean anything, but since Angeles doesn't have a father, she would be put out if you didn't respond."

"Oh yeah, the Latino culture thing," I mumbled.

"Well, the girls just went upstairs to the bedroom to put on their pajamas. Wait here and I'll go tell them that you've arrived."

A few minutes later she returned. "It seems that some of the girls are shy about having their teacher see them in their pajamas, and they want to get dressed. Isn't that silly? I'm sure you've seen plenty of little girls in bathing suits, and they reveal a lot more than pajamas do. Anyway, it'll be about ten or fifteen minutes. I hope you don't mind waiting. Have a glass of wine."

Since my primary purpose in coming to the party was to see the girls in their pajamas (and maybe get a surreptitious look at something else, not to mention a feel or two), I was more than a bit perturbed by this development. However, not to be impolite I agreed to wait. If I didn't, what would I do with the special, boxed edition of the complete, seven-volume 'Tales of Narnia?' I've already read it and seen the movies. Twice.

Ten minutes later Angeles and a girl named Linda Andersen came into the kitchen. Linda was wearing a red nightshirt that stopped about a foot above her knees; the nipples of her budding breasts were clearly protruding through the thin cloth. Angeles was wearing blue pajamas with white flowers on them. The bottoms seemed rather low-slung and there was a healthy gap between the top and the bottoms. I couldn't be sure, but it certainly looked as if she had nothing else on at all.

"What's up, Angeles?" Mrs. Granados asked her daughter. "I thought you were going to get dressed."

"We're not stuck-up like some of the other girls," said Angeles. "Who cares if Mr. Pyle sees us in our pajamas? It's supposed to be a slumber party. And remember when we had that all-night read-a-thon in fourth grade, and everybody in the whole school, even the teachers and the principal, was supposed to wear pajamas?"

"We're the screening committee, Mrs. Watson," said Linda. "It's kind of a game and a test at the same time. We're supposed to ask Mr. Pyle some questions, and if he answers them right, he can go into Angeles's bedroom. If not, it's bye-bye."

"That's kind of cruel!" exclaimed Mrs. McCain. "Your teacher came all the way here, but then you're not even going to say hello?"

"Well, that's okay; I can't stay very long anyway," I said. "Here; I got you a present. I hope you like it."

"I already said hello; I just don't know if we want to have a boy at our party," Angeles said. But she gladly took the box and opened it. "Thanks Mr. Pyle! I have the three movies but I haven't read any of the books, so this is really cool. But please don't go yet; everyone is going to want to sing happy birthday to you, even if they are kind of fuddy-duddies about their pajamas and you have to take a test first."

"Is it your birthday today?" asked Mrs.McCain.

"Tomorrow," I said. "I don't even know how they found out."

"Well, happy birthday," said Mrs. Granados. "Let me give you a kiss."

The three women and two girls kissed me, and then I asked, "What's this about a test?"

"Don't worry; the questions are easy, like: what is the capital of Afghanistan? Or: what was Hillary Duff's first album?" volunteered Linda.

"Yeah, and what's the answer to question number five on our next history test!" added Angeles.

"Angeles!" exclaimed her mother.

I laughed. "I haven't written the next history test, but the answer to question number five will be 'True.' The capital of Afghanistan is Kabul, and Hillary Duff's first studio album was 'Metamorphosis, ' although she had recorded some earlier things for Disney. Oh, and the answer to question five is 'The Oregon Trail.'"

"Why 'The Oregon Trail?'"

"I don't know," I laughed. "That's the answer, but now I have to think up the question."

The girls laughed, and Angeles said, "That's good, but we have to ask some more questions in private. Let's go to the living room."

I followed the girls into the other room where they had me sit on the love seat. Angeles said, "You have to promise not to tell my mom or grandmother or the boys at school or anyone else about this. It has to be a secret. Do you promise?"

"What's the big secret?"

"Do you promise?"

I crossed my heart and said, "I promise I won't tell anybody about what we're going to do. And I promise not to reveal the secret questions even if I'm waterboarded."

"Huh?"

"It's kind of a George Bush joke; I know, it isn't very good."

They still seemed puzzled, so I said, "George W. Bush, remember? Before Obama?"

"Oh. All right, and you have to answer every single question, even the embarrassing ones," said Linda. "And you have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Okay?"

"I swear on a stack of comic books. A stack of manga."

"That isn't very funny either. This is really serious."

"I promise girls; I'll answer all your questions, even the difficult ones, and I'll do my absolute best to be completely honest. You know I always let you talk about anything you want in school, and I try not to be judgmental even when kids tell me things that a lot of people might not approve of. Remember, I haven't told anyone that Robert said he smokes marijuana with his folks."

"First, we found this on the Internet but we didn't understand everything. Would you explain it?"

Linda handed me a sheet of paper. I read the first paragraph and asked, "Where did you get this?"

"It's from this page on the Internet where you can read different stories," the girl responded. "I used my brother's password."

"Yeah, well this stuff isn't intended for children; you're supposed to be eighteen." I handed her back the paper.

"You always tell us we can talk about anything we want, and that you'll be completely honest with us," rebutted Angeles. "And you just promised us again. So explain it, please. We won't tell anybody. And we want the long, complete explanations."

"It says, 'I hadn't had a good fuck for a week and I felt so horny that even the crack of dawn wasn't safe, '" I read. "You probably know that the word 'fuck' refers to sex; he says he hadn't had sexual relations for a week. I don't know if you're aware that F-U-C-K is an acronym for 'fornication under consent of the king.' It's said that a certain king authorized prostitution for sailors who were at sea for a long time, even though society and the Church disapproved."

"Wow! I never heard that stuff about the king," said Linda. "What's 'fornication'?"

"Making love. Sex; like I just said. Now, as for being horny, it means that he was desirous for sex. If a man's wife has relationships with another man ... do you really want to hear all this?"

"Yeah, all the juicy stuff," said Linda.

"If a man's wife has relationships with another man, the first man is called a 'cuckold, ' and one of the features of a cuckold is that is has horns in his head, like the devil. That's why people sometimes tease other people when they have their pictures taken by putting horns on them. Since the wife of a cuckold is fucking someone else, the cuckold isn't getting laid and is horny; sometimes people use the term 'horny' just to indicate they haven't had sex in a while."

"What's 'getting laid?"

"It's the same thing as getting fucked or balling; having intercourse. The word 'crack' can refer to the crack, or hole, in one's buttocks, or it could refer to a vagina. Some people, especially homosexuals, like to fuck the butt. The last part suggests that the writer was actually referring to a woman' vagina, since 'Dawn' is a woman's name. Actually, this is a pun, since 'the crack of dawn' refers to the hour of sunrise. In literary terms we're talking about hyperbole.

"The writer then states, 'I turned on the computer and typed in the address of my favorite web page. I found a super-hot preteen babe with a completely bald pussy who turned me on so much with her fine cunt that I whacked off until I had splayed about a pint of my hot, sticky jism all over her pouty pink, labia. I found another sexy beaver, and then I jerked off again and came a second, third, even a fourth time. I shot so much white baby juice from my twelve inches that it puddled on the floor.' Not only is this obscene, but it's also impossible."

"Why?"

"The guy talks about masturbating to pictures of a girl your age, perhaps younger, and ejaculating huge quantities of semen. Now, lots of guys masturbate when they see pictures of sexy girls, but when the guy says he ejaculated a pint of semen, it's complete nonsense. Remember that a pint is two large glasses; a strong, healthy ejaculation is about a tablespoonful. Then he says he does it four times. Not even Superboy can squirt four times in quick succession."

"Why did you say 'Superboy' and not 'Superman'?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, the human male reaches his sexual peak at about seventeen. This guy also claims that his penis measures 12 inches; I guess that's possible, but the average size is only six inches."

"How big is yours?"

"None of your business."

The two girls just stared at my crotch. "It's big enough," I relented.

That didn't seem to satisfy them, as both girls stared at me with arms akimbo. "The truth is, I don't know. I've never measured it, but I think I'm in the normal range. I've certainly never had any complaints."

"Okay, now explain the words we didn't get," said Angeles. "We don't want a summary; we want all the juicy details."

"There shouldn't be any confusion about the first part. 'Preteen' is literally 'before the teens, ' so a preteen babe would be a girl 10, 11, or 12 years old, perhaps younger. As you know, before a girl reaches puberty she doesn't have hair on her body--in her armpits or around her vulva, so she's said..."

"Vulva?"

"Lots of people use 'vagina' to refer to a woman's sexual organs, but that really refers to the tube or canal that connect the external sex organs with the uterus, which is the part inside where the fetus grows. 'Vulva' is the correct term to refer to that outside area of the sex organs in general. He says she is 'bald; you know that a bald man is a man with no hair on his head. It's the same thing, except we're talking about a girl's vulva: no hair. Not that he says vulva or even vagina, but uses the slang term 'pussy.' Of course a pussycat is a female cat; no doubt you've seen the singing group called 'Pussycat Dolls' on TV. By extension 'pussy' can mean any female, not just a cat, although more specifically it is often used to refer to the female sex organs. 'Cunt' is another word for the same part of the body; it's kind of nasty and I don't want to hear it in my class. 'Whack off' and 'jerk off' are two ways of saying 'masturbate'..."

"Stop."

"Here's further proof that abstinence only sex education doesn't work; it just forces kids like you to find answers on your own. 'Masturbate' means playing with oneself; you know, when someone touches his or her own sex organs for pleasure. It's also called 'onanism; Mark Twain..."

"Who?"

What? Twice I've won awards based on the quality of my teaching, but my students can't even identify Twain? "He's the author who wrote 'Tom Sawyer' and 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, '" I explained. "I'm going to try to get copies of 'Tom Sawyer' so everybody in class can read it, and then I'm going to give you a real hard test just to make sure you do. Anyway, this same man wrote an interesting treatise on onanism. That term, in case you were wondering, comes from a character in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and it can also refer to the practice of withdrawing before orgasm."

"Now you're confusing us again."

"Come on, you're in sixth grade; you should know these terms! I hope you at least know that when a man and a woman have sexual relations, the man's prick gets hard and he slides it in and out of the woman's vagina until he comes. Prick, dick, cock--they're all synonyms for penis. Anyway, when the man ejaculates, or climaxes, his penis ejects a white, sticky substance called 'semen.' The semen contains the little cells, or seeds, called sperm cells, that will actually meet up with the woman's ovum to make a baby. Maybe you've heard the term 'egg' instead of 'ovum;' they're the same thing. Your author writes about 'splaying' his 'jism' on the image of the girl; in other words, ejaculating his semen. Another term he uses for semen is 'come, ' which some writers spell C-U-M. 'Labia' is plural for 'labium, ' Latin for 'lip' or 'lips, ' which are the outer or the inner folds of skin of mucous membrane of the vulva."

"You've lost me," said Angeles.

"Don't you ever rub yourself down there?" Linda asked her friend. "Well, if you do, you'll get wet. It feels good. The wet stuff isn't pee, and Mr. Pyle says it comes from the lips, which are on the sides of the slit ... you know, where you go to the bathroom! That's where a guy will stick his penis when he takes your cherry. That happens the first time you have sex because you have this thing inside called a 'hymer' and it breaks so it bleeds. And it's called a 'cherry' because blood is red, and a cherry is red, right Mr. Pyle?"

I was shocked me have Linda speak so casually about masturbating, but I did not comment on it. "You're right about just about everything, except that the cherry is actually called the 'hymen, ' not the 'hymer, ' and it's at the entrance to the vagina, not inside. It can also break due to masturbation or in some kinds of sporting accidents. A virgin is someone who hasn't had sexual relations, and sometimes people say that a person, especially a girl, is 'cherry' to mean that she's a virgin. However, since there are many ways that a hymen can be broken, the simple fact that a girl doesn't have one doesn't indicate she isn't a virgin. On the other hand, since there are many ways to enjoy sex, such as anal sex or oral sex, a girl's hymen might be intact even though she isn't a virgin."

"Does that little knobby-thing that gets hard and sticks out when a girl rubs ... masturbates ... have a name?" asked Linda.

"I think you're talking about the clitoris, or clit, for short," I told her.

"Anal sex means in the butt, and oral means with the mouth, right? Masturbate is when you do it to yourself, without anyone else," asked Linda. I nodded and she continued, "So is kissing oral sex? If I kissed a boy, does that mean I'm not a virgin?"

"Only if you kissed or sucked on his penis, or if he kissed and licked your pussy," I clarified.

"No..."

"The former is called a 'blow job' or 'fellatio, ' while the latter is 'eating out' or 'cunnilingus.' 'Fellatio' comes from the Greek..."

"Enough!" shouted Angeles, putting her hands over her ears. "Do people really do that?"

"Touching, kissing, stroking, sucking, licking, fondling, jerking ... people do all kinds of things with their genitals and with those of their boyfriends or girlfriends ... virtually anything you want, just so long as it feels good and doesn't hurt anybody. I like to kiss a girl not only on the mouth and the cheeks, but also on her neck, back, and breasts, behind the knees, between her legs, to suck on her toes..."

The use of the phrase 'girl' instead of 'a woman' in the previous sentence was intended to be subliminal; it wasn't a Freudian slip.

I continued, "Of course, not hurting anybody means both partners have to agree, and you have to be careful about both pregnancy and disease like herpes and HIV/AIDS. That's where a condom comes in."

I'd spoken about HIV/AIDS in health class, and I'd even included the extracurricular term 'condom, ' so I knew the girls were somewhat aware of what I was talking about. I don't like to get preachy, but some things can't be mentioned often enough.

"Well, I guess he answered all our questions so he can go to the birthday party; what do you think, Linda?"

"Just a few more. Mr. Pyle, do you ever jerk off?"

"I think that's getting too personal."

"You promised you'd answer all the questions, even the embarrassing ones," Angeles reminded me. "Do you ever masturbate?"

"Of course I do, sometimes," I said defensively. "All guys do, as do most women. You've already admitted that you do it, and for the same reason. It's pleasurable."

She turned crimson but continued. "Next question. Are you married? Or, do you have a girlfriend?"

"No on both accounts. Still free."

"Are you gay?"

"Of course not. I like girls; I just haven't found the right one yet." Freud again.

Up until this point the girls had been standing in front of me, but now they sat down on either side of me on the love seat. Linda stroked my hair. "Who do you like?" she asked. "What do you mean, who do I like?" I asked in return. "And it should be 'whom'."

"In the classroom; whommmm do you like?" asked Linda again. "You know; like, like." Now her hand was rubbing my chest and she had even started to unbutton my shirt. Angeles's hand was on my cheek and she turned my face so that I was forced to look her directly in the eyes.

I was getting hot because of the light petting that was going on, but I was leery about skating on thin ice. If I reacted too strongly to the girls' provocations, the women in the kitchen were liable to come into the living room to see what all the commotion was about. Just as bad, I was faced with one the equivalent of "When did you stop beating your wife?" There was no good answer. Not only would it be lying to say that I didn't 'like' any of the girls in the class; but such a response wasn't even in the vocabulary of these girls. At eleven no one wants to admit that he or she 'likes' someone of the opposite sex, but an even worse answer is to deny it completely. A bullshit answer such as 'I like all of you the same' wasn't in the cards either. I took a deep breath and tried to play it safe, naming the birthday girl. "Angeles."

"What about me?" asked Linda, whose right hand had moved to my thigh. "Don't you like me?"

"Of course I like you, Linda," I said. "But I figured you wanted just one answer, and I said 'Angeles' because ... well, because it's her birthday."

"What about Nancy?" asked Linda. "Didn't you try to look down her low-cut top last week when she wasn't wearing a bra?"

"Why would I do that?"

"And how about that time you got down on the floor to show us what push-ups are?" asked Angeles. "Weren't you really just trying to look up Paola's skirt?"

"How about the time you told Diana to stand on your desk so she could put things up high on the bulletin board?" asked Linda. "I'm sure I saw you tilt your head so you could look up. And sometimes you stand at the bottom of the stairs when we go up."

"I think you like looking at us girls, and you have naughty thoughts about us," interjected Angeles. "You want to have sex with us."

Naughty thoughts? What kind of term is that? Lewd, dirty, gross, unspeakable, reprehensible, sexual, forbidden, nasty, socially unacceptable, highly illegal--but 'naughty'? "Really girls, I don't know what you're talking about," I said with worry.

I had been caught out, and now the girls were looking for a full confession. Frank answers to difficult questions had helped me earn a good reputation as a teacher and adult who could be trusted; admitting that I had sexual fantasies about my pupils and frequented Internet sites with underage models could turn that trust upside down. I couldn't look either girl in the eyes and outright lie to her face, so I was holding my head down trying to get past this line of interrogation when I noticed that Linda's nightshirt had ridden up quite a bit. I caught a glimpse of yellow cloth between her legs, and I wanted more.

"Come on, Mr. Pyle, you're supposed to answer all the questions," insisted Angeles. "Tell the truth. If Nancy said she wanted to have sex with you, would you do it?"

"I just don't want any misunderstandings," I said. "If I say something and you think I say something else, I could get into a lot of trouble."

"I'm not saying she wants to have sex with you; I said IF. Don't worry; we made you promise not to tell anybody about the questions, and we won't tell anybody either," said Linda. Angeles added, "I won't even tell my mother. Or Nancy. But tell us!"

"Well, I can't take responsibility for the way you girls dress or the way someone sits," I said. "If Nancy wasn't wearing a bra and she bent over, how was I supposed to not look? If Paola doesn't want me to see up her skirt, then she should keep her legs crossed, not spread eagle and up on the book rack on the desk in front of her. It wouldn't be normal if I didn't look, would it? Or should I try to be more like Mr. Wishon?"

Mr. Wishon, the gay assistant principal. He doesn't prey on the boys, but he's never closeted his preferences either.

"Gross," declared Linda.

"And how come the front of your pants sticks out like it does?" asked Angeles, ignoring my rhetorical question.

I pointed out that, "Perhaps you weren't paying attention during health class the day that I explained that sometimes a man, or a boy, gets an erection at the most embarrassing of times. We really don't have any control over it. Honest."

"Do you ever think about any of the girls in your class?" asked Linda. "I mean really think about us, like when you jerk off. Do you? Remember, you have to tell the truth."

"Yes, I've done that," I admitted sheepishly. "A few times."

"Who'd you think about?" asked Linda in earnest. "Come on. Just tell me and Angeles. We promise we won't tell anyone, not even the other girls."

"Okay ... Nancy," I said. The girls smiled knowingly, and after a few seconds I added, "Also Paola and Diane."

"What about me?" both girls seemed to ask in chorus.

"I'll be honest with you, but this can't go any further than this room" I said in desperation. Angeles and Linda both crossed their hearts.

"At one time or another I've fantasized about each of the girls in the class, except for one. Yes, Angeles, I jerked off while looking at a snapshot of you in that skin-tight body suit you wore as a black pussycat on Halloween. You didn't even wear underwear, did you?"

"God, you noticed? That's so cool!" exclaimed Angeles. "But you said there was one girl in the class that wasn't in your fantasy. Who?"

"It really wouldn't be fair to say her name," I protested.

"What about me?" asked Linda. "Have you ever jerked off while thinking about me or looking at a picture of me?"

"Do you remember the Japanese Lolita costume you wore on Halloween in fifth grade?" I asked. "Do you have any idea, any idea whatsoever, who the most famous Lolita was? That's the title of a book by Vladimir Nabokov that was published in 1958; Lolita is a twelve-year old girl who seduces a 37-year old man. By dressing that way and calling yourself 'Lolita' you were begging to go to bed with a man. Begging."

Neither girl uttered a word. After a full two minutes of silence Linda softly uttered, "I know whom, I said the 'm, ' whom you've never fantasized about. Abigail," said Linda. "She's kind of fat and no one would ever say she was pretty. And I don't think she ever gets better than a 'C' in math."

"No comment," I said, but I must have blushed because Angeles laughed and said, "Look at him! It was Abigail."

"But remember, you mustn't tell anyone, especially her," I said. "I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings. Probably the only thing worse than having your teacher fantasize about sex with you is not having your teacher fantasize about having sex with you."