A few days later Emily arranged for her mother to invite Fiona over for tea.

“Hello Mrs Adams, So glad you invited me over for tea with you and your daughter.”

“Well Mrs Richardson, I am open with all her questions and such, but also glad she found another older woman she can trust.” She said as she gracefully moved about the small sitting room. Nearly floating from place to place.

“Well thank you so much, and you can call me Fiona.”

“Well then feel free to call me Jitka, or Mrs Adams. It’s all the same to me.”

“Thank you… Ummm Emily is a good girl but ummm… wanted us all to talk.”

“Oh? About?”

“Marital things, men, the like…”

“Oh, well she should know what to expect by now.” Jitka responded almost coldly in a slavic accent.

“Mom… No really… Ummm… try out the goods? Just keep my bra on?”

“I wanted to be sure he would… love you… in a way you’d enjoy.”

“Oh God mom, what if he got me pregnant.”

“I.. Well you were about to marry him anyways… and since I had so much trouble conceiving I figured you would too…”

“I understand Mrs Adams, umm Jitka, but I think some of your advice was passed to other girls, and… maybe made Emily a bit uncomfortable…”

Jitka stood up and walked to the window, and looking out, began to speak. “There is so much I wanted different for my Emily than what I had. You can tell by my accent I am not from here. My family left Czechoslovakia in the 1920’s when I was just a teenager and settled in New York. My maiden name is Novotný. I was classically trained in Ballet and got into a ballet school here… But as much as it’s an art it’s also an industry. I danced professionally for the better part of a decade before it spit me out.”

“How long were you a professional ballerina Mrs Adams?”

“From 19 until I was 26… I was so beat up in the end I can’t really stand that long anymore… I got a job selling Lingerie at Saks.. But again I couldn't stand long enough… Ended up working in the tea room…”

“Mom, the men, the… sex… The odd advice?”

“Yeah… I had my heart broken so badly Emily, then ... .I wanted to be sure your fiance wasn’t brutish in bed…Look we are all women here… Some men are sweethearts, some seem like sweethearts, some are sweethearts, and some are brutes behind closed doors. There is rough passionate sex, and rough violent sex… I like passion… Oh my first man… He was a patron of ours. I met him at a reception. Older, a widower… His kids were my age or older… I was 20… He was late 40’s.. But the passion… he’d take me to fancy dinners, yachting, high society… I loved it… And the passion! We’d have relations in every possible position a professional ballerina can be bent into… But then.. He’d just hold me afterwards, caress me… calm me down… It was rough but so passionate…”

“What happened mom?”

“His kids hated me.. High Society hated me… It was bad form for him to be seen with some Czech girl from nothing… He ended up breaking it off with me… I was his solution to a mid-life crisis… I ended up trying to seduce.. Well you know your uncle Leo, and Henry aren’t your real uncles…”

“Mom, yeah.. They are…”

“Yes, homosexuals but have been together a long time… and some of my closest friends… I tried seducing Leo.. I mean we were both dancers, he liked shopping, he loved doing my makeup. But you can’t convert a homosexual dear… Don’t even try… Boring sex… He could barely keep it up for me…”

“You had sex with my uncle Leo? Even I know that he’s… different…”

“Emily, by then I was tired… worn out… Can you imagine what being weighed every day does for your self esteem? Being told to lose a few pounds when you’re already rail thin? All I ever did was wave a laurel wreath around… my name wasn’t on the marque… I could be replaced… It weighs on you… Ballet wasn’t a passion, it was an addiction, one that at some director’s whim, would come crashing down… I started drinking… Heavily…”

“You don’t even allow wine in the house.”

“There is a reason for that dear… I met, who I thought was a sweet man, but only when he was sober… and two drunks… two drinkers…. He was violently rough in bed... Horribly so if we had been drinking… worse if we were drinking and quarreling… I called him an ass, and he broke a liquor bottle over my head… That put me in the hospital with a concussion… All he did was drive me to the hospital and kick me out the car door… Didn’t even take me in… When I got out of the Hospital, the ballet said I was getting too fat. I wouldn’t be allowed to perform until I lost the weight. I was only 91 pounds… I just left… To them I was just a piece of flesh who could move gracefully.

I cut myself off from everyone I knew who drank. Off from the ballet crowd.. Except Leo and Henry. They tried to help me and suggested I move in with your aunt and get a real job… Worked at Saks for a few months when your dad came in… He was in the seminary… He was taking your grandmother out for tea… It was so sweet… He asked me out… with some nudging from your grandmother… And well, I learned he was passionate, just rough enough, and a sweetheart… and wasn’t shy about bending me up in all sorts of ways…”

“Mom??? Bend you up?? Dad?! Ewe!” Emily said while Fiona chuckled thinking about her sister-in-law for a moment.

“Is that you in the photograph there?” Fiona asked, seeing a framed photo on the wall.

“Oh yes that’s an Arabesque pose… I can still do that…” Mrs Adams said, reaching out and holding the pose “And…” She then bent her body down and touched her toe while the other leg went straight in the air.” She stood back up immediately. “I just can’t do that as long as I used to, unless that leg is on my husband’s shoulder.”

“MOM! Stop please!”

Laughing “I am pretty sure you were conceived in that pose Emily… ”

“MOM!”

“Gee I was just in the dirt.” Fiona whispered to herself.

“OOOH, On the ground how primal of you Fiona!” Jitka said, smirking. “And sweety, I am sure you’ll experiment too.”

“Well Jitka, Emily has another concern…”

“Oh what is it Emily?”

“Why do you seem so happy that I’m getting a Pelvic exam? It’s kind of scary… You were OK with me going with my cousins, then have been trying to get me to let you take me…and the way you hover around… Can I just go alone?”

“I never minded them… it’s nothing to mind… it’s your health Emily and if you’re nervous shouldn’t I go and be there with you??”

“It’s just… he’ll be… in my…”

“Yes, that’s the point, make sure all of that is healthy! And you know what to expect after you saw mine. Anyways you’re 22 now, I let you put it off for a while and you’re getting married, and have had sex.”

“Mrs Adams, Jitka… Ummm…” Fiona piped up. “Do you like them?”

“Like what?”

“You know, Pelvic exams? I mean we all have our guard down already so…”

“Yes… Since my first one… But it's because… well FINALLY some alone time, something for ME! It wasn’t that weird ballet company doctor. This was a real professional… And it was time just for ME… he only cared about ME… not having me ready for a show… but ME!”

“How old were you, Jitka?” Fiona asked.

“Oh 21, was wondering what was up with all my lady parts… worried about getting pregnant and not getting pregnant…”

“Weird doctor?” Emily asked shyly

“Oh HIM! Yeah.. He was all about efficiency.. Did all of our physicals in groups… And twice a year. Ladies one day, gents another… Imagine being naked with five of your coworkers… getting examined in intimate detail… He even took our temperatures in our butts! God forbid you got dropped!”

“Dropped???” Fiona asked

“Oh yes! Your uncle Leo dropped me during rehearsal! I fell right on my bottom. Doctor ran over and wanted to be sure I didn’t break my coccyx. Did a rectal exam on me right on the ballet studio floor! In front of everyone! Your uncle held my hand… I learned he was a sweet man, learned the doctor was a weirdo, figured out what male dancers were homosexuals by who didn’t get a bigger bulge… or well who at least liked my butt the most.

Oh, and his mandatory enemas before performances… That was the Ballet Mistresses idea but he’d make sure to ask if we had one.. Had to pair off with another girl an hour before curtain…” Then with a chuckle “And If you got paired with a girl you didn’t like, or wanted your part…or you wanted her part… It wasn’t always nice.”

“Oh my…” Responded Fiona.

“It was very cut throat.. Really, like I mentioned, other than Leo and his partner I cut myself off from that world… But it’s also why everyone thinks I am so tough. I kind of had to be. We arrived here with the clothes on our backs. My parents and myself worked all sorts of long hours in low paying jobs to afford dance school… Didn’t want to waste my gift! Though Emily, your grandparents were the first people who wanted me to quit the professional world. They could tell it was ruining me… But you’re really my gift.. Your dad and I had a lot of trouble conceiving you… You were not an easy pregnancy!”

“I know mom, you always remind me of how hard it was to have me.”

“That’s why I can be so hard on you sweetie, now that you’re about to be married and have your own family… and I know you want a family so much… And why I want you to have an exam… I mean maybe if I went sooner? I didn’t have my first period until I was sixteen… Sixteen! Can you imagine? Everyone thought it was because I trained so hard.. And I was never regular… again all that physical training and work… Maybe I’d have cut back and been a secretary… But then I’d never have met your dad… He reminds me of that first doctor in a way.”

“Oh. how so, Jitka?” Fiona asked

“Just cared about me first… OK well my first lover, that rich man. I wanted him to get me pregnant… He was going to break it off with me, I could just tell… Stopped taking me to society events… Still kept sleeping with me though. But that doctor… Oh he actually cared about my health… My well being… and looking back I am so so glad I wasn’t in a loveless marriage with a child… Also something I found oddly erotic about it not being erotic… Sexless contact with my sex parts for my own health! I can’t really explain it…

Your dad didn’t try to sleep with me… I told him my past… he didn’t care… I was crying while I told him. He is such a good man. Would he want a damaged woman? He just held me. Said it was ok.. He cared about ME! Finally a man cared about me! I waited a while to have relations with him but then it just happened.. Yes I was his first but we waited till we had a wedding date set… Then oh what a weekend!”

“MOM!”

“What? How do you think we ended up with you, eventually…” She said matter-of-factly/

Fiona looked over at a slightly shocked and embarrassed Emily. “Mrs. Adams, Jitka… I think though you can see why maybe you should let Emily go alone? I mean have a nurse and all but maybe let her do this on her own?”

“Actually Fiona..” Emily said shyly “Would you take me?”