Chocolates for Breakfast Read Online Free PDF Page B

down?”
    â€œWell, yes.”
    â€œOh, Court, you’ve got a lot to learn. You put your arms around a man’s neck because then your bodies kind of fit together. Otherwise you’re like a stick of wood, and it’s not comfortable and natural.”
    â€œI always did feel kind of awkward.”
    â€œWell, sure. But you’ll learn.”
    â€œDo you really know a lot about sex, Jan?”
    â€œI’m still a virgin, if that’s what you mean—rumor to the contrary.”
    â€œBut have you ever really made out?”
    â€œWhen you say ‘really,’ I never know what you mean. I’ve slept with boys when neither of us had any clothes on, if that’s what you mean.”
    â€œHonestly? But doesn’t that—”
    â€œDoesn’t that bother me? Court, everybody does. I mean, all the girls I know. It doesn’t mean much, and it’s nice. I kind of enjoy it,” she mused, “going to sleep with a boy’s arms around me.”
    â€œBut when do you get a chance to do that?”
    â€œOh, on weekends at prep schools and colleges, and in New York when the parents are out of somebody’s apartment for a while. You’ve missed a lot by being brought up in Scarsdale. You don’t even drink, and you’re fifteen. Most of the girls I know and certainly the boys start to drink a little bit when they’re thirteen.”
    â€œMummy lets me have Daiquiris. And a couple of times I’ve had as many as four when she’s been a little bombed and hasn’t realized it. I’ve drunk Daiquiris since I was fourteen.”
    â€œYes, but how long ago was that—November, only.”
    â€œI’m not so out of it. I know pretty much about sex and what goes into it and bodies and all, and I even know about homosexuality so I can recognize it in actors a lot of times, and I know how they make love.”
    â€œReally? How?”
    â€œWell, you see, one of them—oh, hell, sweetie, I don’t like to talk about things like this. I wondered and I asked Mummy one time when she and Nick had been talking about some actor and another actor, and Nick said, ‘You tell her,’ and Mummy did.”
    â€œOh, I don’t mean to say that you’re naive or anything. I just think you ought to make out with boys a little.”
    â€œBut prep school boys are so grubby. They have bad skin, and they press your hand and their palms are all wet, and they are so awkward! I mean, I like these actors who are so charming and put their arms around you with a Martini in one hand and all that. I like men who are older.”
    â€œYes, but here you go again. They’re not for you; there’s no future in that. I mean, none of them has ever kissed you or anything.”
    â€œNo, of course not, because I’m still a kid. But they will, when I get older. I’ll have some older man teach me all these things, just as you said about smoking, because they’ll teach me to be smooth the way they are. I don’t want to find out by trial and error with some awkward prep school boy what is the lovely way to put my arms around a boy. That’s grubby. I want to be charming, to live in a charming way and to love in a lovely way.”
    The lights-out bell rang in the pause and they listened to it and it rang twice. They had not heard the warning ten minutes before, and now the committeeman would come around to see that they were in bed and that their polo coats and galoshes were at the foot of their beds, in case of a fire. You got a penalty if you weren’t ready. The polo coat was to put over your pajamas and the galoshes were to stamp out ashes or something like that. At any rate it had worked very well when Scaisbrooke had the big fire in 1923. Courtney and Janet were always late for lights out, so they had a system worked out. Courtney tumbled out of bed and threw out Janet’s polo coat and galoshes from the closet and