"Catholic Sex Worker" by Maureen Martinez

It doesn’t take any particular talent to get laid Mr. Sayfer proclaims in his unannounced

presentation to the 8th grade where we sit frozen in metal chairs in the airless auditorium.

HOLY SHIT we gulp wide eyes trained on our once favorite teacher in front of the stage

afraid to look backwards or sideways at the friends around us fearful of revealing our terror

and confusing arousal.

I have no recollection of where it goes after this fucked-up statement but it’s a ballsy opener

for a Catholic elementary school presentation to 13 year-olds in uniforms wearing sturdy shoes

from Jack’s Army & Navy store around the corner.

He says we can pose anonymous questions written with stubby number two pencils on slips

of paper with anything we want to know about sex which will be read aloud to the class

and answered right there and then.

CRUCIFIED CHRIST ON A CRACKER this shit keeps getting worse and better and now I’m

sweating through my pale yellow blouse with the Peter Pan collar purchased while shopping

with my mother at Liebman’s on Main Street back when I was young and innocent in September.

There’s only one question any of us remember which we all agree later was written by carnally

advanced Randy Roving who’s knowledge we imagine is due to premarital intercourse with

public school girls from Woodland Avenue which reads If you go in bareback but pull out in

time can a girl still get pregnant?

JESUS, MARY & JOSEPH me and my girlfriends choke as we switch our legs back and forth on

fire from our itchy wool skirts while covering our dry mouths to keep from nervous laughing and

avoiding eye contact by staring at the cracked ceiling.

The assembly activates my Post Traumatic Sex Disorder contracted at 8 years-old when my

mother and grandmother took me my brother and the Schramm cousins for a day of soft porn

at the RKO Theater in summer where they let us sit front and center to give us independence

when the sex scenes begin.

The screen fills with heavy breathing people mounting each other like engorged stallions

on methamphetamine and hot spiders start crawling beneath my skin making Karen cackle

like a hyena until the mortified adults come to retrieve us.

In hindsight I see that Sayfer with his wise mind and strong cologne of formaldehyde was right

it doesn’t take any particular talent to get laid but I wonder if starting with the basics would

have been better like providing education on erection and ejaculation and showing video

demonstrations on the how-tos of masturbation and the top tantric positions for mutual

gratification. But perhaps that would have been too much for poor Sayfer who despite being a

seasoned Catholic school educator was neither qualified nor approved for sex work.

Maureen Martinez (she/her) is an emerging poet and irreverent woman of faith working as a counselor at an all-boys Catholic high school in New York City for over 20 years. She comes from a long line of pine tree ramblers, bare foot dancers and raucous storytellers, which explains a lot. Her work is published or forthcoming in Meniscus, Folly Journal, Gramercy Review, Washington Square Review, Boudin, Turtle Way Journal and others.