Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso

you would do anything in the world to have them.
    Remember?”
    “Maybe. I guess so. I don’t really remember.”
    “Well, you definitely said it,” he said, softly.
    “Okay.”
    We stood in silence for a second and then I began to talk quickly. “Remember the story of Jack and the Beanstalk? Do you think the pods are magic? They’re like magic eggs. Maybe I’ll get pregnant if I eat one.”
    Peter looked pleased when I said that, as I knew he would.
    “Some kids at school were saying you can get pregnant from swallowing watermelon seeds.”
    “That’s silly. Kids have so many misconceptions. Parents shouldn’t lie to children about how babies are made. Kids should know the truth. The body is a natural, beautiful thing. I wish the world wasn’t full of so much shame.” He looked upset, as he did whenever he talked about the way the world was, and then he said, “Remember I told you how babies were made? I showed you my babymaker. My penis.”
    I didn’t remember seeing Peter’s before. “I saw Poppa’s once. We took showers when I was younger.”
    “And why did he stop?”
    “He said I was getting too old.”
    Peter shook his head and said something again about the trouble with society. Then I said, “Well, how is a baby made?”
    He looked pleased with this question. “Human beings have organs that are magical. They combine with each other in this really beautiful, pleasurable way. Don’t you remember anything I told you?”
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Imagine that: elementary schools teach children all about how plants reproduce but tell them nothing about the way human babies are conceived,” he said. “Talk about repressing everything. I don’t understand this society. Our body parts are beautiful and natural and we should be free to expose them wherever we go. I, because I’m male, have a penis and testicles; you, because you are a female, have a vagina and clitoris. These aren’t dirty words; it isn’t wrong to say them. It isn’t wrong to speak the truth. I bet you didn’t even know the names for your own reproductive organs until I told you.”
    “My mother calls it my private part. And she said once that no one should touch my private part. No one should touch my fanny either. But I don’t think I agree,” I said, hastily. “My parents are repressed.”
    “No kidding!” said Peter, looking even more wound up. “Think of a society that is so screwed up that you’ve got these untouchable parts and these are the same parts that happen to create the most pleasure, and everyone is brainwashed into believing that a perfectly natural thing is disgusting and wrong. And to think that these people pull their children’s pants down to spank them and then they tell their children that no one should ever see them with their pants down.”
    “I know! I hate being spanked! And I don’t know why I should take my pants down. Can’t I be spanked with my pants on?”
    Peter shook his head. “It’s mixed messages, all of it. I’m sure your father feels perfectly justified telling you to take your underwear down, making you lie across his lap to be beaten with his belt; yet if he were to discover that anyone asked you to take down your pants, for the purposes of letting you know how beautiful you are, or to give you pleasure and joy, your father would probably kill that person. I have no doubt that your father would get his gun and shoot me if he found out I’ve seen you naked, yet he’s nothing but a hypocrite and a child abuser. Oh, the big man, beating a defenseless child! With his belt, no less! Do you have any idea how sick that is? I know he’s part of the culture; he was probably treated that way. Just passing it down. Generation to generation. No one stops to think.”
    Peter paused; I knew his question didn’t require an answer. He lit a cigarette—which I thought was a little strange, since he rarely smoked in the basement—took a few puffs on it, and then ground it into