20 in 20

By Mileyda Menéndez Dávila
February 19, 2020

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.

Today I’ll tell you something that happened to me on my way to one of the clubs we do every month at the Mathematics Department of the University of Havana. That day we were celebrating a Sexo Sentido anniversary and I thought I’d bring a piñata, a gift from two enthusiastic readers, beautifully decorated with a host of words related to human sexuality.

A couple of hours before I had a meeting with young leaders of the National Association of the Blind and I was late walking from the meeting place to the university, so I took a bus, with such good luck that a woman decided to carry my fragile object so that it would not be damaged.

Her eight or nine-year-old son began to read the flashy signs, and from all the possible oddities it occurred to him to ask aloud, “Mom, what is an orgasm? Only then did she realize what she was carrying on her lap and look at me in horror, well aware of the sudden silence created in the crowded public transportation.

At the end she answered a hesitant “I don’t know…”, turning red as a poppy. I still wonder what hurt her more, whether her little boy’s disgruntled expression at her “ignorance” or the mocking laughter of the rest of the passengers