“You want to make sure that the banana,” her grandfather said, holding up the banana in question, “is firm before you roll the condom down it, careful to avoid tearing the sensitive material.”

“Please, stop,” she whispered, humiliated beyond words as he slowly rolled the latex condom down the large banana that he’d swiped out of the bowl out front so that he could have “The Talk” with her.

“Now,” he said, apparently planning on ignoring her while she sat there, behind the desk they shared, praying that this was just a really bad dream, but it wasn’t, “you want to make sure that there is plenty of space at the tip for the reservoir.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” she whispered, throwing him an imploring look that he ignored while he held the condom covered banana out for her inspection.

“Do you need me to show you again?” he asked, not sounding mad or embarrassed that he felt the need to have this discussion with her, again, as he quickly discarded the condom, tossed it in the trash and pulled out another one.

This one ribbed for her pleasure.

“No, please just stop, Grandpa,” she all but begged, but of course he continued because this was her grandfather and the mean old bastard got some kind of sick pleasure out of screwing with her head.

“We need to go over this,” he said firmly with a nod to himself that he was definitely doing the right thing.

“We really don’t,” she pointed out, gesturing towards the stack of inventory sheets that she’d much rather spend her lunch break on than having this discussion with her grandfather.

Granted, she really didn’t think that this could qualify as a conversation since it seemed to be one-sided and he refused to stop talking no matter how many times she begged him to stop. He just kept going, hell-bent on explaining the birds and the bees to her, uncaring that he’d already had this talk with her before, several times in fact, the first time being when she was six years old and Danny Jenkins pushed her down on the playground.

Once her grandfather had finished scaring the little boy into peeing himself, he’d calmly taken Necie by the hand, walked her to the pharmacy where he bought what she thought at the time was a box of balloons, lube, and a Butterfinger, which at the time had been her favorite candy bar. Ten minutes later she’d swore that she was never going to eat another Butterfinger candy bar as long as she lived and that if Danny Jenkins tried to show her his baby maker that she was going to hit him in the head with a stick.

Thankfully she never had to make good on that promise with the stick, but unfortunately her grandfather had felt compelled more than once to have this talk with her over the years, each time was more frightening than the last time. She still wasn’t sure which “talk” was worse, the one about how not to make a baby or the one where he explained exactly how a baby was made. It probably depended on her mood and the props that he used to convey his message, whatever it was supposed to be at the time, which was always frightening.

“Are you paying attention?” he asked her, sounding putout as he ripped open the condom and held it out to her along with the banana.

“No,” she said, refusing to look up from her paperwork, terrified that it would encourage him to continue to the next phase of the “talk,” and she’d be forced to listen to him as he explained what an orgasm was and why it was so important during conception.

There was a heavy sigh followed by, “Necie.”

She mimicked his sigh as she said, “Grandpa.”

“I’m trying to help you here,” he explained patiently while she tried not to cringe when she thought about the last time they’d had this talk, which just happened to be when he’d dropped her off at her new apartment as her roommates and their friends were unpacking their boxes, dying of laughter as she sat there, begging him to stop.

Of course, he hadn’t, but the good news was that her new roommates and their friends had stopped laughing when he gave her, her graduation gift, a lovely 9mm handgun so that she could protect herself just in case one of the punks he’d caught checking out her ass stepped out of line. Which now that she really thought about it, might explain why she hadn’t been able to lose her virginity during college and why her roommates had moved out the next day.

“I’ve got work to do here,” she reminded him, risking a glance up only to find him standing in front of her desk, holding the condom and banana with an expectant expression on his face.

Sighing in defeat, she said, “Please don’t make me take the book out.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously as he considered the intended threat. After a few seconds, he decided that it was worth it and gestured for her to take the condom and banana. “I don’t have all day, young lady.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, she reached down, opened the bottom drawer and grabbed the old faded composition book that she saved for moments such as this one. “Definitely going in the book,” she informed him as she took a pen out, opened to a clean page at the end of the book and made a small note about this incident to help her recall it in the coming years when she was forced to seek professional help to get over this trauma.

“Worth it,” her grandfather said as he placed the condom and banana on desk next to her notebook.

“Therapy’s not cheap,” she reminded him.

“And neither are diapers,” he said firmly, gesturing for her to get on with it as she finished the note and shot her a look that told her that he was more than willing to pay for all her therapy bills if it meant that she learned the lesson that her father had failed.

Her father, at the ripe old age of sixteen had gotten the school slut pregnant on the first shot, because he’d listened to the girl when she promised him that they didn’t need a condom because she was on the pill. She hadn’t been and Necie’s father had learned the biggest lesson of his life when he’d been called out of school so that he could go pick up his newborn daughter, because the mother had just walked out of the hospital without her.