Crossing Into Forever

Chapter 40

She looked at him and was reluctant to answer him. "I...um, I'm not sure..." her words trailed off.

He, picking up on her hesitation, wasn't sure if she was being shy about the subject, or if she knew less than what he even thought. "Ella, have you learned about these things in your classes at the convent?" he asked in an empathetic way, not wanting to embarrass her.

She looked at him, and slowly started to shake her head... dreading what his reaction was going to be. "I can't take those kinds of classes yet" She timidly admitted.

"Oh, I see" he said in a curious manner but then shrugged off her comment as if he weren't that concerned about her statement. "Well, we will start from the beginning." He stated nonchalantly. "Let's see, as he reached over to her desk, where he had sat the books. "Ahh...here is a good one." As he took the book from the table... "I thought these may come in handy." He leaned back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other in a relaxed fashion, and his bent knee was resting on the closest end of the bed, only inches from Ella's covered leg.

Ella was a little taken aback by the way he so casually placed his knee on her bed. He seemed totally unbothered when she slid her leg a little farther away from his. She did it as inconspicuously as she could, so she thought maybe he didn't notice. She cautiously looked at the book he had in his hand from a slide glance, turning her head just enough to see it and her body was tense. He, noticing her reluctance to lean in his direction , placed the book in between them, with the largest portion of the book resting on her leg and the remaining part resting on his knee. He obviously did not feel the need to honor her personal space and she didn't think he cared that she was a little uncomfortable with that. Something inside her told her not to object to his closeness, because this was already going to be difficult, even without him being angered by her.

"Now let's see...this is a good place to start. He had turned the page to a drawing of what looked like an animal's head with large ears or horns and something sticking off of each side of the diagram. "Do you know what this is?" He patiently waited for her to answer, but she had a puzzled look on her face, so he continued on..."this is a front view of a woman's uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. The bottom part of the uterus, right here, which is also the opening of the uterus, is called the cervix" he was pointing to the different structures with his pencil.

She looked at the drawing closer and was sincerely fascinated by what she saw. She had never seen such a detailed drawing, showing all the different organs that made up the female reproductive system. She only knew that the blood from her period and of course a baby came from inside the "womb". She knew an egg came from the ovaries, and that was called ovulation, but she wasn't exactly sure where the ovaries were located and how the egg got from the ovaries to inside the womb. She had heard the womb called the uterus before, but mostly it was called a womb, if it had come up in conversation at the convent, which it only did in religious context.

"The uterus, right here, is where a baby develops. The baby is known as a fetus when it is still inside the mother. I'm guessing you have seen a woman that was pregnant before?" he asked as he glanced at her keeping an air of warmth in his voice. He wasn't exactly sure how much she knew, and he didn't want to insult her by giving every single little detail, but he also didn't want to assume she knew more than she did.

She looked up at him and nodded her head, yes.

"Now, you have a menstrual cycle every month, am I correct?"

She looked at him again and nodded her head yes, but this time she had a subtle pink blush creeping over her cheeks. He realized that even though she was obviously uncomfortable about this subject, she was starting to relax a little, so he acted as if he didn't notice her blush. He purposefully spoke in a casual, relaxed tone and tried to soften his normal authoritarian, stoic way of speaking and teaching. He needed her to trust him for her to understand all of this. She was a very smart girl, but if someone is frightened, they will most likely not comprehend what is being taught. Albeit most young women already know this material by now, or at least understand the basic concepts of it and he didn't want her to feel self-conscious regarding her lack of knowledge.