Nearly half a century later I remember it as if it happened yesterday. Fourth grade, alone in my room as was often the case. Where was my mom? Probably in the kitchen. Where was my sister? Outside the in the back yard or watching television in the family room; details elusive and unimportant.
It had stood up on its own unbidden before; many times in fact. The first time I recall it happening I was only three or four years old, and scrambled to explain to my father why I was naked and sprawled out of the floor, rubbing my body against the rough carpet. "I was looking for something under the bed," was the remembered excuse. But this time it was different; it demanded attention and could not be ignored.
I slipped my pants off, climbed onto the bed and on all fours, straddling the fuzzy faux leopard-skin pillow that had adorned it for many years, started rubbing against it. I thought of the how the new P.E. coach's nipples prominently showed through his too-tight T-shirts and his chest hair poked out at the neckline. I thought about the man's bushy mustache and his fresh-out-of-the-Marines high-n-tight buzzcut. As I rhythmically rubbed against the pillow and thought of these things, it felt good. Too good. Suddenly my body was wracked with convulsions; I felt like I was going to piss. The pleasure centers in my brain exploded and I scrambled for my shorts, hoping to stem the flow long enough to get them back on and down the hall into the bathroom before everything was wet. But then it was over. No stream of urine; in fact, nothing at all.
Of course, that would soon change as the days progressed and that urge returned again and again. Quickly I realized that while the initial rush was similar to the feeling of emptying my bladder it was only because I'd had nothing else prior to compare it to; in actuality it very different. And when I realized I wasn't going to wet everything, I was actually able to enjoy the feeling. The first time the milky fluid came spraying out—as I stood naked in front of the hall mirror rubbing the pillow against my crotch (where was my mother?)—I thought I'd broken something, yet it did nothing to prevent me from doing it again.
"Why did you take that pillow into the bathroom with you?" my mother eventually asked. "It smells. I want to throw it in the washer but I had to pee first," I'd respond.
Soon I discovered I could wrap my hand around it and achieve the same result, giving that poor pillow a much-needed respite from the washing machine.
One day I captured some of the milky fluid onto a glass slide and put it under the microscope I'd gotten for Christmas the year before. Slowly the little squiggling things came into focus, confirming what I'd been surreptitiously researching. Nothing was broken.
And so it began—and the Sears catalog was never looked at the same way again.