My Sexual History
An "essay" by Michael F. Nyiri
(begun in December 2004)

1. "Then the Boy Pees into the Girl."
2. "The Very First Kiss"
3. "High School Daze"
4. "Stag Films and Frat Parties, Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll"
5. "Whoreticulture"
6. "Meeting Ruth, the Goddess"
7. "Red Headed Wretchedness, and A Respite Before Falling in Love"
8: "Cathy: The Second Love of My Life"
9: "Opposites attract: The 38 and the 18 year old."
10: "Melanie and the End of the Me Decade"
11: "Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder"
12: "Sex as Bait for the Catch"

1. "Then the boy pees into the girl." 

"Are you sure?" I was gripped by unease, horror, and incomprehension, and I asked the question with a sense of finality. "Sure I'm sure", the rangy, puffy-faced visage of the little blonde boy was beaming as he exclaimed; "Then the boy pees into the girl." Immediately a terrible vision popped into my head populated by a couple of my schoolmates. The exchange could have happened on any schoolground and at any time. Most little boys first learn about sex from one of their peers who doesn't know the whole story. Nowadays, in the "Age of Information", sex is not a taboo subject like it was for children that sunny day in 1965. "Are you sure?" I asked again. The boy related "facts" as he understood them, proudly and with a sense of great superiority. I didn't believe him, however, and vowed to find out the truth. I would have to pose this query to my mother. She would explain the relative inconsistency of the boy's lesson in sexuality, and hopefully disclaim his rather unclean and seemingly impossible explanation. I could hardly wait to get home, corner my mother, and set the story straight. Even though I was in the top five percent academically in my sixth grade class at school, this bit of information, gleaned from second or third hand "knowledge" not only didn't sound right, it sounded downright alien and impossible. God wouldn't let humanity engage in such horrific behavior, and if it were true, then "sex" was not an act to be looked forward to, and I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Besides, where did the stork come in?

By the mid-sixties, sex was becoming mainstream. Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy magazine in the early 50s, when I was still a toddler. Marilyn Monroe's complete career had been based on "sex appeal". The media, including the newly developed television set, were draped in sexuality by the mid-sixties. My parents, particularly my mother, whose job as "mother" was the raising of her children, hid this burgeoning sense of sexuality from us as much as possible. We kids were told that the stork brought children into the household. Family was composed of the parents, who were wiser and in charge of the destiny of the family, and the children, who were to "learn" and be "seen and not heard". We lived with our parents, and we loved, worshipped, and honored them, as the Bible teaches. We didn't doubt their veracity in any statement, and we lived relatively full and happy lives.

We children thought we were happy. Dad would create "building blocks", and "jigsaw puzzles" in his woodworking shop. Mother provided art supplies, and we all drew, and illustrated stories on a regular basis. My mother raised my sister, brother, and I, the oldest, in a rather sheltered household. We had plenty to do at home during playtime, and we didn't realize how restricted we really were. We couldn't "play in the street", and had few childhood friends, and only were able to play with the children of the PTA cronies my mother would visit or have over to the house. My sister once told me she remembered our mother's house as almost a prison, built with a heightened sense of concern and fear of "the big bad world". Playtime consisted of a lot of interaction between we three siblings, and we believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy probably a lot longer than our peers. After a few years at school, my brother, sister, and I realized that my mother had constructed a "nest" for us that not only shielded the "real world" from us, it was a nest partly built though our mother's own rose colored view of "what was right and proper" and hid not only reality, but the definitions and descriptions of reality as well. The little blonde boy describing "sex" as his older brother had explained it to him, complete with inherent miscommunication, could have been telling the truth as far as I were concerned. Mom used soundalike names for elimination exercises. To urinate was to "tinkle". To defecate was to "grunty". The boys in school called their penises "dicks" and they engaged in "peeing" and later, "pissing". Classmates found derisive pleasure in the quaint descriptive terms used by our family. Early in my school career, I realized that my family spoke and acted differently from the rest of the country when we had "lunch" at school. This was a new term for me, and I had never used it nor heard it before. At home, our meals were breakfast, dinner, and supper, which were what the meals were called by my mother's farm family in Nebraska in the 20s. We had a language coached to us by a mother who wanted to insure that we never uttered the smutty words of the culture, and we knew that our "world" at home was somewhat different that the world at large.

My penis was not my best friend until after I had reached adulthood. I rarely thought about the appendage hanging between my legs. Once, in the budding throes of puberty, in about the same time frame as my schoolyard conversation, I had a wet dream. My appendage had already shrunk down to a more manageable size, so I didn't see it in the throes of an erection. The smelly fluid smeared across my briefs as I went to the bathroom that fateful night caused me to waken my parents and proclaim "I'm leaking". I clearly remember the scare this incident caused in me. My mother told me that it was a "normal" occurrence, without telling me why, and to wipe it off and go back to bed. I didn't make any sexual connecitons, and thought something was wrong with my body. I had received both glasses, to correct my failing eyesight, and braces, to correct a terrible overbite, so thinking my body was turning against me again was normal for me at this age. Mother told me not to worry, and in time, I did connect the warm and somewhat "fuzzy" feeling I would have in the night just prior to an emission with good, rather than bad feelings. Mother never explained what was really happening.

After the schoolyard "explanation", I did confront my mother, and she tried the best she could to explain sex. The stork, it seemed, was pure fantasy, as I had found with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. While the boy didn't "pee" into the girl, he "inserted" the appendage between his legs into the girl's "peepee", that mysterious slot between hers. This shocked me even more. I refused to listen to my mother in the midst of her explanation, and ran from the room. I'd never have "sex" if it involved physical coupling together like those obscene snails we would sometimes find in the garden during playtime. I think for years I was actually traumatized by this, and that is why I've always had a slight aversion to someone touching me.

While this episode regarding the mechanics of sex apalled me, I had already made some gains into probing the topography of the female body, thanks to my sister and her little girlfriends, but I didn't really think of the "inspections", sort of like "playing doctor" as relating to sex. The differences in the male and female body had always interested me. I frequently made my sister remove her panties so I could inspect her "difference" from my brother and me. While not really incestuous in nature, I had always held power over my little sister, and "inspected" her nude form after our parents had sent us to bed on many occasions. I also "inspected" her girlfriends' bodies, and this was all rather clinical and didn't advance to any actual sex or kissing. I had two separate "girlfriends" while in elementary school, and liked at least three other girls in class, but at the time I did not kiss any girls, and it wasn't really expected much. Even socially, in the sixth grade in Southern California, boys and girls engaged in little intramural activity, and sex wasn't talked about or practiced by youngsters. Even though sex was practically oozing from the media by this time, children were not exposed to the temptation, especially in religious households. My parents weren't really particularly "religious" but they raised us kids in a churchgoing household. I was deeply religious as a child, and was actually being groomed to eventually become a pastor in the Baptist church. Sex, in religious doctrine, was merely the mechanical way in which mankind propogated the race. My parents certainly weren't overtly sexual, and rarely showed affection for each other. During my childhood we considered our home life fairly normal, but it in fact wasn't. My mother exhibited fears which dictated that our closed protective "home" life be isolated and shielded from the outside world as much as possible.

We rarely left the "safe" yard, which was fenced in, and weren't allowed to "play in the street" like the majority of neighborhood children. We didn't have bicycles, and the only friends we could "visit" were the sons and daughters of my mother's PTA friends. One of these, Gene, had an older brother in college who roomed in a separate guest house located in the back yard of his parents' house. It was at Gene's brother's guest house that I saw my first Playboy magazine. This also happened around 1965. The centerfold in the issue blatantly "stood out" for me, and my penis "stood out" when I looked at the photograph. This incident above anything else stirred the sexual beast in my young body to life. I hadn't really connected an interest in sex with my penis before seeing the issue. I would stand at attention many times after that. My upbringing would then attest that sex was necessary only for propagation, and not for "fun". The "excitement" seemed to be icing on the cake. The sexual beast in me rubbed it's eyes and took a deep breath.

2. "The Very First Kiss"

I began to write poetry at age 14, while in middle school, or junior high. Socially, sometimes and to some of the neighborhood children, usually those without a lot of supervision, compared to the constant supervision and punishment at our house, I was sometimes made to feel a misfit and iconoclast. During elementary school I had always been somewhat a loner, simply because I had learned to read earlier than most of the other children, thanks to Mother's having taught me prior to going to school. I always had a book in my hand, and spent most of the recesses sitting under a tree deep at the edge of the schoolyard, immeresed in some fantasy kingdom or space opera. I did have friends, but I also made my own time. And in the seventh grade, in a different school, exposed to new children, I was also exposed to writing by my English teacher. However, I made friends easily, and in the seventh grade I was part of a clique of friends that included both young boys and girls.

My gang included Steve, Ryan, and John, but also was rounded out with Susan, Criss, and Judy on the distaff side. Over the years I had developed crushes on girls, in a romantic and non sexual way. I immediately developed a crush on Criss. I fell in love with another Susan, who at 14 would have turned the head of almost any red blooded male. But she belonged to a different clique. Susan was unattainable. Criss was accessible. My carnal lust was untapped, and I still attended church and still planned to preach someday. I felt blessed and pure. My grades at school were excellent. I usually made straight A's. Mr. Gardner, the English teacher, introduced me to the thesaurus, and gave essay writing assignments. If I had a passion in the seventh grade, it was to write, as well as to preach. Mother encouraged all forms of artistic expression, and while my little brother polished his visual art and drawing skills, I changed from an artist to a writer. My poems at first were comical, and then told stories, and some were even somewhat political, then finally they started reflecting my inner thoughts, dreams, and wishes. My teachers and parents proclaimed me a little genius, and I seemed destined to please all my elders, and this made me proud. The day Criss and I kissed took me to a completely different place in my sexual history. It was so special it had to be planned.

Having a "girlfriend" was a social necessity in middle school. In our school, boys gave their steady girls their St. Christopher medal. I had to borrow one of these from a Catholic friend of mine, and I presented this to Criss one evening at one of the school dances, which were held every Friday night. She accepted immediately. I didn't initiate the idea that we kiss, however. I was still too innocent of mind and heart to do that. She passed me one of those "quizzes" that kids pass around in school one day in class, which had the "reward" of "a kiss". I remember reading the quiz "prize" and feeling that I was about to step over one of the "boundries" of life, and that this was going to be a special event. I told Criss we would plan this event. It took place almost two weeks later, at a party for another girl, and lasted for a long time. I would now claim that this was a life affirming and changing event for me, awash with memory's thrall. Our lips met, and we breathed each other deeply, probing and sampling the slick taste of our saliva in each other's mouths. I didn't like to be touched. The feeling of kissing a girl of whom I was especially fond, was a feeling of overpowering emotion. The fear of touching abated somewhat. I was in a lovestruck daze for days. I had not yet "made out" although another girl in our group attempted to get me to make out with her on more than one occasion. Criss and I never kissed again, and after eighth grade, I was with a group of students who lived far enough away they had to attend a different high school. Criss wasn't in that group. Sex didn't really come back into my personal history until after high school ended, with rare exceptions.

Moviegoing, and watching films on television has always been a special experience for me. I gobbled up books at school, and was terribly fond of reading, but watching movies at the drive in with my parents always became a special event. These were times when we could stay up a little longer than usual, and movie trips to the drive in, packed into the family station wagon, happened on Friday nights when we didn't have to go to school. In the late sixties, drive in theaters offered a full slate of programming, with cartoons, shorts, and two films. My younger brother and sister usually conked out midway through the second feature, but I always stayed up, entranced by the stories and the images projected on a hundred foot screen in front of our car windshield.

The first "sex stars" I acknowledged were Sandra Dee, Elizabeth Taylor, Yvonne Craig, and Yvetter Mimieux. But I had developed a lasting love for Hayley Mills, when watching the film "The Moon Spinners" on Disney's Wonderful World of Color. With each succeeding film of hers, as the actress grew up and so did I, my love deepend . There was no sex involved. I probably didn't even get erections that I remember while watching any movies involving actresss with whom I was "in love" but I do remember feeling good as the beast within me certainly stirred my juices somewhat.

Even though the morality of people like my parents caused them to attempt to "hide" or "filter" as much of the secular world with it's sins and temptations from us, nobody who lives in a place like America, where pop culture and advertising spill right into the home through the television screen, can really hide much from their children. It's even worse now, of course. Mother couldn't really stop us from watching movies, but the "sexual" connotations inherent in a lot of films like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" or "The Carpetbaggers" which aired on television when I was young, soared right over my head. I knew Liz Taylor and Carroll Baker were beautiful, but I didn't want to immediately bed them. The thought of intercourse, as described by Mother after the schoolyard "explanation" still horrified me. On television, I think, besides falling in love with Hayley Mills, I found Julie Newmar in an old comedy series called "My Living Doll" to be delicious looking, and when she appeared "in living color" in the Batman television series, which also featured Yvonne Craig later in the series' run, I began to differentiate between the feelings of puritanical "love" and "sex".

By the end of my junior high experience, I was ready if not programmed for the sexual revolution. I wonder now in retrospect if my parents "worried" at all about me or my siblings ever "getting in trouble" I rarely remember talking to my parents, my mother especially, about their past. Both parents always "told stories" and I can remember the same "stories" being told many times throughout my childhood. My parents were both in second, and in the case of my mother, third marriages. Mother was 30 when I was born. She had left home after she found her favorite brother's body after his suicide. She hitchiked around the country and had been a singer in a country band. Dad had been a boxer and a railroad man before joining the army in World War II. While growing up, I never knew my parents weren't "always" together. One of the drawbacks to my mother's prison like "nest" shielding her children from the "big, bad, world" was that in time, she finally told them about the real events in her life, and this served to break our trust in what we perceived as "truth".

I used to get real upset when Mother would relate something which altered what I had been "taught" or thought I knew. After a while, I began to lose trust in the veracity of anything my Mother said. As I got more involved in school and with school friends as I grew up, however, this didn't really bother me, as it probably would have in elementary school two years earlier. We found out that Dad had not only been married, but the mysterious boy shown on the horse in the photograph album was a half brother who was in his early 20s. Mother used to scare us with the story of finding a two headed chicken, but nothing prepared us for the story of her finding Uncle Donald's body. He had taken a shotgun to his head. Mother being involved with at least two other men, her previous husbands, was quite a shock. I became a bit skeptical of what authority figures would tell me after hearing these revelations.

I didn't make any connotations with sexual longing and love. The fact that my parents had not always been together disgusted me greatly. I did still believe deep in my heart that true love meant you chose your life mate and you "lived happily ever after." Love is what mattered to me as a youngster, not sex, and if sex is what caused my parents to have so many previous relationships, then something must be wrong.

3. "High School Daze"

Kathy was a majorette. I had harbored crushes on girls since elementary school, but as a freshman in high school, when confronted with Kathy's lithe form outfitted in spangly shorts and throwing batons into the air, I myself fell head over heels in love for a real person for the first time in my young life. Sexual urges were not so prevalent in the first two years as they would become later on, as girls developed further, and Kathy really wasn't voluptuous as Criss had already been in the seventh grade, but as I have mentioned, pure platonic love trumped sexual ecstasy for me when young, and still does, as I approach the end of middle age. I think I have overcome some of the traumas I suffered in youth, and I have enjoyed pure sexual ecstasy from time to time, but love is pure and lasting while sex is, for the most part, simply an instinct and an animal act. It can be an exciting animal act, for sure, but without love in the mix, sex is really no more exciting a prospect as going to the bathroom, which must stem from that "boy pees into the girl" speech I heard on the playground.

In high school, the mix of friends I had was not the same as in middle school, because I lived on a border, which sent me to a different school than most of my friends from the seventh and eighth grades. So this means I essentially had a new mix of peers after elementary, and then another mix after middle school. I adapted well to these changes. I believe after the somewhat cramped and claustrophobic world my parents constructed for us, the prospect of change was welcomed as a postive influence, and I grew inside from my observations about the "real world", at least what I could glimpse from the walk to high school, which was about five miles from my house. I still received good grades, became well known, and because I completed most of my required courses early in my high school career, I was able to take electives such as journalism and theater arts during my junior and senior years.

I made friends easily, and always had quite a few female friends, including the older sisters of my best male friends, and older girls who happened to sit behind me or ahead of me in some of the classes I attended. By high school, I was no longer attending church regularly. My father was ill with arthritis and high blood pressure, and had suffered numerous heart attacks by the time I graduated from high school. Mom had a nervous condition which prompted some strange behavior and mood swings, but since I was immersed in the high school popularity game, I rarely noticed some of the darker episodes which happened in my home life. After school, for instance, I would go to the library for two or three hours, and do my homework, so my home life consisted of waking up, bathing and preparing for school, then when I got home I would eat dinner with the family (we had stopped calling it supper), watch some television or read, and then retire to bed. I would visit a lot of friends gained in my high school experience at their homes, but would rarely invite anyone home to meet my folks. My sister got involved with friends in high school, and my brother was a bit of a "rebel" ultimately hating the fact that his teachers would always compare him infavorably with me. I won a scholarship to the University of Southern California, and had a 3.84 point grade average, when 4.0 was the highest given. I was 25th in my graduating class, with an IQ hovering close to 140. Mother wouldn't even tell me what my IQ score was because she didn't want me getting a swelled head. (Even though she'd been calling me "her little genius" since I could remember. (I have subsequently taken a couple of IQ tests and my results range from 120 to 130)

Even though I had a lot of friends, and became involved in clubs and school government, I still kept close ties to my mother. I had never "turned my back" on my love for either of my parents, and eventually my distrust at them for opening new doors in their lives by relating stories they had "hidden" disappered. I was my Mother's child. My dad was closer to my sister, and my brother, as mentioned, was a bit of the "black sheep" and made sure he acted as the "black sheep" as he grew. My mother would nurture my writing "career". I became editor of our high school newspaper, and wrote a humorous weekly column for the paper. I finished a science fiction novel by the end of my freshman year. Mother always read my works, including the poetry, which blossomed furtively during this period. I would write sonnets and poems for the girls I admired, including Kathy, who didn't return my advances, however, and fell into a relationship with my best friend. I felt defeated, and hurt by this turn of events, and in turn, I probably stopped a lot of budding relationships with at least a half a dozen girls who really liked me. I would "spurn" them, usually by writing scathing poems which would hit them unawares as they would read them. Perhaps if I had been more "sexual" during this time, I would have known what I was eventually "missing" by shunning those who wanted me as more than a friend.

Of course, being from a sheltered household, and not really delving into other's personal sexual lives during this era, the late sixties, I can't speak with any veracity about what other kids were doing concerning their budding hormones. I didn't masturbate, nor do I remember gaining frequent erections. I still had "wet dreams", sometimes including my sister, with whom I had practiced those "inspections" during childhood. Kathy had become "unattainable", but that certainly didn't stop me from carrying a torch for her. She knew my intentions, as I kept writing poetry for her, and I made it clear that should Steve, my very best friend, and her beau, leave her, I would be courting her in a second.

I didn't "chase" girls in high school. There similarly was not any personal or sexual congress of any kind. I remained a bit of a prude, even though I was a popular student. There was "hanky panky" going on at parties I attended, and I even began to write some rather steamy short stories during my junior and senior year. I had even detailed a "sex" scene in my novel when a freshman, but with no personal experience from which to gain, it was rather tame stuff. By my senior year in high school, my hormones had trumped my prudity, and I began to have more overt sexual feelings for some of the girls with whom I would hang around. There were a trio of girls in the modern dancing club whom I admired greatly. They would dress in tights for their performances, and I served as a crewman for some of these performances. I can clearly remember one night kissing all three of them in succession, conceivably as congratulations for a fine performance. Kathy was also in the dance club, and I kissed her as well that night. My little friend stood at attention more readily, and I didn't try to stop him. Dreams, both the standard, and the more gushy ones, would begin to feature female classmates in various stages of dress, some with black tights performing interpretive dance to Carlos Santana albums.

At the age of 18 I did not go on dates, as a lot of students in our high school would do. My parents remained strict in our upbringing, even as we grew, and though I had a car at 16, having purchased my dad's old 1960 Chevrolet Brookwood station wagon when he bought a new car, I was only allowed to drive it to school and to the football games on Friday night. I couldn't go to the dances or parties which followed the football games. I could drive to and from practice for plays and theater pursuits, but had to be home immediately following the activity. Since I was, in practice, a "good boy" who rarely if ever "got in trouble", I followed my parents' wishes. One girl I knew, Cheryl, a fellow writer, had a crush on me, or so memory has always told me. She would hold various parties throughout my junior and senior years, and I would attend, but would always defy her advances, and turn our conversations to less sexual themes at all times. I was still in love with Kathy, and was "saving myself" for her, no matter what the eventual outcome. I didn't drive my own car to Cheryl's parties. Her mom would pick me up, chaperone the party, and take me home. Cheryl wrote stories and poems, and was involved in journalism while I edited the paper, so I felt like her "boss" most of the time. My writings would become more and more "steamy" as the school year progressed, and I even wrote a comic "sex manual" as did Cheryl. We never even kissed, however, and eventually I introduced her to a friend of mine with whom she fell in love, and to whom she is still married.

Popularity finally became something to be attained while I spent time in high school. The whole concept of high school life fosters accomplishment and popularity. This is why so many kids who spent terrible high school years usually weren't popular or very accomplished. That doesn't make them any more or less special than the popular or accomplished kids, however, and the neat joke of high school has always been that some of the most popular and accomplished in high school might actually never be as popular and accomplished in life, and some of the "nerds" and "geeks" become famous. I found that by pleasing my teachers and getting good grades, I advanced steadily academically. By being friendly and open to possibilities, I could have many friends. And the cliques I belonged to in high school were somewhat diverse. People from one might not ever interact with those of another. But I have always found all types of people interesting, and befriended many. As a "soch" who edited the high school newspaper, I wrote a weekly humorous "column". I would sometimes befriend not only the popular but the unpopular, and still "hung out" with some of the students which had attended elementary school with me, but whom I hadn't seen since elementary because I "lived on the border" and didn't go to the same middle school. I used to please a lot of the "unpopular" sometimes by mentioning their names in my column in the paper.

Sex could very well have begun for me in high school, as it did for most kids in America in the late 60s. But it didn't. In 1970, when I became a senior, my dad bought a car for himself, and finally let me drive the mellow yellow 1965 Dodge Dart GT to school. He had purchased the car for me, but since it was "newer" than the Chevy wagon, he drove the Dart for a year, and then bought a 1971 Nova for himself, I got the Dart, and the station wagon was passed on to my sister. So I was driving to school every day when I became a senior, and in Southern California, if one doesn't have a car, one isn't really connected to the world. I couldn't drive all over town, there were of course the usual "restrictions" on everything from my parents, including my car, but I did drive other kids to the park and to the Jack in the Box for burgers and fries. I did truly feel a sexual urge for a lot of girls in high school, but never gave in to the urge. Graduation passed, and my last great kiss of high school was with another Kathy, who was my marching partner. I staunchly believed that sex would only make sense if it were part of the love emotion, and probably missed quite a few opportunities, and ended high school as a virgin.

I felt that my life was turning a corner after high school. I received a scholarship to college at U.S.C., and planned to become a high shcool teacher myself, and my dreams included plans to become an award winning author. My steamiest short story as I graduated from high school was about an all school play party, of which I had attended two. I had no idea what might have happened behind the scenes of the actual parties outside of my own experience, but the story involved not only sex, but drugs and rock and roll as well. It also had a moral ending resulting in the repentance of the main character, who had given in to "Satan's call" during the party. I was visiting in my writing what I would soon visit for real during college life, separated from my parents first by 50 miles, and then, when my mother had a stroke and my dad died, separated from them forever more.

4. "Stag Films and Frat Parties, Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll"

i.
The tight and safe little world my mother had always created for the family started to come apart almost immediately after I had graduated, with honors, from high school. I watched the dissolution of our family from afar, however, even though I lived at home, because the "real world" with which I came in contact after the "sanctity" of my high school experience offered so much that I tended to "turn off" my total experience while at home, and I deliberately didn't want to think that my family life was in fact coming apart at the seams.

This began during my senior year. When 1971 dawned, my mother became more nervous and upset at almost every occurrence in our lives and in the world. The late sixties were a burden on the whole country, and for my parents, and especially for my mother, who "created" our own safe world, the state of the real world, which was presented on the televison news every night, was not quite the world in which she wanted to raise her children, and the increasingly dire daily news, plus the influx of Mexican families in our neighborhood wound her tighter than usual. Mother wanted to move away from our home town, away from the robust and loud Mexican families which surrounded our house. On television, the news was filled with student rebellions, and in high school, I was speaking out for breaking the dress code, and I wore sideburns, which bothered Mother, who didn't like facial hair on her son because it proved I was growing up and away from her.

We moved to a less racially mixed neighborhood. Brother and Sister didn't necessarily like the move, but in time they made new friends at the local high school. I also made some new friends, but was reintroduced to some old high school friends, and tended to hang out with either old friends from high school or new ones from college or work, and didn't get home most nights until way after dark, so I didn't see a lot of my parents, although I lived at home.

One weekend I was reunited with a group from the drama department, for a going away party for one of the guys who was going into the military. In those days, going into the military meant going to Vietnam, and maybe dying, so the going away parties were filled with a sense of despair, and were somewhat overindulgent. One of the gals who was known as a major flirt in high school didn't wear underpants under her skirt. One of the activities we engaged in during this particular party involved going to the park, and we actually "played" on the children's recreational equipment. At one point, I and Melody were on the swing set, I was in the saddle, and she was astide my lap. I felt very good, especially in my nether regions between my legs, as we soared above the playground. I still hold a tender spot in my memories for this frozen moment in time. After the party, however, I never mingled with that group of high school friends again, and never saw Melody again either. Our episode on the swing set was my first real "feel" of a sexual nature in my life.

In the summer before college, my best friend Steve broke up with Kathy, my majorette from high school. Any thoughts of "sex" involving Kathy were moreso thoughts of love and undying affection. I had been "in love" with the girl since my freshman year in high school, and four years later, thought I would finally have a chance to woo and win her, and "consummate" my special love for her, which had produced a major amount of poems in the previous year. I told Steve of my affection after their breakup, but when I asked Kathy to go out one evening when I chanced upon her at the retail store in which I held a boxboy position, she told me that she "didn't go out with friends". I never did understand her meaning with that statement. She didn't go out with Steve's friends? Or perhaps she felt I was a friend and not a potential lover. I never found out. My first year of college was a completely foreign experience for me. I had always been a popular student in high school, and in college I was one of a thousand other statistics hurrying to their next class.

I never forgot Kathy, and composed many dripping love poems for her in absentia, while my dreams, not entirely "sexual" to my virginal mind, existed with her unconditional love as the carrot on an unreachable erotic stick dangling before me. Kathy was tall, with long legs, small breasts, and she was "cute", not "beautiful". To me, if there is a "sexual ideal" this is still it. I become aroused at the sight of shapely long legs. Kathy was fairly thin, but not skinny. I still admire tall women, even those taller than myself. That's as much a turn on to me as long, lustrous hair, which Kathy also had in abundance.

From the time in the sixth grade when I had glimpsed Gene's brother's Playboy magazine, I had been intrigued by the glossy magazine which had interesting articles, fantastic interviews, and lots of photos of naked women. I eventually began collecting the magazines in 1968, while still in high school. The place to which the family moved was larger than the previous house we lived in, but my father, being a consummate handyman and woodworker, had built extensive add ons to our first home, and one of these was a separate bedroom for me. I could easily "hide" things in my own room, and I began buying Playboys every month. I began to "fall in love" with some of the Playmates, and even gazed longingly at the nude voluptuous bodies of these impossibly beautiful women. Still, my complete "sexual identity" at the time was mixed with thoughts of romance and love, and I never masturbated to any of the centerfolds while in high school or college. In our new home, I had a "suite" of rooms. My bedroom, with my own front door, complete with key, was a large room built behind the garage, and I split it into a 'living area" and a "sleeping area" by placing my tall bookcases and wardrobe in the middle of the large room. My father built a "hallway" connecting my "rooms" with the bathroom in the garage, so I actually had my own complete apartment in the family home. Because of this, as the family began to fall apart with mother's increasing nervousness and fears, I was able to "hide" from the reality of home life. Besides, I attended USC in downtown Los Angeles, had a full time job as the garden department manager for a hardware chain in the town in which I had attended high school, 30 miles away from college, and lived about 30 more miles to the north. The physical locations of all the places I had to be during each day prohibited me from wanting to do too much of anything when I got home from school and work except sleep. I spent a lot of time after getting off work before going home with my ex high school friends, however, and young men tend to think about sex a lot more when they are together in a pack.

As the 70s dawned, the nascent "porn industry" began to get "respectable" with the opening of two movies in downtown Hollywood, the Mitchell Brothers' "Behind the Green Door" and Gerard Dimiano's "Deep Throat". I and my friend Steve, fresh from his breakup with Kathy, attended a screening of another seminal porn film, "The Devil in Miss Jones". The movie was screened at "The Cave" which is still on Hollywood Boulevard, and which still screens pornographic movies, even in the age of downloadable sex from the internet. Steve was a bit more of a prude than even I at the time. I had always been a religious sort until high school, but Steve and his family still attended Church on a regular basis, and I remember my seeming shock when he made the suggestion we go see a "porno". We were both movie buffs, and film aficianados. My love affair with movies, with or without sex symbols, had begun early in life, and in college I majored in English Literature, but minored in film history. USC has always had a very fine film school, and in the days before home video, I was able to view many classic films for the first time in my classes which people take for granted nowadays. Steve and I had just seen Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" which was one of the few movies in the 70s rated "X", for "adults only", and I guess Steve felt really "adult" going to see this rather violent film, which featured some "nudity". The next step was the "porno" film "The Devil in Miss Jones". The experience of watching an actual naked woman having sex, albeit with the cheap special effects and trappings of the movie, transformed my perception of the act, which had been anathema to me since the explanation of "pissing into the girl" so long before. Finally, I go excited about the prospect of "having sex". As I recall, Steve didn't like the movie in the least. I didn't like the movie, but I immensely enjoyed the sight of writhing slippery naked women being penetrated, and lovingly cupping the manhood of the male star and swallowing his penis whole. My own little friend, as was his habit, snapped to attention more than once.

ii.
I spent my late teens juggling a 40 hour work schedule with a full 16 unit course of study every semester at school. At home I participated in "artistic endeavors" with my little brother, who was a little more than two years my junior. I was still farily close to my siblings, even though they were still in high school. I drove my brother and sister to school some mornings, and helped to teach my sister to drive. I made friends with both my sister's and my brother's circle of high school friends. I have always wondered how I kept my sanity in the early 70s with my schedule, but I was able to adjust time so that I could accomplish much in the way of school and work, and still have a good time with my buddies from high school and maintain a close relationship with my siblings. Some of the artistic endeavors were writing and performing plays, making music, and recording comedy skits on my small reel to reel tape recorder. My brother became very popular at the high school he and my sister attended, and I got to know a lot of the more creative kids with whom he hung around. In order to blow off steam from my schedule, and as a result of hanging around my ex high school buds, I began to "experiment" with drinking alcohol in those few hours when school and work were over, before I would drive the 30 miles home.

Many evenings were spent first going to a movie, either with Steve, Jon, Bill, Tom, or a host of other friends, and then some of us would park one of our cars, and pack inside, passing around a bottle of Annie Green Springs Strawberry Hill wine. Steve, being a bit of a prude, "just said no" to these bonding exercises, and it was usually his house outside of which we parked, so that if any police happened upon us, we could all pile out of the car stinking drunk and tell them we were going to visit Steve. This happened whether he was home or not. Of course it was youthful paranoia which sparked a lot of these actions, and we never had any confrontations with the law. We did get rather drunk at times, and I found that I really enjoyed this loosey goosey feeling which tended to break down my inhibitions, and let me sample a state of mind that was entirely foreign. It also built up my confidence regarding budding sexual advances, and I began to get a bit more flirtacious regarding the girls at work, and with my sister's girlfriends.

The "drinking parties" in either my car or Jon's usually happened on Friday nights. These were called "cruise nights" in our little "gang" and began usually by driving our cars up and down the same stretch of roadway over and over again for three or four hours. We rarely "connected" with girls, which was our chief reason (besides showing off our custom cars) for the exercise. The Dart I had in high school eventually went to my sister, and I bought a 1971 Volkswagen when I was in college. It was painted mellow yellow, and I pinstriped the outside of the car. It sported 14" rims on the front wheels and 15" rims on the back, with air shocks so that the smallish body of the car could lift above the rather large "slicks" positioned on the magnesium wheels. The inside was carpeted, and included an eight track system with four speakers. Jon, who was very active in his Church, but who was the leader of our little "gang" and who had instigated our plunge into drinking alcohol, also had a tricked out Volkswagen. Another friend had an American Motors Javelin. Young men, especially in the car culture of Southern California, love and maintain their cars. After cruising, we would have a late meal at the Bob's Big Boy restaurant, bid Steve goodbye at his door, pull out the Strawberry Hill, and pass around the bottle. Talk would gravitate to the girls we had been chasing during our "cruise" and sex began to loom larger and larger in my life.

One of my friends from middle school came back into my life around this time, and he used to hold these magnificent parties first at his home and then at the home of his girlfriend, whose family was rather well off monetarily, and who lived in a mansion with two stories, a circular driveway, and a large back yard. These parties included lots of drinking. The place had a full bar. There was dancing, socializing, and I met many new friends at these parties, which were held every four or five months during my college years. This guy was also named Steve. He was also a car nut. Sometimes I would get off work in the afternoons, and drive to the rental yard where he worked. He would close the place down, as he was the junior manager, and then his workmates and I would hole up in the back of one of the camper shells the place rented, pull out the beer and start partying. It seems to me in retrospect that my complete college experience off campus was one ongoing unbroken party, albeit with different revellers involved in three or more different cities and towns.

My college friends in the fraternities, one of which I almost but not quite pledged for membership, were rabblerousing partiers. We had a rather boisterous stag party for one of my friends who was getting married in one of the apartments off campus at U.S.C. Although there were no women in attendance, not even a stripper, there were porn films, which in those pre home video days were shown on a sheet with a 16 mm projector. So sex became a presence for the first time in my life, along with alcohol, parties, and reckless abandonment, while I attended college. My grades weren't as high as in high school, and I even had to repeat a class or two, but they were math and science classes. I was doing pretty well in my English Literature classes, and even received A+ grades in my 14th and 15th century English class.

iii.
I never forgot my love for Kathy, and even caught up with her and visited her and her female roommate at their apartment with my friend Jon sometime in the latter part of my college experience. But my feelings for her remained platonic. Jon had a 'steady girl' but that didn't stop him from "hanging with the buds" every Friday night. I was growing consistenly more friendly with Emma Sue, one of my sister's best friends. Emma would baby sit at one of the homes on the cul de sac on which she lived. She would call me when the parents would leave, and I would go "visit" her. Emma, like Kathy, was tall, with long legs and smallish breasts. She, too, was very cute, with a lopsided smile and long blonde hair which framed her angelic face beautifully. Although I was still a virgin, as was she, about a year my junior, she was the very first girl with whom I had the pleasure of "making out". For the first time in my young life, deep feelings of love comingled with a healthy sexual appetite. As we kissed, and as our kisses grew more passionate and heady, and as my hands found more and more interesting places on which to rest while kissing her, my overriding sense of love also increased, along with the rapidity of my heartbeat and my breathing. The breathing of my bulging member increased as well.

Emma and I exchanged many letters. We began dating, usually with my sister, her best friend, and her boyfriend. We became another of my "gangs" with whom I would spend time. In 1972, as my sister and her class graduated from high school, and my brother was coming up for graduation the next year, I was in the middle of my four year college experience. I shuttled back and forth from work and school thinking of what parties I would be attending and with which people I would be spending time. I was doing rather well in the retail industry, and kept getting raises which allowed me to always have money in my pocket. I had many groups of friends, many obligations, and many good times. But everything was about ready to get really weird. My mother had a major stroke in 1972. Her contolling nature and nervous energy collapsed at once with her body and one morning, after she and I had had a mind numbing quarrel about some insipid thing or another, she had to be hospitalized, and the toll would eventually cause my father's heart, which was very weak, to fail completely. He had just recovered from a forklift accident at work which had broken his hips and almost paralyzed him. He had finally gone back to work when I was in my last year of high school, and his woodworking in our garage was a form of therapy for him, since he also suffered from arthritis. He had high blood pressure and a bad heart, and in those days heart care was not as advanced as it is today.

Our whirlwind life, first moving from our home town to another, and then having to deal with my mother's stroke and the subsequent hospitalization, almost stopped dead in it's tracks. Mom came home for a while after the stroke, but then had another, more debilitating "bi-lateral" stroke which completely paralyzed her. Now, in between school, work, partying with my friends, seeing Emma Sue, and spending time with three separate "groups" for entertainment, I also had to make almost nightly visits to my mother's hospital room, where a shallow empty vessel that was previously my demanding but loving mother stared at me with vacant eyes.

The next two years were rather bleak but also wildly erratic and I would discover more interesting ways to lose my fears and sadness, and forget problems in lieu of wild parties and drunken abandon. Father once met me outside the house when I got home late. "Son, I want to talk to you."
"Oh, hi, Dad. Is everything all right" That was a constant greeting while my mother was in the hospital.
"I know you've been drinking"
"Uh, Dad...some of the guys drink a little after I get off work."
"I've been meaning to talk to you about this for a while" We were standing in the driveway, where the warmth from my car's engine wafted into the immediate atmosphere, facing each other across an expanse of only a few feet but many disparate years of experience.
"I won't lie to you, Dad. I've been drinking a bit for a year now. But I don't drink here. And I try to sober up before coming home."
"Son", my father was not a tall man. He was short and bald, but wiry and strong. He made an impression, although we was generally a quiet man, because when he did speak, he commanded attention. "I know you've been drinking. It's just that with everything that's been going on, I haven't had time to talk to you about it. You know that you can get in trouble."
"Yes, dad. It's still a couple of years until I'm legal. But it helps with the schedule I've got to keep by helping me wind down with my friends."
"Mike, I used to drink when I was in the service, you know that."
"Yes" I had just driven over thirty miles, and we always went into a restaurant and drank lots of coffee after drinking, so I wasn't "drunk" by any means, and obviously my father had known about my drinking for a while. "I'm not really "drunk" you know"
"I know, son, but this is what I want to tell you. I don't want you drinking here at home. I gave up drink when I married your mom, and if I had to do this, you can't drink in the house either. Do you understand?"
I was mesmerized by the fact that I wasn't being "bawled out" by this episode, which I'd seen performed in movies and read about in books for most of my life. This wasn't really a "confrontation" at all, but a mere relating of the facts. Dad had to give up something he enjoyed, although he'd never told us kids these facts, because he married my mom, who was a teetotaler. Drink was never to be consumed in the family home because of this.
"Sure Dad," I half slurred, "I don't drink here anyway." At the time, I felt relief and also a sense of youthful indignation, even though the "confrontation" was turning out better than it had in countless movies and books.
"You won't drink in my house". The threat was thinly veiled, but it was there. My father had only once had to physically "abuse" me, although I never thought of it as abuse and still don't. My parents fully believed that if you "spared the rod" you "spoiled the child" and throughout my childhood, the "threat" of physical harm was enough to stop us children from getting into any further "trouble". Once I had hurt my brother fairly seriously while "roughhousing" as my mother called our boisterous play, and Dad had nearly choked me to death at the dinner table in order to make his point. This is the only time he ever laid a hand on me in anger, and though my brother and I didn't stop "roughhousing" because of it, we knew that the threat was real.
I never did drink in the family home while my father was still alive. He would die a short time later, of his 13th heart attack.

During the year 1973, my third in college, my brother graduated from high school, my sister got involved with another boyfriend, who would eventually become her husband, and Emma and I parted ways. I remained a virgin, even after many evenings of heavy petting with Emma. I became a more sexual person but still I made many friendships with women that were purely platonic, and because I still equated sex with love, if I didn't have feelings for a girl who was a friend, I didn't make any "undue advances". I still act that way, over thirty years later. I made female friends at both work and school.

5. "Whoreticulture"

Dad died in June of 1974, felled by heart attack number 13. Quite unlucky. The stress inherent in working full time and providing for his children, paying for his medical bills, and still managing to spend two or three hours each night with my mother in the hospital, where she existed almost like a vegatable, had taken it's toll. His death occured while I was on vacation with a few buddies, camping in the hills above San Francisco. We had left phone numbers with my brother and sister in the event that if mother suddenly died, which was somewhat expected, then the family could get in touch. Father's passing was a complete shock. After this tragedy, with my father suddenly dead and with my mother relegated to living in a convalescent home where she was hooked up to a dialysis machine, I was made "executor" of her estate, at only 21. It was now my responsibility to manage what was left of our family. I paid bills, stopped services, visited lawyers, and dipped my fingers into the belly of the beuracracy. I had to sell the family house so that Mother could obtain medicare benefits. In retrospect, I should have purchased the family home myself, but at the time, in my fourth year of college, and heavily involved in not one, but three separate "party scenes", buying a house was the last thing on my mind. I moved back to the town where I had attended high school and lived in a one bedroom apartment in one of those mammoth "apartment blocks" so common to Southern California. I was juggling 1. the responsibilities of getting my family's finances in order with 2. a particularly heavy social schedule. My performance at school had suffered that last year, and I hadn't graduated in June of 74 as I should have, coming up just 16 units short of the graduation requirements. I was to have made those units up the next semester, but when Dad died, I quit school altogether, and concentrated on working full time at the hardware chain, where I was managing the nursery department. I didn't have to juggle a schedule for work after quitting school, and living nearer to my work freed up a lot of my time. My sister had met a guy at school the previous year, and she married him almost immediately after we buried my father. The family home, still relatively new to us, having moved there in 1971, saw the wake for my father, and the wedding reception for my sister one after the other. My parents had never hosted parties or soirees of any kind, and as soon as they were out of the picture, our house became an open house, at least in the short time before it would be sold and fall out of our influence.

At this time in my life, besides hanging out with either the high school gang or the work gang, or my friend Steve's work's gang, I had two "best friends". One, Tom, had been in my circle of high school friends, and we became inspeparable in the two years following high school. I would stay with Tom and his parents on some nights when I couldn't make it back home after a night of drinking and partying. The other friend, Mark, worked with me and was heavily involved in church activities. Mark turned me on to my first "joint", or cigarette, containing marijuana, however, and I bonded closer with Tom too after that because we were the only two in our "gang" who indulged in the heady feelings smoking marijuana afforded. Although I had always been a "good boy" when young, after the parental leash was dropped in the gutter, I took advantage of the times and the availability of pot, which cost ten dollars an ounce. I bought my first ounce of the stuff at a frat party at Cal State, and the feelings I would get when stoned made me quite horny. Jon, another friend, would sit in front of an old girlfriend's house for hours after inhaling part of a joint, commisserating about the fact that the girl wasn't with him.

I still held some unnaturally lofty views about "romantic love", and although I was watching lots of steamy movies, and participating in hot talk with my buds, and "cruising for chicks" on Friday nights, I remained a virgin, and my fantaisies of sexuality always included deep romantic love. After Kathy left my sphere of friendship when she broke up with Steve, I began to chum up to a few of the girls attending the other Steve's parties. During the parties, I sometimes would engage in some petting, usually kissing and sometimes gently massaging a girl's breasts, but sex without love seemed to be lacking, even in light of the fact that the sexual revolution was by now swirling around me and my cronies. My brother remained in the family home until the sale forced him to exit, and he brought girls into the house, for sex and for parties. Since I didn't live with him, I didn't see the shenanigans close up, but only listened to my brother's friends exalt at his social manifestoes. I felt that his dalliances were ethically "wrong". Still a prude, although watching pornography, drinking alcohol and smoking drugs, I maintained an obtuse view of morality as it pertained to sex.

Tom wasn't as much a prude as I, however, and we would frequently go up into Hollywood and "check out" the massage parlors. Usually, when we entered one of these small establishments, usually located one street to the north or the south of Hollywood Blvd, we were met with an assembled "line" of girls, scantily dressed, for our "inspection". Tom was always talking about getting laid. Indeed, our "cruise nights" were unsuccessful attempts to "cruise for chicks" and "to get laid". Sex was on everyone's mind, and I would partake of Tom's "inspecitions" knowing that one day, he would "go all the way" to the back room with one of the "massueses" lining up in the front room to the parlors. For a while, we would "look over the merchandise" and then gracefully bow out, and exit the establishment.

"Mike, here's one that gives away a record album as a door prize."
"That's nice, Tom"
"For $35.00 you can either play pool or watch television with a live nude girl."
"Who would watch television with a naked girl in the room. I'd be too busy watching her."
"Mike, let's go. You got $35.00 to spare."
"Sure, Tom, but you sure you want to. I don't know about losing my virginity to a hooker."
"Well, I'm horny." Tom bellowed, and we made plans to drive up into Hollywood. First, there was a stop at Ricardo's another friend of mine from work, who belonged to a Mexican Car Club and was rooming in a motel nearby. We smoked some dope with Ricardo, and then got in my Volkswagen for the trip to Hollywood. The "Massage Parlor" was located in a house on a residential street below the boulevard. When we got there, I was somewhat skeptical. Would I enjoy myself? But Tom's pecker was directing traffic, and we entered the smallish Craftsman home and sat down in the front room, which resembled the living room it was in actuality. This place didn't offer a "line of girls". Two women approached, and we eventually split up, after receiving record album "door prizes". Tom's gal was tall, thin, and hyper. Mine was shorter, and a bit chubbier, with silky long black hair, and dark skin. She was good looking, and wore a red negilgee. Tom was going to "play pool" and I was going to "watch TV". Time was going to be up in a half hour. We paid the $35.00 each "house fee" and an additional $30.00 for the girl. Then we were to negotiate with her while playing pool or watching TV. I and my "girl" retired to a back bedroom, where the light was bright. She turned on the television in the room, which was tuned to the same progarm that had been playing on my friend Ricardo's set in his motel room just about a half hour earlier. I negotiated with the prostitute for "all the way" which euphemistically meant we were to have sex, and she began to remove her negligee.

In the movies, even in the somewhat less well produced pornos of the early 70s, sex is always linked to some romantic gesture or experience. The chubby hooker doffed her negligee with workmanlike precision, there was no hint of delicious sexual delights to come. With the television blaring and the lights still on in the room, her volcanic breasts and dark skin glistened in the glare. She seemed almost as a mannequin, with impossibly smooth unblemished skin. Her hair fell back languidly behind her head, and she openend her calves slightly. "We've got twenty minutes." she exclaimed. I didn't engage in any conversation, didn't divulge my virginity to her, didn't have at all the sort of experience shown in movies or read about in books.

I removed my shoes, shirt and pants, and approached her on the bed, where she lay like a piggy bank ready to accept a nickel in her slot. I didn't kiss her. Although in movies, romance with hookers has happened often, my hooker didn't give in to any health risks. Kissing was verboten. I haphazardly placed my hand on her breast and began to massage the small mountain with it's erect but polyetheline nipple. I gained no thrills or special feeling from this action. She gazed up at me, as if still impatiently keeping track of the time, and I "mounted" her. The sight of the naked girl of course is enough to give a young man a sizable erection. Men are easily aroused, and I was no exception. My penis began to throb as I inserted it into the envelope of her womanhood. This was during the sexual revolution, and condoms were not used. I had never even masturbated, and now I was fully enveloped in the musky world of a woman. I plunged and withdrew, first slowly, then with increasing rapidity. Her skin was like polyurethane. Her nipples looked like they could pop at any moment. She kept her eyes closed, and was probably thinking about tomorrow's shopping list. The lights glared overhead. The television commented inanely with a commercial. The minutes ticked unwarily.

In no time at all, I found myself ejaculating inside her. The feeling of my balls slapping up against her black curly, and massively springy vagina hair was enough in time to cause climax, and I shot my wad inside her, causing me to feel momentarily ecstatic, but then somewhat guilty about nothing in particular scant moments later. I withdrew, wiped myself off with a handy towel, and began to get dressed. Not once did we experiment with postion (and other positions probably cost more) and the complete act was in missionary, with me on the top, and she lying in exactly the same place. Certainly, having first sex with a hooker was not intellectually or spriitually satisfying. I began to get depressed, collected my album, a jazz record I'd later call my $90.00 record album. Tom exhibited pleasure and epiphanic behavior, relating his experience as if it were the Book of Revelation. I said mine was "okay" and secretly regretted having lost my virginity in this manner. We drove home. Two young men who were now no longer "virgins" but "seasoned pros" having paid for their first lay.

The second lay came a few weeks later, courtesy of my brother. One of the girls he frequently partied with was Susan, who was regarded as "loose" and had earned the nickname "Susie the Horse", possibly because she was a willing saddle for any number of "riders." One of my infrequent trips to the family home, I ended up spending the night one evening, while Susan was "rooming" on the living couch. The single bed on which I had been sleeping just a few months previous was still in my old room, and I ended up engaging Susan in conversation, and we both ended up sitting on my single bed, while I read her poetry about Emma and love. With a real girl beside me instead of a prostitute, longer feelings of building ecstasy were able to manifest themselves as I recited words of love. Susan was slightly overweight, and common looking, with a farm girl's ruddy complexion. She sat blissfully while I read my tales of broken hearts and longing, and before long, we were cuddling with each other, and kissing. I put down my volume of poems, and we removed each other's clothing silently while exploring our bodies. Susan wore one of those triple clasp bras to contain her voluminous brests, and upon thier unclasping, her bounty presented itself to a willing mouth. Our foreplay lasted about a half hour, and before long, she was reclining in a missionary position, removing her grannie panties. Susan was not made of plasticine, as had been the hooker. Susan was a breathing, living human being. With my clothes fully removed, I slowly and purposefully inserted my willing member into the wet, damp orifice between her legs. We kissed, hugged, and fuc*ed, and the experience for me was more satisfying than with the whore. We engaged in sex until my climax, and then I began to feel somewhat depressed and guilty again. I quickly excused myself to the bathroom down the hall, and then told Susan that she could go out to the living room couch where she had been sleeping so I could go to bed. I was very abrupt and unforgiving, acting a bit like an a**hole. Susan got dressed and went out to the living room. I half heartedly tried to explain why I was engaging in wham bam thank you ma'am behavior when we were both sleeping in the house that evening, and perhaps it made sense to her, but more likely she thought I was being rather illogical "after the act".

When going to parties after this, I watched women closer than ever before, and I began to believe sex was just something else to do, like drinking beer, or smoking dope. My first two back to back experiences were not filled with any sense of closeness or love. The media was preaching sex without consequences at the time. It was called "love" but mostly the practice was physical for all concerned. One of the girls who frequently attended Steve's parties at his girlfriend's house danced with me for most of one evening, and we necked and petted all around the grounds of the mansion, almost tearing our clothes off out in the garden. Somebody was taking photos of the party that evening, and some of the shots of me dancing with the girl found their way into the hands of Paula's girlfriend Ruth, who attended Cal State Long Beach as a Sex Ed Major. Ruth had read some of my poetry, since I was always lending my poems to Paula to read, and when she saw my photo she wanted to meet me. Ruth was liberated and smart. She was the perfect woman, free in her ideas about life and sex. She was an activist, a vegan, and had her own off campus apartment. One evening while hanging out with Steve, he showed me her photo, and told me she wanted to meet me because she saw how "hot" I acted around the gal at the party. This turn of events intrigued me. From then on in my poetry, the theme of "serendipity" becomes a major influence in my work. So far, sex had been, for me, an unthinkable abomination for most of my young life, a means of physical release that made for conflicting thoughts during wet dreams, which were sometimes populated by my sister, and ultimately a contrived physical exercise that meant little and didn't add up to much. A girl in Long Beach like my poetry, and cared for the words. She thought I looked good from a photo she saw, in which I was essentially with another girl. Her presence was to make a major difference in my sex life, and I would never be the same.

6. "Meeting Ruth, the Sexual Goddess"

i:"Boy Meets Girl"
The most intense and complete sexual relationship I have ever experienced began in the late summer of 1975, ten years after the fateful schoolyard conversation which started my inquiries into the wonderful world of carnal delight. The poetry I wrote in late 74 and early 75 is filled with pleadings for love, for an unattainable perfect love. "Sex is not love, Niether is yearning, of friendship, Or dating, Or being happy", I wrote, bathed, as I was, in the light of two weird and unthinkable couplings with a Hollywood hooker and a loose friend of my brother's aquaintence.

In 1975, I was living in a small apartment close to where I had attended high school, and I soon moved to the South Bay area of Southern California when the then store manager of the retail store for which I worked secured a position as store manager at a new location. I was acting as the executor of my mother's estate after my father's death the previous year, and had to sell the family home in order for my mother to retain medicare benefits, so my brother had to move out and into an apartment of his own. Pretty much our "family" separated forever at this point. My sister was already married, and lived in Long Beach or San Diego, depending upon where her husband, who was in the Navy, was stationed at the time.

My main social group during this time were friends which I had known since the eighth grade, and others met at the parties Steve and his girlfriend Paula threw in Paula's parents' mansion, which was a true "party house". I also still hung around with my old high school friends, although less so after moving to the South Bay, where I would meet many more friends, and establish another social circle. I was still living in my first apartment however when I met Ruth, who lived in Long Beach, and attended Cal State Long Beach, which is where my friend Steve also took classes. He had met Paula at college, and Ruth was one of Paula's better friends.

I don't think this Steve and the other Steve, who was involved with Kathy, my first love, in high school, ever met. Each was in a different "circle of friends". I managed my social life like my complicated school and work life. I had always been good at "scheduling" and was always able to keep all my friendship circles separated into my different interests. The first Steve was religious and good for long conversations about the world, love, and politics. The second Steve was a secular partymonger with whom I 'partied'. I once attempted to "mix" the two experiences when attending a beach party with the first Steve, who also worked in a retail establishment as I did, and some of his workmates. He had confessed to me that one of the girls with which he worked, who had seen me hanging around the jewelry counter where he worked, had expressed an interest in me. At the beach party, I got drunk, and had a friendly tussle with the girl, Diana. Steve had gotten over his breakup with Kathy, the girl I had loved in high school when they were going together, and he, his then girlfriend, Diana, and I, went back to my apartment after the beach party. I attempted to seduce Diana, and she got perturbed, because I was rushing things a bit, still heady with the ease with which I had bedded Susan a few months earlier. This time I only wanted some sex. Diana held me back, however, and I later apologized for my brazenness.

"The other Steve", who with Paula held the parties in her parents' house, introduced me to Ruth, Paula's friend, who had seen photos of me taken at one of the parties dancing with another girl. Our first meeting was at Steve's parents' house. In those days, I was the only one with an apartment. Everybody else still lived at home. But Ruth had an apartment too. She lived off campus in Long Beach. Ruth was pretty short in stature. I don't believe she was over 5 foot tall. She had short legs, a rather large head, big soulful eyes, and long luxurious brown hair that cascaded down her back. Her smile could stop an elephant in his tracks. Ruth was not what you would call beautiful, but she "beamed". Her most obvious "attibute" from the male sexual outlook, was the size of her breasts. Even if she had been taller, they would have been called large. For her size, they were mammoth. We hit it off rather well, but I must say that I know I didn't fall in love with her. There was a friendliness and camaraderie I felt during that first meeting sitting on Steve's couch in his parents' living room while he and Paula busied themselves back in his bedroom. We talked about my poetry mainly. That was always my icebreaker in those days. She had read some of the poems I had loaned Paula. To tell the truth, I had a sort of a "thing" for Paula, who was blonde, big boned, and statuesque. Ever since I fell in love with Kathy, my majorette from high school, I seemed to favor tall women with long legs. Paula was magnificent looking and her smile outshone the sun. However she was in love with Steve, and he her. After my conversation with Ruth, which lasted a few hours, I gave her my "poetry volume" which was a three ring binder containing all of my poetry. We made a date to get together the following week at her apartment one day after I got off work.

My retail schedule was always rather malleable. I worked both day and night shifts, and lots of weekends, so my day off was usually in the middle of the week. Our meeting was to be on a Friday, after her classes, which were in the morning, ended. I got off at about 5pm on the day of our second meeting, and I drove to Long Beach to visit her. She had read most of my poems and the appointed date couldn't come fast enough. Although she wasn't my "type" physically, I did catch the spark of affection in her when we first met, and I was pretty full of myself knowing that she liked my poetry. I wrote her a poem, spelling her name anacrostically down the first letters of one of the verses. This never failed to impress gals for whom I had done it in the past.

This was the beginning of our beautiful friendship. It wasn't to last long, and my purposeful search for "love" was not over, but sex would be a great part of our relationship. Ruth was majoring in sexual education at CSULB, and she had lots of knowledge concerning desire, sexual satisfaction, and pleasing one's partner. As our relationship was to continue, for about a year, I found my own sexual center, and had some of the best times I have had in my life. We didn't have sex at her apartment that afternoon, however, because my body tried to rush things a bit too soon.

Ruth lived in one of those older, fairly small apartments which are scattered around north Long Beach. There was only one room, with a pull down bed. The plumbing creaked. The walls had been painted over so many times that they displayed a thickness which looked like the entire place had been dumped in some giant bucket of off white paint. There was a small bathroom and kitchen, with an old gas stove. The place was pretty spartan, but Ruth was young, and this was her first time away from home. We greeted each other with a hug, something with which I was still not too comfortable, as I had never really liked to be touched. She returned my poetry, after I read some of the pieces to her out loud.

She told me her family history. We shared our philosophies and our lists of likes and dislikes. She cooked me a casserole. The late afternoon disappeared into the early evening. We were sitting on the sofa, pretty close to each other, and the magic time appeared as if in one of the romantic motion pictures I have always loved. We shared a kiss, long, succulent, and flavorful. Her lips were thick, and our saliva mixed with our tongues, forging new pathways within our shared cavern of ecstasy. This foreplay seemed to last for hours, but probably took place within twenty or so minutes. I had advanced from a serious prudishness to an unmatched sexual hunger in only about six months. The hooker was like a plastic doll, and I couldn't kiss the hooker. Susan had been willing and eager, but my mind was still mixed up at the time of our coupling.

Memories of kissing the three girls after dance practice back in high school, and kissing Emma, my sister's best friend, were all encompassing compared to the "fuc*ing" of the whore and to the evening tryst with Susan. But kissing Ruth was like entering the gates of some seething heavenly place. We experienced a shared journey of discovery with our mouths, teeth, and tongues. Ruth and I tussled, still with our clothes on, eventually lying supine on the sofa, and engaged in some petting. Her breast, felt through the cloth of her blouse, and under her massive brassiere, was smooth and round. Her private area rubbed against my hips as we kissed.

The moments passed as if in a dream. Although I didn't intellectualize a feeling of "love" in my heart for her, I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and was sure that sex, which was rapidly approaching the point of no return, was going to be fantastic. As these moments were passing as if in slow motion, my seething manhood came to attention, but he wasn't on the same wavelength as my mind. He was a bit too eager, and all the rubbing going on down between our legs was a bit much on the poor boy. I ejaculated much too prematurely, and felt somewhat embarrassed and at a bit of a loss for explanation.

As the wet, slimy semen load oozed itself down my inner thigh, I immediately sat up, and ended the foreplay. I can't remember exactly what I said. I know I felt ashamed and angry at myself. I have always prided myself on my honesty, but I wasn't honest with Ruth. I made some feeble excuse about having to leave. For me, the kissing and fondling seemed like hours, but in actuality I was probably on the sofa with her for a little over a half hour. I am sure she was totally perplexed. We were rubbing ourselves like we were in heat, and then suddenly, I had to leave and end our passion. Ruth was confused, and I left her at the door, collected my volume of poetry, and went out to my car.

I called her from a phone booth, still in Long Beach, after I had cleaned myself up, muttering tourettelike to myself that I really screwed up a possible relationship before it had even started. My pride was wounded, and on the phone, I offered further excuses and apologies. For some unexplained reason, I still can't find myself to acknowledge even today, I didn't call her for about two weeks after my "accident" and this caused her further confusion.

Ruth asked Steve what was wrong with me. Steve and I had a "man to man" but I still couldn't relate the truth of what had happened. I don't even think I mentioned the foreplay to him. He did tell me that Ruth was on the point of becoming angry at me if I didnt' call. I didn't know what to say to her, and so I stayed "away from the situation". This is not a nice thing to do when courting someone, and eventually I did call. We did get back together, and I did tell her exactly what had happened. We both had a laugh over the nonsensical first coupling together, and our second try was a bit more daring and much more satifactory for both partners. My climax the next time occurred at the end, rather than at the beginning of the act, as it should.

ii: "Boy Gets Girl"
The first time we had sex was in her apartment a few weeks after the first mishap. The act lasted about two hours. Foreplay was intense and delicate. Since I had already been completely truthful with her, and since she was certainly no prude, our time together in sexual ecstasy was certainly quality time. We pulled down her bed, and I spent the night experiencing bliss of which I had heretofore been unknowing. Her body was not perfection, but her large mountainous breasts, slim flat stomach, short but attractively proportioned legs, and her glowing smile and long soft hair were enough to get me excited as I had never been excited. We didn't just "have sex" in the missionary position, as with the whore and with Susan. We were completely in tune with each other's needs. I was able to penetrate her easily and smoothly, after twenty or so minutes of lubricating her through cunnilingus. As soon as I tasted the nectar which flowed from between her legs, I knew I had found a taste I liked better than any meal I had tasted before. I couldn't get enough, and as I gobbled, Ruth complied by giving me more to eat.

Our eventual coupling was not brief, but elaborate, experimental, and athletic. We moved from the bed, to the sofa, to the floor, connected with a friendly sexual exhuberance that happens when two young healthy people find a common ground in which to exercise their passions. Our passions were inexhaustable, and after our mutual climax, we immediately began the foreplay, the oral satisfaction, and the penetration again, and again and again.

By the time I left her house the next morning, with the knowing birds tweeting their song of love, I knew that Ruth and I would be a fine couple. I still didnt' "love" her as I had Kathy, or thought I had with Emma. Our relationship, based on Ruth's love of my words, and cemented in a night of glorious sexuality, was going to be a long and interesting one. I left the apartment happier than I had ever been. From a miscued start, we rounded the first bend of our shared journey with mutual admiration and we had both enjoyed a sexual coupling that belonged in the letters section of a Penthouse magazine, at least in my "male" mind.

We hooked up at another of Steve and Paula's parties a few days later, and we had a pretty deep conversation while sitting in the gazebo in the back yard. Young men and women were strolling the yard, which was more of a garden, with pathways, hedges, and groups of flowers in arranged areas, so that twenty or so people could be in the garden, and still be essentially alone together. In the house, there was the usual amount of dancing, and drinking, but back in the gazebo, at the far corner of the yard, we could browse the complete party, as if we were watching a movie. The turmoil and cacophany of the party seemed miles removed from the dark cool atmosphere of the gazebo. Ruth and I kissed, fondled, and became as one soul, connected to eternity. In our previous encounter, I had performed cunnilingus on Ruth. Here, sitting in the gazebo, and without a second thought, my paramour skillfully unzipped my fly, and began to massage my growing penis. She freed it from it's saddle in my briefs, allowing for a quick stab of the cool air, before her mouth engulfed me. Here we were, sitting in an open gazebo on the grounds of Paula's house, and she gave me my first head. I didn't come too quickly this time, thankfully, and I enjoyed this forbidden action. When my climax was achieved, she swallowed the ejaculate like a frothy vanilla milk shake, enjoying the warm flow of life slide down her throat. There was no mess, and no fuss. Although I had just ejaculated, in youth, I was able to return to a rigid state fairly quickly.

We walked briskly through the garden, into and out of the house, and out into the circular driveway which was at the front of the house. My car, a 1961 bullet nosed Thunderbird, which was a classic, sat stealthily on the circle. The party was in full swing, so there were dozens of people arriving and leaving. I unlocked the door, and Ruth and I slid into the back seat. Within minutes the window glass was fogged, as we kissed and fondled, and although we didn't remove our clothes, I postitioned my pants down below my ankles, and Ruth mounted me after pulling her panties to one side. We stayed in the car for about an hour, and since I had come earlier in the gazebo, I didnt' come this time, but remained hard, and satisfied my new lover completely.

Every one was missing us at this point, and when we finally returned to the party, a bit disheveled by heartily satisfied and vigorous, we winked at both Steve and Paula, who knew exactly what was going on. I was now fully initiated into the sacred rights of carnal knowledge. I didn't need movies, books, or dirty conversations with my male friends any more. I had a girlfriend who was not only sexually open, she was knowledable about sexual practice and health. She had an IUD, so I didn't have to worry about condoms, and we were able to "feel" our fleshy exploits without any covering of ourselves. We became an "item" and I dated her exclusively, turning away from my other social circles. My friend Tom, and the other Steve, had to wait sometimes months for my presence. I moved to the South Bay right after I met Ruth, and I was closer to Long Beach. We attended concerts, saw dozens of movies, and went out to dinner together.

Our sexual shenanigans were taken to new heights each time we spent the night either at my place or hers. One time we actually performed the act to climax fourteen times. We rarely slept when we spent time with each other. Our sexual current was never shut off. We would sneak feels while driving, with her sister in the car. We once performed "silent sex" while after bringing her sister and a friend back to her apartment. The other girls slept on the floor, and Ruth and I could hardly contain our laughter as we coupled on the bed. Each meeting brought new delights. One time I brought out a marijuana cigarette, and we smoked some pot before sex. The feeling for me at climax was like a never ending stream of satisfying life blood was flowing from my body and into hers. These were the best months of my life up until that point, and in retrospect, they were probably among the best times of my entire life up to now.

iii: "Boy Loses Girl"
Everything comes to an end, and our relationship was to end about a year after we first met. It was my fault and my fault competely. I never fell in love with Ruth, no matter how delicious a relationship we had together.

I did fall in love with a firery redhead named Elfie who joined the retail establishement in which I worked as a cashier. Each day I worked alongside Elfie, we got closer and closer to each other. Our conversations were sexually sparked. Elfie was one of those redheads with alabaster white skin. She wore her hair in a pixie cut, and she was covered with freckles. Her breasts were like torpedos, sticking out in pointed wonder. She was taller than Ruth, although not my "sexual" ideal, she was closer than Ruth, and like the classic "other woman", I spent a lot of time fantasizing about Elfie when I was with Ruth. Ruth became "routine" and Elfie became scintillating. I started attending some of the same parties Elfie attended. I was taking lots of drugs in those days, even though I was a department manager in a retail establishment, and most of the guys in my party circle in the South Bay worked either in the store, or as box boys. Three of my best friends worked in the department I mangaged.

I would begin visiting both Elfie and her roommate Darlene at their rented house on the beach. I spent some time making out with both of them. All this happened while I was still seeing Ruth. I have always been honest and forthright in my dealings with people, and didn't want to "string" Ruth along as I maneuvered towards Darlene and especially Elfie. The conundrum for me was that I already had a wonderful sexual pairing with Ruth, yet I was attracted more to Elfie. One day I broke it off with Ruth. I honestly told her that I wanted to date other girls. I didn't mention however that I had another girl in mind. Ruth and I had our one and only argument the night I ended our relationship. She told me that I was giving up a good thing, and I knew it, but my sense of "love" told me that sex with Ruth was fantastic, but sex with Elfie would be even more fantastic, because I thought I "loved" Elfie.

Ruth gave me chances, but I blew them off. Ruth gave me the opportunity to change my mind, but it was set in stone, as was my penis, fot the redheaded firery delights of Elfie's white soft form. Ruth became an obstacle, and I jumped over her. We parted ways, only to see each other a couple of times in the future, filled with visions of lost opportunities. I set my sights on Elfie, who filrted shamelessly with me at work, and let me feel her up even when we walked together in public. I felt a surge of wanting for coupling with Elfie that superseded my already fulfilling sexual garden of delights with my current paramour. I forsook my "bird in the hand" for the one out in the bush, who smiled so delightedly at me when we were together.

Ruth slammed the door a bit harder than usual when she left my life. I do have regrets, and breaking off our relationship for another untested conquest is one of them. I fully admit I acted not only stupidly, but like a daredevil without a backup plan. I would soon find that the mistake I made was not only unrepairable, but unneeded and inescapable. I closed my book on Ruth, and opened a fresh page with Elfie. She wouldn't read my book as well as Ruth did, however, but I didn't know that when I approached Elfie for the first time after becoming "a free man".

7. "Red Headed Wretchedness, and A Respite Before Falling in Love"

"We wants the redhead. We wants the redhead"........chanted by the sailors at the wife auction in the Disneyland ride, "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The last strains of music to emanate from my voluminous but short sexual relationship with the fair Ruth were probably silenced forever following the night of my "party" in late 1976. As the sparks flew brighter and more intense while talking to Elfie, of the alabaster skin, pointed searching breasts and crackling red hair, the conversations and couplings with Ruth became more workmanlike and stale. Ruth had instilled in me the seeds of the sexual revolution, and I wished somewhat too quickly after this to plant these seeds in other women besides her.

In the South Bay back in the seventies, each "popular" partygoer became legend. On Friday and Saturday nights, and even Sunday nights in certain places, one attuned to the spirit of nightlife in the Bay always knew where to head, fueled by the constant pipeline of communication among the denizens, for the party. As I became a regular partygoer during this period, always ready to try a new drug or experience, I began to plan my own party, and talked to many of my workmates, friends, and other people at other parties. In the social scene, each party held in any given party night was ranked in importance. Around 10 p.m. to midnight, the party with the most dopesmoking, cocaine addled youths rubbing up against each other with almost no room to move around, became the "hot spot" and the most popular nitespot of the evening. Some people talked about legendary South Bay parties for decades. I wanted to be part of the legend.

My party, while never attaining legendary status, was to be an all encompassing affair. I "split" the party into two apartments, because I lived on the ground floor of my building in a bachelor's apartment, with the bathroom accessible by walking through the closet, and only one large room and a kitchen in which to entertain. Paul, who lived upstairs, and was a weaselly New Yorker transplant who collected tropical fish and had many large aquariums, lived in a large two bedroom apartment alone on the second floor. His and my apartments would be the party 'rooms' and I drew a map showing not only how to get to the party, but how to maneuver into the different apartments once you got there. I waited for the big night, when I would mix my different cliques of friends for the first time. Ultimately, this was not going to work out as I had planned, but before it happened, I must have invited over a hundred people, including my brother and sister, workmates, old schoolmates, and other party people in the South Bay.

Ruth came over early. I had been eyeing Elfie and Darlene at work, two cashiers who shared a house in Hermosa Beach, and although they were "party girls", and I wanted to fu*k both of them rather badly, I had only succeeded in making out with both by the time of the party. I was then ready to tell Ruth I wanted to "fool around a bit" in order to open the door to a relationship with Elfie, whose red headed hellishness really captivated me. Her name was her personality. She reminded me of a chubby elf, with a smile that seared through my being. I never fell in love with Ruth, although our sexual gymnastics had me feeling good for months. Something has gotta give, and during the party is when jealousy shook his dirty little head.

Since Ruth arrived first, we set out the drinks and the appetizers and hor's d'erves in both apartments. As the sun set into a beautiful sea, the first of the revellers arrived. They were work people, well versed in the party etiquette of the South Bay. Nobody went to a party early unless they were "stopping by" on the way to another party, and since this was only my first, I was low on the list of have-to-be-seen places that evening. Elfie and Darlene arrived, with a cache of cocaine, and two male friends as escorts. Darlene and one of the two boys disappeared in the bathroom for most of the remainder of the night, exiting only when somebody had to go, using the room as their mirror for the ingestion of the cocaine, and distributing hits from the bathroom to the other guests. In those innocent but hedonistic days, one announced he was into the new drug of choice by wearing a little silver or gold spoon around his neck. Mine swung from my neck later on however. At this point, I had only ingested one drug through my nose, at a party Elfie and Darlene had thrown, and it was phencyclidine, an elephant tranquilizer, commonly called "angel dust" or PCP, which I thought was cocaine. During the party, I only went into my bathroom in order to take a piss. I soon found that having a hundred people traipse through your place called for constant awareness of the situation, so it didn't get out of hand.

Ruth must have noticed me and Elfie getting somewhat close in the cramped atmosphere at my place, where the party actually became quite raucous for a time right before midnight. I was incredibly drunk at this point, and Ruth went upstairs and hung out with Paul, who it was later rumored had been making out with her, massaging those mammoth mounds heaving from her chest. I got so drunk I actually passed out at my own party eventually, and then woke up right as my sister and her husband arrived, but the press of people had already passed on by this time. Even when I was still sober enough to be a good host, the "melding" of the different cliques didn't ever happen. People from one would arrive after another had left, or else the crush of people was just so great that I couldn't see the actual interplay of too many people. It was after the party that Ruth and I had a conversation relating to breaking up, and she walked o