Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 January, the 13th, 1956

   It was a Land of Oz Moment - like when Dorothy stepped out of her drab
sepia farmhouse into the bright Technicolor world of wonder.

   I knew that I was still in Texas City.  No tornado lifted Franz Kohfeldt
Elementary School up to Oz - Oz came into my boring little sixth grade
classroom and inalterably changed my boring little life.

   After Miss French left the room, Carolyn Green pulled a transistor radio
out of her purse and turned it on.  Suddenly, she cranked the volume all
the way up, got up on her desktop and danced to Carl Perkins singing "Blue
Suede Shoes." A couple of other girls got up and danced between the desks.
Other kids were clapping their hands and moving in their seats.  Carolyn's
desk was directly behind mine, and when I turned, I caught myself looking
up her dress at white cotton panties that she had obviously outgrown She
looked down at me and grinned.

   I had always been the quiet, shy, polite type.  I never got into
trouble, but that music made me want to get up and dance.  Carolyn made me
want to dance.  I don't remember standing up and using my chair for a
stepping stool.  It seemed like I was magically transported up onto my
desk. I was dancing, clapping to the beat and grinning like an idiot.  The
feeling was almost orgasmic.  (I had my first ejaculation July 4, 1954 - so
I knew what an orgasm felt like, I just didn't know what it was called at
the time.)

   Rock `n' Roll lit up my life.  I had only recently been paying attention
to music.  Mostly, music was really yucky until I heard Gogi Grant sing
Wayward Wind, and somebody do Unchained Melody.  Those were the first songs
that really got to me, and made me want to sit down and listen.  Blue Suede
Shoes made me want to get up and dance.  I thought Rock Around the Clock
was cool, but not great.  Suddenly, Carolyn dropped down to her seat.

   "Gordon!" Miss French yelled.  "What are you doing?"

   I dropped to my chair, embarrassed and at a loss for words.

   "Well?"

   "I was dancing," whispered

   "Why were you dancing on top of your desk?"

   "It's Friday," someone said.  And I nodded eagerly.

   Miss French tried desperately to maintain a stern face.  A girl giggled
and Miss French cracked up.  The entire class was laughing when the bell
rang.  She beckoned me to her desk as the other students grabbed up their
stuff and rushed out.  "What was that all about?" she asked, still
chuckling.

   I told the truth, except for the part about looking at Carolyn's
panties.

   "Don't Step on My Blue Suede Shoes?"

   "Yes ma'am.  It's really cool."

   "I don't want this to happen again.  Is that clear?"

   "Yes Ma'am."

   "I'm surprised, you're always so quiet and shy, and now, you want to
dance.  That's very expressive.  You're the brightest student I've ever
had. You're a talented visual artist.  You should think about expanding
your horizons, and get into the performing arts."

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   "Go on.  Enjoy your weekend."

   "Enjoy yours too, Miss French."

   "I fully intend to," she smiled.  There was something overtly sexy about
her smile and the tone of voice.

   She was petite, blonde and had a nice figure.  Her breast were on the
small side of medium -an extra large grapefruit or maybe half of a large
cantaloupe.  My breast measurement technique came from a joke I had heard
in the fourth grade:

   A man was going to buy a bra for his wife, and the clerk asked what
size.

   "I don't know."

   "Two halves of a watermelon?"

   "No."

   "A cantaloupe?"

   "No."

   "A grapefruit?"

   "No."

   "An orange?"

   "No."

   "A lemon?"

   "No."

   "An egg?"

   "That's it - two eggs, over easy."

   We left the building and she turned to the right, toward the parking
lot. I turned to the left toward the bicycle racks, then looked back to
watch her walk.  She was very sensuous.  Her hips didn't sway a lot.  She
was feline.  Like a cheetah or panther.  Her strides were long, slow,
graceful and confident, with one foot coming down directly in front of the
other.  On sand, her footprints would be in a straight line, not staggered,
like most people's.  Her face wasn't what you'd call drop-dead gorgeous. 
It was a Plain-Jane kind of face, except for the eyes.  She had "fuck me"
eyes.  She gave me a hard-on, but at 13 years old, I got erections for no
reason at all.

   I got on my bicycle and headed for the city park, where I could jack
off. There was a stand of oleander bushes with a three or four foot
diameter clearing in the center.  I discovered it a few years earlier when
I went in to hide from my little brother, Bill.

   My dick was out and being stroked before I got into the clearing.  It
was too cold for leisurely masturbation.  I needed quick relief, and got
it. Jacking off had become my favorite activity since my first ejaculation
18 months earlier.

   It had been a frightening experience.  I wasn't prepared.  Sex was never
discussed in our home.  My father never engaged in displays of affection.
Mom usually gave him a quick peck on the lips before he left to go to work,
but I never saw them hugging and kissing.

   When other kids - even my best friends - started talking about nasty
stuff, I'd walk away.  I was a good boy.  I wanted people to believe that I
was a good boy.  I wanted to be a Southern Baptist preacher.  When I was
four years old, my uncle Hasting caught me playing with his 4-year-old
daughter in Grandpa O'Donnell's tool shed.  Kathleen told me that she'd
show me hers if I'd show her mine.  I pushed my shorts and briefs down to
my ankles.  She pushed her panties down to her ankles and raised her dress.
She didn't have a thing!

   Her crotch looked like my Uncle Braxton's chin.  There was a deep cleft
in it.  She reached out and fondled my pecker, making it hard and tingly. I
touched the little fatty mound between her legs, then explored the cleft
with my forefinger, and discovered a little moist tunnel.  It felt hot as
my finger went deeper.  Sunlight blinded me as the door flew open, and
Uncle Hasting snatched my up by my left arm and dragged me into Granpa's
house, where he flung me down on the carpet in the center of the parlor in
front of Granpa, Granma and all five of my aunts.  Mom and Dad were in
Chicago, looking for a place to live.  Dad had been hired as a machinist at
Nabisco.

   Uncle Hasting pointed at me, as I scrambled to pull up my shorts, and
ranted about me molesting and abusing his innocent little angel.  I
couldn't understand everything he said, but I caught the drift.  I was a
dirty, evil little pervert who should be castrated.  I understood, in no
uncertain terms, that sex was nasty and filthy and forbidden.  I wanted to
be good, not evil.

   "That's enough!" Granpa snapped.  "Leave the boy to me."

   "But..."

   "No buts, Hasting.  You've said enough.  Now, shut up."

   "Come with me, Boy," Granpa said softly, taking my hand and leading me
out to his big, black Plymouth.  We got in and he drove to a drug store in
downtown Shreveport where he bought me a chocolate soda, and ruffled my
hair.  "Don't fret, my boy, it'll be O.K."

   As I brought the straw to my mouth, I caught an unusual scent, and
immediately realized that it came from my finger.  It was a delicate, musky
scent.  I put my finger to my nose and sniffed.

   "You're going to be all right, my boy," Granpa chuckled, mussing my
hair. "You're going to be all right."

   Later that year, we were living in a residential hotel, where Dad worked
part time as maintenance man, and Mom worked as assistant manager to help
with the rent.  Bill and I were making the rounds with Dad when he walked
in on a boy masturbating in one of the communal bathrooms.

   "What the hell do you think you're doing, you dirty little pervert?" he
bellowed.  "Get out of here.  I'm going to tell your parents what you were
doing.  You better stay away from my boys.  If I ever catch you near them,
I'll kill you."

   "What was he doing, Daddy?" Bill asked.

   "You don't need to know," Dad said.  "Y'all just stay away from him. 
Tell me if he gets anywhere near you."

   My next bit of sex education came on my first day of kindergarten.  They
had the students lined up my grades, getting us ready to enter the school.
I must have said something because a big boy in the first grade line
pointed at me and said, "Hay, you guys, we got ourselves a Johnny Reb.  Say
something Johnny Reb."

   "What do you want me to say?"

   Everyone laughed, like I had told the funniest joke on earth.

   "You sound so stupid," the big boy said.  "I bet you don't even know
where babies come from."

   "They come from their mama's bellies," I replied.

   "Where to they come out?" he asked lewdly.  "And how do they get there
in the first place."

   I had never thought about that before.  "I don't know.  Where do they
come out?  How do they get in there?"

   "Why don't you ask your Mama, dumb ass rebel?" I was speechless.  I
couldn't understand why he hated me.  The war had been over for a long time
- before Mom and Dad were born.

   "We kicked your stupid rebel asses," he laughed, stepping out of his
line and pushing me.

   I lost my balance and fell on my butt.  I looked up and saw that I was
surrounded by a bunch of laughing, leering Yankees.  I was scared enough
for the fight or flight reaction set in, and the next thing I knew, my fist
smashed into the loudmouth's nose, and he staggered backwards.  Someone
grabbed my arms from behind, and I heel-kicked his shin.  He let go and I
spun around and kicked his other knee, then spun around again and punched
loudmouth's mouth, busting his lip, and cutting my knuckles on his teeth.
The principal snatched me up and took me to his office.

   He told me to report any trouble to teachers instead of taking matters
into my own hands from then on, and let me go to class.

   A couple of hours later, I raised my hand and told my teacher that I had
to go to the boys room.  She said that I'd have to wait until potty time.

   "But I gotta go bad," I whined.

   "You'll just have to hold it for a little while."

   I peed in my pants, and it dripped onto the floor.

   "Johnny Reb wet his pants," the little dark haired girl next to me
giggled, pointing at the growing urine puddle on the floor.

   The teacher stood and started toward me.

   I stood, grabbed my chair and threw it at her.

   I was later told that I fractured her shin.  I was expelled from school
on my first day of kindergarten.

   Dad defended me.  That was the only time in my life that he ever stood
up for me.  "Potty time?" he said derisively into the phone.  "I never
heard of such.  When someone's gotta go, they gotta go.  They can't wait
for no potty time."

   He listened for a while, then said, "My boy may not be the brightest kid
on the block, but he ain't stupid enough to pick a fight with a bunch of
bigger kids.  It's obvious that he was just defending himself against
bullies." I think that he was proud of me for kicking Yankee ass.

   That night, after I had gone to bed, Mom came out of the shower, with a
white bath towel turbaned around her raven hair, wearing a pink chenille
robe.

   "Mama?"

   "Yes, son?"

   "How ...  er ...  where do babies come out of their mommies' bellies?"

   Mom's eyes sparkled and she grinned mischievously.  She opened her robe,
touched the thick, black bushy triangle of hair between her legs and said
softly, "You and Bill came out here, Gordon." I gawked.  Her huge breasts
were exposed.

   I was going to ask how we got into her belly when day whined,
"Flor-ence! Cover yourself and get to bed." Dad's voice got whiny whenever
he was straining to control his temper.

   Mom looked irritated and turned her head to face him, holding the robe
open a couple of seconds longer.  I thought I caught a glimpse of pink,
where I knew her cleft should be.  Then she turned and ran to her bed.  I
could hear her whispering, but couldn't make out what she was saying.

   "Behave yourself, Flo," Dad hissed.

   My health deteriorated that winter.  I had a tonsillectomy, and was in
and out of the hospital a couple of more times with flu or ear infections.

   "That boy needs to be moved to a warmer climate, or we'll have to
perform a mastoidectomy," a doctor said.

   Mom and Bill and I moved to Grandad Hyde's farm in north Louisiana, just
south of Pleasant Hill.  I don't remember much about that school year,
except that I got into a fight over my Yankee accent.  Again, it was with a
bigger boy who didn't think that I'd fight back.

   TEXAS

   Mom told us that we were going to move to Texas.  TEXAS!  We were
elated.

   Texas turned out to be a huge disappointment.  We initially moved into a
stucco cabin in the South Houston Motor Courts on Highway 3 in the early
summer of 1950.  South Houston was a motley little accumulation of mostly
vacant one-story brick storefront buildings.  The train depot closed after
the war, and it looked like it was rapidly becoming a ghost town.

   There was a white two-story wood frame house in a large pasture south of
the motor court.  The lower floor was a mechanic's garage.  The couple who
lived there had a plump, blonde five-year-old daughter.  One Sunday
afternoon, she and I found ourselves alone together in a tractor shed,
about 50 yards from her house.  The next thing I knew, we were exposing
ourselves to each other.  She was wearing a frilly white dress with tiny
red roses.  Her panties were white with a rose print that nearly matched
the dress.  She fondled my dick and I fingered her pussy.  Then, I had the
most amazingly depraved thought.  I wondered if I could stick my pecker
into her little moist tunnel.

   Just as the tip of my dick touched her crevice, there was noise and
sudden movement behind me.  I spun around, shoving my limp member back into
my pants, and saw a scruffy gray tabby cat chasing a field mouse.  I
remembered Uncle Hasting catching me in the tool shed, and Dad catching the
boy masturbating in the communal bathroom.  I was overcome with guilt, and
too afraid to resume our little game.  I swore then that I'd be a good boy
for the rest of my life.

   We moved to Texas City the next week, and I never saw the little blonde
again.  I don't remember exactly when it was that I decided to become a
Baptist preacher, but I think that it happened during one of our preacher's
hellfire and brimstone sermons sometime in 1952.  In addition to
overcompensating for my sinful sexual desires, I think that I craved
respect, and preachers were universally respected at that time.

   My next sexual memory was at La Marque Elementary School.  We had moved
to a house in La Marque in the summer of `52 for my fourth grade year.  It
wasn't a good year for me.  I couldn't concentrate.  I couldn't focus.  I
got set back to the third grade.  Testosterone was beginning to flow, I
think.  I don't remember playing with myself, or even thinking much about
sex that year until Queen Elizabeth's Coronation.  Everyone was called into
the cafeteria, where televisions had been set up to watch the procession
and ceremony.  A small red headed boy who sat to my right nudged me with
his elbow and beckoned me closer.  I leaned over, and he whispered in my
ear, "Does your thing get hard when you touch it?"

   I shook my head violently, trying to deny the existence of my penis, and
returning my attention to the TV.  Something touched my crotch, and I
looked down to see the boy's hand.  "Yes, it does," he whispered.  "Mine
does too." He was playing with his dick through his pants.

   Soon, I was playing with mine.  I watched him while he looked around to
make certain that no one else was watching, then he watched me while I
looked around.  That was the last day of school, and I never saw the boy
again.  We moved into our new home in Texas City that summer.  Our house
was one of the first completed in the Wayside III subdivision.  Bill and I
and our friends played in the houses under construction all summer and into
the school year.

   That was the year that I lost my first fight.  Gene Williams was teasing
a girl, and I came to her defense.  He ran away, and I chased him.  I
rounded the corner of a house, and realized too late, that he had quit
running.  I saw his fist just before it hit my right eye.  The next thing I
knew, he was on top of me, pounding my face.  A woman came out of the house
and broke up the fight.  Gene told her that I was the school bully, and
deserved a beating.  She scolded me for picking on other kids.  It was
humiliating.

   Nothing else memorable happened until the morning of the Fourth of July,
1954, at my Uncle Carl's place in Homa, Louisiana.  I awoke a little before
sunrise on the Fourth, and decided to go for a walk along the banks of the
bayou that snaked around the property.  Steam rose from the sluggish, murky
water, creating a low fog.  Gray Spanish moss hung from the cypress trees,
creating a mysterious atmosphere.  The sun rose quickly, burning away the
fog, green sunlight filtered through the canopy, illuminating the lush
verdant underbrush.

   I had to pee, and took my dick out.  While pissing, I noticed a tick on
the head of my dick, right on the flare.  I plucked it off, and it
immediately began to itch.  I started to scratch, when I remembered Mom
telling me to rub, not scratch, insect bites.  I rubbed and rubbed and
rubbed, and the more I rubbed, the better it felt.  I held my hard cock in
my right hand, with the pad of my thumb covering the bite site.  I was
jacking off for the first time.

   Suddenly, it felt like I had to pee again, but it was a more intense
sensation that I had ever felt before.  I stopped stroking, and tried to
pee, but nothing came out.  I stroked some more, and the sensation
returned. I stopped again and tried unsuccessfully to pee.  Again I resumed
stroking.  On the third or fourth time, I decided to keep stroking until I
peed.  The pressure built and built and built, until the sensation was
almost unbearable - almost painful.  Then, thick white stuff erupted from
my pee hole.  It squirted and squirted and squirted.  I was afraid that it
would never stop.

   I thought that the white stuff was pus, and that I had seriously injured
myself by playing too hard with my penis.  I knew that I couldn't tell Mom
and Dad, because they'd know what I had done.  For the first time in my
life, I became aware of my own mortality.  I believed that I may have
fatally damaged something inside and that the infection would spread and
kill me.

   I swore to God that I'd never do it again, if he cured me and let me
live.  But that damned bite site started itching again and I rubbed again.
I jacked off three more times before going back to the house.  After a
couple of weeks, I realized that I wasn't going to die, and masturbated
three, four or more times a day, every day.

   My voice started changing around the previous Christmas season.  Before
the end of the school year, I had a deep voice that attracted funny looks.
I was a scrawny 11-year-old kid with a radio announcer voice.  This brings
us back to the oleander bushes, where I pumped cum onto the dark green
dagger shaped leaves.  I put my pecker in my pants, and peddled home.

   "Hey, here's Mr.  Rock `n' Roll," Bill said as I walked into the house.

   I glowered at him.

   "Mom already heard before I got home," he said defensively.

   "Two mothers called, asking about it," Mom said.  "They overheard their
kids talking about it.  No one actually snitched on you."

   My face burned, and I knew that I was bright red.

   "I called Miss French," Mom said.  "And she said that you're not in
trouble, and that she didn't think that it was anything to worry about, and
that it would be a bad idea to discourage you from dancing and expressing
yourself.  Don't Step on My Blue Suede Shoes?"

   "Does Dad know?"

   "He's still asleep, but I'm sure someone will tell him soon," Mom said.
"It's come as a shock to everyone who knows you."

   Bill shook his head.  "If that was me, or just about anybody else, we'd
be in the principal's office getting licks.  It must be great, being
teacher's pet."

   "I'm not a teachers pet!"

   "Oh really?" He said.  Then, in a falsetto voice, "Oh, you must be
Gordon's little brother.  I hope you're as good a student as he is.  He's
so intelligent."

   "Really?" Mom asked, beaming.

   "Every ...  year," Bill moaned.  "I'm so sick of being Gordon's little
brother."

   "You nearly said a bad word, didn't you?" Mom chided.  Bill gave a
disgusted shrug.  When grownups weren't around, Bill did enough cussing for
both of us.  I didn't cuss at all.  I was the only boy I knew who didn't
cuss.

   The bedroom door opened, and Dad came out.  "How's our little dancer?"
he asked sarcastically, making the words `little dancer' sound disgustingly
effeminate.

   Our mouths dropped open.

   "How did you...?" Mom asked.

   "I just called Herb to tell him that I'd give him a ride to work
tonight, and he told me about it.  It's the talk of the town.  You're
famous, Gordon," he said, frowning at me.  "Or is it infamous?" Even though
Dad was Southern Baptist, he had no deep religious conviction against
smoking, drinking and dancing, because he smoked and drank and danced. 
"You got up and danced on a desk in class?  Were you drunk?"

   "No sir."

   "What in hell was going through your head?  That's plum crazy!"

   "Miss French said that it's O.K.," Mom said.  "There's no problem.  She
said that we shouldn't discourage him from dancing.  He won't be doing it
in class any more."

   "Don't discourage?  I never heard such.  They didn't tan his hide?  He
ain't suspended?"

   "No sir."

   "What in Hell is this world coming to?"

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   "In my day..."

   "Drop it, Luther," Mom whispered.

   He gave her a hard look and started to say something, but she stared him
down and slowly shook her head.  Mom and Dad rarely argued in our presence,
and Mom usually let Dad have his way.  Ninety nine percent of the time, he
was the boss; the king of his castle.  But whenever Mom stood up to him, he
quickly backed down.  Whenever she lowered her voice and called him
`Luther' instead of `Ray,' he knew that it was time to shut up.

   "I'm taking the car to Harvey's for an oil change and lube," Dad said,
and stalked out of the house.  "I want that lawn mowed and trimmed by the
time I get back."

   "Yessir," I said.

   "Yes sir," Bill said, and mouthed the word `asshole.' Dad and I never
liked each other.  He never beat me, and rarely ever spanked me, but he
enjoyed treating me like an idiot.

   Mom, on the other hand, believed that I was God's gift to the human
race. After I started drawing and painting at a very young age, she was
positive that I was the world's next Leonardo da Vinci.

   She was usually an enthusiastic supporter of anything that I wanted to
do, except for my aspirations to be a preacher.  She didn't actually
discourage me, but she was unusually unenthusiastic whenever the subject
came up.

   Bill and I mowed and trimmed the lawn before he went to Rex O ` Daniel's
house to spend the night.  My best friends, Buddy Osborne and Yogi Blair
were going out of town for the weekend.  Otherwise, they would have spent
the night at my house.  I rarely spent the night at their houses, because I
had the coolest and sexiest Mom in Texas City.  All of my friends loved
Mom. I think that some had serious crushes on her.  I was secretly in
love/lust with her myself.  I frequently masturbated using her panties.  I
usually wrapped one around my cock and jacked off while sniffing the crotch
of another pair.

   I put the lawnmower, rakes and trimmer in the garage, then went into the
bathroom and showered.  "Gordon?" Mom said meekly while I was showering. 
"I've gotta pee.  Would it be O.K.  if I did it while you shower?  I gotta
go real bad.  Sorry."

   "Yeah, Mom.  It's O.K." I said as my cock instantly twanged into a full,
throbbing erection.  I stroked it, knowing that she was just on the other
side of the shower wall, sitting on the toilet.  "Let me know when it's
safe to come out," I said.

   "O.K., honey," she said.  "I'll let you know.  And after you're through
showering, I'd like to talk some more about the dancing thing.  Miss French
thinks that it's a good thing, and that I should encourage you to express
yourself in creative ways, and to encourage you to think about the
performing arts as well as visual arts."

   I was stroking hard and fast.  "O.K., Mom."

   "Come to me," she said.  "As soon as you finish."

   I came, and came and came.

   "I'm through," she said, and I heard the toilet flush.

   I toweled off, threw my clothes in the dirty clothes hamper, and put my
flannel bathrobe on.  Mom was sitting on my bed when I went into my room.
She patted the bed, motioning for me to sit beside her.  I did, and my
erection returned.

   "Bill was right, you know," Mom said.

   "Right about what?"

   "If Mrs.  French caught anyone else doing what you were doing, they
would have been in big trouble."

   "Carolyn was dancing on her desk, and other kids were dancing in the
isles.  They didn't get in trouble."

   "If she punished them, she'd have to punish you too."

   I couldn't think of anything to say.

   "You're an artist, Gordon.  You're a creative genius."

   I rolled my eyes.  "Right.  That's why I get straight `A's." I rarely
got an `A.' I was basically a B and C student.

   "Miss French says that you're bored.  Everything's too easy for you and
you're not interested in mundane stuff, so you don't try."

   I squirmed, trying to conceal my erection.

   "I know that you're uncomfortable, talking about yourself and that it
embarrasses you to have me bragging about you," she said, putting an arm
around my shoulder, and pulling me closer to her.  I felt the softness of
her right breast press against my left arm.

   I crossed my left leg over my right to conceal the burgeoning bulge in
my robe so quickly that the robe slipped off my leg, but not enough to
expose myself.  I re-covered the leg and blushed.

   "Gordon," she said seriously.  "All great artists are ...well, ... 
different.  They don't play by everyone else's rules.  It's part of ...  uh
...  the creative process, I guess.  Conventional people are not creative.
Creative people are not conventional - they live unconventional lives. 
They're ...just different, and it's O.K.  for them to be different.  In
fact, it's almost necessary for them to be different." I swallowed hard.  I
had always felt like I was born in the wrong place or at the wrong time. 
"I've always felt different," I said aloud.  "Kind of like I don't belong."

   "Don't be sad," she laughed.  "That's not a bad thing.  Would you want
to be like everyone else in this boring burg?"

   My mouth dropped open.

   "Yes.  It's boring.  Without people like you, the whole God damned world
would be too boring for a sane person to live in.  Look around.  The only
thing these people think about is money.  All they want to do is buy more
crap.  More and more and more crap.  All of these idiots let advertising
companies do their thinking for them.  Keep up with the Joneses.  Buy, buy,
buy.  They might say that the best things in life are free, but you can bet
your sweet ass that they don't believe a word of it.  They're a god damned
bunch of cattle, following the herd."

   I was stunned.  Mom rarely cursed.

   We heard the car pull into the driveway.

   "We'll continue this conversation later," she said, patting my left
thigh.  "I'll support you in anything you want to do.  I'll do anything and
everything I can to help you grow as an artist." Her hand lingered on my
thigh, dangerously close to my throbbing erection.  As she walked away, the
tip of her little finger brushed lightly against the flannel bulge.  Maybe
`brushed' is an exaggeration.  The tip of her little finger barely touched
it.  I doubted that she even noticed, but it felt like an electric jolt to
me.

   "Gordon!  Bill!" Dad yelled.  "Y'all didn't trim around the Chinaberry
tree."

   "Sorry," I said.  "I'll take care of it." I was suddenly demoted from
creative genius to incompetent nincompoop.

   I was trimming around the tree in the back yard, when Johnny Schnider,
our 11-year-old neighbor, yelled, "Hey, Mr.  Rock `n' Roll."

   "Give me a break."

   "Far out, man.  And you didn't get in trouble or anything.  You must
have a really cool teacher."

   "Yeah, she is pretty cool."

   "The nuns would whack the shit out of me if I tried anything like that,"
he grumbled.  "I'll be glad when I get out of that fucking prison and get
to go to public schools." Johnny and Bill loved to cuss.  "Your old man
didn't kick your ass?"

   "He wanted to, but Mom stopped him."

   "You got the coolest Mom in town," He said.  "And the sexiest."

   "How would you like me talking about your mother like that?"

   "If you told me that I had the sexiest mother in town, I'd tell you to
have your eyes checked, or to go and see a head doctor." Johnny's mother
was the epitome of a frumpy housewife.  She always wore a shapeless
housedress and had her hair up in curlers.  She dressed up for Mass, but
they went to church before dawn, so I never saw her.  She was constantly
bitching about something.  "Your Mom always looks sooo goood."

   I got a hard-on thinking about him thinking about Mom like that.  I
suddenly visualized all of my friends whacking off, with thought bubbles of
Mom floating over their heads.

   "What are you grinning about?" Johnny asked.

   "Was I grinning?"

   "From ear to fucking ear."

   "Sorry."

   "Don't be sorry, just tell me what you were thinking."

   "I don't remember."

   "Bullshit," Johnny huffed.  "You know, when I'm around you, I wish that
I could be a mind reader.  Your mind's always going off out there,
somewhere.  I can see it in your eyes."

   "You have a great imagination, Johnny."

   "Pop says that you got a loose screw, that you ain't playing with a full
deck, you're one brick shy of a load.""

   "Maybe I'm just unconventional."

   "You can say that again."

   "Maybe I'm just unconventional."

   "Hardy har har."

   Mom called me in to eat.

   Dad was sitting at the head of the table, steaming.  He was pissed, and
wanted to get on my case.  Mom obviously had a talk with him.  He was not
happy about being muzzled, and I didn't want to do anything to make him
unhappier.

   When he couldn't hold his anger any longer, he directed it at his second
favorite target of derision; Niggers.  The bus boycott in Montgomery,
Alabama, had lasted a full month.  "Uppity Niggers," he huffed.  They want
to integrate schools and busses and everything else under the sun.  Next
thing you know, the Supreme Court will order us to let them marry our
daughters."

   It's funny, I never heard anyone worrying about black women wanting to
marry white boys.  They only worried about the men "marrying" white girls.
Of course, when they said `marry,' you knew they meant Fuck.  Big black
bucks wanted to ram those monstrous black cocks into tight, white virginal
vaginas.  I couldn't understand why Dad and all of my other relatives hated
and feared niggers.  It was totally illogical.  We were the superior race,
I was taught.  That was obvious.  White folks ran the world.  Black people
were intellectually inferior, and almost subhuman.  I wanted to say, "Let
them integrate.  I don't care.  It won't take them long to realize that
they can't keep up, and they'll go back to their own schools." Superior
beings do not hate and fear inferior beings.  I was also raised to be a
southern gentleman.  That meant that you didn't kick a man when he was
down. You gave the helpless a helping hand.  You did good.  All of my
redneck relatives sounded petty and spiteful and stupid.

   "You better watch out, Gordon," Dad said.  "They're sending their little
pickaninnies to school year round.  If you don't watch out, you'll be
working for Niggers."

   My father's stupidity never ceased to amaze me.  I figured that Negro
kids went to summer school for the same reason white kids did - they failed
a subject and had to take it over again.

   Dad finally excused himself and went into the living room and watched
TV. I rarely watched television.

   Most of the programs were really dumb.

   After washing, drying and putting the dishes and pots and pans away, I
went to my room and sketched faces from National Geographic Magazine
photographs.  I couldn't do exact likenesses, but they definitely looked
like human beings.

   "May I look?" Mom asked, standing at the door.  I nodded and held the
sketches out for her.  She took them, sat down beside me, and looked at the
sketches and leafed through the magazine, comparing.  "I still can't do
exact likenesses," I said.  "I just use the faces for a basic guideline."

   "These are very good," Mom said.  "Keep at it.  You're getting better
and better."

   I shrugged and blushed.

   "Why didn't you draw this one?" she chuckled, pointing at a bare
breasted African woman.

   "I'm just practicing on faces right now," I said.  I kept my nude
drawings hidden in the attic above the garage, along with a Playboy
Magazine and a Sunshine Magazine I found under a vacant, boarded up house
in a small wooded area a couple of blocks from our house.

   "Let me know when you're ready to go beyond faces," she said.  "I found
an anatomy book for artists at a garage sale that you might find useful."

   "Really?" I couldn't conceal my enthusiasm.

   "Really," she laughed, patting my thigh.  "Let me know when you're
finished practicing on faces, and are ready to start drawing bodies."

   "I'm ready," I said.

   She laughed, and thought about it for a minute, then cleared her throat.
"I haven't told your father about it yet, and it might be better if I kind
of eased him into the idea of his son drawing nudes.  You know what a prude
he can be sometimes.  Maybe we should wait a little while before I give it
to you." I groaned, and slumped in disappointment.

   "I'll wait until he goes to work, and dig it out of the closet and give
it to you.  I'll get him used to the idea later.  O.K.?"

   I nodded eagerly.

   Again, her hand settled lightly on my thigh, with her little finger a
small fraction of an inch from the bulge in my blue denim.  "We'll keep it
a secret for just a little while.  I don't want you to feel guilty about
your work or have to hide it, like those in the attic," she whispered.  "I
promise that within a month you'll be able to leave all of your drawings
out in the open for everyone to see, instead of hiding them like they're
some dirty little secret."

   "You really think Dad'll go for it?"

   "He won't like it one little bit.  I know that.  I just want to prepare
him for it, and let him know that he can't give you any crap about it."

   "I don't want y'all getting into a fight over me."

   "Don't you worry.  I can handle your father.  There'll be no fighting.
Right now, I want to give him some time to get over the `desktop dancing'
thing before bringing up the naked women thing - well, naked women, men and
children.  The book has them all." She squeezed my thigh as she got up and
left the room, closing the door behind her.  The little finger didn't touch
the bulge this time, but it felt like my cock was straining to touch the
finger, and it might have done it if she hadn't moved her hand away when
she did.  Dad left around 10:30 to work the 11 to 7 graveyard shift at
Union Carbide.  I was wearing my blue pajamas and quickly put my robe on as
additional protection from exposing my erection - erection protection.

   Mom tapped on my door and I quickly opened it.  She stood there in her
emerald green baby doll pajamas, holding out a thick textbook, Anatomy for
Artists.  I took it from her, sat on the edge of my bed, and started slowly
leafing through it.

   "It has everything," Mom said.  "Musculature, skeletal structure, the
body proportions for different ages, men women, children."

   It was a wonderful book.  She was right.  It had everything I needed to
know about anatomy.  It also had full nudity, something lacking in Playboy
at that time.  Sunshine Magazine had photos of nudes, but the penises,
vaginas and nipples were all airbrushed out.

   Mom sat next to me, looking at the same photos and drawings that I was
looking at.  When I turned to the page with the first photographs of a
totally nude woman in various poses, I looked up shyly at Mom.  She smiled.
"You like?"

   I gulped and nodded, afraid to try to speak.

   "I thought you'd appreciate it," she said, putting her arm around my
shoulder and squeezing.  "I was so happy when I found it at that garage
sale.  I wanted to show it to you immediately, but I didn't think that you
were ready yet, until I was putting the Christmas decorations away in the
attic today and found the treasures you hid away up there.  I was going to
talk to your father about it, but the Mr.  Rock `n' Roll thing came up
before I had the chance."

   I groaned.

   She squeezed my shoulder again, pulling me against her.  "I'm afraid
that you may be stuck with that nick name.  You may as well get used to
it."

   I was grateful for the book covering my crotch.  I was wearing an old,
stretched out pair of briefs, and my cock had slipped through the leg hole,
and was throbbing against my inner thigh.

   I continued leafing through the book.  We came to a photograph of a male
model, wearing a pouch that covered his penis and testicles.  "Not fair,"
Mom pouted.  When we came to a photograph of a fully nude male, she said,
"That's much better."

   I looked up at her, surprised.

   She smiled and said softly, "I like looking at naked men at least as
much as you like looking at naked women."

   When we finished the book, she stretched, yawned, and said.  "It's past
my bedtime." Again, her hand came down on my thigh and lightly squeezed. 
This time, the tip of her little finger touched the tip of my throbbing
cock, and I ejaculated, groaning, as her finger moved away.

   "Gordon?  What's wrong?"

   "Cramp," I said, doubling over to cover the massive wet spot on my PJs.
"Are you sick?"

   "Uh ...  No.  I don't think so.  I've been a little constipated lately.
I have to go to the bathroom," I said, closing the robe as I stood.

   I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet for a while.  The
ejaculation didn't diminish my erection, and I wanted to masturbate, but
Mom was standing outside the door, asking if I was all right.  I flushed
and opened the door.

   "Are you going to be okay?" Mom asked worriedly.

   "I'm okay now, Mom.  Don't worry."

   She kissed my cheek and went into her bedroom.  I went into my room,
stripped, pulled two pair of Mom's panties from under my pillow.  I put the
crotch of one to my nose, wrapped the other around my throbbing cock and
jacked off, hard and fast, ejaculating profusely into the sexy, silky
garment.

   The door burst open and Mom charged in.  She was standing over me before
realizing what I was doing.  "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry," she moaned,
backing away.  "I didn't mean to ...  er ...  I heard you moaning, and
thought you were sick." She backed out into the hall and closed the door.

   I buried my face into my pillow and sobbed.  I was humiliated.  My
beloved mother had caught me in a masturbating.

   "Gordon, Honey, are you all right?" she said through the door.  "May I
come in?  We need to talk.  I don't want you feeling guilty about what you
were doing.  Masturbation is normal, especially for boys your age." I
didn't want to face her.  I was too disgusted with myself.

   "Please, Gordon.  Let me in.  You'll feel better.  I guarantee it."

   I didn't say anything.  I couldn't say anything.

   "I'm coming in there in five seconds," Mom said.  "One.  Two.  Three
..."

   I quickly slipped under the covers and pulled them up to my chin.

   She walked in and sat on the side of my bed.  "You are not going to go
blind or crazy or grow hair on your palms.  You know that.  Don't you?"

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   "That's all bullshit, Gordon.  Everybody masturbates.  Why shouldn't
they?  It feels good.  It doesn't hurt anyone.  It feels wonderful.  It
gets painful or at least very uncomfortable if you don't release the
pressure.  Did I mention the fact that it feels good?"

   A chuckle escaped my mouth.  Mom's tone was humorous, not upset,
disgusted or angry.  Then I got worried.  "What about Onan, in the Bible?"

   "What about Onan?" She responded.

   "God killed him because he spilled his seed on the ground.  God hates
masturbators."

   "God did not kill him for masturbating.  Onan was killed because he
wouldn't make his sister-in-law pregnant after her husband died.  The Jews
back then had a rule that whenever a man died before producing a son, his
brother was to make the widow pregnant, and the son would be raised as the
dead man's son.  Onan didn't want his son to be raised as his brother's
son, so he practiced coitus interruptus."

   "Coitus interruptus?"

   "Onan pulled his penis out of his sister-in-law's vagina, and ejaculated
his sperm onto the ground, so she wouldn't get pregnant," Mom said, then
grinned, "Or, maybe he enjoyed copulating with her, and knew that he would
have to stop doing it when she got pregnant."

   "What!?!" I asked, sitting bold upright.  "That's not right!"

   She grabbed my bible from the nightstand and thumbed through it until
she found the passage.  "Here," she said.  "Read it yourself.  Read it
aloud, word for word."

   I read, "And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD;
and the LORD slew him.  And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's
wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.  And Onan knew that
the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his
brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give
seed to his brother.  And the thing which he did displeased the LORD:
wherefore he slew him also."

   "Read it again, slowly."

   I read it again, and sat there, stunned.

   "When your Mamma tells you that the Bible says something, believe her,"
Mom said.  "I know what the so-called Good Book says better than any of the
bible-thumping hypocrites in this Podunk town."

   "But you're Catholic," I stammered.  "Or you were Catholic."

   "I was excommunicated for marrying outside of The Church.  I didn't
matter to me, because I didn't believe in any of that crap."

   "Where'd you learn so much about the Bible?"

   Mom sighed and smiled, "Father O'Bannon.  He was an excellent teacher.
Most religious teachers teach you how to believe.  He taught me how to
learn.  They discourage questions.  He encourages it."

   I re-read the Onan story in silence.  Before then, I had thought it was
about jacking off, not about somebody fucking his sister-in-law, and
pulling his cock out before cumming.

   "Read on, Son.  See how she finally gets pregnant."

   According to the Bible, Judah was a little leery about risking his
youngest boy after two of his sons died after fucking Tamar.  She got
impatient and dressed like a whore.

   "Read aloud, please mom said," pointing out the pertinent passage.

   "When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an harlot; because she had
covered her face.  And he turned unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I
pray thee, let me come in unto thee; (for he knew not that she was his
daughter in law.) And she said, What wilt thou give me, that thou mayest
come in unto me?  And he said, I will send thee a kid from the flock.  And
she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, till thou send it?  And he said, What
pledge shall I give thee?  And she said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and
thy staff that is in thine hand.  And he gave it her, and, and she
conceived by him.  And she arose, and went away, and laid by her vail from
her, and put on the garments of her widowhood.  And Judah sent the kid by
the hand of his friend the Adullamite, to receive his pledge from the
woman's hand: but he found her not.  Then he asked the men of that place,
saying, Where is the harlot, that was openly by the way side?  And they
said, There was no harlot in this place.  And he returned to Judah, and
said, I cannot find her; and also the men of the place said, that there was
no harlot in this place.  And Judah said, Let her take it to her, lest we
be shamed: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her.  And it
came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying,
Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is
with child by whoredom.  And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be
burnt.  When she was brought forth, she sent to her father in law, saying,
By the man, whose these are, am I with child: and she said, Discern, I pray
thee, whose are these, the signet, and bracelets, and staff.  And Judah
acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because
that I gave her not to Shelah my son.  And he knew her again no more."

   "She hath been more righteous than I," Mom repeated.  "That is an
understatement.  All of the Jewish patriarchs were dirty, rotten, evil
bastards - except Joseph.  He was the only decent human being out of the
whole bunch - the black sheep of the family - and he was also the only one
who didn't have one of the thirteen tribes named after him."

   I was in a state of shock, half listening to Mom and half visualizing
Judah fucking Tammar on a street corner.  The mental picture was a
cartoonish watercolor, like a Walt Disney animated version of Bible study
guide's illustrations.

   "He came in unto her," I whispered, not realizing that I had said it
aloud.

   "Yes, Gordon, He came in her.  Come is the biblical term for
ejaculation."

   I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was nude.  When I sat up, my
covers fell below my waist, nearly exposing my sparse patch of pubic hairs.
The holy bible weighed down my erection.

   Mom took the bible and returned it to its place on the nightstand. 
Relieved of the weight of the book, my cock stood at attention, tenting the
folds of sheet and thin wool blanket that covered it.  I quickly covered it
with my hands and blushed.

   "Closing the barn door after the horse got out?" Mom said, tousling my
hair with her right hand.  "There's no sense in being embarrassed now. 
I've seen it in all its glory.  You shouldn't be ashamed of your body,
Gordon.  In fact, from what I saw, you should be proud of it."

   I moved my hands away and looked at the tented fabric, then up at Mom,
who smiled as she reopened the Bible and pointed at a verse.  "Read this
aloud."

   "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very
good." I read.

   "And, HE allegedly made everything, meaning that our bodies are very
good, including our penises, vaginas and breasts." She flipped the page,
pointed to another verse and said, "Read this."

   "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

   "That's the way we're supposed to be," Mom said.  "Life is a marvelous
gift - a gift given for our enjoyment.  Do you believe in Santa Claus?"

   "Of course not," I laughed.  "I'm 13 years old."

   "Then you are aware that your father and I give you your Christmas
presents."

   "Yes."

   "Do we demand that you drop down on your knees and worship us for giving
us those gifts?" I shook my head.

   "What would you think if I bought you a Raleigh English racer for
Christmas or your birthday, then told you that you couldn't ride it or even
show it to anyone?  What if I told you that you had to cover it up, not
tell anyone you had it, and that you had to act like it never existed?"

   The concept was too dumb for words.  "Why give it to me at all?"

   "Exactly!" Mom laughed.  "Religions treat life as though it were a
punishment to be endured, and that physical enjoyment is evil.  Why do
people use the words, `Sinful' or `Decadent' to describe things that are
delicious - things that taste or feel or look VERY GOOD?"

   Everything Mom said made sense.  She was reasonable, rational, logical
and intelligent.  The Biblical God was unreasonable, irrational, illogical
and unintelligent.  I was suddenly overwhelmed with fear.  I trembled. 
"Don't worry, Honey.  Jehovah isn't going to strike me dead or rain fire
and brimstone down on our house.  If he was going to kill me for blasphemy,
I would have been dead before you were born."

   "You don't believe ..."

   "I believe that the bible is a collection of myths, legends and lies
used to keep people in line and to support the priesthood."

   "Are you an atheist?"

   "I'm a nature worshiper.  I worship Father Sun and Mother Earth.  I
worship Life and Love.  The other religions worship Death.  Their priests
and preachers use fear and shame and guilt to keep people in line."

   "But ..."

   "Read your bible," she said.  "I want you to read every word, from cover
to cover, Genesis to Revelation.  Read at least one chapter a day.  Read
what it actually says, not what preachers and Sunday school teachers say
that it says.  Ask yourself, `Would a Supreme Being - a loving God, an
all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present deity - say and do those things?'
Haven't you ever been appalled by some of the bible stories?"

   "Well ...  sort of, I guess.  The Tower of Babel - I wondered why God
didn't want it built, and didn't want people to work together.  Killing all
of the firstborn in Egypt didn't seem right and killing everybody in
Jericho, and ..." All of the doubts and questions I had suppressed suddenly
surfaced.  "Turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt.  The flood."

   "And you've felt guilty about thinking those thoughts."

   I shrugged my shoulders.

   "That's what religion is all about," Mom said.  "Shame, guilt and fear.
They want you to feel ashamed of having natural feelings and urges.  They
teach hate, not Love.  They preach fear, not joy."

   "Lies?"

   Jehovah told Adam and Eve that they would die on the day that they ate
the Forbidden Fruit - the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil.  But The Serpent told them that they wouldn't die, that their eyes
would be opened on the day they ate the fruit, and that they would become
as gods, knowing good and evil."

   I nodded.  Mom then turned to the Gospel of John, pointed, and said,
"Read."

   "Why do ye not understand my speech?  Even because ye cannot hear my
word.  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye
will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of
his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.  And because I tell you
the truth, ye believe me not."

   Mom sighed, "Murderer from the beginning.  Liar and the Father of Lies.
That describes the Old Testament God perfectly.  Remember, Jesus was
talking to the Scribes and Pharisees - the most learned and pious of the
Jews - when he said that."

   I was suddenly overwhelmed with a profound sense of dread.  I felt
nauseous, and thought that I was going to faint.  Mom placed her hand on
top of my head, and her warmth rushed through my entire being, washing away
all fear and dread, and filling me with a sense of joy.  I felt cleansed. I
felt free.  "Wow!" I said, grinning like an idiot.

   Mom kissed my forehead, smiled and whispered, "Behold, the man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil."

   "This is crazy," I exclaimed.  "Why do people keep believing these
lies?"

   "For the same reason you believed.  Guilt.  You're made to believe from
an early age, and made to feel guilty if you doubt.  If you question,
you're persecuted and hounded and ostracized.  Even today, smack dab in the
middle of the 20th Century, it's enforced.  You have to be careful."

   I took the Bible, turned back to Genesis, and re-read the third chapter,
then the Onan story.  Again, my visualization was an animated version of
Sunday School book illustrations.  I saw Onan pull his cartoon cock out of
Tammar's cunt and pump prodigious quantities of cum onto the ground.  "It
really wasn't about jac ...  masturbation," I said.

   Mom laughed, "Now, you're free to jack off without guilt.  You're free
to enjoy giving yourself pleasure.  Everyone does it, but the pleasure of
orgasm is immediately replaced with guilt, taking all of the joy out of it.
Now, you're free to bask in the glow of post orgasmic euphoria."

   "Post ...  what?"

   "Post orgasmic euphoria.  It's that wonderful relaxed, floaty feeling
that comes after you cum," she said.

   My cock was fully erect and throbbing when Mom took the bible and placed
it on the night stand.

   "I'm going to bed now.  Enjoy yourself, Honey," she said, smiling at my
tented covers.  As soon as Mom closed the bedroom door behind her, I was
stroking hard and fast.  In less than a dozen strokes, I had an explosive
ejaculation, shooting cum up to the bridge of my nose.  I tried to relax
and bask in the post orgasmic glow, free of guilt, but it didn't happen. 
The little white angel on my right shoulder was telling me that I was evil
and dirty and nasty, and I was going to burn in a fiery Hell for eternity
if I didn't repent.  The little red demon on my left shoulder was laughing
and telling the angel to fuck off.  "C'mon man, let the kid enjoy himself.
It feels so fucking good.  You know it does.  I bet you have a raging
hard-on under that white robe, and as soon as no body's looking, you're
going to whack off too, you fucking hypocrite." The eternal battle between
good and evil waged on in my head, until I told myself that Mom said that
it was okay.  The remembrance of Mom catching me in the act, and witnessing
my ejaculation, spurred another erection.  My mother had seen me jack off
and said that it was okay.  She said that it was good.  I fantasized about
her sitting on the side of my bed, smiling and watching me masturbate.  The
vision shifted, and I was ramming my rock hard, throbbing cock into Mom's
pussy.  My orgasm should have registered on the nearest Richter scale.  I
lay back and drifted off to sleep, and into my erotic dreamland of nymphs,
fairies, pixies and satyrs.  My dreamland was an enchanted forest with a
grotto.  In this dream, Mom was the head nymph.