Toodles
My initial training in the sexual arts left a lot to be desired. Literally. Since my parents never wandered around without clothes, I had no idea what their bodies looked like, much less anyone else's. They usually went to sleep a couple of hours after me, and my father always turned off all the lights in the house.
I was lying in bed at about 3:00 A.M. one night, thinking about nothing in particular, when my father got up to go to the bathroom. He had to pass by my room to get there, and since my door was open and he was wearing only his pajama top, I got a shadowy glimpse of his privates. I wasn't aware of the one penis/two balls setup, and it looked to me like he had a crotch full of swaying thumbs. I suppose the darkness added to the genital mystery.
I told one of my older girlfriends—she was nine—about it the next day, and she looked at me as if I had the brains of a matzo ball. “Oh, of course. Those are ‘toodles,’” she said. She wore that condescending look, as if it was one of those Latin medical terms only doctors use.
A real sophisticate.
So I started off with an inaccurate vision of men being all thumbs, in a manner of speaking, and the first name I heard for a man's apparatus would have been better suited to a breakfast cereal:
TOODLES Breakfast of Sluts
My second sexually explicit event—apart from those times when I benignly stared at the nude statues in the museum—was a watering-can tryst. Another girlfriend, Jessie—who was my age, seven—gave me a questionable lesson in copulation. She was either operating from a vague natural instinct of this-fits-in-here-nicely, or she'd seen some unusual behavior that she was mimicking. We were in her parents' basement, looking at the standard clutter that lives in such places, when she took a watering can down from a shelf and filled it with water. I thought we were going to spray the petunias, but she said, “Let's play doctor.” She pulled down her pants and said, “Now you put this [the slender nozzle on the watering can] in here.” She pointed to her crotch.
I'd never really checked out even my own crotch thoroughly, so I didn't know there was a hole into which the spout would fit. After I aimed it in her general direction and squirted water all over her thighs, she said, “No-o-o-o, let me show you.” Now it was my turn to be the patient. Sure enough, the watering can not only found its mark, but a kind of pleasant, albeit messy, stream of water went in, then slowly turned around and came out of me—all over the cement floor.
“Toodles” (Grace Slick)
Thanks, Doc.
My third childhood sexual encounter had more to do with not knowing when to shut up than with direct sexual activity. A boy called Frank Funk (I'm not making up the name) kissed my hand on a whim after we'd been playing with my next-door neighbor's rabbits. I was honored and said, “Oh, Frank, that's so sweet and old-fashioned. You kissed my hand!”
He was obviously embarrassed that I'd made such a big thing out of it, so he said, “No, I didn't. I spit on it.” I looked at my hand and I didn't see any spit, so the conclusion seemed to be: Don't bring too much attention to a young boy's romantic behavior or he'll balk.
Over my lifetime—for God knows what reason—I dated a number of guys who'd been with my girlfriend, Darlene Ermacoff. I was thirteen when I had my first taste of Darlene's leftovers. His name was Nelson Smith, and I suppose it still is. You reading this, Nellie? That's what his friends called him. Not only my family but my whole circle of friends seemed to be overly fond of silly nicknames. Like a bunch of rap stars, we wore them with pride.
I invited Nelson over to watch TV one evening, and since the set was in the dining room, we had to sit in these two stiff-backed chairs. I was so preoccupied with him, I have no idea what we watched; it could have been Howdy Doody for all I cared. All I remember is that it took him a tantalizing two and a half hours to get from the position of simply having his arm around my shoulders to dropping his hand and lightly caressing my breast. We kissed a couple of times and since I hadn't yet heard of “hard-ons,” I didn't realize what kind of pain a two-and-a-half-hour erection was probably causing him.
Teenagers' sexual advances—or lack thereof—are fraught with such intensity it's amazing they don't regularly culminate in a big blast of hormone-driven shrapnel.