HUMPING WITH HOWDY

by Holly Rennick

AUTHOR'S NOTES

If you're not already member of the Peanut Gallery, this story will surely seem obscure.  Puppet sexuality?  If you're a Howdy Doody fan, do read on.

As always, readers' comments are well appreciated.  I hope I'm making fewer literary goofs.  I worked really hard to get the facts in this story correct.  Everything I say about the TV show, the movies, etc., I think is true, anyway.  If you're a Howdy scholar (which I'm not), you can check the dates, etc. and keep me honest.  Does my effort qualify as "historical fiction", something I'd like to try?  It takes lots of work to fit a made-up tale to recorded history.  But is sure is fun.  But is this Mrs. Thornton even fictitious, other than probably a name change?  I'm not admitting anything, other than I typed it.

There's a poem before "Afterthoughts".  I'm pretty pleased how it rhymes out, I must admit.  Complain about anything you like, but please, not my poem.  Poets are granted extra license.

BANQUET, MAY 2001

"30 Years of Service.  Best Wishes Mrs. Thornton.  Detroit Public Schools.  Building Brighter Futures."

My retirement banquet from Farwell Mid School was quite the affair!  Thirty years teaching social studies at one place generates lots of memories, good ones.  Best I can tell, I'll be the last one to last three decades.  At almost 55, I hardly feel retirable, but my benefit package more or less equals my salary.  I'm ahead bailing now and coming back to sub when the fancy strikes.

We all have our nicknames of which the students presume we aren't aware.  I'm "Mrs. Social Stories" for my bent toward tales that convey the subject.  They'd always moan, "Oh, here comes another story," when I'd start and sit at rapt attention till the conclusion.  Say what you will; keeping midschoolers focused takes a good teacher.  Plus, when DPS does "Benchmark Indicators" to see what students really retain, mine ace the social studies.  They remember stories.

I'm sure to them I seem the type who'd never engage in illicit activities.  Pretty true, I suppose, except for my "Mrs." prefix.  This exception is the story that follows.

DPS sends a bigshot to these banquets to make sure we really leave.  The Deputy Superintendent for Information Technology provided my officiality.  "Now I'm led to believe that Mrs. Thornton made you learn every U.S. President of the last century.  We appreciate that you didn't sue for educational abuse."  Administrative humor, I guess.

Then from the back, "McKinley."  Then somebody joined in, "Teddy Roosevelt."  Then it was the roomful, "Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton."  Everyone cheered.  It was worth all 30 years, right there!  Mr. Deputy Superintendent laughed the loudest.

My retirement banquet drew ex-students from the duration of my DPS days.  My earliest kids had then seemed a generation below me.  (And I undoubtedly seemed equivalent to their parents.)  But 30 years later, we turn out to be about the same age.  I'd even venture that a few of them would be taken as having been my teacher if we were put in a lineup.  Then there were the parents and fellow faculty who again end up with me generationally.  Those were the ones to whom I was speaking.

"Say kids, what time is it?"  My lead-in generated total silence.  So I got more specific, "I'm a really nice guy in a cowboy shirt with fringe on the sleeves."

A laugh from the back, "It's Howdy Doody Time," and I was on my way!

"Let's start off with our song, boys and girls," to remind them that I was a very old fuddy-duddy.  "Just sing along, especially you, Mr. Deputy Superintendent for Information Technology."

   It's Howdy Doody Time.

   It's Howdy Doody Time.

   Bob Smith and Howdy, too

   Say Howdy-Do to you.


   Let's give a rousing cheer

   'Cause Howdy Doody's here.

   It's time to start the show,

   So kids, LET'S GO!

If nobody had sung, I'd have had to ad lib something about preparing for the future, boys and girls.  But enough did, even some current students who learned the anthem I haven't a clue where.

"So much better than that song where you spell a mouse's name," I added for the benefit of my colleague Janice.

"Hi there, Peanut Gallery," I started off.  "You're looking at a Howdy Doody girl.  Most of what I know, Howdy taught me."  A few laughs.  "You average American kids will spend 10,800 hours in the classroom by the time you're 18, so school's pretty important.  Here's the scary part, though.  You will have seen 20,000 hours of television.  Yeow!"

"I'm actually a year older than Howdy Doody, where it all started.  Maybe there's still a link between us.  I wasn't concerned with deeper relationships back then."  That little bit was for my friend Joan.  She'd know the link.

"TV today (pardon my old-fogeyness, kids) is overrun with spin-offs of spin-offs of spin-offs.  In Howdy's time, though, Buffalo Bob used TV to connect our eyes to our brain.  They probably figured that here comes a diatribe against Cheers.  Not my intent, though the values that series communicates deserve it.

"Before TV, even, Elmer the puppet would greet Buffalo Bob's radio studio audience, 'Well, Howdy Doody boys and girls, hyuh, hyuh, hyuh.'  They'd yell it back, 'Howdy Doody.'  The name stuck.  Howdy hit the TV invention in 1947.  And now you know how old I am.

"I joined the Peanut Gallery (virtually, in today's terms; I never went to New York) when I was maybe five.  The show was at 5:30 so Mom could get dinner on.  I don't remember that I saw much else.  There was plenty to do outside.

"Mayor Phineas T. Bluster pulled dirty tricks against Howdy when Howdy would run for President.  Sound familiar?  You got your ballot with a loaf of Wonder Bread.  It tasted better then and built strong bodies twelve ways.  No chad in those elections."  Smiles from the Democrats.  "Howdy received over a million votes, but Truman and Eisenhower won anyway.  He'd beat the one we've got these days, though."  This was, after all, my adieu speech.

I'll spare you the rest of my oratory, but pursue my thesis -- growing up with Howdy Doody made me what I am.  What's written from here on wasn't in my banquet speech, you can be sure.

Ready?

INITIATE, NOVEMBER 1956

An aspect of me of which you may not be aware is that I masturbate quite well.  (Want to hear what Women's Lib suggests?  "Mistressbating."  Come on, females!)

Whoa, you say!  How'd we get here?  She's really old, a teacher even.  She was geezin' about some old TV show, not about stroking the kitten.  Well they say that sex is like playing bridge -- you need either a good partner or a good hand.  So here's the story of humping with Howdy.

Most girls, of course, do masturbate.  Sophisticated girls have vibrators and dildos and, so I've heard, even machines.  However we do it, we do do it.  Well I know that I was humping by age ten because that's when Captain Kangaroo and Mickey Mouse relegated Howdy to Saturday mornings.  And it wasn't Mickey's magic kingdom I was visiting before dinner.

Perhaps Howdy's sidekick Clarabell was squirting people with seltzer or horn honking that Mr. Bluster was up to no good.  That part I don't exactly remember.  I do remember that I was climbing over the sofa armrest with one leg above and the other around.  The pressure tickled my crotch.

Primal instinct is my explanation for wiggling.  I rocked harder and it felt like a fun tickle, even.  I was glad that I was behind my brother Samuel, then about eight, but I didn't sense I was doing anything improper.  Just wiggling.

Next afternoon, I tried it again.  I rolled my thighs to better situate myself and used my hands to steady my balance, rhythmically pressing forward and backwards.  Ten-year-olds know what's fun.

Howdy, whom I'd been ignoring, was probably commenting something like, "Never take food from anyone else's plate, especially the cat's."  He was always giving advice that made sense to kids.  I doubt he said, "Tickle your bottom against the sofa arm, not your nose against the birdcage," but it would have been a Howdy way to say it.

I liked tickling myself that way, so much indeed that I'd do it nearly every show.  Howdy would say, "We can all make the world a happier place by doing nice things," and we believed it.  This was doing a nice thing.

I was anticipating nothing more than my Howdy tickle when I had my first delight.  It wasn't an adult orgasm, of course, but its suddenness surprised me.  I knew some incorrect things about adult sex, but didn't make the connection.  This was just a special way to shiver myself.  Though of course Howdy had nothing to do with the physicality of my adventure, I associated the freckled fellow with my success.  I'd watch him watch me.

My technique improved.  I figured out how to perch with legs raised and ankles crossed, something of a flying posture.  In one TV episode, Mr. Bluster was stealing the TV signals in the Rockies so the kids in California couldn't watch.  I imagined that I was flying over the mountains while I rubbed.

It worked best in my pink pedal pushers.  When I'd get near the shivering part, I'd shift my weight forward until the cotton slid against me just the right way.

If I'd heard the term "masturbation", I'd have associated it with something more adult, not hips against the sofa before supper.  I'd climax in my little way about a minute, more like having to pee and then not having to and feeling tingly afterwards.  It didn't occur to me to prolong things.  It didn't occur to me that my hand might be gentler.  It did seem right, however, to be doing to Howdy's googly grin.  Samuel, not old enough to know anything, would sit vigilant to Doodyville.

It didn't occur to me that my exertions might compete for by brother's attention.  Samuel caught me in climax while the Peanut Gallery spoke their opinions on Howdy's "Mommy wants me to go to bed early, but I want to stay up" dilemma.  I didn't know that he'd turned around, but it was inevitable that sooner or later he would have.  In any case, being so close I couldn't exactly stop.

"Can I do that?" he asked, seemingly impressed by my flushed complexion.  My brother's question was deceptively straightforward.

"I guess, but you can't blab," feeling my heartbeat.

"Why not?"

"Just can't"

"OK," as he climbed onto the sofa's other arm.  "So how do I?"

"Just move around."

Samuel moved around.  "So what's the thing?"

"I don't know."

"Why do you do it then?"

"Because I'm bigger," sufficient for a younger brother.  He returned to watching the TV.  I was rather proud of my sibling superiority.

Howdy went off weekday TV that year.  If I was at home Saturday mornings, I might catch him, but usually I didn't.  It didn't matter too much, because Howdy and I were soon to be sleeping together.

SWEET DREAMS, NOVEMBER 1957

Howdy got me started on the sofa, then helped me expand my horizons.  This wasn't the two-dimensional show-time Howdy; this was "Mr. Howdy", as I called my three-dimensional doll to distinguish him from his televised representation.

Mr. Howdy was confined neither to the living room nor to the before-dinner time slot.  He could go to bed with me.  (Today that sounds erotic, but to an eleven-year-old, it was just where you slept.)  Why I started sleeping with this doll, I don't know, other than the association.

By subconscious design or accident, it doesn't matter; Howdy found his way between my legs.  He'd be in the dark under my covers and I'd pretend like he was exploring.  I'd always arrange his neckerchief first.  I'd lie on my stomach, put him underneath my crotch and squeeze his vinyl head.  It didn't achieve even what the sofa afforded, but why should it?  I liked him there.  It wasn't until I rocked did I recognize the fuller magic.  Up and down felt nice, but side to side worked best.  It only took a little riding my little buddy to exceed the sofa effect.  Part of the pleasure was working Mr. Howdy back on center when he'd meander, my inner thighs commanding.

My chest, breast buds barely emergent, I'd hold up with my elbows.  My knees I'd spread apart.  My toes I'd wedge into the mattress enough to slide my body.  I'd tense the muscles in my tummy and thighs to match my exertions.  In climax, I'd squeeze him still.

By this time, my orgasms were more exciting, demanding better management.  But it's all relevant, isn't it?  Forty years later, my orgasms are more sustained, more subsuming, more vibrant, more varied.  But are they more fun?  Do you enjoy gourmet sorbet today more than Safeway chocolate in a cone when you were eleven?

I'm pretty sure Mom knew what I was doing because once she came in and pretended not to notice how I was humped up.  After that she'd always knock.  Back then we didn't talk much about sex and I now suppose she'd enjoyed a similar phase in her youth.  I know that she told Dad to always knock first because I was the age where my body was changing.

In today's light, would I be said to have succumbed to some sort of oral sexual gratification?  After all, Mr. Howdy was mostly grin.  But all I was doing was playing with my doll.

The year we started sleeping together is etched in my mind for another Doodyville reason: Princess Summerfall Winterspring died for real in a car wreck on her honeymoon.  She (I didn't know it then) was Judy Tyler, 22.  Just her Indian Princess age was about my own.

The real Judy Tyler was what the show wasn't supposed to be about.  At 15 she'd been a dancer at the Copacabana.  By 17 she'd married her pianist.  TV was a way to get to Broadway.  When a pretty girl was needed for Howdy Doody, Judy's "Over the Rainbow" and "I Got Rhythm" audition got her the feather headband.  She was teasing the NBC directors too, poor little Dorothy in Oz and then a shoulder-rolling lounge act.  She'd have known about the casting couch.  They didn't sign her because she had a cute dog Todo.

The Princess puppet was transformed into a stunningly shapely maiden who softened some of the relentless commercialization.  I wanted those Hostess Cupcakes that they were always pitching.  Buffalo Bob didn't ask, he told you to go out and get some.  I wonder if they sold more Cupcakes to grown men after Judy joined the show?

Unknown to us kids was Judy's dancing on tables in nightclubs.  Off-camera she'd wear tight sweaters and offend Buffalo Bob with her sexual innuendoes.  At 19 (how'd she get into those nightclubs, anyway?) she left Howdy to pursue her career, to "rejoin her people," Bob told us.

Buffalo Bob would narrate old time movies on the show, silent-era comedies or the little Rascals.  Judy progressed from B-grade "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" to Elvis Presley's babe in "Jailhouse Rock".  That girl knew how to audition!  There's a promo photo of her leaning back into duck-tailed Elvis with his arm right around her chest.  Pretty risqué for 1957.  The Princess should have stayed with Howdy like I did.  Even Elvis later said that those movies were detrimental to his career.

So why am I reminiscing about Princess Summerfall Winterspring?  Maybe like her, Howdy too had an erotic offstage presence.  Under my sheets he did, anyway.

FINGER DANCING, FEBRUARY 1958

One time poor Buffalo Bob used Howdy's Shrinking Machine to lose a few pounds, but due to Phineas T. Bluster's trickery, got shrunk teeny-tiny.  It took Howdy and gang a lot of effort to restore him.  Why I remember that episode is because it taught me to use my fingers.  Buffalo Bob being Tom Thumb size, I was thinking digitally.  Or maybe I'd just discovered how to use my fingers, so the plot stuck.

Accustomed as I was to humping Howdy, it came natural to hump my hand, my fist, actually.  Then, as every girl discovers, you learn how to tickle your fancy, play the piano, polish the pearl, let your fingers do the walking, however you want to call it.  Now pubescent, I'd get wet, which helped.

It works better to be on your back with knees flopped apart.  Sometimes I'd cross my ankles.  Sometimes I'd have one leg up and leave the other flat or even bent over the side.  I'd put my palm on my front and let my middle finger tease my clitoris, though I'd not yet seen it.  (Why am I using past tense?  I still do.)  Rub it side-to-side at first, then in circular motion; they each have their special feel.  Some of my girlfriends used other fingers to do very specific things, but I liked the simplicity.  Again, I knew that some of my friends would even finger their vagina, but that part of you should be saved for when you got married, I told them.

Doing it pretty much every night, Mr. Doody would watch to make sure I did it right.  Howdy always said things like, "Always do your best at whatever you do."

SAMUEL, SEPTEMBER 1959

I can date this in relation to having "becoming a woman", as Mom phrased it.  Samuel and I did something really fun; we humped each other.

The sofa arm was still a compelling part of my Saturday mornings.  Teenage whets your appetite, even.  I'd stay in my pajamas for it, teasing myself under the breakfast table.  But Samuel was sitting on the sofa too, not down where he could see the show better.

So it's hard to say what lead to what, but it's surely associated with having already made myself ripe.  I walloped my brother with a pillow, not an infrequent sibling communication.  He of course pushed me back.  Before I could rise to deliver another shot, he was sitting on the "Moron girl."  It was more-or-less a fair fracas.  I was the taller, but as a boy, he was the battler.  To stay on top, he flattened me into the cushion, an eleven-year-old leg working its way between two thirteen-year-old ones.

I was surprised, to say the least, and he must have been too by what happened in securing his superiority -- he became erect.  I suppose our friction did it, or maybe it was my futile twists and bucks.  Maybe he'd seen my breasts between my buttons.  For sure he'd bumped me enough, even locking his arms around from behind, cupping me accidentally (I presumed) in previous battles.  Maybe guys get hard when they win at anything.  Evolutionary, you suppose?  I didn't need to be a biologist, though, to know where Samuel's little erection was pressing.  PJ's don't hold things apart.

But rather than disengaging, we battled on, his dominance achieved when he got his other leg with his first.  With my knees pried apart, I lost any leverage for escape.  His penis most definitely poked my mound.

Howdy's TV oversight at that moment, in any event, held association.  I didn't mind Samuel being where he was.  Let's be more honest, I liked my brother's bump there.  It was a place that a young woman liked to get bumped, I guess.  I must have lifted my hips in a less-escapist manner.  Samuel was moving too, but with me, not against me, if you get the difference, so he must have liked it as well.  Perhaps he too saw a connection to something he'd done by himself.  Siblings don't always explain everything.

I pulled him up a bit to slide his bulge where best it matched mine, lifting my hips to help.  He thrust against where I led.  With unspoken intent, we pressed together and rubbed Howdy Doody style.

My response may at first have been just my pelvis, but as we progressed, my butt bounced higher and higher against his ploughing.  On the TV, Howdy would hop with his arms in front as the strings maneuvered him.  The puppetry wasn't too sophisticated.  If the puppeteers would have just flopped the Howdy marionette on top of the sister Heidi Doody one and bounced their butts, that's probably about how we looked.

My left foot found the floor and the right hooked over the sofa back.  My eyes were closed.  I knew that I would climax, that this stage was the same as doing it alone.  But it was the first time I sensed that somebody else could enhance it.  It didn't register to me that he could have an orgasm too until I felt him gasp.  Mine was more fierce that I'd ever done alone.  Samuel just hung on.

We lay there afterwards in amazement.  Not wanting to embarrass him, I at first said nothing.  Howdy always said, "And always say 'please' before and 'thank you' afterwards," but that didn't seem quite right, so I said, "That was OK."

I suppose we sensed we'd done something we oughtn't, but it wasn't having sex.  I'd decided to be a virgin until I got married, of course, so I could wear a white gown.  Turns out that I was and I didn't, but that's later on the story.

But you don't just hump your sibling accidentally a second time and it didn't seem right to do it on purpose.  So we just lay there, sweaty together in our sleepwear, glad that Mom hadn't heard.  It was a little embarrassing, him knowing how hard I came, but siblings have the privilege of leaving a Saturday morning chapter perhaps to be continued.

UNTIL SOME OTHER DAY, SEPTEMBER 1960

Howdy's final episode was one hour in full color.  On our black and white, though, the NBC peacock was just shades of gray.  Mom and Dad watched the show with us, even, as we all knew it was the last one.

As the cast packed up to leave Doodyville, Clarabell honked for attention.  Teary-eyed, he looked directly at us, "Goodbye, kids."  The cast sang one last time,

   It's time to say goodbye,

   Goodbye until some other day

   When we may be with you again.


I was past being a major fan, but I was really sad.  So was Samuel.  Maybe crying made us closer; I don't know.  At bedtime, I halfheartedly tried to hump my Mr. Howdy.  With the red by now rubbed off much of his hair, he seemed sort of sad himself.  Maybe this was the end of that too, I wondered.

Bored, I wandered back down the stairs.  Samuel was ascending.  It was on the stairs that I knew what I wanted, albeit vaguely.

"Hey, let's do something," I suggested.

He looked at me blankly.

"Go get in your PJ's too," I directed.  "The folks already went to bed."  Perhaps the last TV episode had sparked something similar in him.  He met me back downstairs.  When I steered him toward the sofa, he didn't ask why.

I pulled him onto me.  It didn't occur to me to undo my top or anything.  When I cocked my knees outward, he settled against me, not yet erect.  We wiggled and giggled until we could feel it within his flannel; I knew he wanted me to know he'd grown.  I was already wet.  At 14, girls can get really wet.  Whispering too loudly about being quiet, we drove our hips together as if our Saturday morning encounter were but yesterday.  The couch creaked with our percussion.

Having humped Howdy so many times, masturbation already had a sense of mutuality.  I knew how to place my brother on my crack to do what before had taken my deliberate fingertips.  I pushed and pulled him against my pelvic bone, teasing my secret through pajamad modesty.  Samuel stroked the rhythm; I controlled the pressure.

Neither of us was knowledgeable enough about foreplay to significantly forestall our climaxes, which we announced with untimely whimpers.  We lay still for but a few minutes and begin again.  Truth be told, I don't think the revival achieved much physiologically, but what mattered was in our heads.  We pounded our PJ bottoms against each other until we felt better.

Had it been in this new millennium, we'd probably have stripped for real sex.  Fourteen-year-olds do that to their brothers these days, you know.  Our PJ's just had elastic waistbands, so it would have been easy.  But keep in mind that Eisenhower was still Chief Executive.  Having intercourse wasn't what American Christian youth (our kind, anyway) did.  The prohibition was against making love in general, not us being sister and brother.  If you're not driving to Milwaukee, you don't think about specific road closures.

These were the days of great makeouts, not great screws.  My girlfriends were letting their dates touch their bra.  Maybe a steady could even feel inside.  But the guy didn't expect much more.  Petting to orgasm?  Maybe on a college hayride if you're a cheerleader and he's on the football team.  Samuel and I just fouled up the sequence.  It would be years before I'd let him deliberately touch my nipples.

THOSE REVOLUTIONARY '60'S

In the 1960's, Buffalo Bob bought a liquor store and radio stations and played golf.  He abandoned the Peanut Gallery, just like that.  The '60's disillusionment was about more than LBJ's war.

Fear not, however.  What follows isn't another evocative personal-discovery saga framed in that definitive decade.  Setting forth to change the world!  All I want to cover is how I'd rustle my knicks without Howdy.  I picked up that quaint term years later when I took an NEA professional tour (translate "tax deductible") about teaching British history.

What the Revolution taught me was that you can masturbate in about any position.  Here are a couple of techniques that worked for a not profoundly-countercultural flower child.

Hunch on the balls of your feet with a pillow on your heels and sit on your fist with a knuckle against your clit.  Basically you're fucking yourself.  It sounds a little brutal, I guess, but maybe you had extra frustrations that day.  Bunching your fingertips to make little circles is gentler.  Cover your vagina with your other hand, but keep the lips closed so it's just pressure, not penetration.  I can sense contractions even from the outside.  This way's about female self-awareness, the theme of the next decade, actually.

Or try leaning against a wall with a foot up on something.  This is a way to find your G-spot (an anatomical feature amazingly unknown to science until the 70's, it seems).  Finger yourself until you start to come and then excite your clitoris.  Standing makes my orgasm sharper.  There's something satisfying about remaining balanced.  There's something unsatisfying, though, about pumping your finger.  At least it's not artificial.

So I spent the '60's, hands in my panties?  Of course not.  I got my degree in Secondary Ed.  I wore tie-die shirts without a bra, but not to class like some girls did.  "Professor Seaton.  Can I stop by your office to talk about my grade?  I'll lean over to watch while you mark things.  It's really cool how these days we're beyond where age makes any difference between people, isn't it?  See, if we mess up your hair a little, you sort of look like Bob Dylan!  He's really popular."  I smoked some pot, but nothing stupid.  The Free Love thing sort of missed me, but I guess that was OK.  I would have if I'd had the chance.

Normal, being a college town, was a good enough place.  I, in fact, stayed right there for my first real job, two years teaching history at Normal High School, right where I'd student taught.  Most NHS girls didn't wear bras either and their dads were the professors.  "Dad.  Can we go to your study to talk about my allowance?  I'll lean over to watch while you mark papers."

I might even be at NHS now ("32 Years of Service.  Best Wishes Mrs. Thornton.  Normal Public School District.  Learning for Tomorrow"), but for my brother.  He graduated from college too, industrial arts.  The NHS banner wouldn't have said "Mrs. Thornton" like the one in Detroit.

REUNION, MARCH 1971

Samuel and I always were good friends; some siblings aren't.  You can tell if one answers a query about the other with information from a Christmas letter.  However far apart Samuel and I might have strayed, we'd have stayed in touch.  "Touch" is a term with latitude, isn't it?  Siblings are in touch if they occasionally write.  A brother gently touches his sister's breast when she rests her head on his lap.  Same word.

My job and Samuel's senior year, plus me in my apartment and him in his dorm meant that we didn't see each other much.  But we enjoyed it when we did, perhaps a beer at my place after tennis.  I'd grab a quick shower and maybe be in my bra while we downed a couple of cold ones.  He was my little brother, for goodness sake.  I didn't mind if his ears would get a little red at first.  They were just cotton bras, back then, not the sheer ones they sell now.

A Howdy standard was backward spelling.  At the Doodyville Book Club, the magic words, "Skoob Era Nuf," transported us into the volumes.  Backwards, "Books Are Fun".  Once Buffalo Bob rescued Peppy Mint (the real girl after Princess Summerfall Winterspring) from a magic mirror trap with, "Nepo Rorrim".  That's, "Open Mirror!"

Samuel and I perpetuated the cipher.  "Sinnet No Yadsendew" was "Tennis On Wednesday."  He'd usually win.  "De Cysp Weiver" meant "Ed Psyc Review."  A girl needs her support for tennis, but not for pedagogic theory, at least if she's still in her 20's.  I didn't mind that Samuel noticed the difference.  A sister can read her brother pretty well.

In the '70's, innocence was supplanted by bitter realities even closer to home.  Kent State, a place about as normal as Normal.

When Howdy Doody came to town, though, older sister's orders were absolute, "Ew Tog A Etad."  It was only fitting for Howdy, Buffalo Bob, wife Buffalo Mil and Clarabell to reappear on college campuses, Normal being one of 500 reunions.  Even draft card burners needed a break from their lighters.  Buffalo Bob didn't say "Baby Boomers"; we were his "alumni".  Draft cards didn't exist in the Peanut Gallery.  We were back at home with Howdy Doody for a couple of hours.

A big date, even, because it was Howdy!  I made Samuel dress up.  I did too.  It was part of the strangeness of when Nixon was President.  Wear your girdle on Friday and jiggle on Saturday.  Samuel bought me a corsage without me even asking.  He's always been sweet.  Walking to the auditorium, I took my brother's arm, prom princess style.

Cheering Howdy made old times come alive.  I remembered how we'd laughed at Flub-a-dub (eight animals in one: duck bill, cat whiskers, spaniel ears, giraffe neck, dachshund body, seal flippers, pig tail and an elephant's memory), how we'd hounded Mom to buy Welch's Grape Jelly so we'd get the juice glasses.

And I remembered how we'd humped each other back when we were kids, once accidentally, the other at my invitation.  Did he?  I didn't know, but something about seeing Howdy again with Samuel on my arm made me happier than Buffalo Bob's jokes merited, to wit,

Howdy:  Hey, Buffalo Bob, what's black and white and red all over?

Bob:  I don't know Howdy. What is black and white and red all over?

Howdy (and everybody at the show):  A newspaper!

Bob didn't appreciate the Cheech and Chong big bong humor we thought we'd grown into,

Cheech:  Knock knock.

Chong:  Who's there?

Cheech:  Howdy Doody.

Chong:  Howdy Doody who?

Cheech:  I don'no man.  Like wow!  I forget.

Basically the auditorium-full realized that we'd forgotten how to be kids.  Cheech and Chong were funny, sure, but we needed the old way too.  I nuzzled Samuel.  I nuzzled more insistently.  He grinned and nuzzled me back.  He remembered when we were kids on the sofa too.  I fluttered my eyes.

By the time the show was over and Buffalo Bob was signing photographs and memorabilia (I should have brought Mr. Howdy), Samuel had traversed my blouse in every direction.  Or maybe it was I traveling his arm.  It's a two-way thing.

"That was really cool, seeing Howdy just like we used to," I offered, popping a Hamms back at my place.  The "like we used to" maybe spoke for itself.

"Just like old times," Samuel agreed.

We sat on my sofa without further reminiscing and then I walloped him with a pillow.

"Moron girl," he responded, gulping his cooler before counterattack.  Grown up, he really was the stronger, so it was hardly fair.  But as accepting defeat might have signaled the end of it, I kept wiggling under him so he'd know we'd been remembering together.  My giggle told him that I could feel what was in his slacks.

I didn't mind when he wrapped his arm across my chest, palming my blouse.  He wasn't one of those creeps at the swimming pool who gawks when your top hangs loose.  When I worked my thigh up between his legs, he must have liked it too, because he wasn't escaping either.

But how we were brought up, our hands didn't venture far.  We didn't need to.  Puritanically embracing each other's shoulders, I let his hips set our rhythm, his ridge working over my thigh and into my lap.

"It's Howdy Doody Time," I whispered, arching my back.

His coming was pretty obvious -- lots of breathing.  Restrained as I was in my latex foundation (damn what dressing up meant back then), it's a wonder that the pressure worked for me, too.  Fondness counts for a lot, I guess.  It was great!

Afterwards I asked, "You came big, right?"

"I guess."

"You guess?  If you came half as much as I did, you wouldn't guess!"

"I mean, sure I did.  But is it...?"

"Heck, Samuel, we didn't even touch.  It's not like going to bed together or anything."

"You think?"

"Well, I guess it might be OK on top of my bed," I conceded.  "We wouldn't be exactly in bed or anything.  You think it would be more comfortable, maybe?"

I lay there happy.

"You're pretty, you know that?"  His compliment surprised me.

I didn't really, but maybe I was.

So many years after our youthful trysts, this orgasm was that of real lovers, not procreativity coupled, of course, but releasing every sort of chemical and emotion that sex affords.  What's deprecated as "dry fucking" can be really, really moist.

I was happy, not just for the sexual payoff (which I could score myself, thank you), but for real union.

INVITATIONS, APRIL 1971

That would be my last springtime in Normal.  I needed something more urban, a place where things would be new.  Too many people knew me, where I came from, what I'd done in Campfire Girls, everything.  Being out of college made me an old person to those still in.  And Detroit came calling.

In those days, Northern industrial centers still saw a world always craving for bigger and bigger.  Detroit Public Schools had the bucks to raid places like Normal to build Detroit's brighter future.  The DPS recruiter did everything but produce my contract when he noted that I actually had teaching experience.  What did I want, junior or senior high?  Junior, please.  They'd fly me there for a recruitment visit, even, pretty impressive to a girl who'd never been in a plane.

I had no idea that Samuel had talked to the DPS fellow until he told me.  Industrial Arts made sense in Detroit, a place with industry.  If teaching didn't pan out, he could make better money on an assembly line, was his thought.  He'd given DPS my apartment address since dorm mail dumped on the lobby table sometimes got lost.  This was too important.

We opened our letters together.  We hugged and kissed and danced around, we were so excited.  Basically they were the same form letter saying to book a ticket during the next two weeks.  They'd reimburse the fare and take care of the rest.  It seemed silly not to go together, so that's how we set it up.  We hugged and kissed some more.

INTERVIEW EVE, MAY 1971

Not that he hadn't brushed against my tits a million times before, but it was so nice on the plane how I could doze with his arm against me.  I felt like what I imagined a wife feels traveling to a new home with her husband.  When we touched down, I kissed Samuel like a spouse might, not passionately, just excited.  At the baggage claim where nobody watches anything but the conveyer, his elbow kept finding me.  I grinned back.

You know how little assumptions sometimes become big things?  Well the little assumption here was that of some DPS secretary who probably noticed the coincidence of two Thorntons at the same address.  We must be married, so book one room.  That's how the guy at the hotel desk had been instructed, anyway.  It didn't seem that big of deal to us.  We'd lived together before, obviously.

The fact that the room had just a queen-sized bed gave us a start, but again, who were we to quibble about a free trip to Detroit.  The room had a little fridge, but we knew they'd sock us for anything we drank.  I'd brought snacks.  I wrote earlier that "going to bed with" doesn't have the connotation for a kid that it has for an adult.  Well the connotation wasn't so obvious to us either.  The bathroom had a door.  The bed was plenty big enough.  I had my nightgown.

I got into my nightgown in the bathroom and he stripped to his underwear after the lights were out.  Actually it was too dark to see, but I still wanted to be covered up.

We lay there, not yet sleepy, but knowing that we should be.  We again shared our slight knowledge and expansive opinions about Detroit fueled by the Greater Detroit brochures we'd harvested in the lobby.  We practiced a few interview lines.  "We want them to want to learn it before they even know we're teaching it," that sort of banality.

I'd never shared a bed with a guy before, albeit my brother.  It did feel a little awkward.  What if I'd roll over?  He'd felt so right being close on the plane, though.  He knew I'd liked being teased with his elbow.  I shifted a little toward the middle, not obviously, though, so he could wrap his arm around me if he wanted.

Seeking confidence about tomorrow, I scooted my foot a bit in his direction.  Nothing there.  I scooted a little further -- an ankle.  "You asleep?" sure that he wasn't.

The ankle pushed back.  "Don't tell them you drive a VW," he advised.

"Be sure to tape back your Howdy ears," trying to catch his big toe between mine.  Almost got it.

He finessed my maneuver and caught my toe with his other foot.

"Cheater," I argued.  "I just used one foot."

I wasn't even planning to.  I just sat up and dove at him.

For a moment we wrestled, laughing, Samuel of course getting the best of me.  And then we just hugged, him on top, me still a little unsure about the bed part.

After the Howdy reunion show that spring, we'd humped on my sofa maybe once a week.  We'd start with some sort of feigned tussle until I'd feel his hand accidentally on the side of my breast.  I'd struggle, then snuggle and let him undo a few buttons.  I liked it when he saw my bra.  He'd never take it off (I'd not have done much to stop him), but he figured out how to reach inside.

We'd sometimes see my panties if my skirt rode up (no more girdle, if you please), but I'd not take off my skirt.  We stayed off my bed, despite my pre-concession.  He'd squirt big spots in his pants, not really on me, and I'd let him know how well I climaxed.  Every time I liked it.

Sometimes by myself in the middle of the week, I'd pretend we were really having intercourse, using my middle finger.  

So this wrestling match was a little different.  Everybody expects you to have intercourse at hotels.  That's why they have the big beds.  The guy at the desk thinks that's what we were doing.  The maids can tell afterwards.

But you don't have to, I told myself.  Here on the hotel bed, we knew our mutual masturbation position -- heads side by side, just like on my sofa.  Samuel clutched my shoulders while I worked my thigh inward and upward until my gown slipped up and his erection wedged wide my cotton vee.  I arched to help, swapping friction for pressure.  I'd always known that for two, it would be more comfortable on a bed.

Humping in underwear assumes explicit characteristics, maybe more than it should.  Before, he'd been wearing his pants.  I'd know that he was erect, but not much more.  Him now just in shorts, I could swing him side to side with my hipbone.  Sliding up and back down, the tip of his penis would catch my crotch.  When I pushed back, could he tell I was wet?

But for our undergarments, we'd have mated.  We'd have become one, like they say in church.  But I never said he could take of my panties and I never tried to get him naked, either.  Love's about respect.

Panting together in that big hotel bed, we rooted until semen seeped through my panties.  Then I let myself bounce higher.  I knew he liked my power.

We slept together that way, each other's wetnesses on each other's underpants.

Sometime during the evening he shifted his weight from above me, but I turned enough to keep his leg between mine.  There was space for a hand between his knee and my crotch, so careful not to wake my sleeping sibling, I let my middle finger into my panties to find its little friend.

   Hi there, little nubbin.  Wanna come out and play?
      Play what?
   Maybe "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush" for a start?
      Then "Jack and Jill go up the hill"?
   Jack be nimble, Jack be quick!
      And Jill gets tiny candlestick!

In my mind, Samuel played Jack.

Holding yourself so still makes it more pastel, knowing that he's feeling your tremor in his sleep.  Well, maybe I wasn't so still.  Anyway, it was so sweet and at the end, like I like to do, I reached lower to hook my fingertip just inside.

Maybe I'd just forgotten how close his leg was to the back of my hand, because as I came, his knee pressed my knuckle inward until he had me all the way in, where you can feel your contractions.

As I drifted off, I felt a tiny kiss.  Or at least thought I did.

CELEBRATION

DPS Headquarters is a big enough place that once we arrived the next morning, we didn't see the other until dinner.  I'd talked social studies with mid school people and he'd talked shop at the vocational level.  I'd been taken for lunch to a prawn place and he'd gone to a sizzler.

Meeting at dinnertime, our grins proclaimed our offers.  Big money, even!  We even ordered a bottle of wine with our meal, not at all our style, but what the heck!

Back in our room we were as silly as honeymooners.  Of course we kissed.  Of course we hugged.  But we prepared for sleep as we did the evening before, me in the bathroom.  You don't strip in front of your brother.  Samuel undressed after turning out the light.

Oh my!  We both had jobs in Detroit!

I loved the way he found my nipple through my gown, his fingers sliding back and forth over my hardness.  Rolling me to my far side, he coved around my spine and touched my tummy.  When I backed my fanny against him, he slid to my hem and drew up my gown to my belly, teasing over the front of my panties with just enough pressure to make me push back.  I liked it when his fingertips passed over my hair.

Reclaiming my breast, his touch made it even harder.  And when he sensed my readiness, he pulled my gown over my head.  I'd never been topless with him, at least for maybe 15 years, so I felt pretty naked.  I pulled his shirt off, too, to make us bare chested against each other.

I liked it when he pulled down the sheet to let the nightlight illuminate.

We both had jobs in a real city!  This was that city!  Tonight was going to be a gigantic humping!

His erection followed me through his underpants as I drew my hips up and down with every protraction I'd mastered on my Howdy.  Sibling rhythm isn't fast and furious; it's deep and delectable.

I knew by brother pretty well, the pace of his ascension -- maybe six strokes remaining.  I'd arrive right with him.  I always did.  We're better coordinated than lots of married couples, I always told myself.   As we had all night, there'd be time for encores.

"I can't hold it," he finally acquiesced, masturbated to his limit.  "I can't."

Energized, I worked him ever harder.  With probably three pushes left, there was now no option for slowing, no option for directing his wetness.  Let him do it all over me, I thought.  We got the jobs!

But then he pulled my shoulder, twisting me toward him, and his hardness rammed the spot soaked with my own anticipation.

You don't think about pushing off your panties in advance, much less the shorts of your brother.  It wasn't as if I planned it.  It just happened.  I hadn't thought we would be naked, but we were.

The nightlight let me see the object of my affection, stark and a little scary.  He'd less hair that did I.

His penis was almost too much to hold.  All the times that I'd rubbed it to orgasm, just two fabric thicknesses away, it had never seemed so massive.  All the times that it had rubbed me to climax, again just two fabric thicknesses away, my clitoris had never felt so enlarged.

I swear that we were still only masturbating each other, but it was organ against organ.

I wanted him to take my virginity.  I wanted to take his.  He'd already reached around me to pull us tighter, so when I said, "It's OK," the same I'd said when we were little, he understood.

"You're the teacher," I added in awkwardness, flatting on my back, tugging to preserve his poke.

"Student teacher, sort of," he mumbled.

We arranged ourselves as if we knew what we were doing.  He ended up poking too high, but it only took a little guidance to get pointed right, as I never lost hold.  After I'd arranged him, it occurred to me that maybe you don't go pushing a guy this way or that, but Samuel didn't mind.

I didn't even remember that what we were going to do might hurt me, what they say about your first time.

Sibling first-time sex must seem flustered to those who progress through normal petting.  It wasn't like we'd perfected the bra unhooking and after give-and-take in the back seat at the drive-in, finally got into each other's pants.  Use your fist to make him come, they say, but never on your clothing.  Then put him off till you're not having your period and make him beg so it's not your fault.  It's how the girls who did it advised.

This was the first night I'd even touched a penis.  I was only vaguely aware of what I'd pointed into me before it was half buried.

He was big, exploding on arrival.  I was ready physiologically, but still surprised.  Holding my brother, I wanted it to be real, just not that real, so fast.  It stretched me, a rougher event than one self-achieved, but I didn't mind.  Unlike his, my orgasm began before his first pull.  Better than his, probably, I was still coming after he noisily breathed his happy sigh.  It's good to already know your guy's sounds.

Was it better than that with which I was familiar?  I didn't know then and I don't know now.  It was loud, but not of multiple dimensions.  (A woman might understand the dimensional aspect.  I'm not sure a guy would.)  It was our first.  They're just different.  A girl needs both.

When he at last came out, he was stubby and slick like a fish.  We'd proved ourselves as real grownups!  Virgins no longer!  Lovers!

"Hello, new hire," I greeted him lazily.  "We do know how now, don't we?"  I got that same tiny kiss that I'd felt the night before.  I didn't open my eyes, just grinned.  He'd known when he'd pushed my finger in the night before.  The fun of sex is complex, isn't it?

We'd have lots of time to perfect the foreplay.  Brothers and sisters make a pretty good team at whatever because we know who's good at figuring out what.  Lovemaking would be a piece of cake.

I figured (correctly, fortunately) that this was a safe period for me.  Being Catholic, you get an explanation about when in your cycle.  It's not assumed you're always a good Catholic, I guess, because the information's left where you'll find it long before you're getting married.

We saw each other naked in the shower next morning, but only the visual aspect surprised me.  I knew this guy perfectly, just not exactly how his parts fit together.  I'd first felt a penis last night.  I first saw one this morning.  I soaped his balls, but wasn't a real expert yet.

No way, I told him, would I do it in the bathroom, but I was pleased how seeing me made him ready.  I got the same effect beside him in the airplane that afternoon, but up there you can't chase each other out onto the big, ready bed.  You can, though, throw a little airline blanket over you if you're cold.  Flying to Detroit, he'd teased my breast.  Leaving, it was only justice that while he did that, I played between his legs.  I could have made him come, but he shook his head, no.

Do you suppose Howdy and Heidi ever traveled together and maybe got booked into the same room because they were both surnamed "Doody"?  Do you suppose that Heidi ever helped Howdy out of his neckerchief and turned out the light?  On the plane trip home, at least they'd have been in the same trunk.

"Howdy.  It's dark in here."

"Yeah, Heidi.  The Princess' gown should work, you think?"

"She says it slips right off for a quickie."

"For you to lie on, dummy."

"I'm not a dummy, I'm a marionette.  Anyway, Flub-a-dub's in here too."

"Well they forgot animal part number nine."

"It would have been interesting."

DETROIT, SEPTEMBER 1971

We moved to Motown that summer.  So did lots of "Black and Proud" performers.

We'd share an apartment until we found our own places, we told people.  We did better than an apartment, though -- a duplex between our respective schools.  The owners, who lived in the other half, presumed we were married.  We didn't lie; we just didn't correct.  They might have thought us weird, brother and sister shacking up.

We weren't weird at all.  Since our trip, we'd made love pretty much daily and not one time in any uncomfortable or unnatural position.  Who wants to stand on your head or whatever when you can rock above him and make him plead for mercy?  You want weird sex?  Look around your office, maybe.

We handled the DPS paperwork without evasion, but again without clarification.  Insurance is the only benefit where having a spouse really matters, but it's cheaper for two employees to be individually covered.  We had one form where we ticked "single", but it was a mimeographed page related to some forgotten purpose without cross-reference.  There's no cross-checking of DPS files unless they suspect you're unduly claiming something.  We each claim one on our W-2's and DPS would never see our two returns, truthfully submitted.  Don't fool around with a 1040.  Not being legally wed doesn't deprive any government of a penny.

DPS policy disallows direct spousal supervision, so I can't be Samuel's principal and he couldn't be mine if we're a unit in their eyes.  So what?  Years later I heard of a principal who married one of her teachers and to avoid being transferred, never told anyone.  It wasn't against policy for them to just live together.  Strange morality.

At the end of the day, people believe what they assume they already know.  If you suggest the contrary, they just harden their preconception.  We're married in both the physically intimate sense and the socially apparent sense, but it would be criminal if we had a license.  Strange morality.

We try to minimize mistruths.  My "maiden" name is my real middle name, Sidney, so my driver's license is totally legit.  The growing-up stories we tell others more or less match reality, just that we were each only children.  We just say we're from Normal, which is true.  Our anniversary is the day of our interview when we first made love, better than you can say for many newlyweds.  We don't wear rings, but that sort of formality is optional these days.

VISITING THE FOLKS

As long as they were with us, Mom and Dad thought it prudent, their single children sharing the rent while we pursued Big City careers and found spouses to provide them grandchildren.  We must have just seemed slow in the latter.  Basically they didn't visit our way; we visited them, reverting to our childhood rooms and sneaking conjugal moments when the opportunity presented.

Once Mom came upstairs when we were sudsy in the shower.  Mom knew that we were both in the bathroom, so I had to insinuate through the door that Samuel was behind the curtain and I'd come because I had to pee really bad.  It made more sense to Mom than Samuel scrubbing my shoulders.  We made love on the towels, it was so funny.  (I guess Samuel did have me in the bathroom, after all.)  Everybody has some story about almost getting caught having sex.  My friend Stacy almost lost her black plastic sheet at a rainy football game, a much funnier story, but it was just with her boyfriend.

Then there's Samuel's physical fitness story.  We were home for Christmas and Samuel found my Mr. Howdy in a box and put him on the far side of his bed where I'd notice.  So I snuck in for a hostage rescue, but as I knew would happen when I crawled over to grab him, it was a trap.  I was ready, wearing my nightie that pulls inside-out over my head if I resist with my elbows out.  Since he'd tricked me (the clever brother!), he got to have his way which was pretty fun for a cold winter's night, even with my head trapped inside the flannel while he tormented me.

But I guess beat a little cadence.  At breakfast Dad asked what was the banging about?  Without missing a beat, Samuel said he did pushups every day, but had forgotten until he was in bed.  In truth, he was doing pushdowns.  You can't do real pushups on a mattress, the exercise kind, anyway.  My kind you could do, though.

BIRTHDAY PARTIES

The big event of the American Bicentennial was my turning 30!  I'd always thought that was so old, so now I had to change the threshold.  We had a Howdy party, everyone a character.  Samuel was Howdy.  He said I had to be Heidi, but I said it was my party and I got to be the Princess.  I'd be Heidi afterwards, I promised, and wore an appropriately revealing Indian costume.  It revealed under the beaded neckline when I served the grape punch, anyway.  Indian Princesses never wear White-man's goods.

Ralph Brownel, my principal, was Buffalo Bob because he had a great cowboy shirt.  He had me refill his punch cup a bunch, the rascal.  My friend Ruth Anne was Mr. Bluster.  She tried to freeze Howdy with an ice cube so she could fleece his pockets for a magic key.  We made Marian who teaches math be Clarabell.  She's the chattiest one at school and we only allowed her to honk her horn.  For a little bit, anyway.

Ruth Anne gave me a Howdy silver-plated ice-tea spoon.  Jack and Sandra gave me a Welch's jelly glass with Howdy and Princess in yellow clapping for a trained seal.  "Drinking Grape Juice is Seal's Favorite Act."  This 30-year-old Heidi's favorite act likewise involves a fluid that stains, but not purple.

Samuel was probably a little miffed about my Indian attire and I was a bit chagrinned how thoroughly Ruth Anne pickpocketed his jeans.  She really tried out a lot of magic words checking out his right front pocket.  How red my brother got told me that she got ahold of more than his billfold, but then, she was supposed to be naughty.

Being such a loyal guy, Samuel felt obliged to confess before I turned out the lights.  Ruth Anne had made him hard and fondled all the time she was investigating.  I knew that, of course, from watching.  Howdy might have had a special hiding place inside his jeans, I explained, so the villain would need to reach deeply.  Or maybe she thought it was a magic key the way it grew when she held it.  I think it's pretty magic, anyway.

And now Ralph couldn't fire me, I proposed, because then he wouldn't get invited to my next birthday party.  Everybody was just being silly the way a Howdy party should turn out.

I rode Samuel from the top, slipping him in and out until we were both dripping.  I floated in the air at the end.

And Ruth Anne is so honest that she told me the same thing on Monday, that probably she shouldn't have and not to worry; his response was involuntary.  I told her that she could keep being Mr. Bluster if it was just at my birthday parties.  Don't make him come or anything, though.  He'd die.  I owed her big for how he proved himself after everyone left.  She was probably the second one to feel him ever, which she couldn't believe.  One more than how many guys ever searched my pockets, I admitted.  She said for us to keep it that way.  But that her being number two just meant that it shouldn't get to number three, not that she couldn't keep being Mr. Bluster.  We about cracked up.

We throw Howdy parties still.  Mr. Bluster plays tricks on Howdy that stay right in the living room and seem to involve something tactile.  One time Ruth Anne had us zigzag boy-girl-boy-girl on our backs on the carpet with our head on the next person's tummy and say, "Howdy" so many times in sequence.  Ruth Anne ended up just a little low on Howdy and Ralph ended up a little high on my Princess outfit.  Ralph just happened to be standing by me when we had to get down.

Once Mr. Bluster stole all the light bulbs and Howdy and I had to sing "Happy Trails" without making a mistake.  Mr. Bluster was right behind Howdy and I'm sure it was Ralph behind me who made me mess up.  I suspected collusion when Mr. Bluster announced that lights would be restored with enough lead-time for Ralph to finish.

Before Ruth Anne arrives, Samuel always says he won't let her goose him again.  Afterwards, he sort of confesses she did.  She confirms that he succumbs surprisingly readily.  When he had to sing "Happy Trails" in the dark, for example, Howdy seemed to know where to stand.  Her little flirtations tell him that he's not a square.  We need our little ventures, constrained as we bind them.

Your brother doesn't need to know both halves always.  "I always enjoy coffee with Ruth Anne after the party, hearing about how she goosed you.  She must be really good at it, it sounds.  Maybe you and Ralph can have a beer over how he felt me up."  Samuel doesn't know about Ralph's little tricks, of course, because he might not understand.

Ruth Anne says that maybe they'll get transformed into a two-headed puppet where they share the same cardboard body tube the whole evening.  Howdy's arms will be outside and hers inside.  Head #1 can whisper things to Head #2.  Samuel won't know that I'll know what's coming.  I'm not sure I should.  Yeow!

BEING CATHOLIC

Buffalo Bob and Howdy would tell you to go to church.  That's what they said, not, "place of worship or meditation".  If you were a Jewish kid, you knew they meant synagogue, too, and didn't sue.

"Young Marrieds" at our parish in Detroit is a regular part of our week.  We're mostly professionals, came because of jobs, stayed because we're family.  Actually, we're also ex-marrieds and not-marrieds.  Doesn't matter.  Nobody's suing.

Mom and Dad were so glad that we went to Mass.  We'd always refer to "our church friends", not the other name.  All these years later, we're still the "Young Marrieds" and the younger clusters of congregants have to find names like "Seekers".  Sorry, but we got our name first.

Growing up Catholic is pretty similar wherever it happens -- same Mass, same stories.  There's the one about the two nuns who always ride their bicycles to church.  One day they take a different route.  One of the Sisters remarks, "I never came this way before," to which her companion replies, "Must be the cobblestones."  Pretty bad, but Catholic boys think it's clever.  You'd have to really be good to get it on while balancing your bicycle.

And we all heard the one about the novitiate masturbating in the nave.  Mother Superior enters to pray.  "Stop that, Sister!  You'll go blind!"  The girl whispers back, "Mother, I'm over here!"

We have our opinions about women being excluded from the Priesthood, but when Caritas needs relief supplies for Africa, we Young Marrieds kick in.  It's called being Christians.

Father Thomas' (accent on the "mas" because he's from Mexico) nuptial advice is perfectly sound for couples of whatever bond: Celebrate your commitment and leave space for personal growth.  If he'd explicitly ask about our bond, I'd confess and he'd forgive me.  He didn't boot Anne and Paul for living together; he helped them make it for life.  All us Young Marrieds went to their wedding.  Paul's family being Czech (East European anyway), we danced and downed lots of toasts.  Samuel even did, which was really fun!  You need a Czech band?  Detroit has them.  Great city.

It's sad that we could never have Father Thomas' type of blessing, but what follows the aisle march is more important.  What priest would imagine two parishioners doing what we do?  Maybe Father Thomas would let us live it out.  I would be a tough one for him because he's pretty caring.

BEING AMISH

You can fool some of the people all of the time...  You know the rest.  Girlfriends figure out pretty quickly that he's your brother.  We talk too much and guys don't talk enough.  Basically my friends waited for me to talk when I felt ready.  Nobody says it's terribly wrong.  My friends that are married don't tell their husbands, which is interesting.  Samuel doesn't even know that they know.

Susan says that she'd have done better with her brother than the ass who ditched her.  She needs to get over her bitterness first, though.

Susan's a biologist and says that sibling mating is genetically OK if your ancestors weren't siblings too, if you get the meaning.  Too many generations running, though, have left the Amish with an abnormal degree of dwarfism.  The Amish aren't as careful about family ties as they are about electricity.  Lots of siblings + Candlelight + Comfy feather ticks + Rejection of birth control = More children slipped into the family tree as late arrivals.

"Why, that Esther all but gets her first baby where she's 'bout old enough to start socializing and the woman goes and has another!  Never even looked pregnant this time.  'Fraid this one's on the short side, but it's great there's that big sister to baby-sit when Esther's over at her brother's.  Wish I could lose some weight like that girl did.  She was getting right hefty.  And isn't it something how Esther's oldest boy is so sweet to his new baby sis."

Since Amish don't believe in zippers, imagine brother's buttons getting undone while sister lifts her apron.  "This way we don't have to wait for Runspringa to learn with our stupid cousins."  Runspringa is when 16-year-olds bed in lieu of worldly dates.  We learn such tidbits teaching social studies.  Look it up!  Supposedly they sleep fully dressed.  What that means, I'm sure, is that they slip under the covers fully dressed and arise likewise.

"Hey, Frieda.  After such a nice sunset trot, let's turn this buggy back to your place so we can sleep together.  It'll be weird going to bed in these overalls."

After evening devotions led by Frieda's father and all the kids are upstairs, "Be careful, Jacob.  I straight-pinned my frock like they teach us in church."

And after some trouser buttons, "Oh, Jacob!  Our moms decided right, thinking we should get to know each other."  "To know'" is a Biblical verb, of course.

After protracted rustling, "So'd my sis teach me OK, Frieda?  I know another way, even."  Guys, Amish or any kind, aren't too secure about themselves sometimes.

"Well, my brother always makes sure I get there with him, whichever way we do it.  Grossmudder Katie says that shoofly pie helps guys last.  You little kids can scoot closer up now so you don't get cold."

Maybe Harrison Ford helped the Amish gene pool in "The Witness".  Every guy at the barn-raising probably had Kelly McGillis' exact chromosomes.  I use the Amish as an example of American's multicultural makeup, but don't teach about their courting rituals.

Oh my, this is so terrible!  But the medical consequences are irrefutable.  I'll tell you this, though.  They may not be into light bulbs, but when their Mennonite Central Committee needs a power generator for a refuge camp in Africa, those Plain Folks kick in.  It's called being Christians.

KARLA

My friend Karla has sex with her brother, but they don't feign matrimony, Karla's real one being a formidable barrier.  I wouldn't like the duplicity, but Karla's Karla.  She screws a few DPS guys as well.  Samuel and I have an open invitation for what Karla calls an "overnight" when her husband's gone, which is pretty often.  As she slyly phrases it, "Brothers can get confused in the dark.  It'd be good chance spend time with the one we've known the shortest."  At least she's honest.

If Samuel and I aren't ready, she concedes, it'd be fun to watch a video and pair up the way we came.  It might be, but I suspect she'd want us four together for the duration.  I can already hear her line, "Let's all kick off our shoes and stretch out on our king-size.  We have a video player in there too." I'll bet she has some interesting videos.

Karla's frankness has helped me be more straightforward about my own activity, both self-achieved and with my brother.  To say that I put Samuel's erect penis in my vagina, that's what I say.  For a long time I'd have been more circumspect.

She and I agree that the tone of sibling relationship is set early on.  Samuel's come to respect the way a woman honors affection.  I taught him what I know, at least.

Karla, on the other hand, came to know sex via her brother's adolescence.  She says she always liked it, but basically he raped her since she was little.  He'd give her candy at first.  When his friend spent the night, they'd both visit her room.  She knows beaucoup more about technique and anatomy than do I, but I know more about the afterwards.  No wonder she's always looking for another partner.

With her blouses, though, she should wear a slip to teach English in.

JOAN

Joan, who teaches Spanish and who's always been single, had a different reaction.  "Lucky to have one, a brother.  He'd know," drumming her fingers on the Teachers Lounge tabletop, Doody-vintage Formica

"Know what?"

"Most guys think we need their penis.  Probably not one who grew up with you, though."  She smiled at her speculation.

Do I emanate "I love masturbation," I wondered?  I pictured a bumper sticker with a heart where "love" should be.  Maybe so, at least to girls who like to.

"Yeah, he knew way back when," I agreed, smiling a little myself and drumming my fingers back and humming a few Howdy Doody bars.  It's okay telling things to a girlfriend.

"It's all I've got," Joan admitted. "Me with Robert Redford."

(This was when Robert was still married to his first wife; women respect that sort of thing.  When they start sleeping around Hollywood, knocking up the 19-year-old aspirants, they're still sex symbols, but not as special.  It's intriguing to imagine the start of Redford's career.  Him the new boy in town.  Starlet Judy Tyler just a little older.  Both knockdown beautiful.  Maybe his first Hollywood party.  Her red convertible.)

"Then let's go see 'Out of Africa'," I suggested.  "I love his eyes and Samuel wouldn't get why what's-her-name stayed there to grow coffee."

Joan grinned and unbuttoned a button of her blouse where I could see the lace of her bra.  "It's warm in Africa, right?"

Maybe I grinned a little, too.  "Girls night out, we'll call it."

"CineMax is where we want to go, then," Joan informed me.

I really didn't know where this was heading, but knew I could trust my friend.

We splurged for $4 popcorn and sat in the back.  "Better for watching," Joan justified.  She had on the same blouse and the button was undone.  Around us were other girls, mostly in pairs.  Redford has lots of fans.

I was aroused from the opening, "I had a farm in Africa."  Pure foreplay.

While Redford made love to Meryl Streep, Joan elbowed me.  "Everybody's doing it."

"You sure?"

"Climax at CineMax, they say.  Feel it?"

An energy was bouncing around the back rows.  Some girls had arms around each other.  Some were kissing.  Some were tipped back in their seats.

"You didn't say this was a lesbian place."

"They're just like us, I promise."

Side by side, Joan and I touched ourselves.  It was neat, having a friend there, feeling her rhythm through the armrest.

Flying solo (sorry Joan, "sola") in a theater, your standard can't be Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally".  (Was Meg acting?)  You just want it to be sweet.

"I can't believe we're doing this," Joan whispered before she tensed and leaned back, one hand still busy below, the other near her mouth, just in case.

"Just you and me and Howdy Do," myself a minute behind.  "Don't need no mouse or kangaroo."

Joan held my elbow, which I thought was sweet.  At the end we kissed to tell each other it was good.

Afterwards we bought each other banana splits, not realizing the phallicness until we got our tray.  Did we laugh about the whipped cream!

These days whenever there's a Redford movie at CinePlex, we wear our jogging pants and fancy bras.  We laughed so much the first time when we realized how we'd dressed the same.  We sit in the back for the same reason boy-girl couples do at monster movies, to make out a little, but most of us are just normal girls.  It being Robert Redford, the dykes are somewhere else.

We slip off our bras during the previews and cuddle when the movie gets romantic.  I don't mind if the girls around us can tell.  They're doing it too.  It's a good way to enjoy the movie.  Joan's little nipples are so precious!

Masturbating to the plot is what makes it fun.  It's all about taking your time.  But when Robert's in front of the girl and the camera shows her bare back, we don't dally.  Chairbacks creak all around us.

Leaving the theater, we're not the only twosome with bras stuffed into purses.  It's sort of neat, the other girls knowing about us, us knowing about them.  We smile at each other.

If you see us at CineMax, Joan and I won't stare back, daring you to watch us like butch girls might.  If you sit where you can see Joan's head, though, watch it flip back when she orgasms.

I really like Joan.  I'm her "dulce hermanita."

JANICE

Most of my girlfriends know how Howdy helped me discover my body, come to think of it.  Guys exaggerate about cosmic orgasms with centerfold strippers.  Girls talk about good orgasms however they get them.

The few years that Janice (Art and Chorus) is my junior made her a Mouseketeer.  Too bad.  Remember pretty Annette Funicello who went on to give us "The Name Game"?  Don't sing it.  "My Boyfriend's Back" is OK, though.  The Afterbeats were her band and Annette later got MS, which is really sad.

But what I discovered about myself watching a puppet, Janice figured out watching a rodent.  The stories our sofas could tell!  If you see an old couch at a garage sale, check for wear on the armrest.  If it seems threadbare, have a seat and casually run your hand across it.  If the woman running the sale smiles, you can ask her how's business and how long she's lived there, stuff like that.  Maybe she's a teacher too, even.

I've never sat by Janice like I do with Joan at CineMax.  It's just not always easy to ask.

ELLIE

Ellie from church knows me well enough.  If I don't buy her a coffee, she'll have to tell the Pope, she warns.  Masturbation's a sin for guys because they "spill their seed," she learned in parochial school.  We're not exactly sure how that applies to our eggs, so we goad each other to ask Father Thomas for clarification.  Fat chance of grownup women asking that!  Ellie's own habit is much more grievous, I point out, because I'll bet she always dresses in her plaid skirt like a schoolgirl.  So she has to buy me a coffee.  Caffeine blackmail, we call it.

Using the word "habit" reminds me of those tiresome jokes about nuns' habits inside their habits.  They can still be celibate (their choice), so what's the deal?  You don't hear jokes about Fathers masturbating, so it's sexist.  Who wants your priest confessing to you?  Not me and Ellie.

Most jokes about Priests and Nuns and sex are stupid.  This one's good, though.

The Mother Superior wants to know why Sister Rose is leaving the convent.  "I want to be a prostitute."  Mother Superior's eyes grow wide, "Blessed Mary!  What did you say?"  "A prostitute," Rose repeats.  The superior breathes a sigh of relief, "Thanks be to God!  I thought you said a Protestant."

Ellie knows about Samuel too.  She's glad I use birth control (sin number three, I guess, but now optional) because the kids would find out.  She's right.  Ours was the generation where women could choose, at least.  And teaching gives you lots of kids.

HOWDY'S 40TH, NOVEMBER 1987

Thanksgiving weekend, Howdy celebrated his 40th anniversary on two-hour special.  I'd forgotten lots of the show detail, but it all came back.  Buffalo Bob still looked like Buffalo Bob.  In his 30's or his 70's, a hero's a hero.  Afterwards Samuel and I humped the old way, sister in her PJ's, brother on top.  Sexually it was pretty rudimentary, but it was absolutely the right way to culminate the reunion.

Samuel's so sweet, letting me make him shoot in his boxers after drilling me a thousand times.  Afterwards when I got him erect again, I goaded him to more or less rape me, the dominant male sort of conquest.  He didn't have to force me, of course; I wanted him to.

GOODBYE, BOB, JULY 1998

Born in the Teddy Roosevelt Presidency, Buffalo Bob died of cancer in North Carolina.  Detroit Free Press says he's survived by Millie.  Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys, died the same month.  It wasn't a good July, but then, it was pretty great how they'd carried on.  It's pretty precious what they gave my generation.  I was sad, but I was happy too.

I didn't have any sort of sex for several days.  It seemed right to leave my carnal side unsatiated.

HERE COMES 'DA JUDGE, JANUARY 2001

What a time for the Detroit Peanut Gallery!  After the show's demise, NBC loaned the Howdy marionette to his creator Rufus Rose who promised to give Howdy to Detroit Institute of the Arts.  Then Buffalo Bob persuaded Rose to lend him the puppet for his reunion tours.  Rose died in 1975 and when Bob returned Howdy, the Rose family was going to auction him off in New York, maybe for $1,000,000.

DIA sued and Howdy got locked in a vault.  The estate argued that while Rose thought about leaving the marionette to DIA, he'd left no such provision in his will.  In any case, the Howdy in question wasn't even the original, lost in a fire.  Another Howdy at the Smithsonian was for the public anyway.  Samuel and I had seen it.

A jury didn't vote the outcome because both parties rejected the Peanut Gallery option.  In January, District Court Judge Christopher Droney ruled that DIA was the rightful owner of this Howdy, "original" enough.

I was so excited!  It would be a while before they got his museum home set up, but that was fine.  Samuel and I drank champagne and he humped me silly.  That Howdy story has a happy ending!

BANQUET, MAY 2001

So now we're back to the retirement dinner.  I started with "It's Howdy Doody Time" because my love of music began with the show.  I thought they wrote the Nutcracker Suite for it.

But I didn't give my music tirade, harbingering the for-certain decline of civilization, where a noble retired woodenhead becomes a defenseless target for those of inadequate talent.  No, I didn't whine about the Dickies' "Howdy Doody in the Woodshed".  I simply quote,

   His hair is red his eyes are green.
   He's like a person that you've never seen.
   He'll sing and dance he's been to France
   But he doesn't seem to stand a chance

   That's when I saw Howdy Doody in the woodshed going down on Buffalo Bob.

   A smarter man would never plan
   To have so many splinters in his hand.
   And Clarabell would never tell,
   'Cuz he's afraid that he might go to jail.

Talent-sparse, these losers are poor taste set to loud guitar.  Cheap shots at heroes get notice.  Remember the Dead Kennedys?  The Dickies "discovered" by an L.A. scene-maker?  Breaking an ankle jumping off the sound scaffolding and letting your midget roadie wheelchair you around the stage takes talent?

So fuck 'em.  Howdy will be remembered and they won't.

Nor was the banquet the venue to put Bush's Desert Storm into a Howdy context where it belongs.

   It's Saudi duty time.
   It's Saudi duty time.
   I need a piece of tail.
   She winks behind her veil.

I'll stop there, as you get the idea.  I'm not the only one for whom the puppet evokes erotic thoughts, am I now?

So now we're back to my retirement dinner.  (Stories are nonlinear.)  I ceremoniously cut into large deeply frosted item.  The Deputy Superintendent for Information Technology presented a nicely framed certificate and a big kiss.

You know who the Deputy Superintendent for Information Technology is, I'll bet -- in Howdy code, my very own "Leumas"!

That's Mrs. Thornton's Mr. Thornton to everybody there, except he's Dr. Thornton, the "Dr." being an EdD earned in summer school.  (Here's how to identify a pompous ass.  DPS has a bunch.  "Hi, my name's Dr. Wolman."  Like his name's "Doctor", not Robert or whatever?  Samuel doesn't pull that one, I assure you.)

Samuel figured out pretty early that Industrial Arts was heading south (literally true in the rust belt).  Computers looked promising, so he tooted the Apple horn into Ed Admin.  Popular Science makes you a visionary in that Reader's Digest realm.  He never supervised me in the DPS organizational chart, so it's kosher.  I was a good teacher and he became a decent pontificator.

Father Thomas said never discuss work at home.  Imagine our dinner table if we ignored Father's advice.  "So it's really true that we're going to implement on benchmark basis an assessment of participatory multicultural goal achievements celebrating different enablements?"  We had lives.

It was great, that big retirement dinner kiss!  He's retiring too.  How will we ever dispose of two cakes?  Until now could just take one and some napkins to my classroom for a "reward".  Thirty seconds, not a crumb!

Speaking of Industrial Arts heading south, what about the other arts?

   Why hush my mouth,
   I'm heading south.
      A journey sweet to dally.
   A beckoned stroll,
   From grassy knoll,
      Into yon shady valley.

   I'll amble down,
   To hidden mound,
      Yet unseen from the north.
   My garden art,
   The petals part,
      A bloom to be brought forth.

   Where touch so slight,
   Draws fond delight,
      From Venus ever new.
   To thus unfurl,
   My Dixie pearl,
      Now bathed in morning dew.

   I writhe.  I lift.
   Myself, my gift,
      Supine without defenses.
   In clover field,
   Myself I yield,
      Succumbed to sultry senses.

   For common need,
   Implanted seed,
      The give and take is fun.
   But embers burn,
   For each return,
      To flames fanned white by one.

   As doe, as mare,
   (Sans Noah's pair),
      And lioness and vixen.
   We join to be,
   Sorority,
      Below the Mason-Dixon.

   'Neath cotton dress,
   My sweet caress,
      Those porch-swing bayou rumors.
   So y'all take note,
   'Neath petticoat,
      I've gone without my bloomers.

Detroit people love the south.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

The obvious question is, why did Samuel and I end up as a unit?

The easy story is that we fell into cohabitation and didn't find reason to confuse a settled perception.  Convenience is compelling.  It just worked out.  Most couples start off living together these days, so we just started off really early.  Enough years shacked up and the license question becomes moot anyway.  DPS stays hands off homelife if it doesn't impact our performance.  Those are the easy answers.

Another answer, pretty simple as well, is that it's sexual.  Maybe genetically-matched preferences drove us together.  We don't need to handcuff each other or trade underwear of anything.  It's an absolute fact that from the very start we could climax together, so I think there's something.

Maybe it wasn't sex per se that drove us together, but it sure helped us stick.  We make love with everyone's blessing.  No cheap motels for us, thank you.

Neither of us dated much at home and even in college didn't have serious relationships.  Maybe I seemed too studious.  Samuel was a pre-geek.  It's OK to be a geek today because you might become a Bill Gates.  Back then the term was just "square".  Anyway, we could go to social things together and people thought how we got along was cool.

For a short period in Detroit even, we even dated around, casual dates surprisingly understanding of siblings thrown together by economic necessity.  The city was big enough to socialize outside our normal circles.  Had either of us gotten serious, we'd have had to end some things, but neither of us found a better partner.  I've never slept around on Samuel and he's never slept around on me.  I'd know.

A deeper reason is that we're a good emotional match, better than most marrieds, I'd argue.  We enjoy life together, especially music.  Remember Farrante and Teicher, the easy-listening piano duo?  OK, they went to Julliard and we took lessons from Mrs. McKee, but Thornton and Thornton can still play most of their hits.  Our friends like the tightness of our timing.  Of course we blend; so did the Carpenters.  Karen Carpenter dead from anorexia at 32!  The way she'd sing "Close to you" to her brother at the piano.  Princess Summerfall Winterspring dead on the highway at 22!  Annette getting MS!  Oh, my!

And like Father Thomas advises, we enjoy our own lives as well.  Samuel golfs, sort of an Ed Admin requirement.  They probably actually say, "So we're going to implement, on benchmark basis, an assessment of participatory multicultural goal achievements celebrating different enablements," while they tee off.

I play tennis and garden and tell my flowers they're especially pretty today.  Joan's my doubles partner.  (Could have been Women's Century contenders, except for our serves.)  If we're the only ones in the dressing room shower, we'll soap each other's backs.  Sometimes she'll reach around to be silly.  When she does, her front slides against my skin, soapy slick.  I don't move so it won't seem like I'm noticing.

And I still check my undercarriage, an auto town sort of expression.  It's fine for Samuel to think that humping him is my sole remaining girlhood fondness.  Humping your brother is really a good way, of course, but he's sometimes golfing.

Why would a grown woman masturbate?  "Let me count the ways," as begins Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

   It's pleasurable and relaxing.
   It cures insomnia.
   It's without side effects, disease or pregnancy.
   As much gratification as you want, when you want it, and at your own speed.
   No inhibition when you're your own partner.
   The wags like to note that the price is right.
   With Joan, it's even social.

So why wouldn't I?

(Here's a thought about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Let me count the ways" love checklist for the Victorian Age.  The wealthy Barrett children weren't allowed to go out and associate with the riff-raff, but Elizabeth had her 11 younger siblings.  The boys were kept in long hair and even dresses until about 10.  The drowning of her favorite brother made Elizabeth a virtual recluse until 40 when she finally married.  Between childhood and 40, to whom was she writing and how did she sustain her fragile sensibilities?  Maybe her poem is about a secret playhouse in the Barrett attic.)

Being older, we're better at taking care of ourselves, even.  Rhythmically squeezing my thighs is my best art form.  Start off with however your hand likes, but press your thighs together for the association.  Then pull your hand away when you're almost there and let your inner thighs indirectly pressure your bud.  If nobody can see, I'll grind my hips, but I don't have to.  Press your thighs together when you climax.  With the association, you'll be able to use only your legs from earlier and earlier.  Eventually you won't need the manual startup.

Try it.  If you find yourself horny in public, just take care of it with no one the wiser, except maybe those of us who know how.  If you noticed me with legs crossed and kicking my foot at a faculty meeting, what was I really doing?  Intently listening to the dress-code exception for Sikh boys' turbans?

Another thought:  The only Sikh family name seems to be Singh, so it's simple for Sikh siblings to tell the Michigan marriage license office they're not related.  The Amish and the Sikhs both have distinctive dress.  They're both shrewd in business.  I'll bet they're pretty similar on the homefront, too.  So we'll say that Samuel and I are likewise cross-cultural.

Here's a better knock-knock joke than Cheech and Chong's.  Sister Heidi Doody is smiling ear to ear.  (Look at any picture of her.  This is why.)  Howdy is looking a bit scuffed.  Princess Summerfall Winterspring sends him off to see a rocket ship and makes sure that nobody from Doodyville is eavesdropping.

The Princess:  Knock knock.

Heidi:  Who's there?

The Princess:  Howdy Doody.

Heidi:  Howdy Doody who?

The Princess:  Howdy Doody act to you 17 times last night?  My acting coach can hardly do three.

Heidi:  It's the one advantage of your brother being whittled.

AND ONWARD

I'm retired, 54 with a life ahead and that's my tale.

Thirty years with Samuel and I still get the little kiss and the knee against me in the middle of the night.  Brothers don't need to explain themselves.

On Friday, Joan's treating me to "Havana" after Samuel leaves for Lansing.  Guys have their cover-ups for going to strip clubs or whatever they do at golf tournaments.  It would be good for my Samuel if he actually went with the others, but I think he stays at the hotel to work on DPS policies.

Joan and I have been to CineMax for lots of Redfords and I've taught her lots about herself.  I hold her elbow, then her wrist, then lace my fingers between her knuckles.  When she guides me down, my fingertips brush against her hair.  It's more springy than mine.  Sometimes I work her fingers against herself.  Sometimes I hold her back to make it better.  Sometimes I move my fingers ahead of hers to show her what to do next.  I like being part of it.

Sometimes her hand flops over the armrest and slips onto my lap.  She likes being part of my orgasm, too.  In "Havana", Robert makes love to a Swedish girl, so it's easy for me to identify.  Joan knows I'll need to come big-time.

After "Havana", I'll sleep at her apartment so we can claim a court Saturday before the sun gets too high.  We'll nightcap with Welch's wine coolers, as she calls them.  "Better than the Coke at CineMax," she promises.

Lots of things will be better than at CineMax.  We can wear our PJs.  We can kiss however much we like.  She'll want me to show her more things.  We can watch the best parts of Robert Redford videos.  If we get tired of messing with the remote, we can turn the TV off and concentrate on each other.  A sofa doesn't have an armrest in the middle.

At CineMax, we try not to advertise what happens.  At Joan's, how we help each other is just between two teachers.

Robert Redford gets me in the mood to hump Howdy Doody.  On Joan's couch, though, I pretend it's Princess Summerfall Winterspring.

Which PJ's would Joan think were my prettiest?

THE END

****

Holly on the Web

Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As literary errors (or just lame word usages) are made known, I'll repair that which is salvageable on http://www.asstr.org/~Holly_Rennick.  If you take the time to read me, don't wade through an early version.

You can contact me via the site's message form.

Holly

