Adam? Yes, Matty.

I pretended to be too sleepy to engage with Susan when she came home from work. This wasn't a tough sell, since I occasionally slept right through her late arrivals now that she had been on second shift for several weeks and it was becoming routine. Still, I usually made a point of greeting her after the Friday shift, welcoming her to the weekend, but tonight I couldn't risk her being horny after the workout Matty gave me. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to perform, nor could I explain why.

Matty was usually up before us on Saturday mornings, but this morning he was still in bed, so Susan went to rouse him. I stood in his bedroom doorway to enjoy the morning ritual of happy kid and happy Mom, but Matty was rolled on his side away from us and didn't want to roll back.

"Matty?" Susan said with concern, "Is something wrong?"

She nudged him to roll onto his back. There were tears of pain in his eyes, and I instantly went to Worst Case Scenario in my head. I had injured my beloved boy, maybe permanently, because I couldn't keep control of myself.

I was the worst piece of shit on Earth.

"Where does it hurt, Matty?" Susan asked softly, years of Emergency Room nursing and her motherly instincts telling her not to make things worse with a frantic tone of voice.

"I'm OK, Mom," he said, but not convincingly.

"Matty, you can hardly move without wincing in pain," she said. "Now quit this nonsense and tell me where it hurts."

The boy hesitated, shot a look at me, then stammered, "My... my butt hole."

My jaw dropped open into an expression of astonishment, which must have seemed entirely appropriate when Susan turned to look at me, and in fact it exactly matched her own, though for different reasons. When she turned back to Matty, stunned speechless for a second, I tried to catch his eye and force my thoughts into his head. The look in my eyes, my facial expression, my body language, hell even mental telepathy if I could swing it, all tried to tell him No No Matty No! Don't tell her what I think you're about to tell her!

"What happened, honey?" she said gently. "No matter what it is, it will be OK. Just tell me what happened."

"I had something in my butt," he said softly, "and I think it was too big."

No No Matty No! my brain screamed silently.

"What do you mean, sweetheart?" Susan prompted. "You put something in there on purpose?"

Matty averted his eyes, and flushing deep red he answered, "Yes."

"I need to have a look, baby," she said, reaching down to skin the PJ shorts down and off of him. It was the first time I'd seen his penis limp in a week. "Can you roll onto your side?"

He rolled as instructed and Susan positioned him with his top knee forward, much like our sex position the night before. It was not a welcome reminder in the moment. Susan turned to me and asked, "Can you hold the desk lamp so that I can see?"

I complied hurriedly, needing to see for myself that I didn't really rip my beautiful boy apart with my unthinking lust. Susan gently opened his little cheeks and bent down for a look as Matty moaned.

"I don't see any blood," she said. "Not on you, not on the pajamas or on the sheet. That's a good sign." She bent closer again and peered from several angles. "I don't think you have a fissure," she said, and when Matty looked uncomprehending she said, "I don't think your skin is torn. I think you're just bruised. There was never any blood, right?"

"I don't think so," Matty said, and I breathed for the first time in about five minutes.

She rolled him gently onto his back and pulled the sheet up over his nakedness. "OK, Matty, now you've got to tell me what happened. I promise you're not in any trouble. I just need to know."

"Well," he began, shooting me a troubled look. I felt the cold chill of impending doom.

"For a long time I've liked the feelings back there," he said. "When I washed myself in the bathtub I liked how my finger felt. And then a while ago I started to put my finger inside a little bit, to wash further up, and that felt good too. And then I put my soapy finger all the way in, and that felt even better. And then I put two fingers, but I wanted even more."

Susan had a kind, motherly look plastered on her face but she seemed to be barely breathing. "So what did you put in there last night?" she asked gently.

Matty looked from Susan to me and back, and visibly gulped. I gulped too.

"My hair brush," he said meekly. "The handle, I mean."

I exhaled, and only then realized I had been holding my breath.

"Where is the brush, Matty?" Susan asked.

"On the dresser," Matty replied softly, and Susan turned and picked it up.

The handle was made of plastic, almost cylindrical except flattened on two opposite sides, with a rounded tip. At about an inch in diameter it actually wasn't as big as what had really been inside him, but it was close enough. I still wished he hadn't gone down this path at all, but at least he had a halfway plausible story.

"It must have hurt," she said, and the unspoken rest of that sentence must have been, So why would you keep putting it up your ass?

"Not at first," Matty said timidly. "Well, not very much. And then it started to feel good, but then I guess I got carried away."

"I'm going to give you some children's aspirin for the pain," Susan said with a smile. "Since you're not bleeding aspirin will be fine, and should work better than Tylenol. And then you'd better take it easy this weekend, OK?"

"OK, Mom," he said, still chagrined.

"Sitting in a hot bath will help," she said, then hastily added, "Just sitting! No washing for today, OK?"

"OK," Matty repeated.

"It might hurt when you go to the bathroom," she said. "That's to be expected, so don't worry. Just try not to strain. I think you'll be OK in a few days, but at some point we're going to have a talk."

"Yes, Mom," he said, and Susan went out to get the aspirin.

As soon as she was gone I leaned in close and whispered, "I wish you hadn't told her all that."

Matty gave me a defiant look that clearly said it was his decision and not mine, then said, "I needed my Mom."

I looked away, chastened. "Yes, of course you did," I whispered. "Oh, Matty, I'm so sorry!"

He smiled weakly and took my hand. "I'm still glad we did it," he whispered, "and I can't wait until I'm better and we can do it again!"

A couple of aspirin and a hot bath later Matty was feeling marginally better and settled back into bed for a nap. Susan and I went downstairs and finally had our "morning" coffee, though it was now past eleven.

"You know, we see this sort of thing all the time in the ER," she said, "but usually with adults. With kids it's up the nose."

"I remember you telling me some of the stories," I said.

"And we -- the staff, I mean -- laugh about it," she said. "We don't laugh at the people, just at the ridiculous things they put up there."

"Gimme a break," I said. "You laugh at the people, all right. I heard your tone when you told those stories. You think those people are sad and stupid, and maybe perverted."

She looked mortified. "I did, goddammit I did think like that," she said. "I guess it's kind of a defense mechanism, you know? We see so much bad shit in the ER we kind of have to fall back on gallows humor to get through it."

I sipped my coffee. "Whatever you have to tell yourself," I said. "But the fact is every one of those people is somebody's son or daughter, just like Matty, and the vast majority of them just happen to like a little stimulation in their backside to get their jollies, just like Matty. But they did one stupid thing and let an object get lost inside them, or hurt themselves like Matty, and then they had no choice but to come and humiliate and debase themselves before you, the angel of mercy who's supposed to be there to help them.

"And don't get me wrong, you do help them and I know you're happy to do it. Susan, you're the kindest person I've ever known and I know you don't mean to humiliate those people, but you do, and you pass that judgment on to the younger nurses and doctors, and then they mock and humiliate them, too.

"But now you know one of those people. You know Matty isn't sad or stupid or perverted. People just have different turn-ons, that's all, and one is no better or worse than any other. It really isn't anybody's business nor does it deserve anybody's judgment unless it's hurting someone."

She leaned forward and took my hand. "You like, well, butt stuff, right?" she asked. "I mean, you did ask me to put my finger up there."

"Yes," I said, "but I know you don't like to do it so I don't ask anymore."

"I don't hate it," she said. "I'll do it for you if you want me to. It might even help me understand what Matty is experiencing. Like, how old were you when you discovered this... I don't know, what is it, a fetish?"

"Not if you're using the word fetish as a pejorative," I said. "It's no more kinky than you liking it when I twist and bite your nipples. It's just deriving pleasure from your body, from a place that has lots of sensitive nerve endings."

Susan got up and refilled our cups. "Society has a big hang-up about the butt and poop," she said. "Way back in hunter-gatherer days it made some sort of sense. People didn't have decent hygiene then, and the bacteria in feces could cause disease, so they made up rules to keep people away from that area."

"But now we have bathtubs," I said, "and soap and water."

"I guess I started all this," she said with a mirthless laugh, "telling Matty he had to wash really well back there."

"What were you supposed to do? Tell him not to wash his butt? A Mom can't let her kid go through life with a dirty butt. And he would have discovered these feelings eventually anyway."

"Like you did," she said, and I knew she wasn't going to let that line of questioning go. I had to decide just how far I was willing to take the subject.

"Owww!" we heard from upstairs. "Mommy!"

Susan jumped up and headed for the stairs. "Jesus," she muttered. "He hasn't called me Mommy since he was six."

Yep, I thought as I hurried behind her. Six is about the age he regresses to when he's under stress. We found him in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, his PJ shorts kicked away on the floor.

"I had to go poop," he said between sobs. "Going didn't hurt, but wiping myself hurt a lot!"

"I'll help you, honey," Susan said, and prepared a warm soapy washcloth with which she cleaned the moaning boy's backside as he bent over her knee. I took the soiled washcloth and rinsed it out thoroughly, then handed it back so she could rinse away the soap.

"I feel like a baby," Matty said with distaste for his own helplessness. "I'm sorry, you guys, I don't want to be a pain."

"It's OK, Matty," I said with a smile, and he half-smiled back.

"As long as we're here, let me take another look," Susan said, parting his butt cheeks again. She touched him gently a half inch from the anus and he winced. "OK, let's get you back to bed," she said, which we did and both kissed him on the lips, though in my case without the usual passion.

Susan and I reconvened in the kitchen. "It seems to hurt him worse than expected," she said. "The baby aspirin isn't doing enough, and it's too soon to give him more, and certainly not an adult dose."

"Maybe we need to take him to the ER," I said.

Susan grimaced in a "bad idea" face. "We don't want to do that," she said.

"But if he's hurt worse than we think..."

"We're not to that point yet," she said, "and the ER is a big can of worms."

"I'm just worried about him," I said.

"I know, honey," she said, "and I love you for that. It's just... Do you know what a Mandated Reporter is?"

"No," I said, beginning to suspect that I didn't want to know.

"Certain professionals who help look after the welfare of kids, doctors, nurses, teachers and so on, are required by law to report any suspicion of child abuse," she said. "We can be held criminally liable if we fail to report something and it turns out the child was in danger."

"But Matty's not in danger," I said, hoping it was true.

"No," she said, "but if some kid came into my ER with that kind of injury I wouldn't care what story he told about a hair brush. I'd call the cops and say I thought the boy had been raped."

"Raped!" I said far too loudly, and Susan shushed me.

"Kids who've been abused lie all the time," Susan said. "Their shit-bag parents put them up to it, and little Johnny thinks that if he just says what they want him to say maybe Daddy will really love him."

"Oh my God!" I said, genuinely appalled.

"If we take Matty in somebody's going to make that call," she said, "and as the only man in the house when it happened..."

"Oh my God!" I said again, this time appalled and scared shitless.

"No, we have to handle this ourselves," Susan said. "I honestly don't think he's seriously hurt. His sphincter has been badly bruised and it's quite painful for him, but I don't think he's in any real danger."

"You're the ER nurse," I said. "I defer to your judgment."

"And I'm his mother," she said. "I wouldn't take any chances with my Matty."

"I know," I said, and we leaned across the kitchen table and lightly kissed.

"We need a stronger pain reliever that has no side-effects and will let him sleep," Susan said. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think my ten-year-old needs to get high."

I looked at her in disbelief.

"I know, I know," she said. "I keep all that stuff away from him, but there are real medical benefits from cannabis, especially in pain relief and anti-nausea for chemotherapy patients. And you know certain strains of it make you sleepy."

"I happen to have some of that very thing," I said. "Cannabis Indica, to be exact."

"OK, then that's the plan," Susan said. "But we can't have him smoke it. First of all it's terrible for his lungs, and more importantly as a first-time smoker and a kid to boot, he's bound to cough like crazy, and I don't know if you know this, but when you cough you involuntarily clench your asshole."

"Really?" I asked, trying to remember how it feels to cough. I forced a cough but didn't really feel anything in my ass.

"It's more pronounced with a real cough," she said, "and it would hurt him in his current condition."

"So how, then?"

"We'll vaporize it," she said. "I saw this guy do it once at a college frat party. He got two spoons and heated them up to red hot over the gas burner in the kitchen, then he put one bud of the dope on one spoon and crushed the other hot spoon down on top. It instantly made a puff of this super-heated smoke or gas or something and one snort got me high as fuck."

"And it wasn't harsh, or even hot?"

"No, it was good."

"OK, then let's bring our little boy down and get him stoned!"

This was many years before the vaping fad, of course. The technique took some figuring out and was, in general, a pain in the ass (and the finger -- damn that spoon was hot! Burned me right through the pot holder.) but it did eventually produce the promised puff of pain-relieving smoke that sent Matty to blissful dreamland. I carried him up the stairs and put him to bed, and when I returned to the kitchen Susan was waiting with a conventional, old-fashioned joint.

"I think we deserve this," she said, "and Matty will be out for hours."

I lit the joint off the gas burner and we passed it back and forth a few times. I could definitely feel the edge coming off.

"Pretty good shit," Susan said, and it sounded very silly to me coming from this highly educated, well-respected and competent professional woman. It was always a nice to be reminded that she was so down-to-earth.

"So it actually feels good, huh?" she said seemingly from nowhere.

"Yeah," I said. "Indica is a great body high."

"No," she said. "I mean the butt."

I exhaled the hit I had been holding and said, "To me it does, yeah."

"And apparently to Matty," she said, and I thought I detected a mellowing of her tone on the subject. Of course, cannabis mellows pretty much everything.

"There are these little tickling sensations right at the anal opening," I said, "and they're great. But when you get something thicker and it goes way deep up there, you get a wonderful feeling of fullness that is not to be believed."

"Girls get that in the vagina. I love when your cock fills me up!" she said. "But I never tried anything, uh, back there."

"Shit," I teased, "you can't even say it, much less try it."

"OK, then," she said. "Anal anal anal! How's that, smart guy?" She stuck her tongue out at me and we both laughed. She took another hit and passed the joint to me. "One guy wanted to, you know, fuck me there," she said, "but I was having none of it." She shrugged and added, "I was young."

"And you never, like, slipped a finger in?" I asked, "maybe while masturbating before you were old enough to date?"

"No," she said. "I never thought of it, actually. I have another hole perfectly suitable for fingers."

"True," I said, then brightened to an idea. "Maybe boys discover their assholes because they don't have a more suitable hole. Maybe penetration is the universal that we all share, and the only place a guy can be penetrated is in the ass."

"Interesting concept," Susan said. "It does seem like a lot of men -- and apparently boys -- like things in their ass. Almost all the people who come into the ER for that are men. You're the first one I've dated, though."

"I was with a girl for a while just after college," I offered, "who liked to be fucked in the ass."

"Really?" Susan said, slightly incredulously. "Trust me, women talk about everything they do with their men, and I've never heard even one woman say she likes it in the ass."

I shrugged. "There's still the social stigma," I said. "I didn't suggest it to this girl. The second time we slept together she came right out and asked for it."

"Did she explain at all?" Susan asked. "I mean, did something happen to her in childhood or something?"

"There you go again," I said, "assuming that it's some kind of pathology. Maybe she just likes it!"

Susan took another hit and held it, then let it out slowly. I got the feeling she was stalling.

"I guess the prejudice is pretty deeply ingrained," she said. "I really should be more open-minded, especially now that I have not one but two ass aficionados in the family!"

I grinned. "We outnumber you now."

"I don't know, I still don't get it," she said. "I know how Matty said he got into it, in the bathtub. How about you? How old were you?"

"A little older than Matty, but not that much," I said. "I know I wasn't twelve yet, because it was the summer before seventh grade."

"That's oddly specific," she said. "How are you so sure of exactly when?"

I decided not to tell the truth, that my cousin Chris always came to stay with us for a week every summer and taught me something new every year. Seventh grade was the year he taught me about butt play.

"I guess it was just an important self-realization for me," I said. "I was just beating off like I had a thousand times before when I started feeling around my hole while I stroked, and it was a real epiphany how good it felt. In a minute I had my finger up there, and pretty soon it was a regular part of my masturbation."

"Like a thousand times before, and you weren't even twelve yet," she said with a whistle. "You must have started masturbating young."

"Boys do," I said. "From a very early age, our dick is our favorite toy. Think about it. You girls have your clits hidden away, and you have to feel around to even discover it. Our thing is right out there! We can't help but notice it, and the way it feels when we touch it, or a breeze touching it, or even our underwear touching it. Or hell, even our diaper! You know from when Matty was little. I'll bet he had a little baby boner all the time!"

"All the time," Susan said. "I'd open up the diaper to change him and boing!"

"Because that's how the penis works!" I said. "Stimulus equals erection. And when the equipment is brand new from the factory with the price tag still on it, it works perfectly!"

"Wow," she said. "I never thought of it that way. How can a boy not discover sexual feelings?"

"I was masturbating regularly by age eight, though that might be a trifle earlier than average."

"You think Matty...?"

"Count on it," I said. "He's a healthy, inquisitive ten-year-old. I'd be amazed if he wasn't."

"I thought I had a couple of years yet," she said, a little sadly.

"No, but it's OK," I said. "Society wants to pretend it isn't so, but humans are sexual creatures from the cradle to the grave. I think the best thing you can do for Matty is to let him know without question that an interest in sex is perfectly normal at whatever age it happens."

Susan looked like she was debating saying something, then finally lowered her voice even though Matty was out like a light. "I used to hump my stuffed monkey, Mr. Giggles, when I was five."

"Five?" I said with a grin. "And you said I was early at eight."

"Full-on clitoral orgasms," she added, almost proudly. "The shape of his ear was just perfect to get right in there. See, you're not such a big deal if a stuffed animal can get me off."

I took her teasing with a smile. "But if you were cumming with a stuffed monkey at five, why are you so upset about Matty having sexual feelings at twice that age?"

"I don't know!" she blurted, suddenly looking confused and distressed. "Because I'm the Mom now. Because I'm responsible for how he grows up. Because it's my job to make sure he's healthy, happy and normal! And a brush handle up the ass is not normal!"

"Whoa, whoa," I said, taking her into my arms and holding her. "Hey, who's to say what's normal? All normal means is conforming, being a sheep and herding along nicely with all the other sheep. I say fuck normal! Let him be better than normal. Let him think for himself, follow his own truth. He's a good boy, Susan! He has a beautiful soul, he's kind and generous, and he wants the whole world to be happy! Who cares what's in his butt? What matters is what's in his heart."

Susan picked her head up off my shoulder and wiped away some tears. She was beginning to settle down.

"He's a pretty goddamn good kid, isn't he?" she said, followed by a sniff.

"He's amazing," I said. "And you've done an amazing job. I love you both so much I don't think I can stand it."

"I love you too, Adam," she said, "and I absolutely know Matty does."

"In fact," I said, "since we have this three-way love fest going on, I'm just going to come right out with what I'm thinking. Susan, will you marry me?"

She was taken aback, then her surprise softened into the most loving look I've ever received.

"Oh Adam," she said, "Of course not."

"Say what?"

"Oh, honey, I appreciate what you're feeling," she said, "and believe me, I feel it too. But Jesus Christ, Adam, we've only known each other for five months, and I've got a kid to think about. I can't make such a huge decision so quickly, and especially not in the middle of whatever is going on with Matty, and especially not stoned to the eyeballs. Ask me again a year from now and maybe you'll get a better answer, but not today."

I leaned back in my chair and cast my eyes downward, saying nothing.

"Oh, sweetheart, don't be upset, OK?" she said. "We already live like a family. Let's just enjoy that for now."

I perked up a little. We did live like a family. I had my loving wife and my loving son. I had no reason to be sad.

"I've never asked a woman to marry me before," I said. "They never say no in the movies."

"I'm not saying no," Susan said, placing her hand on top of mine. "I'm saying not yet."

I gave her a shy smile.

"But listen," she said. "I'm very pleasantly buzzed from this... what do you call it?"

"Indica."

"Yes, from that stuff," she said. "Matty will be zonked for hours yet, and I think I could be talked into a little preview of the honeymoon we'll go on someday."

"Oh, I see," I said. "You won't buy the cow but you want the milk for free."

"Not the milk. The cream. And wouldn't you be the bull?"

"Details," I said, rising and taking her hand to lead her to the bedroom.

"Oh, and Adam?"

"Yes, Susan."

"Maybe today is the day to give me a little knock on the back door," she said. "I probably won't say come in, but the knock might be fun."

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Next time:

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