"Sort of. Well... no, not really."

They were silent for a time, then she said, "I thought it was going to hurt, but it didn't."

He tugged himself from his tangled thoughts.

"What?"

"When we... you know. The girls at school said it hurts the first time, and you bleed."

"Well, we didn't do the part that hurts."

"Yes, I know. Didn't you... don't you want to?"

"Do you want me to hurt you?"

"No. No, of course not, but I want you to have... you know... pleasure. I wish I knew how to..." She shrugged. "I'll do whatever you want." She snuggled her hot body to his and whispered into his ear. "How can I make you feel good? Tell me. Please."

He was silent.

"I'll do anything."

He chuckled. "Lick me like an ice cream cone?"

He felt her tense up, so he quickly said, "I'm sorry, I was just joking. No, there's nothing I want you to do. There's nothing you cando."

"What do you mean?"

"I suppose you've seen drawings on bathroom walls in school. Do you remember what the men's penises looked like?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, come on now. Of course you remember. Describe them to me."

"Well... in the drawings they're always huge. As big as arms. And sometimes there are drops of sap squirting out of them."

"Sap?" He laughed. "Sap?"

"Well, whatever it is. The stuff that makes— Oh, I see! You were afraid I'd have a baby. That was why you didn't...." She hugged him.

"No, that wasn't why. I didn't do the part that might hurt you because I... can't."

"You can't?"

"My penis can't get erect."

"Oh." Then, after a longish silence: "Were you hurt? Wounded or something?"

"No, I wasn't wounded." Then, after a moment: "but yes, I was hurt."

"I don't understand."

He drew a sigh. "Well, when I was a kid (actually, it started when I was a baby) my mother used to... she used to play with me. Mostly with her mouth. That's the earliest thing in my memory, her playing with me. Of course, I didn't know there was anything wrong with it. I thought it was just the way things are with mothers and their little boys... kissing and cuddling and all that. Then one night she told me that I must never, never tell anyone what she did, because if I told, then mean people would come and spank me hardand put me into a deep, dark hole forever and ever. That's when I realized that we were doing something wrong. And being a kid, I naturally thought that it was my fault somehow. I used to have nightmares about being thrown into that deep, dark hole, and I..." He stopped short and shook his head.

"You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to," she whispered.

"No, I want to. In fact, I have to, because that's the only way..." He shrugged, then he took several calming breaths before telling the shared darkness above them the things he needed her to know. "While my mother licked and sucked me, she would play with herself, and after a while she'd moan and squirm, and she'd suck faster and harder, and sometimes it would hurt, and I'd whine and tell her that it hurt, but she'd keep on until she was gasping and crying out! Then she'd lie back on the bed panting, and I'd be cold down there where I was all spitty with her licking and sucking. And sometimes it hurt real bad. Inside."

"Your mother...! She was crazy."

"Yup. She was always drunk when she did it. To this day, the smell of gin reminds me of being a little kid, and I can feel the pain inside, behind my penis."

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." She slipped her hand away from his soft penis, as though to avoid hurting him more.

"Then, when I was about five or six-I don't know exactly how old, but I hadn't started school yet-she was playing with me this night, tickling and sucking, and suddenly she lifted her head and smirked-I can still see the smirk-and she said, 'Well, well! Aren't youthe naughty little boy! You want it, don't you, you bad, bad boy?' You see, my penis had got stiff. That can happen, even when a boy is too young to... well, too young to know what's happening. And from that night on, for the next couple of years, she'd make me stiff, and that would drive her wild, and she'd suck me hard while she played with herself, and she'd say I was a bad boy because I wanted it. I wouldn't get stiff if I didn't want it, she'd say, and she'd suck me until it hurt down in my testicles. Then this one night... this one night the hurt didn't go away after she stopped. It got worse and worse. And the next morning I couldn't go to school because it hurt so bad. She told me it was nothing. The pain would go away pretty soon. But I could tell she was scared. She said that if anyone found out what we did, they'd put me in that deep black hole and leave me there forever and ever. And everyone would know it was all my fault, because I got stiff, and that meant I wanted it, and they'd know I was a naughty, bad boy. By the time night came, my side was swollen and I had a fever. All night long I tossed in my bed with pain. The next morning, I found myself all alone in the house. My mother had gone. I had to pee real bad, but I couldn't because it hurt too much. I was afraid I was going to die. So I called the emergency number I found on the back of the phone book. It was the first time I ever used a phone. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I had ruptures. Two ruptures. There was an operation, and they kept me in the hospital for a long time. When I was feeling better, a social worker visited me in the children's ward. They couldn't find my mother anywhere. She'd run away. Abandoned me."

She turned onto her side and looked at his profile. He could feel her eyes on him, could feel the weight of her pity, and it felt good. "What about your father?" she asked. "Why didn't he stop your mother from... Why didn't he do something?"

"There was no father."

"Oh." After a silence, she asked, "Did you tell the doctors what your mother had done to you?"

He shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't want to get her into trouble. After all... she was my mom." His jaw muscles worked, and she could hear the grinding of his teeth.

"It isn't fair!" she said.

"No, ma'am, it's not," his Gary Cooper voice agreed. "Not even a little bit fair." Then his own voice continued, "The doctor told the social worker that I had damaged myself by masturbating, and she told me I'd done a terrible thing and I would hurt myself badly if I didn't stop."

"So... what happened then?"

"They put me into an orphanage run by Catholic brothers. I got long lectures about how sinful masturbation was, and my earlobes would burn with embarrassment... and rage... at the injustice of it. Kids have a painfully keen sense of injustice. The brothers made me take cold showers, even in winter. They said it would keep me from abusing myself. The cold showers gave me an ear infection that put me back in the hospital. And that was the end of the cold showers. But not of the lectures." He fell silent, and he lightly rubbed his stomach to quell the gnawing. Then he used his Bela Lugosi voice. "And there you have it, my dear. The blood-curdling tale of... The Limp, Penis!"

"I'm awful sorry."

She could tell from the depth of the silence outside that they had reached that last dead hour before dawn. She felt that they ought to talk about their future. Well... at least about meeting for coffee tomorrow night after work. They could meet at the White Tower... their place.

"You must have been a real smart kid. I mean, you got into college and all." She was determined to find a silver lining in all his troubles: a Hollywood happy ending.

"Yes, I was smart. A bad boy, but a smart one. But I quit college and joined the army. Then I quit the army to become a full-time drifter."

"But a person can't just quit the army, can they?"