Humping with Howdy

“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 focussed 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 V. 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 10 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 too 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 8, 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 risqu‚ 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. I wished I wasn’t so bustled. When we got back to my place, I ditched my bra in the bathroom.

“That was really cool, seeing Howdy just like we used to,” I offered, popping a Hamms, feeling the silk on my nipples.

“Just like old times,” Samuel agreed, looking at my bumps.

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. Now he really was the bigger, so it was hardly close. Accepting defeat might have signaled the end of it, but I wiggled my knees wide so he’d know we’d been remembering together. My giggle was my final offer. I could see his erection in his slacks.

I didn’t mind when he unbuttoned his Moron girl’s blouse. He was the first guy I ever watched see my tits, excluding the creeps at the swimming pool who would gawk when my top hung loose. I so much liked how gently he touched me that I quit pretending to struggle and worked my leg up against his hardness. He must have liked it too, because he wasn’t escaping either.

But still how we were brought up, our hands didn’t venture southward. I parted my knees and let him rub his penis against me until we found our rhythm. We hooked one another’s shoulders and drove our bodies as one. Restrained as I was in my latex foundation still (damn what dressing up meant back then), it’s a wonder that it worked for me, but fondness on a sofa counts for a lot.

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 full penetration affords. What some deprecate as “dry fucking” can be really, really wet.

We were happy, not just for the sexual proximity, 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. 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 see 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, I didn’t think I’d mind, even if he wrapped his arm around me. I knew I’d liked how he’d brushed my bosom with his elbow. I shifted a little toward the middle, not obviously, though.

Wanting his presence, his excitement about tomorrow, I scooted my foot a bit in his direction. Nothing there. I scooted a little further — an ankle. “Are you asleep,” sure that he wasn’t.

The ankle pushed back. “Don’t tell them you drive a VW,” he advised, scooting my way.

“Be sure to tape back your Howdy ears,” I replied as I pulled off my gown. I wasn’t even planning to! I just sat up, did it, and dove back under the covers before he could see much. (Actually it was too dark to see, but I still wanted to be covered up.)

For a moment we just embraced, still a little unsure about being in bed together, much less me having discarded my gown. After the Howdy reunion show earlier that spring, we humped on my sofa maybe once a week, me topless, him squirting big spots on his pants, not really on me. He might have sometimes see my panties if my dress rode up (no more girdle, if you please), but I’d not take off my skirt. We’d stayed off my bed; we weren’t doing that.

We’d never been together just in underpants. We’d never been together in bed.

But you can be unsure and willing. We knew our positions — heads side by side. He clutched my shoulders while I worked my thigh inward and upward until his boxers firmly wedged my briefs. In only underwear, humping assumes precisely explicit characteristics. His penis strained forward, probing the yield of my own cotton. I arched to help, swapping friction for pressure.

But for the two undergarments, we’d have already mated. Had Samuel unencumbered the constraint, I would have joyfully acquiesced. We’d have become one. But didn’t tell him, strip me and love’s about respect, too.

In that big bed, silently we rotated together until I felt his ejaculation seep into my panties. Then I let myself go too. I wanted him to feel the power of my climax. I slept with the warmth of our two wetnesses matting my pubic hair. We slept together in the right way for that night.

Sometime during the night he shifted his weight from me, but I turned enough sidewise for his knee to linger between mine. I was ready to climax again, but I didn’t want to wake him, so I used a finger, hardly anything. Holding yourself so still makes it more pastel, knowing that he’s feeling your tremor in his sleep. When I came, his knee drew up to press against. 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.

When we met at day’s end, our grins announced our offers. Big money, even! Of course we kissed. Of course we hugged. Of course I helped Samuel out of his sports coat. Of course I got a run in my stockings when he dumped me fully dressed on our bed and humped me. Who cares about nylons? We were really good to each other.

We prepared for bed as we did the evening before, me in the bathroom, Samuel after turning out the light. We both had jobs in Detroit! This time Samuel pulled my gown off before I flopped onto the middle. He didn’t pull the cover back over us, even.

Again we held each other, fabric yielding but not parting. We both had jobs in a real city! This was that city! I ground against him with every skill I’d mastered on my Howdy. I didn’t let up.

“I can’t hold it,” he finally begged as I lifted. “I can’t.”

I knew the pace of his ascension — maybe six strokes remaining. I’d arrive right with him. Did this mean to let him pull away, precluding his seed from trickling into me, what might have even happened last night? I wasn’t sure. I worked him ever harder. With probably three left, there was no option for slowing.

No, I was sure. I hadn’t thought we would, but I was sure! I wanted him to take my virginity. I wanted to take his.

“It’s OK,” the same I’d said when we were little. Soaked with invitation and focusing on our final moment, I pushed down my panties and freed his penis. “Come on. You can!” His final stroke had nowhere to go but forward.

Sibling first-time sex must seem flustered to those who achieve the same end through the downward progression of normal petting. This was the first I’d touched a penis. I was only vaguely aware of what I’d briefly guided before it was half buried. Within me!

He was big, exploding on arrival. I was ready physiologically, but still surprised. Holding my brother, I knew that I wanted it to be real, just not that real, so fast. It stretched me, a rougher event that one self-achieved, but I didn’t mind about that. Like his, my orgasm began before his first pull. 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 about a guy.) It was our first. They’re just different. A woman needs both.

We’d proved ourselves to one another! Virgins no longer! Lovers!