Eureka

A posting, for Matt and Debbie Wood

The first time I had sex, I was alone in my room with Olivia Newton-John. She was on the cover of the local newspaper’s version of the TV Guide. She was starring in a prime time ABC special promoting her song Physical. I was 11 and I was full of maturing hormones. The picture on the magazine was of a very thin, very athletic, very wet ONJ. She was leaning back on an invisible table, exhausted and sweating from a workout, dressed in an over sized white shirt with a matching white head band. She was in a zone, fully concentrated, eyes closed, on something. I imagined she was fantasizing about being with me.

That morning before I began experimenting with myself and getting intimate with the cover of a magazine, I made the mistake of “admitting” to my brother, Ira that I had masturbated in my parents’ bathroom. When the words came out of my mouth, I was shocked because I was lying. I just wanted my brother to think I was cool and I didn’t know the act was something that was supposed to be hidden.

“I played with myself this morning,” I said.

“You did what?” Ira asked. He was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He dropped the knife he was using and turned his head so fast in my direction, I thought I heard a snap.
“I was just about to take a shower and I started rubbing my dick.”

He began laughing and our mother came into the room.

As a child, my parents were very open with sex and sexual situations. We knew when our parents’ door was closed at night, we were not to knock on it unless the house was on fire or one of us needed medical attention. The “all clear” sign was when we heard the faucet inside our parents’ bathroom turn on; we knew several minutes later the door would open.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. Ira told her what I had said.

“In my bathroom!” my mother shouted. The tone in her voice was not anger. “Did you, um, did you, well did you—“

My brother completed her sentence. “Finish?”

Although I didn’t know that “finish” was the technical term for what I had seen men do on the screen in the porno movies my brothers would steal out of our father’s armoire, I had an idea that something was supposed to happen. The first time I saw a porno movie, I was nine years old. I saw fluid coming out of the guys’ penis and I started to gag.

“All over the place,” I said. “On the toilet, in the sink, I finished all over the place.”

“What did you do when you were done?” my mother asked. “I hope you cleaned my goddamn bathroom.”

“I said, Eureka.” It was a simple innocent statement, which included a simple innocent word—a word I would grow to hate. Every chance my brother and mother (and eventually my father and other older brother) got, they would repeat the word with such enthusiasm. They’d say Eureka at the Thanksgiving dinner table. They’d say Eureka when my friends came over to play. They’d even say, Eureka, 14 years later when I proposed to my wife in front of our family and friends.

That night, it was very hot in my room and I kept the covers over my body in case someone came in. Although I had my own bedroom, we were not allowed to sleep with the door closed because my father felt that bad things happened behind closed doors. I had no idea what I was doing so the actual session lasted for well over an hour. I kept switching between my left and right hand, favoring the right, but I was handling myself in all the wrong ways. I was rubbing myself raw but the pleasure began to outweigh the pain. I also needed to occasionally turn on my penlight so I could get a glimpse of Olivia’s profile to feed my imagination.

Upon completion, I didn’t yell anything. I didn’t finish on the toilet or in the sink. I was panicked and scared (although also in a state of euphoria) because I thought I had rubbed myself so aggressively that my penis exploded. I was sure that the mess that was all over my blanket and me was blood because the skin on the shaft of my penis was raw and throbbing. I would have to explain myself to my father, who would beat the crap out of me for soiling something he paid hard earned money for. Once I flashed the penlight down below, I realized I had nothing to worry about and wiped myself clean with a dirty sock.

As the years went by, I continued to have my way with other women late at night like Loni Anderson and Farrah Fawcett, and Julie Fell, Tammy Piotrowski and Miss. Donovan from school. Sometimes I would do it four times a day. Sometimes I would do it in places other than my bedroom. One time I did it while my brother had his back to me while we were watching TV. I’d always try to finish as fast as I could and was proud of myself when I could be done in less than a minute. Little did I know it was a race I for which shouldn’t have been training. A race at which, when shared with an actual woman, being the fastest would mean something completely different and much more embarrassing than the torment of a family.