The flu had been making the rounds of Kent’s hometown this December. Kent’s mother got it early in the month; Kent’s father soon followed suit. Kent’s younger sister also got it, which anyway would have perhaps happened sooner or later from her high-school classmates. Kent himself, however, had escaped it, for he was away in college. This respite had been short, however; Kent manifested the signs of a strong flu on December 24. Kent’s mother, Ann, moved dinner time early; Kent would need some rest.

Kent lacked appetite for dinner. After dishes had been put away, Ann paid him a visit. Kent seemed quite miserable. “Better check your temperature again, dear.” Kent moved to retrieve the thermometer from the bedside table before shaking it and putting it into his mouth. Unfortunately, he slipped and the thermometer fell and broke. Ann avoided cussing. She was glad she was able to retrieve the bits of the thermometer without a mercury spill.

A few minutes later, Ann reappeared, carrying another thermometer and a jar of Vaseline. “Kent dear… We need to check your temperature, as you appear feverish, but the only thermometer I have is this one and, well, it does not go into your mouth. I’m sure you know what I mean…” Ann deposited the thermometer and the jar on the bed, and opened the jar. “Can I let you deal with it? You just dip it into the Vaseline and push it halfway in. I’ll knock on your door in five minutes to retrieve it. And, please, please, this time be careful.”

Ann had some experience taking her own temperature in her bottom. When she was younger, she had experimented the “temperature method” for fertility determination, and the booklet said that, for this high-precision task, rectal was much preferred. These days were however long gone, the basal thermometer had not been in use for a long while. The normal rectal thermometer had likely last been used in Kent’s younger sister’s bottom when she was a child.

Ann would be embarrassed to explain why she still kept a stock of Vaseline. The social convention between parents and children is that children, even after the speeches about the “bird and the bees”, pretend to ignore the fact that daddy must have plunged his wee-wee into mommy’s a few times to produce offspring, and may in fact do so on a regular basis. Even more taboo would be that mommy, once in a while, takes daddy’s wee-wee in the “wrong hole”, an act so perverted that it’s actually prohibited by state law. Daddy doing mommy missionary-style in the natural way would already be a disgusting thought for most youth, but daddy pinning mommy down on her tummy and doing it in her bottom while her hand busies herself on her naughty bits would really be too much. In any case, the Vaseline jar would come handy for the young man with a fever on Christmas eve.

Kent sheepishly agreed to the procedure. He had never taken his temperature back there, but that was not rocket science. The feelings were interesting. It had been years now since the last time that he had had a thermometer in there.

Kent definitely had a fever. However, a good night’s rest did good work. He was feeling better in the morning. The Vaseline jar on the bedside table was a witness to the events of the evening; the thermometer was gone; Ann, who did not want a repeat experience of it falling down, had stored it in the medicine cabinet after cleaning it. It was 9AM when he met his mother and announced the news. “Good. Let us check your temperature again.” An oral thermometer had not materialized during the night, and Kent was again given the rectal one, the Vaseline jar, and an admonition to be careful.

As Kent inserted the greasy device, his mind wandered. When his mother had showed up with the thermometer and said that it did not go into the mouth, he had, for a second, thought that she would be taking his temperature back there as she had been doing it when he was a child. His mind wandered… would he have accepted it? He had been in so poor condition the night before that, he thought, he would have likely rolled on the side and lowered his pajamas without protesting, as he was doing 11 years before.

Now that he was feeling better, he decided to experiment with his own feelings. He moved his hand again to his backside and moved the thermometer slightly. An interesting feeling. He had sometimes done it as a kid, as his mother had left the room. His mind wandered again. Would he like Maureen (the girl he was dating) taking his temperature? That would be neat. Would she find it gross? Difficult to say. Girls were strange creatures, difficult to predict. The thought of Maureen prompted him to move his hand to his penis, almost unconsciously. Since his pajama bottoms were pulled down, it grazed on his naked glans. He began rubbing it with his fingertips. He was still sick and tired, which is not good for getting an erection, but he was also 19, and at that age, males tend to have erections quite easily; Kent was no exception. As he was playing with himself in the front, he moved the thermometer slightly with his other hand. He however was careful enough not to stroke himself too strongly, as his mother would come back shortly; he did not want to deal with a visible erection, let alone ejaculation.

Indeed, Kent’s fever had receded. He waited impatiently for his mother to depart, as he had some pressing needs to attend. One finger moved to his backside. His opening was still greasy, and he teased it with one finger. Then his hand moved to his penis, and he began stroking it. Thoughts about Maureen, fantasies about her playing with his penis, with his buttocks, with his anus, submerged his mind. He ejaculated, for the first time since he had come back home. He had tissues for his stuffed nosed on the bedside table, and wiped himself. He would dispose of them later.

Kent and family saw their respective presents. Then, Ann decided to take advantage of Kent feeling better and not being sick in bed to change his sheets. He had sweated a lot due to fever, and she thought he would appreciate fresh bed linen.

While the social contract is that children pretend to ignore that their parents have sex, it is also that mothers ignore signs of obvious masturbation when dealing with bedsheets, briefs, pajamas and paper tissues; a change from the better from the not so distant decades when parents, doctors and religious leaders wanted to uproot the practice. Kent had never thought that he had, over the years, left many tell-tale signs of his manual activities; but hey, since children do not think about their parents having sex, boys do not think about their mothers knowing perfectly well the aspect and smell of semen, even if their mother, as Maureen had done, have told them, before letting them loose to go live on campus, to use a condom even if the girl claims she’s on the Pill (“you never know if she does it seriously, and anyway you don’t want to catch diseases”). Ann had a little smile; at least he’s doing better, she thought.

Unfortunately, Kent’s respite was short-lived, and fever returned. Ann explained she did not want to go find a drugstore open on Christmas to buy an oral thermometer; rectal it would again be! Kent did not mind, quite the contrary, though of course he did not want to make it too apparent that he liked it this way. In fact, Kent was a bit disappointed when, on December 26 in the evening, Ann announced that she had stopped at the drugstore on the way back from work to buy another oral thermometer…