On the way back to the Porters’ house, we made a stop at Phillips Pharmacy. I wasn’t feeling very energetic, so stayed in the car while Julie (she insisted that I stop calling her Mrs. Porter) went in to purchase some provisions. The outside temperature was climbing to the mid-nineties, and I was happy to spend a bit more time seated in the warm car rather than in walking through an overly air-conditioned drugstore. Julie reappeared about ten minutes later holding a white paper bag, which she placed on the back seat. She seemed to be blushing again, which I figured must be due to a combination of walking in the heat and her pregnancy.

We got to her home just before lunchtime. Julie prepared a couple of salads and some iced tea, and we lunched outside at a table on the patio. However, I was still feeling a bit listless and didn’t eat much, perhaps in part because of the stifling heat. Seeing that I wasn’t well, Julie suggested that I lie down for a nap. She was kind enough to show me to the guest bedroom, which was located just across the hall from the newly furnished baby nursery. She turned down the covers of the twin bed and partially closed the shutters to reduce the sunlight and heat in the room. Before stepping out, she announced that she was going to take a shower to cool off, but that I should call out if I needed anything.

It felt nice to strip off my jeans and t-shirt, both of which were by then sticky with sweat. Before I lay down on the bed, though, my curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked out into the hallway. The door to the master suite at the end of the hall was ajar, and I could hear the sound of the running shower. I slipped quietly out of the guest room, clad only in my white briefs, and tiptoed across to have a look at the nursery.

What I saw was a spacious room that had been tastefully decorated in white and blue. Against one wall was a crib that was already furnished with pillows and linen. A mobile of butterflies was hung from the ceiling above it. Against another wall was a wooden changing table. The top was covered with a thin cushion, while underneath were three drawers and an open shelf. The shelf was already stocked with diapers and a bottle of baby powder. What really caught my eye, though, was the white bag from Phillips Pharmacy, which Julie had left on the tabletop.

Feeling a bit like a busybody, I couldn’t resist the urge to walk over and open the bag. What I saw practically made my heart stop. There were four items inside. They included a bottle of alcohol, a bag of cotton balls and a jar of Vaseline. The thing that got my attention, though, was an unopened thermometer package. It had the words “Baby/Rectal” printed prominently above the image of a toddler lying on his stomach. A red case was visible through the plastic packaging, as was a stubby-tipped thermometer. The sight of that instrument immediately caused my heart to start racing, and I felt a stirring in my briefs.

Afraid of getting caught, I quickly put everything back in the bag with trembling hands and crept back into the hallway. The shower was still running in the master bathroom, and I found myself unable to resist walking toward the door at the end of the hall. I knew that I shouldn’t, but the temptation was too great. Peeking into the bedroom, I had a straight line of vision into the en-suite bathroom. And the two sets of mirrors there meant that I could clearly see Julie in the glass-enclosed shower as she stood under the running water. It was an amazing sight. Everything about her was beautiful: the short, dark hair matted on top of her head; the pert, milky-white, slightly engorged breasts whose nipples were erect like pencil erasers; the now quite obvious bulge of her abdomen; the wide hips that gave her body a slight pear shape; and finally, the thick triangle of dark pubic hair adorning her crotch.

I was truly mesmerised and found myself paralysed by a combination of fear and lust. I knew I should leave, but all I could do was stand there and stare, as my previously tepid erection became rock-hard. Time stood still as I watched her soap up and rinse herself off. Then, to my further amazement, her left hand reached up and started slowly caressing her breasts while the fingers of her right hand sank into her pubic hair and began gently rubbing. Her movements continued for about two minutes, until her whole body seemed to gently shudder, before coming to a stop. After a few seconds catching her breath, she turned off the shower and stepped out.

That’s when she caught a glimpse of me in the mirror. Or did she? I couldn’t be sure. Her only reaction was to smile slightly as she wrapped a towel around her naked body. She didn’t make any comment or even look back in my direction. I was terrified that she might say something to Mom if she thought I was spying, so I hightailed it back to the guest bedroom and lay down quickly on the bed, my heart thumping in my chest. It was too warm to even get under the covers, so I lay there in my underwear, fearing the worst. Fortunately, she didn’t come into the room, and after a few minutes I started to relax. Despite the excitement of the moment, my fever was taking its toll, and it wasn’t long before I nodded off to a fitful nap, full of lurid dreams of my hostess.

I was awakened by the presence of Julie sitting on the side of the bed. I don’t know how long I had slept, since the shutters blocked most of the direct light, but it felt like it must have been a couple of hours. The room was still warm, and Julie was clad in a short, satiny bathrobe that was loosely tied around her waist. The bottom of the robe barely covered the tops of her creamy-white thighs. She obviously didn’t have anything on underneath, at least on top, because her entire left breast came clearly into my view under the front fold as she reached out and put her hand in my forehead.

“How are you feeling?” she asked in what I found to be a fairly motherly tone. If she was angry with me for having spied on her in the shower, she didn’t show it. On the contrary, if anything, she seemed even more friendly than before. I guessed that I must have imagined that she had seen me.

“Um… OK, I guess,” was all I could think to say.

“Well, we’d better check your temperature, just in case. Your mom would never forgive me if I didn’t take good care of you! Don’t move. I’ll go get the thermometer.”

When she got up from the bed, I couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t wearing any panties, either, since her round butt was briefly visible just inches from my face when she rose, before the robe fell back into place. I even saw a smattering of dark pubic hair between her legs as she walked toward the door. That of course elicited an immediate reaction inside my briefs.

My heart started to pound even faster when I saw that, instead of heading toward her bathroom to get a thermometer, she walked straight across the hall into the nursery. I heard the rustle of the paper bag as she removed the various items, then a ripping noise that was presumably the packaging of the new “baby” thermometer I had seen. After about a minute of silence, Julie reappeared in the doorway, holding the glass instrument. The tip was coated in Vaseline, so there was no doubt about how she was going to take my temperature.

She must have misinterpreted the reason for my gaze, because she immediately got an apologetic look on her face.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Luke, but I think we need to take it the same way as at the doctor’s office,” she said in a sweet voice. “I know it’s embarrassing, but it will only take five minutes.”

She placed the lubricated thermometer on a tissue on the nightstand and sat down next to me on the bed. She again reached forward and placed her hand on my forehead, then ran it down my cheek. It was another surprisingly intimate gesture, similar to when she had taken hold of my hand earlier in the exam room at Village Pediatrics.

“Now, let’s get these out of the way, shall we?” she said softly, as she moved her hands down to my briefs. “Lift up your hips.”

As I complied, she expertly pulled my briefs down and off, exposing my now very erect penis. I started to apologise, but she just hushed me.

“Don’t worry, I saw everything at the doctor’s office. There’s no need to be ashamed,” she practically cooed.

That’s when she through me for a loop.

“Now…,” she paused for more effect before continuing. “Since I let you see me naked in the shower, I propose that you let me take your temperature in the diaper change position, so I can practice for this little one.” She patted her swollen belly as she said that.

To say that I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. The fact that Julie had indeed caught me spying on her earlier was mortifying. I was relieved that at least she wasn’t upset about it; on the contrary, she seemed to imply that she had deliberately left her bedroom door ajar when she took her shower. Could that be true? My brain was buzzing with the possibility. At the same time, I had to admit that I had been daydreaming of lying on my back as Julie inserted a thermometer into my bottom ever since she had joked about it the previous week when Mom was demonstrating to her how to take a rectal temperature. So, after a brief hesitation, I meekly nodded my consent.

Without a word, Julie gently lifted up my knees and spread them apart as wide as they would go, exposing my entire perianal region to her gaze. She picked up the lubricated thermometer from the nightstand. With one hand, she cupped my scrotum and moved it to the side, an action that sent shivers throughout my body and caused my erection to stiffen even more. With the other hand, she placed the tip of the thermometer against my exposed anus. She then looked me in the eye and asked if I was ready. When I nodded again, she slowly pushed the cold glass into my rectum. I felt it slide inside until it came to stop deep inside me.

Once the thermometer was inserted, Julie secured the protruding stem between two fingers in such a way that the palm of her hand pressed against my scrotum. I felt utterly humiliated to be naked and penetrated that way, but at the same time, it was incredibly exciting, and my penis remained rock-hard.

As the minutes passed, the two of us just looked at each other in silence. My gaze was fixated on Julie’s chest, as her nipples pushed insistently against the fabric of her gown. Each time she moved slightly, the tie around her waist loosened a bit more, and the garment fell progressively away, eventually fully exposing her breasts. She obviously knew that and made no effort to cover herself. The gold cross had noticed earlier that day dangled alluringly between the two swollen glands. For her part, Julie seemed to keep her eye on the thermometer held between her fingers, though I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t really focused on my erect penis. In any event, her face remained pink, and her nipples remained hard as we waited for the thermometer to register.

We both obviously recognised the intimacy of the situation, which was highly erotic, to put it mildly. But, at the same time, it was also evident to both of us that the other was “off-limits”. As a result, the sexual tension just hung in the air, with no possible resolution. As the minutes passed, a quiet complicity formed between us, based on our shared secret and mutual restraint. That complicity has stayed with us both to this day.

After 5 minutes, Julie pulled the thermometer from my rectum, wiped it with a tissue and held it up.

“You still have a fever, young man,” she announced after reading it. “But at least it hasn’t increased since the doctor visit this morning. Why don’t you stay in here and keep resting for a while.”

With that, she gave me a rather sensual kiss on my forehead and softly whispered “thank you” before rising and retying her robe. She exited the guest room, and I drifted off again to sleep until early evening, when Mom arrived to drive me home.

As it turns out, that was the last spike of my fever. After another day of monitoring, I was finally declared healthy. It was a bittersweet experience when Mom took my temperature one last time using her baby thermometer, since I knew that it probably would never happen again.

Fortunately, I didn’t get sick again for several years so was able to avoid confronting my "temperature issue" until close to the end of my college years. In the meantime, I had a number of girlfriends and started to enjoy fairly regular, albeit conventional sexual relations. But the emotions associated with the intimate care I received that summer after high school remained etched in my brain and continued to pop into my consciousness at the strangest times.