At this point, gentle reader, you may be quite puzzled at my behaviour. Let me explain a few things.

The 1970s may be remembered as a decade of sexual freedom, but this is just one partial view. Sure, there were mini-skirts, the Pill was available, and sex before marriage was more common than before, but Austrian society was still conservative in many respects. Sexuality was not much discussed. If you wanted information on sexual topics, you had austere academic writings on medicine, some “sex and marriage” advice books, and pornography. No respectable young woman would buy the latter. The “sex and marriage” (or “sex and couple”) books (I saw a couple in the following years) were admittedly better than what most young men and women had had in previous decades, but they concentrated on the traditional schema of penis-in-vagina copulation, with “spicy” practices such as the woman climbing on the man instead of the converse. Male homosexuality, though no longer criminalized, was cause for ridicule; female homosexuality was not even discussed. In fact, at the age of 18, while I knew there were male homosexuals, I did not know about females, about lesbians. And what would they do anyway? Male homosexuals were supposed to engage in the disgusting practice of sodomy (anal copulation), but what would two women do?

My parents, and in particular my mother, were Catholics. I don’t know exactly how they only had three children, for mom evidently believed sexuality should consist only in vaginal copulation within a married couple. I’ve already mentioned her threats of spanking me with the carpet-beater if she caught me masturbating again. She evidently intended to keep me a virgin until marriage, including physically. Her opinion that only married women should use tampons could probably be explained by the preservation of the hymen, and perhaps the belief that the less I touch myself in there, the less I would be tempted to engage in the heinous practice of masturbation again. The genitals were a dirty, disgusting place to be washed carefully.

Frau Beyer, or, as I would call her later, Ulrike, had not attempted to seduce me in the usual way, I mean, as a boy would have tried. There had been no kisses, no promises of love, no dancing, no dining out. She had treated me like a caring mother would have treated a sick little girl: rectal temperature, enemas, inquiring about bowel movements, giving oral laxatives and aspirin. Of course, I would have been capable enough to do all these things by myself, at least with appropriate instructions; but I had let her do all these things to me, and even, I had enjoyed letting her do them. I had enjoyed showing her my behind, my anus, my sex. And I had loved it when she “helped me go to sleep” by masturbating me. I had loved it, after some initial hesitation when her finger took posssession of my virginal vagina.

I did not know what I was doing. As I said, I did not even know that female homosexuality existed, and anyway was having one’s temperature taken in one’s behind sexual? Wasn’t sexuality about genitals only? I did not know what I was doing, but I was enjoying what was being done to me.

That evening, my headache was coming back with force, and my genitals were perhaps a bit sore from their exertions. I just had my temperature checked and was tucked in for the night. The next day, I was feeling better and did not take a nap, instead attempting to read my coursework. When it was time to go to bed in the evening, I went to brush my teeth, then to the toiler. When I came out, Frau Beyer inquired if my bowel movements were normal, as sickness and staying in bed could have adverse effects on digestion. I blushed (who wants to discuss such things?!), but answered that I had just had a normal one. She smiled beningly, reminded me to mention it to her if I had difficulties in this respect, and said she would come in ten minutes for my evening temperature.

Instead of having me on the side, this time she had me on my stomach; and after the greasy thermometer was inserted, she inquired, one hand on my bottom holding the thermometer, the other caressing my back, if I needed some help getting to sleep. I had had my last dose the afternoon of the previous day and was longing for her touch; despite my embarrassment, I uttered “Yes, please”. Frau Beyer asked me to part my legs and raise my hips a bit, then pushed her hand under my stomach. Her fingertips were on my clitoris. It was an interesting variant, one hand masturbating me, the other petting my backside. After 30 seconds or so, she ordered me to again bear down like going poo-poo. I was surprised, but complied.

European glass thermometers, as opposed to American models of the same era, had a thick body and a thin tip. The tip was to be inserted rectally (or orally, or kept under armpit, depending on the method), and that was how Frau Beyer had done so far. This time, she pushed the thicker part of the thermometer in. It was not unpleasant. It was a bit cold, thicker than the nozzle. I did not protest. Then she started masturbating me again while gently slightly moving the thermometer in and out. After a little while, I climaxed. My anus contracted, something that I had not paid attention in previous occasions, but which was made apparent when it squeezed the glass rod in my behind; and this squeezing brought me additional pleasure. Frau Beyer knew what she was doing.

I was still 38,3°C. I went to sleep. It was another of these nights when, tired, I used to chamber pot instead of taking the long trip to the toilet. While I was squatting, I suddenly understood why Frau Bauer had inquired about my bowel movements. She had wanted to check if she could play the thermometer trick on me without encountering waste! Or maybe she got the idea of the thermometer trick as I had answered that I just had a bowel movement. I got back to sleep, troubled by this association of pleasure and the childish attention to my poo-poo.