forward and exposed part of her bosom in a scene from the Dick Van Dyke Show on TV.

Occasionally I would borrow a book from the extensive collection in my brother's room, something academic or artistic, before I discovered his stash that included Peyton Place or Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex. Again, far from graphic depictions, but enough to stir my naturally prurient interest.

Lest you think I thought only of sex 24 hours a day, please try to remember that I was, after all, only 11 years old and utterly incapable of devoting 100% of my concentration to anything. My mind flitted from subject to subject several times in any given interval. And while I may have perused through hundreds of books and magazines, I had up to this point never read any book from cover to cover. Growing up "like a weed," I had not yet grasped the linear, sequential kind of study habits I would develop later on in high school and college.

We had a chaise lounge next to the fireplace in the corner of the living room that was my mother's favorite

place to read or watch TV or doze off after a day's work at McClellan. In her absence, which was frequent during the summer break before I started school, it became my favorite place to read or watch TV. I quickly became bored with TV, and so reading — however casual and episodic — would occupy hours of my time. My mother had over the last year-and-a-half bought the entire edition of the Home and High School Encyclopedia, which became a reading staple for me with its short, concise articles on everything from history and science to art, music and literature.

I would begin reading several books — everything from Homer's Odyssey to Voltaire's Alphabet of Wit, but never finish any of them. Had my mother known of my sex obsession, she might have been relieved to know that at least I was reading fairly highbrow material — i.e., Simon de Beauvoir's The Second Sex — on the subject. I had never at this time ever read or seen anything approaching smut.

As the school year approached, I no longer felt the dread I always felt of returning to school and fending off bullies. I grew a good deal taller in that year, and I had