But it was shocking to sit in a classroom with fifty other people and watch couples practice techniques to prolong erection on the flat screen up front. They were real couples-real men, with real penises. Rather hard ones. And their partners were real women, learning how to squeeze the base of the penis just before ejaculation. Which meant watching these men get stroked off a lot, getting thisclose to coming. Over and over.

I admit, I was soaking wet after that one. I knew it was supposed to be clinical and a learning experience, but damn… The body responds, sometimes, involuntarily. I crossed and uncrossed my legs a lot during that class. Did a lot of wiggling in my seat.

Wondered if anyone else was having the same reaction I was? I mean, how could they not? I know Matt and Laurie left together pretty quickly after class, and I saw his hand slip low on her behind, squeezing, as they went out the door.

The video the three of us had missed was about masturbation. “Normalizing Masturbation” was the title, she told us as she slipped the tape into the VCR. Laurie and Matt exchanged a look. I tried not to watch them and focused on the screen, thinking about the paper I had due in Ethics and wondering if I was going to have time to work on it if the prof left the room.

I didn’t have to wonder long-she told us we could go after the tape was finished, that she’d be in her office in the next building if we needed her. I actually considered leaving. I think Laurie and Matt did too. We exchanged a raised eyebrow sort look when she left, contemplating, and I probably would have gone. I think they would have, too.

But then the tape started.

And it started with a nude woman, lying on her back, hooked up to electrodes as if she were a science experiment. It was clearly a late seventies or early eighties video-she had short, dark feathered hair, and I don’t think she’d ever even thought about any sort of depilatory process between her thighs, as was the current fashion. I was shaved completely smooth down there except for a small curly-red landing strip. I wondered briefly if Laurie was shaved, something that had never occurred to me before.