I read an old story on SOL this morning. It brought back vivid memories of something I heard firsthand years ago. I know Sam very well. This is how he described his experience to me and I believe it to be true.

Sam and I had a regular routine. His wife and mine went shopping together on Saturday mornings. She would drop Sam off at my house, pick up my wife and they would be off for at least half the day. Sam and I would hang out, have coffee and such, watch a movie or a game and mostly just talk about life. And sometimes we would view porn and talk about sex.

This particular day, I could tell he had something on his mind. I knew it even before we kissed the wives goodbye for the day. I had coffee and donuts ready for Sam and me. We sat in my downstairs family room and began to talk.

“Something’s on your mind, Sam,” I said as soon as we sat down.

“Is it that obvious, Ben?” he replied.

“Well, yeah. Apparently so. What’s up?”

He took a deep breath and let it out.

“I have to talk about something that happened a few days ago. You know that I volunteer answering phones at the community help line.”

“Yeah, of course. You’ve talked about it plenty of times.”

“Right. And you know I get all kinds of calls. And that once in a while, I’ll hear something ... memorable.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve shared some of those with me. Like people who are guilty about sexual behaviors, or who are having affairs and stuff like that. There have been some wild ones.”

“Mm-hm. Well I had one earlier in the week that was in the wild category.”

“I’m all ears, Sam.”

“OK. So a woman calls, anonymously. Most of the callers are anonymous. She tells me her name is Julie, but who knows? Anyway, she says she’s the mother of a teenage son. And her son is doing something on a regular basis that she doesn’t know how to handle.”

“Interesting so far. What was it?”

“She tells me her son is ... wait for it ... jerking off with her underwear.”

“Get the fuck out!” I exclaim. “Are you serious?”

“Completely,” Sam said. “Although, she said masturbated at first. “After a few minutes on the phone she actually called it jerking off“

I released a kind of nervous laugh.

“That is wild.”

“I know. So, I’ve told you before that we have different ways of responding to calls. Sometimes we just listen and ask some clarifying questions and that’s all the person needs. Other times we make referrals based on whatever next steps we recommend. But we have a hotline of our own to call when we get a call that we really don’t know how to respond to.”

“Yeah, you’ve basically told me that stuff. But did you really need to call a hotline to tell you to get as much detail as you could so you could go home and jerk off yourself? And to tell me about it, of course.”

“Look, Ben. I know I’ve told you some sexy stories. And we’ve had some fun with that. But that’s not exactly why I wanted to tell you about this. Although in the moment, what you just said is what I thought would happen.”

“Fine, I’m sorry, Man. Go ahead.”

“So, rather than just let my libido run wild, I knew what came first was helping the caller. And I really didn’t know what to suggest. So I asked her to hold while I consulted someone else. I called the line they have so we can run things by people who have legitimate training. I talked to a psychologist who’s on-call for this kind of thing.”

“OK. What did he say?”

“She. It was a woman.”

“OK, what did she say?”

“She said that in cases like this one, it’s highly likely that the boy is using his mother’s panties to masturbate because of the way it makes him feel, physically.”

“No shit, huh?” I said with a chuckle.

“Ben,” Sam said seriously as a way of lightly chiding me. “That’s not what she meant. She said that there’s probably something about the fabric that feels stimulating, or comforting to the kid. She said in cases like that, it’s most often something of that nature and not an interest in the mom sexually that causes a boy to do it. She said I should tell the mom that. She also said I should suggest she have a frank discussion with her son about his behavior. She should be careful not to shame her son. Rather she should reinforce that masturbation is normal, but that she would like him to be discreet about it.”

“Why? Where was the kid doing it?”

“Apparently he was doing it in places where she was likely to see him. I wasn’t totally convinced that the psychologist was right about him not having some sexual thoughts about his mother. I mean, you and I have seen plenty of ‘caught by mommy’ porn videos to know that’s a major theme.” I nodded. “Anyway, she said to tell the mom to see how things go and if the kid continues, suggest she call back for referrals to a professional therapist for herself and her son.”

“How did the mom feel about all that?”

“I think it gave her enough to consider that she felt better. I’m going to keep an eye out to see if she calls back.”

“OK, Sam. So that is a wild story. But I’m not sure I understand why it seemed so serious to you.”

“It’s because that’s not the end of it ... for me.”

“Ohh ... OK, well ... go on then.”

“I know it’s the kind of thing I would normally find ... exciting. And that I’d tell you about because you’d get a thrill from it too. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the psychologist said, about sexual interest in the mom not being the kid’s reason for taking her underwear.”

“I’m not sure I follow, Sam.”

“I mean, I just kept wondering if that was true. I don’t think I had ever masturbated with any girl’s panties. Certainly not my mom’s. But I know lots of guys do that kind of thing. Again, there’s a lot of porn about using panties to get off.”

“Yeah, I guess there is,” I replied.

“So, here’s where it gets weird for me, Ben. Like I said, I kept thinking about the call and what the psychologist told me. Like I said, it didn’t sound to me like the kid in this case was doing it with his mom’s underwear, in places where she would catch him, just because of the way the fabric made him feel.”

“I would agree with you there,” I said.

“Yeah. But then I started thinking, ‘I know plenty of brothers must get off with their sister’s panties. And also I’ve seen videos and read stories about dads doing that with their daughter’s underwear.”

Sam paused.

“What? What are you thinking?” I finally said.

“I’m asking you upfront here Ben ... please don’t judge me. And please promise you’ll never, ever tell anyone about what I’m about to tell you.”

“You know you can trust me, Sam. And you know I won’t judge you. We’ve never judged each other, no matter what was going on. What is it?”

“It’s the last part. The last thing I said; about dads ... doing it with their daughter’s panties ... Ben, I swear, I had never had thoughts like that before.”

“But... ?”

He paused again, not as long as the first time.

“But, I started thinking about ... Natalia.”

“Oh shit, Sam.”

“Yeah. Oh shit. I tried to stop. I tried to put it out of my mind. But the thoughts just kept coming. Was what the psychologist told me really true? If a dad were to jerk off in his daughter’s underwear, could it be ... just because he liked how the material felt? Could a dad actually do that ... without having sexual feelings ... for his mother, daughter ... whatever?”

By then I pretty much knew where Sam was going. I had known Natalia her whole life. She had always been gorgeous. She still is gorgeous. Long, light brown, curly hair. She was always tall. Long legs. Slender, but very fit. Beautiful, blue-green eyes. I was glad Sam didn’t ask me if I had ever had sexual thoughts about his daughter, because I would have hated to lie to him.

“OK, Sam. Are you telling me that you... ?”

“Yes, Ben. Next thing I knew, I wasn’t just thinking hypothetically. All of a sudden I was picturing Natalia’s panties. I’ve seen them a million times. She’s always parading around the house without much on. She’s had sleepovers during which neither she nor her friends ever wear much more than panties and t-shirts. It’s very, very distracting.”

“I get it. So, then what?”

“Next I remembered that I saw her panties in the laundry all the time. I had for years. I also recalled that not long before, I was with my wife in the laundry room and I commented on a particularly sexy thong on top of the basket of clean clothes. I asked her when she had gotten that and I wondered how I could have not remembered it.”

“Uh-oh,” I said.