“Shorts down around your ankles, Iris,” my Mom instructed, holding the thermometer in her hand like it was the universal panacea to diagnose and cure all maladies.

“Why can’t we get the new kind that goes under the tongue, Mom?” I complained, crossing my arms over my chest.

It was 1977, and home healthcare options were limited. No digital thermometers, just this ancient mercury-filled relic that required being stuffed in a bum hole.

“Honey,” she said, her voice firm but laced with a hint of impatience, “if you have a fever, you’ve got more to worry about than a little modesty. You never complained before. Just bend over and let me take your temperature. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

I sighed, feeling a flush rise to my cheeks. My hands hesitated at the waistband of my jean shorts before I finally pushed them down to my ankles. My white linen cotton panties went with them, the fabric brushing against my skin as I stepped out of the shorts entirely. I could feel the cool air of the room on my bare legs, and my heart pounded in my chest. I already regretted telling my mother that I thought I might be coming down with something.

“I was younger then,” I muttered, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m older now.”

“Then you should be more mature,” she said, her tone sharp, “and not act like such a baby.”

I knew it was pointless to argue with my Mom because she was going to make me go through with it anyway. I had already asked if we could go into the bathroom or upstairs, and she told me to just get over it and stop being such a baby about it.

I bit my lip and did as I was told, bending over and gripping the edge of the bed for balance. The position made me acutely aware of my body, of the vulnerability that came with being bare-assed, legs apart, bent over in my own kitchen with a thermometer in my butt. I could feel her eyes on me, clinical and unyielding, as she prepared to do what needed to be done.

The thermometer felt cold against my skin, and I tensed as she pushed it into my butt – it was quick and relatively painless. I stared at the floor, my face burning with embarrassment. It takes about a minute for a rectal thermometer to get a proper reading, and it’s the longest minute you are ever going to know.

My filthiest hole was exposed and stuffed, while my pussy lips were exposed as I bent over in my kitchen – legs slightly apart, palms flat on the kitchen counter. “You barely felt that – stop cringing and shivering,” my Mom chided me for overreacting. “You act like I put a thermometer big enough for a cow up your butt. You are sacrificing just a moment of unpleasantness to find out if you have a fever. This is not pleasant for me, either. I get no thrill out of this, Iris.”

“I know, Mom, but...” I was about to apologize when the phone rang. We only had one phone—no one had cell phones back then. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

My Mom didn’t even hear me groan when she told me to wait a minute. “I’ll be right back, Iris.”

I rolled my eyes and buried my head in my hands – red in the face.

“Oh, Hello, Kathy! “Yes, yes, I did hear Elvis died. It’s so tragic. Can it really be true?” My mom started talking to her friend about the King of Rock and Roll passing away—it was all over the news. My Mom was a huge fan of Elvis, and it was devastating to her.

I heard tittering laughter behind me and tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. “What’s so funny?” I sneered.

“Twelve,” my older brother Jeff said.

“No, I count fourteen,” my younger brother Bobby disagreed.

“I think you are both crazy; it’s only nine!” my youngest brother, Shaun, countered. I didn’t want to know what they were talking about -but I was certain they were going to tell me anyway.

“How many freckles do you have on your butt?” Jack grinned facetiously behind me – obviously teasing me.

“You guys are so weird!” I turned beet red and refused to turn around and look at them. They had been seated at the kitchen table, all of them finishing their dinner, when Mom told me to take my shorts down. “You have had to do this too,” I reminded them.

“Yeah, and you are free to count the freckles on our butts. I think you have fourteen, do you mind if I take a ball point pen and circle them so the other guys can see?”

“Stop, guys,” I pouted.

“Are you counting the little freckle on Iris’s pussy lip?” Bobby asked for clarification – I shivered.

“Yeah, of course!” Jack grinned sheepishly.

“That doesn’t count, because we said freckles on Iris’s butt! You might as well count all the moles and freckles on her back?”

The fact that I had tiny specks caused by an overabundance of melanin on my face, back, and apparently my butt and pussy was embarrassing enough without knowing that my brothers were going to catalog them.

I cleared my throat and tried to get my mother’s attention – it had been more than a minute.

“No, No, he divorced Priscilla. I don’t think she had anything to do with it; she loved Elvis,” I heard my Mom apologize to her friend, cover the phone, and shout, “Iris Dahl! Just hold your little horses. Your butt isn’t going to turn into a pumpkin if I am not back in precisely a minute, and your brothers have seen a little ass crack before – so stop egging them on and just be patient. I’ll be done talking in a minute.”

“Can’t I take out the thermometer and stand up?” I winced in humiliation, as my brothers chuckled- the more I turned beet red, the more they were enjoying my predicament.

“No, the temperature reading will fade by the time I am done, the longer you keep asking me questions, the longer this will take – hush,” My Mom complained.

“Watch out guys, don’t make Iris mad,” Shaun joked. “She’ll cut the cheese and fire that thermometer at us like a dart gun!”

The very idea that I’d possibly cut the cheese, and my brothers would see my naked asshole open and close was enough of a visual to renew my shameful humiliation. The worst part was that I was soaking wet – my pussy was dripping down my thigh. I was just thankful that my brothers hadn’t noticed my thighs were sticky.

I hadn’t been in this situation since I was much younger, and I wasn’t aroused back then. My body’s reaction this time was entirely involuntary. I was directly under a chilly air vent, but I think the biggest contributing factor was the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

I was a young and dumb high school girl at the time – oblivious to the endorphins that are generated from the excitement that was triggering my little brain to send signals to my little pussy to make my twat slick with my own excretions. I was too naïve to understand why I was turned on, but I had enough sense to feel ashamed that I was physically excited.

The boys made farting sounds by blowing raspberries with their mouths – all to imitate the sound I might make if I cut the cheese. My face was crimson, my pussy was sticky and wet, and my butthole was growing increasingly sore as I gripped the thermometer with my anus – aware it was sticking out like a single birthday candle on a vanilla cake waiting to be lit between my ass cheeks.

My tiny nipples were stiff under my shirt – I was just thankful that I still had my top on. I could hear the muffled sound of our front door in the living room swinging open. It sounded like my father was home. I groaned impatiently.

I heard my Mom greet him, “Hello, dear, I’m on the phone!”

I felt the kitchen door open with a whoosh and the sound of my dad’s dress shoes on the kitchen tile. I also heard my brothers’ light laughter and chuckling as the humiliation continued to add up.

“Oh my,” he muttered, his voice tinged with surprise when he noticed me – bare ass and bent over.

“Sorry, Mister Tate,” my father apologized to his boss. I glanced over at my father – standing there in his business suit next to his boss.

“I am so sorry I didn’t get a chance to warn you,” My Mom frantically rushed in behind the two men. If they hadn’t arrived when they did, there was no telling how long she would have carried on her conversation. “My daughter thought she was coming down with something, and I was taking her temperature when I got a call about Elvis’s passing.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, Betsy,” my father’s boss replied calmly. “Didn’t Robert tell you that I would be stopping by for dinner?”

“Yes, and I have an Irish stew. Hopefully, this little scene hasn’t ruined your appetite,” my Mom quipped -like just seeing my bare bottom was enough to put a man off of eating.

My dad cleared his throat awkwardly. “Um ... Sorry about this, Larry.”

Meanwhile, I felt increasingly mortified because my parents and my father’s boss talked about me as if I wasn’t in the room – and just an object.

“It’s just a girl’s bare butt, Robert,” my Mom walked over to me and slid the thermometer out unceremoniously – placing her hand on my back to guide me in place.

“Don’t you think the place to do this might have been the bathroom?” my father countered.

“I had dinner to make, the boys at the table, and you on the way,”

“Not a problem, Mrs. Dahl,” Mr. Tate said. “I’m so sorry to hear about that.”

I felt like an object in the room as they exchanged small talk. My Mom finally walked over, pulled out the thermometer, and read it. “99.2 degrees. You do have a low-grade fever.” She reached out and felt my head. “You do feel clammy.”

“May I pull up my shorts now, Mom?” I asked; my voice was tight with fresh embarrassment – I felt like I was squeaking.

“I am afraid you may have to put on a fresh pair of panties,” My Mom noticed the long strand of pussy juice dripping off of my clit as I turned around to get dressed. She hit me with a second observation: “Oh my, you’ve got wispy little pubes already! I didn’t think you would develop this quickly.”

“I wasn’t sure what to say, Lynda – what could I have said?” I asked my sister a few hours later when I was sulking in my room and telling her all about my humiliating encounter with my Mom.

“I would have told Mom and Dad what our brothers said and then asked them if they had a good enough look at my twat or if they wanted to take a Polaroid so they could jerk off to it later.”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I replied skeptically. “You would have crumbled like an old cookie just like I did and tried to melt out of the room.”

“Mom has made me do the same thing before,” my older sister complained.

“Yeah, but that was years ago, and the rest of us were way too young. The guys counted the freckles on my butt!”

“That sounds like guys,” She laughed. “Jeff was about Shaun’s age at the time, and he said my butthole was where farts were made – I nearly cleaned his clock!”

“As I recall, you whimpered and told him that everybody farts and said his were nastier than yours,” I reminded her that I was there when that incident happened.

“Yeah, that’s what I said – but in my head, I was like Wonder Woman,” my sister imitated the iconic Lynda Carter on TV – using imaginary bracers to stop imaginary bullets. My older sister and I had striking blue eyes, and she was often compared to the actress that played Wonder Woman.

I on the other hand, was compared to either flat-chested Jody Foster or the boy that played Charlie in the Willy Wonka movie because of my short blonde hair – and upturned nose.

My Mom opened our door without knocking – which was not unusual for her. She had recently caught Lynda smoking pot and was trying to catch her again. She thought very little about my privacy. “How are you feeling, Iris?”

“I am okay,” I shrugged. I had a case of the sniffles – the occasional sneeze and sore throat.

“We can’t be too sure,” my Mom held out the thermometer like it was the answer to all of our problems, “Pop off your nightgown.”

“Why couldn’t you have taken my temperature in here?” I asked, still annoyed about her making me do it in the kitchen earlier.

I didn’t hesitate to undress because my Mom shut the door to our bedroom.

“What’s the big deal?” she replied curtly. “You don’t care if your sister sees you get your rear end checked, but suddenly it’s a problem if your brothers see your butt crack? This isn’t about sex, and it’s not meant to embarrass you.”

“It does, though,” I complained as I turned around, bent over my bed, and presented my bare ass.

“Well, that’s because you were standing there with a hairy bush trying to act like a grown woman, Iris. You haven’t even started developing breasts yet,” my Mom explained. “I expect you to shave your legs and your pubic hair fully – all that wispy black, curly hair makes you look older than you really are.”

I frowned – I wanted that pussy hair, and I was proud of it. It made me feel mature.

“Lynda, come here and take your sister’s temperature, you need to learn to do this,” my mother said. I blushed – thinking about my sister planting the glass thermometer into my keister.

“Gross, I don’t want to stick things into my sister’s fart maker,” Lynda’s disgusted reaction only heightened my shame.

“Do you think I want to do it? You are going to be a mom someday – probably sooner than you think with the kind of boys you run with. You need to learn to take a temperature rectally.”

“What’s to learn? You just stick it up a girl’s ass like a finger and then take it out in a minute and read it,” my sister was not only reluctant – she sounded like she saw no point in the lesson.

My humiliation only continued to mount as they argued while I stuck my bare ass up, waiting for one of them to put the slender glass rod in my ass. “I am fine; I have a slight fever. I’ll let you know if it gets worse, Mom,” I interrupted.

“I want it checked every four to six hours, and I am not trudging up the stairs to check on you when your sister could do it,” my Mom said. “Do you want to see Bay City Rollers this Saturday night, Lynda?”

“This is so uncool,” my sister said as she jammed the thermometer up my butt abruptly. I wiggled my hips awkwardly when Lynda did that because I wasn’t ready for it.

“No, glide it in – don’t jam it in like you are trying to hurt your sister,” my Mom took the thermometer out of my butt and handed it back to my sister to try again – like my pooh hole was a pin cushion to be used for target practice.

“Gross, aren’t you going to wash it off first?” my sister scrunched her nose and examined the thermometer.

“There isn’t a speck of brown on that; just do it again, gently,” my Mom instructed.

“If it’s so clean, why don’t you put it in your mouth?” my sister joked as she slid the thermometer into my ass – the penetration forced my pussy to start getting soaked.

“Don’t be a dirty girl,” my Mom warned her before asking me how that felt.

“Just peachy, mom,” I answered sarcastically.

“I am up here trying to help you both, and you are both breaking my chops,” my Mom complained. “You should show some appreciation, Iris. I didn’t have to tell your sister to put it in gently. I could have let her stick it in any way she pleases.”

“Sorry, Mom!” I apologized.

“Yeah, Sorry,” my sister apologized to our mother as well. “Iris will have a boy try to finger her back door soon enough, and he won’t be so gentle. I was just trying to get her ready.”

My Mom sighed angrily and said that only prostitutes and wanton women let men use their “fundaments” for sexual gratification. “The only use of a woman’s rear end is to relieve herself, to take her temperature, to spank, and to sit down on it. It doesn’t make babies.”

“Yeah, no crap,” my sister said. “I’d rather take it in the poop hole than pop out a kid.”

My Mom harumphed and warned my sister not to corrupt me. “Iris, I want you to have your lower body fully shaved and presentable by tomorrow morning. If a boy loves you, he’ll wait to get married. There is absolutely no reason to let him put his thing in the same hole that your sister or I take your temperature.”

“Wait, I have to take my sister’s temperature now all the time? this isn’t just a one-time thing?” Lynda asked before I could reply. I was in no hurry to respond to my mother’s comment anyway. Lynda and my Mom didn’t need to know that I’d already been to third base with some boys around my own age at school.

“Yes, and your brothers as well if I need you to do it. There is nothing degrading or disgusting about it, Lynda. If there was, that means that I am degrading myself or being disgusting. It’s necessary – just like it’s necessary for the two of you to shave your legs. I won’t have you running around hairy like two women’s libbers.”

“Ugh,” my sister whined. She grabbed the thermometer between my butt cheeks and yanked it out, shook it, and tried to read it. “I can’t read the number because it’s caked in Iris’s poop and pussy juice,” she frowned – I shivered with humiliation.

“How dare you!” My Mom took the thermometer from my sister and read it.

“What? Iris admitted to me that it turned her on to be naked downstairs in front of Dad and his boss, and her little sugar maker is dripping honey right now.”

My Mom was quiet for a long pause – “Ninety-nine point six,” her voice reflected her disappointment in both of us. “Iris, I noticed it as well. You are trying to grow up very fast. If you don’t think perverted thoughts when you are getting your temperature read – you won’t be afflicted with the shame of having a dripping vagina. I was lucky none of your brothers knows enough about how girls’ bodies work to notice or ask about why you were so aroused. Your father and his boss probably noticed but were too polite to mention it. I would be mortified if I took you to the Doctor and you started getting drippy during the exam. You must learn to control yourself.”

I was so ashamed of myself – I blushed deeply and apologized.

My Mom instructed my sister to take my temperature before we went to bed and again in the morning and let her know right away if it changed. She abruptly left – before handing it back to Lynda. Lynda handed it to me and insisted that I wash it thoroughly in the bathroom.

I dashed across the hall to the bathroom we shared with our brothers, washed the shameful little thing, and dashed back to our room.

My Mom gave me some cough medicine, but there wasn’t much you could do for the sniffles—what we called anything from a cold to the flu or a stomach bug back then.

That night, I was thankful that my sister took my temperature in private. She wasn’t particularly gentle, and she wasn’t particularly polite about it – but there was no change. “I can’t believe you told Mom that I got turned on by this,” I said while the two of us were alone in our room.

“It’s perfectly natural to get turned on when you get attention from cute guys; it’s weird when you get turned on by your own brothers, but what’s really freaking me out is that you are gushing like a fountain, and it’s only the two of us in here. Are you a lezzy?” My sister asked derisively.

I felt fresh shame run down my back like a fast-flowing waterfall -triggering goosebumps as it ran the length of my spine. I had experimented at sleepovers kissing girls, but I had no desire for them or my sister.

“No, I can’t help it, Lynda. If you’d hurry up, then I could put my nightgown on, and we could get some sleep,” I answered defensively.

“It takes as long as it takes to get the temperature – if you think that I am dragging this out so I can get a good long at that little hairy slit and your mud flaps, then you are dangerously mistaken. I’m moving out to college next year – which means you are next in line to do this if our brothers get sick. I can’t wait until you get a taste of your own medicine and have to take a turn smelling their ass sweat and see their hard little cocks and tight ball sacks hanging down while you goose them with this thermometer.”

“My ass doesn’t smell,” I insisted defensively as my sister withdrew the thermometer to read it.

“Everyone’s ass smells, and the fact that you don’t think yours does, means you like the smell of your own toots,” Lynda teased before getting serious. “Oh wow, your temperature is a little over a hundred.”

“Should I go tell Mom?” I asked as I got dressed.

“Wait a minute, why are you getting dressed without permission? You always ask Mom if you can get dressed,” my sister stopped me.

“You aren’t mom, and I may need to tell her.”

“It was ninety-nine point six; It hasn’t gone up more than half a degree. You aren’t going downstairs and waking up Mom over that. If she takes it again and we are wrong, she’ll probably be pissed off at me. We can take it a second time and be sure if you are really worried about it, or tell her in the morning.”

“Let’s wait for the morning,” I decided before asking politely if I could put my nightgown back on.

“Say Pretty please,” my sister teased. My siblings and I had a habit of making each other say pretty please when asking for a favor.

“Pretty please, may I put on my nightgown,” I asked formally and with the appropriate amount of flourish to sound sincere.

“Say Pretty please with sugar on top,” my sister added another stipulation. I frowned and started to put my nightgown on anyway. We had a tendency to continue asking each other to say things like that when requesting favors, but I wasn’t going to play her game.

“Fine, would you rather I grease up the thermometer with Ben Gay or hot sauce in the morning when I take your temperature again?” my sister half-joked.

“Pretty, Pretty Please, with sugar and whipped cream on top, may I put on my nightgown,” I asked with a dour expression of formal grace – not wanting to take any chances that she wasn’t joking.

“Yes, you may,” my sister stroked my hair and reminded me to shave my pussy before morning.

“I’ve never done it before,” I admitted.

“I learned through trial and error and got the knicks and cut on my cunt lips to prove it,” my sister frowned. I was prepared to go to the bathroom and do the same thing. I had to clean the thermometer again anyway. “I am too nice of a sister to let you twist like that, Iris. I’ll show you how to shave your little twat, but you owe me.”

I reluctantly agreed, and we walked across the hall to the bathroom in our nightgowns, bare feet slapping against the tile.

“Strip,” Lynda said, shutting the door behind us.

I pulled my nightgown over my head and tossed it onto the counter. We’d never had any modesty around each other – we’d shared a room our entire lives. We used to share clothes, but my sister had developed into an adult body, and I still had a very girly-undeveloped figure.

“Get in the tub,” she instructed, turning on the faucet just enough for a trickle. “Squat down, knees pointing toward the faucet, rest on the balls of your feet. Legs apart.”