I first learned what masturbation was after reading one of my older brother’s sex ed textbooks. I wasn’t allowed to read them until I was seventeen, like he was at the time, but curiosity had gotten the better of me. I was a pretty paranoid child, and being the only girl in my family, I had managed to convince myself that the odd folds and pockets of my vagina weren’t actually anatomically correct.

I know, it sounds absurd! But I was genuinely convinced that there was something seriously wrong with me! I had seen penises before (both my brother’s and my dad’s) but never another vagina. And I was always too embarrassed to look it up on the family computer, so I sneaked a little peek at my brother’s homework.

I know it would have made more logical sense to talk to my dad or my brother about these concerns instead of sneaking around like I was doing something wrong. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly why I kept my worries to myself. I was probably just embarrassed, or maybe I thought that I could fix my “anatomical issue” by myself.

This is a good time to mention that I wasn’t a particularly smart kid, though fourteen-year-old Rose would have totally disagreed.

I thought I was a genius for swiping my brother’s book without him or my dad noticing. I’d curl up with a flashlight, hidden beneath my paisley-printed comforter each night, and would study those pages with my eyes wide and my mouth agape. Sex, orgasms, pregnancy—it was all right there. Questions I had been secretly asking for years were right at my fingertips. Sure, Dad had given me the “birds and the bees” talk (I was fourteen, for Christ’s sake), but he always got really stuffy when it came to specifics. I think it was because I was a girl. He was never so tight-lipped around my brother, who, for the sake of his privacy, I will call Gardener.

Dad was always happy to teach Gardener certain things that would later take me years to understand for myself. For instance, I recalled walking in on the two of them with their cocks out in the living room as my father gave Gardener a hands-on anatomy lesson. I was barely ten years old, so I wasn’t allowed to participate, since my dad was showing Gardener how to jerk himself off. I was allowed to watch, however, but I was way too young to appreciate it and instead turned down the offer to go watch Sunday cartoons in Dad’s room.

Years later, and I was desperate to get the same lesson that Gardener got. He was thirteen when he had his first orgasm. Why should I have to wait for mine? So I gathered my courage together and decided that it was finally time to make myself a proper woman. But, of course, I didn’t know how. Dad wasn’t home yet from work, so I couldn’t ask him, and I had already used my weekly hour on the family computer to play Webkinz, so I couldn’t look up instructions. So instead, with no options left, I knocked on Gardener’s door.

Yes, I really did. But it didn’t feel weird at the time. We were a very tight-knit family. We often bathed together, got dressed together, and even swam together in the nude in a pond not too far from our house. So it wasn’t weird at all when I flopped onto Gardener’s floor and asked him, “Can you show me how to orgasm?”

Gardener furrowed his brow and flashed me his iconic dimpled grin. “Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “I’m curious. You always talk about how fun it is and how good it feels. I wanna know. I’m old enough.”

He brushed me aside and dove back into his shitty sci-fi novel he had picked up from the pharmacy down the street the day before. “Ask Dad when he gets back.”

“I don’t know when he’ll be home,” I said with a childishly whiny voice. I should have been embarrassed to talk like that, but I was really just trying to annoy Gardener into caving in. It wasn’t really that hard to do. “Come on! Pretty please? I’ll do the dishes for a week!”

Gardener sighed loudly and dramatically, then slammed his book shut and flopped onto his bed. “Whatever. If it’ll get you out of my room. Just get up here already.”

I bounded onto his sheets beside him, but he only frowned.

“You can’t do it with your pants on,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes and kicked off my jeans and polka dot panties while Gardener stripped his shorts and boxers. I still remember how soft his sheets felt against my bare butt. I would have loved to take off my shirt, too, and curl up for a late-day nap.

Gardener got himself off to a bit of a rocky start, not entirely sure how to begin describing his process as he nervously glanced between my girl parts and his boy parts. With a chuckle, he grabbed his penis and began to stroke it. I was mesmerized, watching the way his cock’s head twitched with each movement, as if already brimming with cum. It’s funny, because I remember thinking about how his shaft would feel inside of my mouth, but I had no idea what a blowjob was at the time. Maybe I was a child sex prodigy!