Like most teenaged guys I jacked off a lot.

And as I know happens with many teenaged guys, I got in the habit of keeping a "cum rag." It was just an old towel, that I borrowed from the bathroom, that I would use to mop up the mess when I finished jacking off, and then hide under my bed. When it got too rank from too many deposits, I would bury it in the bottom of the trash can on the morning of garbage day, and borrow a new one.

So far, nothing untypical. And probably, it's not even untypical that one day my mom found my cum rag. It was the way that she dealt with it that I think was unique - certainly I've never heard of anyone having an experience quite like mine.

Guys, especially constantly horny but naive, teenage guys, don't always think things through. I had given my mom permission to clean my room - she had been bitching at me about it and I had said something like, well, jeez, mom, if you don't like you can feel free to clean it. But my mom, being pretty laid back and having a tendency to spoil us kids, didn't take that as the sarcastic snipe that I'd meant it as; she didn't get mad. She decided one day while I was at school to clean my room. And she found the cum rag. It was a few weeks "old." It was stiff and crusty, and it had a yellowy cream color. It reeked of stale 14 year-old boy sperm. I'd probably made 20 or so deposits into it.

I came home and she was in the final throws of cleaning - she had the vacuum and was putting the finishing touches in the area behind my desk and shelves, which she'd pulled out from the wall, even. Even then, I didn't think things through.

No. I was surprised, and asked what was going on. And she said, "well, you said I should clean it myself, so I did." I just shrugged, but then, feeling guilty, I started working on my homework at the dining room table.

And I heard the vacuum stop finally, and some more bustling about, including a trip past me to the laundry room.

Still, I was a total retard. I didn't think about the wadded up "extract of incrimination" that I always stashed so casually behind a box under my bed. Even though I could have easily noticed she'd cleaned out and vacuumed under my bed, when I'd seen her in my room.

Finally, what it took was having the disgusting evidence dropped right on top of my notebook in front of me at the table, with my mom standing beside the table with a "gotcha" look on her face and only a slight frown of disapproval.

"I think we need to talk about this," she announced.

I should explain, we weren't like a conservative household. My parents had talked pretty openly about sex concepts with me and my sister on more than one occasion, including pretty frank "sex-ed" talks a few years back. But it wasn't like sex type stuff was out in the open, either. Certainly I'd never openly had to discuss evidence of my favorite pasttime directly with my mom.

I think I was quiet for too long. I was trying to think if I could pretend it was something else. But I realized my mom wasn't ignorant, and probably she knew exactly what it was.

Finally, lacking any idea as to how to escape the situation with my dignity intact, I opted for something whiny and defensive: "Jeez, mom. What?"

She kind of stood there, as if challenging me to come up with something better than that. But when I didn't say anything more, but just sat there squirming a bit and looking guilty as hell (and feeling deeply embarrassed), she gave up and said, "I understand what it is. There's nothing wrong with ... masturbation," she said, pausing awkwardly, and I had an inkling that this wasn't an easy conversation for her, either. "But it's kind of disgusting. Do you think you could use some kleenex or something, instead?"

Something in her tone told me that I wasn't going to get her to drop the subject. I actually did use kleenex sometimes ... but it always seemed like it would fall apart in the sticky goo, and leave little white nodules crusted onto my stomach or dick when I tried to wipe myself off. And it would take a half-a-box to finally get all cleaned off. And something made me just basically try to explain that. Not make anything up. Not so explicitly, though.

"I tried kleenex. It doesn't work," I said, still probably sounding whiny, though it was mostly the embarrassment in my voice. She looked puzzled, so I had to explain a little more: "It's like ... it uses too much kleenex up. Plus like the kleenex comes apart," I added, in a bit of a rush.

Mom still looked puzzled, but she could see I wasn't lying ... that I was trying to be honest about this awkward subject. She said, "well, at the least, maybe you could put it straight into the laundry for me? After each time? Rather than storing it under your bed for who knows how long." She paused. I think her curiosity got the better of her, then. "How long has it been since you washed this, anyway?"

"Um," I began, guiltily. "Never?"

"Never?" she asked, alarmed. "Years?" A look of alarmed disgust, as her eyes flicked involuntarily to the offending object.

"Jeez, no. Like ... a couple of weeks."

"Weeks?" she asked. Even more puzzled. "Surely you've been ... longer than that."

"No. no," I said, realizing her misunderstanding. "I like ... throw one out, and get a new one. Every few weeks."

Mom rolled her eyes. "You're throwing away my towels?!" As if this was the crime of the century. Funny that she could really care less about my masturbating, but she was mad about me throwing away towels. I guess, looking back on it now, that's not so messed up as a lot of people are.

Guiltily, I just lowered my eyes and said, meekly, "sorry, mom."

There was a short silence. Then she said, "OK. OK. If you're going to use a towel, just use the same one, but please wash it regularly. Will you do that? Put in the laundry for me?"

"Um," I began, but couldn't continue.

"What?"

"What if, like, I need it in between? Like when it's in the laundry?"

Mom laughed at that. "Oh..." she said. Pursing her lips. "I guess maybe you need two. In rotation." She laughed again, but I just felt more embarrassed.

"Look, it's nothing to be embarrassed about, Tony. It's natural."

I nodded, glumly.

In the end, she picked up the offending rag again, between two fingers like it was a dead rat, and tossed it into the garbage. And shortly after, she brought out two well-worn but serviceably hand-towels and said, "OK. Here are two towels for you. When you use one, put it in the laundry please. Laundry gets done around here pretty frequently, that should be fine. But if you need it like ... more often, just get another towel."

I was still gloomy about it. I felt embarrassment, still. The idea of putting a wet, sticky cum rag into the laundry once or twice a day ... it was awkward.

"Tony. Look at me," mom said. I looked up. She tried to smile reassuringly. "What's bothering you. I said ... there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I see your pee stains in your underwear, sometimes, too. It's just part of being human."

I couldn't think how to phrase it, but then I had what I thought was the sort of objection that she might give some credence to: I said, "What if Jamie finds it. Or does laundry or something?"

Jamie was my twelve year old sister.

Mom mad a funny face. But I could tell she thought this was more funny than valid, as an objection.

"Well, it will be an opportunity to provide her with some useful information," mom finally said, in her wry way that was meant to disarm my objection. She chuckled, and added, "actually she probably already has a fine understanding of what she would be seeing - I'm trying hard not to raise ignorant kids."

"OK," I finally managed. Mostly because I wanted the issue to go away - not because I felt at peace with what I was being asked to do.

But despite that, because I felt guilty and because I could kind of see what my mom meant about throwing away towels and how disgusting it was to store it under my bed - the smell had even bothered me a little bit, sometimes - I did try to conscientiously put the towels in the laundry. And since mom mostly did the laundry, and she never made any comment or said anything, it kind of became the new routine. I even did the laundry sometimes, after that. Like if I made an extra messy rag, or I suspected Jamie was about to do some laundry. And when I look back on that, I think, "Ha ... maybe that was mom's secret plan, actually." But that's just looking at it as a joke.

So it wasn't that painful. Except ... it was inevitable that at some point Jamie WOULD discover one of my cum rags. I realize that, now. What I didn't expect - and I'm sure mom didn't expect it either - was how she reacted.

I had just had one of my "mini-marathons" as I dubbed them. A few hours of looking at porn and getting off multiple times, on a lazy weekend morning. I had a towel with about 3 deposits on it. It was pretty saturated - it was one of the smaller ones mom let me use, too. Well, I came out of my room with the cum rag, maybe a little bit too casually, because I thought I was home alone. Normally, if I think others are home, I will wad it together with some other dirty laundry and deliver it to the bottom of the hamper in the laundry room, or if I was feeling ambitious, drop a whole load of "whites," with bleach, into the washer, just like mom had showed me to do.