Fairly often from my mother until I was 9 or 10. I don’t recall enjoying them much, but since I suffered from a mild case of acquired megacolon, I didn’t enjoy the sometimes severe constipation that resulted from my condition. Both my older sister and I had been known to ask to have an enema, in fact, rather than wait for it to be suggested (and, Theresa, you’re so right about older sisters and enemas! Although she, unfortunately, didn’t get administered to as often as I did–or as often as she ought to!). We would bend over, grasp our knees, and wait for mom to spread our cheeks and gently insert the tube. She would always ask whether we could feel the water coming in–important, I realized later, because she used Vaseline as a lubricant, and it can easily block the water flow after insertion.
At any rate, I began to avoid enemas as I got older, because they seemed like something done to children, like rectal temperatures (I had graduated to oral temps at age five or so), plus bending over for your mother….? I did have several suppositories inserted, but I had to bend over for those, too, so I began to avoid them too.
I think I regarded enemas as an occasionally necessary evil from then on. I don’t think they had any erotic significance for me until early in 1971. I was 12 years old when I suffered a bicycle accident that cut my left leg open at the knee. An ambulance took me to a nearby hospital where I was sutured up and sent home. The wound, however, became infected and I developed a mild cellulitis. The doctor told me he wanted me to go into the hospital for a few days to have intense hydroculator treatments to the area. I remember feeling scared by the prospect, but also very adult because several of my parent’s relatives had been in various hospitals in the past year, and I thought I would be like them, receiving guests whilst lying in imperial splendor and recounting my noble suffering.
The hospital was Pacomia Lutheran, soon to be a victim of the Sylmar Quake. I was escorted to my room while various nurses and aides filled out paperwork and asked questions. The bustle ended finally, and I was left alone, still in my street clothes, when a woman I hadn’t seen before came in carrying a tray with several items, a stethoscope, and a mobile BP cuff. She seemed a little bit younger than my mom and was very friendly. She introduced herself. Her name, as best I can recall, was Debra.
She told me she was going to take my vital signs, and helped me up onto the bed. She took my blood pressure and pulse while I sat up. While performing the latter, she rested one hand on my knee and I still remember how warm it felt. I began to get a warm feeling inside which I didn’t understand because I hadn’t yet entered full-blown puberty. Then she picked up a thermometer.
“Lie down on your tummy for me,” she said, breaking open a small packet of KY and dabbing it generously onto the silver bulb.
“But,” I stammered, feeling real heat now, but of a different kind. “I get it in mouth-“
Her hand patted my knee again. “I know,” she said, “But here all the kids get their temperatures in the fanny. It’s just the policy. So unbuckle your shorts and lie down.”
Her manner was kind and reassuring. Before I knew it I was lying on my stomach. I pulled my shorts down, but left my underwear in place, hoping, I guess, she’d change her mind. I couldn’t honestly remember the last time I’d had a rectal thermometer put into me. I felt Debra slide my underwear down, then my cheeks were spread wide, for what seemed like an eternity, then the cool glass rod slid easily past my anus into my rectum. Debra kept one warm hand on my buttocks, stabilizing the thermometer.
It all felt so strange–the glass rod slowly warming inside me, her hand on my behind–I ought to have felt humiliated–and I did! But I also felt…funny. I didn’t know then that the simple concatenation of events initiated by Debra had sent my nascent hormones into a frenzy from which they would never recover.
Retrieving her thermometer, Debra wiped it clean, then examined it carefully before shaking it down and putting it back onto her tray.
“You have a small fever,” she said, helping me out of my street clothes and into pajamas. “I’ll have the nurse come and give you something for it.”
“Will they have to put that in my rear end again?” I asked her.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” she asked. “You’ll get used to it.”
A few minutes later a nurse came in unwrapping the foil from a familiar object. Though I felt momentarily horrified again, its presence didn’t really surprise me.
“This goes in your rectum,” the nurse said, slipping on a rubber glove and applying lubricant. Her tone was more businesslike than Debra’s, and the word “rectum” stopped me for a moment. I had been about to turn over and bare my bottom again when she spoke. I didn’t know what a rectum was. But I was sure the object she held was a suppository, so I completed the motion, turning onto my stomach. I guessed right because her finger slid quickly into my behind, pushing the suppository well into me before withdrawing.
By the time Debra returned to take my temperature again, several hours later, I was nearly resigned to the new routine. Due to my infection the fever I spiked on admission persisted for several days, requiring temperatures every four hours and suppositories almost as often.
And while most of the nurses and aides were not as warm and friendly as Debra, they were very matter of fact about the treatments they provided. (I have since learned that I was hospitalized at the tail end [OOPS!] of a period in American pediatrics when rectal treatments and use of the rectal route were considered most desirable, not only for children, but for everyone–witness revelations about Marilyn Monroe’s use of enemas and suppositories!)
Inactivity had made sleeping at night difficult for me, so the doctor prescribed medication, to be administered in way that shouldn’t surprise by now. At 8:00 each evening the night nurse, a cheerful soul named Faye, came marching into my room, rolling a rubber fingercot onto her index finger.
“Suppository time!” she called cheerfully. It didn’t matter at all if I had company at that moment. The worst was when my mother and sister were there visiting. Faye was already pulling back the covers, but Linda, my sister, made no motion to leave. Instead she looked at me with a grin. They had already walked in the day before when I had the thermometer in my rear, but Debra pulled the curtains closer together and they did not get to see the entire performance.
“You looked like a submarine with its periscope up,” Linda told me later, giggling.
“Just wait till you have to go in here for something,” I told her.
“She had me give her an enema last month-“ my mother said. “Mom!!” Linda stormed out of the room.
“She told me she doesn’t get them anymore,” I told mom.
So now I just looked my sister in the eye, pulled my pajama bottoms down and flexed my hips. Linda said nothing as Faye spread my cheeks with one hand and inserted the suppository with the other, keeping her finger up my hiney for just a moment to ensure the medicine wasn’t expelled. Getting an enema was a bigger deal than having a suppository, and even though I hadn’t witnessed Linda in the process, I figured mom had just about made us even. Anyway, it felt good not to be embarrassed by something that was standard operating procedure.
But Linda did one up me the next day.
My only complaint now was that the regular insertion of thermometers and fingers had left my behind feeling wet and yucky because of the all the lubricant. I had finally worked up enough nerve to complain about this to Debra once or twice. She explained that my complaint was a common one and had a common solution.
Instead of a bag, the enema kit she brought later that morning consisted of a plastic bucket and soft plastic tubing. Compared to my mother’s red rubber and black plastic kit, this one seemed benign. With nearly every loose object in the hospital aimed at my rear end I fully expected an enema somewhere down the line. My only surprise was that it took them so long.
After filling the bucket with warm water and adding in the packet of Castile, Debra instructed me to turn onto my side. This worried me. I had always taken enemas in the bathroom before, usually bending over the john in case I got too full to hold the water. I explained this to her, adding that I preferred not to use the bedpan if possible.
“It’s all right for you to go to the bathroom,” she said, “But I don’t want you bending over; it might make you dizzy after a couple of days in bed.”
We compromised, removing the hydroculator pack from my leg and helping me into the small bathroom where I stood facing the sink with my hands clenching either side and my torso bent slightly forward.
I felt her breath momentarily on the small of my back and buttocks as she bent over me. She spread me apart. “Take a deep breath, okay?”
I nodded, then felt the tube penetrate my anus, then slowly slide into my rectum. The insertion went on for what seemed like hours, but I don’t know how far in she put it because she was very patient and gentle.
Finally she said, “Here comes the water. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
I felt it only as a slight warmth in bowel and groin. Looking in the mirror, it seemed that the level of soapy water in the bucket she held hardly changed. At no time did she hold it higher than my pelvis “This doesn’t feel like the enemas I used to get at home.”
“The secret to giving someone an enema is to do it slowly,” Debra said.
I laughed, the subject still embarrassed me. “We’re almost done,” she added, lifting the can an inch or two higher. I felt the water inside me only as a building warmth, the pressure on my bowels was slight.
She clamped off the tube before the bucket had a chance to empty. “Take some deep breaths again.” I breathed, straightening slightly. That caused some pressure to build within me; I clenched my anus tightly around the tube in response. I knew from prior experience that pulling the rectal tube out is often the most difficult part of taking an enema. Even a well lubricated tube causes friction against anal muscles that are anything but relaxed. I hoped I would not spill, but that wasn’t the only reason I suddenly didn’t want Debra to take the tube out from my behind.
I felt her hand on my buttocks, squeezing them shut. At the same time she withdrew the enema tube, taking nearly as long as she did to insert it. Holding my cheeks together like she did reduced the pressure on my anus. All I felt was the indescribable sensation of the tube’s end slither back the way it had come.
“All done,” she said, helping me to sit. “Try to hold it for a minute.” She handed the pull cord. “And call me when you’re done.” She exited the bathroom, leaving me transformed.
The train of thought, begun as I sat on the john expelling the solution that Debra had pumped so skillfully into me, did not end when I pulled the nurse call–it has not ended to this day. Nevertheless, the enema I had just received–not to mention the rectal temps and suppositories that preceded it–forced me to confront the fact that I truly enjoyed having lubricated objects shoved gently into my behind. (At that time, fortunately, I did not know that a desire for anal stimulation was considered to be a primary signifier of homosexual orientation.) How ironic, I would conclude in later years, that this kind and straightforward woman, performing a procedure in the matter that it should be, but seldom is, performed, would create within me a sense of doubt, of apartness from others, that would last my entire life.
Such speculations, however, were for later. For now I decided to enjoy myself.
I had enough experience with enemas to realize that a successful enema produces results. I considered telling Debra that I needed another one–but she had already forbidden me to flush the toilet before letting her inspect the result. I would have to bide my time. But now, instead of trying to distance myself from the procedures as they happened to me, I began to cherish them, eagerly awaiting my next temperature check….and whatever should follow from that.
Unfortunately, by the time my next temp was due Debra had gone off duty. Her replacement was an aide, a middle aged battle ax whom I didn’t like and who didn’t seem to like me. She had been on one evening past and she was the only one who hurt me, thrusting the glass and mercury into me like a drunk throwing darts at a bullseye he can barely see. I gritted my teeth, bore it. Since the day before my fever had subsided as my leg healed, so I didn’t expect, and didn’t receive a follow up suppository. Soon, however, it would be time for merry Faye with her rectal nightcap.
I waited, but she didn’t appear.
As 9:00 approached I put on the nurse call. Within a few moments a young nurse who I hadn’t seen before came. She didn’t seem any older than my sister, Linda. For a moment I didn’t know what to do; receiving treatments with equanimity was one thing–asking out loud for them was something else.
“Is Faye around?” I asked casually.
“No, honey, she’s off tonight,” the nurse told me with a smile. “If you need anything, I’ll be getting it for you.”
“Uh, well…” I couldn’t see my face but it must have been red. “I guess the doctor… The doctor told me I could have something to help me sleep….” I was certain at that point that her smile would change into a knowing grin. But it didn’t.
She said simply: “Okay. Let me check. And left.”
I lay back relieved. She would find out what I needed and return snapping a rubber glove onto her right hand. A few moments later she was back, empty-handed.
“You’re supposed to get a suppository,” she said, looking at me doubtfully. “Do you know what that is?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I mean, that’s okay–I got one last—“
“I could call if you want and try to get them to change it to something else…?”
“What in the hell was going on here!? I’d finally got with the program, gone with the flow, gotten on the bus… And they go and change drivers on me.” She was about to leave, to go an call the doctor to change medications. I thought fast.
“Its just– Its just…. I have this trouble swallowing pills.”
“Oh.” She smiled, easy again. “Then you don’t mind suppositories?”
“No.”
She was back moments later, rubber glove on. I turned over while she unwrapped the foil covered bullet. She pulled down my pajama bottoms, then spread my buttocks, holding them apart wider than Faye normally did. Take a deep breath, she said. It was the often heard expression there. I barely felt the suppository pass into my anus; her finger, coated with Vaseline instead of the more common K-Y, followed quickly. It filled my bottom, passing deeper into me than I would have thought possible from the size of her hands. I felt a strong desire to clench my anus around its circumference, to keep it within me.
“That’s not too bad?” She asked.
“No,” I said, still feeling her fullness. Then she blindsided me.
I used to get one of these poked up my fanny every night when I was your age, she said with a laugh. I got instantly, and for the first time, hard. I shifted my mobile right leg further over to try and cover it. Her finger slid smoothly out.
“Did I hurt you?” She asked, misinterpreting my motion.
“No,” I said. “It– It– I feel a little full…. That’s all.”
“Okay. That’s okay. It’ll pass,” she soothed, her uncovered hand held my buttocks together. “You took that very well.”
I wanted her to tell me more about when she got stuff put into her bottom, but didn’t trust myself to speak clearly. She left a few minutes later. I still had a raging hard on, and it had only just begun to subside when one of the other aides–one I liked–came to take my temperature. Fortunately this could be done as I lay on my stomach, which at that point was uncomfortable, but not embarrassing.
After the aide left, I remained on my stomach, rear end exposed, thinking about the enema and thermometers and suppositories and fingers that had gone into me over the past few days. I moved about against the sheet, trying to make room for the fullness I now felt in front. A feeling took over me–not describable–tingling, organic and deep; I seemed, momentarily, to float from consciousness, and then thud crudely back into myself; my body twitched spasmodically, and I breathed in gasps.
And then the feeling passed.
I had had my first orgasm.
The next day I asked Debra if I could have another enema. She agreed to give me one, but told me I would have to wait until after lunch.
Shortly after my mom and Linda dropped by to visit. They brought me lunch from the nearby McDonalds, which, say what one will, was at least a change from the hospital menu. Debra came in carrying the same kind of enema kit she had used the day before. Still wrapped in plastic, she set it down discreetly in one corner, saying she would come back later.
“What’s that?” My dipshit sister had to ask.
“Are you going to get an enema?” Mom asked me.
“That’s for an enema…?” Linda looked wide-eyed, then turned a malicious grin on me.
“You’re one to talk,” I retorted, blushing bright red.
“They stick everything up your butt here, don’t they?” Linda said.
“Linda!” Mom admonished.
She simmered down after that, and she and mom left a few minutes later. But as soon as she asked that question, I sensed something in my sister’s eyes I hadn’t seen before, something I wouldn’t have had wit to see and wouldn’t have recognized if I did. Linda hadn’t just been gleeful at her little brothers humiliation; shed been excited.
Debra returned in a few minutes. Because she had been so gentle and skilled, I let her give me this enema in bed. I turned over three quarters of the way, flexing my good knee against the mattress. Debra filled the bucket as before, using Castile to make light suds at the top. I saw she used Vaseline, spreading carefully along the length of the tube, avoiding the holes at the top from which the water would flow.
Because my temperature was due, she inserted a thermometer first. I felt myself grow hard again, this for the first time while Debra ministered to me. She gently removed the thermometer, wiping and reading it. Then she picked up the rectal tube. It slid into me effortlessly. One thing about having a lot of treatments in the behind, I realized, was that they kept the tush well lubricated–once you got past the first one you were home free!
Slowly she ran the tube several inches into me. Then she stopped, releasing the clamp very carefully. I felt only a faint warmth develop with.
“How’s that?” She asked. “Do you feel it going in?”
“Barely,” I said. Now hopelessly hard and stimulated, I wondered whether I would have another experience like the night before, what it meant and whether Debra would notice.
With the water still flowing, Debra inched the tube deeper into me. Having spread Vaseline along six or eight inches of rectal tube, I scarcely felt the deeper insertion (and have since learned that this is a very safe and relaxing way to give and enema higher than six inches–with the water running slowly to expand the colon as the tube penetrates, thereby preventing discomfort and the possibility of damage to the large intestine). Again the soapy head in the bucket went down almost too slowly to see. Whenever I started to feel actual pressure, Debra moved the tube, first gibing deeper into me, then bringing it gradually out as the level in the bucket lowered. She worked the clamp shut, leaving about six inches of tube inside me.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
I had taken, I suppose, almost a quart of enema water, but barely felt it. What I did feel, however, was heat flooding my lower abdomen, heat hotter by far than the water that filled me. I managed to nod. “Fine, I said, Its…fine.”
“Can you hold it in?”
I nodded.
Once again holding my buttocks together she removed the tube. Once again I felt that incredible sensation of tube sliding past my anus, but none of the painful pressure of an enema waiting to go out the way it came in. I shook with otherworldly sensations, trying not to gasp, and gasping all the harder. I shuddered through my second orgasm with Debra’s soft hand on my buttocks and the last of her enema tube sliding through my rectum. At that time I told myself I had hid it well; Debra hadn’t seen a thing.
Right. Do I still believe a lady who can give an enema that well, that convincingly, wouldn’t know an orgasm when she saw one? Right…!
The next day I was discharged. Debra’s enema had taken me much of the previous afternoon to fully expel. I didn’t like running to the john everytime I felt a slight pressure, but once it was over, I felt cleaner and lighter than I ever had before.
Waiting for my family to come and pick me up, I hoped Debra would come in and stick her thermometer in my ass once more for old times sake. I wanted to feel that soft, strong hand on my behind again. She didn’t, unfortunately. She did stop, however, to wish me well, patting my bare legs in a friendly way.
Though I didn’t know it then, Debra and the late, lamented Pacomia Lutheran would stay with me always.