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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Little house of medical horrors
The Mütter Museum reveals medicine as the gruesome and inexact art that it is.
By Robert Strauss
[04/10/00]

Urge: Naked World
Chunky Chinese
A growing number of spoiled only children are obese, and may face diminished future sex lives because of it.
By Jack Boulware
[04/10/00]

Urge
The man who made gays macho
A new book about Tom of Finland says the artist was the first to show homosexual masculinity.
By Michael Alvear
[04/08/00]

Column
Disaster drill
Where's the virile firefighter who's supposed to cut off my clothes?
By Mary Roach
[04/07/00]

Urge: Naked World
Scam fails for hooker-to-be felled by oil
Judge doesn't fall for woman's claim.
By Jack Boulware
[04/07/00]

Complete archives for Health & Body

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"Talk to him, Harold! Talk to him!" my mother used to nag my weary father, dog tired from yet another day at the shoe store cajoling Cobbie pumps onto fat ladies' triple-E corn-callused feet.

My first real encounter with girls was during the summer of '64, which my family spent in Miami Beach. We drove our beige 1959 Chevrolet station wagon with the fins past Pedro's South of the Border, past the "IMPEACH EARL WARREN" signs, past the Georgia fireworks stands and onto Miami Beach in all its orgasmic splendor.

We drove on the Arthur Godfrey Causeway, along neon Collins Avenue, our eyes bugging out as we passed palace after palace: the Sans Souci, the Versailles, the Fontainebleau, the Eden Roc, the Seville, the Deauville. We avoided the haute chateaux and opted for the Roney Plaza, a worn-out stucco place on the beach that used to be the grande dame in the 1930s. My father got a deal because the Roney was about to be torn down and turned into condominiums. Besides, who left the summer heat of Hartford, Conn., for the 100 percent humidity of Miami in August?

We drove up the Roney's half-circle driveway and under the breezeway, unloaded our unmatched luggage and walked into the lobby with white and gold provincial furniture everywhere -- gilded mirrors, puffed-cushioned sofas and sectionals, drop-leaf tea tables. The royal blue velvet appliqué wallpaper would have been too opulent for Marie Antoinette, but Miami Beach tourists loved it.

My mother stuck out her hand and introduced herself to the social director, Lillian Ross, a ditsy divorcée from Great Neck, N.Y., who looked like Carmen Miranda without the fruit. All Miami Beach hotels had social directors, syrupy matchmakers in Capri pants and see-through high heels whose job it was to ensure that the guests had a grand time. Lillian was the one who organized Mr. and Mrs. Biederman's slide show of their trip to Majorca, the Sunday afternoon volleyball games, the luaus (no pork), bingo, canasta and mahjong and the excursions to Hialeah.

"We have a lovely group of families this season," Lillian cooed as she poofed up her beehive and reached out to shake the old man's hand.

A little guy wearing khaki shorts and an orange T-shirt that read "I've been to Parrot Jungle!" suddenly materialized from nowhere.

"Arnie here is from White Plains," Lillian said proudly, pulling a runty kid toward her. "Arnie's parents are spending the whole summer with us at the Roney."

"Gimme five, pal!" Arnie said, sliding his right palm waist-high to me.

The two of us immediately went to the pool to survey the girl situation. Arnie pulled out a black comb and slipped it through his amber waves. Arnie could comb his hair, whereas mine was so curly I could barely get a steel-bristle brush through it.

What impressed me most about Arnie was what he told me within 15 minutes of meeting him.

He had touched a girl's breast! Actual skin to skin, not any through-the-sweater feel.

Holy smokes!

My only experience with sex had been at a hot and heavy spin-the-bottle session on a sultry June evening when six boys and girls gathered on Carol Klinghoffer's veranda. Carol pulled out a six-and-a-half-ounce Pepsi bottle, and when my turn came up, the bottle spun to Karen Resnick, a pretty girl with a mouth that to this day reminds me of Jean Seberg's. Puckering my lips, I leaned across the circle of wide-eyed kids, tenderly brushed aside strands of Karen's blond hair and planted my trembling lips on her rosy right cheek. It was wonderful.

At the Roney that summer, my sister, Penny, four years older than I, was already planning her own series of sexual exploits. Penny's plan was to pick up guys who drove Corvette Stingrays up and down Collins Avenue. She quickly teamed up with a girl named Bobbie from Brookline, Mass. The two would idly stroll up and down Collins and tell boys they were college students staying at the Fontainebleau, studying art history.

As for me, I spent every day with Arnie, who took up residence poolside on a chaise lounge. The only things missing were a cigarette holder dangling from his mouth, a martini by his side and a racing form from Hialeah. In the afternoon, we bodysurfed in the Atlantic before baking on the sand listening to "Telstar" on my transistor radio, furiously strumming on imaginary electric guitars.

Next page | She handed him the baby oil and Arnie started rubbing this total stranger's back!