Frank's Room

I was in my bedroom with a magnifying glass, looking for the beginnings of manhood. Everyone was sprouting a solid tuft now, we were fourteen years old, it was time for the wrinkled little ball bag to fill out, the knob to lengthen, to be surrounded by an unruly thatch of hair. It wasn't happening for me, and the showers were a true test of friendship. Nobody mentioned my smooth skinned little weener while they frolicked under the spray of water after soccer practice. My friend Frank was goalkeeper. He was better developed and taller than any of us. He invited me back to his house after practice, and I gladly went, because his mother was Italian, she made all sorts of exotic foods which I occasionally got to taste. She was cooking something that smelled heavenly when we arrived. Puttanesca.

"It means 'whore's food,'" Frank whispered to me.

"What's a whore?"

"You know, prossies, like them girls we saw in Doncaster."

"What do they do?"

"They do anything. They will suck on your willie for money!"

"Oh you filthy bastard, do they really do that?!"

"Yeah, all women do that. They love doing it. The Ronettes do it every night after their show!"

Frank had his own record player, and after dinner we went to his room, where we played his collection of singles, very loud. His mother was extremely tolerant, Frank was her only son. She even let him lock his door. The electric chords of "Please Please Me" pummeled us as we danced spastically around, and then Frank put on our current favorite, Be My Baby by the Ronettes, an all girl singing group whose striking foreign looks had intrigued and excited us both when we saw them on Ready Steady Go! While the Ronettes trilled away in exquisite harmonic lamentation, Frank swung open the closet door, revealing a photograph of the trio in full warpaint, sloe eyes ringed with black makeup, great beehives of hair rising from their heads..

"Look at Ronnie," he said, pointing to the lead Ronette, touching her face on the picture, "she is so fucking wankeable!"

Ronnie's dark eyes stared back in silent agreement.

Then Frank unzipped his regulation gray flannels and extracted his sizeable knob. It was already hard and he began wanking madly as the music blared. I was laughing but deeply excited, imagining my own penis having magically grown to the same size as Frank's. He was leaping around as he jerked himself, whooping like a madman, "Oooh, look at this bugger! Oh won't yer say yer love me! I'm givin' it to her!"

He bucked obscenely. "Come on, lass, get this in yer!"

I was terrified his mum would come barging in and catch us in the act, but Frank didn't seem to care. He was grunting and singing, his hand a blur.

"'ere, watch this!"

He moved closer to the picture, kissing the paper as he gunned himself to a sticky conclusion, an explosion of plasma erupting from his monstrous organ, seed splashing the inside of the wooden door. Frank quickly wiped up the mess with a handkerchief, which he balled up and put carefully in his pocket. There was a knock at the door.

"Yeah mum?" he said, astonishingly casual.

"Ragazzi, state facendo un casino. Volete dei biscotti?"

"Speak English mum, we live in England."

"You boys are very loud in there. Would you like some biscotti? "

"Yes please, we'll be out in a minute."

"What's biscotti, Frank?"

"Biscuits," said Frank, tucking his still enlarged privates back in his pants. Mine would never be that big, there was no way...

When I got home I showed my mum the biscotti Frank's mum had given me, "Oooh, very fancy!" was all she said.

I went to my room and whipped out my equipment, searching again for hair. Frank's penis looked like a real man's, mine still looked like a child's model, even through a magnifying glass. I put it away just as the door opened and my sister Julie walked in.

"What are you doing with that microscope? Looking for your willie?"

I blushed with shame.

"It's not a microscope, it's a magnifying glass..."

"I know what it is and I know what you were up to. You better behave yourself or I'll tell me mam..."

"Tell'er what?" I said indignantly, "I wasn't doing anything!"

"I know what boys do, don't think I don't. And all them crazy buggers up at the hospital, I've seen them doing it too. Dirty devils..."

I imagined all the lunatics in Rampton Mental Hospital, the lunatic asylum where Julie worked, howling like wolves, whacking themselves like Frank just had... I could hardly wait.