“I thought she meant a laxative and told her I didn't want to take any of that old stuff, but what she had in mind was much worse.
“'No,' she said, 'as soon as we get home I'm going to give you a good enema.'
“'Oh, no, Mother,' I cried. I just about died. 'Please don't give me an enema. I hate enemas.'
“'How do you know if you've never had one?'
“'I just know it,' I said, so mad I was starting to cry. 'I don't want anybody sticking anything up my rear end.'
“I just felt sick I was so mad and scared. And I think the worst part of it was the idea of having to get undressed in front of Mom because even though she used to help me get dressed and stuff this seemed different. It was awfully indecent.
“But I couldn't talk her out of it, so we just drove along and she started asking me what I'd done in school and all that crap. I was sitting there with my legs crossed, like I usually do, and my dress rode up on my thighs.
“Mom said, 'Pull your dress down, dear,' which I thought was really dumb, and I wondered why it was unladylike to expose a little of my legs when in a few minutes she was going to be staring at my bare bottom and shoving a rubber hose up me. The whole thing was really stupid.
“When we got out of the car, I slid out of my seat very carefully with my legs pressed close together and holding my dress down, and I walked up the driveway with Mom with my shoulders very straight. But I felt awful. Mrs. H- was across the street fooling around in her yard and waved at Mom. It wouldn't have surprised me if she had called out, 'I see you're going to give Patty an enema.' I felt like everybody knew.
“Mom made me go right into the bathroom when we got home. She was right behind me. She had the darned thing all fixed. I just stared at it in horror. It looked awful. There was this rubber bag just bursting with water hanging on the hook on the bathroom door, and this long tube dangled and coiled down and then back up into the top. It gave me goose pimples. I was shivering all over. Suddenly I got this real funny tingling feeling. I only remembered having it once before, and that was when I was real little and a boy and me were fooling around and took our clothes off. That's all we did, but I remembered how exciting it was just taking our clothes off and how funny it felt to be bare.
“Mom took the tube in her fingers. I stared at it. It looked like it was as thick as a firehose. I think it was one of those tubes they use for colonic irrigations. I really felt scared. Also, she had a funny look in her face and her voice was sort of strained and choked like.
“'Bend over,' she told me. 'Turn around and bend over.' Her voice sounded funny. My stomach was churning and I felt like I did when I was at the dentist's, sort of curious and scared at once. Then she pulled up my dress. That really felt funny. It just sent goose pimples all over me, and after that she pulled down my panties. My bottom felt so bare and I felt exposed and real weak. Then this thing jabbed in me. It hurt like mad.
“'Ow, Mommy, it hurts. Ow-ow-ow-ow!' I pleaded. But she kept shoving it up me. I felt like my rear end was just spitting apart. She told me to spread my legs and bend way down. She was sort of cross, too. 'Keep still and bend down! Bend way down,' she kept telling me.
“I was crying. 'Mummy! Mummy! Please stop, it hurts! It hurts! It hurts!'
“But Mom said, 'Just stop carrying on. Spread your legs apart and bend down-way down.'
“'Ooooh, Mummy! Please don't push it in any more,' I cried. 'It hurts so much.'
“The water was spurting up me and giving me cramps and I was sobbing. I felt so humiliated. It was awful. But she kept pushing it in me and pushing it in me, and I could feel it pushing and shoving way up my insides, like it was going up through me. By the time she'd finished shoving that big long tube up my backside the enema bag was drained dry, and I really had to go.
“Mom acted very funny after that. She had this glazed look in her eyes all the time she was giving me the enema, and when it was over she started to cry. She pulled the tube out and let me go, and then, after I'd gotten rid of most of it, she made me put on my pajamas and put me to bed even though it was only about three in the afternoon. She smothered me with kisses and told me she was sorry she'd hurt me and that she'd never do it again. I didn't understand then. But I do now. That enema was so awful that I just made myself forget it until she gave me that other one when I was fifteen.
“How that happened was like this. Halfway through algebra, which was my last class, one day, I started to feel warm and queasy, and just before the bell rang I got this dull ache and started to feel sick to my stomach.
“I can't be getting the curse, I told myself, because that was last week. I closed my eyes and shook my head, then sat up straight and tried to look bright and alert. Miss T-, the math teacher, was explaining sets, but I just couldn't concentrate. I kept looking down at my watch, hoping for the bell to ring and, finally, it did.
“'Are you all right?' Miss T… asked me, because I was looking sort of pale, I guess.
“'Oh sure,' I said, and headed for the door. I felt faint and sick to my stomach, and this woozy kind of heat. I wasn't used to being sick. I hardly ever get sick. It was just awful getting out through the hall with kids milling around and everything, but I got downstairs, finally, and out, and finally found our powder-blue Dodge.
“'Whatever is the matter?' Mom asked. 'Your face is so flushed.' And she put her hand on my forehead and clucked like mothers do and said, 'You're just burning up,' and then asked me if I was sick to my stomach and I said I was, sort of, and that I didn't know what was the matter with me.
“As soon as we got home I fled into the house and just got to the bathroom in time. I vomited like anything. Mom held my head and said, “There, there, there,' and all that.
“'I don't know what's wrong with me.' I said. 'It just came over me all at once. I got hot, sick to my stomach. Ohhhh, can I please sit down?'
“Mom helped me to the sofa, sat beside me, and felt my forehead. 'Oh dear, you're just burning up,' she said.
“Then she went into the bathroom and came back with the thermometer and stabbed it into my mouth. I just lay back with my eyes closed. I was so miserable. Mom looked at the thermometer and shook her head. 'You're running a fever of one hundred and two, young lady,' she said. 'Now, what's all this about?'
“'I just want to lie down,' I said.
“'Of course, but I'm going to call the doctor.'
“She did, although I was scared he'd make me go to the hospital or something and begged her not to. I couldn't hear much of what Mom said to him except, 'Yes, well, I can do that,' and the doctor said a little more and hung up.
“Mom had this funny look in her face, a funny little smile, when she came back. She put her arm around me, then said, 'Patty,' looking at me right in the face, 'the doctor says there's a lot of Asian flu going around that a lot of young people are getting, and that that's what you have.'
“'Do I have to go to the hospital?'
“'No, dear, but he told me to give you an enema…'
“'Oh no, please!'
“'Now, darling,' Mom said, 'It's for your own good. It'll bring that fever down, and after that you're to drink plenty of liquids, and I'm going to keep you in bed until the fever is gone.'
“'Couldn't I just drink lots of liquids?' I asked.
“'I think we'd better do what the doctor says,' Mom said.
“'But I don't want to take an enema. It makes me sick.'
“'Well, I know it's embarrassing, dear…'
“'It isn't just embarrassing. It hurts.'
“'It will. It hurt the last time.' I started to cry.
“'It won't,' she promised. 'I'm very sorry about that other time, but it won't happen again.'
“'Couldn't I give it to myself?' I begged.
“'No, you'd better let me.'
“I didn't like the idea of getting undressed in front of Mom apart from everything else. But Mom was stubborn.
“'No, I think you'd better let me.' Then she took me by the hand and led me to the bathroom. She took the syringe and the tube out of the closet, and, scared and sick as I was, I got this funny titillating sensation up and down my spine. Without realizing I was doing it, I sort of gathered my skirt up above my knees as I watched Mom get it ready.
