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Shovel 6 | Jul 23 2002

Other than my own, of course, I’d never seen an erection before. I mean, in person. And of course one’s own is not the same as another’s, because for one thing the viewing angle is different. And even when it’s not—when, say, a mirror is employed—there is a sense in which one cannot see a thing that is one’s own. As is the case, for example, with one’s face.

I think his name was Roger. A name like Roger. He was handsome, as I remember him, and short. Exactly how short, I cannot say, because I never saw him stand.

Has he ever stood, I wonder.

When I held him (this was while swinging him into position), he was a full head shorter than me, although some of the difference may have been due to the maneuver itself, which required him to bend, or for me to bend him, at the knees.

He was persistent in the way that certain men are persistent about such things. I’d never been this way myself, nor witnessed it so intimately, and thus didn’t know how to respond. I tried to laugh it off, to pretend it wasn’t happening, but this failed to deter him. If anything, he redoubled his efforts, seeing hope in my passivity.

I don’t recall the specifics of what he proposed to do with me, or vice versa, but whatever it was, it excited him, for suddenly his penis rose up and lengthened, settling at a perpendicular angle to his groin.

I found it comical, more than anything, and sad.

Of course it helped that he was on the toilet at the time and would remain on the toilet until I agreed to transfer him back to his wheelchair and continue with our work that morning—our last together, for obvious reasons.