I consider myself to be a good, responsible father. I put a roof over my children’s heads, I’m always willing to sit down and help them with their homework, and I make sure to keep my titty magazines in a location so ingenious that my teenage son stands no chance of ever stumbling upon them.
I’ve been a reader of Playboy for nearly 20 years and, while I haven’t held on to every single one—who really wants to see the Nancy Sinatra issue once your initial fascination has been sated?—I have amassed quite a collection through the years. (I also have a 2001 Club International and an old Hustler magazine stashed away for when I want a little less left to the imagination.) I am an adult, after all, and if I wish to look at these magazines, which I have purchased with my own money, then that is my business.
As my son grew older, however, and the stack of tantalizing adult erotica on my bedside table got taller, I decided it was time to secrete them away to somewhere more discreet to avoid any chance of my boy’s tender young eyes accidentally falling upon the sweat-glistened flesh and sand-covered bosoms, throwing him into a state of utter confusion.
But choosing the right location was not easy. Playboys are flat, and since I do most of my masturbating in bed, it seemed natural to put them under the mattress. Only it’s a little impractical when you’re dealing with 37 magazines. Even if you spread them out so there’s one uniform layer, what are you supposed to do when you want to get to that Ginger Spice centerfold that happens to be right in the middle of the collection? Do you upend the whole mattress at the risk of your son coming into the room at that very moment? I should say not! I’m a far better father than that.
Of course, the whole exercise begs the question: Why would a 14-year-old boy want to see a Playboy anyway? By any account, today’s youth already have plenty to attract their attention, what with television and video games. There is simply no reason to invade my personal space merely to glimpse the supple curve of a woman’s breast or her scarcely concealed vagina. But the adolescent mind is riddled with curiosity, and one can never be too careful.
So I journeyed on toward the underwear drawer—a realm so private and removed that no full-blooded teenager would ever have reason to venture within its intimate depths. Besides, I have faith my son would never break the sacred trust we have, no matter how sensual the possible rewards. Even if he did, he’d have to carefully rearrange everything so I wouldn’t notice anything was amiss, and teenagers are just too clumsy and thoughtless to be able to do that. Still, I thought better of it.
Then the perfect spot came to me in a flash: behind my guns. If anything is unwelcoming to a young man, it is firearms. What could possibly portend danger more? Just the intimation of violence would put my son off. Plus, I only have one key to the gun cabinet, and I keep it atop the refrigerator, next to the snacks, where he’d never find it. Alas, when I tried this, the magazines were plainly visible.
I ruled out the basement as too prone to moisture, above the drop ceiling in the basement as too dusty, and behind his toy box as too inconvenient. I almost buried them in the backyard until I realized that I would experience all three of those problems in one spot. If only I weren’t such a good father, I would just leave them out in the open where he could see them.
At last, in the eleventh hour, I discovered a location so clever that they will surely lie undisturbed by all but myself. To find them, he’d have to go into my closet, decide, for some reason, to investigate the top shelf, drag in a chair from the dining room, take down the precious contraband in a box clearly marked “Private,” and voraciously consume the carnal bounty in the mere two hours he is alone without supervision before I return from work.
And what teenage boy has the gumption to do that?
