Free Kick Me by Paul Feig Page A

intense feeling as the pounding returned. Boom boom boom.
    “. . . nothing . . .” was all I could get out.
    “Well, you shouldn’t lie so close to the TV. You’re gonna hurt your eyes. Move back.”
    It was as if the world were conspiring against me. I started to think that maybe what I was feeling was somehow forbidden and so God had sent my father in to put an end to it. But once again, I couldn’t move.
    “Okay, I’ll move in a minute.”
    “Move
now,
” my dad said impatiently.
    I slid myself back and the feeling immediately peaked. I gave a little gasp.
    “What’s the matter? Did you get a carpet burn?”
    I couldn’t summon the breath to speak and so just shook my head no, pretending to be too engrossed in whatever it was I couldn’t see on the TV through my orgasm-hazed eyes.
    “Well, just be careful that you don’t get so close to the TV. You’ll end up having to wear glasses.”
    Whereas bath time used to be an opportunity to make my G.I. Joe perform all sorts of underwater adventures in his Army Jack scuba gear, my time in the tub was now transformed into a quest for knowledge. It had become apparent where the feelings were emanating from. I just didn’t know exactly how to re-create them. My mind fixated on the idea that if I could somehow figure out how to replicate the circumstances under which “the rope feeling” occurred that didn’t involve sliding a twenty-five-foot-long piece of braided cotton between my legs, then I would discover the key to overwhelming joy. The incident in front of the television had given me hope. Re-creation of “the rope feeling” apparently had something to do with pressure or contact between my private area and another surface and movement or friction between them. The bathtub became a virtual testing ground as I tried everything within reach to create the necessary ingredients. Shampoo bottles, sponges, washcloths, soap bars, the side of the tub—yes, I’m afraid even G.I. Joe was called into duty—but nothing seemed to work. “The rope feeling” was to remain elusive for another day, it seemed.
    However, as with all great inventors, a breakthrough occurs when one least expects it.
    Somehow, through a coincidental sequence of washing with soap, scrubbing certain areas harder than normal, and keeping my eye out for any possible disturbances in my lower reaches, I stumbled across what appeared to be a possible winning combination. There was a stirring deep within the part of my brain that had earlier frozen me to both the rope and the carpet that seemed to say, “You may be on to something here.” Bath time lasted longer than usual that night and by the time I emerged, my skin wrinkled and puckered from too much exposure to water, I was a veritable Jonas Salk on the day he discovered his polio vaccine. I had cracked the code and found that my discovery worked every single time I performed the same sequence of events. And trust me, I had just test-driven it. Many, many times.
    That night as I lay in bed, the universe seemed a strange and wondrous place. I felt as if I had discovered something that hadn’t existed, at least not before I plucked it from the world of overlooked human abilities. I had found a mysterious way to manipulate my body that could produce a feeling of such intense pleasure and euphoria that now my only worry was how I would prevent myself from doing it constantly. Would I ever be able to leave my room? Would I be able to control this ultrahuman power I had stumbled upon? I was now a seven-year-old Clark Kent, possessing an awe-inspiring secret that I would have to hide from the world. Superman never used his powers to rob banks and so I vowed that I would somehow find the strength to keep my new ability in check.
    But I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
    When next Wednesday arrived and I was reunited with my girlfriend, the rope, it was as if I were a formerly cornpone country boy who had returned to his sweet and innocent new bride after