I cannot overemphasize the significance of this moment. At the time I was a bubbling cauldron of sexual impulse and confusion. I'd only recently discovered you didn't need a partner to have sex, and had been exercising this option as frequently as possible. Although I possessed a vivid imagination, I relentlessly sought out any kind of visual stimulation to aid in my carnal fantasies. Sadly, printed material was scarce. Some kids were lucky enough to have a father with a Playboy collection or some stag pictures tucked away in a drawer, but my dad was gone, and if he ever did have any porn, he was really good at hiding it.

As for my mother, she never read the more tawdry women's magazines like Cosmo, so I was reduced to a lone copy of Redbook featuring an ad with Tina Louise in a bikini. Time after time I'd lock myself in the bathroom and start wailing away at my nether regions, pants down around my ankles, only to have reruns of Gilligan's Island pop into my head, jeopardizing everything. It was bad enough worrying about my mother knocking, but someone yelling "Skipper!" in my ear was almost too much to bear.

Far more plentiful were the pleasures offered up nightly on network television. It was the heyday of T&A programming, when executives took the label "vast wasteland" and ran with it, throwing originality and story out the window in favor of bouncing, scantily-clad women. Prime-time was obviously aimed at serial masturbators and complete morons. I watched it religiously.

My favorite series of all was Wonder Woman, which if memory serves was little more than fifty minutes of two huge tits fighting crime. But there were plenty of other shows to keep it company. Week after week I'd eagerly scan the latest TV Guide, noting the best-bets for shameless titillation — Adrienne Barbeau on The Love Boat, Barbi Benton on Fantasy Island, the Landers sisters on anything. Charlie's Angels, Three's Company, Hee-Haw in a pinch. Temptation was everywhere.

On special occasions there was a treat known as the Battle of the Network Stars. Ostensibly an arena for macho actors like Robert Conrad to prove that they really were over-competitive assholes, the real meat and potatoes of the program was the celebrity dunk tank, where a host of nubile starlets were encouraged to showcase their talent for getting wet. Still, you had to act fast, or risk the picture cutting from a hard-nippled Charlene Tilton pulling herself out of the drink, straight to a shot of Gabe Kaplan or Telly Savalas — the twin titans of boner-killing.

It was from this minefield that I found myself unexpectedly rescued by the box of smut.

Prime-time was obviously aimed at serial masturbators and complete morons. I watched it religiously.

Standing there in the middle of the cactus, weeds and dust, I looked down at a corrugated milestone in my sexual history. All that was missing was a heavenly choir.

Of course it still could've been a trap. It was illegal for us to have any of the stuff, and despite our tough-guy delusions we were basically good kids with a healthy fear of the law. We'd dutifully turned in the rusted handgun we found behind the 7-Eleven and immediately reported the hypodermic needles we'd seen on Hippie Hill. But parting with this mother lode was never a consideration.

We decided to take the porn over to my house. I had a small, neglected garage, the perfect hiding place to establish what we were already calling our "library." Setting the box on the garage's living-room floor, we closed the blinds and began exploring. Like three pubescent archaeologists, we dug through layer after layer, each level revealing some new delight.

The porn was all straight but it covered a broad range of appetites: from gauzy, soft-lit "erotica" to the medical textbook horror of fluorescent, Motel 6 fucking, where no pimple was too big and no ass too hairy. In some of the harder-core samples, a man's presence wasn't even necessary to complete the equation; a variety of curious objects (vegetables, athletic equipment, highway pylons) standing in for living, breathing erections. Then there were a couple of shoe-fetish catalogues and some S&M mags, adding a touch of kink to the proceedings. One layout featured a guy who looked just like my dentist getting hot wax dripped over his belly — about as erotic as Gabe Kaplan mounting Telly Savalas.

On we went. Dozens of magazine titles were represented; Playboy, Penthouse, Oui, Gallery, Gent, Juggs, Genesis, Swank, High Society, Celebrity Skin and, of course, Beaver. As we plowed through the box we scattered the porn on the floor, creating a carpet of hot paper flesh. Naked women were everywhere. This was the real thing, or as close to it as I thought I'd ever get. Goodbye Redbook, hello Hustler.