The Broken Wristwatch

It was a broken Timex wristwatch. My parents had bought me that new silver watch for my thirteenth birthday in 1974. I had delightedly unwrapped and opened the box amongst the plates after my birthday dinner and delighted with my gift I had scrambled to try it on. It looked really sharp, with its large bold face and shiny stretch link band. I sprung it over my hand and noticed how big it looked on my slim wrist. I was smaller than most other boys were at thirteen, though like a puppy my hands had grown big while my wrists were still thin and my arms skinny and smooth.

'Wow!' I said with a delighted grin. 'This is cool!'

My dad was pleased and he smiled. He saw that I had been admiring this watch in the store window and had made a mental note of which one I liked the best. I knew he had picked it out for me.

'Thanks Dad!', I said admiring my prize. 'But how do I wind it?', I asked.

'You don't Brad. It is a self winding watch.' He answered.

I had never heard of such a thing. The babyish little watch I had up till now had to be wound every two days or it would stop cold. My mother always warned me not to over-wind it because it would break. Still, I wound it every chance I got to make sure it wouldn't stop. I could tell it was wound up as tight as it would go when the little stem wouldn't turn any more.

I had worn that little watch every day since I was in the fourth grade. I'd wear it everywhere and was proud that when I'd take it off in the middle of the summer the skin beneath it would be two whole shades lighter than the rest of my tanned skin. From its ghostly shadow it looked like I was still wearing it while I swam in the ocean, and I laughed when my friends Mario and Jake commented on my striped tan.

Then one day when I was winding it, the little stem didn't stop turning when it got to the end. Instead, it just kept spinning and I knew in that instant that I had broken it. Within two days the little watch stopped running and it wouldn't wind up again. I was very sad, and with tears in my eyes I brought it to my mother and asked if it could be fixed. She was kind and told me that it wasn't worth fixing, but that it had lasted a long time. 'Don't worry about it.' She said.

So my new birthday gift was a fantastic treasure. It looked like a man's watch and it even somehow would itself. What an advanced piece of technology, I thought.

'There's special springs inside that move back and forth when you walk that wind it up,' my dad explained. 'As long as you remember to wear it , it will always run' he said. Remembering to wear it was no problem, as I rarely took it off. In fact, I think the only time I wasn't wearing it was when I took a bath.

'What if it gets over-wound?' I asked, worried, recalling the recent demise of my old watch.

'I don't think it will get over-wound.' Said my dad. 'It is meant to work with normal use. As long as you take care of it you won't have to worry'

About this same time I had learned to masturbate. I had told the story of my first time a long time ago on this site. It was like most other boys' first times in most ways I guess. I was scared; thought I was about to pee, jumped up from my bed in terror and ran to the bathroom staring in confused anguish at my glistening twitching penis and the clear wet spot on my palm. I was certain that I had just broken something inside me, because the only thing I had ever felt that was quite that intense was when I had once unwisely touched the inside of the light bulb socket and gotten an electric shock that knocked me over onto the floor.

But I soon figured out exactly what had happened, and full of wicked new wizened carnal knowledge, I was ready to try again the next day. The result was the same, except this time I wasn't afraid. Instead, this time I was as proud as could be. I stared with reverence at my quivering little arrow with its tiny emission and I knew that I had just discovered the best most unbelievable naughty secret in the world. From that day forward masturbating became a daily ritual for me, every night at bedtime and sometimes after school too. I could not get enough, sometimes indulging at night in the bathtub and in the morning when I dressed as well.

My need seemed insatiable. I assumed that I was the only boy in the world who had learned this neat trick, and kept it a tightly held secret that I discussed with no one. One time I even did it at Macy's when my mother had brought me to try on new clothes for school. Removing my trousers in the small fitting room with the orange curtain I could see the feet of other boys and men walking so nearby, and seeing myself standing in my white undershirt and tight white briefs in the full length mirror was suddenly very exciting to me. With a naughty shiver I pushed my briefs down in the front and allowed my thin penis to pop out, fully erect as it seemed to be all the time lately. Seeing its reflection in the mirror was somehow so much more exciting than just looking down at it. I played with it, pushing it down and pulled on the few hairs that grew on either side at its base. I tucked my underpants under my balls and stealing a quick glance at the curtain that separated me from the hallway to make sure it was closed, I began to pull in a fast, steady rhythm.

My toes wiggled and curled with pleasure inside my white gym socks as I saw the stocking feet another boy walk past my booth, wearing un-hemmed corduroys that made 'shzzzz shzzzz shzzz' sounds as they dragged on the short-napped fitting room carpet. He was going out to show his mother how his new pants fit, I was sure. My mom was waiting out there too.

I pulled my skin back and forth past the purple head, and in no time my efforts were rewarded as a squirt of thin liquid, then another spurted out. The first one hit the mirror, and the second dropped on the floor. This was the certainly naughtiest, most wicked thing I had ever done. I closed my eyes with lustful satisfaction and breathed in deeply through my open mouth as I gave it one final squeeze.

Although suddenly the situation didn't seem so sexy... in fact it was downright insane, what I had done! My heart beating fast and eyes opening wide, I quickly snapped my underpants up to cover up, drying my hand on the front. I looked with embarrassment at the wet drop on the floor and the spot on the mirror and was gripped with panic. What if someone saw me? What is someone came in right now? What would I clean up with so no one would ever know?

I quickly grabbed my rumpled jeans from the changing bench and dried off the mirror then threw them over the tiny wet spot on the floor, looking around sure I would be a goner.

'Brad', I heard my mother call from outside. 'What are you doing in there? I am waiting for you.'

N-nothing, mom, I croaked, my voice breaking. I pulled on the new school pants as quickly as I could and checking quickly to see if there was any tell tale signs of the depraved thing I had just done. I stumbled through the curtain into the hallway. 'Here I come'

My crotch was still tingling and my head was spinning and the room felt a little bit black as I walked out of the fitting room and into the light. 'How do they feel?' my mom asked. 'A little dizzy' I said.

My mother regarded me with confusion. 'Dizzy?' she asked. 'I meant how do the pants feel?'

'Oh the pants-they feel fine!' I said, though I had no idea how they felt on me.

They look a little tight in the seat' she said turning me around and roughly feeling my bottom. I jumped, feeling a little shock, my cock still overstimulated from the forbidden and illicit orgasm I had just given myself less than a minute before. 'Go try the other ones on'

I took a deep breath and calmly collected my thoughts as I changed pants again, but now looking with a new sense of pride and devilish satisfaction at the dime-sized wet spot on the front of my underpants. I had gotten away with something very, very big, and feelings of immense fear had gone as suddenly as they had overcome me just a minute before. I felt like a risk-taking, horny little daredevil as I watched myself dress in the mirror again.

Being a boy was so cool.

*****

After school ended each day I'd run home from the school bus stop and dash upstairs. My mother worked till 4:30 and my little brother and sister went to elementary school and so got home a half hour later than I did. If I timed it just right I'd have the house to myself for almost thirty minutes to engage in my favorite solitary secret hobby. I'd barely be up the stairs and into my room before I was tugging on my belt, unsnapping my jeans, kicking off my sneakers and flopping on my bed with my naked erection exposed. I'd grab a tissue to be ready for the ultimate result, and getting down to business I'd explore my nakedness with delight getting myself as worked up as I could, which didn't take long at all. I'd run till I felt the tickle coming, then I'd back off, unhanding my small stiffy, watching it twitch uncontrollably on its own. When it settled down I would grasp it again and begin to stroke it and rub it yet again, stopping just in the nick of time. I'd do this till I could take no more, finally surrendering to the wave of feeling, curling my toes, gritting my teeth and groaning with unrestrained lust as I shot on my bare, smooth belly. I'd allow myself to bask in the afterglow of the feeling for a minute or two, sometimes playing with the sticky droplets, rubbing them around and letting them dry.

But I was powerfully mindful to never linger in these feelings too long, because so relaxed was I always at this venerable moment I was sorely afraid that I go to sleep while still nakedly exposed.

(One time I did fall asleep. Spent and relaxed, pants around my knees I had fallen sound asleep and was awakened with a shock as my grandmother had come into my room and put the laundry basket on my bed. Bless her, she was half blind, and I am certain I was spared and because she did not notice my compromised condition. I can be sure because my dog was lying beside me on the blanket, yet she didn't say a word. She hated the dog on the bed and absolutely forbid him to be there when she was at our house. So, if she didn't notice the dog, she surely didn't see the rumpled clothes and my little wet and wilted cock. I quickly covered up with the blanket, heart pounding at this terrifying near miss, cursing myself for my foolish carelessness, realizing that it could have just as well have been my mother, sister or brother who had walked in on me and seen me that way.)

*****

'What time is it?' shouted Mario in my general direction on the playground at lunch, eighth grade and October of 1974. We were playing football and he wondered if there was time for another play. I checked my watch. 'Plenty of time,' I assured him. 'It's only twenty after.'

But just a minute later, the bell rang and all the boys and girls headed towards the door. 'Plenty of time?' said Mario. 'You better check your watch, Brad.'

I did-and noticed that it still said it was twenty after.... But twenty after nine! A second glance confirmed my fears... my watch wasn't running anymore! In a panic I shook it. but it wouldn't run. I reflected back on my father's words

'I don't think it will get over-wound.' Said my dad. 'It is meant to work with normal use. As long as you take care of it you won't have to worry'

I realized I had worn that watch every day and every night as I jerked myself to bliss over and over again A lefty, I wore it on the same hand I pleasured myself with. I was vaguely aware of it as it bobbed up and down, down and up, up and down, fastened to my wrist as I rubbed and rubbed, and rubbed some more. With a shock, I concluded with certainty that my shameful habit was certainly the source of my wristwatch's early death. I surmised that this watch was made for a normal boy, not a masturbation-crazed boy like me. My use of it was clearly not normal and I had clearly wound it till its little mainspring had burst.

My feeling of sadness was quickly replaced with one of shame for what I had so clearly done in blind pursuit of my addictive pleasure. Just as quickly though, these feelings were replaced again with a new emotion-terror-as I wondered how in the world I would explain why my almost-new watch was broken.

It didn't occur to me at all that the watch could have been defective from the start, or was broken after being banged about in a game of school yard football. No, I was quite shamefully and positively sure that my masturbation habit had caused the premature end of its life. I panicked as I tried to think how I would answer when my mother or father asked my why my new watch was broken.

So I hid it. I stuffed it under some baseball cards in a box in my drawer. I waited for someone to notice I wasn't wearing it any longer, yet my mind went blank whenever I tried to think of a plausible explanation.

But no one ever asked me where it was. And I never looked at it again till I found it today beneath those old baseball cards in the box in the closet where it had sat undisturbed for these past thirty-two years, still signalling that it was twenty after nine, sometime in October of 1974.