In 1783 one of the most popular attractions in London was the Temple of Health, promoted by an amiable Scot named Dr. James Graham. The main feature of the Temple was the canopied Celestial Bed, supported by twenty-eight glass pillars and attended by a live nude Goddess of Health. Male visitors were invited to recline on the Celestial Bed for fifty pounds a night with the promise that this treatment would lead to a cure for impotence.

...... ..., at that first session, you get to a hand caress. It is the least unnerving thing you can do. You are really focusing on the sense of touch. You begin by demonstrating a hand caress. You ask the patient to close his eyes, and you close yours. And you don't talk. We don't want any visual or verbal input to confuse the comforting hand caress. During the next session, you go to a face caress. You touch the various parts of his face, going smoothly, lightly, over every bump and crevice, fingertips on the face's bone structure, the skin, the fuzz on it. You do this to the patient, and then he does it to you. It is amazingly relaxing and sensual. Incidentally, exercises need not be in rigid order. You can modify or change the order according to the situation or circumstances. Anyway, at the third meeting, if all is going normally, you do a footbath. Literally a footbath. Clothes remain on, but feet are bared, soaked in warm water, and rubbed. Not until the fourth meeting do you get into the initial nudity. You each undress yourself, or if you both wish, you undress each other. ...... So now you both have Your clothes off. Now you do the exercise called body imaging. You, the surrogate, stand in front of a full-length mirror, allowing Your patient to sit back and watch you, and you point out various parts of Your body from head to toe and then honestly confess what you dislike or like about Your anatomical self. Then Your patient does the same. You learn a good deal bout yourself and each other during this exercise. ... Now after body imaging comes the sensual shower -- it can be shower or a bath -- together in warm water, and you lather each other and use soap as a lubricant. At the next session, you do a nude back caress. Just what that implies. After that, the exercise of the frontal caress without touching breasts and genitals. This is followed by the frontal caress including touching each other's breasts and genitals. But no big deal. Breasts and genitals get no more attention than touching the nose or the neck. At the next session comes nondemand genital pleasuring. This means what it states. You have Your patient lie on his back and you caress his genitals. The goal is not to stimulate or arouse but to concentrate on giving someone pleasure, and they don't have to pay you back in any way. During the following meeting, you will be expected to try two things. One is the anatomy tour, and the other is something we call The Clock. ...... In the anatomy tour, you use a flashlight and speculum to show and explain to a male what is inside you. Then you do The Clock. You consider Your vagina has a clock inside, with numbers one to twelve going around in there. You have the patient insert a finger and pressure you at one o'clock or six or eleven, so he can feel what it is like in a woman's vaginal barrel and see how she reacts differently to pressure in various places. Sometimes you might let the male keep his moving finger in Your vagina until you experience orgasm, a real orgasm, so he can feel what happens inside you. At this stage in the therapy, you will clearly see that Your patient is getting erections, partial or total. But even if his penis is almost flaccid, I assure you he is getting some kind of erection. When Your patient has this, he is ready for his final exercises, perhaps the last two or three. If he is suffering premature ejaculation, you can control it easily by the famous squeeze method. We'll all practice it in Your training. Anyway, we've now come to the ultimate act. The act, obviously, is penetration, successful sexual intercourse. ...

...... As they seated themselves in a booth, Freeberg noticed once more how graceful and beautiful Gayle was, attired in a pink silk blouse, nipped at her waist by a yellow leather belt, and below the belt, a pleated silk skirt that clung to her thighs when she walked. Watching her, as she studied the menu, Freeberg enjoyed Gayle's pretty face. She had dark glossy hair trimmed in a gamine bob, encasing a countenance that resembled the features of an Oriental porcelain doll -- behind her big lavender sunglasses were widespread green almond eyes, and beneath the glasses, a pert nose and a generous mouth with a full lower lip. The rest of her person, he recollected, was equally arresting. He had seen her nude several times six years ago in Tucson during her own surrogate training period. Printed indelibly on his memory were her smooth sloping alabaster shoulders; her protruding firm full breasts with their large brown nipples; her small supple waist, narrow hips, and ample thighs (on with a beauty mark); and her shapely legs. He tried to remember ... She must have been, must be now, five feet four or five. ...... The important things about Gayle Miller, he reminded himself, were not physical. She had proved to be intelligent, adaptable, forthright, articulate, and possessed of a sweet and giving personality. The fact remained that she had enabled him to have total success with his most disturbed and seemingly hopeless patients.

...... Janet Schneider interrupted. "Did you make love with all of them, Gayle?" "Of course," Gayle replied. "You mean sexual intercourse? Yes, I eventually had it with each one. Therapists like to say that intercourse isn't the goal of the treatment. They like to say that teaching someone to get in touch with his feelings, learn to be intimate, learn to handle sex naturally is the goal. All of that is true. But the ultimate goal is successful intercourse. If a man what has been unable to do that and do it as well as almost any other man, the I feel the main goal has been achieved."

Gayle Miller, her legs tucked under her, sat onto the couch she had shipped from Tucson and sewed a button on her blue cashmere sweater. The electric clock, set on the mantel of the fireplace across the small but cozy living room of her newly leased bungalow in Hillsdale, registered a few minutes before seven o'clock in the evening. If he weren't too frightened, Adam Demski, her very first patient in Hillsdale, should be arriving in a few minutes. ...... The doorbell rang. Hastily, Gayle gathered her sweater and sewing kit together, stuffed them into the drawer of the end table beside the sofa, then stood up and appraised herself in the wall mirror. She fluffed her hair a little. Otherwise, everything in place. ...... "... I've always thought the face caress an exquisite experience. ... Let's try it, Adam. First, me to you, then you to me. Now shut Your eyes. " He did so, and Gayle moved more closely to him, then reached up and began to massage his forehead softly, soon running the tips of her fingers over his nose and across his cheeks, flitting them across his quivering lips and down his chin. She repeated this several times and finally finished by cupping his face him her hands. "All right, Adam." When he opened his eyes, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. "Well, Adam, what did you feel?" At first he was unable to speak, then he whispered, "Like I -- I wanted to kiss you." She stared at him. "Why not? Go ahead." He pushed his face toward hers and brushed his lips against her lips. "Was that what you wanted to do?" she asked. "Yes." "Or did you want to kiss me in different ways?" "I -- I don't know what ways." "A woman likes to be kissed in other ways, too. On the eyelids, tip of the nose, cleft of the chin, hollow of the throat and on her earlobes, in her ears, behind her ears. Have you ever done that?" "No." "Do it now, to me. Kissing can be almost as intimate as intercourse. Start with my eyelids." She closed her eyes and felt his nervous lips flutter at them, then waited as he made small pecks at her ears, cheeks, nose, chin. She was tempted to grab him, press his mouth against her own, open his mouth and her own, and give him a tongue kiss. Just to loosen him up. But she didn't succumb to it. That would be going too fast, pushing it to hard. ......

...... He was taking off her blouse. "We can talk later, honey. I want to go to bed. This time we'll be great. Come on, honey." Her resistance had gone, along with her blouse. Her brassiere came loose and she staggered to her feet, unzipping her dirndl skirt. As her skirt dropped to the floor, she whispered, "All right, darling. Let's." She rolled down her panty hose as he quickly undressed. A minute later she was on the bed, on her back, her legs wide apart. She watched as he knelt on the bed beside her. She could see that he was ready and her excitement grew. She reached up for him, and he moved quickly between here fleshy thighs. "Put it in, darling," She called up breathlessly. He was bending over her, feeling for the mark, and then he found it and she groaned again. He began to enter her when suddenly he choked, almost convulsively, and began to have an orgasm. ......

...... Gayle offered Demski a warm smile and said softly, "Now, you stand up, Adam, and let's both take off our clothes." ... "... Let's just undress." As he wobbled to his feet, she added in a kindly tone, "Undressing, Adam, doesn't mean you have to get an erection and jump into bed and make it with me. It means only what I've explained -- we are undressing so that you can get in touch with how you feel about Your whole body, because you've never thought about it that much, and to give me some information about Your body and how you feel about it and most of all, to give us an easier and closer relationship, Okay?" ...... She half turned away, as she began to pull her sweater over her head, ...... She had her sweater off, then reached behind to unfasten her brassiere and tossed it on a chair, then unzipped her skirt, let it drop to the carpet, kicking it aside, along with her shoes. She could see, from the mirror, that she was naked except for her tight nylon panties. She slipped them down and stepped out of them. ...... ...... But now it was her turn, her cue to start this off. "All right, Adam, this is our body-imaging exercise," she began, facing the full-length mirror squarely. "My hair," she said, fluffing the short bob. "I rather like it this way, and I like being a brunette. I never wanted to be real blond and have that kind of pubic hair. There's something insubstantial, lightweight, about being a blond. A nice cute brunette like me ... you can always trust someone like me. Remember that, Adam." In the mirror, she detected the tiniest flicker of amusement about his mouth. Her forefinger went down to her nose. "Not bad, but not great either. The upturned nose has its point. Pun, Adam, get it? But in truth, it is a little too wide for my own taste. A narrower nose could be more appealing." Her forefinger moved down to her mouth. "In romance novels, these are called generous lips. And they are. Men seem to like them, like their cushiony softness when they kiss, so I shouldn't complain. As long as you like them, Adam." "I do, Gayle." She placed her hands under her breasts. "How about these, without a bra to hold them up more firmly? What do you make of them?" "They are beautiful," Demski said, a choke in his voice. Gayle considered her breasts briefly in the mirrors. "I don't know. I'm not sure. I always remember when I was a youngster, during puberty, and I had practically no breasts at all. I thought they'd never grow, and I'd be like boys, and boys would never care for me. Well, they finally came along, all right, and there was no question I was a girl, but I was never sure if young men expected and wanted more. I know breasts much smaller than mine look great on fashion models in the fancier women's magazines. But men are not interested in those shapes. They like what they see in men's magazines, the big boobs, the thirty-eights. Well, that's not me, and I'm not sure I'm happy." "They're beautiful, Gayle," Demski repeated, "to me. Just right." Her fingers patted her flat, firm stomach. "No complaints here, she said. "My weight's fine, and I don't even have to diet." Her hand went lazily down to her thatch of dark pubic hair. "Okay, my vaginal mound and my triangle of pubic hair. I'm somewhat ambivalent about it all, aesthetically. It's full and downy and soft, and I'm frankly pleased about that. Some women I've seen have pubic hair that seems as prickly as steel wool. Mine feels like a tiny pillow of the softest wee feathers. So why am I ambivalent about what I see? I'll tell you why. Maybe you can't see it very well now, but you will certainly see it when you're up closer to me. While my pubic hair seems thick enough all around, it isn't down the middle. It seems to thin out, and therefore you can see -- anyway, I can see -- my clitoris and, below it, the lips of my outer labia and vulva. I suppose there's not much wrong with it, their being exposed, but somehow I often think I'd like those vital parts kept hidden until someone has the fun of finding them." Gayle glanced up at the mirror. She could see Demski hypnotized, swallowing, unable to speak. She reached behind her and tried to grasp her buttocks in both hands. "Definitely too much of a good thing. Nature was overabundant here. I don't like to wear a girdle or have any restraints, so my ass is always out there wiggling in the wind. I don't like it. I'm unhappy with it." After that, Gayle went to her hips, her thighs, her knees, her calves, right down to her toes, doing a commentary all the while. Done, she wheeled slowly to confront Demski. "Do you have any remarks to make, Adam?" "Well, I --" His voice sank out of hearing. "Come on, Adam ... Well, what? Give me a break. Speak the truth." "Uh, I think you have a lovely ass." "You do?" "It is not too big. Uh, and the rest --" "The rest of what?" She could see where his eyes were focused. "You mean my vagina?" He nodded vigorously. "You -- you were being overly critical. You look good to me." She smiled, pleased. "you're giving me close to a rave review." "A real rave review," Demski said. She clapped her hands with undisguised pleasure and walked right up to him. "You're a gentleman, Adam, a gentleman and a scholar." And she bent over him, one breast brushing his face, and kissed him on the forehead. "I thank you." Then she reached down and gripped both his forearms hard, uncrossing his arms, lifting them away from his crotch, and pulling him to his feet. He recoiled a little, tried to twist away from her, but she held on to him, making him stand directly before her. "Now, it's Your turn to do the body image for me," she said. ...... She went to shake him. "Adam, you must believe me. I'm a young woman. I've had some experience with different kinds of men. If we undressed together to make love, I would not care if Your penis were one inch long or two inches or ten. Anyway, it would more than double or triple in size once you're aroused. You must have seen that when you masturbated. Your size simply wouldn't matter. I would just want to hold you and know it would be all right and know what followed would be pleasurable." ...... "Adam, the female vagina is built to accommodate almost any size and get pleasure from it. You could put Your little finger in my vagina, and my folds would close around Your little finger, encompass it, and eventually lubricate it as I enjoy its movement. In the same way, the vagina can absorb and encompass four or five of Your fingers. The vagina accommodates all sizes. After all, the vagina makes room for a nine-pound baby to emerge from it and be born. The vagina can handle any size penis and get equal pleasure from it. I speak from my own experiences." ......