It was my 13th birthday party.

My mom got two connecting hotel rooms at my hometown’s five star equivalent, The Sheraton. One for me and my friends to have a slumber party, the other for her to act as chaperone. A chaperone who went to bed right after cake and ice cream. So we put on our PJs and pretended that the slumber portion of the party was commencing.

I just officially became a teenager, so naturally my friends and I snuck out of the hotel room and went running around the hotel, chasing each other through the halls and up and down the elevator and into the closed indoor pool to get into the hot tub in our training bras.

We heard something outside the giant sunroom the pool was in. We assumed it was a hotel employee who would catch us and rat us out to my mom. So we jumped out, got dressed, and ran into the first floor hallway. When we got into the hallway we slowed down, so we could tiptoe back into our room.

That’s when we heard someone knock on the door at the end of the hallway located in the back corner side of the hotel. That back door of a hotel that remains locked and requires a room key to enter.

Said door was no more than 15 feet from the door to our room.

As we inched closer to our room, we got a better view of the door, and noticed a guy standing there without his shirt on. Note, my birthday is in January, and I grew up in the mountains, where there’s a ski resort. It was below freezing outside and the door was even steamed over from the freezing winter air.

My first thought was that he must be homeless and freezing, which made me want to let him in. As I inched closer to the door my friends grabbed me, knowing my tendency to pick up stray animals, including humans.

“Don’t let him in, Britt. Pretty sure we’re still not allowed to talk to strangers,” my friend Jillian advised me.

But motivated by my naive curiosity, I got even closer and noticed that he was shaking slightly, almost like he was almost going into convulsions. As soon as I got close enough to look, a milky substance spray painted the glass door, dripping down it, melting away the steam. Through it I saw a pink head protruding out the end of his fingers, leaking the milky substance.

I stood there in shock, making it out like a panoramic poster that you stare at until you can find a figure in it. His pants were around down his ankles, and he was holding himself like he was peeing … milk. I was so confused I thought he might be an alien.

“OH MY GOD! HIS PENIS!” Jillian shouted, and we all went screaming like the little girls we were down the hallway into the main lobby.

Out of breath from screaming and running, panicked like we just saw the twins from Psycho riding their bikes down the hallway, we told the front desk employee the story, who then called the cops to report a voyeuristic man jacking off to teenage girls.

“What was he doing?” I asked him to clarify.

“Ummm … Ummmm … Ummmm ... that’s a question for your mom. By the way, where is your mom?” Busted.

And that was the first time I ever saw a penis.