I wanted to say
more
https://soundcloud.com/#rollcallrecords/on-an-on-i-wanted-to-say-more
Some days feel almost normal, but others are cloaked with
the deepest sorrow. The sun rises but the light has changed; the edges are blurred.
I float through it all hoping for clarity and some purpose, but perhaps I expect
too much from my potholed existence. I watch my chickens scratch through their
day and envy the simplicity of their lives. Being an evolved thinking mammal has many downsides, emotional pain being
one of them.
The other day I saw an old lady on a tube train. She was
tiny and nervous like a bird, her eyes flickering over the map with each
stop. I just wanted to cradle her and
feel her shape against me, but instead I watched her intently as the train
rocked to Euston. Tears are never far away but today their salt was laced with
a fear that my memories of Doreen might fade. Every piece and trinket has
become a holy relic and my house a cathedral to her memory.
Today I busied myself with holiday tasks but mum never left
my side. I kept thinking about postcards that no longer need sending. She
always loved to receive them and my first job in any city was to find and send
one. I loved to see them sitting on the table next to her chair when I visited.
Sometimes I wake up and my first thought is to call her; my brain short
circuits, then realisation dawns. She is a casket of ash at the crematorium and
her spirit has gone.
Since being deflowered and dumped by Judith
Chapman a few years before, I’d simply avoided any messy emotional connection.
The options were a minefield of confusion so I stayed in no man’s land.
Celibacy had become my frock of convenience.
At sixteen Judith had cornered me in the recess
behind the school gym and women’s toilets. She lived in my village but I’d had
little contact with her since making mud pies and playing house in the days
before pubic hair. She wasn’t a conventional beauty, but I liked her and today
she came fully armed with a pair of breasts that would have made Howard Hughes
weep and Jane Russell proud. On the day in question she had dressed the
burgeoning assets in a tight blouse which mapped out her curves and framed her
nipples like targets.
‘Come here’ she said towering and teetering
toward me in her six inch platform shoes, blonde hair floating in her wake like
a flag of sexual intent; a bit like Britney Spears with a sneer. I was like the
mud we’d moulded as the fleshy mortars spearheaded her Blitzkrieg upon my sex
starved defences. ‘Give us a kiss’ and she was upon me like a stoat on a
rabbit. My inexperience and embarrassment was no match for her confidence and
the unflinching stare with which she nailed me to the rough pebble dash wall
like a piece of leftover chewing gum.
I remember that the Avon lady must have been as
she smelt sweetly of freesias. But her assault subsided to tenderness and as
our lips met her tongue gently pushed and probed its way into my yielding
mouth. She wanted me and I found myself unexpectedly aroused by her femininity
and soft curves. In that moment I was oblivious to all around me and even her
coterie of tartan clad Bay City Roller devotees whooping encouragement couldn’t
pull me away from our bubble of intimacy.
Colin Bull & 1 - 1972
Before Judith, I’d loved the company of women,
but been oblivious to their sexual charms. My arousal gave me hope that I might
be ‘normal’ after all. Most of my time had been spent suppressing reveries on
John Darby’s meaty thighs, Gary Frost’s impossibly hairy armpits and Colin
Bull’s enormous cock but now Judith’s basilica breasts joined the party. Having
a kiss meant that we were now going out, and for a few months we were stuck
together with a glue of hormones and bodily fluids. When she exchanged me for a
greaser on a motorbike any dreams of picket fences and nappies were dashed and
my confidence crushed. I felt abandoned and inadequate, convinced that the
thunder clouds of secret desire had somehow come in the way and impaired my
performance. From that moment if a woman did want more than a game of Scrabble,
I’d run a mile quicker than Roger Bannister. It was simply easier to go without
intimacy than to open Pandora’s Box (or anyone else’s for that matter) and
confront my own particular fleshy demons. Instead I returned to the
testosterone safety of day dreams involving hairy men with broad chests and
thick cocks. Type Tom of Finland into an internet search and you’ll understand
where I’m coming from. No one knew or suspected my secret and that’s just the
way I wanted it. Nurturing the appearance of a hairy unkempt cherub with a
weight problem also assisted the situation. I became the sexually invisible
man.
The start of every day was pretty much the
same. I was perpetually sleep deprived and sore around the ears from the late
nights I’d spend with headphones clamped to my head like black teacups. My eyes
would reluctantly open and after a yawn and stretch my right hand would find a
home around my morning glory as if I were starting a car and reaching for the
gear stick in readiness for the morning commute. With rampant hormones and
unfulfilled lust, I was a loaded gun and took every opportunity to unzip and
fire a few rounds. The act was quickly followed by a frenzied search for
something to mop up the milky puddles resulting in cloudy stains on most of my
clothing. Unless I had to get up, I would just lounge in bed until boredom
forced me to throw on some sticky clothes and descend the stairs dressed in
something brown and corduroy.
Like many adolescent boys, I had been caught in
the act of masturbation. One day, one summer I was so deeply involved in my own
brand of worship, that I hadn’t noticed Doreen calling me in for tea or the
sound of her footsteps on the rough concrete path that led behind the garage.
The space here next to the garden shed shrouded by Hawthorn bushes afforded an
oasis which wasn’t overlooked and allowed me to indulge undisturbed and up
until then unnoticed. On summer nights, I would drop my trousers and pants, let
cool air circulate and stroke away as I fantasised about anything in Y fronts.
There was nothing more freeing and liberating than letting it all dangle
unhindered outside as nature intended.
Water Butt - March 1st 2013
I only noticed Doreen as she swung around the
corner. There I was leaning against the water butt, trousers around my ankles,
my cock magnificent in its adolescent prime at 45 degrees and close to climax.
I can still see the look of shock on her face as she gasped ‘oh my God’ before
turning tail and racing back down the path, her outsized slippers slapping a salute
as she ran. It is hard to think of a more embarrassing moment in my entire life.
I wanted to disappear or wake up from the most terrible of dreams. Instead I
just stayed in my position of ecstasy, frozen but for my erection wilting like
a day old Gerbera in a vase. How would I ever be able to face her again?
The thought of my tea getting cold and hunger
encouraged me to come in from the garden. With my face flushing I gingerly
walked the few yards to the kitchen door and anxiously peered in. There was
mum, arms elbow deep in the sink.
‘Your tea’s on the table’ she said without
averting her gaze from some belligerent pot stain. I took my place at the
bright yellow Formica table behind her. I was happy not to have to face her
eyes and with a muted ‘thanks’ sat down to eat the congealing Vesta Chow Mein which
glistened in the harsh fluorescent kitchen light like a plate of worms. I
finished quickly, trying not to slurp the noodles and then took my plate to the
sink with a whispered ‘thank you, that was lovely.’ Doreen fiddled awkwardly
and folded tea towels in the adjacent corner.
She said nothing as I crawled from the kitchen and took refuge in my
bedroom at the back of the bungalow. Headphones on, I blocked out the trauma
with some Led Zeppelin.
For days I crept about in a pall of shame, but
despite my fears the incident was never mentioned.
As I write I would
like nothing more than for Doreen to be here and exclaim over tea ‘do you
remember the time I caught you behind the garage masturbating?’ I’m sure she
was secretly proud that she gave me a big one.
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/8V1PrCfXu84&source=uds&autoplay=1
The pain it is a glacier moving through you
And carving out the valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
Nursing the ground
With precious minerals and stuff
So don't you become paralyzed with fear
When things seem particularly rough
