Alas, the phallus (again)

Posted on by
4

“Stop waving your dick around – we’ve all seen it now so you can put it away!” I had got particularly annoyed by an arrogant and patronising email sent by a male contact and a female work colleague was suggesting how I could respond – in an ideal world.

It did get me thinking that we would never say to a woman “stop waving your vagina around” if she had caused a similar reaction. In fact, we rarely use female body parts metaphorically – apart from the occasional ‘twat’ or ‘fanny’.

Yet, male bits crop up all the time. We frequently express anger or annoyance with: dick, dickhead, knob, knob head, bell end…etc. If we see a man driving like he owns the road in a flashy sports car, we may refer to his vehicle as a ‘penis enlargement’ or at the opposite end of the spectrum we may say of someone with an over-inflated ego that he ‘probably has a small penis’.

Freud also introduced the world of psychology to ‘penis envy’ and talked about phallic symbols in our dreams. In fact, phalluses are all over the place of you look at classic and modern architecture – The Gherkin in London,  the Torre Agbar in Barcelona, the Empire State Building, the Ypsilanti Water Tower in Michigan (nicknamed ‘brick dick’) and The International Finance Centre in Hong Kong to name a few.

Phalluses seem to have a place in ancient culture with the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset – a large man with a sizeable erect penis cut into a hillside – no one knows how long he’s been there, whether he dates back to the Iron Age or 17th Century. Ancient Greeks and Romans used penises everywhere in festivals celebrating fertility. Priapus was the Greek and Roman fertility God. He is portrayed in statues as extremely (maybe too) well-endowed.

This may be why I have vivid memories of novelty penis ‘gifts’ on sale in souvenir shops in Corfu, when I was taken there as a child. There was anything from penis key rings to rubber apples and oranges out of which popped a rubber penis when they were squeezed. My parents were horrified as my brother and I giggled and squished numerous pieces of ‘fruit’, before they dragged us out of the shop.

Of course the whole novelty penis gift thing has really taken off everywhere over the years and penis lollipops, chocolate penises and clockwork penises are a mainstay of many lingerie/sex store chains.

But what about lady bits? Boobs pop up in buildings (take the Millennium Dome), cakes and confectionary, but there are no vaginas. Maybe this is because the phallus is a better shape to play with (in all senses of the word). And it is hard to construct a vagina-shaped recess, unless you attach meaning to tunnels and caves.

I am not complaining about this apparent under- representation of female genitalia, as I for one am quite happy to look at dicks, penises, willies and knobs. But it does seem that when my work mate suggested the irritating email author stopped “waving his dick around”, we had already lost the war. Dicks have been waved around for thousands of years. And they will continue to be waved around until the end of time.

Sprechen sie Deutsch?

Posted on by
Reply

Everybody looks the same, or so the song says. But European travel – which I hadn’t done for a few years – proves it.

A few years ago one could go to a typical Spanish, Greek, Italian or French hotel/complex and be able to pinpoint, from hairstyles and clothes alone, a person’s nationality. Now we all merge into one – men with shaved heads and a collection of tattoos, women in bikinis with pierced belly buttons and their own bits of body art. Even people’s t-shirts don’t give a clue – many, whether they are British, Danish, German or Swedish seem to have English language slogans on their tops. Apart from actually attempting a conversation, the only way to recognise a person’s lingo is to zoom in close to see what books or magazines they are reading.

The other question addling my brain since I returned from such a trip is when did all the men go bald? A quick head count in the immediate vicinity of the baby pool puts the percentage of baldies at around 60. Or at least from where I was sitting. Maybe the stress of fatherhood these days is far greater than it was.

Being a single mum forced to holiday with her 70-odd mother and two children, there is very little mischief I can get up to in such a setting. Even my drinks were limited to one substandard glass of red per evening, from a push-button dispenser, with my all-inclusive buffet meal. It was then bed at about 9pm with the kids sprawled out on sofa beds in the next room.

So, all I could do was distract myself with a holiday crush for the week and use him to fantasise as I lay staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep for the whirr of the air conditioning, the Spanish guitarist playing by the pool and my brain’s refusal to cease activities.

This is what got me started on the uniformity of nationalities. I thought he was English. He had shaved head, a few slightly more tasteful tattoos than some of the others, a slim but muscular physique and pale blue eyes. He also had an attractive girlfriend with short dark hair and a two-year-old daughter. But this was just a private crush, so no harm done, readers.

So, I was standing on the edge of the baby pool making sure my toddler didn’t make off with other children’s toys (again) and he was nearby, watching his daughter. There was a bit of grey, slimy-looking grating all around the pool. He lifted it up and looked underneath, slightly disgusted.

“What is that?” I thought he asked. I replied: “It’s just slimy.” Not one of my sparkling retorts, I admit. He then just walked off without responding.

I thought he was rather rude and was a little hurt. But later on I overheard a conversation and realised he was actually German. “Was ist das” does sound a lot like “what is that”.

So, I started noticing him a little more, as he was always around when we were around i.e. stuck around the baby pool with a toddler who likes to make a run for it now and then. He smiled at my little boy when he waved to him, he crawled around the pool with his little girl on his back, he chopped up her food at tea time. His girlfriend seemed to be on a break from childcare.

I am not sure whether I was just attracted to his fatherly enthusiasm – many other men were doing similar stuff around me – or that he had a really handsome face, despite his bald head turning a deeper crimson each day in the sun. Maybe it was teen nostalgia – he looked a bit like Matt Goss (remember the band Bros from the late 1980s?), pre hair transplant. There was just something about German Guy that had a little extra sparkle.

So, dozing off to the air conditioning whirr, as the Spanish guitar finally stopped, I would imagine sneaking out of the buffet restaurant (once the kids were settled with their chips and my mum was sitting with them). I would wait in some shadowy area, a safe distance from the hotel kitchen, possibly near a lemon tree.

German Guy would appear a couple of minutes later. We would not utter a word between us as he kissed me slowly, stroked my cheek and neck, his hands moving down to my breasts as he fondled and stroked them. He pressed me against the wall and kissed more deeply and I felt his breathing getting heavier and the hard bulge in his trousers pressing against me.

I stroked it from the outside of his trousers and hesitated over the zip. He was surer and took a hand straight up my dress and into my knickers – going right for the target. I gasped with excitement at the sudden, but welcome intrusion. If he was going straight in there, so would I. I fumbled down his zip, grabbing the warm, solid, ample member inside.  I wanted to taste every ounce of him, but we were short on time and people would start looking for us soon.

I crouched down and sucked and flicked my tongue along his beautiful penis. He moaned and swayed, and pulled me up before he lost control. He pressed me deeper into the wall and I took one foot out of my knickers as I realised this had to happen now or never.

German Guy held me still and thrust deep into me. I gasped again. We urgently, hungrily, passionately fucked. I stroked his firm buttocks, tasted his sweat and smelt the faint scent of Jasmine in the air.

I could have done this for hours, but we were disturbed by the sound of someone coming out of the kitchen around the corner and clicking a cigarette lighter. Quickly, we pulled up our underclothes, shared a lingering kiss and crept back to the dining room, me a few seconds ahead of him, sitting back down with our families.

Really, I was still lying in the dark, listening to the whirr of the air con. He was probably humping his girlfriend somewhere down the corridor.

 

 

Relax and don’t do it!

Posted on by
Reply

So, you’re 18 and it’s your first holiday away from your folks. No more boring treks around museums and old ruins, no more tedious family meals, followed by board games. You want to go clubbing, drink cocktails and get your end away.

I hear you and I understand that now you have reached that age you want/deserve some freedom. But seriously, is there not a better way to find yourself, that doesn’t end with you waking up with vomit in your hair, at an A&E where they don’t speak your language or your only souvenir being the nasty STI you picked up somewhere along the way?

My advice as a non-professional expert is don’t do it! If you are dead set on having a casual shag after 20 Jager Bombs (or that vile-looking concoction in a fish bowl I’ve seen people imbibe  on TV documentaries like ‘Magaluf exposed’ or ‘My parents don’t know I fucked 30 girls on my hols’), do it at home, or a weekend away at your nearest big city or seaside town. Where healthcare is in English.

On holiday everyone goes wild, loses any sense of danger and generally turns into a crazy, stupid version of themselves.

I know – I’ve come close to it – see ‘The naked barman’. And I am grateful to fate/the gods that I managed to escape unscathed. Just think – I could have ended up coming home with a bag of coke up my butt.

For the more idealistic of you, I would also say don’t bother with holiday romances either – they rarely work. When you’re fuzzy round the edges under hazy sunshine or starry skies, overlooking a glistening sea or lake, everything seems perfect, but in the cold reality of normal life, the magic will fade. If you meet someone in normal circumstances and can tolerate one another over wet afternoons, in chain pubs with plastic microwave meals, then you know it’s real.

My first ‘holiday romance’ was on a family holiday in a caravan in northern France. I hated the caravan. My dad loved it. All I can remember is being cramped, hearing everyone snoring, the rain hammering the roof above my top bunk and the four of us bickering as my parents’ double bed had to be folded away for breakfast.

A similar family with an equally deluded dad had pitched nearby. The boy was my age so we were making puppy dog eyes at each other – probably because I was the only English girl his age and he was the only English boy my age. And we were presumably both bored rigid. He was a bit on the plump side but not totally hideous, so I didn’t discourage him. We started by getting permission to go for walks around the site.

Within a day or two we were full-on snogging, as soon as we were out of sight of our respective family tin boxes on wheels. I recall it wasn’t exactly romantic – he drooled all over me and tried to teach me to ‘French kiss’ (ironic when we were in its supposed country of origin). I found the whole thing vile at the age of 15 and tried to resist.

Dave (I can’t even remember his real name) had epilepsy and the whole time I was scared he was going to have a seizure and might die. Obviously now I know more about the condition and would probably know how to deal with it, but at 15 I just knew bits from TV programmes which filled me with fear. To cut a long story short, aside from my dad paying for us to go for a steak dinner at the camp site café, the whole thing was rather dull, my younger brother teased me the whole time and I would have been better off staying in playing Monopoly and reading my book.

Dave and I never stayed in touch. I think he wrote me a letter but I ignored it and only had the photos to remind me it happened at all. Thankfully.

A couple of years later we went to Sorrento in Italy. It was significant, as it was our last holiday together as a family, before I decided I was too old to tag along.

It was also significant as I met ‘James’. I’m sure it was desperation again which threw us together. He was tall, good looking and blonde while I was a grumpy teen, scowling in every photo my dad took and bursting out of my dresses and bikinis – my boobs must have been having a growth spurt at the time.

We got chatting to him and his brother one night and went off to another girl’s room to play cards. Luckily for me the girl wasn’t interested in James, so I stayed behind when she left and we ended up snogging. It went pretty well, so every night after that (over about four days) we would have a kiss and cuddle. The thing that sticks in my mind now was his last day. His family, from the opposite end of the country to me, were due to leave a week before us.

So, James and I snatched a precious last hour together in an empty hotel room. We kissed and cuddled for probably 80 per cent of that hour, then he rolled on top of me and something odd happened. His hips and pelvis began thrusting into me. I now realise this was my first ‘dry hump’.  No clothes were removed and nothing further occurred but I could feel everything against my shorts, through his jeans. It was my first proper arousal. And it was from a posh public school boy from Reading.

After he left for the airport, I couldn’t get him out of my head and as soon as I got home, a week later, I wrote a really long letter. Thinking back, it may have been a little over-keen and scary for him. I also inserted one too many fart jokes… So, he never responded. He lived in Reading, for God’s sake!

So in short, holiday romances tend to be one-sided and often involve people you would never normally want to be with or who would never normally want to be with you. What you have in common, is that you are both there and wanting to enhance your trip/get some action. I know there are exceptions now and then, but 90 per cent of the time you’re better off reading a good book or sightseeing.

I’m about to go away for a week, with a 72-year-old woman and two children and I won’t be looking for someone to dry hump on a hotel bed, not that I would nowadays be a target for such frivolities…

 

I can’t do this any more

Posted on by
Reply

A small tear trickled down my cheek, then another, and another, until I found myself sobbing uncontrollably and burying my soggy face in a pillow.

My ex had given me some divorce papers to read and something in the wording had unexpectedly triggered this reaction. I wasn’t crying because I wanted my husband back, but for the finality, reality and sense of failure it brought about. I had failed at being married – something which doesn’t take special skills or qualifications. Somehow, I had not been able to keep it together.

You are probably thinking “Why is she still not divorced?” I agree  – it’s been a long time coming and I’ve been in limbo for quite a while, but it wasn’t like I was going to get married again; I am not sure anyone would take me, even if I did feel like doing the whole ring-exchanging, dress wearing shebang.

While the whole d-i-v-o-r-c-e thing is mutual, it still feels like being dumped. Except a long, drawn out dumping, with lots of paperwork. I remember the good old days of being chucked. It was hellish, but at least it didn’t take a couple of years or involve no longer being together, but having to remain in the same house until one of you could move out. It also cost a lot less – maybe a CD, or pair of socks, but not the bank-breaking prospect of buying out someone’s share of the house/car/dog.

My first memory of being dumped was the 18-year-old groper I went out with when I was 15. The whole thing was doomed from the start – I was too shy to speak to him, other than yes, no and other monosyllables while all he wanted to do was stick his tongue down my throat and his hand down my pants. You couldn’t say it was Romeo and Juliet in the making.

This was back in the late 80s/early 90s, so there wasn’t widespread internet or mobile phone use, so no hiding behind typed words. This meant he used the easy method of that era, i.e. doing nothing and hoping I’d go away. He suddenly stopped phoning me. Every evening, I would wait by the phone, walk past it, check it had not been accidentally left off the hook or unplugged. I became a phone obsessive. I eventually plucked up the courage to ring him myself, but somehow he was always “out”.

When he realised I was going to keep phoning, he must have finally asked his mum to stop lying for him, took the call and gave me the first of many “I can’t do this any mores” – it’s usually that or “this isn’t working”.  Although “I can’t do this any more” always makes me chuckle, when I’m over the break-up, as it sounds like they are constipated or that the whole relationship was down to their hard work and effort – yeah, and I was just passive while you slobbered on me, stuck it in, forced me to watch some dull action movie, put up with your kebab breath…

The other big avoiding-my- calls-break-up was H from uni. He was my third ‘relationship’ before Christmas, but this time, I had completely fallen for him. The guy was a drunk, but he was a witty, intelligent and talented one, who could play guitar and write songs like a proper rock star. I was in awe of him and at times turned into the shy 15-year-old I had been with ‘the groper’, even though by now I had a few notches on my bedpost and knew a little more about what to do with young men.

We were involved for the rest of the year – Christmas until the summer. Unbeknown to me, he was probably counting the days until he disappeared to Northampton and I would be over 100 miles away. Then he could put his no phone contact plan into action. He was either out, asleep, busy, in the shower or up a tree when I tried to contact him. As before, he eventually condescended to speak to me with good old “I can’t do this any more”! He was capable of far better than that, but clearly, this line trips off every man’s tongue.

Fast forward many years later and we can all hide behind text and email, wording it as elaborately or simply as we wish. In favour of writing, though, it does mean you can get things down that leave your head when you are face to face.

I remember seeing a guy I met through an internet dating site. I thought things were going well, the sex was fantastic, we had lots in common and could laugh together. The only warning sign was his lingering anger at his ex-wife which bubbled to the surface now and then. But there were no obvious signs that the axe was swinging over me. Until I got a text message on my way to work. It read: “I can’t do this any more. I am not ready for a relationship – my head is all over the place. All I wanted was a few dates.” I was absolutely gutted and had to keep sneaking from my desk to the toilet to cry.

Now, I think: “Hold on to your head and press it down, and don’t spend three hours in bed with me when all you wanted was a few dates!”

Face to face break ups have been very rare for me, but the best was one from a similar era to the internet guy. I called him Benito in a previous post, so let’s stick to that. Things never really got off the ground with Benito, so I shouldn’t have been shocked when it ended after five weeks. We had got into a habit of meeting for a lunchtime coffee every other week. I thought this was just another such meeting. But no, he had a mission. I will at least credit him with giving a full speech.

And he used “this isn’t working for me” for a change. There was a long ‘presentation’, including things like “we are too similar”, “I want kids but you already have one, so probably won’t want to do it again” (this had never been discussed so how dare he assume!), “you are really pretty, but I don’t feel we are right for each other” etc. etc. Then the pièce de résistance: “I’ve been back in touch with my ex-girlfriend and went to see her the other night and we kissed.” If he had said this from the start it would have saved us from all the other flannel.

I don’t want to portray myself as an innocent victim in all of this – I have delivered some devastating blows in my life and still feel a tinge of guilt for some of them, while with others I know I was doing us both a favour.

But whatever your age, rejection and being told you are not good enough still hurts like Hell and it takes time to recover from being verbally kicked in the stomach, whether it’s face to face, on text, email, fax, letter or flashing up on the scoreboard at a football match…

 

 

 

 

Encore une fois

Posted on by
2

Ever make a decision, then ask yourself whether you were too hasty and should have thought it through a little more first? Ever think that aspects of your life seem to have progressed like merry-go-rounds, with you just returning to the same thing again and again?

Does this intro sound like the start of a self-help book?

I cannot be the only one to be guilty of cyclic/’Oops! I did it again’ relationships – the ones where you split up, get back together, split up and get back together again.

There are a number of celebrity relationships where it has happened – Elizabeth Taylor married and divorced Richard Burton twice, as did Melanie Griffiths with Don Johnson – so clearly it’s not an outlandish thing.

But, I have only been married once, so luckily not all my cyclic relationships have had the expense of a wedding or divorce – imagine the cost of all the dresses!

No, this has largely been strictly boyfriend/girlfriend or ambiguous sexual relationship situations.

The first was in fact my cherry picker – referred to here. He was my first boyfriend at uni as well as the first to go where no man had gone before.  He was 26 and I was 18, so while I was idealistic and waiting every day for him to show some emotion or commitment, he was very cynical and probably just hoping to get into my knickers, and then bed a few more girls on my course to show off to his friends the benefits of being a (slightly) mature student.

Tired of his non-committal ways and cynicism, I realised there were plenty more willing fish and cast him aside. He actually got very drunk, tearful and begged me to take him back shortly afterwards, but I didn’t.

We did, however, remain friends and a year or so after I left uni, took a trip to Prague together. We travelled as friends, but after a few cheap beers on the first night, the inevitable occurred. It occurred several times – and he observed that I had picked up ‘some new moves’ since the last time. For me, though, the only thing that stuck in my mind was him accompanying me to the hotel toilet after we returned from a night out and wanting to wipe my ‘front bottom’ like a small child…

My next cycle was rather a torrid one. Another from uni was D, with whom I had shared a rather tempestuous relationship. There were lots of rows, door slamming and shouting, but also good times when we could block out the world, alone together.

Things eventually came to a head and we split after about a year, but continued to live in the same house, which was painful at times. He started seeing other people, as did I. But I still found him irresistibly attractive and he must have still felt something for me. So after ‘talks’, we gave it another try. It lasted a few months, but was never quite the same again. The magic had died. I was glad when it was time to go home for summer and I could finally get away from him.

It was years before the yo-yo effect struck again.  I got through various relationships and added a few notches to my bedpost for around five or six years. This had all left me rather world-weary and sceptical about ever meeting ‘the one’. Then I ran into a very cute younger guy at a work event. One thing led to another and we ended up getting married.

But after a few years, things were not so happily ever after. We seemed to rub each other up the wrong way – both physically and metaphorically. We didn’t seem to be able to get through an evening without having a row at some point. So, we parted. Having a child meant we could never make a clean break and we remained friends.

All the stress and pressure of our relationship dissipated after several months. I tried out a few other men, fell in love with one, but it didn’t work out, while he remained single. So, one evening I invited him over for wine and a takeaway ‘as friends’.  But the drink, the familiarity and ease with which we could sit together on the sofa led to a small kiss, then a mad dash upstairs.

And somehow we ended up in the bizarre situation of being married, separated and dating. Not very easy to explain to concerned/curious friends.

So we tried living together again. But it seemed we were programmed to repel like two north or two south poles on a magnet. The same arguments began, the same stresses emerged. He announced that I was ‘doing his head in’ and he was going to move out – which was funny in a not-so-funny way because the first time we split up I had told him he was doing my head in…

The only positive from this sorry saga was that we could both say we were 100 per cent, totally, utterly certain that we could not be together because we had tried it twice. It was not a seven-year itch it was a ten-year burning, painful, weeping wound.

So, do ‘oops! I did it again’ relationships teach us anything? Could it be that really good books or films have to be experienced more than once so that you can pick up more minute details the next time around? That sometimes one chocolate isn’t enough? You have to eat the whole damn box before you are satisfied or feeling rather nauseous?

We are constantly evolving and learning, no matter how old we are. Sometimes ending a relationship is a hasty, rash decision, and something you thought was right at the time, but later regret. If you are a bit annoyed with your partner, sometimes it needs to be talked about, before it pushes you apart. But obviously 80 per cent of the time, if it’s not working, life is too short to be unhappy, and you need to walk away.

Of course, your plans are scuppered if the other person won’t go back. I will always feel a pang of hurt about a gorgeous barman I was seeing and stupidly cheated on. We broke up on these grounds. I tried to get him back by calling him to arrange to meet up and he spoke to me like I was a nuisance caller/something nasty and brown he had accidentally trod in.

So, why this topic? I am just pondering something at the moment and feel I may have made a hasty and incorrect decision. The trouble is that I know that taking me back would be the equivalent of betting on a three-legged horse.

 

Rainfall

Posted on by
Reply

I sit on my front porch as the rain starts to fall. A gap in the guttering lets one large drop splat on the wall next to me.

It is dark and the rain is only visible as passing car headlights briefly illuminate it, like sparkling shards. But the roaring spray, after days of scorching arid heat, shouts that yes, the rain is here, falling hard and fast. It gushes and hisses from the sky.

You have just left, so I come outside to feel the downpour, to smell it bursting from the sky on to trees, plants, gutters, potholes, and stare into the night, lit by a few twinkling lights down my street.

I pull a cigarette from my pocket – naughty, I know, and not something I normally do, but it’s my emergency supply and you are not here to lecture me.  I turn from the wind and click my lighter. The nicotine rush leaves me light-headed for a second, but I am already woozy with red wine. Only the cooler air and rain keep me upright.

Things are different between us now. And I made it so.

You never asked for it to change. It was down to me. I had my doubts.

But as I sit here and suck and inhale, watching the wisps of grey vapour rise before me, I feel the cold shiver of solitude rise up my spine, the space from my waist to my shoulders, where an arm could have encircled me, a warm and loving embrace.

But here I am, alone again. Plunk! Another large drop hits the wall next to me.

As I press the cigarette between my lips, I think of your lips when they used to press against mine, soft and warm. But I made this choice.

I cross my legs as the breeze gets sharper and blows up my dress. But the breeze is the only thing to get this far.

I long for a warm head laid on my lap, fingers caressing my legs, as I gently stroke the head. Plop! The drop shakes me from my reverie for a second.

The wind rustles through the Magnolia tree over the wall and it moves, in this light like a sea of a million dark green leaves. Between the drifting clouds of smoke I inhale the smell of wet leaves, grass and nature aroused by the down pour. Will I ever be aroused again?

Plunk! There it goes again.

The wine haze and nicotine fuzz do not allow me to answer the question – do I just want to be desired and touched by someone, or do I still crave your heat, your kiss, your sex.

But you have gone. I made you go. So I am alone again. Splat! The drop seems to be coming more frequently now.

And I do not want to ask the question right now. It will only plague me when I awaken from my heavy alcohol sleep at around 4am and struggle to close my eyes again. I have argued with myself for some time now on this point. Right now I call a truce.

Flump! That drop is now mocking me. The cigarette is down to the butt and I don’t want another – the bitter taste and dry mouth remind me why. I turn my back on the wet night, turn my back on my thoughts – just for now. Time for the empty bed, one pillow not used. Time to snuff out thoughts and feelings. Until tomorrow.

Carry on, doctor

Posted on by
Reply

The young female doctor looks at me expectantly: “So, how are you?” She asks, politely. Obviously this is her signature opener. At least it’s better than “well?”

I’ve seen her before. She’s probably only been qualified a couple of years and hasn’t yet acquired the world – weary cynicism of some of her colleagues. She is cheery, good-natured, patient and always takes time to investigate your problem, rather than rushing you through the allotted 10 minute appointment slot.

“Hmm, well, I’ve been having thrush- like symptoms on and off for a while now…” I try to find a change in expression or tone, but her clear blue eyes show no reaction, her eyebrows don’t twitch with an “oh shit – looks like I’ll have to do an internal examination for this one.”

Last time I saw her it was for dizzy spells. Bet she was hoping it was the same again.

The conversation advances in a direction I hadn’t prepared for.

“When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?” Sexual intercourse? It always sounds so odd to me – like some kind of board meeting or negotiations with a potential buyer.

“Over a month ago,” I reply. Yes, as long ago as that. Things aren’t really happening down there for me.

Anyway, it moves on to whether it was unprotected etc, etc and before I know it I am up on the leather bed/couch thing, legs akimbo with that awful speculum thing inserted. Doctor is looking down the tunnel, but cannot locate my cervix and is prodding around. And, as with any other internal examination, I’ve ever had there is the inevitable “sorry, I can’t find it. I’m going to have to use a bigger speculum.”

I try to stare at the fluorescent light above my head, but feel like a car being jacked up. More prodding and poking as she takes some swabs – I think I am being tested for all manner of things.

Finally, my airlock closes as I can finally bring my legs together.

“Would you like to have some blood tests for HIV and other STIs?” I suddenly feel like a promiscuous woman in her 20s. She also says something about talking to “other partners” if any results are positive.

I open my mouth to say “look, I’ve actually only had sex with one person since 2010. I don’t really see that much action.” But I close it again. What is the point? I feel like I have already disappointed her, the sweet, kind doctor, with the smart blouse and ponytail. Before now I was the stressed and tired single mum with dizzy spells. Now I’m a middle – aged strumpet with a ropey vagina and questionable morals.

I agree to the tests, anyway. Just in case my one sexual partner in the last four years has been secretly seeing more action than I have.

Sports day

Posted on by
Reply

Summer sports. You can’t get away from them – once the World Cup gets underway, there’s tennis, the Tour de France, cricket and golf. So, there’s plenty to keep us all sweating on the sofa with a few cold beers.

And am I going to be joining in, cheering on my favourite cyclist, tennis player or footballer? What do you think? The only reason I would even flick over to any sport with my remote would be to admire the stunning physique of an athletic man.

So in the shallow, non-sporting tradition of these pages, I have penned my guide to sportsmen and how their particular sport could affect their prowess in the bedroom department.  Please note that for this guide, absolutely no research was carried out; it is based purely on my warped imagination.

Footballers

Best positions: Standing up and thrusting you against the wall.

Areas of strength: Fantastic stamina – could go on for at least 90 minutes if you have water and orange segments for half-time.

Worst positions: Footballers are known to get dodgy arthritic knees when they finally hang up their boots, so probably best to avoid anything involving kneeling, such as doggy style.

Most likely to say: “Ooh – can we move, love, my knees have seized up” and “He shoots and he scores!”

Tennis players

Best positions:  Anything requiring good arm strength – if he’s particularly adventurous, then not try the ‘wheelbarrow,’ involving him holding up your legs while you do a virtual headstand to allow him entry from behind? He may also have more patience and stamina for finger stimulation.

Areas of strength: Stamina – all those extended games will build him up – and upper body/arm strength.

Worst positions: While he is good at lifting, there is a risk of overdoing it, so if you ‘wheelbarrow’ too much, he may suddenly drop your legs out of exhaustion.

Most likely to say: “My ball was in! You cannot be serious!” and “It’s Love all!”

Cyclists

Best positions:  Preferably somewhere you can admire their amazingly tight buns. Knees are generally in good condition, so doggy style would work, but in a way that allows you to reach behind to feel his rear.

Areas of strength: Stamina, very strong leg and thigh muscles (quadriceps), so all the better for sitting on or grabbing.

Worst positions:  With all the legwork, it’s uncertain how strong cyclists’ upper bodies will be, so maybe best to avoid him carrying you upstairs or across any thresholds, or dragging you along the bed caveman style.

Most likely to say: “This is an uphill struggle!” and “Come on, come on, just a little further, sweetheart!”

Cricketers

Best positions: Anything involving being struck with a flat-ended object – so a riding crop or hairbrush may come in handy for a touch of spanking. You could even bring in some ‘runs’ by allowing him to chase you around the bedroom before he ‘catches’ you.

Areas of strength: Running short distances, hitting things with a bat and polishing balls on his trousers.

Worst positions:  Anything that requires stamina and doesn’t involve stopping for tea halfway through proceedings.

Most likely to say: “That’s a sticky wicket, darling!” and “Is that my box or yours?”

Golfers

Best positions: More whiplashes here, but with his swing action, you may be able to start with some fifties-style rock’n’roll  dancing . Also, being a golfer, he could probably go for a bit of a walk first.

Areas of strength: Strong shoulders and upper body and a high level of patience, so he probably won’t complain if you spend half an hour ‘freshening up’ in the bathroom before you start.

Worst positions: His muscular strength probably isn’t as good as the other sports guys so he may have trouble carrying or lifting you.

Most likely to say: “My God, it’s a hole in one!” and “Let’s try not to get it stuck in a bunker this time.”

So, study well, readers, just in case you run into one of the above professionals on a night out and are not sure what to do with him, if you get lucky. This guide could be printed, folded neatly and carried in your handbag, just in case…

 

Liam / memory block

Posted on by
Reply

He rescued me from a situation which probably would have ended with me being punched by another girl. So it had all started off rather strangely.

I had been out with a group of people I barely knew. I had just got back in contact with an old school friend, Anne, after several years, and they were her friends. She had invited me to come out with her and her ‘gang’ – three guys and two girls. One of the chaps had taken an interest in me (not my fault) and, after a few drinks we shared a snog. I was about 24 and single, so it was no big deal.  But it was a massive deal for Anne’s mate Carol, who was his ex-girlfriend, and trying to get back with him. But how was I to know all this history? As I said, they were virtual strangers. And she did that repressed ‘angry bitch’ thing, telling me to ‘fuck off’ with a smile on her face, and to leave her friends alone.

Liam showed up in the background somewhere in the middle of this altercation. He looked familiar, probably because he had been in all the same cheap, scruffy pubs I frequented in the mid to late 1990s. He asked if he could buy me a drink and we got chatting after I walked away from Carol and co.

He was kind and sensitive and the way he looked reminded me of the type of guy I went for in my student days – dreadlocked dark hair, pierced nose, new age hippy/punk. I was beginning to believe the entire incident was fate.

Liam had a slightly odd existence. He worked in a factory and lived in a house on a very low rent in exchange for allowing his landlords, three Sikh brothers, to store crates and crates of lager, that they sold on the side, in his kitchen. They even allowed Liam to consume some of it. (But it was the super-strong metallic-tasting cheap stuff favoured by street-drinkers in the UK, so this wasn’t exactly a great perk.)

I remember lots of details about Liam, such as the various tragedies suffered by members of his family, his strange tattoo that looked like a black blobby ghost, his penchant for The Stranglers  and his rather scary dog which looked like a mastiff/pit bull cross and snapped at most people (luckily not me). In fact, I also recall that the dog got stolen after he left it tied up outside a pub.

But, for some reason I have no recollection of sex with him, apart from two occasions. I remember sex with people before and after him, but for some reason, very little about what Liam and I did – maybe I had sunk a couple of cans of the acrid liquid stockpiled in his kitchen. Or maybe, it was just not memorable or remarkable sex.

So, my lasting memory of him was the summer evening we went for a walk in the woods and came across a bent over tree. Its thin trunk came out at a right angle, almost like a bench and was just wide enough to sit on. Within minutes we were kissing passionately and his hand went down my jeans. There wasn’t much foreplay, as it became rather frantic. I took one leg out of my jeans and pants while he unzipped and reclined on the tree. I climbed on and we frantically bonked, keeping one eye open for dog-walkers. It was exciting and exhilarating, as this was my first tree sex (I know I’ve covered this topic several posts back). I did not orgasm, but was very aroused by the closeness of his lean body, the smell of the wood and sensuality of the tree.

We quickly adjusted ourselves after he shot his load and carried on walking, saying ‘hello’ to passers-by.

The other occasion was when we had sex via me sitting on his lap, facing him, as he sat on my toilet. Why this stays in my mind is a mystery to me.

The relationship didn’t end well. I recall him becoming increasingly depressed and demanding and me not knowing how to cope. Seeing him became a chore and I was starting to fall for one of my male friends. So, it ended and rather messily. I told him it was over; he left and stood below the window of my apartment shouting out my name, so my 200 or so neighbours also knew it was over. There were then a series of drunken phone calls at 3am, until I unplugged my phone. Still, it was preferable to being punched by another girl.

The sculpted man

Posted on by
Reply

He was so perfect that it was almost as though he had been sculpted from the imagination of someone wanting to create the ultimate male Aryan specimen. Six feet tall, blonde, tanned, with broad shoulders and well-defined, but not over-bulging biceps. When his pale blue eyes fixed on me, I felt myself purr with anticipation.

The only down side was that whoever sculpted him did not have much clay or bronze left for his brains. Poor Garth (we will call him) was not the sharpest tool in the box, but he knew how to hunt and gather – hunt down female prey and gather what treats they had down below. His words were few but not wasted. And it turns out that I was 20 and in an unhappy relationship at the time i.e. looking my best but feeling a little low.

Wearing a white t-shirt, just tight enough to show off his pecs, he flashed me a dazzling smile, came over to me and whispered in my ear: “Your boyfriend doesn’t deserve you. If you were mine, I would treat you like a princess.”

What he said was of little consequence to me – I was quivering at the mere sensation of his warm breath in my ear.

He walked back to his mates and I watched the pert rear end encased in denim as it retreated. He looked over his shoulder with a cheeky grin.

“Who’s that?!” Asked my friend, Molly, who hadn’t failed to appreciate the stunning view. “Just Garth,” I replied. Just Garth? Just the most beautiful man in the room. That was our only exchange that night, but it ensured I thought about him regularly for the next fortnight.

Then I had a Friday night out with friends in a local pub I knew Garth often visited. After an hour or so, sure enough, he walked in. I played it cool and didn’t get up to acknowledge him until I needed to walk past him to use the loo. Then, I flicked him a quick sultry glance. On my way back, he beckoned me over.

As I stood before him, I felt small and feminine next to his solid muscular frame. But he looked a little agitated and concerned.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, but I know it’s wrong,” he said. “But why?” I had at this point totally forgotten I had a boyfriend. Garth, his presence, his form, his smell, completely filled all my senses.

“I want you so much, I’m crazy about you, but I know you are with D.” He looked genuinely anguished and put his head in his hands in a slightly dramatic way. I squeezed his arm and felt him shudder. It was the first time I had touched him. We were silent for a moment, then he composed himself and said: “Do you want to go back to my place and listen to some music?”

Without giving it much thought I found myself with him on the train back to his house. We were sitting opposite each other, not having made physical contact since the arm-squeeze.

Neither of us spoke more than a couple of words between getting on the train and going to his bedroom where he went through Bjork and Kate Bush records – his two main musical obsessions. He had said I looked a bit like Kate Bush, but this was largely down to my long dark hair (I didn’t flatter myself in thinking it was any more than that).

He then sat on the floor in front of me while I was on the bed. He still seemed a little tense. I just wanted to touch him again. The conversation was not exactly flowing, but his soft blonde hair, his broad shoulders, muscular torso were all crying out to be caressed. I shuffled to the edge of the bed, moved my legs so that they were either side of him and started stroking his shoulders and back with my fingertips. He leaned back closer and my strokes became firmer.

After five or ten minutes, just as my hands were beginning to ache a little, he turned around, held my hands and climbed on to the bed next to me and kissed me softly. I felt his perfect smooth lips and his firm body against me. My heart was beating so loudly that I thought it would jump out of my chest.

The kisses turned frantic and he had by now climbed on top of me. He was solid and throbbing and I was almost exploding with the excitement of him being this close to me after weeks of wanting. He must have felt the same, as within seconds he was tugging off my jeans and pants and sucking and licking my inner thighs all the way up to my quivering labia and clitoris. I had barely had chance to grab his penis.

As I writhed on the bed, I was in total bliss and just wanted to taste him and feel him inside me. We had barely spoken; everything had just happened through a mutual want and synchronised body language. When I finally summoned up the strength to pull off his jeans, I was grateful that the sculptor had saved a generous amount of clay for his dick. It was thick, long and beautiful. “Oh yes!” I almost cried. I was living in a moment that I wasn’t in a rush to put behind me.

I licked, sucked, stroked, rubbed and licked, sucked, stroked and rubbed again. And again. And again. I kissed his taut stomach and all the way up to his solid chest, his perfect mouth, his eyelids, his forehead and tousled hair. I wanted to drink in every inch of him.

When he entered me, I let out and involuntary gasp. This was the most stunning specimen of manhood I had ever lain with. For a while I forgot I was me and imagined I was someone spectacular and worthy of this experience. My skin was a creamy white next to his tanned body.

We rolled over and I went on top before he took me from behind. Still he was firm, showing no signs of exploding. We did it sideways and reverse cowgirl, standing up against the wall, back on the bed, then all over again. In fact we had sex solidly for over four hours, just with a few cuddles and kisses in between. We would probably have gone on for even longer if daylight had not interrupted us. And my worries about getting home.

I walked out into the cold, stale morning air – dishevelled, happy, bewildered and shell-shocked at what had just happened.