Andrea VII – It’s so very different for girls

‘It doesn’t sound like you had much of a love life’ she observes.
‘That’s putting it mildly’ I say.
‘What was the most exciting thing you ever did? – best sexual experience of your life.’
I think about it but I can’t think of anything much. Then I wonder why she’s suddenly so interested in my sex life.
‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours’ she says, mock flirtatiously. I wish she wouldn’t mess with me. She must have twigged what effect it has by now, surely.
‘I honestly don’t know’ I say wearily. I want to make something up but she’s right about the lying. I can’t seem to formulate a fabrication. I decide to go for comedy.
‘There was this time in the sauna at a festival.’
‘Really?’ she says. ‘They never seemed very sexual to me. Too hot for one thing.’
‘True, but on this occasion there was a woman in there I really fancied – amazing looking woman – amazon-like and we’re all in there, chatting as usual and it’s dark and there’s the burner in the middle and candles and the herbs and the steam – you know. And this woman asks me if I would like a massage.’
Andrea grins broadly at me. ‘What did you say?’
‘Well I said “Yes” of course, and I turn around and she’s kneading my back very expertly and making comments about how tense I seem and I’m like “You don’t know the half of it lady”, and I don’t know what to think.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well you’ve been there. There’s an etiquette, isn’t there. The festival sauna is not about sex. It’s about relaxation and fellowship with nature or something. I mean sure – we all check out each other’s bods don’t we.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘But it would be bad form to do anything about it actually in the sauna. Am I right?’
‘Broadly.’
I look at her doubtfully. ‘Broadly’ she says. There was so much I didn’t understand in life.
‘Anyway, so I have to assume she’s just being a hippy. Nakedness – it’s no big deal and she just wanted to help me relax. That’s what I told myself.’
‘Did you think her behaviour was unusual?’ she asks.
‘No. Not really. I told myself she was just being friendly.’
‘She probably was.’
‘Very probably, but anyhow, I don’t feel friendly. That’s the problem. I feel horny, and if there’s one total no-no in festie sauna etiquette it’s getting a hard-on.’
‘What did you do?’ she grins, waiting for the punch line.
‘Well I passed out in the shower, didn’t I.’
She falls about, clapping her hands and rolling back in her seat.
‘Really?’
‘Really. I think all my blood had rushed to my – I don’t know where. It wasn’t in my penis and it clearly wasn’t in my brain.’
‘So what happened then?’
‘Nothing. I think she really was just being friendly. Maybe a bit flirtatious, but I don’t think she was really interested in me.’
She’s unconvinced I can tell.
‘I’m not entirely sure either, but I tried to talk to her afterwards and nothing happened.’
‘Do you want to hear mine?’ she asks gleefully. I don’t really but I shouldn’t be rude.
‘Does it involve public nudity?’
‘Yes, and cunnilingus. Me and a mate on the top of a late bus in Aberystwyth.’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t take this any more’ I say jokingly, but I’m not really joking. Why had everyone been having so much more fun than me?
‘What’s wrong?’ she says finally realising I am not laughing.
‘It’s not funny’ I say. ‘Really it’s not. I don’t want to sound like some pathetic whinger but it’s not funny when everybody else is doing it and...’ and I shake my head. ‘Actually it wasn’t just me. I knew a few other lads like me – nice ordinary lads, not weirdos, not unsanitary – went years without once getting any. Can you imagine what that’s like?’
‘Not really.’
I look into her eyes. She really doesn't. She doesn't get it at all.
‘Well’ I shrug, ‘It’s different for girls, as the man said.’
It seemed to me at the time that any of the girls I knew, with a few rather gross exceptions, could have had it any time they liked with no more subterfuge than a smile. We on the other hand were just gagging for it. Maybe the girls didn’t really want it, maybe they did, but, short of rape, it was their choice. We, on the other hand, because we were not rapists, were forced to wait.

‘Do you know how sexualised your average adolescent boy’s life is?’ I say.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Porn, fantasising, looking at girls, wanking, permanent hard-on, all day, every day, nights too. Not getting to sleep before three in the morning some nights because you can’t stop thinking about it. And you look around at the girls in the class and that little group of ‘cool’ lads and you hate them and want to be them at the same time. And that’s it – just girls looking at you like you’re something someone’s walked in off the road. So much power...’ I take a moment to think about that, how utterly derisible it made me feel. ‘And it goes on forever, years.’
I can see she still doesn’t get it.
‘Some days’ I say, ‘I’d be out walking in the countryside and I’d come across some fragments from a porno mag all tatty and stuck together in a hedge and it would be like treasure trove.’ I sit and shake my head slowly. ‘You want to know my best sex story? Well that’s it pretty much.’ I know I’m being melodramatic but I can’t help it. ‘The pressure is awesome – I mean that literally, in every possible sense. You can’t imagine.’
‘But you did lose your virginity eventually?’
‘Yes I did.’
‘And?’
‘It was alright.’
She looks quite shocked. ‘Just alright?’ she says.
‘It wasn’t great. They were just drunken one-night-stands. I barely remember the first one.’
‘Did you not fancy any of them?’
‘Some. A bit.’
She looks disappointed by that. She’s not the only one.
‘But before that, weren’t there parties and so on, when you were younger? You know, teenage girls and boys out to have a good time? Clubs? Gangs?’
‘I was a bit of a loner to be honest. We’ve talked about this. I couldn’t do the flirting and the showing off and the chatting up thing.’
‘Maybe you didn’t really want it badly enough?’
I look coldly at her. I hate that phrase. I think of all the people I’ve known who weren’t really bothered but got it handed to them on a fucking plate. A fucking plate. That’s exactly what it would have been served on – like one of those stainless steel platters with spikes for carving the joint on. I can see it now.
‘Maybe I wanted it too much’ I say. ‘I know I looked kind of desperate sometimes. It’s not attractive.’ She nods. ‘It makes you rather humourless and intense – not much of a laugh.’
‘Yes’ she says at last. ‘I get that.’
I've got an example for her.
‘There was one party I went to – this would have been after everybody else had gone off to uni and I was left working in a DIY shop. There was a girl – Gill her name was – one of those rare and magnificent Bardot types. Fabulous woman. Way out of my league, although she was always pleasant to me.’
I can still picture her...
‘Anyway, the party was ok. I was feeling a bit out of place, as usual. I didn’t really know anyone and it was getting really late and I was just about to go for a walk, clear my head... Anyway, something stopped me... I don’t know what... I just had a bad feeling about it. So anyway I headed out the front instead and there she was, Gill, and she was with this guy Dave, who was bit of a jack-the-lad and he came and grabbed me and put his arm around my shoulders and dragged me up the steps onto the pavement and he said “Gill quite fancies you. Do you know that? She says she thinks you’re quite ‘dishy’” and she looks absolutely mortified and I don’t know where to look and he says “Ok, lets have it out” and everyone’s laughing – all the lads from the shop and some others and we’re out in the street and it’s a rainy night and he’s being really loud and he goes to undo his flies, in the middle of the road and he gets it out right there and then and says “Let’s see yours then” or something like that. “Lets see who’s the best man.” That’s it. And I look at it, and he’s got his hard-on alright but it’s not actually very impressive – sort of thin and pointy - a bit like a dog’s, and I’m not bragging but I knew mine would have been a lot more impressive than that thing.’
Andrea’s grinning at me, clearly enjoying herself.
‘But here’s the thing – I’m not going to get my cock out in the street am I? And even if I did it’d probably shrink up to the size of a walnut. So I just stood there, like a lemon. And I couldn’t do anything, and he flips this... thing back in his trousers like he’s a rock star or something and strides off down the street, a girl under each arm, one of them Gill, and I remember thinking ‘This is it. This is what it’s going to be like. You don’t have to be better. You just have to act like you are.’
‘You poor bugger’ she says without humour. ‘And that’s when you stopped trying?’
‘No, of course not. Well, not just that. It didn’t help. It encapsulates the situation nicely though, don’t you think?’
‘Did you see Gill again?’
‘I left that job soon after. Couldn’t face them. Worked for an accountant for a bit – can you imagine?’
‘Down hill from there?’
‘More or less.’
‘Do you think having a girlfriend would have helped?’
‘Who knows? It would have depended what she was like. She’d have had to have been quite tolerant.’
‘Well the girlfriends of young men usually have to be very tolerant in my experience.’
I laugh a little. It’s quite true. I hadn’t thought of it like that.
‘Maybe next time’ I say.
‘Maybe’ she says and we end the session there.

A few sessions later she says ‘Actually you can’t have been that desperate.’
I say ‘Why do you say that?’
She says ‘Well it’s not like nobody wanted you.’
I run through, in my mind, the images of the one or two women I knew had wanted me – sad, neurotic, lonely women.
‘So you could have had someone, if you’d wanted to.’
‘Well yes...’
‘What were they? Really disgusting old sluts or something?’
‘No. Absolutely not. I just didn’t...’
‘Fancy them? Did anybody else fancy them?’
‘I don’t know. They weren’t hideous or anything. A bit needy perhaps...’
She looks at me like I’ve just said something very funny.
‘They just weren’t quite what you were after’ she says.
I shrug. I suppose not. ‘But why should I? Why should I settle for something...’
‘No reason. You shouldn’t. But you’d be surprised how many do just settle for someone, because they can’t bear the thought of being alone or not having children. How many of the people you knew were in relationships that were even remotely enviable? Seriously. Think about it.’
‘Well...’
‘You didn’t settle. You held out. You didn’t give up. You thought you deserved better. I actually find that quite laudable. Good for you Gabriel.’
‘Thank you’ I say, not quite sure how to take that.

Journey IV – Fuddy-Duddy

As time went on I was further disappointed to discover that the conversations I’d been so intrigued by simply revolved around what the people they knew had been getting up to. As I got to know more of them, so I was included in the conversations more. Maureen and Jo had apparently been sleeping together at first but then Jo got off with a guy called Graham at one of the parties and brought him back. Maureen seemed to be interested in Ian for a while after that (the guy with the shaved head) but he wasn’t all that keen and she disappeared soon afterwards.
To be fair, Darren’s contribution could be very entertaining but it was all incredibly trivial. Occasionally there’d be a long discussion about the music we were listening to or, among the girls, something daring or unflattering that had been worn at the last party. Very occasionally someone would start talking about something philosophical or spiritual but it was all very woolly and pretentious. There was vague talk of missed lectures and overdue assignments, and a suggestion that I enrol in something but I never came across anything even remotely resembling a college or university. Other times there’d be a brief but pointless argument over some trivial matter, usually started by Chloe – the short haired girl whose bottom I’d seen that first morning. Nobody really paid her much attention and she usually stomped back to her room and slammed the door, which was at least a refreshing display of genuine feeling.
Early on I had tried to talk a bit about the meaning of all this and why we were here, as we had on the boat, but it was impossible. They didn’t exactly avoid the subject, and sometimes some anecdotes and vague hypotheses were put forward but nobody seemed to want to pursue the subject. Sometimes I persisted but I got the impression that they thought I was being a bit too “intense” or “paranoid”. They thought I analysed things too much, as if thinking was the cause of the problem rather than vice-versa. I came across a similar argument when I was alive, as if my trying to work out what was wrong with my life was the cause of my problems.

And, as time went on I got used to the inconsequential exchanges, the shifting, superficial relationships, the unmemorable conversations. Most of the people were friendly, many were indifferent, few were hostile but there was no sense of any developing connection with anyone in particular. This made life casual and relaxed on one level but made me feel horribly vulnerable on another. If anything happened would anyone come to help me? Would I even be missed? Would any of us?
And there was a feeling of menace about the place, although I couldn’t begin to say what or who the menace was exactly. To me it was palpable in every empty doorway, in every darkened window, in the night time itself – not hostile or predatory exactly. I couldn’t imagine their motives, whoever, or whatever they were, living in the shadows. Sport perhaps? Fun?

Eventually though I found myself going with the flow. I shut up about my worries and my thoughts and found myself surprisingly content. It was a weird situation in that I looked and felt about thirty but still had all the memories of an old man. I was amazed every morning to see my flat, hard belly back again. I wandered about in just a pair of worn army surplus shorts, vest and para boots and looked, I thought, pretty good. It was exactly like life in fact, except without the worry of where the next meal was coming from and whether I was going to die of cold next winter. And thirty had been a good age for me, relatively speaking. I’d been to raves and festies and gigs and parties, I’d danced all night and hugged scores of strangers. This place was a bit like that, and it made me wonder just how old all these others (average age about twenty-two on the face of it) really were. Or maybe they’d all died young, having too much fun and this was their idea of heaven. In which case, what was I doing there?

And for a while it even came to seem quite interesting – or at least – it came to seem that it might get interesting. I enjoyed the music and no longer felt too old to get up and bop about. Also I no longer felt I was old enough to do without sex. I gave up on meeting anyone at a party and I stopped going to a lot of them (it was just too frustrating) but some of the girls at the house were pretty and seemed approachable and available, so I remained quietly optimistic on that front.
The menacing atmosphere of the town at night too, secluded as we were in our little island of music and warmth, provided an interesting backdrop. Sometimes, when the conversation drifted off and I was bored I would think about our isolation and vulnerability there in that little kitchen and when the evening became too sleepy and giggly I’d go and stand behind the sofa at the window, drawing the curtains behind me and look out at the street and the darkness, feeling the draught on my body, and I’d be sure I saw strange beings moving about out there. I accepted that I was probably just being paranoid but I couldn’t be sure. I felt fairly safe moving about during the day, and to some extent in a noisy group at night, but nothing would have made me go out there alone after dark. Nobody did. Even my route past the entrance to take the steps up to my room was something I preferred not to do alone and I always made sure the lights were on. My room I kept locked, and once I was up there I didn’t go out again until it was light.
I’m not sure how much the others felt the same way. I noticed they didn’t tell me there was nothing happening, only that they didn’t seem to think it was worth talking about.

Eventually though I had to accept the fact that I was trapped and furthermore that I probably wasn’t going to find a girl who was interested in me at any time in the near future. This was particularly frustrating since many of the girls went around the house only slightly dressed, casually falling out of their tops on a regular basis. Quite often we would be sitting around in the kitchen, in the afternoon or late into the night and the conversation would get a little more charged and there’d be maybe a game with forfeits leading to some playful exhibitionism or the girls would dance erotically together and pretend it wasn’t for our titillation. Sometimes a rather intense flirtation would develop between people who were otherwise ‘just good friends’ and we’d be sitting right next to them on the sofa as they embarked on some fairly advanced foreplay. Next day they’d be slightly flushed, but still ‘just friends’, as before. Sometimes the heavy fumes of sex were all but unbreathable. I never got used to it. In some ways I didn’t want to – I wanted more than casual sex, certainly, but I wouldn’t have turned it down. I thought about Andrea’s advice but it didn’t seem to apply. They were just girls after all, and as she had warned me, they just wanted to have fun. In retrospect I realise my age – even looking just thirty, didn’t help but I wasn’t like them. There were the guys who looked even older than I did but I wasn’t like them either. It wasn’t that I was rejected so much as that no one saw me that way. The girls seemed to like to think of me as friendly and nice but perhaps a bit too serious. Some of them took to calling me Mr Giles who I understood to be some sort of fuddy-duddy librarian character on the telly. Once or twice I tried a flirtatious comment but was made to understand that I was embarrassing them so instead I went for displacement activity – dancing until I fell over.

So as autumn became winter I spent more and more time in my room or wandering the streets, looking for a way to move on. I found a storeroom with a lot of old magazines and books in it and that kept me occupied for a while. I can’t say my room was a particularly attractive place to spend time in, what with the mushy pea paint job, but I kept it warm, and I cleaned the window and washed the bedding so it wasn’t too bad. A girl called Kim came and joined me sometimes saying she just wanted to relax away from the others and liked me because I didn’t see her as a sex object. I didn’t have the heart to correct her on that. She was a pretty girl who liked to wear low cut tops and short skirts and I found her company rather unrelaxing, but it was good to have company. Alone, I fantasised about her mercilessly.
I did also notice that there were other quiet, sexless souls about the place that rarely or never came down to the kitchen, keeping themselves to themselves. Something about them though discouraged conversation.

Voyage XXI – Anticlimax

The next few days passed quickly. I didn’t see much of Lucy and her crowd nor of Ray and his. I stayed in my room, up on deck or in the library.
I didn’t actively avoid them however and what I saw of Harry was quietly gratifying. Apparently Liz had got a cabin to herself and was much more lively than before, flirting and joking with all the men. It was quite disgusting actually. She slid up to me on deck one night and said something about me being a nice young man. I backed off a little too obviously and she told me laughingly not to flatter myself, whatever that meant, but then she slid closer again and whispered in my ear about our ‘little conversation’ of some while back. I nodded conspiratorially, going along with her. ‘Don’t tell anyone will you’ she said without moving her lips. ‘It’ll be our little secret. Hmm?’ and without waiting for a reply, minced off to accost some apprehensive looking men who I knew to be Spanish – expired in a house fire whilst visiting family in Maidstone poor buggers.

And so the coast draws nearer. I can see houses with red roofs and white walls and some very surreal looking trees. Some are completely vertical, like black candles. Others are flat topped - like black mushrooms. Purple mountains provide a backdrop. I make some colour sketches. I love the light here, the warmth, and I can smell something new. One of the Spaniards – I can’t remember his name, tells me it looks a bit like Almeria and I tell him I’d like to go there next time in that case. He grins and slaps my back.

I know I have a very long way still to travel but I want to get going now. I understand that we’ll be in mule carts and apparently the scenery going up from the coast into the mountains is magnificent. It certainly doesn’t sound very arduous. And the guide we’ll be travelling with, Kevin, I’m told is a really nice guy. I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be great to get away from everything that’s happened here anyway. It can’t possibly be worse.
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Joe VII – Hawkeye

‘MASH!’ says Joe as he enters, making me jump a little. ‘My favourite. How is Miss Hotlips anyway? Have you spoken to her much?’
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about Lucy just yet, and she’s all I want to talk about.
‘Oh... Ok. So, what was it about MASH that you particularly liked?’
I sit and think for a while. My mind is blank. Why does he want me to talk about MASH? Was it something he learned in counselling classes or something? I don’t want to talk about MASH. I want to talk about Lucy. Why on earth did I tell him I didn’t?
‘Erm... I don’t know’ I begin vaguely. He gives me that look. ‘I mean it. I can’t think...’
‘Take your time...’
I sit and think for quite a while. Lucy comes into my mind – I can’t get rid of her. She’s nothing like bloody Hotlips. Hotlips was sort of thick, and she was with that stupid guy – what’s his name?  Major Burns. I really didn’t like him. Lucy does have nice lips though. There’s just the faintest trace of a moustache along her top lip – just a very fine shading. You’d think that would be fairly off-putting but somehow it just makes her even sexier.
‘What are you thinking?’ he prompts.
‘Major Burns and Hotlips’ I say, fairly hurriedly. ‘Why did she like him so much? He was a complete wanker.’
‘I don’t know.’ He thinks about it for a while with me. ‘Do you think it was bad writing – unrealistic – that a woman like her would be interested in a man like him?’
I consider it – it doesn’t seem unrealistic now I come to think about it.
‘I don’t really understand what women see in men to be honest’ I say. ‘I always think they just sort of tolerate us.’
‘That’s fairly harsh’ he says. ‘You don’t think much of men then?’
‘Well, look at them...’
‘Who exactly are we talking about? Me? You?’
‘No. I don’t know. No, not you, not a lot of men I suppose. Some men.’
‘Ray and Harry?’ he suggests. I nod. Absolutely. ‘Women seem to really like men like Ray. I have no idea why.’
‘What about Hawkeye Pearce?’ he says, grinning at me. ‘What about Trapper – what about Radar?’
I have to grin. I remember them. They feel like old friends. ‘What about Klinger?’ I say and we both nod and laugh.
‘It’s weird,’ I continue ‘because they were in the middle of a war, and there was all blood and guts, and yet...’
‘And yet?’
‘They were together. It felt like they were really close.’
‘Like a family?’ he suggests.
I pointedly ignore that. ‘They were all in it together’ I say.
‘You feel like you’d have been comfortable with them there?’
‘Maybe. Apart for all the shelling and so on.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Oh I don’t know though. Maybe not. Usually, sooner or later. I suppose... I make people feel...’ I cast around for the right word.
‘Uncomfortable?’ he says.
I nod. ‘Sort of’ I say. ‘They feel...’ I shrug. I can’t think of the word – pissed off? embarrassed? frustrated? ‘Awkward’ I say finally. ‘Not relaxed anyway, with me around.’ I sit and look into space for a while. I know it’d be exactly the same as it always is. And there’d be nowhere to go. I’d be trapped with them, at MASH 4077.
‘I always wanted to be like Hawkeye’ I say after a while ‘you know, sort of cool and witty, and sarcastic, but not nasty – d’you know what I mean?’
‘I preferred BJ’ he says.
‘Excuse me?’
‘B.J. Honeycut. You remember – I’m not sure if he replaced Trapper or Trapper replaced him. They were both cute’ he muses. ‘But enough about me - tell me more about why you liked Hawkeye.’
I think about it a bit more. ‘Women liked him’ I say. ‘He always had women around.’
‘He rather used them though didn’t he?’
I feel slightly affronted. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, different nurse every night – BJ wasn’t like that.’
‘Maybe he had something going on with Radar.’
‘No, Radar had a thing with the colonel. Definitely. I think maybe BJ just went with out the helicopter boys.’
‘I think – getting back to the subject (ahem) – I wanted to be Hawkeye because he was in the middle of everything – everybody liked him, or respected him anyhow, but he didn’t try too hard – he didn’t try to impress anyone. In fact he just said what he thought didn’t he – people respected him for that – even if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear – he got away with it. I guess he was a good surgeon too, which helped...’
‘Plus he had the war to be sarcastic about, which everybody agreed...’
‘Do you remember the episode where he’s cracking up and he remembers seeing a Korean woman kill a chicken to keep it quiet so the enemy won’t hear it? They were on a wrecked bus – but it turns out it wasn’t a chicken, it was actually her baby she smothered, and that’s why he’s so messed up.’
‘I remember that episode.’ He nods slowly. We take a moment to think about that.
‘But they all still looked after him when he got back’ I say, ‘and helped him, even though he was seriously losing it, even though he was a real mess...’
Joe looks at me for a while – frowning a little. ‘Well of course. Why wouldn’t they?’ he says.
‘I don’t know’ I shrug. But I do know and it makes me feel very sorry for myself. I can’t imagine what that’s like – to have people care that much, to try that hard. They’d have just told me to pull myself together and got on with what they were doing.
But I wasn’t in a war. I didn’t see a woman smother her baby so the enemy wouldn’t catch her and rape her. All that happened to me was I couldn’t keep up at school and I got dumped. Boohoo. Poor old me.
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Voyage XI – Jamming

I’ve started to hang out with Lucy and that lot more. It took a while before I got the nerve to ask if I could sit down with them. It was like a school kid wanting to sit with the seniors. When I finally did, Matt and Damian were really cool about it and Lucy didn’t object, even though I can’t stop looking at her boobs and she keeps having to tell me off for it.

We tend to hang out in the forward lounge – there’s a lot of big sofas there, or up on deck, on the deck chairs. The weather is a lot brighter now, but still a bit fresh for sun bathing if you ask me. Damian is really skinny and pale, but he takes his shirt off and lies there with his sunglasses on nevertheless. I did him in charcoal a while back and Lucy thought it was hilarious – black spikes, white forehead, black shades, white nose, black choker, white ribs, black drainpipes, white ankles, black plimsolls. I don’t think it’s possible to get a tan here. You either have one or you don’t. You don’t have to cut your hair or trim your nails either
I talk quite a lot more with Lucy. She seems impressed that I know who George Elliot and Nina Simone were. We discuss all sorts of things – university, feminism, travel, and sex. We talk a lot about sex. My whole sex education has been my Dad’s Mayfairs and there’s quite a lot they don’t cover. She told me about the clitoris and the female orgasm. She even drew diagrams. I think I’m obsessed with sex, which is funny for a person who is still a virgin at nearly nineteen. All I could think was how I wanted to have a practice on her, and it almost seemed like it might be worth asking but I didn’t. I’d heard of oral sex but I’d never realised what we were aiming for, if you see what I mean, or that there was a thing, exactly, to aim for. I guess I thought you just sort of, I don’t know, licked it, generally.
I think I really envy women now because they have all these different sorts of orgasms that can apparently go on for hours and we just have this one quick spurt and that’s it.
‘A man is just totally fixated on his penis’ she said. ‘All he wants is to get in there as quickly as possible and...’ (She makes this rhythmical grunting noise in my ear – ‘Uh uh uh uh...’ over and over until it’s really beginning to bother me. ‘That’s what it’s like’ she says eventually) ‘and then it’s all over and you’re left with the washing up, as usual. Or, which is worse, you get a guy who thinks he knows all about foreplay, but he just thinks it’s about going on and on and on until you’re both rubbed raw and wondering what's on the telly. You men – it’s just like you haven’t got a clue.’

She’s right, I haven’t. I don’t even really know what foreplay is but I don’t like to ask.
One of her favourite topics is pornography (It’s one of mine too, but in a different way and I keep quiet). The way she talks about it though it’s as if it’s nothing but violence, like it’s all under-age girls being forced to have horrible things done to them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Well there was that one thing I found in the lorry park. That was horrible, so I do know it goes on. I suppose it never occurred to me to wonder who all these women are, having their photos taken, or how they feel about it. Most of them just look bored to be honest – just smiling woodenly for the camera and holding their vaginas open. It’s pretty crass. But then sometimes, the ones I like, they look like they’re normal women having a laugh, or maybe even actually enjoying it. I don’t know. I can’t believe they all hate what they do. They must be bloody good actresses. Lucy says you can tell it’s really all about child pornography because they force the women to shave but I always thought that was just because you could see everything better. And anyway pubic hair can be a bit off-putting. I never liked mine. I used to shave it off sometimes and then the stubble got bad so I didn’t do it any more. I know for a fact she can’t stand men with beards anyway so she can’t talk. Maybe she likes young boys, which would be good news for me.

Another time I remember having this heated debate with her about breasts, because she’d noticed me looking – again. Well, hers were quite hard to miss to be honest. I’d find my eyes homing in on them in the middle of a conversation and it was very off-putting. All the blokes commented. She wore these tight, low cut tops too, which didn’t help.
‘My god! What is it with you people?’ she said, amazed, aggrieved and amused at the same time. ‘It’s just a pair of breasts for god’s sake. Men! You’re just like children, just transfixed...’
I looked at my book, embarrassed. We were in the lounge. People were listening. She was talking quite loud.
‘What is it? Tell me, what is so fascinating? They’re just big blobs of fat for feeding babies. Look’ she said and took hold of them and wobbled them about in my face. ‘Fat’ she said again, grinning. She evidently thought it was amusing, making me embarrassed.
I gave my usual considered opinion, that is, I shrugged and said ‘I don’t know.’
‘Look at them’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Look. Get an eye full’ and she pulled her shoulders back and thrust them at me. I still thought they were fantastic.
‘Tell me what you're thinking’ she said, challengingly.
I was struggling to say anything at all. ‘I just...’ and I tailed off, shrugging again. I looked around. Nobody was overtly listening but I knew they could hear.
‘I don’t know why I like them. I just...’ I said finally.
‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’re just automatically adopting this crass stereotypical male behaviour? (She does a thick voice) “Ooh, look, there’s some tits” you say to yourself. “This woman is clearly in need of some ogling.”’
‘I’d never say anything like that.’
She pauses and looks away. She’s taking time to think.
‘Ok. You see a woman in the street and you don’t know anything about her, except she’s got these huge breasts. So obviously you’re interested, but you don’t think “Maybe she’s got a Phd in psychology – I’d love to go and talk to her.” do you?’
‘Well I can’t tell if she’s got a Phd in psychology just by looking at her can I? And any way, I wouldn’t fancy her just because she has big boobs.’
‘No?’ she looks sceptical ‘What else?’
‘Eyes?’ I say, without much conviction.
‘Oh give me strength. You want me to believe that? I’ve never met a man who’s attention extended anywhere above the neck for longer than it takes to – I don’t know – light a cigarette.’
I’m silenced again. But I do like women's eyes. Always have. I loved Camille's eyes. They were a gorgeous olive green colour and they really sparkled. Lucy’s eyes are lovely too but it’s hard to ignore that cleavage for long. In all the excitement her breasts seem to have swelled even more than usual.
‘I do like eyes’ I say, finally, quietly, ‘and hair. I love long hair.’ She appraises me suspiciously, ‘and she wouldn’t need to have big breasts, necessarily, just... nice breasts.’
‘What about no breasts?’
I think about that. ‘Not really.’
‘So you would dismiss a woman completely on the grounds of being flat-chested, no matter what else she may have to offer?’
Actually I think I might. It’s a bit too masculine or something. It’s just sort of weird.

‘I don’t think it’s like that really’ I say after a while.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Attraction. It’s not just about physical stuff. It’s the whole look of her. I don’t know – it’s like the way she dresses or the way she moves. Subtle things. Like the expression on her face...’ I go off into a bit of a dream, thinking how that feels, to see a woman like that.
‘You’re still just working out how to get into her knickers Gabriel’ says Lucy, laughing sarcastically.
I study her face as she shakes her head and goes back to her book. My feelings for her shift slightly. Sometimes she’s not very attractive at all.
‘So why bother to ask me at all if you’re not going to believe me?’
She turns her head and looks hard at me. ‘I thought you’d at least be honest about it’ she says.
‘I am being honest’ I say. She goes back to her book, still smiling slightly. Why is she being like this? What can I say to convince her?
‘We could be friends’ I suggest hopefully. ‘I wouldn’t just dismiss her completely. I just might not want to have sex with her.’
‘I don’t think men and women can be “just friends”‘ she says, which seems a bit sad. ‘There’s always something else.’
‘But if he doesn’t fancy her at all...’
‘Still. There’s always something, sooner or later. Trust me.’ and she looks a little sad. I didn’t really fully realise until much later that she was talking about herself, about her life, about how men had looked at her – her and her breasts and how they’d never really wanted to be “just friends” with her. No, I didn’t realise this until I was at the retreat, but I got my first inkling of it at this moment. She wore her breasts like that, as a challenge – gawp if you dare, fantasise at your peril.
‘I just like looking at breasts. I don’t know why’ I said finally, not looking at her. ‘I mean, why do people like looking at flowers? It doesn't have to be logical.’

Anyway she seems to like my work – I showed her some of my pictures and she seemed really interested. I want to do one of her soon. She said she’ll pose nude for me... I think she said that. Probably she was having me on. Anyway, a few days ago we were all sitting around talking about what we’d do different next time – it’s a common subject with us. Nobody else I’ve met seems to want to talk much about their past life or their next, just stay in the present, but Damian especially can’t shut up about it. He’s got this idea about getting a punk band together by 1974 so he can “be there” when it starts. He wants to call them The Sex Objects. We all think that’s very funny, all except Lucy that is.
He’s a good musician too. He does these really funny rip-offs of old Sabbath and Zeppelin numbers on his guitar, like using the sound but faster and furious-er. It’s ridiculous and really cool at the same time. I asked him if he could do Purple Haze but nobody messes with Hendrix apparently. I think he was impressed by the fact that I knew about Hendrix at all.
Anyhow, I was saying that next time, I would try to lose my virginity a bit sooner, and Lucy just looked coldly at me. Damian said he’d want to fuck a lot more women next time. Lucy said to me ‘What else?’
‘Go to more parties, and gigs’ I said, doubtfully.
‘But you’ll still be the same person’ she said, as if that was a real problem.
‘Yeah, you gotta handle it different next time man’ said Marcus, another guy who was hanging out with us. ‘I mean, you can’t just be your same wimpy self all over again, you know what I mean? Women want you to stand up, make a move for yourself man, not all this hiding in the back.’
‘You’d think some girls would go for such a quiet, sensitive chap as yourself, wouldn’t you Gabriel?’ says Lucy looking at me. I don’t know if she means it but I love the way she says my name, curving her lips around the ‘B’.
‘Nah, that’s crap’ says Damian ‘except for your “Mad Bitch” of course. They’re always on the lookout for the confused and vulnerable.’
‘Damian, you’re a disgrace’ says Lucy sexily.
‘Well if all else fails, your mad bitch’s a distinct possibility. She’s a bit desperate, grateful for whatever’s going, willing to do the leg work...’ Everyone laughs. ‘I mean, she’s the one’ll get off her arse and come to grab you – none of this you plucking up the courage shit – she’ll nag you onto the dance floor and bingo, you’ve scored.’
‘Plus you’ll be up all night with her. She really goes, your average mad bitch...’
‘On the other hand she’ll literally have your nuts nailed to the bed if you try to make a run for it.’
‘Literally?’ says Lucy.
‘Literally. These are not my original pair. These are in fact made of pure new wool. My mum knitted them for me.’
‘I’ll take your word for it’ she says, pouting at him. I sometimes think something’s going on between them. I don’t know. Sometimes, she looks at me, I feel so amazingly light and free. Other times, I just want to drop into the ocean and sink.
‘You should learn to play guitar – be in a band. That’s always a good one’ says Matt. Damian looks doubtful.
‘I might get a car next time’ I say, although I can’t imagine how. I’d have to fork out for lessons first.
‘Nah.’ says Matt. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. You just end up giving everyone else a lift everywhere, so you end up not drinking...’
‘You could smoke.’
‘You could, if you’re a wanker.’ Everyone looks a bit awkward, recalling too late that Matt was killed by an intoxicated driver.
‘Just saying...’
‘I don’t think it’s about what you have’ says Lucy finally. ‘If you want to know the one thing that a woman wants? – every time? – it’s a man who knows who he is and feels good about it.’
‘That’s cobblers’ says Damian ‘I fucking hated myself half the time – and I got plenty.’
‘Yeah, but your self-loathing was kind of like an art form – you really went for it – you did believe in yourself in a way’ observes Matt.
‘I believed in being bad news’ says Damian, nodding deeply.
‘You did. And a woman appreciates that in a man’ says Matt.
‘Some women’ says Lucy
‘Younger women’ says Damian, gleefully.
‘Masochistic women’ says Lucy.
‘Exactly’ agrees Damian ‘Same difference...’
‘Gabe’s not mean enough’ observes Marcus. ‘He’s one of the good guys.’
‘I’ll bet he’s not’ says Lucy, turning to face me. ‘I bet he could be a right bastard if he wanted to, if he had the motivation. If he had the nerve...’
I don’t know what it is – sometimes the way she looks at me. What is she thinking? Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing to her. Sometimes I feel like she wants me – both at the same time.
I look at her. The conversation among them heads elsewhere but I saw her wink at me, I swear.
Sitting beside me I can see her shoulder exposed, soft and milky where her top has slipped, then a smooth curve between her armpit and the start of her breast. The fabric hangs away from them and I can see where the curve goes down, concave to convex. I look up, as if surfacing from a deep dive and register the faces – did anyone see me looking? I can’t tell.
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