There’s a little list of quirks (ok, dysfunctions) that I like to think fits into the classical mold of being a ‘writer’. One of these is not quite understanding social situations, often leading to agonised hours of hovering over the keyboard, pouring out words in the desperate hope of gleaning insight into how people work.
An offshoot of this is that sometimes I only realise the significance of situations hours, weeks or, in some cases, years later.
I had one of those recently. I was walking down the street and had to stop physically put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from saying out loud, “Wait, I think I nearly had a threesome!”
What makes it embarrassing is that the nearly-threesome happened six years ago.
Yeah, I can be a bit slow sometimes.
Back in the distant past of 2008 I was working abroad and had become friends with a couple. The guy worked in the same office as me and he and his fiance (they’ve since tied the knot and now have a kid) lived in the same town as the hotel I was staying in.
We’d been for a couple of nights out previously and on one of these I may have, rather drunkenly, told him (and her as she was there) how lucky he was to have such a ballsy, intelligent, witty and all-round awesome other half.
Anyway, I headed around to their’s one evening ahead of another anticipated night out and something went slightly differently.
The first clue was when they sat me down in front of the computer and started showing me porn.
I should probably contextualise that a little. This wasn’t out-of-the-blue porn. One of the things that had firmly put her in the ‘awesome girlfriend’ category was that when they had to be apart for a couple of months, she had made a special ‘wank box’ for him equipped with lube, tissues and porn. The intention being that, by using the special box he would:
A) Be reminded of how awesome she was &
B) Not be interested in anyone else.
The porn they were showing me was that very porn. So, you know, not completely out-of-the-blue.
I felt a little awkward. I mean, me saying that is a bit like saying “I was breathing, and awake at the time” but this was particularly awkward and I said as much.”
She tried to reassure me, explaining that she just wanted to show me this porn because it “had beautiful people” in it, rather than most porn. So we watched about five minutes of it before my continued awkwardness won and we went out and got shit-faced instead.
And that’s about it. Maybe it was nothing. I mean, after all they’re European and everyone knows ‘anything goes’ across the channel right? It’s probably completely normal invite someone round, give them some grappa and put a bit of porn on whilst you get ready for a night out… right?
So when it came to the other day I was walking down the street and other things slotted into place. The workplace I’d been sharing with him had something of a macho atmosphere that I took a not inconsiderable amount of joy in subverting. My greatest achievement as cultural ambassador was introducing the words ‘kinky’ and ‘pegging’ to my coworkers vocabulary… As I say, I can be a bit slow sometimes.
It does make me wonder how many other experiences may elude people because of not being able to see the signs. Ladies and Gentlemen, ‘the English’ ‘Masters of Understatement’ ummm yeah, about that…
So if I ever seem to be looking a little lost or not quite behaving right for the situation, don’t take it personally, I’ll probably realise what was going on when I get home… probably.
I mean there were contributing factors, the fact it’d been left in the fridge for three weeks probably hadn’t helped, but it was mostly the soup. Vegetarian cuisine has an unfair reputation for exercising the digestive system, but mum’s soup very much lives up to the lentily hype.
It’s Sunday afternoon, we’re both sprawled about the living room, he on the sofa, me on the beanbag watching unlikable people competing for underwhelming prizes on the tv. He leans, theatrically, onto one buttock and screws up his face.
“Safe,” he declares.
About a minute later I smell the fart. I grab a cushion and throw it at him, telling him he’s a repugnant excuse for a human being.
“Hey, them’s the rules, at least I’m being honest about it.”
“It’s a stupid fucking get out clause, I should be able to ‘doorknobs you’ anyway.”
“But that’s not the rules,” he says, grinning.
I make a few disapproving grunts and turn back to the tv.
“Safe,” he says a few minutes later.
“That’s just horrible, look, can’t you go somewhere else if you’re going to–”
He interrupts me with an audible display of flatulence.
“D0–”
“–Safe!–”
“–orknobs!”
I scowl at him and, without a word, pick up and re-fluff the beanbag, before slumping back into it, facing straight at him.
“You’re not going to win,” he says, grinning.
I smile sweetly back at him. I don’t want to.
It takes a while, good old mum’s soup has been working its way through my system for hours, but I want it to be good. I sit very still, letting the bloated feeling grow inside me.
He farts another three times, each one accompanied by the word “safe” and an infuriating wink. Finally I can’t hold it in any further. I close my eyes and clench. The walls echo with the burbling thunder-clap of my flatulence. I open my eyes and grin at him. For a moment he’s transfixed, mouth hanging loosely open. I continue to grin at him in silence, not saying the word, daring him. His lips recover themselves enough to shape the word.
“Doorknobs!”
The nearest door is the one between the living room and hallway, but as there’s no handle we agreed weeks ago that it doesn’t count. This means I’ve got to get all the way to the front door of the flat, and he’s allowed to do whatever he likes to try to stop me.
He lurches towards me, but I’m already rolling out of the way, carpet hissing against cloth as I come up into a crouch and make for the door. I’m jolted back by his hand grasping my ankle, sending me sprawled, kicking and giggling. I manage to free my foot, and flail both legs defensively while I drag my body forward, forearms burning and red as they scrape against the floor.
I grab the door, dragging myself up and getting my feet back under me, only to be shot forward by his shoulder catching me behind the knees. We slam into the vinyl covered floor of the hallway. My kicks are useless this time and I feel him muscling his way up my body like quicksand. I let out a sound, half giggle, half shriek and try to reach for something, anything, to drag myself along with. My skin raises wet, rubbery squeaks from the floor. I feel his weight pinning my knees, my thighs, my hips.
A hand grasps my shoulder and I know I’ve lost, but I don’t stop struggling. Another hand clenches around my waistband, tugging at my trousers and knickers. Without unfastening them the waist of the trousers is tight, scraping and crushing my buttocks as he forces them down, rubbing tight against my struggling thighs. He lets go of my trousers and I hear him unfasten his trousers. The he grabs my other shoulder and pushes my chest into the floor as, one after the other, he nudges his knees between mine, prying my legs apart.
My arms sweep helplessly back and forth to either side of me, I buck and writhe trying to shake him off but it’s futile. I feel him lower himself over me, the heat of his crotch against my bare buttocks. I squeak and squeal as he moves into position, but I don’t say stop, because I know he would. Because I know that in a moment I could have him cradling my head in his lap and whispering reassurances to me while stroking my hair.
He pushes his cock into me. It’s a struggle. My hips against the floor and the angle of him pinning me down means that he has to push hard and deep to get even a portion of his cock into my pussy. And he wants me so badly, he pushes so very very hard. He pumps himself into me, fast and powerful, roughly using me for his own pleasure, his balls slapping furiously against my clit with every thrust. He grinds me into the floor as he fucks me until we’re both lost in panting sweaty exhaustion and I feel his cock jerk triumphantly inside me.
I put a hand to my shoulder, stroking my fingers over his, asking him to lie on top of me and warm me like a blanket. He obliges and we lie together, forceful grasps giving way to tender holding, muscles unknotting, limbs intertwining. All is quiet, until mum’s soup forces one last release from him. I pull his head close to me and whisper, “Doorknobs!”
It’s a topic that comes up semi-frequently in erotica circles. condoms, yes or no? I have a very definite answer, but it’s only the answer for me and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m trying to say anyone else is wrong for not thinking the same way I do.
Let me preface this with the simple fact that barrier methods are the best all-rounder when having sex, especially with someone new or unknown. They prevent pregnancy but also act as protection against pretty much all the sexually transmitted infections, including the really nasty ones. In real life, when you’re not in (for example) a long-term relationship where all parties have been tested for infections (and are either using other contraceptives or are trying to have kids) then condoms are a no brainer. Seriously, the cost benefit analysis is pretty simple, and still means you get to have sex with people (yay!).
That said, I do not include condoms in my fiction.
Why?
Well there are copious other commentators who have rightly expressed the distinction between fantasy and reality and the fact that most readers will not take something depicted in fiction as a green flag to neglect their own responsibilities when it comes to taking care of their health and the health of their partners. I agree with these points whole-heartedly, I’m just saying they’ve been made very well elsewhere by others. What I don’t feel they address is the elephant in the room, i.e. why this is an issue in the first place.
I feel like I’m breaking ranks by saying this, but the fact of the matter is I really don’t like the way condoms feel.
I mean, let me be clear, I’m not a seventeen year old boy trying to pressure a naive teenage girl into shagging bareback with some promise like “you can’t get pregnant on your first time,” or “I swear I’ll pull out before I cum!”, it really does make a difference!
Let me do some myth busting here.
I saw an interview with a sex worker (years ago, probably on Channel 5) in which she said words to the effect of “I don’t believe it makes any difference, all the pressures you feel are the same”
Speaking as a cis male and (sort of) scientist, let me just say that that’s wrong, very wrong. Your skin is one of the most fascinating parts of your body. It’s waterproof yet porous, it has an elasticity that is frankly terrifying and every square inch of it is equipped with a mind-boggling array of sensors. The penis does not just respond to pressure the way every other bit of your skin doesn’t. I really don’t feel it should be necessary to say this but other things like temperature, texture, friction, thermal conductivity, are all tied up in that huge lump of a sense we call ‘touch’, and wrapping a thin coating of latex over your most sensitive parts makes a big difference to how things feel.
Not so much that sex is then not fun, but it isn’t as much fun as it could be. I’d say it’s the difference between swigging cheap lager and sipping a glass of Tignanello. They have the same ultimate effect, but the latter is much more fun.
But that’s not the end of it, and the rest of this post gets very subjective because I’m going to talk about what turns me on. So, y’know, park your judgment at the door because I aint gonna apologise for what the little critter in my head likes.
OK? Here goes.
I love coming inside someone. The thought of it, the sensation of it is a massive turn on for me. Letting go in a physical full body way, without having to worry about socks or tissues or getting a damp cloth to stop the sheets from crisping.
Coming into a condom, not so much. Why? Well I think part of it is that coming into a condom is sort of allowed. It’s the safe no-mess way of taking my filthy boy genitals and stopping them from getting too close to you because, you know, se is something to be done with a grimace. Whereas coming inside someone is different, it’s in the moment, it’s wanton.
One of my oldest and most powerful fantasies is of looking down at someone, eyes closed, lips wrapped around my cock, and knowing that, whilst they may not want me to, if I tell them to keep my cock in their mouth as I come, then they will. It makes the critter in my brain so very very happy.
By the head-critter lives on fantasies, he doesn’t have to deal with the real world where there’re STIs and unwanted pregnancies. And that’s why he’s not the one in charge. Though sometimes I’ll put his lead on, and take him out to the woods or the fields and let him run free for a little bit, barking at hay bales, peeing on everything and rolling in cow poo.
“Not the end I’d wished for lad,” he said, voice leaden with despair and frustration. Despite his many years and the countless battles he’d seen, he’d never found himself like this, never been this close to giving up.
He felt the touch on his shoulder, metal on metal, pressing down reassuringly.
“It’ll be alright,” said the youth.
He wanted to cry when he realised he’d heard those words, said that way, before. The youth didn’t know they were once spoken to him by a condemned prisoner, already dead but just waiting for the administrative burden to catch up with him.
He didn’t reply, not verbally. He didn’t want to lie to the youth, not now, not like this. Instead he returned the touch, wrapping an arm around his waist with a dull, leaden thunk.
Robots never truly grow old. Out-dated and rusty perhaps, but they are still everything they were created to be. The optics still detect beauty, the sensors still detect heat, pressure, friction. And the mind, the mind still remembers everything, the difference between the solid unfeeling bump of armour on armour and the playful denting and popping of sheet metal. The touch of fingers into crawl spaces and conduits, and the inexpressible wrongness of cables being plucked, pulled out of place and singing quietly.
He let his fingers slide around between the plates of the youth’s waist, stroking gently at the softer mass of plastic and wire beneath. The youth let out a gasp, but didn’t pull away. The veteran leaned into him, resting his head on the bright orange chest. The youth responded by wrapping both his arms around the older one, fingers similarly slipping into vulnerable places.
“Just… just hold me,” he whispered, voice cracking with static and heartbreak.
So they held, and they touched and they whispered. Two war machines, struggling desperately to learn to make love in the shadow of the darkest hour.
Just a quick post to let you all know that, despite a minor delay (life don’t talk to me about life) the first two volumes of “Keyholder Kink” are now available.
The sun slams down on the maze of bright orange tiles. Below in the walkways tourists flit from shadowy alley to shadowy alley across scattered squares and exposed bridges. The great antique city buzzes with the all consuming pestilence of tourism, but up here, up on the roofs, all is calm. There is only the sun, and the tiles, and Andrea. He paces along the ridge of the roof, the heat filtering through the thin soles of his climbing shoes. He stops at his mark, the tile with the little symbol scratched into it. 3rd floor, left, ten meters of rope.
He ties the rope off to the rickety chimney and lets the rest of the length slide down the roof and drop out of sight.
He moves to straddle the rope and lowers himself, bracing his weight as he goes, stepping down onto his shins, and shuffling backwards until his feet flex into free air. Then it’s just another shuffle and a sickening pivot backwards as he trusts himself completely to the rope in his hands.
The weight of his backpack always comes as a surprise, but he doesn’t let it get the better of him, not this time at least.
The window is where his mark said it was, the green wooden shutters flung back and the casement wide open. He pushes off from the wall, swinging around the open part of the window and planting his feet on the bleached stone of the lintel.
The room is dark. He steps down from the window and glides across to the cupboard. The safe is there, closed and locked.
Perfect.
He puts the bag onto the floor, tugging it open and sliding his hands inside. Grunting with exertion, he pulls out an identical safe, well, nearly identical. He has to be careful how he holds it in order to keep the door from falling open. The rest of the process takes maybe a minute, lifting the original safe from the cupboard to the rucksack, positioning its doppelganger in the cupboard and turning to head back the way he came.
There is a click, like someone snapping a pair of metal fingers.
“That, is quite far enough Andrea.”
“Fancullo!” he says.
The woman laughs.
“I’m sorry, perhaps you prefer your professional name, Il Toscanno, yes?”
He grunts, turning to face the shadows where the voice is coming from, but not putting down the bag.
“Tell me,” she continues, “how long exactly did you think you could carry on your little racket without attracting attention from those higher up?”
“Hey, this isn’t Naples, there’s no Cosa Nostra here!”
“This is Italy, there is always someone. Look at the Gondoliers, do you think they get that job easily? Or the apprentices in Murano? There is always a piper to be paid, be it family, or government, or the man who cuts holes in hotel wardrobes so you can’t screw down the safe.”
Fuck!
The fact she knows his name, where to find him, and exactly how he runs his business is enough to guarantee that the click he’d heard is not just a novelty lighter.
“What do you want?”
“Surely the question is what do my superiors want?”
“Stronzo! If they knew about me I’d be dead. What do you want?”
In the darkness he can see the faint glimmer of her smile.
“I want your babies.”
“Well hey, sorry, but I don’t fuck too good with a gun at my head.”
“Oh I’m sure I can find a way around that. Now, turn around.”
He turns, keeping his hands by his side. Her movements behind him are quiet, slow. He feels a hand sliding around his wrist, a bright staccato series of ‘clicks and the cool touch of handcuffs. She pulls his hands toward each other into the small of his back, repeating the procedure on his free hand. Her touch snakes up his back, fingernails tracing rivulets of sensation through his shirt. Then, fingers splayed, she pushes him, suddenly, sharply and his body thumps into the wall.
She presses herself up against him, her breasts to his back, his restrained hands touching her belly. Hands snake around his waist, unfastening his belt and plucking away at the buttons of his fly. She jerks his trousers down to mid-thigh, eliciting a grunt of faux rage and arousal from him. For a moment her hands glide over the swelling form of his cock, only to disappear again.
There’s a rustling sound, followed by the squeak and snap of something plastic, the sounds of caps being unscrewed and screwed.
“Are you ready?” she says, reaching back around him. Except this time, instead of her hand he just feels the harsh touch of the lip of a beaker against his cock. Then it happens.
At first the fingers slide casually over his buttocks, dancing from one to the other, then working their way towards the centre, dry fingers prying apart his buttocks, probing deeper and deeper. Then he feels a digit, cold and slimy, against his ring, rubbing in little circles, but pressing firmly against him, demanding entrance.
“Wha…?” he says.
She pushes harder and he opens to her touch with a gasp. Her lubricated finger shoving its way into position, keen to make up for lost time. He gasps again as she reaches his lump, rubbing it in slow, firm circles. The sensation is like suddenly discovering a bowling ball deep inside his abdomen, tight and, if not painful, certainly unexpected. Yet despite this, he feels his cock hardening, the underside brushing against the beaker as it twitches back and forth. She continues her firm little rubs, teasing his most hidden place, until he feels hot runny spunk trickling out of the end of his cock.
As if sensing his disappointment, the hand the holds the beaker moves, keeping the plastic in place, but reaching up to stroke a few fingers back and forth along the underside of his cock. This draws more gasps from him and, as she quickens her pace within and without, he is soon grunting and twitching as he fills the beaker with jet after jet of spunk.
She pulls away and he listens to the sound of the gloves being peeled off, the clink of the keys in the handcuffs, the moment the second steel band releases he moves.
He ducks, rolls, grabbing the bag with the safe, diving for the window, one hand around the safe, the other yanking up his trousers. In a moment he’s gone, with only the splash of water far below to suggest he was ever here.
Well, that and the little memento she’s collected. She screws on the lid and then slides the pot into her bra, to keep it nice and warm, ready for the buyer.
There are two things I have recurring nightmares about. And the second of these is drowning.
Let me start out by saying that I am not afraid of water. I’m a relatively strong swimmer (I insisted on carrying on swimming lessons until I got my gold challenge, despite being taller than all the other kids by a clear foot). I enjoy swimming, bodyboarding, canoe trips and hot tubs.
Large bodies of water hold no excitement beyond the basic “yay let’s go frolicking!”
Drowning fucking terrifies me.
It’s probably the lesser of my two big fears, but unlike heights, it’s not something I ever want to play with.
Waterboarding sounds like the most horrific experience I can imagine. Films in which characters drown always feel like a vicious punch in the stomach. Unlike heights, drowning offers no hint of thrill or excitement for me. Only dread.
But why?
Just as how I can’t articulate why being somewhere high is fundamentally exhilarating, I can’t explain why the dormant threat of water fails to elicit the same response.
Actually I do have one hypothesis. Despite doing ill advised activities I have never actually plummeted headlong from a tall object, but I have had a couple of close calls in water.
A couple of times playing in the sea a big wave or unexpected rock has got me into trouble, mad thrashing trouble where suddenly your a helpless passenger in a million tonnes of water. A natural machine that doesn’t give a crap how close your lungs are to bursting.
Maybe that’s why I will never, ever play with that.
I’ve been thinking about limits lately, and how big a window they provide for understanding ourselves. In particular I’ve been thinking about fears and what makes one ok to explore and one untouchable.
This is the first of two posts exploring my personal fears and where they come from.
I’m going to talk about falling.
I would stress the distinction between a fear of heights and vertigo. Yes I’m scared of heights, bloody terrified of them. But along with that also comes dizziness, loss of bearings, and that tiny niggling urge to leap when confronted with severe drops. Even when sitting in the balcony of a theatre I sometimes find it hard to concentrate because of the awareness of the huge looming space in front of me, sucking me in.
I hate it.
If I had to pick the one thing I have always had nightmares about, it’s falling. Usually preceded by desperately clinging to something above me, a ledge, or some unhelpfully obtuse bit of architecture. Finally letting go and plummeting into oblivion.
I love it.
At school I took rock climbing, on seaside holidays I would gleefully peer over the edges of cliffs. I’ve scrambled up I’ll advised bits of mountain on my own miles from help or mobile phone reception and fucking loved every moment of it. The two things highest on my bucket list are bungee jumping and solo parachuting.
I can’t help watching things like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, Sean Bean in Goldeneye or Jack Nicholson in Batman with a mixture of horror and excitement.
Falling is at once the most terrifying and fascinating thing, and I wish I could explain why, but I can’t. It’s primal, it’s apriori and I fucking love it.
The door of the flat closes with a muffled thud. There are incoherent noises, giggle sand groans, then the bedroom door opens and they stumble in, bow tie draped over his shoulder, her dress rippled up high on her buttocks by his groping hand. She pulls her face away from his with a wet sucking sound. She’s panting arms half heartedly grabbing at his head, shoulders, arms. Another step and they topple out of sight into the mountainous landscape of unmade bed linen.
Shapes writhe and undulate, appearing and disappearing like rocks with the tide. Clothes are cast like dark smokey clouds into the sky, only to fall back beyond the impossibly close horizon.
Between two peaks the lightly furred rolling hills quicken their pace, rising briefly only to come crashing down with force to make the white mountains shiver. The winds roar a cacophony of agony through the cotton valleys until, finally, it fades into the distance with one last wolf howl.
The wind is gone, the ground no longer trembles and the peachy hills lie still. The last ripples of excitement wash over me, as I wait, knowing what is to come. The shapes finally stir, pulling themselves from the make-believe landscape and tottering dazed and happy about the room. He comes to me, wrapping fingers around my cool dry surface, lifting me up into his embrace. His soiled spent manhood slips past my brim without touching it and I open myself to him, enveloping him in cool wetness, taking his sweat and spunk into me, he stirs me a little, pulling back his foreskin with his free hand to grant me every last lingering taste of him.
When he pulls out he leaves his traces permeating every millilitre of me, wearing the little foamy scum on my surface like a medal. A good job well done, his dirty little glass.
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