‘What does it mean to be sit comfortably in a cafe, on the sidewalk, with your shirt off or just in a bikini top and shorts? Not just for one coffee, not even for a few beers, but pretty much all afternoon or evening. And not just one evening, but many. So many in fact that it becomes the norm’.  Mouse paused slightly, just long enough to know that the others didn’t want to answer, not just yet.

‘What does this mean? Who is this person who does this? Is it me?’ He looked at them, one by one, making it blindingly clear that he would welcome an answer. Huw resisted the urge to look at Lila, and instead arched his eyebrows and slumped a little in his seat.

‘It was you’, Iris bravely reminded Mouse. ‘It still is you. It’s just a ‘you’ you don’t choose to be right now.’

Huw slowed his breath, waiting to hear and see where this would lead. He knew that there was really nothing to fear. Not anymore. Mouse didn’t get his name from his roar,  although that is exactly what most people who saw him, and didn’t know him, thought. They made an assumption. They saw his bulk, and often looked away before feeling his smile upon their faces. Huw knew that even if Mouse did take offense in any way, he wouldn’t be the one to feel it, not with Iris sitting here.

Any pain to be felt would be hers. A slight glance or touch that she would feel so much more tenderly and deeply that the rest of them.  Mouse and her were a couple; an odd couple. A ironic couple, Huw thought, allowing himself the slightest of smiles.

Iris was more that happy, although she did at times seem in doubt about that. Huw knew though just how deeply she appreciated Mouse. Appreciated that he didn’t own a gun; that he’d never think of driving a kitchen knife through her hand. He knew that she loved that she no longer lived in fear. She had been there. With every new relationship she was building a ladder to the stars, and Mouse was a long way from the bottom.  Yet there was still someway yet to climb, Huw thought, looking more directly at Mouse.  His love was definitely not  the exciting kind.  Life was nowhere near as exciting for Iris now as it had been with her previous lovers.  

‘That’s it, right there!’ That’s your stuff.’ Suddenly Jay seemed to have awoken and entered the conversation; his voice like a thunderclap. It was time for Mouse to work his stuff. Perhaps, Huw thought.

‘My stuff how?’ Mouse asked.

‘You’re attached. You’re attached to a self that sits in cafes with his shirt off.’

Iris quickly saw where this going. The scar on her finger started to twitch; a self inflected reminder of other things and other times when she could help herself. Now she found that impossible.

‘And …’, she interrupted, ‘not only are you attached to the idea, you’re attached to your own illusion that you’ve built upon it’.

‘It’s where I feel most comfortable’, Mouse confessed.

‘What else?  Tell me about it. Tell me about this place?’

‘It’s hot … and the sun shines. People are happy and helpful. People see each other as valuable. Everyone has something to give. Everyone has something that others admire, respect and desire.’

‘What else?’

He was starting to hesitate, slow down. Iris egged him on.

His head dropped into his hands. It was obvious to the others there that he had come to a point through which he really didn’t want to proceed.

 x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

‘I needed to pee bad’. Michael’s voice continued in a whisper. Blue was enthralled, excited even, he could feel his cock twitch at the image Michael was creating in his head.  Michael could do this to him, ease his troubles, turn his thoughts so often to something all consuming, something often sexual, dangerous, something exciting, some combination or situation he himself had never previously contemplated. Michael could take him to new frontiers.

‘I stood there, with my hand on my fly, and then, after my fear eased off a bit, once it seemed as if no one was going to come barging in on me, I starting thinking about what it would be like sitting there and watching some girl come in. You know just be sitting there watching, cause that’s all there is to do isn’t there, when you’re sitting on the loo? Just sit and stare straight ahead. And this girl walks in and she casually wanders over to another of the seats and unzips her jeans and slips her jeans and knickers down around her ankles, and then she sits down and starts taking a pee. And as she does she looks across at me and smiles’.

Blue could feel Michael’s own smile reaching out to him in the fog. He could feel it’s warmth, it’s love. It’s intimacy. He loved this place inside his head. It was a safe place and yet, it was so often full of surprises, full of things he did not know existed.

‘It took some getting used to that did.’ Michael continued, breaking the spell. Blue’s hand moved away from his crotch; from his stiffening cock.

‘The very first session I had with Ken and his group of followers, I sat and chain-smoked french cigarettes. I was nervous as hell, lounging awkwardly on a huge cushion, nervously trying to imitate the nonchalance of the others, and I guess failing miserably. Ken told us before we started that he wanted us to share secrets that we had never ever told anyone else. That here we were safe, and we could use that safety to let out any deep and dark secrets that we had stored away.

I remember staring at the faded canary yellow of the wall opposite and the feel of the cushions thread under my elbow. I recall in my panic, frantically scanned my back of the brain catalogue of lies and deceptions for the least embarassing secret to share. But I was distracted by the huge hard-on that threatened to burst from my tie-dye calico pants. I was enthralled, excited beyond anything I had known before, as I listened.  One after  the other, this group of strangers spoke into the silent room, sharing the most intimate and deeply personal moments of the lives.

As each one talked, as each one of those people, men and woman spoke, all I could think of as I looked at them, was sex. I just wanted to rub up next to them, touch them, excite them, get close them, feel them inside me, and me inside them. By the time it came to me I had the biggest hard-on I’d ever had in my life.

to be continued

to the beginning

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Lulu heard him stop, just outside the door, just out of view. She willed him to return, willed him to come back. Don’t go, don’t leave me now … please, and then he did, saying, as he came through the open door, ‘I’m going to explain something to you’. There was the slightest menace in his voice, the slightest hardness in his look.

Even so, or maybe because of it, Lulu lips curled into a half-smile, ‘Oh yes?’ she taunted bravely, ‘And exactly what is it you’re going to explain to me?’

‘It has something to do with humility’, he said, walking towards her slowly, yet somehow gliding across the room quickly. ‘Do you think you are a humble person?’ he demanded.

Lulu was struck by his question, his tone, his manner. It was as if he had poked a finger into her chest. She resisted the urge to step back. She willed herself to look into the whites of his eyes. ‘ I don’t know’, she said, gaining some strength from the evenness of her tone, ‘ it’s not something I’ve really thought about?

‘You’ve never really thought about humility.’ He had stopped in front of her, he was all she could see. It seemed like an eternity before his voice entered the shadow of his body. ’What about its opposite? Arrogance. Have you thought about that?’

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Without moving, Blue turned away, he looked inside, eager for somewhere to hide.  Michael’s voice emerged, angry and impatient, from the murky gloom.

‘Geez, why is everything so deep with this guy, and why does he think, he’s the only long distance diver in the room? ‘Such intimacy”  my arse.’ Without waiting for Blue to answer he went on, the edge of his voice softening and slowing . ‘We’ve all been here. We all know how to delve below the surface. I remember in my twenties,  in London, I joined this group. An est encounter group, run by a guy called Ken, or Kurt maybe, a long-haired hippy dude from California. We used to meet at his place, a massive old house on the edge of Wimbledon Common.  Nice place, and close to the pub I remember. When I joined, there was about twelve in the group, eight or nine women and two or three men; about eight of them were living together in Ken’s house. I went for almost two years and after that I moved into the house as well; became part of Ken’s extended family.’

‘Loved it, most of it. Loved the love sharing’.  Blue found Michael’s voice almost hypnotic as it edged out of the murk that engulfed him. ‘He encouraged us to be deep and meaningful, and we egged each other on.  I think we were all scared, but excited too. It was pretty scary getting something out sometimes, but once it was out, well …’ Michael’s voice trailed off all together, and for a brief moment, as a gathering silence started to creep in, Blue was afraid he had gone altogether.

He hadn’t.  He was there, in the dark, in that big old house in Wimbledon. ’I remember the first time I had to use the toilet. They were unisex, which was cool, that didn’t faze me too much, I’d used them before, added a touch of excitement I always thought. But this was a bit different; once I got into the room, there with no doors, no partitions, nothing;  just toilets sitting there, patiently like obedient servants, all in a row.  Waiting for, and silently willing us on, willing someone to drop their pants and sit down. I remember standing there flabbergasted, my hand on my fly, half unbuttoned. I just looked at those seven squatting sentinels, wondering which would be the best  to sit on, I mean if someone walked in. I was just so grateful that I was on my own. I kept thinking about what I would’ve done if someone had been there, or what if someone walked in on me … while I was doing it. Was I meant to just say ‘hello’ and smile? Strike up some friendly conversation? I had no idea, I was paralysed, and I needed to pee.

to continue…

to the beginning …

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x