by Nick Molloy
It was this night-stalking of the residence kitchens that led to an encounter with my much maligned and for some reason, still ultra tolerant of my dysfunctional ways girlfriend. However, catching the fish was like landing a white shark with a tiny fishing net. Zoe was reading a book when we entered the kitchen. She had dark curly hair with brilliant blue eyes. I just sat and stared, I even forgot about my pot noodle. Matt noticed my attention was diverted and began chatting to the strange woman, who in turn began chatting to me. I didn’t understand a word she said! A South Ayrshire accent, with local colloquialisms ensured communication would be difficult.
Accents have always been and still are a big turn on to me in a girl. Scottish accents are amongst my favourites, but they take a little adjusting to if you aren’t used to them. I can tolerate most accents on girls as long as they are relatively soft. Scottish speak however, has many of its own words. At first it sounds like a completely different language !
When Matt and I finally secured our campus rooms, Zoe began to make a habit of coming over and ‘waking’ me up in the morning. Unknown to her, I had set the alarm half an hour before so that I would be bright and alert for her arrival (whilst still pretending to be sleepy of course). I had already declared my intentions openly, stating that I really liked her and hoped things would lead to more. She wasn’t so forward. Instead, she played what I would recognize in future to be a typically female game. By placing all my cards on the table, I had unwittingly handed her all the power and she was able to exploit and use my weakness (albeit I think this was unintentional on her part). She possessed those typical female insecurities and doubts that seem so intrinsic when their thoughts turn to men. Zoe is unlike any other woman I have ever met, yet still she played a game that seemed almost instinctive.
One night after I’d known her for about five weeks and after our friends had left the room, things got a little steamier. Our first real kiss (our technique left a lot to be desired) was followed by some fumbling around in the dark, albeit limited. Every time my hands began to wander her hands put them back where they began.
By the time I wondered back over to my residence some time later I had a permanent grin on my face. The feeling of intimacy was so intense, so real, it is difficult to convey the words of how I felt. For me the feelings went far beyond a sexual one. Maybe it was because I had told her so much about myself, things that I had never told anyone else before. Up until then, nobody had seemed interested in the real me before and I wanted to believe that I had found her. It was my first time, the physical had become mixed up with the emotional.
I am sure dear reader, that you can imagine my horror when the following day she denied any such goings on and blanked me in public. It wasn’t until we were alone again that she acknowledged anything had happened and we experienced a repeat performance. However, the emotional roller coaster ride was just beginning. To my continual and immense frustration, Zoe was exhibiting two personas. There was the public one where we were just good friends and the private one where we were a little bit more.
I firmly and truly believe today that men and women can’t be friends without the sex part getting in the way (expect where they find each other mutually unattractive). So it proved to be the case in this very first instance. I was trapped. I wanted her more than anything I had ever wanted before. Yet, the acceptance followed by immediate rejection pattern was tearing me up in side.
Fortunately, my new found friend, Matt, proved to be a very sympathetic ear. I told him everything and he continued the pretence in front of Zoe that he knew nothing. If I hadn’t been able to confide in him, I’d have probably gone insane. I hung out with Matt most of the time. Several of our classes overlapped and we always used to eat together in the evening (remember we couldn’t cook so we used to eat at a cheap, subsidized student bar). We became close.
Generally, my life felt a whole lot better. My confidence was slowly starting to return after the seven year pounding it took whilst I was ‘incarcerated’. I had made some good friends, something that had been missing for a long time. I had something to look forward to, finally. However, the situation with Zoe was making my life a misery. I wanted it so badly, I’d have done anything to get it. This meant I became a glutton for punishment and absorbed the on-going mental torture as best I could.
Eventually, things came to a head, I said that I was unwilling to let the current situation continue. Either we formally announced and acknowledged our relationship or, I didn’t want to see her again. She wanted us to remain friends. I said it would be impossible for me to do so. It would just be too painful for me. It felt like a business negotiation. Effectively, she had been presented with the take-away close. Buy now and commit, or the offer will disappear for good.
She took the offer. Albeit reluctantly. It was if I had forced her hand and she considered having me as a boyfriend, a lesser evil to losing my friendship. I know it sounds ridiculous. She says now that she was scared. If she committed to a relationship she knew it would be a very serious thing for her and she feared that I would then have the power to hurt her. She later said that her behaviour at the time was stupid. However, there is no doubt that she resented me and my actions (the take away close) for some time afterwards. She would never allow any form of public affection (apparently this was unfair to our other friends). Essentially, the public status quo remained, it was just that a very poorly kept secret had now been formally announced.
With the formal announcement, the bedroom antics intensified. Waking up lying next to her naked form in the morning produced a huge adrenaline surge, followed by an immense feeling of inner calm. It was like the final piece of the jigsaw falling into place. I could go off and attend my day’s classes whilst being at peace with the world
We played around with each other’s bodies for weeks. She was never as comfortable as I was about the whole nudity and lights on thing. I remember making her wank me off for the first time (lights on). I knew that as a biologist, part of her would be studying me like a lab rabbit. The very thought of me as her submissive test subject turned me on even more and she stared intently at my cock as she rubbed it up and down. I was too embarrassed to let myself go then, I also knew that she would disapprove. I wanted the whole building to know what was going on, I really wanted to have sex with her on the kitchen floor whilst everybody in her corridor watched us. Still, the whole sex thing was new to me and the thought of her, with my dick in her hand, was more than enough to get me hard at the very thought of it. Indeed, Zoe has since said that she didn’t actually see my dick soft until about three months after first seeing me naked.
Even in those early days, my thoughts were always very exhibitionistic. I wanted everybody to know and preferably to see our sex life and the kinkier the better. Zoe was considerably more tempered. We once did it outside where nobody was ever going to see us, but that was as far as it went. When we stayed at her mum’s I used to fantasize about her sister walking in on us.
However, all of these thoughts remained firmly ensconced in the world of fantasy. Zoe’s conservatism was a very heavy counter weight to my sexual extremities.
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I held out my hand and said ‘Hi, I’m Nick from the stripped down fabric company’
‘Corporate’ strips as I called them are some of the most fun. Strippers are regularly asked to turn up in and surprise people in a variety of different uniforms. However, when a guy turns up in a white naval uniform or a fireman’s outfit, on the day that it just so happens to be somebody’s birthday, the victim can usually recognize the stripper a mile away. Even when the police officer arrives to request that the noise be kept down from the party, it’s usually just too coincidental. If somebody is getting married or it’s their birthday, then a police officer would turn up to take his clothes off – wouldn’t he ?
With that said, the police officer probably has the highest success rate of non-suspicion amongst victims compared to other traditional stripper uniforms. I atte
nded one party on a Saturday night and when one of the guests proclaimed that there was a policeman walking down the stairs, one of the girls rushed to the toilet and began flushing away her recreational drugs ! She was gutted when she found out I was a stripper.
Corporate ones however, have a 100% success rate. They never suspect. I turn up in a suit at the company premises during the working day. Done properly, I will arrive at a pre-arranged meeting either posing as a buyer or a potential client. The victim listens attentively as I explain what a nightmare my journey was and how hot the train was with all those sweaty bodies crammed into cattle class. As I am explaining about the heat, somebody cues the music and Nelly’s ‘It’s getting hot in here’ springs into life. I then proclaim that it’s so hot I am going to have to take my clothes off !
Another method is to swap business cards. As I slide my male stripper card over the table, the victim usually does a double, sometimes triple take. As they stare at my Cheshire cat grin the music begins…..
In this particular instance, I was a fabric salesman and the victim clearly had a complete disdain for that particular breed. The stripped down fabric company line went straight over her head and she was getting quite tetchy with me. I had to insist on her feeling my revolutionary new fabric.
‘Funnily enough, this fabric has proved very popular with male strippers’ I said with a certain amount of smug satisfaction.
Finally the penny dropped. I’ll never forget her face. It looked like she had just stared into the eyes of Medusa. There was a pause for about two seconds before she turned and ran. Maurice Greene would have been proud with her start, but, her colleagues had obviously anticipated her move and two burly chaps with beards rugby tackled her before she could reach the sanctity of the door. She was dragged kicking and screaming back to the centre of the room and placed on a chair where all could see me eventually wave my cock in her face.
The corporate ones produce a lot of job satisfaction. They are the wind ups that always comes good. Once, I even performed in a sixth form college, posing as a visiting teacher. I expected to receive snide comments from jealous pubescent boys (that would have been the reaction at my school). However, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a rousing cheer from all and sundry, almost restoring my faith in human nature.
I have sprung similar surprises where I have posed as a friend of a guest at private parties, mingling in my suit before delivering the coup de grace. That brief look of surprise that comes just before the look of horror always makes me smile.
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The remaining university years passed fairly uneventfully and effectively completed my rebirth. With my confidence fully returned, my real persona was starting to break out into the world. I finally had somebody I truly loved whom I could call my girlfriend. If I believed in marriage I would probably have proposed. However, I believe ceremonies to obtain pieces of paper are both expensive and outdated. This is my pure logic coming through again and fortunately for me, Zoe has always thought the same. That ticking time bomb of when should we tie the knot was never going to be a problem for us.
In the early years of our relationship, it was clear that I was the one who wanted it more. I suppose I needed it more, maybe because I was more vulnerable. To come from an environment where I had felt so misunderstood and short on love, I guess I craved someone who understood my foibles and with whom I could communicate satisfactorily. I obviously craved sex and there was probably an element, if I am honest, of proving my family wrong. They had concluded I was gay even though they had missed what I thought was self evident; namely I didn’t fit into the culture of the small town in which I had been entrapped. Ergo, there was nobody there for me. By meeting Zoe so soon after leaving home, it sent a message back to those who sought to label me. It told them, that maybe Llantwit had been a bad move for me after all.
As the summer approached to end my first year at Sterling, I refused to go back home to Llantwit. Instead, I got a job as a kitchen porter at the Manchester branch of Harry Ramsdens. I ended up working alone on the nightshift (about 50p an hour extra). I had obviously become accustomed to isolation as I actually preferred it to the day shift. If the truth be told, I hadn’t escaped my anti-social nature.
I gave my nana and granddad some rent from my meagre pay and stayed with them. I am thoroughly glad I did. I had always enjoyed the company of my granddad, the one member of the family who seemed to accept me for who I was. I was fascinated by his endless stories from the war time and others chronicling his obvious non-conformity. We also used to watch endless boxing tapes together. It was the most substantial amount of time I ever spent with him and also the last amount of quality time I would ever spend with him. He became ill not long after and went into a slow decline until he eventually pegged out on the day the twin towers were hit by the planes. By that time, his full mental capacity had long since left him.
My granddad was also very sympathetic to my need to visit and look up my old friends from Little Lever. I had renewed confidence and independence now. I decided, despite my mother’s protestations, that I would reconnect with my old friends. However, I was in for a bit of a shock. I may have been trapped in a time capsule where nothing had changed, but as I was to discover, I was alone in this. I visited my old primary school and was recognized by the remaining teachers (much to my delight). Through them I hooked up with Rachel (daughter of one of the teachers and my first real ever crush) and through a younger cousin of one of the people in the class, I got a number for Elen. The three of us tracked down a few others from our primary days. It was great to see them, but it made me realize that things had moved on. There was nothing left for me in Little Lever any more.
I tracked down my old friend and sports rival Stephen, plus a few others. Some former friends had been detained at her majesty’s pleasure. Rachel looked divine, but we never kept in touch. She had a boyfriend and I had a girlfriend. Maybe we would have done if things were different.
Elen and Stephen used to be really good mates, but it was obvious that we were not friends anymore. We had no connection, nothing in common. When I had left Little Lever, they had continued with their maturation. By contrast I had remained trapped in time, clinging to old memories. It was a harsh lesson for me, but a very important and valuable one. It enabled me to bury the ghosts and move on. I am only in contact with one person now from my Little Lever days. Mat used to live next door. His dad was best man at my mum and dad’s wedding. Apparently, my dad and his dad were best mates. When we moved away they lost all contact. I think their sons may well have been best mates. However, we are now mates, separated by distance and missing time. Still, whenever I meet up with Mat, I have a really good time, catching up and reminiscing about old times.
When I returned to university for the second year, Zoe would still often appear cold, resentful and distant towards me over the way that our relationship had begun. I could never command her full attention and I often felt I would never be as special to her as she was to me. Still with the girl in my life, the rest of it began to settle down.
I became a model student. I was top of the class in both History and Philosophy scoring straight firsts. When the marketing course finally began, it was unfortunately a huge disappointment, taught by either pure academics, or people who had failed in industry. My grades initially dropped because I was thinking too much out of the box when tackling issues and questions. It took me over a semester to realize that my approach of questioning everything wasn’t welcome. Indeed, the complete opposite. The teaching of marketing at university was like the teaching of a GCSE subject. Copy the theories out of a book, regurgitate them in an exam and get good grades. When I asked repeated questions about creativity and the methods of running a business, the lecturers were devoid of answers. In fact they were openly hostile to my line of questioning - patently unable to answer me when I asked how I could improve. This was contrary to any of the subjects which were classically academic (e.g. history).
; In the history department, the doors were always open if students had questions or wanted to discuss how they could improve their grades. Once, I was very disappointed to only receive an average grade discussing the impact of Thatcherism. I naturally took my tutor to task, but he was able to counteract my points and made me realize where I had failed to actually answer the question. With regards to marketing, I eventually realized the way forward was to dumb down and just copy from the course text book. For my final year I didn’t attend any lectures and only the minimum of the required tutorials. I still came away with a 2:1.
I knew at the time that my marketing degree was practically useless. It’s only worth was the value it created in the mind of a naïve employer. With hindsight, I realized the whole marketing/business degree was even worse than I had given it credit for. It had totally failed to prepare its students for the world of work, except for the role of an employee who has no thoughts of their own. The entrepreneurs must have gone to a different school. I left university knowing nothing at all about the sales process or its methods and techniques. Indeed, some marketing lecturers mentioned sales like it was a dirty word ! The art of negotiating was never mentioned, I didn’t know how to do books or accounts. Instead we were encouraged to read academic texts on how to construct theoretical business models (something I have never used), as opposed to a practical business plan or projection. Tom Peters’ “In Search of Excellence” was a course text. This was a book detailing why selected companies were deemed excellent. Peters had already had to write a follow up book on why many of his “excellent” companies had failed not long after he wrote the first tome ! Was his selections and resultant inclusions of such obvious failures merely irony, or did it point to a deeper level of stupidity ?