‘Well, of course I was enjoying it on a superficial level. My glans was stimulated, and my own efforts are always enough to bring about almost indescribable pleasure for everybody involved. But to achieve true sexual satisfaction, both parties need to be at least near-equals. Alas, on only a handful of occasions have I coupled with anybody who approaches my standard.’
‘How dreadful for you. Look, you’re not going to sit next to me until you put it away.’
‘Why? Does the sight of another man’s penis make you uncomfortable? Never had you down as a homophobe, Daniel. But very well, I shall tame it.’
Athelstan reached down between the cushions of the sofa and pulled out a thong. ‘Just where I left it,’ he said.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to move it,’ said Daniel, looking the other way as Athelstan lifted one scrawny leg, then the other into the thin black underwear.
‘So what is it today in our hallowed halls of learning?’ said Athelstan, pulling the thong up high and adjusting it. ‘Remind me, Danny boy.’
‘“The Rise of the Novel: Defoe, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne”. Same as we’ve been doing all term, if you hadn’t noticed, which of course you haven’t as you’ve missed every single lecture on the module.’
‘And who is it this week?’ Athelstan sat down next to Daniel, invading his body space with an outstretched arm along the back of the sofa.
‘Richardson. You’re meant to have read Pamela by now.’
‘That’s the shit one, isn’t it?’
‘It’s lesser, yes, but the masterpiece is Clarissa, and that’s a million words long. They’re not going to set that as preparatory reading.’
‘I’m not reading the shit one.’
‘Are you going to read the good one?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Well, you need to read something. The main criticism Radders made of your last essay was that you obviously didn’t know anything that happened in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and you’d just made up your ow— get your hand out of your pants.’
‘Why? I am not masturbating. Maybe touching myself a bit. Shouldn’t a man be free to explore his own body?’
‘Not when there’s somebody else in the room.’
‘I am reliving the experience of last night in my mind. Why is that wrong? Surely it is a sign of a healthy internal life.’
Daniel threw the sofa’s one cushion on Athelstan’s lap and stood up.
‘It’s the sign of a diseased sociopathic brain,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get ready, you filthy swine.’
‘Tell me the good bits,’ said Athelstan, lifting his legs up onto the sofa and resting his head on the cushion.
‘You’re not coming?’
‘I couldn’t possibly stand a lecture and seminar combo after a night of strenuous ejaculation. There is only so much a man can give and I am currently a hollow shell. A husk, an empty barrel that, contrary to expectations, can make no more noise. So, no can do, I’m afraid. I’ll see you in the Union bar at lunchtime.’
‘I may not be there. I should try and catch up with Ed.’
‘Ah, the fragrant and turgidly religious Edith. When are you going to tell her that you’ve changed your mind about the whole God thing, and the only reason you’re hanging round is the hope of losing your burdensome virginity in her crusty pudding-basin?’
‘Never. Because it’s not true. Well, not about… I’m not talking about this stuff with you.’
‘Suit yourself. Anyway, you know where to find me if you get bored of having a Bible bashed up your back passage.’
‘Don’t talk about her that way,’ said Daniel. He grabbed a rucksack from atop a pile of table clutter. He had long since given up trying to fight the decay of the house, and let it settle into a rate of entropy dictated by Athelstan’s slovenly habits. ‘Anyway, you’ll be glad to know her opinion of you hasn’t mellowed. And I don’t even tell her what living with you is really like or what you get up to. I daren’t let her even visit this house, in case she finds you engaged in some sex act in the hallway when she steps inside.’
‘But you love me.’
‘No, Athelstan. I really don’t.’
* * *
Daniel smiled at Ed over coffee, shamefully wishing as he always did each time he saw her that he had come to the realisation he no longer believed in God six weeks before Freshers’ Week, and not after. She smiled back. He tried to think of something to say. There was nothing.
Ed broke the silence with a tune for her spoon and fork to dance to across the table. Daniel knew it was for his benefit and laughed politely.
‘Hey, honeybun, how was your lecture?’ she said.
‘Good. Very stimulating. It was Radders, and his lectures are always good.’
‘What was it about?’
‘An eighteenth century novel called Clarissa. It’s a million words long and about a rape.’
Ed’s face dropped. ‘I don’t see why anyone would want to write something like that,’ she said. ‘Or read it.’
Daniel knew that he had described it as tastelessly as possible, although accurately. He wondered why he had felt the need to do that.
‘Well, it’s actually a very Christian novel. It shows how Clarissa holds onto her faith, despite what happens to her.’
‘Well, that’s good, I guess.’
‘Anyway, what did you get up to this morning?’
She started telling him. He let the words wash over him and wondered if he still loved her. He definitely loved her this time last year. They had met at the very first Christian Union meeting and he had asked her out shortly after that, and were proper boyfriend and girlfriend after two dates. A fortnight later they had kissed with closed lips for thirty seconds, and a week after that he had lost his faith. Since then, he had not informed her of his new belief status. Neither had they progressed past kissing with closed mouths.
He had thought recently that he might actually hate Ed, but had decided he didn’t. Although her attitude to physical relations was conservative even by the standards of the Christian Union, informed as it was by imported leaflets from the Bible Belt that had made their way to the foyer of her home church, there were many things he still liked about her. She was very nearly pretty, and her obvious goodness made up for any flaws in her acne-marked skin, the manageable cyst in the centre of her forehead, or the distinct chubbiness under her chin. She was genuinely happy a lot of the time, and it was sometimes contagious. A wholesome filter allowed her to take pleasure in the most basic things, such as throwing a frisbee, or looking at penguins in a zoo. He wished he could be as easily satisfied.
Ed finished talking and he realised he had an erection.
‘Ah, Daniel. Thank god you’re here. I had to hide under the seat to avoid Spencer Macleavy. Now you can talk to him on my behalf if need be. Oh, I see that you have an erection.’
Athelstan sprawled across a bench seat in the Union bar, crocodile boots sticking out from baggy tracksuit bottoms. Two empty glasses on the table, a third halfway down.
Daniel sighed. ‘Only you would notice.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that’s true. It is positively tumescent. I daresay it can be seen from space, like the Great Wall of China, despite the otherwise average nature of your penis. I’m guessing you’ve just come from seeing Ed.’
Daniel nodded. Athelstan tucked his legs together slightly, and patted the space next to him. Daniel sat down.
‘You need to be bold, Daniel. Stop pussyfooting round the issue. Just whack it out in front of her, and say, “Right, what you going to do about this bad boy?” It may take her a few seconds to get over the initial shock, but in no time at all she’ll be riding it like a pogo stick.’
‘That wouldn’t work, and I’m not sure I want to live in a world in which it would.’
‘Don’t be so defeatist. I mean, she’s going to be as pent up as you, you know. Her clitoris is going to be like blue touch paper. One spark from your knob, and “whoosh”
.’
‘Whoosh.’
‘Exactly. Whoosh. You see, the mistake you’re making is thinking that what she says and what she actually feels have anything to do with each other. She’s going to be as horny as you, when you think about it. Bet you any money, as soon as you’re gone, she’s dildoing herself crazy with kitchen utensil handles.’
‘Can we change the subject?’
‘She’s probably lying on her bed now, legs raised, grinding on a pestle…’
‘I said—’
‘Yes, I heard you. You can’t handle the truth, and would rather live with lies. Fine. So, how was the lecture? What did I miss? Did Radders remember to do his flies up this week?’
‘I didn’t think to look, and what you missed was a very good seminar discussion on the social concept of the Rake or Libertine in the eighteenth century.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘There isn’t one. The two terms are interchangeable.’
‘Oh, I disagree.’
‘How? You weren’t even there. You don’t know anything about it.’
‘A libertine is interested in pursuing sensual pleasure regardless of disapproval. A rake is more… depraved. He will actively seek to debauch others.’
‘Any evidence to back this up?’
‘Have you no faith in the power of intuition?’
Daniel sighed and decided once again to indulge his housemate.
‘So, I guess by your distinction, while a libertine would have no interest in conventional morality, a rake would actively take pleasure in offending it. Hence, Lovelace’s rape of the chaste and morally good Clarissa.’
‘Is that what happens? I may read that book after all.’
‘It’s a million words long.’
‘I’ll just read the good bits.’
‘What, the bits with rape in them?’
‘What’s so bad about that? Why read parts of a book that don’t interest you?’
‘Because it’s an insult to the text, and if the only bits of a book that interest you are the ones with rape in them then you’ve got a serious problem.’
‘Admit it. You’d secretly love to be as frivolous a reader as I am and skim stuff, or God forbid, actually give up on a book you’re not en— Fuckus H. Christ, look at that.’
Daniel followed Athelstan’s gaze to the Union bar food serving hatch. A girl with pigtails, glasses and a carefree grin was doling out beans and chips to a group of Asian engineering students. Sweat glistened on the skin of her hefty arms. She was very overweight, a serving apron barely concealing what Daniel had to admit was a considerable cleavage.
‘I am absolutely, devastatingly, humiliatingly in love with that girl,’ said Athelstan. ‘I must dedicate my very being to penetrating her podgy orifices immediately.’
* * *
Daniel often wished he’d never replied to Athelstan that day, six weeks into the term. He hadn’t seen him at a single lecture before, and presumed he had transferred from another university or had been placed late through clearing. He would later find out that Athelstan had only turned up then as he had received a letter that morning instructing him to attend or be thrown off the course. Even so, and with Daniel’s prompting, his attendance had since only ever been patchy at best.
That first day, he remembered, Athelstan hadn’t yet quite achieved the style that he would make his own of part-Romantic poet, part-eighties jogger. Back then he was experimenting with a soon-discarded floppy sunhat, and a string vest, which he held on to, while his speech had yet to become as extravagantly mannered as it would eventually be. Yet the essence was there, in the upwards glance he gave when Daniel, on his way up the stairs to a free seat at the back of the lecture hall, had to step over his sprawled legs. Before Athelstan even spoke, Daniel had been seduced. He knew then in that moment he was making a dreadful mistake, but that there was no stopping, and there was no God really, while death was inevitable, and sex ruled over all.
He would continue to make dreadful mistakes that he could not quite explain to himself over the next year, spending many antagonistic hours with Athelstan which in retrospect didn’t even seem fun, to the slow near-exclusion of everyone in his fragile circle of friends, except Ed. The mistakes culminated in his agreeing to let Athelstan move into his shared house when a room became unexpectedly available. And then, when Athelstan moved in, the only other resident, a Korean post-graduate student, inevitably moved out, and no one had ever been keen to take his place. And so Daniel found himself living with Athelstan, along with his habits and appetites. Graduation and freedom seemed a distant dream he wasn’t entirely sure he believed would ever come.
‘Are there seats up there?’ the wicked face from under the floppy hat had said, back on that first day.
‘Yes,’ said Daniel.
‘Two together?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I may join you then, in a minute. I’m just down here because I can see up girls’ skirts when they step over me.’
Athelstan winked. Nearly all the girls were wearing jeans but it didn’t seem to matter.
* * *
‘So what’s so special about this one, then?’ said Daniel, standing in a rare clear space of the living room, drinking a glass of milk. Athelstan lay on the floor amongst discarded mugs and glasses, looking up at the ceiling. He had changed into running shorts, for some reason, with leg-warmers tucked into a pair of DMs.
‘Her appetite. She’s not fat because of low self-esteem, or control issues, or a dodgy thyroid, or any of the usual nonsense they use to explain the existence of fat birds these days. She is radiant. She is in control, in love with life. She is massively fat because she obviously just loves eating. When you were in the bogs, no doubt having a wank to relieve yourself of your throbbing stonker, I saw her literally pour a packet of crisps down her neck like it was a beverage. That, my friend, is fucking beautiful.’
‘You saw her for a few minutes, from a long way away. You have no idea what her relationship with food really is. It’s probably a lot more complicated than you think.’
‘A glutton recognises another glutton. We are the same.’
‘You are ridiculously thin and can go twenty-four hours on a slice of toast.’
‘Ah, but I must ejaculate several times a day, and into a different lady’s vagina at least once a week. I am a glutton, dear virginal milk-drinker Daniel, and proud of the fact.’
‘So what’s the plan, then? Just whop it out in front of her, and “whoosh”?’
‘Oh, no, no. Your inexperience shows you up badly. That technique is only appropriate for frustrated religious lunatics. No. First thing I must do is stalk her.’
‘Stalk her?’
‘Yes. Find out how she spends her day. Suss out all the important aspects of her life. Where does she live? What does she study? Does she have a boyfriend? Any rumours of intimate piercings? All of that.’
‘And if she does have a boyfriend?’
‘Oh, I’ll fuck her anyway. I just need to make sure he’s not hiding in the cupboard with a carving knife while I do it.’
‘And once you’ve stalked her?’
‘Then I use that information for the ultimate seduction. By the time I’m through, she will be begging to be impaled on my mighty broadsword in all possible ways, and several impossible ones as well.’
Daniel attempted to make a space for himself on the sofa amongst Athelstan’s newspapers, but soon decided it impossible.
‘This will take you how long?’ he asked.
‘Who knows? A week? A month? If I have to wait forever, I will.’
‘You can’t wait for anything.’
‘Really? Maybe I am taking a leaf out of your book, and am planning to enjoy some delayed gratification. Indeed, if even if it takes a hundred years, I vow to stay away from the front bottoms of all other lady-friends, and save myself for my true beloved.’
‘That’s so noble.’
‘Yes it is. I will, of course,
be raising the amount I self-pleasure by a third to deal with the excess fluid and raised stress levels. My belly will become a pond of semen, in which my little spermatozoa can swim about in and slowly die.’
‘You really don’t need to give me that level of detail.’
‘At least I’m not smearing the communal toilet in it, like you.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You do, Daniel. You do. I know a toilet ejaculator when I see one, and you fit the profile to a tee. I don’t mind, I really don’t, but I rather you didn’t lie about it.’
‘I don’t.’
* * *
Daniel came into the toilet bowl, for the second time that day, trying not to think of girls on his course and to visualise Ed. He wasn’t sure which one was more an act of violation on his behalf. He had heard that feeling guilty immediately after was normal. He wondered if it was as commonplace to feel so beforehand.
‘Daniel!’ cried Athelstan from downstairs, at the precise moment of ejaculation. ‘We’re going down the Union!’
Daniel sighed and mopped up. Athelstan was waiting outside when he opened the door.
‘I do have some visual aids for that sort of thing. You’re quite welcome to borrow them.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘The lies hurt, Daniel. The lies hurt. Anyway, get your finest smart-casual trousers on. We are going out to get magnificently pissed.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? What do you mean, “why”? There is no “why”. There is just alcohol. It is a liquid. It can be drunk. We have the appropriate biological equipment to drink it. Therefore, we must, as nature dictates. Besides, I have heard on good authority that the gluttonous serving wench who has stolen my heart will be working a shift behind the bar tonight.’
‘I need to start working on my essay. And so do you.’
‘Did you not hear what I just said? She is going to be there.’
‘Yeah, I heard. But I still need to work.’
Athelstan grabbed him by the shoulders.
‘You don’t need to work. No one needs to work. The only things anyone needs to do is eat, drink, shit and screw. I’m happy to do two of those things on my own, but I need you along for one of them. And no, I’m not offering to take your anal virginity.’
Erotic Nightmares Page 7