by Swan, Tarn
Sunday's drama was of an altogether different nature. The day began pleasantly. We made love. Mostly we just have plain old sex on Sunday mornings unless he's had a particularly heavy Saturday night at the PP, or he's in a huff with me over something and as a result cruelly withholds his physical affections. I then try to charm him into having plain old sex and if charm fails I unashamedly resort to whining. It doesn't get me anywhere. He simply reminds me that God has given me a perfectly good right hand and an Internet full of readily available porn. It’s like a supermarket for the sexually frustrated. You can shop 'til you drop - your load that is. He then pulls his satin eye mask down and settles back to sleep. He can be heartless at times that man of mine. As a final last-ditch pathetic attempt to make him succumb, I remind him that I'm his Top and it's his duty to fulfil my every desire. He usually makes a rude remark along the lines of 'top-off' at which point I gracefully accept that shaking hands with myself is the best I can hope for.
Anyway, as I said, on that Sunday morning we made love. It began with me waking up to find his beautiful brown eyes fixed intently on my face. I smiled. He smiled back and said, “I love you.” I murmured a response in kind and reached for him. We kissed, stroked and caressed each other, while softly whispering fantasies to enhance arousal and then finally we shared orgasm in the intimate missionary position, face to face.
I kissed him and moving away from his body lay on my back with one arm resting above my head. He turned on his side and draped an arm and leg over me. Suddenly he stiffened and I don't mean in preparation for a second innings. Next thing I know he's astride my midriff and the arm above my head is pinned to the mattress so I couldn't move it.
Twinks isn't the naturally dominant type and while he often initiates sex and takes an active role, he prefers to be on the receiving end of any forceful stuff. I'm usually the knot tier and cuff locker in our house, so I was a bit taken aback by his action. When he all but stuck his nose into my armpit I felt obliged to ask what the heck he was doing, fearing I'd developed a form of body odour that had awoken hitherto latent domination desires in him, or worse, latex domination desires.
I hadn't developed body odour, but what I had developed was a dark brown mole under my arm. He said it hadn't been there before and it didn't look healthy. Lifting him off me I quickly got out of bed and went to inspect my armpit in the wardrobe mirror. He was right. My stomach lurched. There was a large oval mole and it had an ominously knobbly look. Feeling a need to make contact with the alien intruder I reached out a tentative finger. For a moment time stood still, then I turned to glare at Twinks holding out my finger and accusing him of slyly munching chocolate in bed again.
Delicately sucking my finger he identified the 'mole' as a particle from a Willy Wonka Nutty Crunch Surprise bar. Bent Barry has been selling six big bars for a pound on his stall and it would take a better man than him to resist such a bargain. I gave him a playful smack on the backside. He started laughing, we both did, greatly relieved that the suspicious mole was a blob of harmless chocolate. Then to my utter shock his laughter turned to anger in a split second. Denouncing me as a bastard he attacked me, slapping me powerfully across the jaw. I tasted blood as my lower lip skimmed the edge of my teeth, puncturing the skin. I recovered quickly and intercepted his hands as they attempted to grab my hair. Twisting his arms behind his back I propelled him towards the bed and pinned him front down on the mattress. I was furious, as well as confused, and my base inclination was to blister his bare arse first and ask questions later.
I managed to turn hot anger into something chillier, demanding an explanation for his behaviour. Turning his head away from me he remained silent. Leaving him lying on the bed I went to the bathroom to inspect my lip. It was beginning to swell, but was essentially superficial. The main injury to my person was not the wound, but rather the nature of its unexpected and undeserved delivery.
I began to tremble as the adrenaline raised by the incident began to recede. Leaning my hands on the sink and my forehead against the cool glass of the mirror above it, I closed my eyes. Suddenly I regretted pushing open the door of that small jewellers shop and setting eyes on the good looking young man with the devastating smile, who against all reason stole my heart. I wished I was still footloose and fancy free with an uncomplicated life comprised of work, friends and occasional sex partners, who I could kiss goodbye in the morning before returning to a house devoid of feminine influences and histrionic outbursts.
Opening my eyes I ran a careful tongue over my sore lip and pondered how and why the morning had dissolved into something so unpleasant. There had been a look akin to hatred in his eyes when he hit me.
The sound of the front door opening and closing sent another shock wave through me. Bounding into the bedroom I wrenched open the blinds to see him walking briskly down the path. I rapped furiously on the glass and bellowed his name, but he didn't look up or back and by the time I'd dragged on some clothes and got outside there was no sign of him. He'd left his phone on the bedside cabinet so there was no way I could contact him. I didn’t think he’d stay out for long. He's not one of life's natural hikers and ramblers and besides he'd gone out clad only in jeans, a t-shirt and deck shoes. It was damp and chilly.
By lunchtime anxiety had taken precedence over annoyance. I began making phone calls in an effort to track him down. Mum wanted to know what we’d rowed about. I said we hadn't rowed, not exactly. She said it had to be either about sex or money. Marital rows were nearly always about sex or money, not enough of one or the other, or both. I said we hadn't rowed about sex or money. In fact we hadn't rowed about anything. Twinks was just having one of his episodes of abstract hysteria. Lulu was fishing with his father at Kielder Dam. Karen and Paul were away visiting Paul's family so he couldn't have gone there. No one else had seen him.
I made lunch, while worrying about where he was and what he was doing, especially about what he was doing. If I got a call from the police saying he'd been arrested for harassing his ghastly family again I would kill him. They already had an injunction against him. I set the table in the dining room with the good china and served lunch, as if it were a magic talisman that would bring him home sooner. A half hour later I put his lunch in the oven and mine in the bin. Taking a glass of red wine upstairs I settled on the bed and watched the rain streak the windowpanes, as I speculated about what had caused him to lash out at me.
I recalled the look in his eyes when I woke up to find him studying my face. It was like he was trying to memorise it. I do it with him sometimes when I wake up before he does. Then there was the blind terror when he thought I'd developed another cancerous mole. The moment of humorous relief probably turned sour because he was angry that the threat existed at all. I could easily imagine him seeing it as being an act of badness on my part. I was a bastard for carrying such horrible potential around in the genes of my body. The look of hate I had glimpsed was probably not hate at all, but rather fear, fear of loss.
Still. I gently probed my sore lip, understanding what lay behind the impulsive action did not excuse it. When he got back I fully intended to give him a pep talk about self-control.
One of those cruel, spiteful little thoughts that loiter around waiting for an opportune moment to torment someone, suddenly popped into my mind. What if he never came home? What if something awful happened to him?
Picking up the framed photo from the bedside cabinet, of us on our wedding day, I recanted all my shock-induced thoughts of the morning. My life would be dull and empty without him. There would be no pink feather boa hanging over the banister in the hall. I'd never find false eyelashes in the butter again, or false boobs cooling in the fridge in the summer. The walls and floorboards would no longer reverberate with the sound of him practising some song or dance or rowing with Lulu over some trifle. A day off from time to time was all well and good and desirable for sanity, but a life permanently devoid of his presence and his glorious smile was inconceivable.
Pulling
on my trainers and an unfashionable but efficient raincoat I did a round of the district, but to no avail. I returned home.
He finally landed back at around seven that evening. The sound of the door opening made my heart leap with relief. I catapulted out into the hall. He was a sorry sight, soaked to the skin and shivering. I wanted to grab and hug and fuss him into a hot shower and a warm bed, but his body language warned me he was feeling angrily defensive and a hug was likely to be rejected.
Folding my arms I demanded to know where he’d been all day. He also attempted to fold his arms, but the action unbalanced him. He abandoned it in favour of leaning a hand against the wall. I was informed in slurred tones that he had been ‘out.’ I asked if he was drunk. Tilting his chin aggressively he said yes and did I want to make something of it? Unfolding my arms so violently I almost dislocated my elbows I said yes I bloody did want to make something of it. I wanted to make a great deal of it.
Roughly taking hold of him I bent him over, tucked him under my left arm and began laying into his backside with the palm of my right hand. By the time I stopped smacking him, the seat of his jeans were all but dry and he was considerably more sober. He was also in full possession of certain facts regarding my lack of appreciation at being rudely slapped around the chops by someone I'd just made love with before being abandoned without courtesy of explanation.
Locking his arms around my neck he sobbed apologies. Wrapping my arms around his waist I lifted him, hugging him hard against me for a few moments. I was almost as damp as him when I set him down again. He asked if we were done or was he yet to get a paddling? I shook my head, saying the slate was clear, though I still wanted an explanation. I also warned that we were going to go over a few ground rules regarding impulse control and self-restraint. I then took us both off for a hot shower.
His explanation was much as I’d guessed, and more. He'd woken up feeling anxious from a dream he couldn’t quite recall. It triggered thoughts about all the people no longer with us. First his dad, then Steven, my nana and my friend Paul and of course Emily. It made him think about how fleeting life was and how you couldn't escape death. It took your friends, your family and your lovers. It also got you sooner or later.
He missed Emily. She used to drive Lulu mad with her fussing, but he had enjoyed it. He said it felt strange going to Lu’s parents' home and not finding her there. In turn it made him think about losing me and what it would feel like to come home and find only a resonating silence where once a warm presence had been.
Then the stupid mole thing happened. He'd been terrified when he saw it. He felt sick with guilt because he's let his vigilance relax lately and hasn't checked me over as thoroughly. When we were laughing he suddenly had a shattering moment of clarity. He realised the risk was always going to be there and that next time it might not be something as silly as a blob of melted chocolate, and that's when his emotions got the better of him.
He'd lashed out because he wanted to punish me for giving him cause for fear. He was so mortified by what he'd done, as well as embarrassed and ashamed that he couldn't face me straightaway and on impulse left the house. He said the look of shock and hurt on my face had haunted him all day. He'd ended up at the pictures watching Pirates of the Caribbean.
I had to smile when I asked if he'd enjoyed it and he glumly said no I'd ruined it for him by managing to insert myself into almost every scene. He gave up halfway through and sojourned to the cinema bar. From there he'd called in at the cemetery and had a few words with his dad who told him to stop being an arse and go home. Actually, it might have been the sexton or warden, he wasn't quite sure. He was too drunk and it was raining too heavily for him to clearly make out where the comment came from.
We had a serious talk and then we had a cuddle and all seemed back on course for what passes as normality in our house, but Monday morning dawned wet and miserable and the postman delivered something that caused me to be vexed with him all over again.
However I've written enough for now. He's reminding me our taxi is due soon. The PP is having one of its Roaring Twenties events tonight. He's been practising the Charleston all week. There’s going to be a competition. He and Lulu are hopeful that their dance duet will clinch first prize. I have to say he makes a very fetching Flapper girl and of course attaining the flat chest so beloved of that period has been no hardship, requiring him simply to leave off his boobs.
22nd August 2006: Last Night of the Proms
“It's freezing in here! Why is it so cold? It’s August for frigs sake! It’s supposed to be summer! The bloody forecasters said it was going to be hotter than July and all it's done is piss down for days on end. The lying buggers should be rounded up and shot!”
Such were the honeyed words that tripped from the delicate tongue of my beloved as he grouched into the kitchen last Saturday morning with his favourite feather trimmed robe wound tight about his uptight little person. Breaking wind before flopping onto a chair he made a statement. “I'm not going, Tarn.”
I declined to respond. I poured him a cup of tea and returned to the newspaper I was reading.
The tea wasn't hot enough. It was stewed. Why did I always let the bloody tea stew, what was wrong with me? I should know by now that he hated stewed tea. He demanded fresh tea. I told him I wasn't his houseboy. He knew where the kettle lived and if he wanted fresh tea he could make it himself. Treating me to a dirty look, he asked why I was in such a pig of a mood.
Er, hello! I wasn't the one buzzing like a manic wasp ranting about shooting weather forecasters and complaining about stewed tea. He tutted and got up to put the kettle on.
Freshly tea'd he flopped back down at the table. There was a blissful few seconds of peace while he took a few sips and then he announced. “We were robbed. Lu and I were robbed last night.”
I ignored him and kept on reading the paper. We'd had that conversation the night before. I wasn't having it again. It was a closed subject. Sensing his lips going into lemon mode I braced myself in preparation for what acid they would spit out.
“I'm not going, Tarn. I'm not wasting a day of hard earned holiday sitting in a muddy field in the pissing rain listening to boring music. You go if you want, but I'm staying at home and so is Lu, so you'll have two spare seats in the car. You can offer them to that traitor Teddy and his minging mincing cohort, seeing as you seem to have a sudden penchant for them.”
Seeing as traitor Teddy and his minging mincing cohort already had seats booked in our purpose hired people carrier I took the remark for the piece of frustration-induced provocation that it was, and again ignored it. He was looking for a fight. I didn't want to fight with him.
He angrily declared a childish but sincere desire to bite me. This I didn't ignore. I told him he was welcome to try. If he succeeded not only would I bite him back I would paddle his bottom red raw.
Snatching up the butter knife he held it to his wrist and dramatically announced he was going to end it all. I wasn't overly concerned, the knife blade was blunt enough for him to ride bare arsed to China on without suffering any harm. Removing it from his hand I crisply told him to go back to bed until he'd calmed down and gotten a grip on himself.
Outside the rain suddenly got even heavier, drumming ominously against the windows. In an act of perfect synchronisation he clenched his fists, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and screamed at full pitch while drumming his feet hard against the floor.
On the tantrum Richter scale it measured fairly high, though in all honesty I have experienced worse. Surely adults don't have tantrums? Don't be silly of course they do, even self-proclaimed paragons of fully realised maturity have tantrums of one form or another. Not all tantrums are composed of sound and movement. Some tantrum throwers might go sanctimoniously silent on their partner or spouse, some go off for a long, self-righteous walk, some pick up a book or magazine and read with an attitude of long suffering and some, like Twinks, just scream it out. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t desirable or commendable
, but it has a kind of raw honesty about it.
He was thoroughly frustrated and pissed off with life. He had to get it off his chest. In a way it’s far healthier for him to let rip than bottle it up and have it find other means of expression. Aside from the threat to bite me there was no real harm in it. He wasn't kicking, throwing or breaking anything.
Folding the newspaper I set it on the table and waited for him to shriek himself out, which he duly did. I asked if he felt better for his little outburst.
Clutching his temper flushed neck he said no because now he had a sore throat! I said it served him right and yanking him off his chair and onto my lap removed his fluffy mules telling him they were confiscated, as I was bloody sick of him using them to dent the flooring with his spoilt brat flamenco dancing. He said he didn't care. They were going bald and mangy anyway. Flinging his arms around my neck he burst into a grand finale of tears.
I murmured stern words in a soothing tone and cuddled him until the torrent passed.
What exactly was ailing Jonathan Swan, nee Lane, come Stardust Twinkles transvestite of this parish in the year of our Lord 2006? I'll tell you. He and Lulu were pipped at the post by one point to come second to Teddy and Maurice in the PP Charleston contest. Oh calamity! Resisting an urge to slip out by the back door and assume a false identity so he could never track me down I had inwardly battened down the hatches and girded my loins as the results were announced.
He was absolutely fizzing with rage and disappointment. For a moment I thought he was going to strangle both Teddy and Maurice with their ropes of faux pearls. So did they because they both hurriedly removed them and shoved them into their handbags. I felt for Twinks, of course I did. He and Lulu had worked hard and danced beautifully and on the looks front they were definitely winners. Teddy is a touch on the plump side and he looked a bit like a fringed butter barrel in his beige flapper frock, but he can dance and so can Maurice and they did an excellent routine.