Wake up

Today one awoke to find an email from the second step mother that another ex had died. Not on his beloved tropical island, but in a nursing home. Hobbit would have hated going out that way. It was not how he planned it at all. In his vision he was surrounded by nubile virgins...

That was probably the problem right there...

Finding a bunch of nubile virgins of legal age.

You got a friend

There is a big hullabaloo going on over at Fet at the moment. Isn't there always you may be thinking? Well this one is interesting. The cause of all the stink is an alleged catfish (a person who fabricates an online persona to dupe people into relationships) who became ill. The in hospital fighting a life threatening illness isn't the cause of the stink... well it is to some degree. No what is really causing the stink is that a friend did the decent thing and raised funds for this person, who may or may not exist.

Now ethical issues aside one of the big things to come from all of this ongoing shemozzle is don't give money to strangers on the net, however well you may think you know them or for how long. The general feeling is that online it is too easy to fake this shit.

And confirm people are who they say they are...

The list goes on and all one can think is yeah this shit is not that simple...

Many years ago when one was a mad young thing living in Sydney, one ended up working for a husband and wife combo who were running a restaurant.  The whole team got along famously, in fact one ended up living with a couple of them for some time. They arranged one's wedding to the girlfriend of the time, in fact the husband gave one away... but one does digress and that is a tale for another time.

During this period the husband came out as gay and gay politics being what they are, we got him in their eventual divorce. It was a mad drug and alcohol fuelled time where we all partied like crazy, hell one was nineteen/ twenty and living far, far away from family... as far as one could get in fact. While one was off out on the town for a few days the husband moved into one's room and very neatly got one out of the flat. His excuse was that it was all a misunderstanding and that he assumed as one had married the girlfriend that one was moving out. Of course the reality was that one had no intention of living with the wife all the time.

Hello party girl, why would one want to move into the National Park where she lived, miles from lights? But again, a story for another time...

At the time one thought nothing of it, well a mild sense of annoyance and one drifted away from that group. Life in Sydney being what it was everyone moved in circles, sometime they overlapped often time they didn't. Eventually one left the country for some time, before moving back to live in Brisbane. The world is a small place though and out one night with the partner of the time one ran into the husband at a party. It was all very surreal and gay... lots of kissing and pretending that nothing had happened as we caught up.

It was late in the evening when he mentioned, almost casually, that he was dying of aids.

To this day one can still see those brown eyes radiating truth and honesty and complete sincerity, as he shared that profoundly intimate detail of his life.

The night wore on and there were the usual promises to stay in touch, which of course one didn't do. If one was good at that sort of shit then one would be a different person and frankly, fuck with one once is all the chance you are going to get.

Anyway six months or so down the track one ran into a mutual acquaintance of both oneself and the husband. What a merry tale they turned out to have...

Apparently he took people for a lot of money, support, free rent, gifts and whatnot. It seems that he was faking the whole dying thing... and the aids and probably a lot more besides. There was a part of one that wasn't the least bit surprised. After that whole flat misunderstanding thing one was more than a little cynical about the man.

But the moral of this story is don't be thinking that meeting people in real time is going to save you, neither is camming, nor skyping, nor any other form of confirmation. Cons will always find a way. They are highly specialised group of predators and they are good at what they do... well the successful ones are at any rate.

If you want to give money to people do so, but don't do it thinking that they owe you anything, be it friendship, loyalty, honesty or truth in return. That thinking will lead to a great deal of disappointment.

Revisiting childhood

You know one said, grabbing another brown bag, going to wholefood stores is like taking a step back in time. Brown paper bags...

Something one always associates with childhood

He raised an eyebrow

Well when one was a child everything came in brown paper bags. Even rubbish was put out in the street in large ones. Except that they were collected by off season rugby players. They ran down the street, picked them up and hoyed them into the trucks manually.

Women all along the street used to look forward to rubbish day one suspects...

What was not to like? Men in their prime wearing shorts and singlets running after a truck...

Ahhh... the good old days... J

Dear Enid Blyton

As a child the adults in one's life had a firm non-censorship of reading material policy. That is to say if one was curled up with a book they never thought to ask what it was one was actually reading. And it was probably just as well 'cos most of it was not age appropriate. Let's be honest where is the fun in that?

Now most books came to one in round about ways. Mother always had books; well she was a school teacher, so the house was always full of them. Auntie always provided comics... with cash liberally inserted so one could afford to eat... meals were often in rather short supply with mother. Grandma would just buy books that one fancied (again regardless of intended age) and everyone had massive book cases jammed full of more... inappropriate reading material. 

That was how one ended up reading the Marquis De Sade at about 10 and living on a steady diet of Denis Wheatly and Mills and Boon (courtesy of auntie). Uncle's book taste ran to massive gardening tombs and historically inaccurate adventure... yes let's call them that... stories. Collectively their reading tastes were often sexual and somewhat lurid thinking about it. But that is not what this is about...

This is about a book that grandma bought one when we were out and about somewhere. It was age appropriate and sat on one's book shelf quietly forgotten about for quite some time before one got around to actually reading it.  It was the first of the Famous Five books and frankly one was most enamoured with them. Oddly enough one wasn't quite so enamoured with most of the characters.

In fact one thought Julian was an insufferable know-it-all, Dick was largely forgettable, poor long suffering, submissive Anne... well let's just say she was a contributing reason to why one never wanted to be a mother. Well her and the other rather dodgy role models one had. Honestly one used to read about her rather disturbing need to wash dishes and tidy up after everyone and feel an overwhelming urge to push her face in a cream bun.

George on the other hand was a character one could relate to. She was unrepentantly boyish, free and smart enough to not want to do housework voluntarily. Now she was worthy role model. More importantly she was one who wore the same rather boyish taste in clothes. Well dresses were never any use when climbing trees and eeling in the local creek or cycling or horse riding...

In fact George gave one hope that ending up like sweetly submissive Anne wasn't inevitable...

And you know thinking about it...

Much of the trouble that one small slave finds herself in can be attributed to that hope...

So really much of this is Enid Blyton's fault...

Sighs yeah thanks for that...

Incoming

We get a lot of mail in the inbox. Some of it one could cheerfully do without... those often end up featured on this blog. And then there are some that are just... well words one never, ever thought to see again.

One such email arrived today proclaiming the bold words...

The perfect poncho

Yeah have to say that one small slave had one of those. It was in the 70's and one used to run around with it pulled up over the head pretending that it was long hair. The irony was of course that one actually did have long hair...

Obviously it wasn't long enough

And oddly enough that strange little memory is not enough to make one want to wiz out and buy one again... ever! 

In the beginning...

How we met

The strange thing about beginnings is that they rarely are a simple point in time. They are a bunch of random happenstances that converge on a single point. In some ways we were like that.

At the time of our meeting one was living in a long term lesbian relationship. We were the golden couple, the ones that had it all. The house, the mortgage, the fur kids, her kids... in some strange way one had ended up with everything one never wanted... one just didn't know it yet.

He came into our lives via one of her kids and at the time of our meeting one looked at him and thought what on earth is she doing with him. It wasn't the usual feeling of he isn't good enough... it was more of a flick of recognition... one deviant to another if you will. It's like when gaydar goes off... you can always spot your own kind.

Now as it turned out he wasn't with her exactly... he was with the online persona she had generated based on one's characteristics as she perceived them. Needless to say that relationship didn't last very long... great little actress though she was, she wasn't that good. They broke up and we kept him... much to her chagrin.

And we were very good friends, a merry little threesome who hung out and had a good time.

Meanwhile a cat that one was very much attached to died and it became something of a catalyst in one's life. Actually it triggered a terrible bout of reactive depression. One would wake up in the morning almost OK and by mid afternoon one would be so blue that life was almost pointless. It was a very bad time that made one re-evaluate everything... particularly the life one had acquired.

By this stage the soon to be ex and oneself had reached an impasse. We had problems... communication issues ironically. They had always been there, but until the degree, with its heavy emphasis on counselling communication, one had never really noticed before. We were always too busy doing the lesbian party lifestyle.

After the cat though...

We did try to fix them, but it is very hard when one partner doesn't have the skills or the desire to change and ultimately chooses not to, opting instead to make promises and not act upon them. We couldn't negotiate a compromise and we spiralled further and further apart. Living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed, not having sex with each other, it was such a fucking cliché in some ways.

Meanwhile he was on about his third attempt at a relationship and we were good friends who flirted outrageously with each other, but we spoke the same language having been to the same university and loved the same sorts of movies and books and... and... and...

We flirted and went out to movies...

There was an unwholesome attraction under all of this. We just didn't do anything about it... too damned complicated and add to that he was a man cub of about 26. Way too young to be taken seriously...

Until that damn movie that changed everything. The one that lost a girl her lesbian card

So that gentle readers is how we met. It doesn't present the full facts nor does it give both sides of the story, but it is the bare bones. Otherwise this would end up the size of a Tolstoy novel. Consider this the first instalment... of a serialised version of our past... actually "Anna Karenina" was published in a serialised form originally... let that be a warning to you J

Here endeth the first part. Stay tuned for how we ended up in this type of relationship and he became He...

Memories

It is raining here which is code for flooding in low lying areas. Mostly it creates nothing but transportation hassles. Mind you if they opened the dam before it started to flood... statistically the weather forecasters have to be right once in a while surely... it might have saved them from having to run it off during the onslaught and flood one of the only two access roads to work. A decision which resulted in a pleasant two hour bus trip to work this morning and an hour and a half home L

There is a small upside to all this rain. On the way to the bus stop one has to pass a place where the home owners thoughtlessly planted some of the smaller members of the Cypress family. Thoughtlessly because although not a native to this climate, if they survive, they will happily expand outwards at an impressive rate... right over the foot path in this case. The only reason one hasn't mentioned them to the council is that when it rains the air is redolent with the smell of Cypress and that smell takes one back to childhood.

In that brief moment of inhalation the present recedes and one is a child again. As a child growing up in a cooler climate they were common place. The property one grew up on was bordered with a member of the Cypress family... enormous Macrocarpas that were close on to 60 feet tall. Every time there was a storm pass through you would find auntie peering at them anxiously. She always expected them to come down in the next big storm. But then auntie had a flair for the dramatic and the histrionic.

The first time one ever brought home tadpoles resulted in her standing on a chair shrieking. And frankly her explanation, that her mother had been scared by a frog while carrying her, did little to dispel one's belief that she was utterly illogical. It did however, give a small child the ultimate weapon... and a frog was quietly produced from a pocket on more than one occasion. In one's defence what child isn't going to try and replicate sending an adult up on a chair shrieking?

This does however digress from the trees...

It was in some of those trees that uncle started to build one a most fabulous tree house... he was very handy... and it was always something of a disappointment that it was never completed. It wasn't until a visit home a few years later that one realised why. The bloody tree house was close on to 20 feet in the air, with a downward slope on one side of it. Auntie had most probably come out to the orchid to see what uncle was up to and had a fit.

While she might have been prone to illogical flights of fancy, she was logical enough to work out that the tree house was a serious injury waiting to happen J

See all of these silly memories evoked by a simple smell and the only price is having to walk on the grass for a minute. Besides Cypress don't like being hard pruned that much. They are just as likely to die back in retaliation and then one of the last tenuous threads to childhood will be severed. Far better to keep quiet and inhale...

Zipping along

An unmodified, electric blue Stingray has just sped past and looking down from the bus one noticed that the driver was old enough to know better. It made one smile because all one could hear was Hobbit (who is alive and well, and living on his tropical island at 93) saying when you get older you need better bait. Which when thinking about it wasn't necessarily true, as he could be charming enough to get past any woman when he had a mind to. Thinking about all the people one has known who had sports cars one thinks it would be fairer to say that the cars were reflections of their personalities.

Hobbit was famous for his Bentley, it was called the Bumble Bee due to its colour scheme, and it was a stand up joke on radio that all you could see were his knuckles clutching the steering wheel. He wasn't a tall man. And given his propensity to drive like Mr. Magoo it was also an unfortunate image. Fortunately by the time we got together he had switched cars.

He had a golden Mercedes 350SL which one learnt to drive in. An experience he always swore made him grey. It was like driving a tank with power steering, but boy could that baby float on the road and hug a curve. Unfortunately it also used to float past police cars... which might have contributed to the grey.

There was Sue with her powder blue Stag. The one that's roof would never open when it rained and its tendency to break down on bridges. Not to mention the door that would just stick. Actually that damn car was as temperamental and as difficult as its owner... but a lot of fun nevertheless.

Then there was the lovely Lynnie (a story for another time) with her bright yellow Triumph. It was the love of her life and like most of them did not reciprocate her feelings... that car hated her. Every morning she would go skittering out the door, she could do the white rabbit like no other, in ridiculously high heels, dripping nails and 12 inch hair. And every morning the car would not start. We would lie in bed and wait for her to come back in wailing about how she was late and Hobbit would have to go down and start the car... first time, every time.

Last but not least was the ex and her beloved MG... black with gold pinstripes... all flash and quirks. Electrics that stopped at a whim and a mysterious leak that meant when we went out in the rain one's feet ended up in a puddle. She bought it after our divorce... in both our names of course 'cos nothing about our separation was normal. Eventually as her back got worse she had to sell it and buy something modern with suspension... it broke her heart having to give it up.

To all of these people their cars represented status, an achievement if you will, but in every case they represented freedom from others. The ability to just drive off with the roof down, the wind in their hair and the sun on their face. The cars might have been creatures of capricious tendencies, but so were the owners and they roar across ones memories forever on the move.

An ex to remember

People often ask; what's the difference between a BDSM and an abusive relationship? Firstly anyone who asks that has probably never been in an abusive relationship... that or their BDSM one is really shit. Secondly, on the face of it there are similarities in that the tools used, and even the intent, looks rather alike. So what sets them apart you may be wondering... well that is what one would like to explore here.

After running coquettishly straight at someone inappropriate one decided to set the aim a little higher... someone grossly inappropriate... with a motorbike. He... let's call him Dick shall we... was perfect; surly, moody, emotionally immature... the stuff of parental nightmares. Auntie and uncle hated him, but were smart enough to not push the issue. And they knew one was set to go back to mother's to start at some girls' school she had picked out in prep for uni. They probably figured she would sort him out... she wasn't nicknamed the dragon lady for nothing.

Of course that plan misfired spectacularly after one left home on Christmas day... a funny story for another time... and moved in with Dick. At the time he was living in an enormous boarding house... flatting was virtually unheard of in NZ in the early 80's... and it was a lot of fun. There were always people around, an enormous communal kitchen where one learnt to make Oka courtesy of one of the Samoan's living there... it was pretty sweet. Dick hated it.

They were all trying to get into one's pants and they were not to be trusted, especially as he had to go to work. It caused a lot of heated arguments and one spent a lot of quality time shut in the room. Of course one thought his beliefs were just daft, rather than an inkling of what a warning sign all that possessiveness was. Well at 16 you don't do you? And all that grabbing while he lectured and ranted wasn't a clue either...

We found a place of our own and moved out... and in doing so lost all contact with anyone... we couldn't afford a phone. So there one was... isolated with a possessive Dick. Auntie and uncle were waiting for one to weaken and come back home suitably contrite... oh boy did they underestimate how completely and utterly resistant one was to move back to the country, and the death without lights that represented. Besides what 16 year old is ever going to admit that big a mistake... especially to people who had adopted the attitude of get back to us when you come to your senses.

The next move was to get a job as we needed the money for bills... and that was his reasoning for taking the money. He was the one paying them after all. So every pay day Dick would be there to meet one after work and pocket the envelope... In those days it used to come in a little yellow envelope... in cash... with the amount neatly written by hand. In this case though the amount wasn't quite accurate and one squirreled a meagre amount away in a bank account he didn't know about.

See the trouble with applying pressure to people like one's self is that we ooze out of the sides... in little ways. Some smart (staying on the pill even though Dick was very keen to have children), some stupid (you should be careful what you call people... they just might decide to own it even if it is detrimental), but we will always slither out from underneath. It is what keeps us alive ultimately, but one digresses from this grim little tale.

Meanwhile Dick's moodiness increased, as did the accusations of unfaithfulness, the name calling, the shaking, the cornering and the odd slap. Oh he was always sorry afterwards... aren't they all... and as he always earnestly explained he only got this way because one pushed him to it. Strange how they are all so good at deflecting the blame... it's a skill. All the while the cycle continued... escalation, eruption, placation, peace.

Except the times of peace grew shorter and the violence increased. You crept around, placating him and increasingly servile, nervous about triggering him. And there was no discernable pattern as to what set him off and you were never safe... while sleeping Dick tried smothering one with a pillow... it was years before one ever slept with one of those again. It was a wakeup call though... enough to realise that if one didn't leave one would probably not get off so lightly next time.

Providence offered a solution in the form of a white knight who whisked one away... but that too is a story for another time. Though one will say if you live with someone like this; leave. Do it the minute their back is turned. Take yourself and run. Don't be that stupid woman who tries to tell him like he is some rational person. Dick's next one did... and he hospitalised her repeatedly.

So what is the difference you may be wondering still? Owners may isolate you, tell you what you are, keep you financially dependent, limit contact with family and friends and physically coerce you. Well the difference is how it makes you feel. Yes it really is that subjective... no handy little checklist here... sorry. See if your relationship doesn't bring you joy, if your heart does not skip a beat when you see them, if you live in perpetual fear of setting them off... then the chances are it is not a good relationship... be it BDSM or otherwise.

A Scottish Flower

Many years ago a young lady was born to a very well to do family. She was bright, articulate and not very fond of doing the socially acceptable thing. Of course her version of events was slightly different, but there is always a disparity between the truth and everyone’s versions of it. One truth is that she was a very talented dress designer and for many years ran a very successful boutique that show cased some of her designs.

It is also the truth that her father had the sense to set her up in a block of flats and give her free reign. He was smart enough to know his daughter was never going to get married and make him respectable... her fondness for drink was probably a clue. Another was that she utilised both her contacts and keen business sense to turn the flats into a large rambling brothel. And this gentle reader is where we come in because this is when the story gets interesting.

Her tipple of choice was a mixture of whisky and milk. That vile sounding concoction fooled those who thought they were helping her win her battle with the booze... she used to sit there with them and pretend it was milk. Later in life as she became riddled with cancer it helped dull the pain. It also took her from pleasant to vicious over the course of the day. The secret was to chat to her in the early afternoon. It was a time that rendered both her and her cat, pleasantly gossipy company. And she was fascinating to talk to... not to mention the tales that she told.

She bridged the gap between a life past and a life so far on the edge that it was as alien as the one she grew up in. They were both lives of the privilege and comfort that only money could buy. The life was conducted against a backdrop of glittering parties, drunken debauchery and important figures skipping over the banisters when the place was raided. Often by the very people that had their Christmas parties in the same place. Life was a giddy, chaotic, noisy roundabout as a good time was had by all.

She ended up in court on a few occasions where she was judged, often by her clients one suspects, not guilty. One infamous time the jury was taken on a tour of her place where they found a shrine to a religious figure and a bible on each bed. The girls were merely disciples on the road to redemption... she did have a flair for the dramatic. Well more the sleight of hand really... because what the jury didn’t see was the truth.

The bedrooms with their themes and ornate furnishing were purely for show.  All the rooms had hidden rooms that were actually used for work... they were far more utilitarian with easy to strip sheets. The place was such a rabbit warren that unless you knew where to look, you would never have found them.

And then there is the charming tale of the raid that was thwarted by a customer. It seemed the gentleman needed to pee in a hurry and decided to take a quick leak over the balcony. Which was an unfortunate choice as it turned out... well for the policeman below. Apparently his shriek of outrage alerted everyone in the house and there was naked bodies flying everywhere. Well stumbling was probably more accurate if legend is to be believed.

In the end none of that money or frivolity protected her from the girls who stole and the men who took advantage. And it did not save her from the inevitable path of the cancer. The house was inherited by her booze supplier for services rendered... so the story goes. Though one does know for a fact she didn’t expect him to pull it down and build condos on the site.

Losing your lesbian card

Joking on the group about losing your lesbian card one made the comment that one couldn't get laid covered in shots with beer chasers. And the sad thing is in this town it is true... the sisterhood has a looong memory. It's the only way they can keep track of who they haven't slept with yet. And if you think that sounds catty, you haven't been in a room full of women who have slept with every other person at the party in the last 10-15 years.

When we separated she got all the friends in the divorce. Even the friends one had made at uni. Hell she even got the friends of more than 15 years, that dated back to one's murky past. Why? Well they were gay... some of them for the second time.

See when we separated it caused a lot of ripples. We were an active part of the gay community. Orphans day on Christmas, the annual pool party, fund raising type members. As one baby dyke said when she found out, this is like your parents getting divorced. See we had been together seven years (yeah such a cliché) which in lesbian years is like 15 in straight time.

Now the fact that the split was eventually amicable (Don't get one wrong... it was hard work in the beginning, but we had joint property and other ties so it was in our best interest to do so.) was irrelevant in the eyes of others. In one sexual act one has ceased to be a lesbian and the card was revoked. Access Denied.

The stupid thing is that in some ways one doesn't really identify as bisexual or straight and it left one in a sort of limbo. Historically though one slept with both genders, all the long term live in relationships were with women. Men are great for uncomplicated sex... they are just difficult to live with. Conversely women are better to live with, but hell in bed long term. You end up falling into the no sex syndrome, otherwise know as  lesbian bed death. 

Meh... who said sexual politics are simple?

Of course the silly thing was it brought us closer together as a couple. No distractions you see... no phone calls, no invites, no clubbing... nothing. Just silence. He was surprised and a little appalled at the response. Personally one was just pissed off. All those people one had supported, cared for, loved, dried tears for, counselled... gone. Fifteen years, in some cases, wiped out because one fell in love and had sex. With a man.

For 635

Mothers... where to begin because we all know where it ends. Probably the place to begin is the very beginning. This is where you duck out and get coffee because this is going to take a while.

As one has said before mother was a creative woman, who was ahead of her time in some ways. In a time before formal childcare and crèches she took the unique step of advertising one in the local newsagent’s window, rather like you would a puppy or kitten... Free to a good home... It was how one got auntie and uncle in the first place at about six weeks. Apparently father dropped one off... he must have had shore leave... and it was six weeks before she showed up to visit.

Post natal depression combined with rather unimaginable levels of naivety would be one’s pick judging from the stories. She got pregnant very unexpectedly; those high dose pills of the 60’s did fail, and she coped with it badly by all accounts. Rather than live on base, she elected to return to work and support herself. It was the beginning of her career as a teacher and our rather hostile relationship.

The earliest memory of her is at about two years old; one had pulled on an extra layer of those frilled bloomers that they dressed babies in during the 60’s. It was done because one was expecting her to come and hit one for something or other... she had an unpredictable temper and it seemed a wise precaution. Apparently most children placed in that sort of an environment go on to be people pleasers. Generally one did not go that route... at all.

In fact one took the sensible route of transferring all allegiance to auntie and uncle. This in hindsight probably did not improve hostilities at all. It must have been difficult to deal with a child who didn’t want to see you and resented being sent home. Frankly one begged not to be sent home, and feverently prayed that there had been some sort of mix-up and auntie and uncle were the real parents. It was about that time that one developed a rather uneasy relationship with God, despite auntie’s staunch C of E beliefs.

It must have been equally hard on auntie and uncle as well. They had no legal standing and any action on their part would have ended all contact. So they did what they could... dried the tears, fed one up when one arrived half starved, over compensated on the material front and sent one back when asked for. See no good deed goes unpunished... they should have taken the newsagents advice and not got involved.

By four one had learnt how to cook out of necessity... it was the only way to get breakfast. During the day if mother was at work, and for that matter is she wasn’t, one went to the beach, read, coloured in and waited for her to come home. Later, at about nine, one wandered the city or the museum as we had moved by then. Occasionally one took some money from her purse to fund these expeditions, and auntie always smuggled money in the "Beano" comics she sent, but mostly one relied on the kindness of strangers and they were often quite generous.   Fortunately the periods of reunion were mercifully brief. We were both happier apart one suspects... and more importantly one didn’t have to go to ballet J

This pattern of quiet hostility continued through childhood. It was the little things... games requiring four or more players for birthdays... still unsure if one was supposed to create some imaginary friends for that one. Jigsaw puzzles with nowhere to do them... you would have thought the fact that they remained in their cellophane was a cry for help, but no. Beautiful clothes designed and made by her... she did have talent... always in colours one hated. You are getting the idea...

The only thing we agreed on was books. It was how one read "Justine"... the adults bookshelves were always more interesting. Though the "Famous Five" were not to be sneezed at, and to this day one still loves a good detective story. Damn you Enid Blyton  for corrupting a small child’s mind with your tomboy images and dreams of escaping parental control.

By the end of the tweenage years one rarely went home. We would write stilted letters to each other...

Dear mother,

Thank you for your letter. Having a wonderful time.

Love B.

So it was something of a shock when at 16 she decided one was moving back home with her and attending a girls school in prep for uni. That lasted all of 24 hours before one left home on Christmas Day, to move in with the complete psychopath that was the boyfriend... a story for another time.

Our last, well second to last, conversation went like this...

Well I’ve contacted the authorities and I can’t make you come home. If ever you get involved with drugs or prostitution don’t call me.  

To this day one still can’t work out why she thought one would phone her for anything.

Our last conversation was all Hobbit’s fault. He insisted that blood was thicker than water. For the record never take family advice from someone who doesn’t have a family. After knocking on her door, one was invited in because the neighbour was coming down their driveway and she didn’t want to have to introduce us. It was like going for a job interview you know is not going your way. In the end we left together... she got in her Morris Minor and one got into the Mercedes... and we drove off in opposite directions. And may one just say... petty though it was... the car thing was very gratifying.

See the moral of this tale 635 is that it is quite easy to cut yourself off from family. All you have to do is decide whether or not their presence is outweighed by their unpleasantness. Personally one believes that cutting them out, like the cancer that they are, might be painful in the short term, but it pays dividends in the end. Besides Christmas becomes a whole lot cheaper next year J

Fallen comrades

As one has said before the trouble with getting older is that you forget things. Memories become kaleidoscopes of colour and impressions that fade a little more with each passing day. Personally one doesn’t have a problem with this on some levels... actually most levels to be honest. He thinks it is good to remember things... a bit like exercise for the memory in some ways.

Oh don’t get one wrong, one does realise that most people remember their past, particularly significant events... it seems horribly overrated in some ways. Those boxes are there for a reason and yes the base level of mild anger that one operates from probably is unresolved grief, but one is not convinced that talk therapy works either. The trouble is that although a good time was had by all, some didn’t make it. Sue was one of those.

She was with Hobbit from an early age, a glorious redhead with an engaging manner and an impish sense of humour. Although he adored her they parted. She wanted marriage, children, a home and a white picket fence while he did not. In the end they went their separate ways though like most of his exes they stayed in touch... It was a bit like being a clan member in some ways, all held together by the shared experience of him.

We hung out together, vetted his new girls, sunbathed together and went out. One night a gentleman came up to us and asked to speak to Mrs. Hobbit. There was a peal of laughter and a voice quipped- which one? There are about seven of us in this room tonight. He wanted the original one; an interesting tale in her own right for another time...

Unfortunately living with Hobbit had given Sue a taste for a lifestyle she couldn’t afford. She decided to make the most of her assets and went on the game. The idea was to make her money and run. Of course she spent it faster than even she could make it... furniture, furs and a powder blue sports car that had an automatic roof that would never work when it rained.

When one met her it was ten years on... a long time on the game. She was still glorious, but the alcoholism was taking its toll. Her life was complicated by the fact that her mother had died of  Huntingtons disease. As there was a sister she had a 50/50 chance of having it. Sue wouldn’t get tested... she always knew it was her that had it. She drank to forget; unfortunately combined with her fondness of diet pills it made her volatile... fine and giggly to homicidal in half a glass.

We were home one night when she rocked up sporting a bottle and a black eye. The first she had grabbed on the way. The latter was from her then boyfriend. It turned out she had gone for him with a carving knife and it was the only way he could stop her. That relationship ended with her tipping all his belongings off the balcony of the flat, and her molotoving the lot.

She drifted off into her own world, lost to all of us. We would get the odd message. Like the time a taxi driver turned up with her beautiful silver fox coat. Apparently she couldn’t pay the fare and had told him to take it to Hobbits. She was kicked out of her flat and lived here and there. The last Hobbit heard was from her father; he had her in and out of rehab and care places, but finally she checked herself out.

Sue died alone in a park of complications from Huntington’s disease and exposure. She was 38.

And for years one was so pissed at Hobbit for his hand in all of this and at all of us for not taking better care of her, but the young are judgmental and the old know you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

An oriental palace

He looked frail and harmless, but as you listened to him interrogate the stranger before him you realised that there was a mind like a razor behind the mild blue eyes. The questions seemed random and disconnected in amongst the chit chat about the weather, sport, politics and economics. Though the breadth of topics should have sounded every warning bell, his hapless victim chatted away not realising how much he was telling; everything that was needed to verify that he was who he had claimed to be. At the end of it the frail man granted him entry into a glittering paradise, where the girls were well educated, attractive, attentive and immaculately dressed.

Watching him work over drinks you realised why this man had never been brought up on charges although his place was the worst kept secret in the capital. Oh they had tried... just not succeeded. It was in part his natural cunning and in part that the accessing the place was like storming a fort. The house stood on three tiers cut out of the rock, and was built on the side of a hill so steep, with a road so narrow, that it was a testament to the determination of the builder.

It had an entrance foyer with deep chairs and an enormous window overlooking everything from the bay to the surrounding hills. It was not just for show. After climbing the two flights of impossibly steep stairs, most people needed somewhere to collapse before tottering to the bar where he kept court. It also meant that you could see who was coming a long time before they struggled to the door.

On one memorable occasion they had tried coming over the back way. They burst onto the top tier, which had a large summer house and larger inground swimming pool, scrambling over high fences and through trees and shrubs, to find a rather sedate pool party going on. Apparently wool uniforms make rather bad climbing gear... they were hot, grumpy and bitterly disappointed. Not to mention that everyone had been able to hear them coming for 20 minutes...

Despite all this entertainment, there was another reason to hang out at his place. Occasionally out of the blue the odd talented musician would turn up... often with friends and the bar had a lot of musical instruments set up in a corner. If you were really lucky he could be persuaded to join them and he was no slouch on the drums. He did after all cut the first jazz record in that country.

Besides you got to see his number one fan that lived in the tree outside the window... a small possum with a weakness for jazz. It used to sit there with a look of rapt attention on its whiskers before scurrying away as soon as the last note was played.

Falls

Horse riding at thirteen gave one a lasting memento. A spectacular... is there any other kind... fall without a hard hat gave one more than a black eye. Which is a misnomer by the way as it went every colour of the rainbow. It bounced the brain hard enough to cause epilepsy and frontal lobe damage. 

The epilepsy was not big deal in many ways. Oh there were tonic clonics, or as they used to be known grand mal seizures... never understood why they changed the name on those... and one always managed to have them somewhere public. But as an adult one can go years without one. Mind you if you listen to doctors; you can’t drive (sensible), use power tools (yeah kind of inconvenient to someone who renovated houses... so ignored completely) or swim alone (water... ugh... no worries there). Honestly those guys could suck the joy out of any day.

On the other hand frontal lobe damage is way more interesting stuff. Probably the most interesting known case is Phineas Gage. For the rest of us... it depends. It manifests itself in different ways though the most common is poor impulse control. Oh and one can’t do higher maths for shit or remember patterns very well. So you can teach one to dance or play cards, but you are going to have to do it again the next time you want to do it. That is improving over time though... but don’t tell you know who... otherwise one will be playing some nasty little game in the evenings L

In one small teenager all of this combined to cause some major personality changes. As a child one was quiet, withdrawn and a loner. As a teenager one became the proverbial wild child. Most people have a little voice that goes do you really think that is a good idea? If there was one it was on mute... permanently. The difference was that one was as secretive as hell... think that was when the secret squirrel tendencies developed to be honest... and had this rich double life; teenager by day and roaming feral thing by night.

Leaving home at 16 did nothing to improve this at all. There was no thought of consequences. As a teenager and a young adult one partied for days at a time, slept around indiscriminately, hitchhiked everywhere and disappeared for days at a time. All of this was done to the incessant drum beat of just do it, do it. If there are guardian angels... well let’s just say that they got the short straw. There are full time jobs and careers.

Demons

People often wondered why a 17 year old would move in with someone in their 60’s and the answer is very simple. He opened the door and the alley cat strolled in. In trading some of the precious youth, which one was squandering shamelessly anyway, one received a high standard of living, world travel and comfort. Living with Hobbit also gave one breathing space and a chance to confront the odd demon.

He was an entrepreneur and ran restaurants, nightclubs and brought the odd show/ performer into the country. All of this is code for he was a bit of a con and knew even more disreputable people than one small teenager. It meant late hours, hanging out with the wrong people (honestly they are the only ones up at 3am) and alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

The drinking started at an early age... the christening to be precise. It was a late christening and probably done at Aunties insistence. That’s what happens when you have C of E god parents; they take it seriously. Anyway at the party everyone put their drinks down on the ground, and one crawled around and imbibed. Not too many people can say they got drunk at their own christening.

By the time one left high school one probably drank too much. In fact one sat more than one final exam drunk. On the bright side it did mean that one was utterly unperturbed by the fact one hadn’t opened a book for the last term. Though looking back it does occasionally make one wonder what would have happened if one had applied a little more... it would probably have been a lot more dull.

At 18 one looked in the mirror one memorable morning and said if you don’t stop drinking you are going to kill yourself. The reflection acknowledged the truth of this and we didn’t touch a drop for two years. It gave a certain clarity to one’s life and made one re-evaluate a lot of things... Sobering up caused the realisation that one didn’t always make good choices... Not that one had any idea how to make good choices, but that is another story.

On orgies and voyeurs

Orgies are those things that people read about, have ideas about, views on and dream of. The thing is the reality is never quite the way anyone imagines them. The very first orgy one ever went to, at about 17ish, is a case in point. In case you are wondering how one ended up in so much strife and mischief it was simple... one didn’t look like jailbait. Actually one did, but one didn’t act like it and that is the secret of doing anything you shouldn’t be doing.

A friend dropped by to see what one was doing that night and if one would like to go to an orgy... he needed to bring a partner to get in, so off we toddled. He was a part owner of a rather unusual massage place. It was an academy that taught massage as well as being a front for a parlour. All the girls actually had to be able to massage, (parlours were but a thin cover for brothels so this was a rather quirky thing) as they got the odd punter who just wanted a massage.

The place also had another secret. There were internal corridors that ran throughout the place and alongside all the rooms. And all the mirrors in the rooms were two way mirrors... See many of the customers were voyeurs and the punters, and often the girls, were the unwitting performers. Concepts such as informed consent were a completely foreign idea then.

On arriving there was a room full of people with drinks, all looking at each other. Now, one had never been to an orgy, but this was not quite how one imagined it was done. So having no qualms or concepts of etiquette, one stripped off and plopped down next to a man and proceeded to chat him up. Poor bastard didn’t stand a chance...

We ended up drifting off to one of the rooms to have the kind of sex your parents probably warned you about. The good kind, with a complete stranger whose name you don’t know and don’t think to ask. Well we were until this woman, who was quivering with rage, came storming in and slapped him fair in the kisser. It turned out she was his wife and they had a communication issue... no idea what; one went to find less encumbered game.

The next one was a house warming party at the love of one’s life (17ish remember?). He was a great guy of about 30 something and we had a fun time together. When one found out that he had never had a party there, it seemed like a perfect excuse. The theme was pimps and prostitutes and everyone was having a great time. There were bodies everywhere and so many sprawled on his bed that it was a little hard to keep track of things... well one of us wasn’t trying.

He was getting a blow job he was really enjoying, until he looked down and realised it was Dave doing it. He freaked, an attitude one doesn’t understand to this day. If it felt good what the fuck was the problem? Honestly the man was a complete downer at an orgy.

See now these two incidents did teach one some valuable lessons about people. Firstly they do react in strange ways and secondly most of them have way too many hang-ups. Mind you at the time one enjoyed sex with strangers way too much and could probably have used a few of them...

Looking back one is staggered that one remembers Dave’s name... though one has no idea who he was... or who he was with.