Dancing
Bare
by
Rigby Taylor
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Rigby Taylor
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it
are the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Also by Rigby Taylor
Dome of Death
Dancing Bare
Sebastian
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Cover: the Author in Cap d’Antibes, 1962
The laws of god, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can
Not I: let god and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs
Their deeds I judge and much condemn
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and god's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong
Though both are foolish, both are strong
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must if keep we can
These foreign laws of god and man
A E Houseman.
Chapter 1…. In the Beginning
When I was a lad, public buildings boasted portraits of King George VI anxiously observing liberalism displace the colonial cringe that had for so long stifled New Zealand social discourse. Ladies still ‘dressed’ for Afternoon Tea, but royal tittle-tattle, recipes and fashion now competed with politics, social welfare, child psychology, fresh air, calisthenics, naturism, and cold showers. Mother bravely resisted indulging in the last three, but considered them essential elements in the upbringing of her only son who had begun life looking like a refugee from Belsen.
One warm afternoon an odd impulse sent me straight from cold shower to Sitting Room. The malignant glass-eyed scrutiny of a dozen dead foxes decorating the padded shoulders of twelve severely corseted dames; their own eyes concealed behind spotted veils adorning absurd little hats, stopped me in my tracks. Ample bosoms heaved and dainty teacups froze ’twixt lap and lip. In that instant I knew the brothers Grimm had told it true – people could be turned to stone!
Quelling the urge to scarper I assumed an air of artless innocence and clambered onto the copious lap of the most formidable presence in the room; my Godmother. Buoyed on a cloud of powder and lavender-water I kissed her cheek; snagging the veil in my teeth. She disentangled us, held me at arm’s length and boomed, “Never kiss someone when your hair is wet, child!” before dumping me unceremoniously on the carpet and plonking a dry kiss on my forehead; a stamp of approval that allowed me to ignore Mother’s nervous flick of the head towards the door and assume my usual duties – handing round plates of club sandwiches and petit fours. Later, with calculated cuteness I fetched the coats of departing matrons and held open the front door; stoically enduring pats on my ‘adorable brown botty’ while Mother was congratulated on producing such a darling little man.
Mother’s irritation at losing her independence by not becoming a war widow was manifested in a distinct cooling towards her recently returned husband, an embarrassing transfer of her affections to me, and an assumption that her spouse’s duties and obligations began and ended with the provision of food and shelter. She was a good, caring and supportive mother and I thought I loved her, but I suspect it was more pity than love. In retrospect, however, it was unforgivable that through constant complaining and manipulation she should drive a wedge between father and son that lasted forty years.
Flag-waving homecoming parades had done little to raise the spirits of battle-scarred soldiers for whom home was not quite the paradise they’d held in their hearts through years of filthy war. Experience of foreign lands, exotic customs and people with entirely different expectations of life, made them aware of the shroud of bigoted conformity that had stifled New Zealand since guns, disease and religion delivered British ‘Justice’ and near extinction to the Maoris.
Battalion reunions degenerated into drink-fests; for to recall the truth of war was to relive the nightmare and fuel a new found fear of others. And always the nagging question. Why? What was it all for? Cancerous guilt for surviving when mates and brothers had died, poisoned joy, shattered families and bred a generation of morose alcoholics, and distant fathers in whom depression, irritability and an overwhelming sense of anticlimax stifled the words, thoughts and actions of love and tenderness.
My father’s experiences were not unique. After recovering from the wounds and horrors of being strafed and bombed at Monte Casino, he only just avoided cremation in a tank that hit a land mine and exploded seconds after he crawled clear. Everyone else was incinerated. But the only thing he would ever talk about was the pain of having his haemorrhoids removed without anaesthetic. He said it felt as if the doctor was shoving broken glass up his backside and he bit through four thicknesses of blankets to stop himself screaming.
By taking no interest whatever in my schooling, interests, plans and spare time activities, Dad was the perfect counter for Mother’s uncritical assumption that I was god’s gift to humanity. I admired his physical strength, slim fitness and practicality, and was proud he was honest, hard-working, well liked, uncomplicated and reliable. But I feared his quick temper. He showed no interest in females, sport [except for lawn bowls], cultural activities, religion or politics, and never either encouraged or discouraged me in any activities. I was perfectly free to be me; whoever that might be. What more could any son ask?
The only criticism I received from him in twelve years under the same roof was being clipped over the ears for shoddy table manners, and the occasional irritated sneer of “Professor!” when I was being insufferably knowledgeable. They were important lessons because awareness of one’s effect on others and knowing how to behave are the essential skills of social acceptability. Together with the self confidence engendered by Mother’s doting, I have never felt either inferior or inadequate.
Forbidden to share in my upbringing, Dad ignored me when Mother was around. Away from home and alone together we behaved like casual acquaintances – friendly but not curious. He was not protective and never tried to teach me anything; expecting me to learn by watching and emulating. That suited me perfectly. By the age of ten, when it was his weekend on duty, I was expected to look after Saturday morning petrol sales and spare parts at his service station while he fixed tires and did mechanical repairs in the workshop. I made no mistakes and was never paid.
If I did my jobs around the house without complaining, on Fridays I received a tiny allowance, enough to go to the pictures once and buy a small ice-cream. In my spare time I was free to do whatever I liked – and suffer the consequences.
Our seaside town was invaded every summer by twenty-thousand city-dwellers seldom wearing more than shorts or swimming togs, which in those days were very brief. My string bikini raised no eyebrows on the street, at school or at the ‘flicks’. Informality was the rule and men were expected to wear as little as possible, show they had something between their legs, and look sexy. Girls were expected to be modestly sexy in clothing and deportment. The opposite of today. Why and how the roles have reversed is a mystery, but I suspect it’s the influence of right-wing religious U.S.A.
During the holidays I had to work and save money to pay for whatever I wanted in the following year. Dad’s contribution to my well-being ended with food and lodging. Mother didn't work so had no money. Although I hated toiling in a fast-food kitchen, a grocery store, sweeping up hair and selling cigarettes and condoms in a barber shop... it never seemed unreasonable that I should work for my keep. Every spare minute, though, I spent on the beach.
Making friends was never a problem, but as boyhood became adolescence an underlying tension for which I had no explanation began to surface. I didn't want to go looking for sheilas and sit in the back row of the flicks feeling them up. And I only wanted to be part of the group if they were doing what I wanted. The other guys seemed prepared to subject their wills to the group, and that scared me into avoiding team sports. If I was to fail or succeed it would be because of my own merits – or lack of them. This stubborn need to feel totally independent means I've never owed anyone anything.
Neighbours and nearby retired couples let me use their libraries and listen to their classical records in return for the occasional odd job. Paper-round clients left me Christmas tips. I was popular as a baby-sitter, and after getting my driver’s licence on my fifteenth birthday, several people lent me their cars if I needed one, knowing I was prepared to drive them anywhere, any time I was free. I also became the Doctor’s wife’s part-time chauffeur when she was heavily pregnant with her third child in four years.
1956 began as inauspiciously as the previous 15 years. The Olympics across the Tasman in Melbourne impinged not at all until my Art teacher, a neurotic, scrawny chain-smoker, asked for volunteers to assist him to make life-sized paintings of Greek athletes to decorate the hall for the School Ball. No one took up the offer, partly from laziness but mostly from fear of proximity to ‘the breath of death’. It’s thanks to his rotting lungs that I became a non smoker. Eventually, a combination of pity and secret lust for the life-sized reproduction of Myron’s Discobolus in the school entrance hall, led me to offer assistance.
We worked in the dressing rooms at the back of the stage and the results were abysmal. Sir could not keep the proportions when enlarging. A night of feverish fantasy prompted my offering to pose before a projector while he traced my silhouette. A night of feverish despair, prompted Sir to accept.
“Don’t you wear underpants?” he snapped, hurrying to bar the doors. He was impressed with my physique, however, and the results were satisfactory. On completion I asked if he would employ me as a poser for his night classes. “Life model,” he corrected primly. Adding, “You are too young.” I argued. He resisted. I agreed to remain mute about my contribution to the paintings on condition he would give me a trial. He conceded defeat, although after teaching me for three years he should have realised the threat was hollow; I would never betray secrets. But teachers then as now seldom took a personal interest in their pupils.
Parents were no problem; Dad wasn’t interested and Mother thought that as the sun shone out of my backside everyone should have the opportunity to admire it. I presented myself at Sir’s studio an hour early for a rehearsal. He explained the sequences – ten one-minute poses, five five-minute poses, one twenty minute pose, supper, and then the same again. My suppleness wasn’t in question, nor my ability to maintain a pose without drooping – the only question hung over my errant member, which wouldn’t droop. Sir threatened to cancel. Desperately, I jerked off, the show went on, and I was too nervous and busy keeping still and not sagging to entertain erotic thoughts. The proceeds from six subsequent appearances paid for a new pair of stovepipe trousers, a white shirt with button down collar, a burnt orange tie and a fake gold tiepin. Then another art group desired the services of the only young man in the town prepared to bare all for art; adding to my coffers.
Opportunities seized lead to further opportunities, and thus it was that after ‘starring’ in the school play, The Ghost Train, I was approached by the director of the local amateur dramatic society who was also an incompetent draftsman in one of Sir’s ‘life’ classes, to take the role of Cupid in Cupid’s Dart… a musical comedy. The curtain rose revealing Cupid posed on a plinth like Mercury/Eros in Piccadilly Circus. I was stuck up there for most of the production, sharing with the audience my despair at the idiocies of mortals, and firing ‘arrows’ into confused young lovers to stimulate desire. Occasionally I'd leap from the plinth and spread confusion before ‘flying’ back up with the assistance of a concealed mini trampoline.
The costume was a brilliant pair of wings, bow, quiver and arrows, and a wind-tossed swathe of cloth fluttering coyly across my loins. Except it didn't; it hung like a sad rag. Grandmother, who before a successful marriage had been a tailoress and crafter of hats, fired up her steamer and moulded in milliners’ felt an elegant, gilded fig-leaf, held in place with spirit gum. According to the wife of the director, it was my naked bum that put so many clothed bums on auditorium seats. This second theatrical success in one year proved beyond doubt, to me at least, that the stage was my destiny!
Any qualms I might have felt about jettisoning plans to become a public intellectual in favour of public nudist were quashed when one of the actors in the show, a professional photographer, took several photos of me in and out of my fig leaf that he sold to an overseas magazine; sharing the thirty-five pounds they fetched. When I told Dad about the money he told me not to waste it, but didn't ask how I'd earned it – so I told him. I think I was hoping to shock him. He nodded as if I'd done nothing out of the ordinary, said the photographer was a good bloke, and asked why I hadn't mowed the lawns. Paradoxically, his lack of interest in me caused me to pay a great deal of attention to him. Reluctantly, I admired him while resenting his indifference. But of course I'd have resented him a great deal more if he'd tried to organise my life!
Chapter 2. When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear
A scrawny, redheaded chap of about thirty had been watching us dive off the jetty after school, clapping and shouting encouragement. An embarrassing creep in dire need of exercise, he followed us into the changing shed, dropped his togs and started towelling himself, rambling on about ‘sand between the toes’. His skinny white legs and flabby belly made me want to puke. Geoff giggled and we all looked away because he was getting a hard-on. Then he stood up on the bench started rubbing his groin and playing with his cock – red and raw like uncooked meat; asking questions to make us look at him. We threw on our clothes and took off. A nut case I couldn’t help feeling sorry for. I sort of understood why he was doing it, but not with that body! If he’d been a tough guy with muscles then at least he'd have been worth looking at. As it was he was lucky he wasn’t beaten up.
A few weeks later on the beach in front of the Surf Club, Leon put on a similar act but with such flair he became a legend. It was a quiet afternoon – no one drowning – and he’d been annoying two other guys by yanking down their Speedos when they stood up. Their girlfriends were laughing and I could see the guys were planning revenge, so I whispered a warning. He winked, loosened the string in his waistband, then hoisted a girl over his shoulder and strolled towards the water. He hadn’t taken ten paces before one of the guys raced up behind and pulled his togs down to his ankles. Instead of dumping the girl he simply stepped out of them and, muscles rippling, brown buttocks firm, the girl still struggling and shouting, he picked his way between sunbathers, tossed her into a wave and sauntered back to a round of applause, cock swaying proudly. If he hadn’t already been the most popular guy in the club this would have done the trick.
In the fifties, ‘real men’ played rugby, drank beer and leered at sheilas from the ‘stag line’ at dances. I had an aversion to both alcohol and rugby, danced till I dropped, sang, acted, laughed aloud, painted, walked straight, chatted with girls, read novels and listened to classical music – a perilous path to negotiate and certainly not deliberately chosen. The sole explanation for my anti-social behaviour, gained through hours of introspection, was that my brain had been programmed in the womb – an inheritance from a maternal uncle who I resembled physically as well as mentally.
Free will? Forget it! Try choosing not to eat, sleep, or breathe. I had no choice over whether I wanked, paid my debts, or even which swimming togs I bought. The only free will any of us have is choosing whether to have honey or jam on toast, or which shirt to wear. That poor bloke couldn’t help flashing to us kids, Leon couldn’t help wanting to drop his togs, and I couldn’t help wanting to pose naked and act on stage.
Childhood was safe but uneventful. My parents had little formal education and, being somewhat in awe of their smart-arse son, had the sense to leave me to my own devices while providing necessities but no luxuries. If I wanted more I had to earn it. Puberty sent powerful sexual urges that had me clambering naked out the window at night, climbing the trees in the back yard like Tarzan; doing pull-ups till I got my rocks off – simply to be able to sleep.
When that no longer did the trick I'd hive off down to the beach about a kilometre away; hugging the shadows of hedges, trees and walls that bordered the dark sandy roads; there were no street lights. Aflame with exhilaration I imagined the headlines; Naked Kid Haunts Streets. After a swim I’d slink home the same way, impatient for bed and ‘release’ as I re-lived the thrill. One evening Dad was standing at our gate, smoking. I hung around in the shadows till I began to freeze. There was nothing for it; I had to go in.
“Been for a swim?” he asked, as if running naked to the beach for a swim at ten o'clock on a cold evening was perfectly natural.
“Yeah.”
“Bit cold.”
“Yeah.”
“Had you worried, didn’t I?’
“Yeah.”
“In future, wrap your togs round your wrist – just in case.”
“Good idea... Thanks Dad.”
Mother’s façade of pleasant tolerance was eggshell thin and easily cracked. Thick ankles, solid figure and a tendency to hirsuteness fed bitter disillusion and spite for women who were wealthier and more elegantly appointed. Unsurprisingly, friends were thin on the ground. Dad’s gentlemanly speech and demeanour, and refusal to criticise anyone or be involved in an argument, ensured he was universally liked. I'd watch him negotiating with clients and reps., disarming, charming, until they offered more than he’d asked for, being sufficiently rewarded by a boyish smile of incredulity and the words; “You’re a gentleman!” uttered with such sincerity he’d make a friend for life. Any success I've had in the manipulation of people I owe to him.
At the beach, Mother would sit in a long-sleeved sun frock arranged to conceal her upper arms and ankles, gossiping about everyone in range. Dad, broad-shouldered, slim hipped, beautifully muscled, hairless and energetic, would be running around in the same pale grey woollen togs he’d worn at school – a strip of perilously thin fabric held up by a white webbing belt with a slightly rusty buckle. He was well hung and to see him jogging back up the beach from a swim was a memorable experience. Unlike other guys’ fathers who spent the day under umbrellas swilling beer to swell burgeoning bellies while thighs and arms grew thinner, Dad let us climb on his shoulders to dive off, built sand castles, and turned bright red. In the evenings I had to smear calamine lotion all over him and later peel off the skin in great sheets. His body refused to tan.
High School was a half-hour ferryboat ride across the harbour and presented no intellectual problems – apart from boredom. It seems odd that teachers couldn’t make learning stimulating even for the top fifteen boys in a large school. The only memorable things were performing in concerts and plays, athletics, and wrestling instruction from a young exchange teacher from Kerala.
Our instructor was lean and tough with a thin moustache and sweat that smelled of herbs. He wanted us to wear a loincloth like his, because that’s what they wore at wrestling schools in India, but the other guys took one look at his brown buttocks and clung to their phys-ed shorts as to a life jacket; covertly sneering at the ‘black curry-muncher’. Then when they realised they weren’t going to learn how to kill an opponent with a single blow, they changed to boxing.
I've no idea of the teacher’s name; I don’t recall exchanging a single word that wasn’t about wrestling. He was obviously pleased that I continued and was prepared to wear the loincloth. I was never sure if it was my dedication to the sport or my bare bum that persuaded the Sports Master to allow us to continue despite the lack of other students. It was wrestling that taught me I could defend myself physically as well as verbally, and gave a boost to my burgeoning self-confidence.
Friends were easy to come by if you wanted to be part of a social group or gang. I didn’t. I'd have loved to have a really good friend with whom to share secrets, but there was no one like that, so I created a respectably gregarious façade that led teachers to think I was popular, but a bit of a flibbertigibbet – not Prefect material. A false but welcome assumption. I'm both reliable and trustworthy, but have no desire for power over others.
The social image I was after didn't include mixing with physically unattractive, stupid or vulgar people, so I avoided them. My trick for survival was to appear non-threateningly eccentric; but that didn't include going to prize-giving to collect the beautiful silver cup I won for singing! Real men didn't sing and I'd kept my participation in that competition a well guarded secret. Every school day was like a never-ending tightrope dance. If my observable differences should ever be perceived as a threat to the shrine of manly vigour, I'd be dead.
A giant of a lad, ineptly named David – Goliath would have been more appropriate – a mooncalf whose brain had been warped when a falling tree crushed his skull as a kid, was hatchet man for a gang of would-be teddy-boys who had taken it upon themselves to decide who was manly enough to live. Every now and then some poor guy would appear on the school ferry bruised and nervous. No one dared complain, as that would prove they weren’t a ‘real’ man. Inevitably, my turn arrived. They reckoned I talked too ‘posh’ and needed taking down a peg. It started with David dropping a bag full of schoolbooks on my toes and asking how it felt to be in the top class. My first impulse was to knee him in the cods, which would probably have resulted in brain damage as severe as his. Instead, I answered politely that it was probably the same as he felt in the bottom stream, then ran for my life.
Rumour had it he was a whiz at making model aeroplanes so the following afternoon I cornered him on the way home – he was quite tame when alone – and asked as if I really cared, if he would teach me to make models because I was so useless at those sorts of things and I really admired people like him who were good with their hands. He puffed so far up with pride I was on the point of seeking shelter from what was looking like a Hiroshima type event, when he invited me round.
His mother was pleased he’d brought home a human instead of the usual animals from his class, and provided fizzy fruit juice and sultana cake – not a good combination. I bought a starter kit and we spent several hours in his sweat-scented bedroom cutting, gluing, breaking, re-gluing – me making sure I was useless and offering suggestions that made him snort with disbelief. He would patiently explain and correct my every move, until we both agreed it would be better if I chose another hobby.
He seemed reluctant to let me go that last evening, kept showing me his ‘treasures’. Then suddenly he blurted, “When the tree fell on my head it damaged my pituitary gland.” I was impressed, having not the slightest idea what that was. “That’s why my voice is high, and that’s why… look!” He whipped down his trousers to expose a smooth pudenda and a penis as large as an eight year-old’s, with balls to match. I looked into his eyes. He was crying. How could I console him? I realised he wanted me to be his friend – someone he could tell his darkest secrets. But I had secrets of my own that I would never share with him. From somewhere I dredged up an anodyne. “There are more important things in life than sex, David. Character’s what’s important; and deep down you're a really nice bloke.”
What a load of crap. From the dozens of people who have confided their secret hopes and fears over the years, I've learned that sex is the most important thing in just about everyone’s life. Why so many people tell me their secrets I don’t know, but it always feels like a compliment and I never betray their trust. But as for humans being the apex of evolution... muddle headed seems a more apt epithet. Years later on a visit to my home town a fluting soprano hailed me on the street. David had grown as large as the chief eunuch of a Turkish harem, had a good job in an office, and seemed reasonably, if wistfully adjusted to his lot.
Winning, in the conventional sense, has no interest for me. The only thing I want to win is my independence. I enjoyed tennis, but everyone in the club was obsessed with the “Ladder” and playing in weekend competitions against other clubs. I could never understand that. For me the game is fun enough. By putting up a fair fight but usually loosing the match, I earned the reputation I desired; OK for a social game, but don’t have him in the team!’
Elderly spinsters had a habit of falling in love with me, and Kath was no exception. I gardened for her and as she disliked driving at night, as soon as I got my licence I drove her to plays, concerts, the ballet and anything else she wanted to see; my payment a free ticket. No one else I knew was interested in theatre or classical music, and I couldn’t have afforded to go on my own. She also lent me her car if I needed it. Dad wouldn’t lend me his.
Kath wrote and illustrated children’s books that were suffused with pathos and a weird sense of humour. She’d sit on her patio pretending to write, but I could feel her eyes following me. She told me about her twin brother who had gone to London, and showed me a sepia tint of a naked young man with a long, unattractive head, standing in slightly too elegant contrapposto before a classical pillar. I didn't let on that Mother had told me Keith had been too smart for the police and skipped the country before they prosecuted him for being more interested in men than women. Mother was obviously pleased at his escape, and so was I, although I didn't think it had any relevance to me. I had a girl friend... but twinges of sadness washed through me whenever I thought of him in exile in London where he owned a private hotel.
“Keith is not ashamed of his body,” Kath had announced as she passed the photo across.
“Neither am I,” I responded, reminding her of Cupid’s Dart.
“You wore a fig leaf!” she snorted, as if it had been a cop out.
“I had to – the law says...”
I knew what she was doing, and she knew I knew what she was doing; it was a game I became proficient in over the years; bantering around the subject until both are sure they want the same thing – me to take off my clothes. We both knew I would prove I was as good as her beloved twin by gardening naked – but it would have been impertinent to have simply dropped my tweeds and started mowing. Ladies like to keep their reputations unsullied and be treated as if they harboured no impure thoughts. I'm pretty sure Kath was a virgin who'd chosen to remain faithful to her brother.
In winter I painted her ceilings and in return she taught me to dance. Not classical, but in the style of Isadora Duncan, whom Kath admired. It was another important brick in my temple of self-confidence. She encouraged the erotic aspects of dance, and, buoyed on the exuberance of Rossini overtures I became a wild satyr, pure energy without constraint, performing for an enraptured audience of one; which, I discovered a few years later, is infinitely preferable to a discordant audience of hundreds! Indeed, ‘one’ is perhaps the perfect audience. The performance can be adapted, fine-tuned, and altered according to the responses, success is assured, and there's no malicious gossip afterwards.
Once, when posing for the illustrations in a book she was writing about a dancing bear, she explained that the poor things only danced because their owner jerked roughly on a collar that had sharp spikes facing inwards that caused terrible pain and damage to the neck. I felt sick. In her story, she explained, the bear was a metaphor for the human condition. Most people have mental nail-studded collars that are jerked by the law and the expectations of others.
“Look around you!” she said angrily. “Everyone is dancing to the tune of conformity, suppressing their individuality. And for what? To have the same respectable little house in the same respectable street with identical children being brainwashed into becoming boring respectable slaves of commerce! If that’s living I don’t want it!”
I couldn’t speak. It was as if an electric current had shot through me. She had just explained why I avoided getting close to others. I'd unconsciously avoided their conformity that waited like quicksand to suck me in.
“Please don’t become like that,” she said softly. “You have the wit to be yourself, and the opportunity. Don’t waste your life.”
“I'm not a dancing bear,” I shouted, dancing wildly round the room. “I’m dancing bare!”
It took several seconds for her to get the pun, but when she did she smiled. “Well I hope you keep dancing bare all your life; it’s the best way to avoid that collar.”
Like every adolescent I was plagued by self doubt and fears of inadequacy. Why wasn’t I like everyone else? Why did I back out of parties all the other guys and their girlfriends seemed to enjoy? Why did I prefer to go to dances alone and dance with a different girl every time the music changed? Why did I like sitting for hours on top of the mountain gazing out over the sea? Why did I want an all-over tan? None of those things seemed like choices – they were things I had to do. Why was sitting for hours in a car, petting, kissing and ‘feeling up’ my girlfriend the most boring activity on the planet?
I came to the same conclusion as every outsider who remains sane; I am what I am and it was pointless to fight it. This brilliant self analysis did not, however, prevent my experiencing a constant sense of impending doom that kept me vigilant.
In Maths, I sat beside Ronnie and we’d feel each other’s erections through our pockets. His was huge! Sometimes he’d take it out – a smooth, shiny monument in ebony! I loved wrapping my hand around it, feeling the heat and the spasms when he came, although that was dangerous in class as he grunted a bit when ejaculating. We never met outside school. I lived a half-hour boat-ride away; he a long bus trip in the opposite direction. He was sharp, quick and cute, and I was consumed by equal quantities of lust and jealousy.
Exactly ten years later, my partner and I were walking briskly along the streets of Wellington – there’s no other way to walk in that benighted city if the wind’s behind you – when a physically worn man in a sad, brown suit [no one should ever wear brown] approached timidly and said, “Rigby! It’s me! Ronnie.” I was on a flying visit, due to return to Paris the following week. He was on his way home to a mortgaged box in the outer suburbs where his wife and three kids waited, squalling for food and scraps. His government job was secure but boring and ill remunerated. He was sad, beaten and tired, and my heart shrivelled in pity. Sexy little Ronnie had become a pathetic ‘dancing bear’. It was several days before I could shake off the horror of what might have been my fate had I been afflicted with a desire for women, marriage and kids. My partner was as shocked as I to view the effects of heterosexuality on someone about whom I had waxed eloquent on more than one occasion.
University differed from Secondary School only in the freedom from petty rules and teacher supervision. Unversed in the art of discrimination, first-year students bond easily and lightly, scurrying to form gangs of like-minded souls with whom to argue, socialise and strut. Those on the outside are pitied; those on the inside pay the heavy price of conformity. Groups curtail as well as support, and group dynamics bend multiple wills to act as one.
Invitations to pub-crawl so I could get bombed out of my mind and compete in the technicolour burp stakes, didn't appeal; even when regaled with tales of Alan’s vomit-map of the world in colour! Goodness knows what he’d been eating!
Being allergic to waste, crowds, and the tongue-loosening effects of alcohol, I'd excuse myself from most socialising, usually managing to keep my reputation as a ‘good bloke’. Born hyperactive, self-control has always been a priority and early on became second nature. I was friendly with everyone, but joined nothing. There were plenty of other loners – but for them it was seldom a choice; they were socially unattractive and usually a bit crazy.
Peer pressure and the hierarchical crap that permeates heterosexual male society transformed my embryonic scorn for humanity into aversion when I realised that most guys’ gregarious urges are stronger than their yearning for autonomy. I began to fear the mindlessness of the group. Like everyone else I want approval, but not if it costs me my soul! I sought a friend – not friends. I was prepared to be a lone ranger until I met someone who shared my interests and was interested in me.
During my first year I studied, kept fit, did a few photographic shoots for newspaper advertisements, modelled for both the University and Tech. College Art departments, acted in Arthur Miler’s All my Sons, earned a few cheers as Lord Godiva in the Capping parade, and maintained my independence.
In my second year I changed digs. The house was old and smelled of rot. Ten rooms on two floors for twenty young men; each room containing two lumpy beds, two small wardrobes, two small chests of drawers, two school desks and two hard backed chairs. Showers, toilets, kitchen and laundry shared the cold concrete basement. A bitter old bible-bashing Christian with a drink problem inhabited two rooms by the front door, from where he guarded his domain as jealously as Cerberus. When he wasn’t wandering the house enshrouded in a miasma of life’s disappointments, he’d be checking we weren’t brewing tea or making toast on illegal appliances in our rooms.
Waita, my roommate who I met swimming lengths of the tepid baths every morning, was tall, lean, and impenetrably dark, with a head as wise as the kingly eponym of his country. A parsimonious Anglican scholarship left him little spare cash, and I was born fundamentally frugal, so we explored the pleasures available for free in a port city; secret bays and coves that enabled me to keep my bum brown; the cheapest theatre seats; the pie cart, reading in bookshops, the run-down University gymnasium, and nine hours of sleep that were essential to us both.
We’d been sweating over assignments for an hour one night when Waita begged a favour. Coming from an alien culture – his words – he was at a loss as to how to treat females. He had taken a girl to the pictures and then back to her digs, where he bowed, and left her. The following day she had snubbed him. When he asked her why, she said he’d insulted her by not kissing her. It sounded like a case of delayed racism to me, but to let him down lightly I said she was clearly a slut and not good enough for him
“I'd like to have kissed her,” he muttered, “but I don’t know how Europeans kiss! Teach me!” It took several minutes of pleading to convince me he was serious, but once persuaded I gave of my best, and afterwards we agreed that, in the interests of frugality and logic – we were both very strong on logic – it wasn’t worth forking out a couple of pounds to take a girl for a meal followed by the flicks, when we could eat at home, sit in the cheapest seats, keep fit at the gym together, help each other to study, and had each other to kiss.
The most interesting and useful thing I did that year and the next, was to take acting classes with Heath Joyce, a somewhat famous English director of plays and pageants who’d come to New Zealand to work with the local repertory society, and I was lucky enough to be given major roles in two large productions at His Majesty’s Theatre: Charley’s Aunt and When Knights Were Bold.
My eighteenth birthday present from the state was the call up for an Army Medical. A score of us were told to strip and wait in a cold, bare room. The only naked guys I was used to seeing were at the pool, the gym, or beach, so I wasn’t prepared for such an unappetising pack of scrawny, pale, droopy young men. There were pidgin chests, narrow shoulders, wide hips, slack bellies, spindle thighs, knock-knees, sweaty feet, pimpled backs, hairy bums… only one looked healthy enough to touch. Judging from their talk, however, they were all god’s gift to women.
One at a time we were called to a desk at the end of the room to be weighed, measured and inspected for fitness. The young doctor was handsome in a neat, militaristic way, so I gave him my best smile, which he ignored. He weighed me, checked my reflexes, pulse, blood pressure, lungs, then without warning, grabbed my balls.
“Have they always been this big?”
“I think they were smaller at birth,” I quipped.
His lips drew to a thin line. “Don’t get smart! Any lumps?”
“Not as far as I know.”
He kneaded softly and I sprouted a sudden, hard erection. He took a wooden ruler and before I could withdraw, whacked it down hard on my knob. I thought my entire shaft had shattered. The pain! I gazed through streaming tears at the poor, shrivelling thing and stifled a sob of agony.
“Filthy queer,” the doctor hissed rather too audibly, grabbing my shoulders and turning me round so he could look up my bum for haemorrhoids.
It took two days for the tingling to stop, and weeks for the horrifying realisation that someone thought I was a queer, to dissipate. I knew I wasn’t! Queers were weak pansies with floppy wrists who giggled loudly and did their hair all the time. Queers were like that perverted creep who flashed at us in the changing shed! The horrible old man with horseshit breath who had tried to feel me up in the evangelist tent at the beach when I was ten, was queer! The unwashed sailor who’d invited Graeme and me onto the bridge of the coastal steamer when we were twelve, and then stroked my neck and slipped his hands up my trouser leg, was queer! I'd run for my life from both of them in fear and loathing! The middle-aged man who’d appeared and plonked himself down beside me when I was sunbathing naked in the sand hills when I was sixteen, was queer. I'd been unable to move when he began to stroke my bum. Brain almost blank with fear I made excuses so he wouldn’t restrain me, grabbed my things and bolted. There was no way I was queer!
I was tougher and fitter and better dressed than just about anyone I knew! I’d been asked to judge the University Beauty Contest that year! That proved I knew about girls. I just wasn’t ready yet. I confided my dreadful secret to Waita and he agreed; we were certainly not queers! Nevertheless, we took our gear off his bed and mussed it around to look as if he slept in it.
The year flew by and suddenly Waita was flying to Sydney, from where he set sail for the Solomon Islands, leaving me bereft. I received a postcard from Norfolk Island. Despite having paid for a cabin, the Australian stewards had refused to let him go inside the ship. Cabins were only for whites. He’d had to sleep on deck and beg for food at the galley. Twenty years later he occupied a position of importance in the Solomon Islands government, and Australian officials were wondering why they weren’t loved.
In my third year most of the guys I started with had invested in steady girlfriends who demanded they quit spending so much time with their mates. Several had married. Coffee-houses and bars were filling with cubic miles of hot air expelled during interminable metaphysical debates. Increasingly a stranger in a strange land, I booked a berth on a ship that would sail for Europe at the end of the summer break. I’d have gone earlier, but needed the holidays to earn more money. Three years of penny pinching had earned me the fare, but I needed enough to survive for a few months once there.
Modelling jobs for Life Classes had dried up because fat and ugly was the new fad. Popular artistic wisdom decreed that my body type lacked character. I tried manning petrol pumps at an all-night service station, but without my eight or nine hours sleep every night, my brain dissolved, so ended up working weekends in a market garden.
Exams over, I slogged for ten weeks in a grain store where I built up a stunning array of muscles in all the right places, and discovered that labourers can be just as smart, pleasant, interesting and amusing as academics, and a lot less bitchy.
Then, one star-filled calm evening, two months before my twentieth birthday, I waved a tearless farewell as tugs dragged the ship out into the stream. My paranoia had reached alarming proportions. I saw danger on every side. I craved the security of anonymity before my dread secret was revealed. The truly bizarre thing was I had not the faintest idea what that secret was! I just knew I needed a place where I could be ‘myself’ without fear of condemnation. I longed, as I had not longed for anything in my life, to walk along the streets of a vast city where no one could possibly know me, or care who I was or what I did. It sounds histrionic, but twenty year-olds are full of noble sentiments and melodrama. That’s why they make perfect soldiers – ready to sacrifice their lives for a dream.
“Never will I return,” I vowed as the propellers thrashed into life, sending a shudder through the ship that echoed my own shudders of relief.
Chapter 3. Escape
An ocean liner is a small town replete with gossip, intrigues and scandal, fuelled by enforced idleness. When these floating cities set sail from New Zealand for Europe, the nervous and somewhat prim young passengers wandered around an almost empty ship. On arrival in Sydney hordes of noisily confident young men and women invaded the bars, saloons and decks, determined to remain in a drunken stupor for the entire voyage – spending more on booze than the fare.
For a young male intent on spending nothing, it was a month of waiting for meals sprawled beside the pool, swimming, dancing every night, walking briskly round the deck every morning, avoiding becoming too intimate with people determined to make friends in case they needed one so far from home, and fending off the relentless advances of young women rendered skittish by the intoxicating whiff of freedom. Excitement! Adventure! Romance!
In order to spend as little of their capital as possible during the voyage, most girls managed to snare escorts to shout them to entertainments, cocktail hours, bars, dances; paying for it with sex in his or her cabin, a life boat, or a quiet spot on the deck. But of course they weren’t prostitutes – just smart with money.
I had the good fortune to share a cabin with an extremely shy, pale, overweight and abundantly hairy young man who seemed to spend the entire voyage, apart from mealtimes, glued to his bottom bunk, sweating profusely, reading the Torah, and surreptitiously eyeing my flesh when I came in to change. His constant presence was invaluable because it made it impossible to take a girl back to the cabin for a fuck.
His incredulous delight on discovering that I had not the slightest prejudice against his religious inclinations, ensured our journey together was free of stress and, as ogling was clearly the outer limit of his sexual desire, in the four weeks we shared the tiny space I ensured he had plenty to satisfy his interest – it seemed little enough reward.
The Patris was very old, on its thirteenth reincarnation someone averred, and desperately tired. We were passed several times by the Canberra, whose jeering passengers arrived in all ports of call before us, and left after. If there was a tail wind we were asphyxiated by clouds of smuts belching from the funnel, and a twenty degree list prevented the pool from being properly filled and made it seem, when in it, as if the water was defying gravity, being piled up against one side. We ran aground in Aden – marooned on a mud bank for most of the hours we should have been savouring the delights of that exotic British outpost.
In the gossipy hothouse of heterosexual lust that is the intended norm on every cruise ship and ocean liner, those interested in less conventional pastimes have little to occupy their time. The fancy-dress ball – advertised as a wicked romp, was the usual tediously sedate Greek event. Encouraged by poolside acquaintances I’d decided to go as Adam in my Cupid fig leaf, but was manhandled out the door by two breathtakingly handsome sailors before the first dance was over. The Captain did not approve.
I told the others I'd be back, but a sudden pique sent me to the pool where cigarettes glowed from half a dozen deck chairs. Their occupants called me over, admired my costume – or lack of it, and, after I'd explained the provenance of the fig lea, they persuaded me to perform in someone’s huge first class cabin on the promenade deck. I hadn't realised such luxury existed.
During an impromptu, somewhat erotic dance, my hosts became rather too frisky. Middle-aged decaying bodies lusting after a piece of my flesh were intimidating, not arousing, so I left them to it, deciding that future audiences could watch but never touch. Sex would always be one on one, and only with someone reasonable looking, slim, fit, clean, healthy, sexy, near my age and fascinated by me; a restrictive list that ensured I'd not have to confront my sexuality in the near future. Leaving them to their fantasies, I slipped back to my cabin, observed by no one except a gaggle of spinsters playing bridge. They wolf-whistled, so I blew them a kiss. I never retrieved the fig leaf.
After the debacle in Aden I thought it better to take the land route through Cairo, rather than risk running aground in the Suez Canal. It was worth the dust and hours in a bus. Not for the pyramids, which to me seemed about as interesting as any large pile of rocks, but to become embroiled in the chaos and exotic turmoil of the bazaars and teeming narrow streets of old Cairo.
At sea again, the captain announced that he'd decided not to go further than Piraeus and we’d all be given ferry tickets to Brindisi and rail tickets to London. Apparently the ship was in such a poor state it wouldn’t have made it. I went to the cinema in Athens to get warm, it was well below zero outside. Inside I was enraptured to discover a unisex audience. Females were not permitted in many Greek cinemas in those days. It was wondrously relaxing. To my chagrin, however, modern Greeks bore no resemblance to the heroic statues that had sustained me in my youth. They were dark, stocky, and bundled up in dark overcoats. Where was Discobolus when I needed him? Even the acropolis is not inspiring in a blizzard. It was the coldest winter on record.
My first encounter with squat toilets and refugees was on the ferry to Italy. While my companions griped about cramped conditions, poor food and inadequate lighting in our warm little cabins, families of economic refugees were huddling under tarpaulins on deck, splashed by wild seas and frozen by glacial air surging down from snow-clad Albanian mountains, the sight of which was impressive from Corfu, but failed to compensate for the biting winds. New Zealand’s Southern Alps had competition here, I realised.
With profound relief we boarded a heated train in Brindisi, arriving in Calais after a stopover in Milan, smelling like a herd of camels, according to French customs officials. On the trip, my six travelling companions had decided who was going to share with whom in the flat we were going to rent together in London! As I had no wish to hurt their feelings, desperate measures were called for. In Dover I had the good fortune to be selected for a full search by Customs Officials suspicious at my lack of luggage – I had but one small suitcase and a camera.
The inspection process only lasted a few minutes, so, leaving my bag in their bemused care, I raced out to the platform to inform the others that the Customs Officials were being officious and I’d have to catch a later train – but we would meet up in London. I then returned to sit beside a slender, handsome young Kenyan who had also aroused serious misgivings in the Official mind by arriving in their land bearing a suitcase packed with very smelly dried fish and not much else. His cute smile and perfect teeth were more than adequate compensation for my not having been considered sufficient threat to warrant a full-body-search. I had to wait until East Berlin to experience that delight.
Discovering that our attraction was mutual, we shared a compartment in the next train and swapped names – his was Mik, an abbreviation for something very long and complicated. He was on his way to Manchester to meet his cousin. However, he had missed connections so we would share a hotel room in London for a night. Although this was my first visit, that great city was not new to me – Monopoly had been my favourite game for years but I was unprepared for the vastness. The miles and miles of monotonous housing estates, grey wet streets, row upon row of terraced housing that we hurtled through at a hundred miles an hour.
Victoria Station disgorged us into heaving traffic, rank upon rank of black taxis. Serried rows of red double-decker busses going to places I had heard of but only dreamed of visiting, and more people in one place than I had ever seen before – all knowing exactly where they were going and why. Panic filled all my empty spaces. I had no idea where I was, where to go or what to do! We bought a couple of pies, and then, following directions from the information kiosk, wandered through narrow streets behind the station. Most cheap hotels were full. After about an hour we found one grotty establishment with a vacancy, but the fat old tart took one look at Mik and snapped, “No Blacks!” The next place was cleaner and the bloke didn’t even look up from his telly as he took our money, handed us a key and pointed up the stairs.
It was half-past four and already getting dark. Mik was exhausted, having not slept for days on the deck of a ship from Alexandria, and then standing on the train all the way from Marseilles. So he crashed on his bed. My impatience to see all those monopoly names come to life, overcame fatigue and I raced for the nearest underground. The train seemed to be going very fast, but it was only about 10 miles an hour.
Quivering with excitement I stepped out onto the platform of Piccadilly Circus, gaped at the vast bank of escalators rising through the gigantic cavern, drifted up through the circular concourse and raced through the exit tunnel to emerge in front of Eros – who looked exactly as he should, encircled by endless traffic and backed by the gigantic Wrigley’s sign. A myriad of lights reflected the endless whorl of traffic in wet streets. A thrilling muted roar resonated in my chest. My hair stood on end. Goosebumps erupted over my entire body and I drew a deep breath of diesel fumes. I was at the centre of the world!
After wandering along Coventry Street to Leicester Square, down the Haymarket to Trafalgar Square and back to Piccadilly Circus, I re-entered the underground dying for a piss. A bowler-hatted pinstripe suit followed me and held open the door to the toilets with an engaging smile. I nodded graciously. Before leaving I'd been warned not to expect the denizens of London to be as nice as people back home. “They’ll cut your throat as soon as look at you, Pete,” I'd been warned. Huh! No one had ever held open the door of a toilet for me in New Zealand!
He followed me into the vast white-tiled space that appeared to be a popular meeting place. Groups stood here and there – usually several older men with a younger fellow. Pinstripe stood beside me at the urinal, which surprised me, as there were at least twenty free spaces. I ignored him and concentrated on the job in hand, which was rendered slightly difficult by the activity two stalls away to my left – a boy, scarcely more than fourteen, was being masturbated by an older bloke while several others looked on.
I guess I was surprised, but astonishment ran a distant second to the prim thought that it was scarcely a hygienic spot for such an activity. It was arousing, nonetheless, and I sprang to attention.
“Mmm… nice.”
I looked up in alarm. Pinstripe was staring. Pissing was impossible. My brain stopped.
He reached out and grasped it. I pulled back involuntarily. He grabbed at it again and hung on. “How much?”
“What for”
“A fuck or a suck. Half an hour for two quid?”
As the average weekly wage was between seven and ten pounds, that seemed pretty fair. However, I was terrified. Images of being dragged into a cellar and raped and dismembered flashed through my head. Within seconds he had strangled me, sold me as a sex slave and… I looked at his hands. They were clean but huge. He was about forty, thick-set. Educated accent but rough around the edges. I gazed around. Dozens of men milling… No one taking any notice. I shook my head in denial. This had to be a nightmare! Should I scream or run for it?
“You’re scared!”
I nodded.
“I only want a fuck – not murder you.”
That did it! I was a virgin! The only thing that had ever passed the wrong way through my rear entry was an enema Mother had given me when a kid. Still unable to speak, I buttoned up and, bladder undrained raced for the escalators, risking my life by running down three at a time, found the right platform and concealed myself behind a pillar in trembling trepidation until the next train.
Mik was still asleep and the room was an icebox. I stripped, washed in the basin, slid between the grubby sheets, felt something sharp and leaped out. The bed was full of broken glass. I checked the window directly above – no wonder the place was freezing! Mik woke up. It was only eight-thirty. I said I'd have to go down to the reception for new linen.
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