Saturday 27 October 2007

Life lesson no. 2933

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.

Those intrepid adventurers amongst you have already glimpsed this story’s beginning when they travelled with me last month to Brighton, Den Of Homosexual Sin And Lascivious Debauchery. At the time I forgot to mention the bit about the *NUDITY* so it’s time to correct that glaring oversight. Also, the bits about SEX and DOGGING… And DWARFS IN LATEX… with PARIS HILTON. Brilliant. That should get viewer numbers up.

I was in Brighton for the pirate-themed Hen Weekend of a very good friend, with a party that consisted of The Bride-To-Be, her Gay Best Man, and four penis-free individuals. I know, what are the chances. Only 28.6% of those present were men who liked men. In Brighton. I must be losing my allure.

After a day of drinking and dancing we stumbled out of [deleted in interest of author dignity] onto the 2am streets, moustaches as monobrows, eye-patches as crotch guards, and hooped earrings as inappropriate piercings. The Bride-To-Be took one look at her motley crew of mutineers and announced her desire to get naked in the ocean. Obviously I was appalled at the Health and Safety implications of swimming whilst inebriated, but decided the only responsible course of action was to take my kit off and splash around with the lasses. That way if there were an aquatic emergency I would be on hand to sweep the ladies into my arms, battle through the Death Surf to shore and breath new life into their mortal form. And hopefully a few Hotties might see me do it.

In the end only myself, The Bride-To-Be and Cameron Diaz’s Twin went in. My sexually charged strip-before-entry was somewhat marred by an inability to remove my red pirate’s sash, which had somehow managed to retie itself into an impossible knot between pre- and post-drinking timeframes. Still, it created a dashing flash of colour that framed both my rippling pirate’s torso and fine buccaneer thighs, so it came with me into the water…

….which was fucking cold, I might add. Stupid, British, fucking cold. My thin Aussie blood rushed from the extremities back to protect the vital organs, taking with it any loosely attached items of flesh. “Out! Get out!” cried the Primal Instincts. “Let the drunken wenches drown! Fuck them all and get warm!” Primal Instinct had a convincing case, and besides; no one likes to see a man in a sash squeal like a girl. I got out.

Back on dry land, I was faced with the difficult question of how one puts on trousers with a clammy piece of fabric snaking around one’s person. It turned out not to be possible at all, so I stood there for several minutes working away at the now-wet-and-full-of-sand knot until it came free. I had no fears for my contracted dignity however, as the beach was as dark as the inside of a subterranean cow.

Trousers now on, I sat down to watch the show as The Bride-To-Be emerged from the waves. Not exactly Aphrodite riding on an alabaster shell she rather crawled her way out, mewing for assistance from her Gay Best Man. It seemed she was incapable of hoisting her trousers up over her wet legs, so he grabbed her waistband from behind and proceeded to pull them up in a series of jerking movements. Unfortunately The Bride-To-Be’s balance was not what it should be, so she toppled forwards and placed two hands upon the sand to steady herself during this dressing process. It was all a bit arousing for your poor author.

Fast-forward now to last week and we find it is the occasion of the nuptials we were in Brighton to celebrate. It’s Friday night and I’ve just travelled by public transport to darkest Wiltshire, managing to haul my ass to the restaurant for The Bride-To-Be’s last dinner as a single woman. All her family and the pirates are there, and I find myself seated next to The Gay Best Man.

Gay Best Man: “Now HW, we need to talk about the length of your pubic hair.”

[pause]


HW: “I’m sorry?”

Pirates 1 and 2: “What’s this?”

Gay Best Man: “I was just saying to HW that he needed to seriously reconsider the length of his pubic hair.”

HW: [having unnerving flashbacks to Bridget Jones’ Diary] “What on earth is wrong with my public hair?”

Pirate 3 and Bride’s brother: “Yes, what IS wrong with it?”

Gay Best Man: “It’s faaaaar to long.”

HW: [indignantly] “I’m sorry, I’m very happy with the trimming standards of my pubes. And besides, how would you know anyway?”

Gay Best Man’s boyfriend: “Yes, how WOULD you know?”

Gay Best Man: “Why from Brighton of course. You may not have been able to see anything looking up the beach, but with the lights of Brighton behind us we could see eeeeeeverthing, couldn’t we ladies?”

Pirates 1-4: “Sure could.”

Pirate 3: “I rang my boyfriend immediately to tell him all about it. Like a bramble bush it was.”

Pirate 1: “More like a scouring pad I thought.”

Pirate 4: “Or a miniaturised sheep.”

HW: “Look. It was dark. I was very wet. There was some unavoidable shrinkage. I’ve seen lots of pubic hair in my time and there is nothing abnormal about mine.”

Grandma: “What’s everyone talking about?”

Mother-of-the-bride: “The length of HW’s public hair mum.”

Grandma: “Oooh, nothing worse than being a bit too long down there.”

Gay Best Man: “Gets caught in the teeth, doesn’t it?”

HW: “It is NOT too long.”

Gay Best Man’s boyfriend: “So how long IS it? If you were to pull a pube straight what length would it be? In millimetres.”

Pirate 2: “Or are we talking centimetres here?”

Pirate 4: “I’ll get the yardstick.”

HW: “Look. I’m not ashamed of my length. I’ll show you now if you…”

All: “Nooooo! Noooo! It’s OK, we believe you.”

Gay Best Man: “Freak.”

So readers, let this be a lesson to you all; keep it trim or keep it in. Or at the very least, if you find yourself dressed in your birthday suit avec sash, be sure to keep that sash slung low. You never know which perverts are looking.

Thursday 18 October 2007

Will be mine

Thank you to all those concerned readers who contacted me after my last, emotional entry. You cards, bouquets of flowers and love-affirming prayers of faith to God Almighty have sustained me through this difficult time. Also, whoever sent me an inscribed dildo of chocolate that reads “My love waits for you in the dark places” I salute your instability.

I can, however, report that all your concerns are unnecessary. The pain of rejection cannot touch me as I have, for many years now, carried the talisman of a secret love. Also, I am a bitter bastard whose heart resembles the prune you lost behind the couch in ’87, but we’ll go with the glass-is-half-full for now.

I first met Secret Love back in the bitter winter of 2002. The frosts burnt the ground with fire that year, forging iron from the sweet soils of autumn. The winds ran their hungry fingers around the faces of babies, searching for death in thin scarves and hastily buttoned bonnets. And the cloak of night! Oh! How it sought out the hidden shames of the soul and scattered them like fetid meats upon the land for all to pick over.

With the rest of Great Britain I sought solace in the warm glow of television and the tragedy of other people’s lives. Nothing lifts the spirits like watching total strangers indulge their misguided fantasies on a national stage, and it was thus that we all discovered Pop Idol.

I wasn’t that taken with Secret Love at first. He looked like what you’d get if you bred your uncle with your cousin, then with your brother and finally with your uncle again for good measure. Like the kind of man who'd lock the Princes in the Tower.

But that was before he looked out of the telebox, straight into my eyes, and begin to sing;

“Eyes, like a sunrise…”
[Oh my god, MY eyes are looking a bit bloodshot tonight. What a coincidence!].

“…Like a rainfall down my soul.”

[Well I never! People often tell me I make their insides feel a bit moist.]

“And I wonder, I wonder why you look at me like that…”
[You can SEE me?! You really can, can’t you?!]

“What you're thinking…”
[I’m thinking that I… I…]

“What's behind…”
[Can’t you tell?]

“Don’t tell me but it feels…”

[Yes?]

“Like…”
[YES?!]

“Lo-o-ove.”

[Oh my god! I love you too! I love you Will Young!]

And that was that. He announced our love for each other on national television. Now THAT’S commitment.

Our relationship pottered along nicely until Christmas the following year when The Best Friend passed on a beautiful photo album that Will had made for me. Cleverly, not only did it contain 12 images of him at his sultry best, it also doubled as a calender! Like all the best home-made gifts it was personal AND practical.

In 2004 I took the photo album with me on an eight-month work posting to Malaysia. Malaysia was quite a difficult time for me. I felt overworked, socially isolated, and had a parasite living in my crotch.

Will was my rock at this time. I nailed him to the wall beside my bed and his hilarious stories about hi-jinks on tour provided a breath of fresh air in my life. “What do you want to hear about?” he’d ask as I came home at the end of the day. “Anything that doesn’t involve calculating air vortex velocities through fluted hosing“ I’d joke. Oh how we laughed and laughed until we cried. They were good times. Good times.

My return to the UK took us from strength to strength. Two more photo albums were delivered via The Best Friend in 2004 and 05. They were a bittersweet gift for me; whilst smiling on the outside Will’s receding hairline belied the stress he felt at keeping our love secret from an adoring fan-base. I never resented his secrecy, and was comforted to think I must be a wonderful muse for his Art.

And so to now. There were no personalised albums gifted last year, but they were unnecessary. I found the messages Will had hiddien in “Love is a Matter of Distance” and “Keep On”, cleverly only able to be heard when the songs are played backwards in an inverted audio wave-pattern. They tell me to wait for the No. 1 hit entitled “Engineer Of My Heart” which will be the signal that he is ready to declare our glorious union from the rooftops. I have my Special Underwear vacuum-sealed in anticipation.



ENGINEER OF MY HEART

Newton could never have calculated
The force of our attraction,
Nor could Edison have predicted
The wattage of our illumination.

The second law of thermodynamics
Proves our love will grow through time
While the conservation of momentum shows
Our trajectory’s sublime.

Build our love on foundations of reinforced bubble concrete,
Broadcast it on all electromagnetic frequencies through the street,
Write it in the stars using a planispherical chart,
So all may know you are the Engineer of my Heart.