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On self help
All of us behave like the wagoner in the fable from time to time. When our metaphorical wagon is stuck in a rut, like the wagoner we cry out to Hercules, the strongest of the strong, to come solve our problem for us. Experience has taught me that Hercules seldom even so much as shows up yet alone helps solve the problem. The wagoner was far luckier than I: at least he had a personal message from Hercules telling him to put his shoulder to the wheel. Get on with it. Help yourself, no one else will help you.
I do have a little tale that I could tell about a person who is very capable of getting on and helping herself.
You remember how at the beginning of lockdowns everyone was full of enthusiasm for doing that thing they had never managed to do, things like: write a novel, learn a language, that sort of thing. Well, Leo actually did it. He found a language course. And that is how he met Anouk, his language teacher. He found the course through the working men’s club. The language course had been an evening course at the working men’s club before the pandemic, when Leo joined half way through the course, when it went online. Anouk told me she lost half her class with the lockdowns in the one conversation I have had with her. She lives north of the river so seldom comes down to drink at this pub. And Leo always visits her, except for that one lockdown when Fern and Ivy stayed with their mum. That time she stayed with Leo. There are several tales of her appearing in the background of a Leo’s screen without her knickers, or even totally naked. Leo says she tends not to wear clothes indoors, he says that when she lived in a warmer country she didn’t wear clothes outdoors either. But that is another story.
That first lockdown was long, if I remember correctly, and when the restrictions were lifted Anouk suggested the class meet for a lesson in a park near the working men’s club. It was good weather, so why not! Well, it turned out to be a one to one lesson as Leo was the only student to go. They drank their beer from cans hidden in paper bags and kept walking round and round the park slowly. The park police were generally really aggressive then, but on that day they ignored Leo and Anouk.
After the walk in the park Leo admitted to me that he quite fancied Anouk really. He liked her assertive ways and her foreignness. Assertive women with some form or other-ness are qualities that Leo finds attractive. She didn’t fit his type in other ways, she was older, not interested in a career, she demonstrated and protested and later, I believe, she was quite suspicious of the vaccinations, though not going as far as the 5G conspiracies.
Well, several lessons later, and a couple more walks in the park and he invited her to eat out, the eat out to help out certainly helped him out. He was staying north of the river that night, his cousin had asked him to drop her daughter at school as she had an early start. So when they were both well lubricated, having feasted finely at the government’s discount, Leo invited her to stay over at his cousins. He hadn’t been planning to bed her, he had just not wanted the evening to end, but that is the expectation when such an offer is made. Leo can sometimes be a little bit naive.
Well, his cousin was not pleased to find him bringing a friend, but she knew what Leo was like. Usually reliable but somewhat unpredictable. But there was nothing to do about it at the end of the evening so she welcomed the guest and went to bed.
Up until that evening Leo and Anouk had not so much as kissed, but in his cousin’s house they did. They kissed, they touched, they caressed and they fucked. It was at this moment in time that both Leo and his cousin discovered that Anouk was a screamer. Leo confided in me that when they make love she starts with a gentle: yes, yes, yes. This generally gives way to an instruction: faster, or deeper or slower. Then the yesses return, or they are oh, oh, oh timed with his balls slapping her arse. Then the ohs become throatier until they are screams still in time with his thrusts. As her orgasm approaches the screams join into one long screech-groan which is followed by a small string of expletives. He did not say what swear words she used, or even if she swore in English. He said once he got used to her sexual penchants it was fine, but on that first occasion he was horrified. In the beginning he had loved the way she had taken control of the situation. She had positioned him, she told him what she wanted, how fast, how hard and he had set about it. None of that usual awkwardness of first times. But then came the noises, he stroked in and out and she called out. His cousin was in the next room. Her daughter in the other. They were all listening to Anouk screech. Her eyes were closed, she was clearly concentrating on physical sensations, the noises were obviously her way of self-help.
She always came, he told me she was the only sexual partner he had been with which he was certain she always orgasmed. On that first time he wanted to stop but was too embarrassed. He didn’t want to appear boring, staid, after all she was the guest. And so it was that his cousin heard Anouk go all the way. Maybe if I ever meet his cousin I will ask her what swear words Anouk uses to orgasm.
In that one conversation I had with Anouk she said Leo was the type of man who made women fall in love with him. A comment to which we both stood quietly for a moment observing the way the women in the booth regarded Leo. In her voice I heard sadness. I believe she understood her relationship with Leo was stuck, it would go no further as he did not return the love she felt for him. Not that I would want to extrapolate between approaches to sex and approaches to life’s other challenges but I suspect Anouk will shortly, clearly and loudly express her disappointment in Leo and, sadly, she will no longer have a reason to return to this pub.
We shall quietly remember her.
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