Innocent Loverboy

This is (not) a drill

October 15, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

I didn’t know her name. Maybe I did at one point. She was in the year above us, and that was always a sign that we weren’t meant to be communicating. (We had a better relationship with the people in the year below. The following year, when they joined us, was much more convivial, even if Becci did insist upon pelting Harry with wine gums.) Still, I recognised drill girl, and although I don’t think we ever exchanged any words, I felt no affection nor animosity towards her. She was just another face in the crowd.

To this day I still have no idea how Lightsinthesky felt about her.

Maybe he didn’t like her. She was one of the many in our school who wore pink and jeans. He wasn’t fond of pink and jeans. He’d tell anyone who’d listen that. I’d have done so, just to spite him, had I owned a pair of jeans. I don’t think I’ve worn jeans since I was about six.

He also did something (which I’m assuming was, I have no idea) grotesque when she walked by. Invariably he would put his hands to his chest, extend one finger of each as if they were an extension of his nipples, and make a noise like a drill.

Drrrrrrrrrrrrr. Dzzzzzzzzhhhhh.

He never explained this. I assume we were meant to know what that meant. The logical part of my brain tells me that this was some sort of misogynistic commentary on her breasts, but since her breasts were average size, well-proportioned and worked beneficially on her slight frame, maybe he was seeing something I wasn’t. I mean, I wasn’t looking too closely at her breasts.

Eventually he’d grow tired of the frowny face I threw him every time he did this, because after a while he would nod sagely and answer the question that nobody had asked him:

“Yes, she is intensely shaggable.”

Which also wasn’t something I’d considered. Lightsinthesky saw pretty much every girl in the school as somewhat shaggable. This is the guy who would take up the bass guitar because that’s how you get all the ladies. I may have had the occasional crush, but I wasn’t as desperate to shag anyone as he was. My assumption is that he would have sex with drill girl if he could, but he couldn’t because he didn’t know she was, and neither did I, so he just consoled himself with making the drill noises, pausing, and then declaring her intensely shaggable.

Am I the only one who’s confused by this?

Drill girl passed us in the lunch hall once and Lightsinthesky waited for a few seconds before the hands came out and he made a noise like a cross between a pneumatic drill and a machine gun.

“That’s all I have to say,” he nodded, with some finality to it.
“I don’t understand and I never have,” I interjected, “but… do you like her or not?I mean, you keep saying she’s intensely shaggable.”
“She is intensely shaggable.”
“If you say so,” I sighed, realising I wasn’t going to get much else out of him. “You just keep making that drill noise when you see her and I’ve no idea what that means either.”
“Oh, you know.”
“…”
“You know.”

It was a statement, not a question. Clearly I was supposed to know what this meant. I also wanted to work out why he found drill girl so intensely shaggable.

“My God, that woman’s got a huge arse,” he said, snapping me out of my rêverie.
“You know, you’re not meant to say stuff like that,” I responded. “It’s not appropriate.”
“But it’s true,” he explained. “And I’m always clear about what I say.” (He didn’t hear my snort at this as he ploughed on regardless. “Plus, it’s one of my catchphrases.”

I didn’t even know he had catchphrases.

“Five seconds, here we go,” I said in the style of Roy Walker.

I’m still annoyed he didn’t get it.

/msg Kaf Quiet!

October 3, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

The first time I ever used IRC was via the official Worms 2 server. Granted, I didn’t know what IRC was at the time, but I owned Worms 2 and a dial-up Internet connection, and was curious. I was also friends with Kaf, who would be very keen for me to show off the chat function, even if I did insist upon ~~losing at~~ playing a few games of Worms 2 first.

Kaf was, to be frank, a lot bolder than me. He was strong, athletic, attractive and went to an all-boys’ school, which sounded fairly terrifying. I’m not sure if I believed all the stories he told me about throwing other students through walls and the like, but they were entertaining, and so was he, and a very loyal friend, to boot. He was more interested in WormNET than the actual game, because – as it turned out, although I’d had my suspicions – it was a way to talk to girls.

I wasn’t that interested in “girls”. I knew girls. Lots of my friends were girls. I’m still friends with most of those girls. Still, I liked making new friends and Kaf was good talker, and I’d let him use my keyboard for informal chat, although I did object to the use of “FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING WANKER” (a phrase used a lot on WormNET), which he shrugged off with, “you’ve got to have some fun in life.”

But it was my computer, my internet time and my copy of Worms 2, so I tugged the keyboard back off him like he was Jared in the e-mail scene of Dear Evan Hansen.

“But I haven’t told my joke,” he wheedled as I hastily tried to apologise to everyone. “Let me tell my joke.”
“Do you really want to tell one?” I said quietly, scrolling through the window. “Lots of people are telling jokes, but they all appear to be racist.”
“You shouldn’t have answered that guy who asked if you were German in German.”
“But I’m doing German GCSE, it was a chance to practice!”
“Fine,” he said, wrenching the keyboard from my hands, “I’ll tell my joke, and then you can chat afterwards.”

Before I could answer, he started writing.

okay so i know a great joke and this is how it goes so there are three women in a lift and it gets stuck and a genie appeared and granted them three wishes so the first woman goes i wish i was a hundred times smarter and she got out of the lift and the second woman goes i wish i was a thousand times smarter and she got out of the lift and then the third woman goes i wish i was a million times smarter and she turned into a man :))))))))))
Kaf

“But that’s not very funny,” I said meekly once he’d hit return and handed me back the keyboard.
“You don’t understand the joke,” he replied earnestly. “You see, it means men are a million times sma…”
“I know what it means, it’s just not funny.”
“People are laughing.”
“Nobody’s laughing.”
“Isn’t that what FOAD means?”
“Not as far as I’m aware.”

Kaf sighed.

“Like I said, you’ve got to have some fun in life.”
“You do,” I agreed. “But not like this. Not through swearing and telling sexist jokes.”
“What sort of joke would you tell, then?”
“Oh, something simple. Something like

Did you hear about the very think Saxon who scored? It was a goal from the narrowest of Angles.
an objectively better joke

or in the same vein.”
“But I don’t even understand that one.”
“It’s my favourite joke.”
“Mine was funnier.”
“Yours was sexist! If you’re going to be sexist on WormNET, you shouldn’t be doing it on my account!”
“Fine,” he huffed. “You fix it. I’m going to get some crisps.”

While he went to get some of my crisps, I tried – quite well, I thought, at least – initially to everyone for what my mate had said.

And that’s the first time I got called “GAY” on the Internet by someone I didn’t know. What a time to be alive.

Primal

October 1, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

This morning I was lying in my bed playing the daily roulette of “is it depression, or are you just really tired, ILB?”. Fun game. You should try it. It involves lots of monologuing to an audience that doesn’t exist and singing along to an instrument you can no longer play.

And I felt a hook somewhere behind my navel and I was pulled backwards and

I ricocheted back through time like I was on a minecart that just wouldn’t stop

and

i'm in the seamstress' bedroom and her mother has just brought me a cup of tea. i'm reading the sex blogs and there have been some rumblings about some sort of sex blogger and erotic writer convention. i smile slightly but this is never going to work. we'd all have to wear masks. it's something i've had dreams about but it's never going to happen

and I laughed, because I’d just realised where this was going. Maybe not with the Seamstress – I still need to work through that one. But I knew where it would end, right? Maybe this isn’t all hopeless bullshit and

i'm sitting at a table with people i've known for years and never met before. the atmosphere is palpable

and

i'm hugging a girl who doesn't want a hug. i feel terrible. i should have asked

No, wait, I don’t want to see that one. Show me something else. Hook. Pull. Tumbling forward and forward in time. This time I have no idea where I’m going to

tim booth leaves a cowbell on the floor and 47 picks it up i'm crying down the 'phone to h because i've just broken up with katherine my cousin gets married and i dance with her pretty friend i lose my job and i go home and i scream as the world comes down around me and i'm riding on a dragon above southend and

Focus…

and

i'm thinking about how i can introduce girl on the net without saying her name. she'd get mobbed if i did. i tentatively suggest that i can point out people to her. a who is who, and then she can introduce herself. or not. but it gives her the choice. i'm standing in the doorway surreptitiously pointing people out. that's blacksilk and lady pandorah. that's jilly boyd over there. that's steph alys. there's molly moore, and her dom, signs

and that’s good. That’s a good thing. I can stay here, it’s nice.

Hook. Pull.

This time I close my eyes because I don’t want to see where I’m going to land. It takes a while for the colours and shapes to fit into place.

it's been cancelled. it's what i need and it's been cancelled. i'm having one of the worst times of my life and i've upset everybody and i needed this. it's been cancelled. i'm going to need therapy because of this

back to

that was my idea. she's running the session and it was my idea. i'm not involved or credited or even acknowledged, but it was my idea. i feel so betrayed. i won't say anything because i know somebody's going to realise and say something

and forward again to

why isn't she talking to me? is it because i haven't got a beard?

and

maybe you're just not as talented as you think you are?

and

why can't i help? i want to help. i'm willing to help. let me h

...

i'm lying on the floor and i can't get up. i'm waiting for someone to come and get me up off the floor. my whole body is screaming in pain

Scream.

That’s what I need to do. Open my mouth and centre myself. Inhale, fill my lungs, and let it all out with one huge, piercing primal scream. I try.

I can’t do it. I can’t scream. It’s not coming. I’m… I’m…

i miss everyone and i miss everything and i'm so fucking lonely

…scared. I’m too scared.

I have no voice.

I need to scream…

you're a long way from home, blogger boy.

Soft Porn Sunday: Kim Dawson & Robert Davis vs. Flower Edwards

September 13, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Pity poor Lisa, for she is bored.

Pity poor Lisa, believing as she does that she is done with men or dating or sex. Pity poor Lisa, who would rather stay home with a big book of erotica than go outside and enjoy herself. Pity poor Lisa, who ends up blindfolded on a sofa while Belle and Shane have sex against a pillar and…

…wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you see her on the couch, moaning to herself, writhing with herself, have pity. She is wanking through the unimaginable.

Appearance: Bedtime Stories, Series 1: “Blindfold” (2000)
Characters: Belle & Shane, plus Lisa

It has been A Hot Minute™ since I last featured Bedtime Stories, so it probably helps to review the setup. Belle (Kim “Dawson” Sill) likes sex and helps other people have some. That it, that’s the plot. Every episode has a new character introduced for her to help – they all end up with a happy ending, and more often than not Belle ends up naked in a variety of positions with rugged men, so she has her own happy ending too.

You see, this is the world of soft porn, where everything is easy and everyone is beautiful and candles burn for months on end without needing to be relit.

Kim Dawson, Flower Edwards and Robert Davis in "Bedtime Stories: Blindfold" (2000). — Lisa: “Hey! Who turned out the lights?”

Lisa (Flower), who one must pity as I outlined above, is bored. Belle’s job is to entertain her, along with her rugged man friend Shane (Robert Davis, who hasn’t really done much else). “Good ol’ Jason Schnuit” is in this episode too, but I’m going to try not to mention him too much. Lisa, who it seems will go along with just about anything, spends a fair amount of time blindfolded – seemingly so she can learn some things about herself, focusing on her other senses.

Also, she can’t see Belle and Shane disrobing and getting into hot and heavy action. But we can.

So. Shane kisses Lisa and then Belle, and then as Lisa starts to masturbate at Mach 10 speed, Lisa takes Shane around the corner to have fun. Is Lisa meant to know about this, then? Listen to them in flagrante delicto and imagine what’s happening? Or are they just having sex for want of something to do? Answers on a postcard!

Kim Dawson and Robert Davis in "Bedtime Stories: Blindfold" (2000). — A huge roar from Shane. **GET OUT OF IT, FESTUS**!

This scene, thankfully, is hot, although how much of that is down to the setting and how much to the music is unclear. Bedtime Stories seems to have a bank of sex scene music themes, you see, and this one is by far my favourite – a pleasingly catchy mix of drums and electric guitar noodling which never fails to turn me on, even if it’s just the memory of the scenes it accompanies (this one being one of ’em).

I should probably mention the actors too though, right? Well, Kim Dawson is incredibly alluring in a natural sort of way – all curves and hair with a pretty face – and, while disrobing, we get a healthy amount of time with her being topless while still wearing her jeans (which is my favourite look). She’s very much the star of this, veering between:

having her breasts fondled
being eaten out
doing the YMCA
getting railed from behind
awkward neck kisses which don’t connect
moaning like a banshee
pretending to be attracted to Robert Davis

all while standing up against a faux marble pillar in her ~~house~~ ~~brothel~~ ~~hotel~~ ~~mansion~~ thing. In fact, both Kim Dawson and Robert Davis are quite good at this – not quite acrobatics, but there’s a fair degree of stamina involved in having sex standing up. Belle, sexual guru that she is, is clearly enjoying herself, with some classic sly/happy facial expressions.

Shane is… present, in a way. He does some things with his face which sway between amusing and terrifying, but he isn’t an unattractive man, nor is he less than adept in the whole Sex Acting Thing.

But what about poor, pitiable Lisa? Throughout the whole scene we have occasional cuts to her, very much enjoying herself too, with plenty of skin and some yummy moans from Flower. She’s meant to be spending time with her remaining senses, of course, but whether she’s just enjoying what’s in her head or touching herself to orgasm because what else is there to do?, it’s clearly working.

Hmmm, maybe she doesn’t need our pity after all.

For all I’ve said above, though, this really is one of my favourite scenes, and it’s one I’ve recently rediscovered, so that’s always nice. There’s something about the combination of not just one but two attractive ladies having fun in different ways, a willing craggy actor playing a warm body to writhe against, some nice scenery, and familiar music, that appeals to me.

Flower Edwards in "Bedtime Stories: Blindfold" (2000). — She’s going to be so embarrassed when she realises the window’s open.

That, and the fact that Belle and Shane are having sex, partly to stimulate Lisa, but mostly because they can. I like that trope.

I can’t quite get over the position of Lisa’s blindfold, though. A couple of inches higher and it’d be round her head like she’s a ninja.

How could you miss out on that opportunity?

Did you cheat on me?

September 4, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 2 Comments

The question rattles around in my head until it becomes untenable. I try to squash it down; it becomes an ache in my chest, a pit in my stomach. Don’t be silly, say my rational parts. It didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. You never even considered it at the time, they say.

But what if? says the rest of me. My body begins to dully thud, the doubt now upon me like a leaden blanket. I think about it all the time. You certainly could have. It would have been so easy for you and I wouldn’t have ever known. I would just be… there. Solidly, dependably present, waiting for you to come back from your rendezvous, innocently disguised as something else.

I’d know, of course. Somehow I’d know. I’d lie on your bed, staring at the ceiling with rivers of tears staining my cheeks. Every cry of ecstasy he elicited from you another dagger of ice piercing my very soul within. I wouldn’t even ask myself why. I knew the answer. I wasn’t good enough. I knew that all the time. Not good enough. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

I wouldn’t need to ask who, either. I knew who and so did you. He was never really gone. From the rapturous tone of your initial mentions of him to the tiny hints of infatuation towards the end, he was always there. Not present in the real sense, but there nonetheless, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake. If you cheated on me, when you cheated on me, it would be him. It was always going to be him. He’d be so easy to blame for any betrayal, and I’d believe you.

You’d probably tell me, although you’d never know what that would do to my heart. Broken is not the word. It would be worse too than shattered. My heart would be atomised, reduced to nothing more than a pile of fallen sand. The cries I’d give would outnumber the ways to describe the pain I’d be feeling. Holding you close would be the only way I’d stop the rot from setting in.

But, of course, I wouldn’t be able to do that. I wasn’t good enough to hold you. Not worthy. Never worthy. Never had been, never would be. Never. Never. Never.

I’d been cheated on before, of course. That was heartbreak of the sort I thought I’d never experience. The love we shared convinced me that I was in so way worthy of love. This one who felt unlovable finally told otherwise.

If you cheated on me, it would be my final shreds of hope you set on fire. The rest of my life wouldn’t be worth a thing. My existence reduced to nothing but constant pain.

Pain.

Forever.

I lie on my side letting the question scream its way through every part of my existence. Did you cheat on me?

I know you didn’t… but what if?

Vikings

August 21, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

I genuinely, honestly, hand-on-heart thought that I wouldn’t have a summer holiday this year. First world problems, I know, but this time last year I was in Japan, retro game shopping with my best friend and getting told I was kawaii. I even came back with quite a lot of money to spare… but this year I started the summer period on the breadline, overdrawn for the first time in a while and with no sign of having enough money for food, never mind any sort of holiday.

In the end I was beginning to become resigned to the fact that I’d be spending the rest of August vegetating in my flat and maybe completing the DLR thing that I finally managed to start this week.

And then my grandfather gave every one of his grandchildren £1,000 and I booked a holiday with the speed of Billy Whizz.

We are going to York. My wife has never been.

York has mixed memories for me. I once went on a rainy camp with a group (that I helped to organise) that would have been better if it had stopped raining for any amount of time. As a very young child my parents took me and I walked along the Roman walls. I remember going to JORVIK and buying some amber for my crush (which she got, anonymously). I’ve been to the sweet shop on Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate. It’s quite a way away, but I do like York. I have my favourite places, of course – Bath, Nottingham, here in London – but I like it.

I’m trying not to let it freak me out.

Last time I was in York I was in a relationship with Catherine. We spent a week there (quite a pleasant week, truth be told) and did quite a few of the things I’m intending to do this weekend with my wife. I made sure, when I was booking, to avoid staying in the same hotel I’ve had sex in. My mental Rolodex flicked through all the attractive people I’ve met from Yorkshire in Woodcraft and beyond. My young raver friend now lives there, even.

It’s difficult, in what has been a nervous and uncertain summer for me, to put all of this behind me. Once again, I’m going to a place which reminds me of past loves and the occasional crushing failure. It has been more than a decade since I last went that far North, and although this may well scratch the wanderlust itch that burns within, whether or not I can genuinely enjoy myself to the fullest very much remains conjecture at this point.

Or maybe I just need to get laid. That’d help.

Lonely

August 11, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 1 Comment

Twenty years ago (or therabouts), as we lay entwined after a few shared orgasms, Alicia drummed the chorus of Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo on my stomach.

Why this comes to mind should be no surprise. I’ve been watching a lot of Disney recently. Cinderella – which, as it turns out, is rather dull; I hadn’t seen it since I was very young – does have a few decent songs. Quite why Alicia chose the fairy godmother’s signature theme I’ll never know. Maybe it was a hint and she actually was my fairy godmother. I’ve been waiting for her all this time, and maybe she just appeared when I was 21 and manifested as someone who actually wanted to have sex with me.

A miracle, I know.

It’s not unusual, for another reason – this time, something both out of my control and very little to do with which type of subscription I’ve got to Disney Plus.

Over the last few weeks, I have been sleeping less. Probably the heat, although there’s that, and the fact that I’m taking Wegovy^® and that’s doing odd things to my stomach. This time last year I was prepping to go to Japan and getting quite excited by it all. Then there are the constant worries, about physical and mental health, uncertainly about the future, and the part about the one that got away.

And when I do get a few snatches of sleep I’m invariably having dreams about my exes.

It’s not always my exes. The other night I dreamed up someone who appeared to be a mixture of two people I follow on social media. Most of the time, though, it is – an older Catherine; a treacherous Louise; a mixture of Rebecca and the Seamstress which means I get a Seamstress cheating on me. (I’ve recently come to wondering, as I lie awake, if at any point the Seamstress was cheating on me. She was certainly out of my league. I don’t want to consider it, when you take into account how my first relationship ended, but it’s an unpleasant thought I just can’t shake.)

And there are the “almost, what if?” type of dreams I have which are probably inspired by Fesshole. What if I’d kissed her? What if I’d felt her up? What if I’d said something different to her? What if I had been thinner, fitter, hotter, or more confident? What if, what if, what if…? You get the idea.

Even the dreams about my actual wife are against me. They include cuddles in bed, or lengthy messy kisses, or sex… none of which we do any more.

None of these things are new. But I know why they’re happening.

I’m lonely. Not as in the sort of single person lonely I used to have as a single person, more as in the sort of “you have lost of friends but there isn’t anyone you can just fucking talk to” lonely. The sort of lonely where the only real contact you have is with your parents and even then you feel like you’re being little more than a bother.

Lonely, as in, summer used to be time for friends and they’re all occupied with having children.
Lonely, as in, I was meant to be going on holiday but I’m so low on money I may be stuck in my flat for all of August.
Lonely, as in, I’ve got a freedom pass and a disabled person’s railcard and I’d totally travel around Britain to visit someone, but who? Where? Nobody’s invited me, anyway, so here I stay.
Lonely, as in, I want to scream.

I want to S C R E A M…

…but there’s no point. Nobody’s listening, anyway.

It’s too hot. The lights aren’t on. I’m inside and I can’t go out because my wife has ordered yet another package and I need to wait for that. I don’t have anything to do, anyway.

The silence is heavy.

And I’m so fucking lonely.

Like Like (aka: Good in Bed, Like)

July 28, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Shield-eaters and world leaders have many likes alike.
Ancient Hylian Proverb

“Here,” she said.

I turned around to look at her. She had a semi-quizzical, semi-dirty look on her face. I hadn’t known her for that long, at that point… but I knew that look. Whatever she was about to say wouldn’t be a pleasant thing. I’d stake my reputation (as a hopeless social misfit) on it. In that moment, I could solemnly swear that she was up to no good.

“Yes?” I tried tentatively.
“I know someone who likes you…” she started. “Like, she really likes you.”
“No she doesn’t,” I said automatically.

Of course she was lying. Nobody liked me – that was impossible. Plus, at that age it wasn’t proper for anyone to like me. I certainly didn’t like anyone (although maybe I did… I just wouldn’t admit it…), at least not enough to entertain any particular fantasies. 12 was too young to be a romantic person, someone who went on dates or had girlfriends. I was going to wait until 13 until I started to ritualistically get my heart broken.

“You don’t even know who I’m talking about!” she exclaimed. I’m talking about…”

Here she gave a name. I didn’t recognise it. I didn’t know many of the girls in my year anyway, although everyone knew who I was. I knew the Floof. I knew the Manics fan and would end up wanting to have sex with her. I knew Dani who pinched my bum. This name I didn’t recognise, although I didn’t go to the same primary school as the majority of my year either, so I was none the wiser.

“Oh,” was my eloquent reply. “Well, I don’t know who that is, and I can’t like someone who I don’t know. And if I don’t know her, she won’t know me, and I’m not sure how she could like me if she doesn’t.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I think you don’t like her because you don’t think she’d be good in bed.”

Good in bed. I’d never heard that phrase before. I didn’t need to work out what it meant, though. It was fairly self-explanatory. But then at the age of twelve I wasn’t exactly beginning to rank people I knew by whether or not they’d be good in bed. Considering the year I’d been having, I was beginning to know people by how hard they hit.

“…no,” I managed after I’d recovered from this curve ball. “I’d never… I mean, I don’t know who this is and I…”
“So you don’t think she’d be good in bed?”

This girl wasn’t a bully – she was a bit of a tease. But I knew I was in dangerous territory. Any answer I gave would be weaponised against me in some way. Whatever I said would have found its way through to the rowdy boys at some point. Throughout the year I’d been gay (because I wasn’t interested), a pervert (because I said someone was pretty), radical (because I gave a speech in favour of sex before marriage), and then gay again (because a friend of mine accidentally sat on my hand and apparently that was me groping him. My bully kept saying things like “I don’t feel safe around [ILB], he keeps looking at me in a homosexual way”.) The last thing I wanted to now be was someone who didn’t think someone I didn’t know existed wasn’t good in bed.

What was I supposed to say?

“I don’t know what it’s like in bed,” I said theatrically, making my excuse to go to the bathroom and end the conversation there and then. I got stuck in one of the stalls and my Geography teacher had to kick the door in.

By the time I got back to class my bully had heard that I didn’t know what a bed was like and was telling everyone that I actually slept on the floor under a second-hand flea-infested rug in the hovel that I lived in, and that’s why I was so stupid and dirty.

But at least I didn’t have to have sex. Gross!

/join

July 23, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

A friend recently asked me if I would look over, and contribute to, a project she started working on while bored: a glossary of terms regularly used in sexchat. Things like

SCENE

(n.) Cybersex or sexual contact performed on IRC, usually in a public context (for example, in a channel), eg: “I was in a scene with John”. Can also be used to describe any act of cybersex, even in private.

(v.) To take part in a scene as an active participant, eg: “I’m just a slut who likes to scene”.

and more stuff specific to IRC like

HOP

(n.) IRC term short for “half-operator”, denoting a user with a percentage sign (%) next to their name. A rank of status allowing the user to moderate the channel with less access rights than an op. Known as +h.

(v.) To grant someone the hop (+h) status.

How do I know this stuff?

I’ve mentioned it before, but never in too much detail. I am a seasoned user of IRC – from being a regular in chat rooms, to being a HOP, AOP, SOP and even IRCop at one point. I’ve done it all. One of my proudest achievements (or at least it would be, but pride is a sin!) is that of keeping a dying chat room going for a few years – the action-packed second week of my ownership being one of my favourite memories.

None of this is to do with sexchat, but… well, I used to do that too.

My third year at university was a busy one. I didn’t enjoy my first two years and, although this year wasn’t much better, I wasn’t having a whale of a time. I had my music, and my communities, and my eternal friends – books. After charging it, I even had my faithful DS, which afforded me the luxury of handheld gaming. Even my housemates were nice.

But, still, I was lonely. Being a final year student meant that I spent the majority of my time stuck in my room reading texts. Were it not for the fact that I was doing a creative writing dissertation I may not have bothered to do final year. Nevertheless, I stuck with it, I finished my dissertation, passed everything else and took Japanese on the side… and finished with a 2:1, which I suppose could have been worse. No regrets there.

I spent the rest of my time on sexchat.

There I found myself in a very different community of people (including the aforementioned friend, who was both at my university and on sexchat) than those which I was already used to. I wasn’t writing as ILB yet, and in all honesty I was both naïve and a little sheltered at the time. Here, however, was a collection of people who were unafraid to talk openly about sex, and also quite willing to engage in it, if you had a good prose style and mastery of the /me command.

Yes, there were terrible people there – angry, horny, hairy men who wouldn’t take no for an answer, used the /me command for their own nefarious ends and made everyone uncomfortable (including me, with my gender-neutral nick which made everyone assume I was a girl; it’s just my real life nickname!) – but, once you’d filtered them out, those left would be the ones you’d want to talk to. Over time, I came to think of a number of them as friends.

I liked cybersex, because of course I did, I’m ILB for Glod’s sake… and I was quite good at it, or so I’m told. But what kept me coming back, for hours on end most days, wasn’t the orgasms so much as a chat. It’s not every community where you can have one tab open discussing the relative merits of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, while in another you’ve got your smooth, pulsing cock splitting the folds of a beautiful Dutch bisexual lady, her describing how the beads of sweat running down her breasts tickle her skin while you fill her so completely.

So full and good. Yeah.

Where was I?

So, yes. I’d been going to sexchat since I turned 18, but as a 21-year-old student with few friends and having had absolutely no sex for three years, it really was my saving grace. A dodgy place, there is no doubt; once you’d figured out how to navigate it, however, and you weren’t being a dick (even to those who wanted dick), it held my attention enough to keep me going back, as I did for years afterwards.

I don’t really go to sexchat any more, but my friend does, and as she pointed out when she asked for my help, I am perfectly qualified to write a few entries for her glossary.

Because, when it comes down to it, some things never change.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

I don’t want to fuck the band

July 13, 2026 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Twenty-six years ago this was all very different.

The only thing that’s the same is the instrument (in fact, it’s exactly the same, in one case). ILB is very different, however. At the age of 20 he was in a completely unfamiliar headspace. He was able to stand throughout an entire rehearsal. He had a section leader who hated him, a musical director who thought it was okay to bully, and a crush on the short, cute bespectacled brunette who played front row cornet.

I kept going back for the music. That was the only reason I went, essentially. I’d always wanted to be in a band. School jazz band was a faded memory and the rock band I’d started – despite having six members at one point – was mostly a dream. This was my opportunity to play music. I may have cried about what was said to me, and even ended up self-harming with the sharp end of a triangle beater at one point… but at least I felt like a musician.

It left an indelible mark on me, so much that when – years later – I wrote flash fiction set in the rehearsal room, I could perfectly visualise every detail.

One year later and the band I was in was a completely different situation. A fractured ensemble with an aging MD and uncertain player numbers. I came back laughing from my first rehearsal; by my third I had invented a girlfriend there on account of the lack of short brunettes in glasses. The one concert we played revealed that we actually had three times the people who usually turned up. My parents came to see it and everyone had a great time.

The next band had a guest appearance by my clinical psychologist, who was in the audience. I think we was surprised to see me alive. To be honest, I was pretty impressed with myself too.

I ate lots of millionaire shortbread at the concert where I depped for the wind orchestra my mum was in. I don’t quite remember much else about it. I’d never had millionaire shortbread before. What a day.

But, as I said, things change.

I no longer feel the raw sexual energy that tore through me while shredding guitar chords or squawking backing vocals as I gave myself to rock. Nor do I fix on the hottest person in the audience to try to impress from my position right at the back. Or time the notes I’m playing with the throb, throb, throb of my cock as the power of the music brings me to attention.

I’ve even married a bespectacled short brunette of my very own.

Yesterday I played with a large ensemble for the first time in decades. Same sort of thing; same sort of audience; same instrument. But I’m no longer being yelled at. Or belittled, or mollycoddled. For the first time ever I get a round of applause of my own because I’m the newest member and I played a solo. The guy who’s depping on the instrument next to me clearly sees me as an equal. That’s never happened before.

I’m not horny, or blinded, or powerful. I’m chill, unconcerned and bathing in the music. I play my part, I contribute and I enjoy the applause.

This time, it’s all right. This time I can just be without wanting to prove myself, get a bit of grace, or fuck any of them.

Just like at 47’s wedding everything ends with Bohemian Rhapsody, because of course it does. That is, apparently, what music sounds like.