Innocent Loverboy

Love, sex and interminable pop-culture references

Page 2 of 22

You’ll never shine if you don’t glow

Hey now, you’re an all star
Get your game on, go, play
Hey now, you’re a rock star
Get the show on, get paid
And all that glitters is gold
Only shooting stars break the mould

When I was 17 (a busy year for me by all accounts) I was given my first, and so far one of my only, chances to play one song alongside a band which, despite being composed entirely of GCSE Music students at my school, was beginning to develop something of a following. I’d learned the violin part by heart – to a degree that I was fairly confident I could play it backwards. Through circumstances I don’t want to go into here – although Obsession might tell you – I didn’t end up playing. I went home at the interval, had a drink and a snack, and only then did I realise that I could have:

a) stayed
b) played my part
c) actually motherfucking done the motherfucking thing I’d motherfucking gone to motherfucking do

I’d also had several people there tell me I was pretty, so I might have pulled too. I mean, if I was going to be a rock star…

The following week was fairly awful, and the fact that nobody was taking how I felt seriously didn’t help either. In my intense gloom, one of the very few things that gave me a bit of a lift was All Star. I was doubting then – and this is a doubt that I still feel practically every day – that I was exhibiting (or do so now) any particular amount of talent. I was a pretender who had convinced himself otherwise, whereas in reality I was a talent-free jobsworth who didn’t deserve nice things. All Star told me otherwise. I was a star.

Smash Mouth knew it, so I did too.

Smash Mouth performing in 2011. Photo by Ingelbert, CC BY-SA 3.0.
My spring and my sunshine all at once.

One might assume that that was the end of it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. For the year or so preceding that event, I had become a Smash Mouth fan. The reality of being a moody, depressed teenager was slightly mollified by the fact that I had a fairly decent repository of Californian surf rock I bought on a whim from HMV.

All Star was just the tip of the iceberg. By the time their fourth album Get the Picture? came along, I was a diehard aficionado. I knew all the words to all the songs, I would play them at maximum volume when nobody else was around, and even though they wouldn’t quite beat James to my number one spot, for a long time my John, Paul, George and Ringo were Harwell, Camp, DeLisle and Urbano.

They even played a rôle in my relationships. I got the girl I had a crush on into them and we geeked out on our shared love of US punk. My first girlfriend also became a bit of a fan, and we went on a date to buy Get the Picture? together. I even had sex to them a couple of times, although mostly by accident.

For more than half of my life now, when I need them, Smash Mouth have been there for me. Whereas there are a myriad of artists and genres that I will flick through at random, listening to Smash Mouth is like a hug from a kindly uncle: comforting, warm and familiar.

Steve Harwell is a legend

Although he left the band a few years before his death, and his tenure with them in the year preceding that was a difficult one for all involved, Smash Mouth would never have worked without Steve. His unique, characteristic raspy voice may not have gelled with any other band, but with Smash Mouth it just fitted like a glove. Whether it was a song about the Italian mafia, being stuck in a traffic jam or smoking too much marijuana (all actual songs), Steve’s voice just worked. The songs were written with his voice in mind and it was clear, from first listen, that they were.

It’s one of my biggest regrets that I never, even though I was fully intending to at the time, wrote to Steve, telling him how much his music meant to me and reminding him that they had yet to do a UK tour (and they still haven’t, and probably never will). As recently as half an hour ago I realised how much storage space on my iPod is taken up by songs with Steve Harwell.

Or just how many of his songs the band I’m in (in my fantasies; it’s not a real band) play on a regular basis.

Or that the fictional girl who asked me out kept wanting to see him naked.

Steve Harwell is very special to me and he always will be. His death is a sad day for rock and a gut-punch to anyone who, like me, grew up with his band. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.

Thank you, Steve.

Revelations: IILLBB

Two similar-looking faces representing ILBs 1 and 2.

ILB wakes up in bed with ILB. Briefly, they look at each other, an uneasy grin unfurling on each face. Neither of them know what they have done, or how long for.

“Time to start my day,” says ILB-1. “Want some coffee? I’ll go downstairs to get it.”
“No need,” says ILB-2. “The kitchen’s on this level.”
Mahar!” calls ILB-1’s dad. “I’m making tea; do you want any?”
“Thanks,” chorus both ILBs at the same time.

ILB and ILB take their seats at the computer. It’s time to write their blog post, which is a simple routine: ILB-1 opens Blogger, gets a compose window open and copy-pastes the HTML in first before writing. He had an idea in his head last night and this is a way to get it down. ILB-2 opens his self-hosted WordPress compose window. He doesn’t have any ideas; he’ll probably write any old shit and hope it works.

ILB-1 will be going to host a session at Eroticon about how not to do that.

Both ILBs click the publish button at the same time and cross-post to social media: ILB-1 to Twitter; ILB-2 to 𝕏 and Mastodon and Bluesky. Immediately after this they both open their blogrolls, one blog at a time via multiple tabs. ILB-1 is still impressed that Mozilla Firefox will do this. ILB-2 would have been upset if Google Chrome didn’t.

ILB-1 reads through a succession of very sexy blogs by very sexy people. The first ones he opens are by Blacksilk and Lady Pandorah. Each of them has written something new and he devours every word. He also checks on Lace Stockings and Silverarcheress. LucyBoots may have some new porn she likes. Bitchy Jones is still hitting people with stuff. Leah is busily laying London.

He finishes by reading the blog belonging to the girl he has a crush on. He knows where she is and how best to get there, but it’s only a dream, he tells himself. He’s never going to get to have sex with her.

ILB-2 spools through a succession of very sexy blogs by very sexy people. He opens each of them in alphabetical order and checks quickly. Most of them haven’t been updated in a while and he clicks off the page impatiently. GOTN, Emma and Robyn usually come through with something new. He still considers himself part of something, but he isn’t entirely sure what that something is.

ILB-1 talks about how connected he feels. ILB-2 fears that he is becoming increasingly alienated. Put together, these average out to numb. That’s a very good way to describe the life of an ILB.

ILB-1 reaches over to ILB-2 and takes his hand.

“Don’t forget what I’ve done,” he says softly. “However long this lasts… however long we last… nothing is not worthwhile. Years down the line, you will always remember this. And I’m sure there’s more to come for me, as well.”
ILB-2 nods mutely. “There is,” he whispers, almost conspiratorially. “It’s not all good, but the good stuff is very, very good indeed…”

They look at each other for a while, heart to heart but ten miles apart.

Later in the day they both get 40 minutes to themselves and decide to wank. They both have the same method, wrapping one finger and thumb around their shaft and rubbing the foreskin back and forth with their right hand. The left hand operates the computer, pulling up whichever scene of soft porn they can think of at the time.

They both orgasm at the same time to the same scene.

And connect.

Pink Off

“Everyone gets one page,” said Lightsinthesky. “You get one page; you can write whatever you want. Or draw something. But you only get one… pink and jeans! Pink and jeans! What is it with pink and jeans?! …page.”
“What if you finish your notebook?” I asked innocently. “Do you get another page in the second one?”
“I haven’t thought about…”
“Wait. What was that about pink and jeans?”
Pink and jeans? Where?” he half-yelled, suddenly tensing in high alert like a startled meerkat.

I can’t really explain whether it was a 2002 thing or entirely localised around our borough, or even our school. Wearing a pink top paired with blue jeans (and, often, a large belt) had become a thing. As far as I was aware, it wasn’t even a deliberate fashion; it was just… a thing that happened.

I quite liked the look; Lightsinthesky – for whatever reason – hated it.

Being friends with Lightsinthesky came with its certain caveats: he liked to be addressed as “dude”; you could read one of his books but he would have probably drawn a cartoon of you somewhere there; he would invariably become interested in anything with a pulse (and fell in love with someone else every single day); he didn’t make much sense.

And he had his phrases.

Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). Nothing to do with pink and jeans.
It ain’t there. It’s been blown away.

“My God, that woman’s got a huge arse.”
“People will lose body parts.”
“Fluff! Aah-aah! Fluff of the universe!”
“Yes, she is intensely shaggable.”
“Look at her, she’s nice.”
“Totally blown away.”
“Don’t start activating my annoying meter.”
Pink and jeans! Why? Why do they all wear pink and jeans?”

For that, none of us had an answer. There was no reason the girls in our sixth form shouldn’t wear that combination. It wasn’t something the boys wore, even the gay ones – it was a cis girl thing. And, although I didn’t mind it as much as Lightsinthesky did (his vitriol was unfounded), he had a point: wearing pink and jeans was increasing.

Following one particularly amusing lunchtime where I genuinely thought he’d pass out from all the yelling he was doing (as it may as well have been Jeans for Genes Day judging by what we saw), I finally bit the bullet and asked.

“Oh, it’s just easy,” said my unconcerned friend. “Jeans are comfortable and some tops are pink. It’s not deliberate, it’s just a thing that…”
“…thing that happens, yeah. I got it,” I helpfully added, pausing as Lightsinthesky’s latest tirade against the combination of fuchsia and cyan floated through the wall. “It just seems to irritate Lightsinthesky, that’s all.”

There was a pause.

“Of course it does,” she tinkled with a grin. “Why do you think we do it so much?”

A couple of days later I talked him into letting her have a page of his second “book of dude”. Her contribution consisted mostly of drawing of houses, trees, hills, the sun and the text “PINK & JEANS RULES THE WORLD!” in bold black writing.

I don’t think he ever got over it.

As far as I’m concerned, though, I don’t suit blue jeans, but one of the looks I find sexiest is someone wearing jeans on their lower half, with nothing on top at all…

…ladies.

Cock Beat

Am I awake?

I’m still not sure. I wrench my eyes open with almost Herculean effort. Yes, I’m awake… but barely.

I’m still in the training room. The tutor is still talking. I’ve been drinking in every word he’s been saying, or at least I had been before I drifted away. I don’t notice what the other trainees in my group are doing; I’m paying too much attention to trying to keep myself…

awake! Wake up! Damn it! Stay awake, ILB. Last the course; you’ve only got an hour or so to go before

throb

before

throb

before

throb!

Fuck! Shut up, body!

I have been hurting for a few days now. I had a Thai massage in Manchester; that evening, I fell down in my hotel room and pulled something. Or jarred it. Or tore it. I don’t know. Strained, sprained, yanked, ripped? Hippopotamus? No idea. Whatever happened, and I haven’t had time to go to the doctor yet (so I can’t check), I can no longer lie on my left shoulder, or turn my neck to the right, without screaming in pain.

The throb starts in my penis, though, so the beat of pain that comes from my shoulder is a secondary concern.

Another beat.

Why am I hard, anyway? There’s nothing remotely sexy here. I haven’t even been particularly horny for these past few days. Okay, maybe I get my most discomfiting erections when I need to stretch. Or when I’m having a nap.

Another beat.

Maybe I was asleep, if only for a little while. That might explain it.

My shoulder squeaks a bit and I jump a bit in my seat. Nobody notices. Or, at least. I hope nobody notices. Okay, take a deep breath. Breathe, ILB. Deeper. Deeper. Wait…

One more throb. One more burst of pain. This time I almost make a sound.

Fuck, my shoulder pain is reacting to my cock beat. It’s a call-and-response, isn’t it? Cock beat; shoulder pain. Cock beat; shoulder pain. It’s a rhythm, it’s a fucking rhythm, it’s a…

Another beat.

Another beat.

Oh, it’s a tea break. That’s nice. I can get some coffee and

throb

coffee

throb

coffee…

and if I get some coffee, I will be okay. I can get some coffee, so that will help me wake up. Caffeine blocks adenosine, so it can help me concentr…

concentr…

tr…

t…

Cock beat. Shoulder pang.

Fuck!

Manchester: I’m not from here!

Manchester Piccadilly. Platform 13. This place is fucking huge. Now come and get me bitch before I get totally lost.

Esque

On some of the holidays I have taken with various people over the years, the places become more navigable as time goes on. This increases tenfold, of course, if I have been to the place before. My mission to introduce bits of the UK to my immigrant wife has been fascinating, insofar as what I actually know and what I think I know.

Bath, for example, is very simple. It’s a historical city and also my favourite city, and every time I go back, it is a world unchanged. The same streets; the same layout. I know Bath. Brighton, when not waylaid by storms, is a bit of a maze, but at least I know where the main bits are. I was slightly thrown by Nottingham, since I spent three years there and they’ve massively changed it since, but at least I kind of knew where I was.

As for Manchester… I have no clue.

I’m walking through Manchester on the way home from Blackpool. Are you all right?

I’m not well – in bed with ‘flu (well, you have to be in bed with something on Valentine’s 😉). Happy V-Day, anyway!

Yes, happy Valentine’s!

ILB to H, via text

The problem here is that, in all honesty, I thought I knew Manchester. I’ve spent some of my best and some of my worst times there, but the general feeling about it is positive. For every death stare and overpriced railway ticket, there is a table for nine to have pizza, or a weekend spent having sex in a YHA near Oxford Road (following plans to book into a YHA in which to have sex). I’ve even been there recently – last year, for a gig (even if that was a little bit of a flying visit).

Long story short, I thought I knew Manchester. In my mind’s eye, I could picture the street down which I walked and sang the lyrics from Evita at maximum volume. I could visualise the YHA (no, another one) in Salford Quays and even the layout of Oxford Road. Manchester, I told myself, is focused around one big road. You can walk down it. That’s where the Pizza Hut is with the Bella Italia opposite. Easy.

Reader, it wasn’t easy.

Is there anyone from Johnny Roadhouse or A1’s here?

Tim Booth

As it turns out, what I’m familiar with is the Manchester of twenty years ago. Things appear to have changed since then. If I didn’t imagine the road I knew, then either it isn’t there any more, or it’s been redeveloped. Navigation, for a non-resident, is impossible; it’s much easier to get lost, especially when you don’t know where you are going.

But, throughout the week, at the very least we managed to work some things out. We knew how to get back to our hotel. We knew how to get places from the Arndale and how to commandeer the trams. We even managed to find our way back to Piccadilly Gardens (which has changed the most; last time I went there, you could walk through the centre!) when we needed to.

And that’s okay.

That’s really all we needed, as it turns out.

Relaxed? Horny? I’m So Confused!

I don’t know which path you’re taking
If it’s bent or straight
All I know is I’ve found something
That will take me home again

It’s the middle of summer and school is a distant memory. I’m lying on my back in the overgrown field of grass near the local estate that used to belong to a stately home. The home itself is now a café; the grounds are open to everyone. The Sun is high, her heat radiating down onto us. I’m relaxed – more so than I have been in days. Weeks, even.

I’m not a happy person. Recently I’ve been turned down by the one person I ever thought to ask out. Depression comes and goes, seemingly at random. This is a rare moment of calm in the maelstrom of doom and gloom that my life has become.

I am horny, of course. But that’s to be expected. I’m hard nearly all of the time and, since I don’t masturbate, there’s very little way of getting rid of the shameful horn. I don’t think any of them have noticed, although right now I don’t really care. I’m relaxed. That’s all I need.

We have been here for a couple of hours. Earlier on, we listened to a singing competition on the radio VW brought with him, in which various people of our age sang the female verse from Teenage Dirtbag to win a small cash prize. The Floof was discoursing loudly about how attractive her boyfriend was. Most other people were being quiet, but very handsomely so.

“HEY, LOOK!” VW yelled at one point. “I’VE GOT TWO GRASSHOPPERS HAVING SEX ON MY HAND!” (Maybe it was the mention of sex that set me off. I’ve no idea.)

But that was a while ago. We’ve had food and drinks, and we’re now just lazing about on the grass. I’m nearly asleep… and I may well be, were I not so horny. There’s a dull thud emanating from the throb of my hardness, echoing through my body in time with my heartbeat. I can practically hear it reverberating through the dry grass I’m lying on… the soil below… the planet.

Relaxed. Horny.

And none of the people around me have any idea.

If I could have sex now, I think – and not for the first time – I would. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I’d have sex here and now, under the heat and in the long grass.

Someone says something at some point and we start to make our way slowly back home while VW talks at some length about DragonBall Z. I’m only half-listening, walking along unsteadily while my erection begins to melt away and I feel more comfortable in the khaki trousers I’ve been wearing.

I get home, cool off and have a long, cold drink. I lie back on the little sofa in my room and take a few deep, steadying breaths…

…and, within a few minutes, I’m hard again.

Music

From years 7 to 10, under the leading light of our Head of Music, Einstein, Music Man and I would spend Wednesday lunchtimes and Thursday afternoons in Jazz Band rehearsals.

Jazz band was a bit of an odd duck. We were a school that didn’t have an orchestra. Choir – although I had been the sole boy chorister in primary school – was an option I didn’t plump for, and although strings group came and went (although I was in every incarnation of the same), jazz band had more staying power.

There were more of us in jazz band, basically.

Okay, so, Big Spender is a really sleazy song, so try to play in a… I don’t know, think… think Michael Portillo.

music teacher

For all the work we did, however, it was quite clear that the rest of the school had basically forgotten we existed. Every Christmas we got to sit on the stage, rather than the uncomfortable wooden seats of the local chapel, playing a random assemblage of carols. Put strings group and jazz band together and you had something approaching an orchestra, even if it had at least one member playing pizzicato violin because he’d forgotten his bow and the IT teacher on electric bass.

24 years later and I’ve suddenly realised how sexy that was.

Nobody saw it as sexy at the time. Music was something that nerds did; it wasn’t football or athletics or computing (I was also in the calligraphy club, and the five-member French Internet club, just to prove how uncool I was). It wasn’t even a rock band so it wasn’t great music. We were all enjoying ourselves, but very few other people were enjoying our existence, especially the people who had to walk past out cacophonous renditions in order to get into the maths cupboard.

The thing is, however, that it was sexy.

Nobody saw this at the time, but the ability to play an instrument is a skill. While it may have been abundantly true that nobody wanted to kiss, never mind shag, the gawky violinist in the band that didn’t exist for most of the year, the fact remains that he played the violin, so might be quite skilled with his fingers. Those who fellated reeds before playing may have been accomplished kissers. Drummers would undeniably have a certain amount of rhythm.

And then there’s the fact that it’s music. Everybody likes music. Sneer though they might have done during the year, the faceless mass would still sing along to the carols every December, and rock out to Teenage Dirtbag by the time the sixth form rolled around. Nevertheless, nobody ever thought that anything we were doing was particularly attractive.

I look back at it now and I can’t think of it as anything but.

I went back to playing jazz at university. And, by that point, we were too cool to care…

…but people still failed to notice our existence.

Collapse

It is an undeniable truth that, in this state of perpetual unease we call adulthood, sometimes it all gets too much. We’re not even sure what it is, although if we gesture vaguely at everything, everyone understands what we mean, right? Sometimes it seems that the correct thing to do is bear down and get on with… whatever this is; others, it’s more prudent to give up and spend a while in the sweet embrace of nervous collapse.

Here’s what’s been happening to me.

The first couple of months of this year were overshadowed by the death of one of my best friends. Whereas that brought my friendship group back together in a way that hasn’t been seen since my stag (albeit I still have yet to tell Kiera), it categorically wasn’t a good thing. I also spent a large amount of February making music. In March I had my birthday; I’ve seen James; I’ve seen Operation Mincemeat (for the second time).

I have battled my way through more medical appointments than I would care to factor in. I’ve been to Eroticon (again), seen things I never would have before, and wept my way through The Super Mario Bros. Movie (and, as of the other day, Barbie). Keen to show them bits of the country, I’ve taken my wife to Bath and Birmingham. Manchester in a couple of weeks… and that will be our first anniversary, which puts everything into context.

I’ve been ill… very ill, at points.

Last month I got a promotion at work. I put a lot of effort into the application process and then had a massive crisis when told that they would have to move me if I accepted. I turned it down, until a week later when I was told that they could both promote me and keep me where I am now. (If memory serves, I stopped crying at that point.) My paranoia tells me that this was out of fear for what I could do as the union representative for our workplace, but I was grateful for all of it, in the end.

Social media has been an interesting place over the past few months, as well. I am perhaps the least doomy among the people I know concerning the future of Twitter 𝕏 Twitter, but I understand these concerns.

I’ve barely had time to breathe for six months. It’s a luxury that I haven’t really allowed myself. Lazing around on days off isn’t a treat; it’s a necessity. I set myself a target, early this year, to be kinder to myself, but I don’t really know what that looks like, either…

…and so we come to the collapse.

Because this is the first day in a long while on which I genuinely have to do nothing at all.

I mean, I’m sure I will. I’m writing a blog post right now. There’s some fiction I want to write. Music I want to listen to. I haven’t even touched my Nintendo Switch for weeks. Perhaps, over the coming days, I can go into London, or tour around the places I keep meaning to. I might even be able to meet up with some blogging folk (seriously, hit me up, otherwise I won’t actually do this!).

But I don’t need to do anything.

And so the first half of the year comes shooting out of me in a spiral of colour and sound and, itself, collapses into an infinitely dense dot. Here’s my visual representation thereof:

.

Obi-Wan Kenobi on Kamino in Attack of the Clones (2002).
THEY SAY MASTER SIFO-DYAS COMMISSIONED A CLONE ARMY OVER TEN YEARS AGO!

So where do I put it all, this owl pellet of emotion? Do I swallow it like a pill, or wank frantically until it shoots out of the end of my dick? Bat it out of the window and hope it blows away in one of the storms of Kamino?

There’s really only one place for it to go, though, isn’t there?

I don’t know if you read,
But if anyone’s caring:
My body has needs,
And my blog is for sharing.

Dream Job

“It’s strange, us standing here in this garden,” said my pretty former colleague, “when we could be going on a date… or something.”
“Yes, I agree,” I concurred. “It is strange.”

Small pink dahlia, yet to fully bud, growing out of a gravel path.
From the garden. Hold me closer, tiny dahlia.

It wasn’t the only thing that was strange. After all, this was a former colleague who I talk to on WhatsApp about two times a month and have met in person all of once since we both left the workplace at which we met. I also didn’t recognise the garden; they may have put it in since I left, but a cursory Google search tells me they have not.

What was also strange was that she was asking to go on a date with me, and she’s attached. I’m also married, and although I’m not always in these situations, I very much was in this case. Yet I just seemed to take this in my stride. Were we heading towards a relationship, despite everything?

Also, what happened to the place I’ve been working at for the past couple of years?

“So do you want to?”
“Do I want to what?
“Do you want to do it?”

I couldn’t give a straight answer without destroying the ambiguity of her question, which I quite liked. I also saw the pattern emerging: I’ll get the opportunity to have sex with the girl, but then something will happen to prevent it actually happening. This is how these things go. I decided to tap out of the situation, knowing deep inside that I could return to it later.

“Sure,” I said without elaborating. “But first I have to find [the name of another pretty former colleague who also started and finished at the same time as me, thus completing the trio], and ask her something…”

And I set off through the maze of corridors I didn’t recognise, swarming with members of staff I didn’t know and clients who I’m fairly sure were never connected with the company at all. Occasionally I entered a room to ask her whereabouts. Nobody knew, nor did they recognise her name. But of course they should have; she worked there. We all did. We were a trio.

Okay, I said to myself, this isn’t working. Let’s get back to the garden and see if [my first colleague] is still there. I’ll suggest that we can go on a date, and then maybe we’ll get to cuddle at some point. I can still be married and do this; where’s the harm?

If this sounds ethically dodgy to you, let’s bear in mind that I was, at this point, an hour late to get back to the room I worked in, and very aware that I was bunking off in order to flirt. Due to the fact that I couldn’t get back to the garden anyway, it looked like this was going the same way as they all do.

Zounds, it’s a dream, isn’t it? It’s a bloody dream; just wake up and then maybe you can reset to the start, and take a different path like a gamebook…

And then I suddenly needed to go to the toilet, so I woke up anyway.

And that reminds me, I idly thought as I clambered back into bed. I need to message her and ask how things are going at her job. It’ll be the end of her second year there and she might be looking to move on…

Just before I drifted back to my next dream, however, I had one more conscious thought.

That was weird.

Womanspreading

“Do you know what I’m going to do?” she said. “I’m going to spread my legs.”
“That’s a bit early,” I replied. “I thought you were waiting until you were married. Or has that gone out of the window now you’re 16?”

Her boyfriend shifted uncomfortably. There had been plenty of stories about them deliberately not spending time together ‘just in case we have sex’. A year or so later, of course, I had no such qualms. I both admired their steadfastness and was baffled by it in equal measure.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” said the Floof. “I mean I’m going to do it here. Now.”

I looked up into the sky and indicated the summer sun beating down on us. Our picnic had quickly devolved into inane chatter and we were now just killing time before church. Spread legs were a new topic.

“I think people are watching,” I pointed out in mock scandalised tones. “Why don’t you do so in your bedroom tonight instead?”
“No, I want to do it now,” she insisted. “I want to know what it feels like for a boy.”

I rolled my eyes. Zounds, was it this again?

Much as I liked the Floof, she did have some ideas about gender which I found a little outdated. She was, after all, the one who always wanted to hug me, but not when I was crying because ‘boys don’t cry and I don’t know what to do in that situation’. She wrote me a letter once in which she assumed that ‘when we’re young we all think our daddy is the strongest man in the world’. At one point, she also clearly thought I was gay. No reason, she just did.

One of the things that she had brought up – and one I genuinely hadn’t thought about before – was that boys always sit with their legs apart, whereas girls never do. That was the way genders sat, and since she didn’t believe trans or NB people existed, they didn’t get a mention.

As a boy who had, in his own sixteen years of existence, had his legs in all sorts of positions when sitting, I was a little confused by this. In her very long elucidation of the subject she had also mentioned that, the more confident the boy was, the wider apart his legs would get.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The amount of male confidence is in direct correlation to the distance between their knees when in a sitting position.

this is what the floof actually believed

Much as I didn’t agree, once she’d said that, I couldn’t unsee it. While I could get the concept that external genitalia made it slightly more comfortable to sit with one’s legs slightly apart, there were clearly some rowdy boys at school who were keen to show off their manly confidence by taking up as much space as possible. There was one guy in my class who seemingly spent most of his time trying to do an impression of a croquet hoop.

I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t start walking like that, doing the waddle that cowboys in westerns do.

“Anyway,” said the Floof, “boys do it, so I’m going to.”

At which she unsealed her legs, spread them akimbo, and immediately experienced some kind of transcendental experience. Her eyes shone with an immediate realisation of a better world, all the other light in the immediate vicinity dimmed in comparison to her pure radiance, and an exclamation mark appeared in the air above her head.

“Hey!” she trilled. “This is really comfortable! It’s no wonder boys like to sit like this. I’m going to have to do this more often!”
“Not in church, I trust.”
“Well, no, not right in front of the minister. I mean, what would he think?”
“I don’t know. Probably that you’re getting comfortable, I suppose.”

At which point a rounders ball came out of nowhere and hit her right between her thighs.

“AAAAAAAAH! MY FANNY!!!” she yelled, in a way I’m sure her minister would have not approved. “That does it! This might be comfortable, but I’m never opening my legs again!”

But, considering the fact that she later married the boyfriend and now has two children with him, I’m fairly sure she did so… eventually.

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