Page 9 of 31

Multitasking

January 9, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

*packs final change of clothes; walls get whitewashed*
47

On the very first day I got my DVD of Virgins of Sherwood Forest, I was halfway through watching it when I remembered I needed to be packing to go off to camp the following day. Living as I was in a room on my own with nobody else in the house at that moment, I left it on – because of course I did – and scrambled around for things to pack, grabbing a miasma of useful items and random clothes and throwing them pell-mell into my little wheelie suitcase.

That was then…

I snapped the case shut just as a couple of characters were getting it on in the castle bedroom. I’d opened it when they were using the battlements. I later had an orgasm to the scene set on the bridge just outside the castle.

They certainly used that set to a great extent.

The last thing I added was The Box™, still full of unused condoms. I’d been packing this to take with me every time, and every time it kept winging its way back unopened. I packed it anyway, and the following day started making my way to another camp in which – just like every event ever – I failed to get laid.

This is now…

Serena (Shannan Leigh) delivering a line of dialogue on a castle balcony. From "Virgins of Sherwood Forest" (2000). — Serena realised only too late that she’d forgotten to put a bra on before the job interview.

I made a lot of mess over Christmas, and in order to impress my cleaner (and find the notebook I think I may have lost), I spent a few hours last night un-messing the house – by which I mean decanting the bins into bin bags. That genuinely is the most useful thing I could have been doing, and so I did it.

But I put Virgins of Sherwood Forest on first.

I’m still not sure why. The concept of doing another mundane task, accompanied by the same glossy smut (albeit almost two decades later), occurred to me while at work, and wouldn’t. let. me. go! Maybe I was feeling cheeky; maybe nostalgic. Perhaps I was trying to prove to myself that the more I change, the more I stay the same. I may have even just wanted something to come to once I’d finished my tidying…

…but, whatever the reason, I put it on, and enjoyed the rolling sex as best I could while sorting refuse from recyclables.

This is even later…

One day after this masterstroke and it seems very silly to begin with. Putting on soft porn and not even being able to touch yourself to it? Just as I relate my favourite piece of smut to packing a suitcase, now I’ll further relate it to emptying bins (and, by extension, this blog post about that).

But this way I got to see the whole package. Not just the eight sex scenes, but the plot, the questionable acting, and the hilarious dialogue. I even watched the end credits, with a hefty number of pseudonyms to protect the identities of those who made this schlock. For the first time in a long time, I enjoyed Virgins of Sherwood Forest. Really enjoyed it, warts and all.

So, what I’m saying is, maybe I should do something like this more often.

Jake’s Booty Call, anyone?

2023 #orgasmcount [aka: “M04R (0D3S¡”]

January 1, 2024 / Innocent Loverboy / 2 Comments

Okay, well, it’s been a hell of a year. Not that it’s all been hell, of course – some positive things have happened too. I’ve met some amazing people and done some exciting things, although I have yet to relax (which was my resolution last year). Some things just never quite go fully realised. Welcome to 2024; time to do my orgasm count.

Every year seems to be conspiring to plant a little more doubt in the integrity of the sex blogging community. Stu has a video about it which voices a lot of my concerns with a little more clarity than I ever could. This year, nevertheless, did include the return of Eroticon in June, and I also recently joined a couple of Patreon, both of which served to remind me what the community could be.

One thing which I think should have impacted the community (but I’m not sure if it has) is that one of our longest-serving members, Vix the Over-Educated Nympho, died on June 27. Vix was one of my favourite bloggers back in the early days, and in fact I have her book in my “to read” pile, which will now be a bittersweet experience. Thank you for everything, Vix.

I was meant to be talking about orgasms here though, right? Okay. As usual, I recorded my orgasms in my little paper diary from WHSmith, using special codes which shouldn’t be obvious to anyone reading it, but probably would be. It’s just that nobody else reads my diary.

Anyway…

The Orgasm Count!

☆ – 98. This is the number of orgasms I’ve had this year. That’s 26.8% of the days in the year on which I’ve had one. Is that low? It seems low.

x2 – 24/6. This was the one day this year when I had more than one orgasm. I used to do that a lot. Tragically, more often than not I just don’t have the time. Spirit is willing but flesh is weak, or something.

? – 8/2. This was a very confusing orgasm – I remember it. I certainly came, but halfway through, it just… sort of… stopped. I think I may have had half an orgasm. Yes, that’s a thing.

Boing! – 11/4; 2/11; 22/11; 21/12; 28/12. Holy jumping semen, Batman! This is probably more to do with angle than anything else, but these are the orgasms when my jizz appears to be practising the Fosbury flop. Always makes me giggle, even if it does mean that I have to clean the floor as well as my hand.

And a few special codes which I added this year…

R! – 6/3; 10/3; 12/3; 19/3; 6/4; 7/5; 20/5; 25/5. R! is a special code which I’m keeping to myself.

Leana! – 13/3; 22/5; 11/9. These are the orgasms I had while watching something featuring porn starlet Leana Lovings. Why make a record of Leana? Well, as you’ll have clocked unless you have never read this blog before, nearly all my orgasms are to my own imagination, or text, or softcore porn. I’m particularly fond of Leana, though, and all the videos I have of her are hardcore. That’s so unusual for me that it’s definitely worth a mention.

Lucy! – 20/10. This is a unique one. I had this orgasm to a text post written by someone I don’t know (Lucy), sent to me by someone I do (swallow). I then told swallow, who told Lucy, who apparently was very excited her words made a sex writer come. This tickled me, so I made a note.

Sneaky. – 4/7. This is an orgasm I had with my wife awake in the next room. Of course, I don’t mind wanking with my wife, but with them unknowing and this being after hours when I should really have been in bed, there was a little frisson of danger there.

and finally…

Hella satisfying. – 19/6. This was the most satisfying orgasm I had this year. It was also, coincidentally, the first I had since well before ‘con. (I never seem to have any orgasms around ‘con; I’m always too busy around that time and don’t really have a sex partner to spend the nights with.) This one was good, though – and it was my 47th! 47, eh? I like the sound of that.

Something I’ve noticed while doing this is that, unlike in my twenties when I was fairly regular, my orgasms this year have been fairly sporadic. There have been some weeks in which I’ve had a few wholesome, healthy ones, and yet there have been some strugglebus bully wanks, and occasional long periods of time in which I haven’t had any at all.

As a result of DM, I’ve been coming home after work more to sleep than anything else and (even if afternoon naps do make me horny!) this does tend to machete down the time I have to myself. Glod forbid I ever do stop having orgasms; they are my favourite form of escape. However, they are noticeably becoming more of a thing I can have if I manage to be good with time management and energy conservation.

But then maybe that makes them even more of a treat…

It Getter

December 29, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

As a teenager, I was convinced that I had the innate gift or being able to tell if a romantically involved couple had what I originally termed “it”. Now, in my late thirties, I’m fairly confident in saying I don’t and did not exactly have a definition of what “it” was – just that I could identify it. Case in point: the Floof and her boyfriend had “it” and they got back together about a week after breaking up because God told them to do so.

They’re now married, so I was 100% correct. Of course I was. I was also becoming something of an expert, I told myself, in telling if somebody fancied somebody else. I knew the signs and I knew how to respond. It was never going to happen to me – naturally – but I was absolutely certain that I was born a relationship expert and would be able to use my limerence virtuosity to help any and all others.

Because it wasn’t going to happen to me.

Seven years later…

I’d just been to an audition with my hot single friend who I kissed on stage. Neither of us were particularly keen on the play or knew who the playwright was, but an audition’s an audition, and the rationale was that if we’d played lovers before, we could do so again.

“I don’t know about you,” she said as we made our way through the very dark streets of suburban North London, “but I’m not sure that play is very realistic about relationships. I mean, he’s with her for his whole life, but he’s not happy about it.”
“It happens.”
“I know, but it wouldn’t to people who know better. I mean, not to me. I’ve had a few… well, they’re not really relationships but they’re…”

There was a pause in which we looked at each other and both realised what she meant.

“…I mean, they’re with people who aren’t my age and I’m 27 and that makes things…”

Another pause.

“How old are you?”
“I’m 22,” I answered truthfully. “It’s my birthday next month. When we did The Cherry Orchard I was 21. I turned 22 just before the first dress.”
“That’s the sort of guy I’d go for, really, someone who’s 22. Maybe an actor with messy dark hair. Someone tall and funny, you know? Someone who’s got ‘it’?”
“Ah, well, I hope you find one!” I said cheerily.

Relationship expert right here.

Two months later…

I’d just been to an audition with my hot single friend who I kissed on stage. Our director chose a play which could, in no way at all, be done on the shoestring budget our company has. We all liked it, but I knew in my head that it couldn’t be done. I would have wanted to play the dinosaur, however, had we gone for it.

“I don’t know about you,” she said as we made our way through the very dark streets of suburban North London, “but I’m not sure Monty’s giving us anything to read for that doesn’t end up with us being cast as lovers.”
“It worked in The Cherry Orchard,” I pointed out as we got onto the night bus.
“I know, and it’s good we got to kiss. Maybe we’ve got…”
“…it?”
“Yes. I don’t know, maybe they’ll accelerate and the next show will have us having sex live on stage or something!”
“Well, wouldn’t that be something?” I marvelled.

Last month I finally hit upon the fact that I should have come out with something like

Well, I’d be down for doing that, but of course I’d want to rehearse a fair few times with you first. Just to make sure we get the dialogue right.
something I didn’t say

but instead I came out with

Well, wouldn’t that be something?
something I actually did say

which didn’t quite have the same gravitas.

Neither of us got cast in either play; we didn’t go to the reading for The Comedy of Errors the following week. I ended up being in the first one anyway, but only went to rehearsal twice due to the fact that I had two lines.

We later got recruited into another company. During our performance of The Marriage of Figaro, we held hands while waiting on the bench. We sat together in the dressing room during the interminably long Plautus “realisation” our director Gareth put on. We hugged, we kissed. H, the stalwart, came to every show. I got hugs from her too.

My friend suggested we met for drinks again soon. I said that would be nice. I sill don’t know what “drinks” meant.

One year later…

I was completely blind to the beautiful woman who was laughing at my terrible jokes while I served her at Waterstone’s. I also didn’t really do anything about the pretty blonde who kept following me around during the entire Danish youth camp. One particularly randy friend told me that we were flirting and had “it”, but I didn’t know what “it” was.

My ‘phone pinged when I was just finishing off some shopping in town. It was her, inviting me to her thirtieth birthday party. I said I’d go, but in the end couldn’t. This time, I suggested we met for drinks.

We didn’t. We sent each other playful, suggestive messages on Facebook. I asked her outright once on MSN what it was like to have sex on one’s period. She gave an answer and then said it would be fun for me to find out.

“Yes, it’d be interesting!” I said.

Ladies and gentlemen, your relationship expert.

Christmas is massiv

December 27, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

I’m 16 and it’s 11:15pm on Christmas Eve. I’m sitting in Gran’s lounge flicking through cable channels on her TV.

Up until five minutes ago I had quite keen to go to mass at midnight. I’d never really considered the concept before. My church doesn’t really do what would traditionally be considered mass, and although I used to go on Christmas morning, I’d kind of fallen out of the practice. I had been invited by my grandparents and was quite excited to go…

…until I flicked past Bravo and noticed Confessions of a Window Cleaner was on.

“Ooh! It’s a Timmy Lea film!” I said out loud to nobody in particular, deciding then and there that I didn’t really need to go to mass; I could just wait out Christmas watching questionable slapstick comedy mixed with gratuitous cheeky smut. I’d managed to upset my mum, who shouldn’t have minded as she is an atheist, by telling her that I’d decided not to go.

I can sit here watching Confessions, and things will be fine.

My finger hits the “last” button on the remote the instant my mum walks in and the TV channel jumps to The Box. Changes by 2Pac is on (again).
“Your grandparents have gone to mass,” she says in a voice saturated with disapproval. (My memory is telling me that a sex scene has just started on the channel and I’m missing it.) “Without you.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m… I’m too tired to go,” I lie smoothly.
“I meant to tell you, though, that if you don’t go to mass you won’t be able to sit here watching music videos. You’ll have to go to bed.”

Five minutes of kicking about in my room pass before I look at the clock and notice the time. It’s 11:25. I half walk, half run into the lounge.

“Changed my mind!” I shout. “I want to go to mass!”
My parents look at each other.
“But it’s in five minutes,” my mother says.
“But I’ve decided I really really really want to go! And it’s not too far away, and if you drive me…”

I sit in a chair next to my nan thirty seconds before our minister starts up. There are some huffy comments about how late I left it, but nevertheless, they’re pleased I’m here. I am too. This happens once a year, it seems fun, and I can always watch ’70s sex comedies on Channel 5. There’s no reason not to come to this.

And that’s how I started going to mass on Christmas Eve. Things have happened since then, of course – people have started to come and stopped again. As teenagers the cousins would all get drunk and then stumble to church and have a whale of a time. Once my auntie would drop the blood of Christ on the floor (and mostly my uncle’s trousers). Every year we would struggle our way through the descant on O Come All Ye Faithful (and we still do).

But it really doesn’t feel like Christmas without it.

Spirit of the Wood!!!!!!!

December 8, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Yesterday I went through what appears to be something of an annual tradition: attending a Christmas pantomime, and then trying to explain to my Belgian expat wife what a pantomime is. The closest approximation I can get to is “it’s a cross between Disney and commedia dell’arte“, but even that isn’t quite right. There’s no real explanation for what pantomime is.

The one pantomime they saw with me had Tim Vine playing Buttons and being Tim Vine all the way through, so I’m not sure it was wholly representative. Mind you, the one I saw yesterday had Star-Lord in it, and I’m fairly certain he wasn’t in any version of Sleeping Beauty I’m aware of.

It is an art form in itself, and while some love it, some hate it, and some are ambivalent. I’m thoroughly in the latter camp…

…except for that one time.

When I was in my late teens, and beginning to grow out of going to pantomimes (although I later went back to them, and ended up being in one, even singing too), my grandparents booked four tickets for them to take my sister and I to the same theatre we went to every year to see the annual pantomime featuring the same cast. This year’s was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs featuring some forgettable Hollyoaks idiot playing Prince Charming and the generic principal girl as Snow White.

There was also nothing particularly special about Muddles (the jovial “Buttons” character who held things together), although he had a certain level of infectious energy to him. What I was interested in, in that particular performance, was the fairy character… or the Spirit of the Woods.

Because she was celestially beautiful.

I wrote feverishly in my diary that evening. “The Spirit of the Woods was played by the most pretty girl I have ever seen!” teenage ILB enthused, and then – for emphasis – I filled the rest of the row with seven exclamation marks.

And then spent the rest of the night with her face in my head and a rapidly stiffening cock. Christmas morning was quite sleepy as a result.

I could have left it at that, of course. But I didn’t. I enthused, at great lengths, to my parents about the beautiful woman playing a fairy at the local panto they hadn’t yet seen. They didn’t take the hint about going to see it themselves and taking me along to sit at the front this time and squirm, nor did they think much of it besides the fact that it was cute how enamoured I was. I was still talking about it by the time I got back to school in January (having seen the panto itself on Christmas Eve), and the following year when I scripted my own one, I wrote her in.

For no real reason. She was just in it. It was Cinderella and she wasn’t the Fairy Godmother. Just a random, absolutely stunning fairy.

Normalise this, please.

The following year I was absolutely chomping at the bit to go, and was taken, but she was nowhere to be seen. I had to sit through another forgettable Hollyoaks hunk doing Peter Pan and was less than thrilled by the whole experience.

*

I took a few minutes yesterday to see if there was any information in the theatre about the pantomime they did in the nineties which I could barely remember. As it turns out, there was… amongst a catalogue of posters put up to celebrate their rich history of entertaining gullible children. She wasn’t in the poster, but maybe at least her name would be on it.

It wasn’t. Hollyoaks guy was all over it, but radiant fairy girl may as well not have existed. She wasn’t in the official theatre literature either. My pretty fairy was an unperson. Disappointing as this was, it was more creepy than anything else.

Maybe she existed just to give me a little jolt.

That would be nice. Thanks, universe.

These are a few of my favourite things…

November 30, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

I like to think that, in many ways, I am a fairly certain ILB. Not staid or unadventurous, entirely… but I know what I like and I prefer to stick with it. There are no nasty surprises if you choose the path with nothing to fear.

I know what I like. My favourite food is the cheese toastie; my favourite drink, cloudy lemonade. My favourite book is Lord of the Flies; film, it’s Spirited Away; television series, Knightmare. Still, my favourite band is James; comedian, Dave Gorman; actor, probably still my dad. I even have a favourite teacher, back from when I was still at school.

Sexually, I would probably say the same. I know what I like. My favourite genre of porn is softcore. My favourite sexual act is cunnilingus; position, missionary. I’m attracted to female-identified people and enbies, but men do very little for me. My favourite place to have sex is in a hotel room; time, at some point after nine. My favourite place to masturbate is in my computer chair; scene, this one. I even have a favourite hardcore actress, Leana Lovings, even though I’m not a big fan of hardcore.

ILB's nose and mouth, with a moustache that makes him look like a '70s porn star, and a superfluous soul patch. — ~~Ron Jeremy~~ ILB’s Terrible Mistake

I like my glasses and my hands and, to a certain extent, my UNUSUALLY LARGE PENIS. I don’t like the ‘mo, or soul patch, that I’ve grown for Movember, but I’ll post them here anyway.

Yes, I know what I like, and I’d like to think that, as a result, I am not easily swayed by peer pressure. Or influenced by what I’ve seen around me. Specifically, if I’ve read something that has had an impact on me, I don’t think I’d be moved too far from the fairly established person that I am today.

So why did I have a dream last night in which I attended a sex party, talked my way in for free, picked up a random blonde, went into a private room and ended up sleeping with her play partner while David Gandy stood at the side giving tips?

Anyone?

I mean, I know what I like, but as for my brain?

On that I’m not certain.

The Cloud

November 24, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

Yesterday afternoon a new mattress arrived at my flat. It took my parents and I about three hours to find bed linen that would fit it, but eventually everything seemed fine. New mattress. That’s nice.

This may not seem like a particularly exciting thing to happen, but then you also have to take into account the fact that, since we moved here, we have been attempting to sleep on a mattress roughly the consistency of a pile of bricks. I got it without considering the fact that we both, in fact, like to sleep on a soft surface, and that this would be the start of five years of pain.

The new mattress advertised sleeping on it as being akin to sleeping on a cloud. When I actually tried it in the shop, I nearly fell asleep right there, which may say more about me than it does about the product. While, as it turns out, it’s not actually that soft, it is incredibly comfortable.

I’d forgotten what that feels like.

The first time I got a new mattress, of course, it was for a different reason. I had a new girlfriend and she was coming to stay for two weeks. I rather uncryptically asked my parents for a new mattress and I got this response:

A new mattress is practically a necessity for any young buck engaged in serious courting.
ilb’s dad

This time, however, it was for sleep.

Not that I did much of that, because I was far too horny.

Before you ask, no, I don’t know why I got horny, and I don’t think it was the mattress itself (although it may have magical powers; that’s still to be confirmed), but I definitely was. In and out of resting, but not asleep yet, every time I shifted my body I noticed, with something between alarm and delight, just how hard I was. It’s rare that I’ve had such big erections, or that lasted that long.

It was only after about two hours of lying there that I realised how painful this was getting and that I needed to deal with it if I was ever going to get anything resembling sleep, but then I was also very much enjoying being horny beyond anything in recent memory.

I know, I thought, I’ll get up, walk to the bathroom, use the toilet and then come back. After that, I rationalised, it didn’t matter how horny I got, because I had the rest of the night to lie there on my nice new mattress.

My mattress gave a self-satisfied sigh as I rolled off it. Up, padded to the bathroom. Toilet. Turned around and padded back. Back into bed, mattress giggling as I sank gently into it. Very soft, very comfortable.

Okay, now where was I?

And then I suddenly realised I wasn’t horny any more.

…

I hate my body.

We’re just innocent men

November 19, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

“I still don’t understand why I have to take at least one female member of staff with me.”
“All the clients working with you are female.”
“Female-identified.”
“Fine, that. It’s a matter of customer protection. You know this.”
“I’m not dangerous because I’m a boy, you know?”
“A boy? You’re not a boy. You’re a man.”

Am I? I’ve never thought of myself as a man.

Hacker T. Dog and Lauren Layfield are just normal men. They're innocent men. — We’re just normal men.

Sure, I’ve been called one by many people over time. I’m referred to as “the man” by members of the public who don’t know my name. My second girlfriend used to refer to me as a man despite the fact that I wasn’t particularly comfortable with it. I’m cisgender and male, so I’m fairly certain that various pieces of literature about me – medical records and so on – list me as a man. Back in my internet dating days, I was listed as “22-year-old man”.

And yet I still think of myself as a boy.

“I’m still a boy. You can refer to a ‘group of boys’ and they can all be adults. You can have a ‘boyfriend’ and he can be however old you want.”
“I guess…”
“And nobody seems to have a problem with the term girlfriend. Although it seems to be easier with girls. There’s a popular blogger with ‘girl’ in her name and she’s almost 40.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”

I’ve long had a problem with the term, and in particular the connotations of, the word “man”. There are plenty of neologisms which ascribe something to a man – something to be ridiculed (man pain, man flu, man look); something society sees as “female” being appropriated (man bun, man bag); a negative action (mansplain; manspread); be assertive to the point of being a dick (man up). Look at all of those and it probably goes some way towards explaining why I’m not comfortable with being a “man”?

And then there are those who whine about it. People who use the #NotAllMen hashtag non-ironically and protest about it being “not me.” Dude, we know it’s not you. That’s not what anyone’s saying. But, again, this creates a visibility issue. Men get accused of something and their automatic response is to bitch about it.

Incels, MRAs, PUAs and the like make media headlines and have paid-for ads appear on Pornhub. Things like Yewtree and the recent revelations about Russell Brand show the predatory side of men in power. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are universally hateable men who should, by all rights, be in prison by now. Michael Moore wrote a book rightly entitled Stupid White Men.

Look at this from the point of view of an alien coming here for the first time: men do terrible things, they can’t handle criticism and they’re dangerous and to be avoided.

(And yes, I know that isn’t what I’m actually getting at. This is hyperbole, I know. But just imagine.)

“I don’t really know. I’ve seen older women refer to themselves as ‘girls’ and nobody has an issue with it. Why can’t I be a boy?”
“It just seems odd. Why wouldn’t you be a man?”
“Have you seen what ‘men’ are doing these days, or for the past few millennia?”
“But that’s not you.”
“Yes, I know. But you shouldn’t need to say that. That’s the issue. If I’m a boy it doesn’t carry any of the negative labels. Plus, I’d have to admit I’d grown up, and nobody wants to do that.”

She paused. There was a stillness in the room during which I realised I hadn’t made the most salient point.

“Gender doesn’t exist, anyway. It’s a social construct.”

And then we had a discussion about that.

The Amorous Milk

November 10, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 2 Comments

Some people call me the milkman because I always deliver pain.
Others think it’s because I’m a renegade milkman.
But the real reason they call me the milkman is…
I carry a bottle of milk with me.

It was seven-thirty post-meridian and I was just standing outside the Zoroastrian Centre on Edgware Road when I got a text.

It wasn’t full of doom and gloom, but then again, it wasn’t overly exciting, either. Alicia had run out of milk and wanted me to pick some up on the way to her flat. There was an M&S on the road, so it wouldn’t be difficult. Simple task, of course, and nothing unusual. I’m always buying milk. How would I be able to drink my tea otherwise?

But this made me unreasonably excited.

The relationship between Alicia and I was wonderfully uncomplicated. We would meet at her house (often on my way back from work); we would talk and eat; we would flirt and eventually have sex. We would sleep, spoon, maybe have sex again in the morning, and then we would leave for our respective lives. There were, of course, variations on this theme: on our first night together we watched Moulin Rouge! beforehand; on our second, she randomly drummed the main beat from Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo on my stomach. But the general idea was the same.

Image from Disney's "Cinderella" (1950) showing a magic spell. The magic looks a bit like jizz. — Neither Cinderella or the Fairy Godmother look like Alicia. Cinderella’s hair here is similar to hers, though.

What made this simple request special was that this was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything domestic. Maybe neither of us had ever considered this. I was her lover, not her maid; I offered to help her wash up after dinner, but she had consistently refused. I occasionally went to the fridge to get chilled water for immediately after sex. Once I put some stuff in the bin. But that was about it.

Here, I had an actual errand. Go to the shop. Buy some milk. Bring it with me to her flat, so I could have tea with her before sex, also with her. I’d never had to buy milk in any sort of relationship before. Rebecca’s mum always had a supply available and Louise preferred lemonade (although she also had some for me when I requested coffee).

Is this what being a husband is like? I wondered, as I stepped into the warm light of M&S (noting the contrast with the Harrow darkness outside). Providing milk to your lady with the promise of hot sex afterwards? Calm down, ILB. You’re overthinking things again. Just turn up with milk and a penis and that’s all she’s really expecting.

I chose semi-skimmed, paid and set off down the hill to Alicia’s flat. As usual, she opened the door wearing a nice dress and a smile. I nervously, but with an air of utter confidence, presented her with a bottle of milk in lieu of a hello. She smiled, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and beckoned me inside.

We had a lot of sex that night.

This was preceded by some apple crumble she had made with custard. I don’t like apple crumble or custard, but I was very good at pretending. Plus, I had tea to drink to get rid of the taste.

With milk.

Moustache Man

November 2, 2023 / Innocent Loverboy / 0 Comments

“So there’s your bag,” said my dad, hitching it usefully over my shoulder. “And your stick’s in the back of the car. Are those new shoes?”
“New shoes? No,” I replied, truthfully. “I’ve had these for a few months.”

My mother bustled over to check if I was still alive, or something.

“One more thing,” she added, doing a very good impression or someone who has just had an afterthought. In actuality, she had been wanting to ask this for a while, but had never quite managed it. (I think she must have been mustering a fair amount of courage to do so.) “Have you ever had… this before?”

What? New shoes, even though they aren’t new? The cardigan she didn’t know I had, despite having bought it for me? I was genuinely surprised she hadn’t asked about my coat.

“Like, this? A moustache without any beard? Have you ever had this before?”

I have, in fact, had this before, and I do so practically every year.

“Yes. I do so every November.”
“You’re doing Movember this year?”
“I do Movember every year…?”
“It’s a strong look,” said my dad.

He says this a lot, usually about hairstyles I don’t like. He’s been trying to get me to grow a full moustache and beard and get my head shaved for a few years now. He says it’s a strong look. I don’t particularly want to look strong.

“You should keep it,” said my mother. “It’s a good look for you.”
“No it isn’t,” I answered (also truthfully; it looks ridiculous). “I look like a ’70s porn star.”

Both parents laughed at this, which – considering the amount of time they spend trying to pretend porn doesn’t exist – was both gratifying and surprising. Feeling that I couldn’t quite top that, I turned to leave, before my mother stopped me in the hall.

“One more thing,” she added (again).

No, I haven’t considered how to make porn when your rapidly degenerating body is making it difficult to do something as simple as put on a coat. And the stick, that’d get in the way.

“Yes?” I ventured, trepidatiously.

“Are those new shoes?”

Innocent Loverboy