Yesterday I returned from the buying my newspapers to discover that ‘the woman’ had left me a message on my answer service. She had called, she said, to thank me for saving her ‘from the indignity of sucking off a busboy in Bangkok’. (the age of the cybersexual) This is actually a gross exaggeration on her part. For a start there was no busboy- or, if there was, I don’t believe that there was ever any real danger in him being sucked off. It was more of a ‘turn of phrase’ than anything else. Partly, I think, she just liked to hear herself say the words. Nor had I actively saved her from anything. The fact is that I took no part in that particular evening’s proceedings at all - other than opening an email, and that, probably hours after she had sent it. It was a peculiar and rambling message – a stream of fevered semi-consciousness. ‘The woman’ had sent it to me while drunk, and alone in an unfamiliar hotel room; in a strange city, on the other side of the world. If she had been saved that evening then she saved herself.
It spoke of long-suppressed desires, and of almost uncontrollable urges. It was so hot down on the streets and the scents of spice and sex oozed out of the very pores of the city and filled her. It was a sort of madness that had seized her, she wrote, and she could not stop all the things in her head from spilling out.
‘I haven’t had a cock inside me in four years… or tasted one… or even smelled… but tonight – and it could be the heat of this place – but the scent of cock… even the flavour of it is… inescapable. And I want one inside me… no… more than one, I want so badly to be filled with the bulk and heat of cock… so much cock… so many… I can’t even breathe here, and I am so swollen and wet I don’t know what I might do.
A busboy came to my room earlier and it was… everything… all that I could do to stop myself from forcing him against the wall and forcing his cock into my mouth. And this was no beautiful native boy, this was almost an old man, almost withered with age and it was… everything… all that I could do to prevent myself from taking his withered little cock between my lips and sucking on the withered end of it…. And that is madness, isn’t it? Such thoughts…! And even when he had gone I almost followed him… only my legs shook so much I couldn’t rise out of my chair.
And worse… so much worse, I might have done… might still do. Women are not safe on these streets at night. Terrible things have happened out there to the mothers, and the daughters of this city. And not just in the alleys, or in the darkness even… but in the markets and even on the buses… and frequently… women are… ruined. And, if my legs were to stop shaking I would go out now, and alone… and I might even be glad of what was done to me…. And that is madness, isn’t it? And that is what is in my head as I write to you.’
She wrote, as she had taken the time to explain, while fucking herself with a kluai kai fruit. And, by this process of writing down her darkest thoughts, and by fucking herself with that strange fruit, it seemed, she discovered, at last, the means to exorcise the demons in her head, and expel them from her body. The email ended abruptly, and, once I had read it, I gave it little further consideration. The busboys of Bangkok had been spared her hungry mouth, and ‘the woman’ had, somehow, saved herself from worse indignities, and so there seemed little left to consider. When I did not hear from her the next day I assumed that she had woken, found the bruised fruit, read the words she had written, and had thought it prudent to erase the previous evenings events from her mind. The woman and I had never been… intimates, and it seemed probable that the contents of that email, in a state of sobriety, would be the cause of some embarrassment to her. For that reason I thought it best not to acknowledge my receipt of it.
It was weeks before I heard from ‘the woman’ again. She contacted me from Manilla – this time in the form of a hand-written letter. Her handwriting was stiff and neat and her words – at least to begin – were rather formal. She acknowledged our acquaintance, and inquired after my health, and said that she hoped that I was not regretting my move from London.
‘It must be very different from what you were used to,’ she wrote.
I was a little surprised that she knew so much of my circumstances until I remembered that we shared at least a small number of acquaintances. It had always been business between us really, though I had seen her, once or twice, on the periphery of some of the social events that I was often forced to attend while still in London. A striking looking woman, she was not one to mingle – any more than I was – and so, on occasion we had found ourselves sharing the same remote portion of some crowded room – she showed no inclination to converse at these times, and I did seek to encourage her to break her pact with silence.
The rumour was that she had inherited a great deal of money, and was much too paranoid about potential ‘gold diggers’ to let her guard down very much when it came to men. Perhaps it was this that lent her such a superior air. Prior to that rather fraught email I had spoken to her on perhaps seven or eight occasions at most – always in a cold office somewhere, and always about business. I did get the impression that she was aware of my ‘other life’ – it would have been impossible for her not to have heard some rumours of my ‘hedonism’ – but she never made any inquiry in that direction. While I suspected her interest in such things I consciously avoided the subject, partly because it was not appropriate in a business context, and partly because I sensed that she was far from ready to admit to the dark fantasies she so obviously struggled to suppress.
By all this I mean you to understand that this woman was a relative stranger to me. Quite why she had chosen to mail me in her hour of need – as it were – was something of a mystery. I could not possibly have been at the top of her list of contacts. And yet, when her need was greatest, it was me she had chosen for her… confession.
The hand-written message seemed of a very different sort – or so it seemed, as I began to read. However, having dealt with all the pleasantries, the tone of her letter changed – her handwriting altered too, as though the hand had been unable to quite keep up with pace of the pen.
‘I want to apologise,’ it read.
‘It was several days before I found the email I had sent you, and I can honestly say that I hardly recognised myself in what I read there. Much of it is not true, but some sort of drunken – Christ I was drunk that night! – spilling out of somebody else’s disgusting thoughts… and not my thoughts at all. I can’t imagine what you might have made of it. I am mortified of course… The very idea that I would ever… ever stoop to perform… fellacio on a stranger, much less some withered old busboy, and on my knees in some alley… well of course it is… unthinkable.... Nothing more than the drunken ravings of a… madwoman… that is my only explanation. When I first read what I had written I… naturally assumed that someone else had put it amongst my messages… as some sort of sick, depraved, joke.... What else could I think? ‘All the flavours of cum’? Does that sound, even remotely, like something I would say?’
The letter had continued in that vein for several passages before the tone again altered. A lighter hand, it seemed, now guided the pen. In almost lazy loops the black ink described a new state:
‘I do have had such… thoughts,’ the letter now tentatively confessed.
‘Though the manner of my… expression, remains somewhat… alien to me, as I sit here now and write to you. Sometimes, but always deep inside my head, I do experience the most… vivid images. And, almost invariably, I am the subject of… some degradation, or other. Never busboys, but always… faceless men in beautifully tailored suits, or sometimes naked men – though always without a face – subject me to the most awful, and most exquisite… agonies. They force themselves on my weak flesh, and force themselves into me – my mouth… my… vagina… and… other places. I am whipped and stretched and… entered… and, sometimes all at once. And even as they make me the object of their pleasures I am forced to suffer them to lower their arses onto my face, and forced to put my tongue inside them. All those faceless, and almost numberless men and I am permitted to deny them nothing, nor spare myself any… indignity….’
Outside my study window the weak tide spent itself, again, and again, on the stony shore and sank away, as the sun sank; slipped in pink, and slipped down under the lip of the horizon. On the flimsy page that I held in my hand the words were not so pale.
‘And I do fuck myself when I think of these things. As I am rarely prepared when these thoughts come to me I fuck myself with whatever is close to hand. When I wrote to you before it was fruit. As I write to you now it is something less… exotic, and rather more… painful…. Soon I will cum… again… and, perhaps the visions in my head will recede a little further back. Or they will not, and will find myself back longing to be out and on the streets of this strange city, and in the darkness… and careless of the consequences.’
It was almost dark before I came to read the last few paragraphs.
‘I do not know why but, somehow I know that you understand these things – and so much better than me. My hope is, that by sharing my thoughts on these pages, I might free myself of the worst of these visions… or, at least keep them from overtaking me. I do fear that without these words… and without you to hear men… I might abandon myself completely to a fate that would prove even worse than my fevered imaginings.’
At this point I observe that the page is roughly stored, as though something had been written that the writer later thought better of, and so they had scribbled out the words.
‘I have cum now,’ the letter read, ‘I have cum… again, and I am… at peace.
Once again I find myself in your debt.’
And so, again, it seemed to me that she had been saved. And, again, I had done nothing except read her words – it was (is) an unusually passive role for me. As for being a ‘saviour’… well, the really was unfamiliar territory.
For months after that second communication I heard nothing from her. However, over the last few days she has left several messages on my phone, and all thanking me for something that I played no active part in. In this last message she added that she is now back in the country – for a while at least – and would very much like to meet with me. There is a slight tone of… infatuation in her voice and it is that that has prevented me from replying to her messages – so far. For all the things that I do, and all the things I am capable of, I am a cautious man when it comes to… infatuation.
Even as I am contemplating this fact the phone rings again….
