Lonely…
By: 'Shan Akey' (Gaelic for old storyteller)
Although I didn't know it, I was lonely. Very lonely. I had been driving around Vancouver one Sunday afternoon quite aimlessly looking for I don't know what. I needed good company but I didn't know that either. I was living 6,000 miles away from my family. There had been fourteen of us in the household, we were all half mad Irish maggot actors and we had never been short of something to do even if that was only to argue with a sibling.
Life was very different now. I lived on my own in an apartment and at weekends I had very little to do. But I was proud (or at least stupid) so how the hell was I to know that I was lonely.
Anyway as I drove around the busy streets of Vancouver I spied a beautiful young lady with an umbrella who leaned forward as my car approached looking in as if she knew me. I had no idea who she was but I was quite taken by how pretty she was in form. I couldn't see her face really but that didn't matter I was smitten.
The whole thing happened quite suddenly so I drove by and kept moving. I wasn't sure what was going on and I rolled it over in my mind. What was an image of a pretty figure bending gently forward to peer into my big empty lonely car telling me? Someone taking an interest in me was a magic surprise on a day like that. I couldn't' think of any thing else and I drove around the block several times to see my girl. But I never saw her again.
I drove home dejected and consumed by what might have been. I had no idea of what might have been. I had no idea who that girl was but she had brightened up my life for a little while and that was all that seemed to matter. She was a friend even if she knew nothing about our relationship.
The following Sunday I set out for my usual drive, feeling a little stronger in myself after a good week at work. I was reflecting on the experience of last week and as I drove by the spot on the road where I had seen my umbrella girl she was not there but three other, girls slightly less pretty stood on the sidewalk watching the cars go by. Jesus! That was it. This was the red light district and these girls were hookers! To a nice Irish Catholic boy this was absolute blasphemy just to be even near the possibility of paying for it! Whatever else I was going to do in life I was never going to pay for it. I was too good looking for that and way to Catholic! Part of me took control of the situation and drove me home at high speed while the other half drooled at the mouth and other places at the sheer idea of what might have happened. My mind fought with and played with what seemed like millions of ideas on the subject. I couldn't let it go. I was hooked and I was on a new journey that was to last many years.
During the following week while telling my self how much I wouldn't pay for it I couldn't get my mind of the possibility of stopping and even just talking to one of those beautiful girls. I mean if I only talk to them what harm can that do? I'll just pull up beside them, talk for a while and then leave. I'll go straight home. This simple apparently harmless little white lie to myself shot me into my car and within less than twenty minutes I was cruising the infamous Davy Street in West Van. God the adrenalin! I was doing something I wasn't supposed to do and I was loving it. The conflict inside was raging. My teeth chattered at the possibilities and my righteous self had me sent straight to hell forever!
When I came to my street with the umbrella girl I lost my nerve. I drove around in circles for several hours and finally went home. What a funk! A buzzed out adrenalin-full funk but none the less a funk. Jesus! All I had to do was talk. What was stopping me?
A week later having bashed myself half to death for wanting to go to Davy Street in the first place, for not talking to anyone in the second place and for even thinking about such a terrible thing in the third place I set out on yet another inevitable adventure.
After an hour of fretting, sweating and driving around in a dream passing one beautiful girl after another and looking like an 'obvious first-timer fool' I finally plucked up the courage, pulled up beside a medium beauty. Stopping by the most beautiful girl would have been total surrender so I couldn't do that. Could I?
"Hi, what's the damage," I firmly announced in a controlled voice, allowing for an immediate escape should I suddenly have needed it. Betty was kind of stocky and pretty enough, definitely sexy enough and as she leaned directly in through the open passenger window of my car I practically froze with shock. This was really bold stuff. It went beyond everything I was ever told not to do. I was breaking all the rules and I was drooling all over. I had no real idea how I got my self to this point but if I had believed at a conscious level that I was really breaking those sacred rules I would have been gone in two seconds flat!
Betty, replied in a loud, sharp and authoritive voice designed I'm sure, to scare the shit out of men, "Fifty dollars for a blow job, eighty for a lay." It worked! I was scared shitless. I was appalled at how crude all this base behaviour was. I was amazed and sickened at how I could have allowed myself to get here under any circumstances. I was excited like never before. I was absolutely thrilled but I was an Irish Catholic boy. "Thank you" I said and sped away practically taking Betty's head off as I went. I was an Irish Catholic boy. I didn't talk to hookers and I definitely didn't pay them.
Work the following week was impossible. I wrestled with an incredible range of moral issues but in the end my real side won over. I plucked up courage again and drove directly to Davy Street, spotted Betty, pulled bravely up and spoke clearly. Ten minutes later I was lying on my back on the back seat of my car caressing two strong legs and staring up at the most gorgeous pair of white silky panties I have ever seen in my entire innocent twenty-seven years. I was in seventh heaven. I tugged furiously at my throbbing penis hoping I could stay in this heavenly "hell" forever.
I was magnificently blown away. What a woman! As my excitement grew beyond where even I thought it could go I got braver and braver. I drew those gorgeous panties close to my face and felt the smooth silk caress my lips and eyes. I was about to burst. I went too far. I pulled the side of the white panties aside and that was the beginning of something that changed my life forever! Boy was this a growth period or what? For more than just me it seemed!
As the panties moved gently aside I was confronted by a penis!
I shot upwards and outwards and sat up in about one millisecond. "Jesus" I cried. "What the fuck is going on. Get off, get off." I was horrified or at least I thought I was and I let Betty know. Inwardly I was thoroughly shocked not because I was conned or because I deserved it anyway for breaking all the rules but because I loved the feel of that cock. I buried that feeling quickly, jumping in to the front of the car. I negotiated half my money back from Betty who thought he was lucky to get away with her life. I was back at home in about two minutes flat it seemed. I was in shock. My life had changed. How could I deny how much I loved what had happened. I don't know how but I did. I buried it deep with all the rest of the buried shocks of my life and even though I went back for more I buried deep any possibility that I was gay or even bi-sexual. Funny how skilled we are in the art of denial! I don't know which scared me more breaking the rules and paying for it, or the incredible power of my mind to cover up the truth!
