I want to tell you a story. It’s not a particularly exciting story, but it perhaps goes some way to explaining why I didn’t kiss a girl until I was 18, and until very recently didn’t know which hole was the ‘right’ one.

You see, I was never given ‘the talk’. I can only assume this was because my parents noticed just how little testosterone I had. A soggy noodle probably had more testosterone than teenage Sebastian. My skin was clear, with spots only developing under my long, froppy fringe (bangs). When my voice finally decided to break, it took about 5 years; my balls just didn’t know when to stop their voice-deepening descent!

See! I look like a damn girl! I even have a beauty spot, like that damn super model Cindy Crawford! And I TOLD you that bowl-cut would continue to haunt me for years to come!

Looking back, I probably should’ve asked my mother for hormone injections or something; I have her to thank for my limp-wristed effeminacy that ensured my complete lack of  action at school — zero, zilch. Even if our school had a bike shed, I would’ve had no one to use it with (I made up for that when I got to college, though — I had sex behind a bike shed! Hah!) On Valentine’s Day I would always be the one sending flowers and getting nothing in return; only ’secret’ love notes from my lovely mother. I blame my young, undefined, pretty face! Moving along now… (I told you I would post a picture from my teenage years!)

I was quite afraid of girls throughout my formative years; a fear that today shows itself as an awful lack of confidence when it comes to the actual ‘pulling’ of a girl. While all of my friends were playing spin the bottle and playing that ‘5 minutes in the cupboard’ game (where you were meant to come out with switched clothes! Were we the only kids that played that game?), I was sitting at he edge of the circle, or in the corner, praying the bottle didn’t land on me. As it turns out (and I wish someone had told me sooner, as I might’ve tried to change!) girls really dig a confident guy. Above all else maybe, girls nearly always want a guy that knows what he’s doing; and that certainly wasn’t me.

So, my teenage years, with a complete lack of sex or even sexuality were dull. That isn’t to say I didn’t do anything interesting, just nothing teenagery and interesting. I won competitions, and both my education and vocabulary were both growing at an alarming rate but… but there was no damn sex! Occasionally a girl would look at me with her big eyes and look downwards, blushing… but at the time, I had no idea that she liked me. No one told me what girls do when they like you! As I’ve said before, it was only after I left school that my sister told me about all these girls that had crushes on me…

But, you know what? I don’t blame my complete lack of sexuality entirely on my apparent lack of testosterone, or my ineptitude at talking to women. Sure, it would’ve been nice to receive ‘the talk’ from my parents, or at school, but I don’t blame that either.

I blame a certain teacher. A teacher that treated sex like a sin that would send you directly to Hell, without even the briefest glimpse of Purgatory. The kind of teacher that took a black marker to our textbooks and removed everything that could in some way be related to sex — even the novels we had to read for English! I remember picking up Pride and Prejudice and finding chapter upon chapter with blacked-out blocks of text.

It’s unsurprising then, as a teenager, I might’ve thought sex was a bit like the MI5 or the secret police: you know it’s going on, somewhere, somehow, but you don’t talk about it, and you certainly don’t act upon any urges you might be experiencing.

Now, the great thing about most schools is that even if you get a bad teacher, you know that next year you’ll have a new one! You know that no matter how bad it was, and how awfully you might’ve behaved, next year things will be better — you’ll have a new teacher, and a clean slate.  It was the same logic which drove me, on the last day of the school year, to spread glue on this teacher’s chair and laugh in her face when she tried to get up to write on the blackboard.

Imagine my horror when, after a gloriously long summer break, we swung the classroom door open to find the same teacher grinning at us from behind her big, mahogany desk. Our mouths hung open in what she can only have assumed was awe, but was in fact 10 kids displaying their combined rictus of mortal terror. ‘Welcome back, little children of God, to my shrine of celibacy and all things pure’ she said. Well, she didn’t really, but that was the thought racing through all of our minds. Would we really be having another boring year of sexless education?

Sadly, we would — another year passed; another year without even a lingering hug from a girl, or a nervous grope from my shaking hands. I was now 14, and whether I liked it or not, my voice was starting to break. I was starting to find hair in new and exciting locations. I was having to stay seated behind my desk while the class emptied with increasing, and alarming (but not unpleasant) regularity.

And then, the impossible, through some wicked twist of fate became… possible. The infinitely improbable somehow occurred. Someone, up there — the God of Schadenfreude, if she exists — was obviously having a rather hearty laugh at our expense.

We had the same teacher for the third year running.

By this stage, most of the girls were already wearing burqas and avoiding unnecessary contact/communication with the boys on pain of death by stoning. The boys had pretty much forgotten what a crafty, under-the-desk erection felt like. I was fully expecting to be handed a chastity belt as I walked into her classroom for the third year running; a chastity belt that had no key and was sealed with an unbreakable resin glue.

Some way through the third year, it was someone’s birthday, and it was normal for us to have a little birthday party on Friday afternoon to celebrate — you know, some music and decorations, some cake and ice cream. Normally someone would bring in the latest-and-greatest pop album and we’d dance and laugh for hours. This time though, someone had a great idea, a great idea that would resonate through the ages: let’s make a mix tape… a mix tape with naughty songs on it. Songs like… Let’s talk about sex, by Salt-n-Pepa.

God, looking back, we were so excited about the prospect of one-upping our draconian, prude, preacher freak of a teacher. We talked about it for days in hushed whispers during class. The giggle fits which inevitably followed only resulted in the removal of yet more privileges, which eventually led us to behave. We were mortified that she might actually cancel the party and ruin our glorious, immature plans!

The day of the party finally arrived. The girls had dressed prettily. The sporadic and not wholly unwelcome erections were back. Spontaneous, girly giggles could be heard regularly; lingering touches could be felt during and after hugs. After the party, with hot, red blood coursing through our systems and with pheromones thick in the air, surely this was it. Surely this was going to be my first kiss. At worst it would be my first tentative grope. I was ready; this was it. Bring it on!

4pm came and class finished. I got the tape player out with a bounce in my step and a grin on my little (effeminate!) face. I pushed the symbol of our freedom into the machine, pressed play.

She’d got to the tape.

Somehow that witch of a woman had got to our mix tape. There was a rather severe lack of Salt-n-Pepa; instead, the soft, sultry tones of Cliff Richard wafted into the air. The soft, completely devoid-of-sexuality notes of Summer Holiday hit our ears like a sonic boom; the silence that followed was deafening. The sexual tension that had positively thrummed throughout the day dissipated in an instant. Today wasn’t going to be the day of my first kiss; it wasn’t even going to be the day of my first sweaty-palmed grope. It was to be yet another disappointing day in the life of teenage Sebastian.

Fortunately, just a few months after that party, and after three long, boring years, the winds of luck finally changed: we got a new teacher!

For years afterward though, the playing of Let’s talk about sex as loud and as often possible was the signature prank of my class — preferably from outside her window.

This is a series of posts (Time-Travel Thursday) which so far has looked only at the beginning of my time at university, between 2003 and 2004. After the events of last week’s entry I begun a relationship that would span the remainder of my time at university; it wasn’t an uneventful time, but it was particularly peaceful. I’ll write about sometime, just not today. I want to talk about the past, so you can understand a bit more about me today.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme: I’ve been hilariously unfortunate when it comes to girls. I’ve been fortunate too — heck, I still consider myself lucky to have been with all my girlfriends — but, inevitably, bad relationships end. I remember the good times fondly, of course, but it’s the bad times that really stick with you. The pain and emotional distress from a bad relationship and the ensuing break-up really bogs us down! Some people are still plagued by uncertainty, unknowingness and doubt from relationships that ended a decade ago. Bad relationships haunt us.

The relationship I’m going to tell you about still lingers hauntingly, affecting my decisions when it comes to other girls — potential girlfriends.

If you’ve ever experimented with blindfolds in the bedroom with a loved one you’ll know that the experience is intense. With our visual sense deprived, other senses kick into overdrive, competing and clamouring to be heard by the brain. Before you know it, you’re flinching and squirming and whimpering, unable to predict what will happen next. Your partner has you in the palm of their hand.

Ultimate gratification is a boon that only your partner can provide in such a situation. Or, alternatively, your partner could walk out of the room and leave you there on the bed, blindfolded, prone, alone, unable to act and defenceless.

A relationship itself is like being emotionally blindfolded. In a relationship, our remaining senses are heightened, our emotional empathy increases.  In exchange, our foresight disappears. Love is blind(ness)! Objectivity flies out of the window. The world you so gracefully inhabited beforehand slides into a blurred, grey background — out of sight, out of mind. It’s just you and your lover, spotlit, center stage. In my case, it was me and The American. She had me blindfolded, but it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t make our her brilliantly bright form, picked out by the focused spot light of my love.

(Ironic, now that I think about it, that I put it into photographic terms. I’ve known her for 8 years, and I possess just 2 photos of her. And about a million mental images of her.)

In a relationship, our happiness is completely at the whim of our lover — the lover that has us chained down in a bed, emotionally blindfolded. You can’t force her to bestow upon you the heavenly, nirvana-like pleasures of love, intimacy and sex. It’s up to her. Where there isn’t an equality of control, where one person controls the entire flow of the relationship, where one partner holds the keys and forces you to jump through hoops to attain love, and thus happiness and satisfaction — these relationships are destined to fail.

If only I’d known that when I was 16.

If only I’d known, as I sat there on the bench, watching a beautiful blonde girl slowly wend her way through a throng of school friends towards me, that 8 years down the line, I’d still be nursing a fragmented heart.

She was short. Really short, perky and cute. It was a strong start, certainly. She’d finished traversing the crowd of kids and stood before me.

‘Hi!’ A ready smile, too. Good teeth. A grin that lit up her little face.

Unfortunately, she had an American accent.

‘Ah… you were doing so well, until you opened your mouth!’

The opening words of a relationship that, one form or another, would span almost a decade. Middle school, highschool and college.

I’ve told you before that I’m really mean to girls that I like, right? It’s probably a self-defence thing; a self-esteem thing. Pushing a girl away before she gets close enough to tease my heart-strings, and then inevitably dump me for a stronger, hairier and manlier man than I. Well, try as I might, this one wouldn’t be pushed. She sat down next to me and just continued to smile. I perservered. Continuing with low blows, sarcasm and a neverending, incessant pick-pick-picking of her American accent and mannerisms, I just couldn’t shake her off.

She loved it. She’d never experienced it before, being America — the dry, English wit; irony — or perhaps she just fancied the socks off me. I like to think it’s because she wanted my babies. Perhaps I was so funny that she wanted my babies?

She only stayed for the summer that time but she promised she’d be back. If she hadn’t come back, I would’ve gone to her anyway; 5000 miles was nothing for a couple of smitten, lovesick teenagers that craved each other’s company.

A year later and I’m in the process of finding a buyer for one of my kidneys when I receive an email from her: ‘I’m flying over in August. We need to talk.’

She refused to tell me about it over email.

In fact, she must’ve realised sometime between writing the email and the amazing 3 months we spent together that summer that her mother could talk to me instead.

And so it was that, one day, sitting outside eating lunch, her mother sat down beside me.

‘We need to talk, Sebastian.’

‘About what?’ I’d completely forgotten about the aforementioned ‘talk’ and I had a big grin on my face: I didn’t like her mother particularly, but it made sense to smile at your future mother-in-law, right?

‘This relationship of yours, between you and my daughter. It can’t continue.’

My heart skipped a beat. ‘Why…?’

‘She has a fiancé in America. Her childhood sweetheart. She’s marrying him this winter.’

To be continued…

I had planned a fantastic post today about immortality (as one does…) but as I sat down to type it out, my mother called up the stairs:

‘Don’t forget, it’s your birthday tomorrow!’

Thanks for reminding me, mum.

‘25! That’s a quarter of a century! A third of your life, GONE!’

You can shut up now, mum.

‘By the time I was your age, I was married and had you!’

I shut my door, sat down and… pouted. How am I meant to think philosophically about immortality — the soul, your mind, infinity — when my mother’s busy reminding me of my own, pesky mortality?

‘I expect grandchildren sooner rather than later, Sebby.’ Somehow, her nagging had penetrated my door. Remind me to buy some high-density foam with my birthday money. To soundproof my room. Though, I could probably smother her with it, too; and no, not in ’smothered in cream’ sense — I’m not Oedipus.

And so it is with anger in my fingers that I bash out this blog entry. I’m not old damnit. I have plenty of time to get things done, to find the next love of my life and to spawn a son suitable for inheriting my universal empire. Oodles of hours and a slew of centuries — however you measure it, it’s still time, a slave destined to bend to the wishes of its master: us. Mark my words, friends: we will live forever.

Laying aside that particular topic, I have a bunch of fun photos to share with you, to celebrate the first 25 years of my life. But first, as with all living things, there was a birth. I was born after 48 hours of labour, by Caesarean section (fitting, considering my aspirations), to a rather tired mother. I was almost called Dominic (of all names, why Dominic?) but thankfully my mother’s crush for Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited prevailed. I can’t imagine being called Dominic now; it’s hardly the name of an intergalactic imperator.

That’s me, a month or two old — it’s hard to tell, because I was a huge baby, 10lbs or more (remember, ladies, 48 hours. 2 days of labour). The Brits will recognise the gesture I’m making; the rest of you will just have to believe me when I say it’s a fitting flick of the fingers. Looking through our Hall of Fame (we have a corridor dedicated to our old photos), I hardly recognise myself until I’m about 2 or 3. New-born, I look like my mother — a year or two later, I start to look like my father. By the age of 4, I’m a bit of both but a new ingredient has been thrown into the mix: cuteness.

It’s kind of sad to realise, looking through the hall of fame, that I’ll never be as cute as that again. I peaked at the age of four. Perhaps my mother is right — perhaps I do need to find a wife as soon as possible. Perhaps, as each day ticks by and another year is sliced from my mortality, I’m getting uglier. Ugh. Oh well. I’ll just tell every girl that I meet that I actually look just like the photo above, if I shave it all off. That’ll work.

Things got a little wonky after that, and I shan’t be posting pictures from my teenage years again. If you really want to see what I look like, go and read my childhood entries. Warning: I look a bit like a girl.

Moving swiftly on, from the androgynous Beatles-lookalike stage of my life, I bring you kicking-and-screaming to my 21st birthday!

I’m having more fun than it looks, I promise. I’m just making it quite clear that the bits of foil stuck on my face were not my own doing, and they kept falling off into my food. Japanese food deserves better than that, damnit! Fun side-story: the phone being looked at in the background has naked photos of my ex-girlfriends on, and they’re just about to find them. And one of them was my girlfriend at the time (hah, that’ll teach them to pry!) It’s also the phone I eventually lost on a bus, making some guy (or girl) very lucky indeed… sorry, girlfriends. I’m sure they can’t identify you from that angle, anyway.

I’ll finish with a photo from my last summer ball — the final event in the university’s social calendar — with what seems to be a very happy girl in my arms:

It’s shocking how much I look like my cousin, but that’s another story for another day! By the time you read this, I’m probably in bed, trying to catch a few fleeting hours of sleep before my mother bounds into my bedroom to celebrate the passing of yet another significant milestone in my life. Twenty-one, check. Quarter-century, check. The next must surely be ‘get married’… Or will thirty come and go…?

It’s not too late to send me a birthday present! I accept almost any form of gift/keepsake including, but not limited to: book token, personalised poem, (un)used underwear, cash or banker’s draft.

Another Thursday, another dose of too-much-information. Hit up Lilu’s blog if you want more! This one though is one of my favourites, and one I’ve never actually talked about in public. I hope my friend forgives this little tale about bodily fluids gone wrong.

Once upon a time I had friends. The real type. I would speak to them on the phone for hours, we would hang out after school and play video games, or go down to the park to watch girls. Nowadays I don’t have real friends — I have friends that I talk to regularly of course, just not face to face, and not over the phone. Friends like you, in fact. Eventually I’ll run out of stories to tell, I suppose, and then I’ll have to make some more real friends. But until then…

This one’s about a chap called Tim. I have a few stories to tell about Tim as he was a very interesting fellow; not always in a bad way but prone to moments of weirdness and insanity. He wasn’t a great friend of mine either, but for a variety of reasons we would often end up sharing the same space. We certainly got on fine; he was a friend, but not one I would go out of my way to hang out with.

After a party, I ended up sleeping on the floor of his bedroom. I’m not great at falling asleep, which means I’m normally the poor sod that has to try and fall asleep while someone else snores noisily. That was no different. There I lay, on the floor below Tim’s bed and looking at the lamp beside his bed, wishing fruitlessly for sleep to take me.

He certainly seemed to be sleeping soundly, if the snoring was anything to go by. At first I thought it was just a bump in his blanket, an unseemly fold placed at just the wrong place — or right place, if you’re a hormonal teenager. I giggled.  Or maybe, on closer inspection, it was his knee…? I shrugged and turned over, trying yet again to leave the waking realm.

Thankfully, the snoring ceased soon after. But then a rustle and the clink of the bed springs as he redistributed his weight and got comfy again. I opened one eye a fraction of an inch but was surprised to see him looking down at me. He didn’t react, so I can only assume he thought I was soundly asleep. He hadn’t seen my partially-opened eye in the dark.

He looked to the bedroom door to make sure it was closed, and only then did he slip his blanket off revealing, you guessed it, an erection, a turgid penis, a boner — it certainly was not his knee. For a moment I held my breath, hoping that he was just a little hot; praying that he was just getting a little fresh air before he went back to sleep.

But then he went for it. His hand grabbed his man meat and started thrashing up and down and sideways in that violent, unceremonious fashion that only teenagers have mastered. His hips lifted, thrusting his penis and pelvis to new heights. A groan escaped his lips. I wanted to shut my eyes but I’m half-ashamed to say… I couldn’t. Like watching a car drive faster and harder until a crash surely seems inevitable, I was morbidly mesmerised — I wanted to see it through to its conclusion!

The hip thrusting and fist-pumping were rhythmic in their movement, quicker and angrier; I thought he might tear it off, to be honest (I learnt in later years that the male penis can withstand quite a stretching, and beating.) After 10 minutes he started panting. His back arched. Two more decisive, piston-like tugs with his right hand and he shuddered, the orgasm quickly gripping his entire body. His feet twitched, his free hand clenched and he bit his lip as he came. He shot a single, long stream of white, warm goo from the tip of his penis. It felt like it took ages, slowly arcing through the air gracefully, taking its time, picking its target.

It actually moved damn quickly.

Splat.

‘DUDE! It’s in your fucking EYE!’

I quickly leapt to my feet and looked down at Tim’s naked body, his war-torn, victimised cock red and fast becoming flaccid. I looked at his torso where a few spatters of semen dotted his chest. Then my eyes found the sticky trail that began at the base of his neck and followed up over his chin. Across his lips, along the curve of his cheek and finally to the ejaculate that pooled in his right eye socket.

‘Seb, stop staring and pass me the box of tissues.’

This won’t be a complete backstory, but it will fill in a few big gaps. It includes and expands upon bits from my childhood entries and the ‘about‘ page. This should illuminate my scattered, eclectic writings on this blog. This should spread light on themes that you may’ve noticed and upon which I will now elucidate. This post is actually celebrating a ‘blog milestone’, though in true, chronically-understated British fashion, I shan’t say what that milestone is. Enjoy this revealing expose of inner Sebbiness; I’ll be hiding in the corner over there.

* * *

As I forced the last piece of LEGO into position with a snap I decided then that I would be an engineer; I was only five at the time and didn’t know what the word meant, nor what they did. The only thing I knew was that making things — crafting intricate constructions from simple, constituent parts — was fun. Really damn fun. You start off with a box of bits and amorphous blobs leftover from previous creations, and you can make anything! Well, almost anything, as defined by the rules and mechanics of LEGO blocks.

It was those rules, those axioms, that interested me the most. My parents will tell you that I was never a huge fan of using my hands — I was never the kind of kid to make rickety tree houses or bird tables — they were just a means to an end: to discover rules! Hands were great at pulling apart and unscrewing video machines, toasters and televisions. I had no idea how things actually worked, but God-damn it was fun trying to work it out! I would look at the parts, at the wreckage of my latest interest, and try to somehow divine the magical rules that made them go.

As I grew up my LEGO bricks turned into Technic cogs and Meccano struts, and thus my education continued: I learnt about physics and the inescapable force of gravity; torque and various structural designs to nullify its effects; the fun that could be had with elastic energy! Most importantly, I learnt about the two forces that dominate our current understanding of the world: chemical and electrical energy. Heating mixtures of chemicals and watching in (pained) awe as they exploded into my face taught me the wonders of cause and effect; reactions. Adding electrical motors to my constructions added life. And that was the key: I’d finally found out how to make things happen.

Enter my first computer at the geriatric age of eight (I was spoilt, some might say). This is probably where the tale should take a dark and oppressive turn for the worse but fortunately… it does not! Unless you consider the abject horror and avoidance of all physical exercise, caused by continued computer use, a bad thing. Actually, that’s a lie: I enjoyed tennis and badminton, but only because my arms were so long that I could reach almost everywhere without moving. I won’t bore you with any more from my teenage years, but you can read my childhood entries if you’re really interested.

In short, my teenage years were… OK. Not great, and often introverted. I was bullied for being fat and far too intelligent. Fortunately the bullying didn’t impact my thirst for knowledge, but it did culture my antisocial tendencies. I don’t mean I went around throwing bricks through windows (I did this just once, when I fell in with some bad boys), I mean that I’ve been a hermit ever since. My teenage life wasn’t completely devoid of social interaction. I did have friends. But for example, the only parties I would attend would be those I couldn’t skip, lest I become a social outcast. Being social, for the teenage Seb, was an obligation.

Looking back, it was a sad, lonely way of living. I don’t know if it was caused by the bullying, or just my continued interest in learning. Y’see, I would be great company until I realised that I’d actually rather be somewhere else, learning how to make explosives or program a new computer language. The only friends I did keep were ones that had identical interests to mine, or were intelligent enough that they remained interesting to me. A bit of a pragmatic — some would say selfish — view of friendships. Again, I don’t know what caused it, but my thirst for knowledge compelled me to flit about from person to person and from book to book, devouring anything and everything that I stumbled across in my search for more data.

When you’re a teenager, mixing your friends up a little is a common occurrence — so what if one day you’re best friends with John, and Steve the next? Looking back, I guess that’s why no one noticed what I was up to. And I’m still the same today, though my years at university tempered my hermit-like tendencies and almost turned me into a social butterfly! Still, when it comes to friends — relationships that I nuture and tend to regularly — I still only have two close ones. The first, I talk to once a week if I’m lucky, the second I might see once a year, or less (does that make me a bad friend?) It’s not so easy to ‘bounce between friends’ when you’re an adult; when you’re a grown-up you can’t just chew, digest and unceremoniously dump your friends.

That’s why I travel and I guess… why I don’t have friends.

It feels lame to cite Fight Club of all things, but its popularity will help make my point: I like single servings. The people I meet on trains and planes are tasty enough to tantalise my taste buds without the risk of becoming dull or flavourless. I might only spend six hours with a friend made while climbing over ancient ruins in Turkey, but when you’re thrown into a similar situation together and share the same experiences, you learn a lot about each other, and you learn it quickly. Single, intense servings of personality; more than just a passing acquaintance, but less than a friendship. At the end we can both go our own ways; a single serving with no strings attached.

Finally, we’ve arrived at the contemporary Seb, where I understand enough about myself that I can attempt to define my personal philosophy. ‘Attempt’, because it’s hard to name and qualify thoughts that, without scope or definition, have run around my head for 25 years. So bear with me as I try to put it into some clumsy words: I demand rationality, but not in the conventional sense. As humans, we are exceptionally good at being rational, but only within the confines of a working, true set of data. You can only be as rational as your education allows — if you have been told that the world is flat, it’s rational to assume it is indeed flat. But that’s not rationality; at least not for me. Most ’stupidity’, as viewed from an objective point of view, is (unsurprisingly) caused by a lack of education. The stupid person probably doesn’t know he’s being stupid though — in his head he’s just doing as he’s been taught!

Rationality, for me, is an absolute: not simply a given, limited set of truths taught through nurture, dogma or education.

Rationality, for me, is the neverending search for a body of knowledge so vast, so all-encompassing that, one day, will hopefully allow me to understand the workings of the universe, and those that populate it.

There we have it: one of my most secret and character-definining traits laid bare for all to see. I hope it goes some way to explaining how I look at the world, and ultimately what I write on this blog. I am, in essence, trying to get my head around everything; I’m pulling the world apart, screw by screw, hoping to find the answers. As and when I find them, I’ll be sure to share.

* * *

There are some fun photos to follow tomorrow. They were meant to accompany this entry, but now it seems inappropriate. If you want funny pictures, go and look at the ones of me as a kid…

This is a story about young love.

Young, embarrassing, sticky love.

Love that we thought safely hidden by the shadowy embrace of a moonless night. How wrong we were…

(An old photo of mine, taken during a blue moon)

You probably know, if you watch the news or have a friend that rejoices in telling you useless, geeky facts, there’s a very big meteor shower occurring right now: The Perseids! If you get a chance, go outside and look for them. It’ll peak at around 100 shooting stars per hour (though by the time you read this, they’ll probably have passed — so do it next year!)

(For more TMI this Thursday, hit up Lilu’s blog!)

This story takes place almost ten years ago, in August, during the Perseid meteor shower. I was 18 and drunk and dizzy with the affections of a certain girl. She was 15 and perky. And lavishing me with lingering looks and touches. It was only a matter of time before things got out of hand.

We barbecued and she laughed at my little jokes. We strolled at dusk through beautifully-lit woodland and she walked beside me, catching my eye and smiling. And when the night’s festivities were finally through and we settled down on the castle’s lawn to rest and sleep, she lay very close to me.

By most measures we had a romantic night that could only lead in one possible, carnal direction… right?

Wrong.

I failed to tell you that this was a party. We were 20 friends having the night of our lives.

I failed to tell you that she was also in a relationship. With my cousin.

But I was young and horny… and she was even younger and even hornier… and you know how I have a thing for pretty young girls…

So there we are, under a blanket, surrounded by a big group of our friends.

We’re all looking to the heavens and counting shooting stars. Occasionally someone tries the classic: ‘There! Over there!’ which of course, by the time you’ve looked, it’s gone. Minutes pass, meteors perish with a dazzle and our chatter slowly dies down as the magic becomes mundane. Sleep begins to take hold when her hands suddenly fine mine.

A firm grip and a meaningful, deliberate squeeze that speaks much more than a spoken word ever could.

My fingers trace teasing, tantalising designs on her palm and wrist.

Her body moves fractionally closer but the tiny increase in body temperature is palpable.

My fingers continue their gentle slide along the smooth underside of her arm.

Her breath warms the side of my neck and then, as my fingers lightly tickle her she shudders, her head dropping to my collar bone.

My hand moves from her shoulder and up her neck, under her ear and she bites me, she bites my neck hard.

My whimpering is only just audible but of course I look around, nervous that we’re being watched, that someone might’ve spotted us — but no, everyone seems to be asleep or looking at the meteor shower. Her bite has become a soft kiss and yet again I can feel her hot breath on my neck. She shakes — with nerves? — as my hands encircle her waist and pull her closer, my concern for eavesdroppers and voyeurs diminishing by the second.

Her body pushes closer and I can feel just how hot she is. She squirms as my fingers tease her waist and hips. With a hard kiss on the lips I smother a moan as my arm and hand and fingertips slide yet further.

Craving her flesh I hastily pull down my pants and undress her with my spare hand until she’s almost naked; bare enough that neither of us feel restricted. My fingers then find their mark and she rolls on top of me, her body convulsing, her hips grinding against mine.

This was a stupid move for an obvious reason: I’m fairly certain our foreplay had been heard already but our friends, in a moment of true Britishness, had decided to ignore it. But that wasn’t all. When I’d rolled onto my back there’d been a quiet click, a terse snap. Our small and sweaty under-blanket world was instantly illuminated in blinding white light. Someone had brought a huge torch, just in case of emergencies.

Those that were still watching the meteors turned to look. Those asleep were woken by the kerfuffle. In a truly Austin Powers moment they all saw our mid-thrust silhouette. There were screams from the girls and cheers from the boys.

To this day, I’m told that my silhouette was very generous.

For those of you that read this blog on a regular basis you’ll know that my mother likes to comment. In fact, reading my blog is part of her ‘breakfast routine’ — she can often be found with a cup of tea and pastry in-hand as she reads my blog in the morning, her face displaying a terrible, nervous grin as she discovers yet another disgusting fact about her ‘beautiful, first-born son Sebastian’ (that’s how she introduces me to friends).

Every Thursday morning, like clockwork, she yells up the stairs: ‘That’s not true is it Sebastian?!’

And every time I answer with a noncommittal ‘Maybe… now where’s my coffee?’

Basically, my mother and I have a very close relationship. We talk about almost everything. She’s not quite as smart as me, but she’s a lot brighter than people give her credit for! She’s funny, though not generally witty, but occasionally she pulls out a good one. And that’s what this story’s about.

As always… for more TMI Thursday stories, check out Lilu’s infamous blog!

I’m going to tell you the origin of our ‘Embarrass Each Other’ game. It’s a very self-destructive game but just too damn fun to give up. The basic idea is simple: try to embarrass mum/Seb as much as possible. Normally this is achieved by talking very loudly in public places: theme parks, supermarkets, malls, that kind of thing. Teenage boys have a lot of things they’re embarrassed by and, believe it or not, so do ageing women!

So we’re at the supermarket on Saturday, buying food for the week. It’s very busy. We find ourselves in the ‘toiletries’ aisle, home of shampoo, toothpaste and… objects of a more private nature.

“Hey, mum, don’t you need to pick up a pregnancy test? What with all those random guys you’ve been sleeping with…”

I start off quietly, low-key. One old lady turns to look at my mother disapprovingly but we ignore her.

“Shall we check if they have those special condoms for people of a smaller, midget-like stature?” She’s louder. A couple of teenage girls turn to giggle at me. Low-blow, mum.

“What about those adult diapers? You know, those nappies that you can wear to prevent ‘embarrassing moments’. They’re just over here I think…” No more Mr Nice Guy. Right in there with the incontinence pants. We’ve often joked that my sole purpose in life is to look after her when she’s older and less… in control.

“Oh, look, they have special razors for that unibrow of yours! AND you can use it when you finally get some facial hair! Two birds with one stone!” (OK, so I was a late bloomer…) — I don’t think she realises just how loud she’s shouting, but people at both ends of the aisle have stopped to look at us. Even those paying for their food and the staff have started watching us.

“Ahhh, look! THE THRUSH CREAM! FOR THE ITCHING! Really, anything to stop you whining about that damn burning sensation!”

My mum pouts and falls silent. I’ve won; not without taking a few blows, but I’ve won, that’s what matters. I’m smiling like a smug idiot that’s just won the Special Prize. People are looking at me as if I’m dribbling down my front and walking with a limp usually reserved for limb-dragging quadriplegics.

And then my girlfriend appears. She waltzes down the aisle, unaware of the drama that’s just unfolded. She stops at one shelf and picks up a pack of extra-small condoms. She stops again and picks up a tube of thrush cream. Only then does she notice my mother and I.

OH SHI–

Back when I was younger I had lots of friends. We were all very intelligent (except for Simon, but there’s always one hanger-on) and we would often pass the time by inventing. We came up with some truly great ideas but were simply too young to do anything with them. They were just cool ideas that we hoped, one day, would be available to us.

But being young, and teenage, sometimes our creations weren’t wholly healthy or  innocent. Sometimes they were dark, disgusting, malevolent machinations intended to reap vengeance upon those we hated, those that bullied us… and Hitler! Yes, we were world-wise 12 year olds and we wanted to go back in time and kill Hitler! (Deep, I know!)

We invented ways to force girls to love us. We devised ways to pass exams without studying. We dreamt up video games and alternative input systems that wouldn’t appear until 10 years later.

But the most hilarious and fruitful brain storming sessions were those spent devising methods of torture.

For more Too-Much-Information stories go to Lilu’s blog! Or stay here, if you like stories involving bodily fluids.

Call us morbid, but I don’t think we really thought about death as such. It’s not like we went around wishing death upon other people either. It was just… one of those teenage things, I guess. And the funny thing is, they weren’t particularly visceral methods of torture either. We were young, so the idea of tearing someone’s penis off hadn’t really popped into our heads yet. We hadn’t seen any graphic films, so gunshots and mutilation were also out of the question.

We were limited to diabolically creative methods of torture. Take for example the Chinese water torture machine that intermittently dropped steel ball bearings instead of droplets of water. Drip… drip… smack!… drip… drip… smack!

It swiftly turned into the best kind of competition, the kind where the winner is the only person left in the room. Everyone else has run in disgust to the bathroom or bushes to vomit.

I’m half-ashamed to admit that most suggestions revolved around bodily fluids. Poo. Pee. Snot. But we were young — being force-fed your own shit isn’t as bad as being sodomised by a big man, is it? Actually, don’t answer that one.

And then someone thought of… the container. A glass container large enough for a man to be placed in, but too tall to climb out of. Some kind of chain/harness to hold you down.

You could then fill this container with stuff.

Take a moment to imagine this container.

Imagine a container like this, just like the one used in Houdini’s famous water escape. You are held down by straitjacket and chains, but you’re not Houdini; there is no easy escape. You are immersed in liquid and there is no way out. There is no friction to be had from the sides, so you can forget about climbing out — you are chained, anyway!

But most tantalisingly, the level of the water is only a few inches above your head. The top of your head is dry, but your nose and mouth are under water. You begin to drown. There’s perhaps only a few litres of water between you and fresh oxygen. What if you swallowed the water? Could you swallow enough that the water level drops below your nose?

A friend’s throaty, wet cough brings us back to reality for a moment, and in that same instant everything slots into place. The torture device is complete!

A tank full, not of water but phlegm. Yellowing, glutinous phlegm. You must eat your way to freedom through three inches of lung-flung mucous.

A slow, syrupy suffocation awaits: chew your way through seven centimeters of bitter bile with the consistency of molasses, or die trying.

We were rather disgusting for 12 year olds…

[Continuing in the vein of games-related posts, today I'm going to tell you a dark, embarrassing story from my teenage years. For more stories of a similar ilk, check out Lilu's blog.]

I haven’t always wielded eight and a half inches of steam-piston, woman-slaying man meat. I was actually a very late bloomer.

Which is a little odd, considering how early my fuzzy moustache came through and how rapidly my voice broke at the age of thirteen. But I didn’t kiss a girl until after I turned 18.

I’d been close to only one girl before that, when I was 16 — but truth be told, I had no idea what to do with her, or myself. I was scared stiff — so, just as things were hotting up, I ran. I ran fast.

I ran all the way back to my darkened bedroom, to my bank of glowing screens, consoles and computers. Back to my true love and her soft bosom and warm, muscly embrace.

I ran back to… Lara Croft.

Only, back then, when I was 16, she looked like this:

To my geeky, hormonal eyes, those cylindrical legs, twiggy arms, funnel-like breasts and glass-cuttingly perky nipples were more erotic than watching Pamela Anderson bound mystifyingly along a sun-drenched beach on Saturday afternoon.

Lara Croft was my first love.

If I shut my eyes I can still hear her grunts. Ohhh the grunts! I would lean back in my computer chair, legs akimbo, one hand on my mouse, the other between my legs — and make her grunt. Lara Croft, when she exerts herself or walks into a wall, grunts — hngh! — and I would do it over and over and over.

Hngh! hngh! hnnngh! hnnnNGH!! That last grunt would be me, unable to hold it in any longer, overcome. Three or four Lara Grunts were usually more than enough to topple my weak, teenage sensibilities.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! Sorry. The recounting of the tale is almost as intense as being sixteen again and back in that stuffy, musty room.

So… I had a method, as every guy does. A particular path to masturbatory Nirvana, and through the first level of the game, that I could navigate with just one hand. It took exactly eight minutes and twelve seconds, which was definitely pushing it back then (if anything, one of the most important stories that Lara — Miss Croft — taught me was that patience, endurance, holding off, is a virtue. My lovers probably don’t realise how indebted they are to a video game…)

After those eight minutes of navigating packs of wolves and solving simple puzzles — though not so trivial when your mind is trying to work out once and for all if Lara’s a C or D cup –  I would arrive at the target: a tight corner, one that could elicit an infinite stream of grunts, only limited by my perseverance.

But, more importantly, there was a ledge.

Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, repetitive digital grunting was nothing compared to the handstand. I can’t find any photos to prove it, but I recall as if it was only yesterday, she would go into the splits before reaching the vertical. She would lift herself slowly, using her strong, supple arms into an inverted split. There she would pause for a moment, tantalisingly, allowing my vigorous, ruthless, pubescent imagination to quickly tear those tight shorts from her toned but resolutely feminine legs.  But alas she would not linger long enough for me to climax, and up into the vertical handstand she would go.

On a good day I would get through maybe two corner-grunt-leg-split-handstand repetitions. Once I made it from corner to ledge four times. Four times! My mother never did find out why I suddenly needed a new monitor and keyboard.

So, Sandra, if you’re reading, that’s the reason I twisted my way out of your tentative grasp back in the summer of 1999 with a bulge in my pants. I ran back to my room. Back to Lara.

It wasn’t you. It was all me…

1997… I was 14 at the time. Fourteen, impressionable and, as it would turn out, easily aroused.

I still remember it as if it was only yesterday: we went to see Austin Powers in the cinema. Now, that would’ve been awesome enough — I was 14, watching a ‘15′ rated film! — but to top it off, I had a girl with me. Yeah! Somehow… somehow I had managed to get a girl to go with me to the cinema. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the first ever date that the pubescent hairy-upper-lipped Sebby went on (girls wouldn’t call me Sebastian until a few years later… I grew into it).

Don’t get excited yet though! You know I didn’t kiss a girl until I was 18. This story isn’t about how I shoved my tongue down some poor, unsuspecting girl’s throat at the back of the cinema. This isn’t going to explain why I have a ‘thing’ for doing it in public places.

[For more Too Much Information this Thursday, hit up Lilu's blog!]

No, this is a story about how Austin Powers has cauterised permanent scar tissue on both my psyche and sex life. Today, 12 years later, I am still haunted by Austin’s dorky, gawpy, toothy smile.

Austin… and his shawn scrotum.

Austin… and his sharks with frickin’ lasers.

Austin… and his orange sherrr-bert.

Oh Austin, you were such a hoot! The date was going well. We were both laughing. We were both turning to each other at the improbably disgusting bits and making faces. I had successfully yawned-and-put-my-arm-around the girl. This was it. This was going to be it!

To fully understand my apprehension, my nervousness, you have to appreciate that by this time, almost all of my friends had already had a girlfriend. I was always the one that sat in the corner while the others played Spin the Bottle (why would it always land between two people and point towards me in the corner?!), or the Closet Game (did other people play that game, by the way, or just us?) So… this was progress. My arm around a girl. I remember telling my mum all about it later that night… I was so proud…

Anyway… it was all going so well… but then…

THE FEMBOTS!

Yeah…

From the moment those sexy, sultry, clad-all-in-pinky Fembots strutted onto the screen, I knew why the film had a 15-rating. I knew, in a pulse-quickening, pant-warming and rod-thickening moment that I was about to have one of the most embarrassing moments of my teenage life. I looked down. Hello there, little Seb… I gulped. I shut my eyes. I dare say I even prayed a little.

To this day, I don’t know why she did what she did next.

Maybe it was just an accident.

Perhaps, looking back, she really did like me.

Stephanie reached down between my legs and… grabbed. I don’t want to make it sound more romantic than it actually was: there was no gentility, no caution, no preamble. She just grabbed. A little too firmly, if I may say so myself. I yelped. I squirmed. I moaned. I was just about to blow my loa–

‘Baseball, cold showers, baseball, cold showers.’

I looked up at the big screen. Austin had come(!) to my rescue!

I bit my lip and tensed, fighting the overwhelming urge to make a mess of my pants. Women can be so cruel. And then Austin went one step too far.

‘Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day! Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day!’

Yup… thanks Austin.

With the mental image of Britain’s greatest and most ruthless female emperor firmly burnt into my retinas my teenage stiffy rapidly dissipated. Stephanie, rather understandably given the circumstances, asked if she’d done something wrong.

‘No… no… it’s not you… it’s me.‘

I wish this story ended there, a little parcel of teenage embarrassment, neatly tied up and stored away… but it doesn’t.

To this day, whenever I’m getting it on with a girl, and usually when I’m approaching the sticky love-cave from behind, I see Maggie’s face. She turns to look at me, her grinning, square-jawed, chisel-cheeked rictus beaming at me, lust sparkling in her eyes, do me, baby, do me, Sebby. Just for a moment — the tiniest split of a second — I’m screwing an on-all-fours Margaret Thatcher.

…

So if you’ve ever been lucky enough to be on the receiving end in my bedroom, boys and girls, and I suddenly yelp, retract my scope and curl up in a ball by the end of the bed… it’s not you, it’s me; me and my damned imagination. God damn you, Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery And Spoiler Of All Future Sexual Encounters, God-damn.