Horoscopes by Neal Medlyn Capricorn: This is likely to be a week of inner realization, but Dr. Phil won't necessarily bark at you to "get it together, girlfriend."
Frankly, the sex was pretty second rate. I certainly fancied her enough, but there was always a reticence on her part. She didn't want to do it as often as I did, and she wasn't very keen on exploring the more athletic aspects of foreplay, oral sex or intercourse. As for anal sex, I don't think she'd ever heard of the term, let alone contemplated the reality. She didn't like it when I took her from behind. She didn't like it when I kissed her too vigorously.
However, as I implied, she kept me keen. Actually, it was one of those terrible relationships when you have to masturbate all the time because you are constantly aroused but not getting anything like enough action. Indeed, one night, long after I'd turned over, frustrated, and should have been fast asleep, I heard a rustling and sensed rapid movement under the duvet.
She was masturbating. I couldn't believe it. Apart from the fact that I found this incredibly erotic and instantly wanted to join in, I couldn't understand why she was doing it.
"What are you doing?" I said stupidly.
promotion
"What do you think?" she replied, quite breathless.
"Why?" I said, moving closer.
"Because it helps me sleep," she said.
"I could have done it for you," I said. "Or we could have done something else. Together."
I can't exactly remember what she said to that, but it was along the lines of her not feeling like it, and that her masturbating was not really a sexual thing, but simply a mechanism to help her nod off. I think she might even have used the phrase, "My little helper." What could I do? There was another reason behind her furtive masturbating, but I didn't find that out until years later. Long after we'd broken up.
In the meantime, we trundled along for a quite bit longer, fighting on and off. In fact we fought quite a lot. She slapped me once, hard, on the steps of an exclusive London drinking club. I think I had refused to rise to the bait over something she was getting steamed up about and for once had ignored her. She didn't like to be ignored when she was cross.
Amazingly, that summer we even went on holiday, to France. In reality it was a sort of make-or-break trip. However, something really quite extraordinary happened there. It was of little consequence to the future of our relationship, but it was an incident that I'll certainly never forget, and in many ways was quite a defining moment. At least it makes me think about who I am and where I came from, and why sex is so loaded with the past, and can be so explosive in the present, and just how very salty the Mediterranean was.
A friend of her parents lent us their villa in the Camargue. Ever been to the Camargue? It's heaven and hell. For a great, flat watery chunk of the south of France, it's remarkably undeveloped. The place is still inhabited by wild ponies and Gypsies. Flamingos fly by every evening. It should be a place of high romance, catching up with sunsets and hooking into a wild, unspoiled way of life. Except for the mosquitoes. It's virtually impossible to sit outside after about five in the evening. The mosquitoes are fucking killers. No wonder the Camargue is so unspoilt. No wonder hardly anyone ever goes there.
Needless to say, the holiday got off to an appalling start. As if I didn't already know, my girlfriend was something of a neurotic. She became obsessed with plastering herself with every known brand of mosquito repellent. Whatever the time of day. She smelled, and tasted, disgusting. Which, of course, was a huge shame, because the villa was very secluded and came with a pool, and it would have been a perfect place to wander around naked. But what was I thinking? I knew my girlfriend had issues with her body, or rather her sense of her body. She never would have wandered around naked, despite the mosquitoes, or the strong Mediterranean sun — she was equally obsessed with not getting sunburned, as not getting bitten.
Her masturbating was not really a sexual thing, but simply a mechanism to help her nod off. I think she might have even used the phrase, "My little helper."
So, to her various layers of mosquito repellent she applied thick layers of sunscreen, only adding to the horrible smell and taste of her, but not completely disguising her looks. She was still gorgeous, with big dark eyes and long, luscious brown wavy hair, pert breasts and a shapely arse, and long, slender legs. I still desired her hugely. But she was not going anywhere near me, and it wasn't too pleasant going too near her. We watched the flamingos from behind the mosquito netting, then argued about what we going to eat for dinner. She had very complicated issues with food too, which she was loathe to discuss in detail, but would allude to constantly. By the time we'd settled on some utterly benign dish, I'd have drunk too much local rosé — about the only good thing to drink in the Camargue — and she would decide that actually she wasn't hungry anyway.
We would go to bed fractious and starved, and immediately lie as far apart as possible on the sticky, lumpy mattress in the sweltering room. There was no air conditioning, and her paranoia about not being invaded by an army of mosquitoes meant that we couldn't simply close the shutters and nets, we had to have the windows firmly sealed as well.
One day, we actually got as far as the beach in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Maybe she was at last feeling sorry for me. Maybe I was feeling sorry for her. Either way, we hit the beach in a bright, playful mood. It was just like old times, not that I could really remember what those times were, or whether we'd even had any.
She had perhaps gone a little lighter on the mosquito repellent and the sunscreen, because she wasn't smelling too awful, and I might have lent over and kissed her as we stepped onto the sand. She stripped to her swimming costume — she was not the sort of girl who wore a bikini, even though she more than had the figure for it — and laid out her towel and settled down with her book and her cigarettes. All I could do was admire her glistening body, packed tight and curvy in that navy costume. Then I had an idea.
"How about renting a pedalo?" I said.
"Yeah, okay," she said, sitting up.
"Really?" I said.
"Sure," she said. "It might be fun."
That was a word I hadn't heard for a while.
For such an out-of-the-way beach, it was sort of strange that there was a pedalo operation, not that it was doing great business. We were the first people to take one out that day. It was of the old style. More wood than plastic, with rusty, stiff pedals and a rudder that was almost impossible to turn. Once aboard, we set a course for the horizon and kept peddling.
The Mediterranean was mill-pond flat, and out on the still water the heat seemed to be even more intense, turning the blue sky white. It was like we were floating into a haze. We were both sweating profusely, and after I don't know how much longer, she said, "I'm going for a swim," then jumped off the side. I joined her, and in the water we did something we hadn't done all holiday. We embraced. Treading water, I ran my hands over her lovely bottom and. Unbelievably, she felt for my cock.
Back on board, I said, "Why don't we?" I could barely see the shore, and there were no other boats or pedalos in anything like the vicinity. "How?" she said, which I took to be a very encouraging sign. "I don't know," I said. There was no where to lie down and the double cockpit was really just two hard, slated, wooden seats, with huge pedals in the way. "You could sit on me."
There was really no place to lie down and the double cockpit was really just two hard, slated, wooden seats, with huge pedals in the way. "You could sit on me."
Which was exactly what she did. She stood up, awkwardly, pulled her costume off, and clambered over to my side of the boat and sat on me, face first. We started kissing, properly, and I could tell she was getting aroused by the way she was grinding herself into my lap. Almost instantly I had an erection, but it took another awkward maneuver for me to remove my trunks and enter her. She was totally wet and slippery, and tasted of salt, and I didn't think I could hold on for her to come. I was bursting, and had long forgotten who might be watching. But she always came quickly and easily, perhaps too quickly, and this time, out on the water, it was no different.
I remember watching a dollop of come drip out of her as she climbed off me, and returned to her side of the cockpit. We split up shortly after that holiday. The next time I saw her, some two years later, she was living with a woman. I often wonder whether she's told her girlfriend about the time she had sex at sea. I doubt it somehow. But I never told her that I'd lost my virginity on a boat. It wasn't at sea but on a river. I was ridiculously young. So was my then-girlfriend. And it wasn't anything like as much fun or as passionate as out on that pedalo. n°
To buy Thong Nation,
click here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Henry Sutton writes books about sex, death and food. He's the books editor
at the Daily Mirror and the literary editor for the UK edition of Esquire. He lives in south London, but was born by the sea in Norfolk
and longs to go back there one day.
