Timothy Lea - Confessions of an Ice Cream Man

‘’Ere we are.’ I blink and look up. Amazing how times flies when the mind is wrapped in thought. I am certain it was the same for Isaac Newton and the rest of the boys. They must have felt as if they hardly lived.

‘Very nice,’ I say.

Actually, it is just the same as all the other semi-detacheds in the street but one likes to appear willing, doesn’t one? The front garden isn’t a patch on the one next door but then you don’t expect the eyeties to go a lot on gardening. They are probably busy teaching the kiddies to hold a mouthful of spit until the referee’s back has turned. Valentina carefully locks up the car and then produces another key for the front door. I start to get a funny feeling in my stomach as I see it turning in the lock – the key, not my stomach. Will I be able to come across with the love offering? What started out as being solid and turning to liquid now seems to have converted itself into air. I don’t believe there is anything there at all. How embarrassing when I take my trousers off. ‘And I always thought you had to have an operation,’ I can say with a light laugh. Of course, she might cap it by being a bloke in drag but somehow I don’t think so. Those curves look as natural as the ones that stop the moon from being a square.

‘Nice places you have here,’ I say mesmerised by her knockers. She does not reply but looks at her face in the mirror of the hallstand and pushes a few wisps of hair into place. I pick up an electricity bill and give it to her. ‘It keeps going up, doesn’t it?’ I say. Of course, I am referring to the price of electricity but from the way she looks at me I wonder if she understands this. Better not try and explain or I might make matters worse. She puts the bill on the hallstand without a word and starts up the stairs. Half way up she turns and looks down at me.

‘Come on. You want to come, don’t you?’ I follow her without saying anything and she pauses on the landing and points to a half open door. ‘Bathroom.’

I take the hint and go inside. Very nice pong and Jesus holding a soap rack. First sign of the Catholic influence. There is also a bidet with an attachment for directing a jet of water at your balls. It is a shame I have to find this out by turning on the hot tap. I nearly flatten my nut against the ceiling. I have a squeeze of toothpaste and rub it round my cakehole with a finger and contemplate a spot of lily of the valley over the gonads. In reality I am playing for time. Putting off the evil moment. Evil moment! I must be round the twist. Millions of blokes would give their mother-in-law’s right arm to be in my position. What is wrong with me? Why am I cursed with this ultra-sensitivity when the chips and knickers are down? Why can’t I be like the kind of people who read these books? I will really have to examine my scruples. Having said that I sprinkle some talcum powder over them and stand further back from the wash-basin so that I can take a good gander at myself in the mirror. Uhm. Three and half inches at a rough guess and shrinking fast. It is most disturbing. Usually a spot of hot water and a gentle tug brings it on a treat. When I look down my body I can hardly see anything. It is like overlooking a wren’s nest in the ivy. Honestly, I can’t go up there like this. It would be letting down the British Empire – and if you let it down any further it would be in Australia. Pull yourself together, Lea. Tuck your socks in your Hush Puppies, sling your dicky dirt over your arm and get in there. A big boy like you shouldn’t be frightened of an Italian ice cream vendor’s niece. I look out of the window and see that it is raining. That could be nasty. Supposing Uncle Pietro decides to chuck it in early and pop round to see how his niece is bearing up under the strain of having nearly garrotted somebody? That might put a very unhealthy strain on Anglo-Italian relations. Oh dear, I wish I hadn’t thought of that. It does not help in my present condition. I look down at Percy and there is a slight movement towards the window. I think he wants to get out. Well he can’t! I set my jaw for three thirty and march towards the stairs. A man has to try and do what a man has to try and do. Which room is she in? Another feeling of panic grips me. We don’t want one of those jokes in which you open the door stark bollock naked to find the local Women’s Institute settled down for a talk on ‘Soil Erosion in the Southern Hebrides’.

‘Valentina?’ I am almost whispering but there comes a muted ‘Si’ from behind one of the doors. I open it and go into a room with the curtains drawn. I am grateful for that for a start. Maybe the darkness will bring my old man on like it does with tomatoes. At least the shrinking menace of the miniscular Mad Mick will be concealed from her eyes other than by the shoe I am holding in front of it – it could be snitched from a doll’s house and still do a good blot-out job the way I am shaping up at the moment.

Valentina is lying in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin and I am grateful for that as well. Her clothes are hung over the back of a chair and there is a pleasing pong of perfume in the air. ‘Come.’ She means get into bed and I do just that making her wince as my cold hand brushes against her back. I should have soaked my mits in hot water. They are always a bit like fish fingers to start off with. I lie there between the sheets and wonder what to do next. Valentina seems poised and expectant even though her back is to me. She is waiting too. I put my hands between my thighs and wince. They are cold.

Valentina turns her head. ‘What is the matter? What are you waiting for?’ She sounds suspicious.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I’m just getting used to you.’

She shrugs her shoulders and says something under her breath in Italian – probably ‘what a berk!’ I advance a ginger finger to see how Percy is responding to the romantic surroundings. Not a sausage – not even a blooming chippolata. In the realm of foodstuffs he is more like a soft roe waiting for a small bit of toast to make a cocktail snack for a midget. I raise my fingers slowly to my mouth and start blowing on them. ‘What are you doing now?’ This time Valentina sounds irritated.

‘My hands are cold,’ I say. ‘I’m trying to warm them up.’

‘Typical English,’ she says. ‘Cold ’ands, cold ’eart.’

‘We say cold hands, warm heart,’ I say.

‘Why?’

‘It means if you have cold hands you have a warm heart.’

‘Why?’

I think hard. Yes, why? ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It’s like lucky in love, unlucky at cards.’

Valentina sighs and lies her head back against the pillow. ‘I never understand the English,’ she says.

‘No,’ I say. ‘It does take a bit of time. It’s not easy to get inside another person.’

Valentina turns her head and I can see her eyes glistening in the darkness. ‘No,’ she says with feeling. She moves over onto her back and holds out her wrist towards the curtain so that she can read the time. ‘Look. I think you want to make love to me. That is what we agree, no?’

‘I do,’ I say. ‘I just don’t want to rush it.’ I put my hand on her shoulder and she winces. ‘See?’

She looks up at me and then suddenly pulls me on to her mouth so hard that our teeth grate. Without taking her north and south away she rises up and presses me back against the pillow. She is stark naked and her breasts flop against my chest. In goes her tongue and her spare hand dives down to the root of my problems. ‘A–a–a–a–h!’ she says. ‘This eez what we are waiting for. No?’ She makes a growling noise and disappears under the sheets. I watch her billowing down like a snowball turning into an avalanche and then with another growl she parks her molars round my hampton. By the cringe! This is romance with a capital ‘Argh!!’ I have heard of blow jobs but this is more like a testicular typhoon. This girl’s suction power could put Hoover out of business. I only wish that I could say that it was having a positive effect on my growth potential but it isn’t. This is terrible. Normally a bird only has to blow my old man a kiss and it rakes the skies like an anti-aircraft gun. Now it is slacker than a trainee wolf cub’s granny knot. What has happened? If a blow job fails then what help is there for me? This must be the beginning of the end – or the end, more like. I might as well start looking for a hobby – like diving off Nelson’s column with a Mills bomb in my cakehole.