Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

Well, thank God. one thing leads to another and when she asks me if I’d like another cup of tea I say no and I put my cup and saucer on the floor and she bends down to pick it up and she’s in my lap before I’ve had a time to ask her what part of Italy she comes from. My imagination sweeps me away to the vinefields and in my mind’s eye I can see us lying there in the hot Italian sunshine. The grape juice running down our chins and some wop singing ‘Volare’ in the background. It’s romantic, isn’t it?

Anyway, Carla or whatever she said her name was, is now running her tongue gently over my eyelids and her fingers are unbuttoning my flies, which, if she but knew it, is an act akin to slipping back the bolt on a tiger’s cage. Always eager to join in the fun I fumble for the zip on her slacks, and thwarted, try to put my hand inside them at the waist. She has me between her fingers now and as our mouths meet and drowsily chew each other I put my hand down and—

Have you ever bitten into a ripe peach and then tasted something rotten and found yourself looking at half a maggot? That’s the feeling I get when I find out that Carla should have been called Carlos!

I’m a little hazy about what happened next. I’m only interested in getting out fast and I succeed in doing that without any trouble. I mean I don’t hit the nancy boy. If I did I’d be hitting myself somehow. I grab my stuff and push the protesting little git out of the way and go home and have a wash and clean my teeth.

No harm done, but I still think about it sometimes and when I do I can’t stop that prickling sensation from creeping up my spine.

Those two little episodes were about the nastiest things that happened to me – mainly, of course, because I didn’t get my end away – but they were what you might call hazards of the profession. The kinkiest lady I ever met was something I got into all by myself – if you know what I mean.

I first saw her when I was in Dad’s boozer. I had to show Elizabeth to Mum and Dad sometime and a quick pint at the local seemed the most painless way to do it. We could get away sharpish without too much trouble and meeting in a pub robbed the occasion of it’s more sinister overtones – potential bride meets future in-laws, all that kind of thing. I knew what was in Elizabeth’s mind and I didn’t want to build up her hopes too much.

The night I choose, Sid and Rosie have found a baby sitter and are there as well, and of course, Sid can’t resist showing us what a wag he is.

“Elizabeth. Pleased to meet you. We’ve heard so much about you. Now we’d like to hear your side of it.”

Elizabeth blushes and turns to me. “What have you been saying about me, Timmy?”

“Nothing. He’s just trying to be funny that’s all.”

“Just a little joke, Liz. I don’t expect you’re very used to them with young Timmy here.”

“Timmy can be very funny,” she says loyally.

“He is funny, I agree with you,” says Sid, “some might say peculiar but I think funny covers it.”

“Now that’s enough Sid,” chips in Mum, “You stop your teasing. He’s a terrible tease is our Sid.”

Elizabeth tries to smile agreeably.

“That’s a nice dress you’re wearing. We saw one just like that at Marks, didn’t we dear?”

“Eh?” Dad is too busy worrying about how he is going to avoid buying a round to think of anything else.

“Did you make it from one of those patterns in Woman’s Own?” says Rosie.

“What are you all drinking?” I can see the only hope is to get pissed and at least while I’m at the bar I don’t have to listen to their balls-aching conversation.

It’s very crowded that night and while I’m waiting to be served, I’m pushed up against the patterned glass partition which divides the public and saloon bars. I take a peep round it and I’m face to face with a handsome blonde (dyed) bird of around forty who looks at me as if I’m something she’s found on the bottom of her shoe after a walk through the farmyard. There is something so ‘piss off’ in her glance that all my sexual aggression is immediately aroused. I want to see her down at my knees begging for cock, while I tell her contemptuously that she’ll have to wait her turn like the rest of them.

She whips her eyes away as if they might catch something by resting on me and addresses someone I can’t see.

“This glass is filthy, George,” she snaps.

“But—”

“No buts! Look at it. There’s lipstick all round the edge. Get me a new one please.”

“Oh, really Alice. I think it’s just the colour of the glass.”

“Colour! That’s a lipstick mark I tell you. What’s the matter, are you frightened to open your mouth? Hey, barman!”

Her screech would make the Queen Elizabeth heave to.

“Yes, Mrs. Evans?”

“You’ve given me a dirty glass.”

“Oh, sorry about that.”

The barman doesn’t even look at it but twirls a new glass in the light and transfers her drink to it.

“I’m not drinking it after it’s been in that glass.”

The barman controls himself and pours her another whisky without a word. Even then the bitch glares at the glass as if she suspects there’s poison in it, and can’t bring herself to say thank you.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” says George.

“If I am it’s no thanks to you.” she snarls, and our eyes lock again for a second. “I can’t rely on you to stand up for yourself, let alone anyone else.”

I get my order in and I don’t think about Mrs. Alice Evans for the next hour or two. By that time everyone is well pissed and telling anyone they can force into a corner, exactly what they think about immigration, feeding tropical fish, Charlie Cooke or you name it. Dad is rabbiting on to Elizabeth about how young people today have it dead cushy, and good luck to them, but when he was a boy etc., etc. Mum is getting sentimental as she always does on a few stouts and telling Rosie, who’s heard it a hundred times, what a wonderful person Aunty Glad was. “Why they took her away I’ll never know,” she says, looking towards the ceiling so you’ll get the message that it’s not the rozzers she’s talking about, “she never had a bad word for anybody.”

In fact Aunty Glad was a foul mouthed old slag whose breath smelt and whose husband has taken on a new lease of life since she snuffed it, but that’s another story. Sid is talking to one of his mates and making eyes at Gloria, the barmaid, over his shoulder. I reckon he’s been there, otherwise he wouldn’t be so secretive about it.

With all this gaiety and excitement going on I’m beginning to feel a bit frisky myself, and looking round to see that Elizabeth is still well occupied, I cast about for a bit of mischief. It’s a good feeling, with a few beers under your belt: relaxed, smooth tongued, the cares of the world a million miles away. Unfortunately, there is nobody nearby to benefit from my good nature, but then I remember the Mary Whitehouse of the saloon bar, next door. I slide out without being noticed and am relieved to find that Mrs. Evans, as I now recall her, is perched elegantly on a bar stool without any sign of George in attendance.

I sway towards her hoping that my stagger will be interpreted as a rolling gait, but from the look of those about me I think it is unlikely.

“Forgive me for coming up and talking to you like this,” I say, “but I wanted to tell you how grateful I was that you took issue about those dirty glasses. It’s something I can’t abide myself.”

Her widening eyes betray initial distrust not to mention alarm, but when I have finished speaking, her face softens into the expression adapted by royalty when receiving bouquets from small children.