Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere - A personal and intimate memoir

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere ! By Ben Bushby

INTRODUCTION
I don’t know when it first happened? I think I have had this ability since early adolescence. What am I talking about I hear you ask?
‘The ability to turn everyday situations into full blown sexual fantasy. It can occur anytime, anyplace, anywhere…. (as Loraine Chase informed us in the Seventies Martini Ads.)

In its purest form its sophisticated daydreaming but to me its a far more creative process, first there is the frisson of excitement, as the spark ignites, next comes the careful construction of a strategy, followed by the possibility of failure and rejection before finally the perfect execution-the ultimate TEN. Sexual fantasy has nearly always been exclusive to women, well- not anymore!

I have always had a fascination with sex. In the 1970’s I attended a private boys school in leafy Surrey which attempted to assuage pupils testosterone levels with Nazi style communal cold showers. Undeterred my fertile imagination flourished and in due course my rampaging male hormones guided me to the world of unattainable centrefolds, which in my case became an obsession and my bedroom walls became a shrine to Penthouse and Mayfair. My younger sister, fearing she was living with a sex- obsessed monster, used to forewarn all her visiting girlfriends about her peculiar brother, putting my bedroom and the bathroom strictly out of bounds when I was in the house.

Sexual exploits started early- around fourteen and I have enjoyed a fulfilling albeit somewhat hectic sex life with most of my partners (including my wife) commenting that ‘I was rather good at it!’
Maybe this is me refining my art so to speak or simply taking it to another level and I have been surprised how my sexual fantasies don’t fit into the classic mould of male pornography: some are kinky, I admit but none are sordid or degrading to any of the participants.

These cerebral experiments have given me many hours of spontaneous pleasure over the years and I thought it was time to share some of them with a wider audience (come clean some might say)!My initial reaction was ‘Why would anybody want to read my fantasies?’But after some persuasive cajoling from my wife and perusing the forbidden, lewd musings of a French Lolita I agreed to let my creative juices flow, but first let me explain exactly what happened………….

My decision to write these very private trysts down occurs on a family summer holiday at a delightful picturesque villa near Perpignan, in the Languedoc region of South West France. The rented villa is in a secluded hillside location, above a medieval village. The villa is typically French, gleaming white plastered walls, pale green shutters and tan roof tiles . The gardens surrounded by bougainvillea, fig trees, fragrant lemon trees and an abundance of fresh herbs, lavender , rosemary and thyme. At the rear of the villa miles and miles of gnarled vines laden with ripe harvestable fruit stretch as far as the eye can see. As settings go, seductively idyllic.

During our break I have been my usual demanding self, expecting my wife to accommodate my incessant carnal urges whilst maintaining the respectable mantle of motherhood. Yet another quarrel ensues over the dispensing of sexual favours. My wife storms upstairs and I lie guiltily by the pool fearing I may finally have overstepped the mark this time. I go upstairs to apologise but she is beyond reasoning and says my rampant libido has ruined another holiday and she is off to see her good friend Julia, who moved to France last year, and lives nearby.

The elegant owner of the villa has just inherited the house from her recently deceased Father, who, as far as I can ascertain, by the sheer volumes of French literature on display, may have been a writer or at least a voracious consumer of literature.
While my wife is being consoled by her friend, I decide inquisitively to explore the villa in more detail. Removing a small rusty key from a hook near the front door I try the lock to the cellar door. It is stiff and I rotate the key backwards and forwards several times before it finally catches and turns. I cautiously descend the creaking wooden stairs until I reach the murky basement, where I grope for a light switch, my fingers inching upwards against cool damp plaster until I feel the rigidity of a stiff pre-war light switch. The solitary bulb flickers and dies then flickers again casting ghostly shadows against the cellar walls. I try the first door to my right but it is locked.

During our tour of the property, by the chic Parisian Madame she described in detail how her obsessive Father had spent many years accumulating an incredibly valuable model train collection and I wonder if this is where it was safely kept from prying eyes?

In the half light I can make out an open door, leading to the underground garage and a recess round to the right with a smaller door. I can hear my heart thumping in the cool, eerie silence as I turn the small brass handle and stoop as I step down, into what appears to be a concealed room. My eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the gloominess. A small ventilation shaft allows light to filter into a corner of the room and I can just make out the outline of bookshelves which cover most of the wall space. In the centre of the room sits a small, dainty antique desk and stool.

I feel guilty and uneasy as I peruse the contents of this private library, this Aladdin’s cave. I sift through the dusty manuscripts and my eye catches a small, reddish book protruding from a shelf just above my head. And I reach up to gather it. As I brush the dust and cobwebs away, I can just make out the outline of a cupids heart and arrow etched into the front cover and below in a faint, italic script the partial figures of the year 1945 and the authors name Mademoiselle Tuilliere, but the tome has no title.

Being a competent but not necessarily fluent French student I sit on the small wooden stool and through dust flecked shafts of light I start to leaf through the first few pages, extracting, here and there phrases and sentences I can understand.

After about twenty minutes I have to admit I’m slightly stunned by the erotic and explicit content of Mademoiselle Tuillieres vignettes. It seems this particular French lady has encapsulated her very saucy and private wartime sexual encounters.

I read on and find her style provocative and unashamedly arousing. I begin to imagine her as a femme fatale of the resistance seducing the enemy and her own comrades with equal enthusiasm.
Suddenly I’m brought back to reality by shouts from above.
‘Ben where are you?’
I reach up and put the book back from where it originated from but vow to return later to continue reading it.
I appear upstairs, out of breath.
‘How is Julia?’
‘Fine. What have you been doing?’
‘ Nothing just exploring. I apologise for earlier. Do you forgive me?’
After a slight pause ‘Yes. Just try, in the remaining few days to make more of an effort to control your urges. The children don’t appreciate having two irritable parents skulking around.’
Relieved and off the hook again, I reply ‘I promise.’
‘I had a good chin wag with Julia about your rampant libido and impure urges and she thinks you should write them down. She thinks by putting pen to paper it may help you reign in your persistent scheming, a kind of cognitive therapy. You never know you may be hiding a secret talent in your middle age!’
‘I wish you wouldn’t discuss our sex life with your friends!’
‘Ben, Julia is a completely trustworthy confidante, she finds it amusing you have such a fertile imagination and expend so much time and energy creating all these shameless scenarios, maybe she is secretly jealous her husband doesn’t lavish such attention on her?’
So there you are ! Over the next few days I read Madame Tuillieres memoirs from cover to cover and now inspired, on my return to England I begin to write my own