The Three Halves of Martyn Manning-Chapter Fifteen: Inception - Part One

By
anyone’s standards he’d been a late starter. He personally blamed
it on going to a single-sex boys school, but you also probably need
to remember that he was an only child. Not having a sister, or even a
brother, to fight, compete with, bond with and observe makes his late
development more understandable. After all, simply attending an
all-boys school didn’t seem to stunt the sexual development of the
others, or at least some of them, or at least so they said. They
would all huddle in the playground where he would listen, fascinated
and envious, as they swapped stories of their adventures. “Anybody
can do Shirley” and “Mary will let you if you buy her a bag of
chips.” One of them claimed he knew someone who’d performed oral
sex. “He said it tasted like a ham sandwich.” It was many years
later before he began to suspect these stories were grossly
exaggerated if not completely fanciful.

He
was clever enough, not that he was sure that counted for anything.
Nobody ever said he was ugly. He just didn’t know how to approach
and talk to girls. Riddles, mysteries and enigmas or whatever it was
that Churchill said about Russia. And even when he tried it always
seemed to go wrong. He was about fifteen and standing in the lunch
queue outside the dining hall when a small group from the girls’
school walked down the lane next to them. He must have been feeling
good that day because he shouted something after them, something he
felt sure was clever, teasing and flirtatious. One of the girls
called something back. He couldn’t quite make out what she said so
he asked his friend who was stood next to him in the queue and was by
now bent double with laughter. “She said ‘Shut your fat gob you
sexless peanut!’ “. They called him ‘sexless peanut’ for the
next week, until the new Genesis album came out.

He
wasn’t entirely without success, not completely. One Friday night
he was at the rugby club, he must have been sixteen or seventeen.
They went to the rugby club because the beer was cheap and they
served you however young you looked, no questions asked. His parents
were away for the night and when this became generally known he was
coerced to invite the drunken group back to his house for a party.
Once there he somehow found himself climbing the stairs with a girl,
but when he got to his room he found it was already occupied. They
went to his parents’ room but there it quickly became apparent that
neither of them really knew what to do. They lay on the bed and
wrestled for a while but what then? They’d run out of ideas. He’d
read the books so he knew the theory, and everybody had said not to
worry, that it came naturally. But they’d lied! As far as he could
see there was nothing natural whatsoever about taking your clothes
off in front of a complete stranger, or of attempting to undress a
girl, (a girl ferchrissakes!) that you’d only met an hour ago. And
there was no lock on the door. It all petered out rather
embarrassingly, not with a bang but a whimper one might say. His
parents came back next day and his mum found the girl’s earring in
her bed.

The
closest he came was the Christmas of his first year at university. He
went home for the holiday and an old schoolfriend called to invite
him to a party in a town about eighty miles away.

“So
you’ll have to stay the night. Bring a sleeping bag. And can you
bring Julie?”

Oh
yes, he could bring Julie. He’d been to junior school with Julie.
He’d always liked Julie. He could see her now in the playground,
flame-red hair burnishing in the summer sun, pale skin as translucent
as porcelain, light blue dress with big yellow polka-dots. A bit
chunky maybe but so what? He hadn’t seen her for ten years, she
might have changed.

He
picked her up in his yellow two-seater and it all went surprisingly
well. They chatted easily about their new lives at different
universities and generally caught up. There were no awkward
silences, it was as if the past ten years hadn’t happened. At the
party that night neither of them knew many other people so naturally
they gravitated together in the cosy familiarity of warm white wine
in a student party kitchen. That night they shared a duvet on the
living-room floor. Their drink fuelled passion was constrained by the
unfortunate presence of several other sleeping party-goers, but
nevertheless it was progress, for him. The News of the World at the
time would have called it “heavy petting”.

The
next day the survivors gathered in a nearby pub for a lunchtime
session. Martyn and Julie sat just slightly apart from the group,
almost as if they were a couple. When they got back to the house
Julie said she was feeling woozy and was going upstairs to find a
bedroom for a lie-down. Now this left the unworldly Martyn in a
quandary. Was Julie really going upstairs for a lie-down? Really? Or
was the lie-down just camouflage for her real message? Was it really
an invitation to him to join her and finish what they’d started the
night before? He pondered this dilemma for several minutes while the
others argued over music videos. Maybe she was telling the truth and
she did want a lie-down, maybe he should just take it at face value.
He’d hate to misinterpret and go blundering in, unwanted and
unwelcome. But then what if it had been a generous heartfelt
invitation and he rebuffed it? This had several very unpleasant
potential downsides. For a start he would come across as aloof,
arrogant, rude and ungentlemanly. Or he may come across as
un-empathetic, a typical uncaring man, unable to read a woman’s
signals. Worst of all, he might come across as not interested, thus
missing out on an afternoon’s sex as well as an unquantifiable
amount of future sex, not to mention losing his flaming virginity!

At
least this time she was already undressed. He found the room and
asked if he could join her in bed, then when he climbed in he found
he only had to slip off her shirt and they were both naked.
Amateurish teenage fumbling ensued. They kissed and he caressed her
breasts, and then he began the search for her vagina. He searched and
searched and searched but try as he might he couldn’t find it. It’s
just not where a young boy expects it to be. Nobody ever tells you
it’s much further under than you think. On her part she was willing
and indeed she later claimed she wasn’t a virgin, but she didn’t
give him much direction. She never even touched his cock. Giving up
the search he stroked what he desperately hoped was her clitoris, at
least he’d try and give her some pleasure. The results were
inconclusive at best. Passion turned to frustration then inevitably
apathy. A consensus that they were both tired and needed to nap
allowed them both to cling to a facade of dignity. They never
referred to it on the drive home that evening. The next day he fled
back to university to forget his humiliation and she wrote him a
letter saying how hurt she was that he didn’t return her calls.

The
end finally came in the spring term of his final year at university.
He was twenty-one and a half. He and his flatmates had been dancing
round a nearby houseful of girls for several weeks. It wasn’t
clever. All they did was ask the girls which pub or disco they were
going to and then say “Oh, we were thinking of going there too!”
as if it were pure coincidence. Eventually they started pairing off.
Then strangely, the next he knew he started hearing comments about
him and Sienna being a thing. This came as something of a surprise to
him. It was true that he fancied her like mad, and he had been paying
her a little more attention than the others, and she seemed to
respond to that attention, but by no stretch of the imagination could
they be described as a couple. They certainly weren’t fucking, very
certainly not, he was pretty sure he would have remembered that.
Nevertheless, he gratefully bathed in the envious and reverential
comments of barely known half-aquaintances as he made his way daily
around campus. Sienna was slim and pretty with olive-skin and
tumbling black curls and was objectively attractive. “Hot Italian
blood eh? You lucky man!”, “I hear she’s got pneumatic hips?”,
“Bangs like a shit-house door eh?”. He’d acknowledge such
comments with a knowing half-smile which he hoped conveyed the
message “Yes, I am indeed a lucky man. You are right, she does have
pneumatic hips and she does also bang like a shit-house door. Of
course, I know these things as I sleep with her regularly. You alas
will never know these things, as you are a poor beknighted peasant
for whom such pleasures are not and never will be meant.”

After
a few days of this he decided the situation was getting ridiculous
and he had to do something about it. If he was ever going to pop his
cork it was now or never and he had to shit or get off the pot. The
problem was he was still too shy to approach her and ask her out on a
date, at least when he was sober. So he wrote her a letter. Those
were different times. She accepted. Even then they met in the pub as
part of the two groups of friends, though as the evening passed
Martyn and Sienna discreetly moved and sat at a separate table. They
had a fun time. They must have had, because at closing time Sienna
leaned over the table:

“Helen’s
home tonight so we’ll have to go back to yours.” Helen was
Sienna’s room mate.

On
the bus home he could hardly speak. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my
God! I’m gonna get laid!” And so dear reader, he did. This time
it worked. It was probably just down to her experience. She guided
him in, either unaware or too polite to mention his virginity, and in
due course he came with triumph and relief, though not, it has to be
said, with ecstasy. He was thinking about this the next morning when
he was sat in the communal kitchen, alone and drinking coffee in just
his pyjama bottoms. He certainly enjoyed it, hugely, and now he could
hold forth with knowledge and certainty about the sex act, but... was
that it? One of his flatmates walked in then stopped and gasped:

“Fucking
hell, have you seen your back?”

Well
no Rob, he clearly hadn’t seen his back, largely because it was his
back, but he did remember the scratching and the pain, the digging
of the nails. Yes, he’d enjoyed that bit.

After
that things started to happen a little more rapidly. You know, London
buses and all that. Perhaps it was his new found confidence. First
there was Vicki. They got chatting in the pub one Friday night and
she invited him back to hers. In fact she was quite insistent, so he
was surprised as well as disappointed when they were lying on her bed
and she suddenly announced she couldn’t have penetrative sex
because she was trying to shrug off a lingering bout of thrush, but
maybe he’d like a blowie instead?. He shrugged. Oh well, shit
happens. Then there was Tara, a posh punk schoolgirl he kept bumping
into at gigs and demos until he eventually asked her out for a drink.
With a short black bob and a petite vibrant frame, she still held the
echoes of her recent girlhood. She went to a private school and her
Dad had an MBE or something. One night she called to say her parents
were away for the night and would he like to come round and be sure
not to forget the beer and wine. On his arrival she gave him a quick
tour of the large house before they went upstairs to her room where
they lounged around listening to obscure seven inch punk singles and
mix tapes and drinking and smoking. Martyn was sitting on the floor
with his back against the bed, reading the back of an album cover and
to be honest he was a bit bored until Tara snuggled up next to him,
her shoulder to his, holding a photograph album.

“Do
you want to see my photos?” (Elvis Costello - Watching The
Detectives playing in the background.)

“Of
course. Show me.” He did his best to sound interested.

But
then to his surprise he started to become very interested indeed. It
started as he feared with mundane photos of family weddings and
summer holidays, though there was a quite recent one of Tara in a
bikini. Then as she flipped the pages the photos became more
up-to-date with pics of Tara and her girlfriends at school events,
posing for the camera with that provocative precocity that only
schoolgirls have, brazenly confident in the newly acquired yet still,
to them, confusing power they hold over men, a power granted them by
crisp white blouses, loosely knotted ties and short navy skirts
stretched tight over still evolving breasts and hips.

“You’re
quiet,” she said.

“I’m
just admiring your photos.” (X-Ray Specs, Germfree Adolescents.)

“I
like that photo of you in your school uniform.”

“That
was at Open Day last year. I was a meeter-greeter.”

“You’re
definitely the prettiest.” It wasn’t bullshit, he meant it. He
also meant ‘prettiest’ as a euphemism, a euphemism for ‘the one
I would most like to fuck’, though to be honest he’d have fucked
any of them.

“Have
you still got your school uniform?” He tried to feign disinterest.
She replied with exaggerated emphasis:

“Erm,
I still go to school don’t I?”

He
didn’t answer but continued to stare at the photograph.

“Oh
Lord! Really? Does looking at schoolgirls turn you on? Is that it?”
She laughed. “You dirty bastard.” She smiled at him. “Shall I
put my uniform on? Would that give you a thrill?” She got up. “OK.”

The
tape had stopped. She went to the cassette player and turned the tape
over then pressed play. As she left the room she shouted back to him:

“I
hope it still fits!”. (The Stranglers – Peaches.)

He
was still sat against the bed when she came back in and stood in
front of him. It was exactly the same uniform she’d been wearing in
the photos, and yes, all the better for being a little tighter. She
did a single quick twirl then stopped. It wasn’t a strident,
confident pose, in fact she looked a little embarrassed. Martyn was
hardening fast.

“Do
you like it?”

“Tara,
you look fantastic.”

“Does
it turn you on then?”

“Don’t
ask me that! How can I answer that? I’m shy, you’re embarrassing
me.”

She
crouched down and rejoined him against the bed. She placed her hand
on his knee and turned to look at him.

“Don’t
be embarrassed.”

In
response he placed his hand on her bare thigh then slid it slightly
upwards displacing a little of her skirt. He moved towards her and
they kissed, just lips. But when he moved his hand to her breast and
began to fondle she pushed him away.

“Martyn…”
He removed his hand.

“I’m
sorry. Sorry. I’ll behave.”

“No,
no! It’s not that.” She felt for his hand and replaced it on her
breast. “I do want to have sex with you. I do, really. It’s just
that…” She looked down at the floor, avoiding his eyes.

“This
is really embarrassing.” She lifted her eyes from the floor and
looked at him again. “Ha-ha! A minute ago you were embarrassed and
now it’s me.”

He
took her chin in his hand.

“Tara,
you silly. You don’t have to be embarrassed with me. What’s up?
Whatever you want. It’s OK. Relax. What’s wrong?”

“Martyn,
I do want to have sex with you, I do honestly, but Martyn...so
embarrassing...I’m a virgin, I’ve never done it before, I don’t
know what to do, I’ve never even had a finger up there, never mind
a…you know. I probably won’t be any good and you’ll be
disappointed or you’ll laugh at me...and it might hurt!”

He
didn’t reply at once. He’d wondered earlier if this was going to
be the case but dismissed it as an issue he’d deal with if and when
it arose. He smiled inside. He couldn’t believe his luck. Didn’t
she know that men wanked endlessly about being the first?

“Hey
silly. Don’t be daft. We’ve all got to start somewhere. We’ll
take it slow and steady and if ever you’re not comfortable just say
so and we’ll stop. I promise it won’t hurt. And anyway, I’m not
exactly Casanova. We can help each other.”

His
words seemed to reassure her. They kissed again, this time
passionately.

(The
Tubes - Don’t touch me there.)

Afterwards
she thanked him. He wasn’t sure how he should respond. Like I said,
those were different times.