Fifty Shelves of Grey Page 2

  But I attempted an audacious pass anyway – the sort of speculative pass that Liam Brady would make in his pomp, often seeking the trusty head of the mercurial Irishman Frank Stapleton. And I got a surprise result, though maybe not quite as surprising as the extraordinary ninety-second-minute Michael Thomas goal which, against all odds, won us the Championship at Anfield in 1989, ending eighteen years of hurt, which was almost as long as my sex life had been dormant, since Kathleen Potts let me put my hand up her skirt after football practice one February afternoon in the Lower Sixth. Preferring to play the first leg with home advantage, I took her back to my place.

  She lifted her top like the legendary Charlie George lifting both the First Division trophy and the FA Cup in the historic 1971 Double-winning season, a feat only previously achieved by Spurs in the twentieth century, and took down her knickers like Sammy Nelson dropping his shorts after his late equalizer against a gritty Coventry side in 1979, an incident for which he was fined – rightly in my opinion – two week’s wages by club bosses. I appreciated her strip, and she proceeded to handle my balls in a way that happily reminded me of the late Sir Bert Millichip making the FA Cup third round draw.

  Not wanting to get caught offside, I took it slow at first, starting off by kissing her breast, my lips pressed against it like Pelé’s on the Jules Rimet trophy, won an unprecedented three times by the South American genius. I don’t know why the smooth Brazilian came to my mind at that point. She moaned her encouragement, so I grabbed hold of her Clock End with both hands and pulled her to me. It felt so Ian Wright, Wright, Wright. I hadn’t been this excited since Andy Linighan, of all people, scored the goal that won George Graham’s Red and White Army the Double in 1993, albeit in a replay, and it was the slightly less prestigious Cup Double this time. I didn’t try to explain the difference to her; women just don’t get it. And anyway, her Cup Double was really something. Andy Linighan played most of that match with a broken nose courtesy of a nasty elbowing from Mark Bright. Remarkable. What a hero.

  At half-time I stopped for fifteen minutes and ate an orange.

  Then we did some quick stretches and started again, this time facing in the opposite direction. Before I could unleash my sliding tackle I wondered if I could get away with taking a dive in her box. The trouble was, I’m just not that sort of player. In my opinion, diving is the curse of the modern game. Ray Kennedy never dived, and he managed a not unimpressive 71 goals in 212 games for the Gunners.

  Just as I was wondering if I was going to be pulled off, I finally spotted an opening. It was tight, but it was there. Like Brian Talbot I’ve always been adept at playing in the hole, so I went for it. Unfortunately, in my excitement I shot far too soon. She saw it coming from a mile off, and I made a terrible mess. I was reminded that you should never attempt to lob Seaman from distance.

  I had to accept that she had been badly fouled. I rightly received my marching orders, though, ironically, she was the one who needed an early bath. I hadn’t been so disappointed since Graham Rix missed the spot-kick which saw us lose the 1980 European Cup Winners’ Cup Final to Valencia via the lottery of a penalty shoot-out.

  But it wasn’t a dead loss, because she let me take her up the Arsenal the following Saturday. Home game against Everton – we won 3–2.

  5

  Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

  by

  SUSAN JEFFERS

  Michael has a fear of flying. Sarah has a fear of death. Daniel has a fear of being asked to sing ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ at stag weekends and missing the A flat. What I tell them all is that they are NORMAL. In fact they are more than NORMAL they are MORENORMAL.

  But the GREAT thing is that FEAR LEADS TO GROWTH, though it is also fair to say that in some cases, growth leads to fear. Particularly if you ride the subway through north Queens any time after 11.30 p.m. opposite a man in loose pants. The point is not to fear the fear but FEEL THE FEAR. Give the guy a hand. Literally. Do it. I do. It’s powerful and spontaneous. Everyone wins.

  THOUGHT:

  We have to get into a position where we enjoy the idea of MULTIPLE OUTCOMES. In multiple positions. With all kinds of people in all kinds of scenarios.

  Donald has an overbearing boss at work, a bully he despises. Now imagine if Donald were to go into the office one day, look his boss in the eye, strip naked and say, ‘I am breaking through old patterns and moving forward with my life’, and then languidly stroke his hardened member across his boss’s freshly bought half-fat blueberry bagel. What’s the worst that can happen? NOTHING AS BAD AS DONALD’S ALREADY IMAGINED!

  In Donald’s case his bravery and 24/7 commitment to Self-Help led him to adventures outside of the office and eventually to being arrested for masturbating on a protected wind farm. But you know what? Donald fears nothing now. Not even the pending environmental lawsuit. And that, dear friends, is POWER.

  6

  The Big Sleep

  by

  RAYMOND CHANDLER

  She was a cool drink of water, two bazooms, a couple of the longest pins you ever saw, two peepers and a schnozzle. Sure, she had the full set all right. And anybody could see she was a tough little number, you could tell by the sneer on her lovely mouth and the jujus she was smoking out of both nostrils. I tried to get up, but the crafty broad had put me in bracelets while I was jingle-brained and I didn’t want to give anybody the impression I didn’t know how to accessorize.

  ‘What’s the big idea, sister? You want to tell me why you’ve got me trussed up like a Christmas turkey?’

  She took a step towards me, turned the roast potatoes pinning down my ankles, and then levelled a thirty-eight straight at my jewels.

  ‘Supposing I answer you by blowing that little brooch of yours clean off?’

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘It was my mother’s and the setting is antique.’

  ‘Give me one good reason.’

  ‘You don’t get it, sugar. I’m not some two bit gangster, I’m a dick.’

  ‘You’re telling me.’

  ‘I mean I’m a detective, baby. I can tell you what happened to Gums McGee. Remember him? The wise guy you took for a sweetheart ’til he made off with your virtue and your xylophone?’

  ‘Keep talking,’ she murmured. The gun was still fixed at my chest but her hand was shaking.

  ‘A little bird told me he’s back in town, maybe I can help you find him.’

  ‘Oh yeah? That little bird’s been a whole lot of chatty and I don’t set no store by it anyways. Especially since he turned up croked.’

  Her eyes flicked to the sideboard and I followed her gaze. My blood ran cold. The little bird was a stiff and no mistake – its beak was blue and its feathers matted.

  ‘You blipped off the bird? OK, I get it, you’re a big shot, I’ll squeal.’

  ‘You bet you will, brother,’ she said and, to my surprise, untied me. ‘Now take off your pants. If you’re such a big dick, I want to eye your privates.’

  I didn’t know what this broad was playing at, but I liked her style and I stripped. Watching me the whole time, she drank me in, like an elderly Bulgarian man enjoying a bowl of soup after a salty goulash. Before I had time to bounce the last sock off my elbow, she launched at me like a Texan at an oil spill for a roll in the hay that would have straightened the Tower of Pisa.

  I was just lighting up a Lucky when the door burst open and a dwarf in a raincoat snapped a picture of me naked as the day I was born and just as surprised.

  ‘Say cheese,’ said the dame, as she buttoned up her dress. I felt like a boob. It was all a flimflam. I’d bought myself a whole lot of Dutch and I sure as hell wasn’t the kind of cat who liked waffles.

  7

  Mrs Dalloway

  by

  VIRGINIA WOOLF

  And so she found herself that morning at St James’s in a delightfully ostentatious drawing room belonging to Colonel Pickenfoot, who being a robust bear of a man and boasting the boorish, rosy cheeks of a predator startled unduly from
enjoying a half-masticated owl, had also, curiously, the eyes of a shifty pig trying to sell her life insurance for a deceased uncle.

  And yet. And yet . . . Perhaps it was the intoxicating scent of the fresh-cut lilies on the windowsill that overwhelmed her at that moment with their whisper of velvet-draped opium dens and silken-skinned courtesans and caused her to throw aside her lavender blue dress with the fine French lace that a kindly Breton crone had once sold her on a disappointing day trip to Rennes; and run free, a slightly mottled Thetis, past the Colonel with his snort of surprise and through the French windows; windows she had not thought to open at first, thus causing her to bounce off them a few times before bursting forth; and hence forging a path through the damp dew-swept grass (upon which she had once enjoyed an awkward June picnic with the Colonel’s plump, clammy-handed son, newly down from Oxford) and upon which she now knelt down and rolled. She had the sense, as the Colonel and his visitors, Mr and Mrs Popcote of Littlewane, watched her through the shattered window frame, with her fingers quite splayed upon her most secret bud, that they were perhaps casting judgement and yet she cared not. Oh, the ecstasy! (She was forcibly removed an hour later by the local constabulary and spent a rather desultory night in a cell, unfurnished.)

  8

  Three Men in a Boat

  by

  JEROME K. JEROME

  Boffing is suggested – on Montmorency and boffing – George’s skin – dear old nanny – steak and porter – temperance ladies – the perils of backing up

  ‘So, chaps,’ I said, ‘have you ever boffed on a boat?’

  There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency, although Montmorency was a dog, so my remark was not primarily addressed to him. As we know, dogs boff everywhere. Harris said he had not boffed on a boat, and George claimed half a point, because he’d given himself a hand shandy in a dugout canoe once.

  ‘And chaps,’ I said, ‘have you ever boffed another chap?’

  (Again, Montmorency was not included in the question. Dogs boff everything. I often think it would be awfully jolly to be a dog, boffing along, and never having to do any work of any kind.)

  ‘Not since school,’ said George.

  ‘Come on, George,’ said Harris, ‘everyone knows Tom Brown’s School Days doesn’t count. I’ve only boffed girls,’ he added, ‘or, to be honest, thought about boffing girls, except for an encounter with one lady of the night, who it might be more accurate to describe as a matron.’

  ‘Well,’ said I, ‘here’s a jape to be had. Here are three chaps, and here is a boat. Why don’t we all boff on this boat?’

  The chaps agreed that this was a capital idea, though George was worried he might get sunburned, exposing unaccustomed skin to the open air. But he proved more agreeable to the notion when we decreed that he go on the bottom, and so be shielded from the sun.

  ‘A chap has sensitive skin, you know,’ he said. ‘He cannot help it but he does.’

  So George put a pair of pillows under his knees to protect himself from splinters and got down on all fours, and Harris put what he insisted on calling his bratwurst in what he insisted on calling George’s hot cross bun, and I did to Harris what a chap does when he loves another chap very much, or so my dear old nanny used to tell me, and off we boffed.

  All went well to begin with. Who doesn’t like boffing? Though George complained a bit that he was getting crushed under our weight – we had overindulged a hair on the steak and porter – and I was sore that Harris was getting twice as much fun as the two of us, and Harris was just sore, and Montmorency wouldn’t stop barking, because he didn’t like boffing to be had if he weren’t the one having it, and we weren’t about to let a dog join in; a chap has standards.

  But then the boat rounded a corner in the Thames. To this day I don’t know how the boat rounded the corner. Must be the tides, or whatnot. All I can say is that when George or Harris is involved in navigation we invariably hit the bank. But with us three chaps involved in a boff sandwich, the boat did a lovely arc all by itself, and then drew level with a group of picnicking ladies from the Temperance Society.

  ‘Back up! Back up!’ shouted George.

  Harris quite misunderstood George’s intention and pulled himself right out, exposing that engorged German sausage of his to the now-shrieking ladies, killing off any chance we might have had of claiming to those good women that we were simply practising Greco-Roman wrestling in the healthy open air, and giving me a right old thump in what he insisted on calling my Spanish onions at the same time, causing me to bark even louder than Montmorency.

  ‘Well dash it all,’ said Harris, ‘that was a terrible idea of yours.’

  9

  The Art of Love

  by

  OVID

  Just as José Mourinho’s expert coaching took Chelsea to the top of the Premiership, so under my tutelage you will soon be able to find and seduce even the most resistant of modern women. With my careful counsel she will quickly become the meek Clegg to your Cameron, the whimpering Becks to your Posh, the hint of vanilla in your overpowering Shiraz.

  How to Find Her

  At Work: The office has long been a favoured hunting ground, but you will have to continue your employ in the same building and there is a good chance that she will tell everyone how small your cock is. And possibly disribute photocopies.

  At the Gym: The gym is no place for artifice and will give you a more accurate idea of what you’re getting. Her pulsing neck veins as she lifts 120 kg on the bench press will give you a good sense of how your target may look in the throes of passion, but this is unfortunately also true of your high-pitched whimpers as you wrestle with the thighmaster.

  In the Sauna: On the upside you get a professional unlikely to be shocked by your requests, but you lose all the fun of the chase and repeat visits get expensive, especially for anything really perverse.

  How to Win Her

  It is customary for women to pretend they’re not interested when in fact they’re imagining doing the hokey-cokey on your wonky donkey even as they claim they’ve got book group on Thursday. Be confident and follow these simple steps, and you will secure your prey with bonds stronger than any leather restraint.

  Get Her Friends on Board: Or at least neutralize them, but not by sleeping with them. Firstly you risk spreading your efforts thin, and secondly you risk spreading chlamydia.

  Buy Her Stuff: Presents work. An early underwear gift will set the tone and direction. It’s only a short step from tasteful lace to crotchless panties and nipple tassels, and from there you are well on the way to clamps, ball gags and reins.

  Good Personal Hygiene: Men frequently fall at this hurdle, but if you want any part of you licked at any point it is in your interest to make sure that you showered in recent memory, your pants are not crusty and your toenails won’t send her running for the hills.

  And so my friends, my work here is done, set the wreath of myrtle upon my perfumed hair. As Tony Blair did, and Bill Clinton before him, I will set up a foundation and earn out my days on the after-dinner speaking circuit. I have given you the weapons you need to vanquish the tricksiest of females, but whoever overcomes an Amazon with my sword, at his moment of climax, let him shout with gusto: ‘Ovid was my master!’

  10

  Winnie-the-Pooh

  by

  A. A. MILNE

  In which Winnie-the-Pooh gets into a rather difficult position with Rabbit.

  Pooh always liked a Little Something at eleven o’clock in the morning, and he was very glad to know that Rabbit did too. He was surprised, however, that this morning Rabbit hadn’t laid the table with the usual plates and mugs, but rather he had left it completely bare, except for a few lengths of rope and a bright red silk handkerchief. ‘Now listen, Pooh,’ said Rabbit, his ears erect and quivering with excitement, ‘I’ve had an idea. It’s quite an Unusual Sort Of Idea but I think you’ll like it very much. For you and I are going to play a game.’ Poo
h’s fur went quite pink and bristly with joy and he did a merry little dance.

  ‘Oh good,’ said he, ‘for I do love games of all kinds.’

  ‘I rather thought you might,’ replied Rabbit, a touch sinisterly, thought Pooh. And then he ordered the bear to climb up on to the table and remove his shirt.

  The table was very cold on Pooh’s back and he wondered if he should say something, but Rabbit was so busy tying his arms and feet to the table legs he decided he probably ought not to bother him. So he busied himself making up a song about tables instead. Before long, Rabbit appeared by Pooh’s head again, this time holding a large pot of golden honey. ‘Is that for me?’ cried Pooh. ‘I do hope so, for I’m most awfully hung–’ But poor Pooh found he couldn’t finish his sentence because Rabbit had stuffed the red silk handkerchief right into his mouth where it felt all scrunchety and rough.

  ‘Ah, that’s better!’ exclaimed Rabbit. ‘For a bear of little brain you do talk an awful lot. Besides, I’d rather just look at you,’ as he traced his paw along the inside of Pooh’s furry thigh.

  To Pooh’s surprise Rabbit then did something very strange. Using a large spoon, he carefully dripped some honey right on to his belly, where it slowly dribbled downwards in a long gloopy strand. Then, fixing Pooh with a look that made Pooh’s very toes twitch with fear, Rabbit said sternly, ‘I know how much you want this honey, Pooh. But I’m going to have it. All of it. For I’m going to lick every last teeny tiny drop up until you’re sparkling clean.’ Pooh’s eyes widened; what on earth could this mean? As Rabbit’s ear-tips swept over his belly, Pooh suddenly thought he should have heeded Christopher Robin’s advice and worn some trousers. Suddenly he felt like a Very Naughty Bear Indeed.