Wank

I once saw a woman eating an almond croissant with a knife and fork. Some things are weird enough that you should do them in private. I do it on my front. I realised early on it was unorthodox because it's not how you see it. You see it on the back films screens so people can watch. I guess I read somewhere that some people do it standing up, which is anathema to me because the whole point is it's meant to be relaxing, isn't it? I was on Right Move for about three years before I found something affordable that didn't make me want to cry whilst I was looking. Some nights I'd take off the max price limit and scroll four bedroom flats in quiet beautiful bits of town. All that space and peace those nights because I was using my laptop at the same time, I'd do it sitting up, one hand on the mousepad, but on the whole I'm face down, butt upwards, hand slid under me. I used my full body weight to get purchase against my hand. I used to think the tension of the position gave me great abs, but I was 16 when I came up with that theory and I guess everyone has pretty good abs at 16. The place I got I ended up getting this place is very small but very pretty. It cost everything I own. There are trees outside and different windows offer different kinds of light at different times of day and to stand or sit and watch the light change with a cup of tea makes me has made me indescribably happy. I had a wank the night I moved in because I was delighted by my new purchase and by my own company and by the feel of my medium price point new sheets. I have had a wank every night since. Quietly, happily from routine. Mostly it's comforting and frankly it's my prerogative. The days have been mostly solitary except for the day I moved in when I was scraping a chest of drawers at the front steps and the couple from next door wearing matching baseball caps. Not that I took note of it, then came to help me. They smiled, didn't offer the names, grabbed the arse end of the thing, hauled it in and left me to it. The next day they had a small batch coffee delivery and weren't in, so I popped it round. In the evening, I could see their flat was much bigger than mine inside. Then a week in, I'm woken by the most horrific sound. It's so loud, so clear. So I've always found the sound of other people fucking faintly traumatic. Nothing bad has ever happened to me in that department. I just really hate it. And to be broken up by it. This is my flat, my room. I spent all my money on it. Please don't scream your sex noises through the wall when I didn't ask for it. Him. Long loving relief, like he's sitting down after a long day, but over and over again. Her, like she's repeatedly hitting something that's annoying her but won't go away. Then him, as if something's been stolen from him. Really slowly, she's quiet. Then whatever she feels at the end, I don't know because I can't hear it. I put in earplugs, headphones over the top, wrap a towel around my head, play Anya gently and try to go to sleep. I thought that would be the end of it. The next morning I woke up and prayed that I dreamt it the following night. Not just the fucking, but the fucking, followed by a discussion, a discussion between more than two people. A crowd, I'd say six, 10. And it's coming from the same place the fucking was coming from. They fuck, then people discuss their fucking. An exhibit, a performance with an interval. Who are the other people? Who have they invited round for chat? And when's it gonna end? It happens every night for the rest of that week. And by the time I come home from amateur mixed netball on Thursday, in which I play terribly because I'm so exhausted, I realise I'm afraid of going to sleep in my own house, which I had recently purchased with all the money I'd ever earned, I make myself a bed on the kitchen floor. Earplugs, headphones, Enya scarf. And when the nubile squealing of my deviant neighbours starts up again, I sit bolt upright, sobbing. I grab my dressing gown, wrap it round me and charge out the front door. I stand in front of the house, my blood pumping in my ears, and freeze. I retreat to the other side of the street. I snap a pale twig from a tree and pretend to smoke so I can watch the comings and goings from the house next door. In the 15 minutes that I stand there, eight people enter the house, three leave. Not one of them is part of the couple that I know to live there. They of the matching Gillette and two clean dark toned athleisure wear. I stamp out my unlit fag with my slipper and lose the nerve to go in. I return to my flat, sit in my bed dressing gown still on, hold a pillow over my head and turn on my front and slide my hand beneath me. You see, it's only a comfort for me when I'm riled, when I'm stressed, when I'm invaded. Masturbation is like teddy bears. Like having a cup of tea, like cooking up eggs, porridge, oats and cheese and eating it from the pan when you can't sleep. Comfort, comfort and just for me, release, relief and comfort. Private co. The shrieking begins again and I know I'm never gonna get relief. I'm out of bed. I knock over an old tea and I stride, I stride. I arrive at their front door in the cold night and I'm hammering on the door and I can see my breath in front of me and I wonder what the fuck I'm gonna do when someone oh hi, it's her. Of her and him. Nice smile, expensive teeth, charcoal chestnut aubergine athleisure wear. I see the matching baseball caps on sleek brass pegs by the door. She looks down at the inexplicable orange stain on my whitish dressing gown. She looks at my slippered feet and for a second she doesn't know what to do. Then she steps aside and welcomes me in. She smiles again. Such good teeth. As I move inside, process it seems people part, they make way for me. I'm heading down a corridor with glowy ankle height lighting, then enter a room with 10 and 15 well dressed, clearly wealthy, 30 somethings dotted loungily around it. They've all got dog advert, shiny hair and expensive jeans. I am in slippers and a dressing gown with a I remember now egg and porridge cheese stain down the front of it. The crowd is either turning to look at me or staring with their discreet gold jewelry, clean faces and expensively good skin at a huge projection the size of the back wall of me masturbating. I watch for a minute or two and realize it's a collage of every session since I arrived, edited seamlessly and playing on a loop. You can only see the back of my head, my crumpled hair. The duvet is covering my ass. Oh no it isn't. I watch as I shrug the duvet off. I don't remember it. I must have got too hot and now you can see my whole pyjama form face down like a large writhing manatee. You can see the old tea, the pot of dried egg, porridge, cheese. You can see the open laptop with tabs for Right Move and Gilmour girls still shining, still promising. It is an absolute celebration of non sexuality and yet the perfect gold jewelry, shiny pony, expensive jean. People cannot take their eyes off it. A freckled girl comes up to me, takes my hand, kisses it and says, I never thought to do it on my front. My breasts would be too big, it would hurt me. Oh, I say, thinking she's trying to be smug. But actually when I look at her, she's staring at me like I've given her something kind, a gift and she's truly grateful for it. They all start to clap. They love it. The Athleisure web take to the stage in front of the video. They take off the clothes start. Their skin is so torn, moisturized and devoid of any abnormality, it's like watching gloss paint Fuck. There's a lot of really unnecessary vocal work going into it, but it hardly matters because the crowd is staring at my ass, thrashing rhythmically, my shoulders back burrowing into the mattress. The quick lift and direction switch of my head to relieve jaw ache. They're staring at me. This is, I think, what they've come for. The athleisure worker, so attractive in their day to day lives, are getting off, I think, on being ignored. No matter how loud they shudder and squeal, the focal point remains the recording of me. It's like she doesn't care if we don't see her face. The freckled girl says, delighted. For some reason, their enjoyment of my purely comfortable activity doesn't in this moment, make me want to ring the police. I do. Later, of course, the second I leave and I have the camera that was left by the frankly, very fucking odd previous inhabitants removed immediately and the athleisure wearers get bound up in some very tricky legal proceedings by the CPS who want them filming without permission, which is great because they have to go bankrupt and move. So me, my flat, my sanctuary, returns to peace. But all that's later. In this moment, I'm standing here looking at my shuddering mountainous form. Then a sound, a gentle roar. I think it's coming from someone else at first, but deep, low, base and ungodly. The room shudders within, it feels like the windows might crack. There is an endless earth beneath my feet. I thrust my arms open and know with a wild bird like calling that the sound is coming from me. And I am delighted by it. I pull my dressing gown tight round me, staying on the front, and march, sliding slightly because of slippers on overly polished concrete floors, out of there and out into the cold night and the wide street and through my door, and then I rip out the camera, ring the police, cook up some porridge, eggs and cheese, stare at it, don't eat it, take off all my clothes, lie on the floor, stare at the ceiling, and breathe through my nose until the sun says it's morning.

Wank

Interactive Transcript

Topics Covered

Wank

Interactive Transcript

Topics Covered

Related Episodes

If you're here to raise consciousness on this planet... (Akashic Records Workshop coming up!)

Ep. 309 – Love Binds All Things: What We Can Do to Help the World with Prof. Rajiv S. Joshi

People on TikTok BEGGING for Money is Unhinged (Sad Fishing for Money)

Justin Martin Wrestles with Phil's Advice on Fatherhood

Share Episode