The Society of Men

I thought of Doshie when I came today. You know what wanking's like...pound, pound, pound, mentally browsing this one and that one. Faster and faster. Then suddenly - POP - some poor soul you weren't even expecting jumps into view. Sometimes inappropriate. Sometimes even the wrong sex!!

"Doctor, doctor, I think I'm turning straight!"

"Don't worry son, take this three times a day, and come back and see me in a week," the doctor says, reaching into his drawer and handing you a large black buttplug. "That's Dunlop Dan," he prescribes, proudly. "Lots of my patients swear by it." It's a proctocentric world.

But Doshie's definitely straight. He reminds you of this - every ten minutes - in case you forget. It started yesterday afternoon, after my riverside walk. (Met Darren and Deirdre Swann, by the way. This year they have just 3 youngsters. "Not bad for an old bird!" Deirdre cooed across the river to me.)

I goes into the pub, after my walk, blinking in the expected gloom. Where to set up camp? Who will join me and who - feigning indifference - stay where they are? Hardly had the words Pint of Carlsberg Lager left my quite dry lips then Doshie sidles up. "I'll buy that," he says then slips me a tenner. "What's this for?" I ask. "I haven't done anything for you."

Now gentle readers, let me tell you that Doshie is something of a sex god. Tall, bronzed, blue-eyed, dyed-blonde, white-teethed, and deliciously dissolute. And the word is - hung. The thought of me charging him a tenner is frankly ridiculous. Just NOT ON. Quite the reverse, if the menu even contained that dish. But it doesn't. "Doshie's off today sir." And every day. But not for Gwen. But we get out of order.

"Wanna sit outside and have a smoke?" he says. "I got some great skunk."

"OK," I reply, putty in his hands but trying not to show it. (I would actually have sat outside and shared a Barratt's Sherbert Fountain, if that's what he'd suggested. If sitting and talking is all you gonna get, then you damn well sit and talk. You get my drift, baby?)

So the sex god rolls a real big one, very efficiently, and we warm up for take-off. Others join us, straight and gay, keen to grab a free toke. I bring out a bottle-candle and hope it doesn't blow out. It doesn't, just flickers agitatedly in the falling evening. "It's for attracting sailors to the pub," I say to the landlady. "I tried singing naked on the table but it didn't work." "Oh" she says, no doubt thinking urgently about her retirement.

We chat, six of us, three from each side. It never stops amazing me how men can be such bigger fag-hags than women. Eyes gleaming as the straight guys say gay risque things. Their eyes, not mine - not mine which have seen it all - it sometimes seems since time began. And my ears which have heard the songs. And my body which has danced the dance.

"And Doshie danced the dance last night, And paradise was TWICE as nice,
With Gwen beneath the diamond skies, But nothing good comes free.
While Mister Tambourine Man sang, His song of love for Nineties Man,
Don't be afraid - take what you need, How would you like to feel?"

So Gwen had a perfect birthday card. And soon I'll tell you about that tenner. Now that's really interesting.