Porcelain Gladiators
| Sometimes it just gets to you. If I ever smell the strong scent of urine, I
instantly think of sex. I'm not into water sports, it's just that I have too
many strong associations with three years of my life in public toilets,
reveling in a complete abandon of flesh. Big men, Little men, Ugly or
Beautiful; turn down the invitation for drinks, sorry I have to work, the film will have to be seen some other time.
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Erich was everything to me. I woke 15 minutes earlier to make sure that
the coffee was ready (he insisted - only freshly, and I do mean freshly ground
beans were acceptable for real coffee, "Otherwise, it's just bad tea.") and that
the paper was ready for him to launch past at MACH 4 through his apartment.
Precisely 14 minutes later he was driving to work and I was sitting down to
jasmine tea and the discarded lifestyles section of the Star. When friends
worriedly asked me what I got in return for my domestic bliss, I didn't catch
myself saying "Erich deserves what I can give him" and I cheerfully gave for
years until the day I came home from work and found the new boy in my robe
drinking my tea with Beautiful Perfect Erich crouched between his legs. So, with very little said, I packed. I believe the gobbling was still
going on when I left.
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Weeks later I heard the same boy tell a trick in the
next stall he always hated going back to the John's house because leaving was
so awkward. "I mean," he drawled, "do you have coffee and cakes afterward or
what?" No, you drink the stupid unsuspecting boyfriend's very expensive tea
whilst being gobbled.
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| Still, it costs nothing to have your life revolve around being a toilet
fairy. You make eye contact, hook up and exit. No commitment, no work, just
pure physical function.
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| I can still see the stained floor that was done in the inch octagonal
tile, the rust stains on the wall urinals, the scuffling of the fat queen in
the back stall whacking off at the sound of me slurping the fresh meat
tonight, "I've never done this kind of thing" whose wedding ring you can feel
in his back pocket along with the condom that is probably a year out of date;
and that smell. It's not a confessional, but the seal is just as strong as if
it was, and your eyes just glaze over if you pass one of the Johns on the
street - if you remember them. Sometimes when I'm in the process of leaning
back and enjoying it or bobbing up and down to get what I need the smell is
more cloying than the perfume of jasmine petals in a teacup.
Sometimes it just gets to you.
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