Wrote this for a friend’s zine
An Apology.
This one goes out to Sarah, last name unknown. She was some girl who studied art or graphics or something of that genus at Central St. Martins. Bisexual, northern, with a pronounced interest in gender politics and the television show Gilmour Girls, We met one evening at a club night my house mate at the time had put on at The Macbeth; she was very drunk and I’d been spending a significant portion of the evening knelt down in toilet cubicles, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.
Our romance was brief in most senses of the word, and to this day I’ve never seen her around. Despite all this, she sticks out in the forefront of my mind as a girl I must apologize to. It’s not so much how I treated her, and it’s not anything I said; it’s a simple matter of poor performance. You see, usually I go about my business with appreciative vigour, maybe not the greatest of lovers but what I might lack in length or versatility I tend to make up for with heart. Like the kid in P.E who is pretty shit at sports, but gives everything a go anyway and laughs it off when he scores an own goal .People let him join in, not on the basis of his skill, but ‘cause he’s a team player and his clumsy antics are good for the squad’s morale.
However on this night in particular, though the spirit was, as it always is, willing – the body just couldn’t cough up the goods.
I’ll paint the scene for you: after a couple minutes of empty talk and obvious to the point of embarrassing flirtation, we’re on her sofa knocking back vodka and in a shallow and cynical attempt to impress her with my intellect, I yack it up a little about having read the first few pages of a Dostoevsky novel. She digs it and tells me she has a copy of the same book in her bedroom - Score. Seconds later I’m tearing my skinnies off with all the excitement of a kid at Christmas. I grab a rubber and I’m all about ready to get down to the do but just one problem: it turns out my erection called in sick today and won’t be able to make it in till at least tomorrow morning.
So, here I am on this poor girl’s bed, making jokes about some dumb thing or the other I saw on TV whilst she watches me trying in vain to roll a durex down the shaft of my semi flaccid penis. I start making nervous jokes : “I’m not like, broken or anything, I’m still a man…” all she does is look at me, at it, her face the portrait of disappointment. Eventually I manage to get the damned thing on, and even though I can’t seem to make it past semi proficiency I figure that I’ve gotten far enough in this endeavour to at least try and get it up her. There’s alotta rolling around, apologetic mumbling and plenty of tutting coming from her direction. I’m doing the best that I can and she’s not having a bar of it.
Eventually we call the whole thing off and she says she needs to get some sleep for some reason or the other, too wasted to put my clothes back on I ended up sleeping naked but the girl was so sour about what we’d just been through that she wouldn’t let me spoon. Total insult to injury.
When morning comes, we make some idle conversation about something boring as we foot it out of her halls of residence, but there’s no getting past the fact that I was a shitty lay. We both knew it, we both felt it, well she didn’t feel much. There was no chance in hell we were ever going to see each other again.
Anyway, she seemed like the kinda girl who’d be in to ‘zines so there’s a slight chance she might read this, I hope she does because here’s my apology:
Hi Sarah, how are you, how’s your course and did you ever end up living in a squat like you said you wanted to?! I am doing well and in good health, thanks for asking.
I know that when you saw me leaning against the bar, weighing in at an unimpressive eight a half stone, and imbibing the latest in a long succession of poisons that you probably weren’t expecting the ride of the lifetime. But I still feel as though, I really should apologize for not meeting the likely already very low expectations you had when you picked me out of the crowd of drunken losers and assholes that night. I promise and I assure you that it was simply a onetime thing and I usually am not so completely inept at forming the beast with two backs.
If you’re ever in New Cross and you feel like having some clumsy, but effective sex, please don’t hesitate to search me out, I almost feel as though I owe it to you.
Sincerely yours,
That Guy Who Couldn’t Get It Up And Wasn’t Very Good At Eating Pussy Either.
