Chapter 17

It was far from the best of times. While I had been commuting between Camden and Cambridge in a kinky sensual glow, the whole country seemed to be in the grip of a sickness. Millions were in the throes of the worst industrial strife since before the war. Strikes broke out every day, there was revolution in the air. In Northern Ireland sectarian violence ruled the streets, with the army failing to keep them apart. Unemployment was rising, and the football terraces were ruled by rabid racist thugs. Oh, and Princess Anne was getting married in the autumn. I followed it all in the papers and on TV, trying to distract myself from my own misery with that of the world around me. I tried to catch up on life, on politics, on my few friends, but mostly they just depressed me further.

There were myriad radical groups, communists, anarchists, feminists, some content to demonstrate, others taking it further, even blowing up public buildings with home-made bombs, like the Angry Brigade, most of whom had now been captured and locked away for years. I would shake my head in disbelief that these men and women, of my age, could believe so fervently in political theories, in dogma, in themselves.

The weeks passed, Easter gave way to Whitsun, and I started to find a new resolve in myself, the beginning perhaps of self-sufficiency. I persevered with my old friends and was rewarded; I studied, made a good new friend of Felicity. So much so that one evening at my flat, after dinner and a couple of bottles of wine, we very hesitantly came out to each other, which was a revelation, a relief, and a confirmation on her behalf of long held suspicion. She was the first friend I had actually confided in since I became clear in my mind that I really was gay. Somewhat less hesitantly she then came on to me. A few months ago I would have gone to bed with her easily enough, and probably enjoyed it, but in my heart I had made a commitment, and was determined not to let my old careless promiscuity create another problem to be solved.

As I fended Felicity off, gently, and thankfully with no hard feelings, I found myself touching the ever-present silver collar to strengthen my resolve. It was weeks since I had had sex, and with her vivacious face, full figure and abundant red hair Felicity was not an unattractive proposition.

"What is that? It's beautiful," she asked, when the dangerous moment had been successfully negotiated.

I blushed.

"It was a present from a friend, a very dear friend," I said, the memory of my Christmas surrender making me choke up.

"Oh, I see..." Felicity seemed to understand without need of explanation. "Lucky her!"

I wished I could have said 'lucky me, ' which had been true not long ago, but was not at present.

I knew that the Cambridge term was ending soon, and Em would be mostly free for nearly three months, though I remembered she was attending a symposium on criminal psychology in Chicago in June. Patience began to give way to despair. One night Felicity came round and brought some hash with her. I rather weak-mindedly broke Margaret's rule. A few puffs wouldn't matter, I thought, and it certainly made me feel better, so much so that I very nearly took Felicity up on her earlier suggestion. The next day, in the grip of an old demon - sexual frustration and the freshened memories of the sensation enhancing effects of soft drugs, I called an old connection. Teasing myself, telling myself that anticipation would make the breaking of my fast all the better, and that by doing what I was doing I was very necessarily demonstrating my independence, I took the tube to Tottenham Court Road and walked into the heart of sleazy old Soho. In a sex shop, scarlet with embarrassment and not a little excitement, I bought a couple of the best vibrators they had, and the two biggest dildos in the shop.

On my way home, I visited my old dealer and bought some hash, three grams of cocaine, and as if it was a sign that my intentions were entirely sexual, I was offered a Half pint bottle of pure amyl nitrate. With trembling hands and dampening knickers I returned to the flat.

I rolled several spliffs, teasing myself again, and knowing that I'd probably be sticky-fingered later. I snorted two big lines of alleged Peruvian flake, chopped several more for later reference, lit up a spliff, and undressed. I set a chair in front of my full-length dressing mirror, and at last, with the poppers, all the phalli, and a fresh jar of lubricant on the dressing table, I slipped off my knickers and squirmed into position, joint smoking from the side of my mouth as I settled. Taking the lube I anointed myself liberally. My legs were hooked up on the arms of the chair, and I was showing myself off lewdly to the mirror. One at a time, I tried out the vibrators and dildos, snorting more coke once or twice in a while, and steadily smoking the hash. I knew from experience with Ed that if I got the combination just right, and added poppers at the precise moment, I might reach a reasonable semblance of the zone.

I started to feel the unworldly thrill. My cunt was so greedy after weeks of abstinence, and I just had to deny it the final touch again and again until, whining and frenetic I found myself taking both the huge dildos at once, pussy and arse distended with their rubbery bulk, squatting down on them, feeling the stretch and the burn starting to carry me further. Balancing precariously I reached for the amyl nitrate, took a couple of big hits. Bang into the zone I rushed, pushing myself down onto long wrist thick dildos as hard and as far as I could, head back, sightless yet seeing the shafts inside myself.

At the crucial moment I took another sniff, and suddenly it was Margaret's fists I saw in my fevered mind's eye, her beautiful hands rising up inside me until I shrieked and came, gushing hotly all over the chair. I shuddered almost epileptically, the drugs sending my orgasm to another planet. My thighs were quivering with the strain of holding myself down on the dildos, and at last I fell forwards onto the dressing table, bottles of perfume crashing around me as the shafts slithered out and tumbled to the floor.

'Not bad, ' I thought as I lay there, panting hoarsely, 'not bad at all.' I was still horny, I went at it again, but instead of the first orgasm being the foundation stone of a night's depravity, it never got better than that. I tried, I really tried in the name of independence and self-sufficiency, but all I got for my efforts was a feeling of aching emptiness, and when I woke up next morning with a bad drug hangover, all I could imagine was Margaret disciplining me for my lapse, the images so vivid that in my head I became genuinely aroused, and just simple fingers achieved a release more satisfactory than the whole expensive experience the night before. After that, I didn't bother myself again, because I knew that only the real thing would make me feel better.

A few days later, awake too early and moping over the Misuse of Drugs Act - which I was reading as a kind of personal penance, I paid no attention to the sound of the postman pushing mail through the squeaky flap. When I picked up my letters after a desultory breakfast, my heart skipped several beats. In my hand was an envelope with familiar writing, and the hope or fear that it might contain made me stand and just breathe for several minutes.

'Darling Jill, ' I clutched at my collar for strength. 'I have been thinking long and very seriously about you, because you deserve my total honesty. My problem is this, and it's nothing to do with who you are. I'm so scared of loving you, of opening my life up to you, of how loving you will effect that life. I have to find out if I have the strength, if I'm brave enough to do the things I have to do and still keep you. As you may remember, I'm going Chicago soon. I'll write again as soon as I return. Until then you are free, and if you decide that you can't wait, or if you can't forgive me for the awful way I treated you last time, for which I'm deeply ashamed and sorry, I will understand. Mummy sends her love, and I send mine, such as it is. Em'

At the bottom of the envelope were the filigree chain and the tiny key. I held them in numb fingers, reached for the collar, drew the padlock to the front, inserted the key, and turned it. My heart was breaking. 'Nothing can mend this, ' I thought.