Domestic Scene

When I got back home at around noon I was starving, so I went into the kitchen and got a Cadbury's Wispa, sat down and started eating it. In came Joey, still in his dressing gown.

"Back so soon? You were only gone an hour or so. What have you got there? Is that chocolate?"

"Mm. A Wispa. Do you want some?"

"Yes please."

He bent over towards the bar to take a bite. Then a thought occurred to me.

"Oh wait, actually" I said, "You might prefer to take a bite out of the other end."

"What? Why?"

He looked at me. I took the chocolate out of the wrapper and turned it around and offered it to him again.

"Oh... God... Have you just had a cock in your mouth?" he asked.

"Look. This end is fine," I said brightly, "It's perfectly safe. There's no cock poison on it. I promise."

"No thanks. No, really. I think I'll just leave it."

I shrugged. And carried on eating. He does very well, does Joey.

Scent

It's not new-mown grass,
Or fresh-baked bread,
Or that jumper my mother knit me.
The one I never wore
But couldn't throw out,
Because it smelled
Of so much mother-love.
It's your skin.
It smells of blackness:
Like the memory of fire
Up a morning chimney,
And the depth of a cat's shadow
Leaping under a puddle,
And the falling weight of your hair
As you laugh in some far-flung bar,
The just-snuffed candlelight
On tables-for-two,
The spaces between stars.
This is the scent of you.

I guess part of the problem was
The way my imagination rushed
Into the blackness and filled it.
It was all my fault.
I mistook so many
Beautiful, invisible things
For you.

Not Poetry

This is not poetry.
I am not a poet.
But this verse proves
That if I could write poems,
The first of them
Would be for you.

Ghost Village

I thought of this place again today: the ancient village clinging to a mountainside, its tumbledown walls knotted with roots and branches, its inhabitants driven out by deadly avalanches a hundred years ago. I remembered how wrong it felt to climb over the roots and the ruins in my cheerful summer shoes, the breeze clammy on my arms, like a disconnected hand touching me in a crowd. I felt as though the lost souls from all around must gather here, where the living could not dwell.

I thought of it again today. I thought it was perhaps the kind of place you might have flown away to. I imagined going there again some day and visiting you, bringing you something pretty that would bob in the breeze. Except that it was so hard to find the village and I can't remember how I got there anymore.

Take my love, such as it is. There is no graveside I can visit, but I promise to build you a village just like this one in my mind. I promise to sing you lullabies among the ruins as the sun goes down. And in the mornings, I will bring pretty things that bob in the breeze.

The Cold Stories

Never in my life have I ever felt so deeply and solidly frozen as in the castle where I grew up. I remember walking down the long upstairs landing on winter mornings and pausing to scrape a finger over the thick furry frost that lay in wads upon all the window panes, testing to see if it had formed on the inside or the outside of the glass, discovering that the answer must be "both". Then there was the time my father sauntered into the bathroom one fine morning, in his checked dressing gown and his hard brown leather slippers, and did a backward flip on the black ice that habitually lacquered the bathroom floor in months with an R. He split his head open on the corner of the bathtub and had to get stitches.

The castle was huge, but in the depths of winter, we all used to sleep in one rather poky room at the end of a long landing, which my mother was permitted to attempt to "heat" for half an hour before bedtime with the aid of a small, blisteringly hot electric bar fire. The three vicious-looking orange bars of this remarkably ineffectual device would hum ominously as it singed the 2 feet of air directly in front of it, relieving none of the damp, tomb-like chill from the remainder of the room but somehow creating an illusion of warmth by radiating a strong odour of scorched hair into the atmosphere. One by one, we'd stand and defrost our rigid pyjamas and bed socks in front of the glowing bars. Despite the shivering, the ritual had a cosy, ceremonious feel to it, as if we were gathering around to toast chestnuts. Then we'd shed single articles of daytime clothing and precipitously cram the thus disrobed body parts into our pre-softened garments before the heat could disperse into the air; then it was time to make way for the next family member to repeat the ritual. My parents would take up their nightly quarters in a double bed and my brother and I went top-to-tail in a single one that was positioned crosswise at the foot of theirs.

At night, we all wore more layers of clothing than we did during the day. My own nightwear ensemble comprised a thermal vest, a t-shirt, a pair of fluffy Snoopy pyjamas, a wollen jumper, a dressing gown, two to three pairs of socks and fingerless gloves with mittens over the top. One of the main problems I remember encountering - apart from the impossibility of keeping the tip of one's nose warm while still eliciting a sufficient supply of oxygen - was knowing that once I was ready for bed, I'd be so densely trussed in overlapping layers that if I got an itch, there'd be no chance of scratching myself until morning.

During the daytime, my brother and I used like to snuggle down in the dogs' beanbag beds in front of the Aga. We'd lure them out with enticing toys, rustling bags and playful bouncing. Then, as soon as they were up and looking about themselves expectantly, we'd dive into their pre-warmed imprints and attempt to persuade the still joyfully confused creatures to lie on top of us. Under the dogs was the snuggest place we ever found in the building.

So many of my memories of the castle are associated with the cold, even though there must have been an equal proportion of summer days then as there has ever been. It is as though a whole volume of my reminiscences has been retrospectively frosted.

Here comes another: I remember my father walking into the kitchen and seeing me sitting at the table, doing my middle-school homework in fingerless gloves, a woolly hat and a scarf. He looked at me and said, "Zora, child, what are you wearing all that for? That's ridiculous! It's boiling in here!"

I looked up at him and replied, quite dreamily, "When you talk, I can see steam coming out of your mouth."

And I remember that when he replied, he spoke while breathing in instead of breathing out. He said, "You're exaggerating," and left the room on tiptoe, still holding in his breath.

Another occasion I remember clearly was a Sunday in church. My brother and I were in the choir (in fact, it would be more accurate to say that we were the choir, there being no further members). Being the choir, we were required to take communion before the rest of the congregation. On the day in question, the vicar took us aside in the vestry, just after the service, and instructed us to the effect that we should remove our gloves to take communion. To illustrate his point, he said, "You wouldn't eat a meal at home with your gloves on."

I laughed out loud, no doubt quite bitterly for one so young in years, and said, "Oh but I do - and with a hat and a scarf as well!"

He stared aghast, not at our faces, but at our starched white neck ruffles, in a state of dumbstruck disbelief. Then my brother piped up and said, "It's true. I wear mine to eat as well."

The vicar's face remained rigid. He now seemed to be glaring in abstracted reproval at a thread that dangled from a button half-way down my brother's cassock. Feeling unsure of the exact nature and severity of the sin I was rebutting, I tried nonetheless to clarify matters with the emphatic protest, "You have to at our house or the forks would freeze your fingers!"

He continued to glower at the black thread for several mute seconds during which my brother and I shrugged at each other in bemusement, and then, coming to himself with a lurch of concentration, said, rather gruffly, "Yes. Well. All the same... you cannot partake of glory with your gloves on, you know. It just won't do."

Amen to that.

The Creation of Pola-Girl

Readers, this is all rather confusing. Here is the story so far: yesterday, I stabbed right into my hand with a scapel while trying to open some Polaroids. I had dropped the scalpel and it had fallen sideways onto my legs, and as I reached down for it, it somehow simultaneously flipped up with the blade pointing skywards. It was so sharp that it slid right into the skin of my palm without the least resistance and - at least while it was going in - without the slightest warning twinge of pain. The entire blade was embedded, just below my ring finger. At this point, I said "Ow!" And then I had to grasp the shaft, twist my face into a grimace and yank it out like an arrow-struck 1950s cowboy. The blood spurted everywhere. It was all rather satisfyingly dramatic.

My hand seems to be working fine today, luckily, but now I am having disturbing thoughts about what might be going on underneath the plaster I stuck over my palm - I mean, now that the Polaroid chemicals on the blade have entered my bloodstream. I mean, especially now, when the world is post-Fukushima and the Polaroid in question was probably a little bit radioactive. I mean, we all know what happens when radioactive things bite you.

What I'm wondering is, when I peel off the plaster, will a picture have developed on the skin beneath it? A picture of what? Of an approaching scalpel? How scary is that? And where exactly does it all go from there? Do I end up turning into a freaky (but aesthetically fascinating) superhero with photosensitive skin? Will my skin start developing images of everything that happened in front of it two minutes ago? Will caustic paste ooze from my feet? How do I set my aperture (and do I really want to know the answer to that one?) Also, when I take off my clothes, will my breasts look like a picture of the inside of my bra? And exactly how will this help me catch criminals?

I am more than a little concerned now, Readers, because if I am actually going to transform into Pola-Girl, the only practical crime-fighting use I can come up with for my imminently burgeoning superhuman gifts is the option of using my remarkable photosensitive skin to take evidential pictures of miscreants, viz by tearing off some clothes and flashing them whilst they are in flagrante delicto. This in itself will be somewhat embarrassing - not to mention illegal; and not to mention draughty - but the main problem here is that such heroic deeds will surely ultimately lead to me being subpoenaed and compelled to stand up naked in court as evidence for the prosecution: "Would the jury please be so good as to examine Exhibit Z?" So, as I said above, it is all more than a little confusing.

Quotes

I'm quite jealous of Oscar Wilde. I'm sure he must have had all manner of hangers-on who scuttled around him constantly, eagerly harvesting all his best quotes for posterity. I wish I had a little man to follow me round with a notebook. Because I can't possibly jot down all my own pithy nuggets for humankind. I'm far too busy. (And generally too drunk to wield a pencil when I say them. And too wieldy to drink a pencil when I don't.)

So would anyone out there like the job? Today, for example, you would have written down the following gems:

"Testicles are like diamonds. You can never have too many of them and when you have lots, it's lovely to plunge your hands into a bucket of them and feel them slipping over your outstretched fingers."

And:

"I would name a girl after the place of conception, in the manner of pop stars' brats. So basically, Fallopia or possibly Endometria, depending on your precise definition of conception.

And:

"It must be before 11, because my hand still smells of cock."

And:

"Chuh! There'll be plenty time for monogamy when we're dead."

And finally:

"Excuse me but your testicles appear to be eating my sandwich."

(It was an exceptionally good day for testicles quotes.)

Blue Suede Nights

Things happen when you travel alone. Especially at airports. Especially when your travel plans have already gone awry. And most especially of all if you're anything like me and you attract lunatics like moths to a flame.

It's funny to think that if my plane hadn't been delayed and if I hadn't been stranded in Amsterdam overnight, I would never have met Elvis.

Readers. allow me to present Elvis Lovinescu to you. He's a professional Elvis impersonator, originally from Moldova. Most of the year, he works in Las Vegas, where there's regular work to be had marrying couples in the various chapels. (If any of the bridal couples baulks at his most un-Elvis-like Moldovan accent, he says he can generally pacify them with a flip of his quiff and a few of his choicest pelvis moves.)

Elvis was stranded, too. Though we were on different flights, travelling in different directions, we ended up getting free rooms in the same hotel and we ended up propping up the same counter in the same boring hotel bar, and that's how we got talking.

"Elvis" is Elvis Lovinescu's real name - chosen for him by his father, much to the outrage of the baptising minister and the rest of his extended family (who - somewhat confusingly - seem to all be called either "Mihai" or "Mihaiela" with the exception of one solitary auntie called "Dudu".)

Elvis' father was an Elvis impersonator before him. He taught him everything he knows. In fact, Elvis learned how to impersonate Elvis, not from studying The King but from studying his father. According to Elvis, despite not being able to pronounce a single word in the English language with anything approaching linguistic precision, his father was still "more like Elvis than Elvis was".

"So, yeah, you could say that impersonating Elvis is kind of the family trade," he tells me with a smile, "And when I have a son, I just know he'll be born with blue suede shoes on."

Elvis' father died one night in a hotel fire in Odessa thirteen years ago. The only possession that survived the fire was his top set of teeth, which had been miraculously preserved in a glass of water.

 

As the only surviving relic of his father, the dentures accompany Elvis on all his travels. They're his lucky mascot. He keeps them wrapped in a star-spangled banner. In the evenings, when he goes out, he lovingly lays his daddy's choppers into a glass on the bedside table and fills it up with a generous splash of vodka. (Because daddy still likes a drink.)

"Isn't that a bit macabre?" I ask him as he holds up the glass to show me.

"Not at all," he grins, "Look - Daddy's smiling at you. He'd have liked you a lot, I'm sure."

Despite the dissipations of this night, Elvis kindly agreed to join me in another impromptu shoot in his hotel room, early the next morning before we each checked out and went our separate ways. The series is entitled "Memphis Hotel" and I've just added it to the Polaroid Series section of my website.

The Perpetual Nymph

My life has been filled with chilling transitions - points of no return that crept up on me unawares. And not just during childhood, either. They can strike at any time. For instance, I remember with a shiver of horror a time when, as if by prior arrangement, all my friends stopped living off Monster Munch and Müller Fruit Corners and started - quite seriously - offering me apples and bananas as if it was a perfectly normal thing for them to do. Then there was the bleak, barren period when all of my contemporaries started drinking responsibly and leaving mid-week parties at sensible times. Then there was the time when suddenly nobody was eating puddings or snogging strangers in discos anymore; not to mention the horrible, ominous night when everyone I knew simultaneously and permanently lost the urge to freak out for hours on end and jump up and down like a dancing fool. Terrible, terrible moments of realisation and disillusionment accompanied all these times, for I always knew that these transformations were irreversible and I could not see that they were changes for the better. I only felt a sense of something bright, buoyant and unthinkingly carefree being lost.

I think the most unnerving aspect about these transitions in life was how most people I knew just swanned through them without a backward glance or a second thought. Afterwards, I would find myself looking around at my friends and seeing that they had all metamorphosed. I would look at myself and see that I had not. But rather than admiring them and wishing to emulate them, I regarded them with a mixture of incredulity and distain - the way a small boy might look at an older brother who has just informed him that "sweet shop owner" is not a viable career choice. I realised that they had lost many of the characteristics I'd loved them for - characteristics and attitudes I'd always thought of as an intrinsic part of their natures. They'd shed their playful, hedonistic old Monster-Munch-gorging selves like husks and fluttered out as altered life forms I had little in common with. Meanwhile, I was left behind, a perpetual nymph, feeling bereft and disconnected, suspecting that I would never follow suit and knowing in my heart that I would never want to, either - but missing them and wishing them back to the way they'd been before.

Looking back as far as I can remember, I can still clearly recall the first such transition I was ever conscious of. And, being the first, it was perhaps the most painful transition of all. It was the day when I realised that none of my friends would ever again want us to play make-believe games. All of a sudden - and much, much too soon - they had turned their backs on childhood and now there was only the option of rough, sporty grappling games with the boys or of lounging and gossiping by walls in locations where the boys could see us and come over to "annoy" us. Overnight, everyone else's interests had become either physical or informational.

I had no option but to outwardly act my part, but as each playtime went by, I would feel as though multiple imaginary universes were bursting all around me like soap bubbles with barely audible "plips". Nobody else seemed to notice or care or even remember that they'd ever existed. And how I missed the way we used to run to those make-believe places and disappear into them at every opportunity. How I missed the unthinking, effortless pleasure of sharing imaginary worlds with my friends. I would sigh in secret. I would even cry a little and hang my head when nobody could see, for the world suddenly felt more oppressive and darker than before and there was noone I could tell this to. Indeed, I think that I have never in my life felt so lonely and so despairing as at that time. I'd probably have topped my wee self there and then if I hadn't already known that there would always, always be books to read; and if I hadn't, even then, felt a glimmer of hope that there might be others of my kind - that maybe, somewhere in the world, I might one day discover other creatures who were just like me.

Swedish Sunday - Epilogue

"Well helllllooo beautiful!" crooned the husky voice down the line: my ex-lover, and also the only person who could explain to me about that perplexing Swedish situation the other Sunday morning. Just the man I needed to speak to.

"I'm glad you called," I said, "I wanted to ask you something."

"About the Swedes?"

"You guessed it."

"The answer is three hours."

"But I haven't asked the question yet!" I protested.

"No, but the answer is still 'three hours'."

"But that doesn't fit my question."

"It fits mine, though. Maybe you should be trying to find out what that was the answer to."

"I'm not sure I want to know," I said, apprehension dawning.

"But I want to tell you."

"Oh God. Do you have to?"

"Yes, Zora. I think I do."

"OK. Let's get it over with. Hit me with the question."

"The question is:" he began, then he cleared his throat and put on a girly voice, 'How long was I sucking those Swedish dicks for?"

"Three hours!" I exclaimed, "You're exaggerating."

"Actually, I may be underestimating the time. I fell asleep in your office chair after the third hour, as you may remember."

"Gracious. So... erm... weren't you bored?"

"Bored doesn't come into it."

"But why were you there at all, if you don't mind me asking? Why did you come all that way in the middle of the night to find me?"

"I was feeling romantic. (I thought I might try to bang you again, if you must know.)"

"Ohhh. That little project. So: you clearly failed quite spectacularly."

"Well, yeah. It proved a whole lot harder than I'd ever have imagined to find a free orifice."

"Look, you've got to help me reconstruct the evening. I have no idea how we got into the Swedish Sunday situation. When did it start to get kinky? How did it even begin?"

"It was all perfectly normal until shortly after the part where I suggested us going back to your office to listen to my i-pod."

"Hmm. Ok. Still sounds relatively harmless so far. So we all went there to listen to some stuff on your i-pod. And then?"

"I don't know. I left the room for about one point five seconds to get a bottle and some glasses, and when I came back, all three Swedish tourists were stark bollock naked and you were just, like, totally covered in dicks and hands and - this is the really weird part - nobody was showing the least bit of interest in my music. I tried talking to you, but you didn't seem able to answer. You were just too covered in dicks."

"Oh," I said, "Well... that seems a bit... odd, doesn't it? I mean, what a funny way for them to behave."

He sighed. "Not really. I'm getting used to this stuff now. Seems to happen at least half the times I see you."

"Oh, now that's not fair. It's much less than half the time and it's NEVER my fault. And it was definitely your fault the last time. You admitted it yourself. Hmm... still... I wonder what made them do it. Do you think one of us unwittingly used a phrase that's some kind of code in Sweden? You know, like: 'I'd be glad to show you my etchings' or 'Would you like to come up for coffee?' or 'Any chance of a night cap?'"

"So... is this your theory then? You're saying that the phrase 'Why don't we all go back to Zora's office so that I can play you some contemporary jazz fusion I have on my i-pod' is some kind of nationwide Swedish code for 'Why don't we go back to Zora's office so that you can all strip naked at record speed and shove your cocks in her face the second I leave the room, and then keep fuckin'... hypnotising her with them for three solid hours?'"

"Um. Yeah. I mean... It just seems the most likely explanation, doesn't it?"

"Right."

"'Jazz' is a common euphemism. For, you know, 'jizz'."

"Right. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be it."

"And just bearing that particular ambiguity in mind, 'contemporary' (i.e. contemporaneous) 'jazz' (i.e. jizz) 'fusion' does tally quite remarkably with the events which ultimately came to pass..."

"... all over your face."

"Indeed. So I'd say we were all just victims of a cultural misunderstanding."

"Yeah."

"Not my fault at all. Nothing to do with me, in fact."

"No. No. In fact my fault, if anyone's - if I'm following your impeccably twisted logic correctly."

"Well, yes. Now that you mention it, I'm rather afraid it must have been your fault, seeing as you were the one careless enough to utter the key phrase. Lucky for you that I have such a forgiving nature. So no hard feelings, Baby. No need to apologise. I absolve you."

"Zora, Baby, HONEY, Zora, you know I adore you, but somebody has to tell you this: Baby, you're so far gone, you're coming back!"

Awakened by the Wanton Wind

I suppose you'd call it homesickness, this hesitant clutching sensation, like the searching hand of a timorous child; this feeling that creeps up from behind and tries to slip its tiny fingers round my lower spine as I walk down my city street. It only happens when a certain kind of breeze is on the air - of a certain speed and freshness and with an old familiar wantonness of direction - and only when this breeze combines with a scent, quite faint, perhaps merely imagined, of the warm scuffing of heather on shins, of the succulent hush of bluebell sanctuaries, of long, tough grass trampled under country feet and the ticklish waft from effusive dog tails. Then I feel this timid, hankering clutch and I mourn for my country childhood and the elusive, clever, dreaming girl I once was. And yet... at the same time, I know that I would not choose to go back. Were a magic pathway to spring up at my feet, I feel sure I would not take it. So how can I feel homesick for a place I'd never return to? How can I feel nostalgic for a past I don't want back?

Perhaps these are not really my emotions. Perhaps they belong to the child I once was. If she is not dead, but sleeping somewhere inside me, then perhaps the breeze stirs her from her slumbers and, in those few moments of wakefulness, she wonders and grows forlorn when she sees what lay ahead.

Unmade Memories

I feel a wish upon my lips that there could have been more kissing. My thighs feel alive with the desire to have been fucked. And it strikes me now that, unlike the mind - whose longing only projects into the present and the future - the body can long retroactively, too; it can yearn for other pasts and altered histories and it can ache terribly for the missed chances and the wasted moments.

Sudden Kitten Death Syndrome

The worst sign, I always say, is when all your fantasies suddenly become very, very simple - almost innocent - in nature; when the idea of a stolen kiss, a hot hand on a waist or an accidental moment of nudity is enough to fuel whole mad sprees of the kitten-killing sin.

Swedish Sunday

"The address?" asked the girl one firmly. I didn't respond. I was busy and it didn't occur to me that I was the only one who knew where we were. Then the other two Swedes - the boy ones - joined in.

"Marie's on the phone to a taxi company now, Zora, and we need to know this address."

They spoke kindly, but I couldn't respond. My face was just too full of their filthy falukorvs and I couldn't think in terms of geography - never one of my strongest subjects at the best of times. But I started straining for the answer as I licked, down on my knees before them, moving from cock to cock, trying to make it come to me, trying to reach a point where I could make myself think and speak. It was taking me an eternity - the cocks were just too distracting - and the girl one was getting the tiniest bit edgy now. I vaguely remembered that there had been something about checking out of a hotel. And something about the airport. An imminent flight? She gathered up my hair at the back and used it to pull me gently back and away. (Such nice people, these Swedes, I thought. So imperturbable, so well-mannered. And so endearingly corruptible.)

"It's Sunday morning" I finally said, "Birds... singing. Blackbirds. Like the Beatles song."

"We need to know where we are, not when," said the Sven one with the most exquisite patience. I noticed he was keeping himself fluffed for the moment Marie let go of me. Good lad. They taught them well, up on them thar fjords.

"My office," I finally stuttered, straining towards him now, trying to shake off Marie, "right next to my office chair, on which my ex-lover seems to be sleeping. Ver-ry deeply."

I hoped he was alright. I still had no recollection of why I had come here early on a Sunday morning with three exquisitely polite Swedish tourists and an ex, but I was slowly gaining clarity. Or perhaps it was only cunning: I still didn't know my address but I could suddenly remember the taxi stand that was conveniently located right across the street. I realised that they'd see a whole line of waiting taxis if they just turned their heads away from me and glanced out of the window. And that certainly had to be prevented, at all costs.

"If you two boys both come in my face at once, I think something might jog my memory," I said with a helpful little smile and a shrug.

Sven and Petter smirked at each other. Then Marie sighed and let go of my hair.

The Idea Shop

"Where do you get your ideas from?": this is a question that pursues me wherever I go.  Indeed, I sometimes suspect it even travels ahead and camps on the street, waiting for me to arrive. Having been asked this so many times, you'd think I'd have a really nifty answer by now, but usually I mumble something unhelpful like, "Dunno really. Stuff... pops up." I mean, it's not like there's this marvellous little idea shop down the road that I can recommend or some yoga position I always do while I'm on the loo. I don't cast spells or perform rituals or play poohsticks in the moonlight clad in nothing but luminous green roller skates (although, in the latter case, maybe I should).

Another problem about responding is the fact that I'm not entirely sure how the question is meant. It might not be a real question at all. People may not expect a real answer. For all I know, it might just be a nicer way of saying, "Lorks-a-lordy, woman, you must be some kind of freak, because your stuff is abnormal." On the other hand, it may mean "C'mon, spit out some secret tips. I know there must be a simple trick with a phonebook and a hatpin or something, cause you're not that clever" or "You, my darling, are an enigma, an E N I G M A, and I fear I shall go stark raving bonkers if I cannot delve into your twisted brain this instant and find out how it works." So I never answer properly. I just look harried, mumble my unhelpful stock response and then emit a desperate gargling cry of "Waiter! More wine!" Today, however, I'm in a gregarious and analytical mood. So today I'm going to try and answer the question to my own satisfaction, at least.

My theory is that ideas operate just like dreams in the sense that every single one of us has them, but some of us don't register them - they just don't surface to the conscious mind. A second category of people do register them but don't remember them for long enough to do something about them. They emerge for a few moments but then tumble back into the depths of the mind where they are locked away forever. Then there is a third category of people who register and remember them, but view them with suspicion, thinking them silly or inappropriate or even a bit unnerving. Let's face it, the subconscious can be pretty flaky at times. It can be better to banish the bizarre random visions it occasionally hurls at us - particularly any that feature vampire penguins or motorcycle slutpigs -  to shudder, shake one's head, focus firmly on the real world and say "More tea, auntie?" instead.

I reckon that I fit into none of the three categories above, and this is why:
From my early childhood, I have always been known as a terrible daydreamer. I could - and can - quite happily sit in a daydream for hours. I do it by accident and I also do it on purpose. I'm one of life's born mental skivers and I do it as often as I can get away with. Waiting is never boring for me. Nor is silence or solitude. (Perhaps this is a dreadful confession to make, but only other people can bore me - people who insist on discussing intricate humdrum affairs and lengthy expert views without considering that they may be disrupting the very pleasant and absorbing daydream about pirates or pixies - or indeed motorcycle slutpigs - which their unwilling listener would otherwise be enjoying.)

Another significant aspect is that I value my daydream worlds just as highly as the outer world. Daydreams are wonderful. They are free and seem so erractic yet there is also some kind of unfathomable system to them, like ocean currents or weather patterns. They merge into one another. Themes recur, stories meander, circle back to their origins, swerve off in new directions. Time passes differently in daydreams. There's a whole multiverse in there and we can access it at any time. Quite honestly, what the fuck could be more amazing and more irresistibly compelling than that? The latest stock exchange news? Oho. I humbly beg to differ.

Now, it is a confirmed fact that it is very much easier for people to remember things that they are genuinely interested in, and my daydreams interest me very much. (Some would say I was obsessed with them.) And this means that I remember them. And because it is while daydreaming that I get my ideas, I remember a reasonable proportion of my ideas, too.

I get the impression that many people are less concerned with their daydreams and other forms of inner loopiness and more interested in what is know as "life" or "the real world" or "the big picture". This sort of thing is seen - and no doubt very rightly - as the desirable and proper attitude to have. "Not having a life" or "not living in the real world" is seen as a major fault. We are continually encouraged to "keep it real", but rarely to "make it fantastical".  All very sound thinking, no doubt, but I'm sure that's why some people don't remember many of their more brilliant creative brainwaves. They are too outwardly focussed and too quick to disown all the oddities that come from within. Now me, I'm not like that. If anything, I'm the other way around. I pounce on my oddities; I exalt and glorify them; it's the real world I'm guilty of pooh-poohing. I can't remember the name of the German foreign minister. The only European government I could comment on with any certainty is the Belgium one (which happens to be non-existent - making it wonderfully easy to remember, and I thoroughly approve of it for this reason). Outwardly, I seem to operate in the real world as well as the next person, but ask me a few simple questions and you'll see that it is but a flimsy facade. And underneath that facade I'm an unashamedly subjective fantasist. I have one eye looking outwards - mainly in order to avoid walking into lampposts or treading in dog poo - and the other looking in.

Now you could say that it was a vain and self-absorbed little world I lived in and that mine was an appallingly selfish and downright reprehensible attitude to nurture, but I'd argue that a) the inner world of a human being can be as expansive, rich and enlightening in its own way as anything you can read about in the newspaper and b) the real world is a vain, self-absorbed sort of a place, too, AND let's not forget that it is the real world which holds such mundane horrors as chirpy telephone salespeople and greengrocers' apostrophes and e-mail wit-forwarding brothers-in-law, workmates who harp on and on about their diets and all those neckless oafs who think it's dead clever to say "cheer up, it might never happen". Bearing all this in mind, I think I can be excused for not wanting to waste my entire life in such a place thank you very much.

Finally, there is one last point that remains: the idea-killer for category three folks - the matter of non-acceptance. Many people remember their ideas but dismiss them, don't think them good enough. All I can say is, whenever I told anyone in advance of an idea I intended to use, they always looked like they secretly thought it was a steaming pile of crap, like it could never work, like I'd clearly lost my touch and my marbles. In other words, every single one of my ideas sounds like total crap at first. The difference is, I just don't believe we should be letting a little thing like conspicuous crapness put us off. After all, let's face it, there aren't all that many instantly brilliant ideas left to be discovered in the world, but there are still loads and loads of slightly iffy ones up for grabs, and if you just make a start on implementing them - because even a dodgy idea is a billion times better than no idea at all - then by the time you've improvised work-arounds for all the daftest, most impractical aspects, changed the original notion beyond recognition, chucked out most of the key elements and ended up somewhere entirely different, you may well be looking at something you find unexpectedly really rather good, actually.

The Spirit of the Night

(To Chris - A bedtime story for the sleepless.)

It was some kind of very tall, very dense fir tree, but I don't know what species and it stood way down at the bottom end of the lawn, just before the ha-ha. Beyond the ha-ha lay the field known as "The Park" due to its grand history as a hunting ground in the days when the castle was a real castle. But nowadays, The Park was just a sodden field like any other. The first time I saw him standing under the fir tree was in early January. It was a still, frosty night and deep, hard snow was on the ground; the jagged, crystallised kind of snow that has thawed and refrozen and you can walk right over the top of it like Jesus. The sky, by comparison, looked as smooth and as yielding as a deep pool of treacle into which the teaspoon moon had dipped a tiny tip. For the moon was at that controversial stage of near-fullness. It was full enough for someone wishful like me to call it full if I wanted it full; and occasionally I did, but mostly I remember that on such nights, I yearned for it not to be full - not quite full, not quite yet. I feel sure that this must have been just such an occasion.

I was kneeling up on the white wooden window sill in my nightdress and woolly socks, the curtains closed behind me. I was wishing on stars, and that's how I saw him there, that first time. And now I don't remember what I'd been wishing for. One of the usuals, no doubt: that one day, I'd suddenly discover I was beautiful and mysteriously gifted after all, that one day someone dark and deeply exciting would fall in love with me, or that this very night, time would stand still and that all who were asleep when it happened would stay asleep forever, and the world would belong to us: the ghosts, the insomniacs and the stargazers.

I made that last wish so many times. And sometimes, for whole minutes, I used to believe that it might have come true. How would I know, after all, until the morning? I often imagined us - the ones left awake - and how we'd cross great expanses on foot to find one another, meeting on silent hillsides and beneath breezy lamposts; how we'd discuss ways to break the spell, feeling secretly shifty and conspiratorial, each knowing in our hearts that none of us really wanted it to break and that this was why the spell still held strong.

Back then, at just - what, thirteen or fourteen? - I must already have had a sense that I was only capable of loving the world - of worshipping it with my hopelessly pagan soul - when every sensible person had deserted it: in snowstorms, gales, freezing fog and torrential rain, and most especially at night.

Back then, it seems to me that I was never in the moment. It was as if my essence had been split - deliberately and artificially like an atom - and I was perpetually suspended in two places at once: in the outermost reaches of two warring realms: dream and reality, childhood and adulthood, past and future, longing and dread. Never at the centre of anything. Everywhere but here and now. In a state of vibrant paralysis. I was not entirely sure that I wanted to be whole again; to be turned from a restive stargazer into another one of those very capable night-sleepers. No. Not I. When time stopped - if it did - I had every intention being left awake. And that's when I'd be whole. That's when I'd learn to live in the moment.

Back then, I remember there being times when anything seemed possible and even likely, except what was actually happening.

And yet, kneeling up on the window sill of my castle bedroom that frosty night, when I saw the slight winged figure standing beneath the fir tree, my first thought was actually very sensible. I looked at it and I told myself that it must be a shadow of some ordinary object that was creating an optical illusion. I was prone to such temporary delusions, frequently mistaking a dressing gown for a hooded hobgoblin or a drifting sparkle of thistledown for a fairy until I'd reasoned with myself and looked closer. So at first, I peered down at the dark contours, struggling to achieve that mental shift of focus that would ultimately reveal its true nature as a garden hoe or an upturned wheel barrow. But the shift never came, because in a blink of an eye, he was gone. Tender as a snowflake, faithless as starlight. Moth Boy.

When I woke the next morning, I thought of this sighting as a dream. But I remember that as the day drew on, I became increasingly convinced that I had seen something and that I had been awake at the time. I had a full day of lessons ahead of me, and I know I spent them feeling restless and excited, longing impatiently to get back home again so that I could go down to the fir tree and look for footprints in the snow. I formed a very logical theory: that the figure had belonged to a shepherd lad and that the "wings" were simply the outline of something he must have been carrying on his back. But still, despite devoting all my powers of deduction to what I called "The Question of Motive", I could think of no reason why this shepherd lad should have been standing there in the middle of the night, trespassing in our garden, staring up at the house. Unless it was just that the pale, still walls of the castle made a beautiful sight against the treacle softness of the sky. A farm lad with the soul of a poet? I knew my male contemporaries in the village well enough and at times this alternative figure seemed an infinitely more fanciful creation than Moth Boy.

When I returned from school the next afternoon, I was surprised to find myself not investigating the scene of the sighting at all, but delaying the moment instead. I ate my tea quite methodically and calmly, watched two or three television programmes I always watched but never particularly liked, then I settled down at the kitchen table to do my homework as usual, munching on a piece of shortbread, getting up at intervals to pet the dogs. The winter days were short, and darkness would tumble suddenly over the land at around half past four. But for reasons I didn't understand myself, I had decided to let that narrow window of daylight slip by. Perhaps it was because I thought of this boy as a creature of the night. Somehow, it felt like a dishonourable act for me to hunt him down by daylight. If I did that, then perhaps he would know and never show himself to me again. Or perhaps I was reluctant for the mystery to be solved - to find clear prints of size 7 Wellington boots and a discarded sweet wrapper.

At 7.30, I went out into the garden with my torch and a magnifying glass. I stalked around the old fir tree, scrutinising the ground for clues, trying to see how he had come there. Had he walked over The Park and jumped over the ha-ha or had he somehow squeezed through the high wooden fence from the Kanes' grounds? But the snow must have been too hard. Its unbroken surface glittered back, crisp and bejewelled in the mottled beam of torchlight. I could find no trace of him. Either he had flown on moth wings, or he had walked over the surface like Jesus - except perhaps in wellies. (Which Jesus himself certainly would have worn, if he'd been born in the North of England.) Intrigued and far from disappointed, I went back into the house.

From then on, I began to think of him each night before I fell asleep. I'd lie in my bed and imagine him standing there under the fir tree, just as I'd seen him. Visualising him there became a night-time ritual. I would close my eyes and say silent prayers to him, sending him all kinds of crazy telepathic messages and willing him to feel my thoughts and feel our connection. He became the focus for all my restless curiosity and longing, and as the weeks passed, he took on a definite shape. I no longer saw just his outline. In my mind, I saw him fully and clearly, though always - without exception - in darkness. Moth Boy's face was a little sharp and elfin, sometimes mischievous, sometimes deeply melancholic; his brows were dark but his eyes were a curious blue and dusted in shadows in the manner of - say - a guitar player in a New Romantic band. Except that Moth Boy echewed make-up. His eyeshadow was completely natural. His hair was also quite naturally gelled into a tangle with feathers and twigs.

So fixated was I on this figure that often, from the depths of a dream, I would feel as though I could sense him - physically sense him - near by. I would hear a sort of soft electric hum like vibrating wings and my heart would pound. Before even waking, I would have got out of bed, my toes lumpish with sleep, and shuffled my way across the cold bedroom floor to the window. Only when my warm face touched the glass would I truly wake up - to a dark and empty garden. Had he only just left? Flown into the darkness on his powdery wings? Had I dreamt it all? Was I being insane? Or was he out there and watching me secretly from behind a tree?

Before the winter was out, I saw him once again. I wasn't even looking out for him. I was just sitting on my window sill, resting my head against the cool glass. I'd been woken by the mysterious cramps they called "growing pains" and found myself feeling suddenly utterly petrified about all the life that lay ahead of me and all the countless capabilities I was expected to casually develop. I just didn't think I could ever do it. How could I grow up? I didn't have the skills. I didn't have the eagerness to learn them, either, like so many of my peers - drinking snake bites until they puked, learning sex tips from their mum's Jilly Cooper books and sucking on cigarettes. Though I was desperately tired, I'd found myself too oppressed and apprehensive to re-settle my mind in a hollow of drowsiness. So I'd got up and pressed my woebegone face against the dark window pane.

Outside, it was another bright silvery night and down by the fir tree, I now saw a movement. I turned my head sharply and stared out over the lawn. It was...! It was him. Gasping, I knelt up, cupped my hands around my eyes and peered out into the darkness. I could see him. He was standing outlined against the twinkling expanse of The Park. His poor wings looked terribly crumpled (were they really wings?) and he was making a very determined repetitive movement, over and over, in a kind of grim rhythmic stubbornness, like someone trying to force a thing that will not budge. Blood rushed to my ears as my heart raced. Who or what was he, and what was he doing out there? What was he up to? He was clearly very busy with something. He seemed completely absorbed within his movement. I watched. It seemed less stubborn now. More graceful... artistic. Was it a dance? No. A struggle? Was he fighting with something? With what? With invisible forces? Or was he trying to pull a sword from a sheath? I strained my eyes and blinked. Was it part of a magic ritual? If he unsheathed the sword, could he - and would he - then freeze time and give the earth to the stargazers? Was he here to grant all my wishes? Or was he perhaps sewing? Like Peter Pan, trying to reattach his own shadow? Or casting seeds for toadstool rings?

It was strange. It went on for several long minutes and each second my perception of it changed. Sometimes he seemed too otherworldly to be human, but sometimes he seemed too human to be anything else. The longer I looked, the less I could make him out. I tried to understand the movement. Was the main force away from his body and out into the air? Or the other way around? And I? Was I dreaming? I pinched myself, like the heroines in my books. Did that ever work? What if you only dreamed you were pinching yourself? As a test, I tried to speak. In dreams, I knew, speech never comes out the way you intend it.

"I see you, night spirit," I said, "I can see you there. Take me. Stop time and take me with you. I am ready to go."

As I spoke, my breath frosted the glass and I lost sight of him behind the mist. Quickly, scared to break eye contact and lose him again to the night, I wiped the window clear with my hand. As I peered out again, I thought I saw him fall. His legs seemed to buckle beneath him. He stumbled to his knees and his head was first thrown back for several seconds and then bent right forwards as he put out one hand to support himself against the tree. Was he fainting? Or in pain? Should I go to him? I thought of it. Should I? Did I dare? I hovered in indecision. I both longed and feared to go to him; because he might be real and human; because he might be a spirit; because I didn't know what I wanted and I didn't know what to say to boys. Whatever great thing you said, they always acted like they thought you were being uncool and stupid, just because you were a girl. Would Moth Boy be like that? Would I secretly like him anyway?

After that I lost him for a while. His shadow merged with the tree until I thought he must have gone. But I knelt and stared out into the darkness for the longest time, though it was cold and my knees were growing numb. I knew now that I would not have dared to go to him.

Finally, I saw him outlined again. He was either looking back up at the house or out and away over The Park. It was impossible to tell.

All at once, I decided to signal him. Perhaps he would come up to me - fly to my window. Though I knew I was too frightened to go out into the garden and take fate into my own hands, I was - contrarily - still longing for him to come to me and take me with him. I didn't want to make the decision to go. I wanted him to make this choice for me. At this mad moment, I thought perhaps he really could freeze time. Perhaps he would love me and steal me away from the daunting life of daytimes that lay before me - all the frightening exams and career decisions, all the driving lessons and the food shopping, the housework, the parking spaces and the pin numbers. Impulsively, I ran to a drawer to fetch my torch. But I was too slow. When I returned and looked out again, my blind finger grappling for the switch, I saw that he had disappeared.

As it turned out, this was to have been my only chance. Soon after that, there was a bad storm and the big old fir tree was struck by lightening. I still remember the terrible crashing, tearing sound it made when it died and half the trunk fell away from the crown.

Within the week, the old tree was cut down and sawn up into a gigantic heap of firewood that was carried to an outhouse in the castle courtyard. I watched the work from my window and cried. I wanted them to leave the tree - splintered and charred as it was. It was his tree - Moth Boy's. But it was useless telling anyone this. I knew it was insane.

At this time, I suspected that inside, many people were secretly insane, but the only ones they locked up were the ones without the wits to hide it. I intended to hide my own insanity for as long as necessary. But I couldn't stop those tears. My mother thought me ridiculous for crying about a plant. But I think my father was impressed - that I had the sensibility to spill so many tears over some old tree. He found it surprising, but to him it somehow underlined my specialness. Naturally, I didn't tell him I was crying for a mysterious moth-winged spirit who I believed was bound to the tree by some ancient magical force, and who only ever appeared to me. That would have been like underlining my specialness three times in scented purple ink and then launching into a round of chicken impressions. It would have been pushing it.

In the days that followed, as the wood was carried away to the outhouse, my father often hugged me and told me he "understood". He kept saying, "Over two hundred and fifty years. Gone forever. Gone in less than a second." He kept imparting informative nuggets on the last two hundred and fifty years of English history - things like the invention of the spinning jenny - and linking them with the estimated age and height of the dead tree at the time. I nestled into him, feeling irritated yet grateful that the fir tree had at least meant something to somebody else. I was thankful too that my father could always be relied on to completely miss the point.

I never saw Moth Boy after that. I often looked out for him, but he never materialised in a visible physical form again and I never felt the electric hum of his presence in my sleep. I had long relinquished the shepherd boy theory by now and I firmly believed that his spirit had somehow been bound up in that fir tree. I began to think that it must have been so, because why else had he stopped appearing at the exact same time it had been struck dead?

I wondered where he was. Was he still in the tree? In the wood? Did he hover above the woodpile at nights and weep? Poor Moth Boy. If only he'd stopped time before the lightening had struck. And this need never have happened.

In the afternoons, when I got back from school, I began to sneak into the outhouse to visit him. I'd sit down on the pile of logs and chippings and speak to him, the way you would speak to a gravestone or a friend in a coma - just in case he was in there somewhere and just in case he could hear me. Though really, of course, I was doing it more for my own comfort than for him. His appearances had been so unique and so special to me. I just didn't want to let him go. I didn't want to face life without the idea that he was somehow still around and part of it - face a world without the possibility of something as wonderful and enchanting as him; I felt that he was the only living creature who had ever truly understood me - and still liked me. Sitting on the woodpile wasn't as comfortable as watching him out of the window, but romance was never harmed by a little hardship and I bore the change as bravely as I could. There was even a kind of Dickensian charm to the poverty of it all. My mute and needy friend, the woodpile. Oh that it should come to this.

It was over a year before all the firewood was used up. Each time I came in for my chat, I noticed how fast Moth Boy's logs were dwindling. He was losing substance. It was sad. Heartbreaking. Why was he letting this happen?

"Stop time, Moth Boy," I sometimes begged the woodpile, "Do it now, before you're burnt all away to cinders. You can stop this. You CAN."

But he didn't. And a day came when I knew it would be the last time I could visit him like this. I hadn't wanted to believe it would arrive. I had hoped that if it did, then I would somehow miraculously find myself quite ready. But I didn't. I didn't want to let him go. So I stole a single log - the log with the most character in it - and hid it under my bed.

But it was no good. I don't know if you've ever found yourself crouching beneath your bed, trying to converse intelligently with an unresponsive log, but as experiences go, it has to be one of life's most disenchanting ones, and from then on, my relationship with Moth Boy was all downhill. Talking to him felt useless; pathetic. When I looked at the log - so grimy and unshapely and so fusty - it struck me that there really was no romance left in our liaison. And I began to feel disgruntled. He wasn't even making an effort for me. And then I began to wonder: had I ever really seen him clearly? Had I seen him for what he really was? Wasn't it more that I had built up a grand image of him in my own mind and become ludicrously attached to that? Perhaps I had made too much of him, right from the start. Perhaps the exciting winged creature with the gothic eye markings had never existed. Perhaps the boy by the fir tree had never been any more exciting than this mouldy lump of wood and I'd been too blind to notice. Duped by my own wishful thinking.

Eventually, I stuck the log in the back of my wardrobe and tried to forget about Moth Boy. I would have thrown it out, but something in me still clung to that last remnant of him. The log was the only magically-associated relic I'd ever owned. It didn't do anything magical, of course, and seemed most unlikely to ever do so, but some aura of enchantment still seemed to pervade it and it was to that aura that I still held fast. Not so much to Moth Boy as to the possiblity of there having once been a Moth Boy.

It was around this time that we moved house - further up the valley to a cottage in a wild and lonely landscape. Prior to the move, I thought of burying the log at the old spot by the ha-ha. Or of burning it and turning the last remaining earth-bound chunk of Moth Boy into smoke. I had various vague plans for incantations I might chant. I was very sad to leave the castle and a farewell ceremony over Moth Boy's remains would have seemed very fitting. But I was over fifteen now and I had become very lethargic, so in the end, I just placed him on the floor of the boiler room on the last day and left him for the new owner to burn. I felt so weary. After over two years of devotion, it seemed my love had, after all, worn itself out and now it was time to leave.

Later that night, I sat in my new bedroom in the cottage, looking out at the hills and the moon - almost full, at that same controversial stage. It was spring and these were different hills. I had not wanted to come here, but I was forced to admit, they were more rugged and mystic, and much, much more beautiful even than The Park. It felt disloyal, but even now I loved them. I imagined flying into the darkness on two powdery wings of my own. And then I thought, I can do that. Why not? I crept out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs, trying to avoid the squeaky floorboards. Then I slipped through the door, out into the garden and off into the night.

This was the first of many illicit midnight rambles. From then on, when I couldn't sleep, I took to wandering for hours across the hills and fields and through the back gardens of the sleeping cottages I found - dressed only in my nightdress. The ones I called the Night-Sleepers were all safely tucked up in their beds and as the black hill-roving breeze scampered over the treetops and raced around me through grasses and weeds, it seemed to me as though time had stood still for a moment after all and that the wind and I were the only ones left awake. Trespassing. Fervently pagan. Aimless and forgotten. In love with the world as never before.

I wonder now, did any one ever look out of their window and see me, a slight, windswept figure in a long white gown? Perchance a ghost, an insomniac or a stargazer, like me? I cannot tell, for noone ever told me. But while the Night-Sleepers slumbered, I lingered beneath their trees, I stared at their houses and I lay on their lawns. Sometimes I stripped right off and span in circles beneath the stars, did cartwheels, handstands and somersaults in the grass. In these hours, the elements of the atom seemed to rush together. Time had stopped and I was free to do all kinds of things one could ordinarily only do alone and behind locked doors. And I never left a footprint. Tender as a dewdrop, faithless as moonbeams. Moth Girl.

Bad Rainbow

Black-winged passions are circling like vultures above my whimpering sanity.

Noooo! quails my fearful heart, Noooo, please! Not this again! And not him! Not this man! I DON'T WANT to want him. I wanted all THIS sort of business to END. I wanted to move on, to mend my ways, to learn from past mistakes, to turn over new leaves, dance to new tunes and all that other crap. Oh why did I have to go and talk to him again when I knew I should be keeping my distance? And whatever gave me the ludicrous idea that I would be able to stop myself from flirting with him? Oh why didn't I just do something useful last night instead: whittle spoon rests for OAPs; knit egg cosies for soldiers?

Oh God, fuck the egg cosies: I want him, I want him, I WANT him.

Hm. Ok. Let's just give this a few more days. Let's focus on the fact that it would be very stupid of me to give in to this attraction. Let's focus on what a wholesome, admirable, sensible paragon of a person I had decided to try to pretend to be. Let's focus on the fact that Santa might be watching. Santa would not like me to commit such folly... Hm. Actually... now that I'm having this serious little talk with myself, it suddenly strikes me that it was a little unwise of me to have sent him that e-mail just now. The one that said, "In quandry. Have purchased new socks. Can I get away with horizontal stripes? Please advise."

Hm. And it occurs to me just now... yes, yes, of course - oh God, how blindingly obvious it all becomes... that I really ought to have just described the socks to him. I really ought not to have so thoughtlessly attached this visual aid.



I mean, it's a nice picture of the socks in question, of course, but you can see how it might be misconstrued, though, can't you?

Oh bad, bad, innocent, foolish Zora!

The Thing that Binds Us

"It's all about loss," she said, "That's the thing we all share. A fear of loss."

"But doesn't everyone fear loss?" I asked.

"I don't think so. Not in the way we do. They aren't continually conscious of it. They don't really think about it unless they have to."

"But maybe that means that they fear it even more than we do," I pondered, "They don't think about it because they can't face it. It would take away all their courage. Meanwhile, we Polaroiders face up to the fact that loss is happening all around us every second of our lives. And we try to do something about it - what little we can do."

"Are we really combatting loss by taking Polaroids?"

"Well," I said, "We capture moments just as they are slipping away from us. We make the ephemeral tangible and durable by creating an image that is also an object - a souvenir of the time and place that is now and here. We go through our lives creating solid physical records of our memories. So yes, I'd say we were combatting loss. Trying to, anyway."

"But Polaroids fade. We're not halting the process of loss - and we know it. We're just slowing it down a bit instead of simply letting it happen and moving on like other people do. That's why I still say that we fear it more than they do."

"OK, but how about this theory: by slowing down the process of loss, we're not trying to escape it, we're actually heightening our awareness of it, enabling ourselves to watch it happening in slow-motion as our pictures fade before our eyes. We're deliberately drawing out the agony so that we can feel it more deeply. We don't want to rip off the elastoplast. We actually prefer the unnecessary agony of coaxing it off gradually. What I'm saying is: we're not afraid of loss, we're in love with it and we want to savour the feeling and make it last for as long as we possibly can!"

"Yes," she said, "But why do we want to make it last? Isn't it because we're so afraid of loss that we even fear losing our sense of loss itself?"

"Ah, well, yeeees," I conceded, "But, then again: Why do we fear losing our sense of loss itself? Surely only because we are in love with it."

We beamed at each other. At last it seemed we were reaching some kind of common ground - two theories that circled each other and gave birth to each other like the chicken and the egg.

"So, let's sum up now," she said, "We're all in love with the thing we fear most - loss? And this is what binds us Polaroiders - this is what we all share."

"I'd agree with that."

"Me too. But then... surely that makes us idiots."

"Mm. I'm afraid that's the other thing we share. We're all total idiots."

Blackmailed

I opened the envelope hesitantly and drew out the photographs, my heart beating in apprehension. I examined them for a few seconds, one by one.

"Is this it?" I asked, my voice rising in indignation.

"Yes," he said, "I photographed the whole thing. You had no idea I'd tailed you."

"And that's the best you can do...? You seriously expect me to pay you for these?"

He pushed his spectacles further up his nose and leered.

I went on: "Look, I'm sorry, but if you're going to try to blackmail me, I'll expect you to do a lot better that this. I mean, these are RUBBISH. I'm very disappointed. Not only is the framing total crap, but you can't even see anything happening. This could be anything - gnomes dancing round a mushroom - anything."

He blinked, started to laugh knowingly, then stopped abruptly.

"Alright, here's what we'll do," I continued, "Why don't you take this shot here that I took myself from inside the room. If you look closely, you'll notice that it's not only loads more incriminating but much more thoughtfully framed, too. I'll give it to you and then you can write me another menacing letter and let's see if you can blackmail me with this one. OK? Can't say fairer than that."

All that Jizz

(A conversation with a musician immediately after a jazz concert)

Me: Remember me?

Him: Of course.

Me: Really?

Him: Yeah, you were in that thing (mimes ribbons fluttering gaily from a nipple), with that tiger coat. God, you were really flirting with me. And then, just when I thought I was definitely getting somewhere, you said goodbye and left.

Me: Ah. That wasn't personal. I do that with everyone.

Him: The flirting or the walking out?

Me: Both. I'm a tease. I promise everything and deliver nothing.

Him: Well, I guess I enjoyed it. I certainly didn't forget you. You're intelligent, attractive and obsessed with sex. My favourite combination.

Me (very brightly): Talking of sex, have you ever masturbated into your trombone?

(Long pause)

Me: This seemingly endless pregnant pause means 'yes', doesn't it?

Him: No

Me: You can't fool me.

Him: No, I was just trying to imagine it. I think the end is too wide, and the narrow part is too far into the instrument, and too narrow.

Me: Oh, no, you're thinking of fucking a trombone. I just meant ejaculating into it, or over it. Perhaps as a kind of messy christening ritual.

(Another long pause)

Me: Well?

Him: No. I'm just wondering if that would make it nice and shiny. I might try it.

Me: That can be your homework for next time. But don't blame me if it corrodes the metal, will you? So what's the most unusual object you've ever masturbated onto or into?

Him: I can't think of one.

Me: Shall I tell you what other men have told me? Perhaps something will jog your memory.

Him: Yeah, OK. That might help.

Me: A jar of Brylcreem, a pair of shoes, a watermelon, a sock, a rubber glove, the inner tube of a toilet roll, a flask of warm mince.

Him (pressing fingers to temples in manner of a medium): Oh oh, hold on. I'm getting something. A teatowel.

Me: Your own or someone else's?

Him: My mother's.

Me (clapping my hands in glee and laughing): Ah, excellent! That is most satisfactory. Did you have to wash it secretly?

Him: Yeah, I rubbed it with a wet sponge, then I just hung it back up on the rail again. I've thought of another one. It was the rubber glove that reminded me. But I'm a bit embarrassed to tell you.

Me: Oh, but I like those ones best of all.

Him: You're not going to repeat this to anyone?

Me: I may, but I promise never to reveal you as a source.

Him: OK, well, you know in hotels, there's usually twin beds.

Me: Mmm.

Him: Well, you know there's sometimes a narrow gap between them?

Me: Mmm.

Him: Well, I discovered...

Me: quite by chance...

Him: quite by chance, that if you carefully grease the inside of a small plastic bag with body lotion and insert it into that gap, you can fuck it really, really nicely. That was an amazingly good wank. I only did that once, though, out of desperation.

Me: Was it hard to find the right quantity of body lotion?

Him: Yes. It took me a few goes before I had it just right, because you can't have the bag too slippery, but you don't want too much friction either.

Me: So it wasn't just once, was it? You were lying about that.

Him: Shit. I walked right into that one, didn't I? You're too clever for me. Oh, oh, I've just thought of another one.

Me: I must say, you're quite an impressive specimen. You're about to enter the top three on my list of creative wankers.

Him: Ah, really? That's great! It was the filter of a salt-water jacuzzi in a health spa. I discovered...

Me: quite by chance...

Him: quite by chance, that if I stood just opposite the filter where the water was being extracted, there was a very arousing jet of warm water. I didn't even have to touch myself. I just stood in the jet, getting more and more aroused until I came, and then I watched all the spunk slowly rise and float away towards the filter and disappear.

Me: Didn't you worry that the whole bath was just a warm pool of endlessly recirculating old spunk?

Him: Yeah, later. The next day, I saw this disgusting fat old guy sitting in there. I wanted to have another go, so I was just waiting for him to get out and fuck off, but he was like hogging the place for ages, and then I realised he was at it too. It kind of put me off the idea. You're enjoying this, aren't you? Is this turning you on?

Me: I'm not sure. I seem to spend most of my life feeling turned on, so I can never really trace the feeling back to any specific trigger.

Him: I've never had a conversation like this. I can't imagine this ever happening with anyone else. You're not like anyone I've ever met.

Me: So you're not finding this weird, unnerving or obtrusive in any way?

Him: No, I feel liberated. And it's fun. You've got this look of very earnest journalistic integrity most of the time, but then you suddenly start laughing like some sort of goofy kid. I keep wanting to tell you more, just to see that transformation. Look, don't disappear this time. I'm staying at XXX. Is that in your direction? We could walk there.

Me: I'm here with company tonight. I'm going to do the same thing as last time, I'm afraid.

Him: That's a shame. A walk would have been nice. Romantic.

Me: You're not going to claim that this conversation is making you feel romantic, are you?

Him: Well, yes.

Me: You don't have to pretend, you know. It won't make any difference either way.

Him: I know. But I am coming over all romantic. I've enjoyed this so much and I might never see you again.

Me: Have you got twin beds in your room?

Him: Yes

Me: Have you got a plastic bag?

Him: I think so. I might.

Me: Good. That makes me feel so much better about what I'm about to do.

Him: You're leaving.

Me: I'm leaving.

Him: Oh.