Memory Laid

So, then, exams are over, then. You're probably wondering what happened to all of my potentials – or “the font gang”, as I ended up calling them. Well, Comic Sans hit the bottle pretty hard when I rejected him, and ended up getting stretchered off the cobbles after a jump from the Rad Cam roof. Times New Roman (the clock-collecting Italian) got quickly dropped when I realised he was secretly sans-serif, if you know what I'm saying! Wingdings went a bit weird when people accused him of having links to 9/11, but the less said about that the better.

I still remember my first relationship as though it was yesterday. I saw him at school, which in those days I went to almost every day except for weekends. I still remember his name, all these years later, as well as other vague details such as what city he lived in (mine), and the school that he went to. And his eyes, and his hair, both of which he had – though that was hardly unusual for a child of our age and background.

It was all innocent back then. The sun shone, the birds sang. I'd borrow his ruler, he'd peck me on the cheek, I'd give him a handjob on that bit of tarmac behind the caretaker's flat, but nothing more. We were, literally, inseparable. “Oh, [my name]”, one of my teachers told me in an exasperated tone. “You two and your handjobs! Are you never going to learn!”

On the bus, in the street, in the library: these are just three examples of places where we might've been together. Old ladies would look at us, with my hand on his cock and say “bless”. I did 'learn', eventually, and now can't do it without oven gloves for fear of viruses. But try telling that to a six year-old girl with the choice between that and Pythagoras!

I still think about him sometimes. I might see him on Facebook, or he might just pop into my head, and I might let out a long sigh, or spend an afternoon imagining what might have been, or I might write two thousand words about him to fill up a word count for a blog that's meant to be about sex. Sometimes I'll look at pictures: pictures of him with me, pictures of him in black tie, pictures of him without me, pictures of him by a light switch, pictures of him eating some bread, pictures of him holding a bottle in the dark, pictures of him smiling at nothing in particular.

Another thing that made me think of him was when I met and had sex with him two weeks ago.

I still remember it to this day. It was a break between exams, and I'd taken the day off to do my bit for charity, attending the “Lie Around For M.E.” event in Uni. Parks. When I arrived at 12, hardly anyone had bothered showing up. I collapsed on the floor with the other three, and hoped they'd avoid a charity disaster not seen since “Chess against Scabies”, or “Jailbreak for Agoraphobia” (ten of them were found huddled in a nearby phonebox a week later).

Suddenly, walking up from the horizon and towards me, I saw him. I still remember him being exactly how I at that point had still remembered him being. He said my name, laid down beside me, and his eyes searched mine. Absolutely nothing had changed. Is this the same guy whose foreskin I used to tickle while eating Coco Pops and watching Aquila?, I thought out loud.

“What?”, he said.

“Nothing”, I said.

Eight hours and six double vodkas later, it was inevitable. He kissed me, putting his tongue in my mouth in a way that most six-year olds are basically incapable of doing. We took a shower in my room, and then I steered him towards the bed. I decided to put on some music, and fumbled with my alarm clock which is also an iPod. I still remember buying it. (Argos, it was. £27.99. The sun shone, and the birds sang.)

The music flooded the room, and I smiled at how apt it was to our situation:

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you

And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do

What is love? I don't know, but maybe I was in it. It was indeed like some shamanic magic had taken over my heart. I longed for some celestial witch doctor to tell me what to do.

And he said ooh-ee, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla-bing-bang

Ooh-ee, ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla-bing bang

This bit, I will admit, made less sense. I still remember that.

A Very Social Democrat (by which I mean that he wanted to fuck me)

“A new dawn has broken!” I thought, as the sun set over Downing Street, and Dave first set foot outside number 10. I pressed my face to the metal bars of the gates as a crowd swarmed behind me, desperate for a glance of history.

The sky was cloudless, save for a couple of clouds that were there, but were nonetheless not very big. Around me, I could hear car horns hooting in support, clearly audible above the car horns hooting in derision. Even the bearded protesters in red shirts yelled “Tories, Come! Tories, Come!” - crying out for change.

“Oh, Dave!” I yelled. “Dave!” The hopes of a nation rode upon him. Would Britain finally have a fearless, powerful leader, to introduce a secondary education voucher system? To cut Child Trust Funds, to ensure our glorious nation’s survival? To replace Trident?

Could this, finally, be our English Obama?

So swept up I was, that I’d missed the seven text replies on my Samsung E-61i, from seven men telling me they had plans that night. I had a moment of panic - I'd planned on them for sex and shelter! I switched to my Plan B, and walked backwards into the nearest man. There stood a colossus with a goatee and sandals. I motioned as though to say, "how about it?"

“Forget it”, he said. “I’ve always hated your type”.

“Please!”, I begged. “I left Oxford just to see this! Without you, I'll be homeless!"

He looked deep into my soul. His FAIR VOTES NOW t-shirt quivered in the breeze. We both had something to offer each other.

Surely he couldn't walk away?

“Okay”, he said. “I’ll do you a deal. I’ll let you through the door. And even if anyone else comes in, I won’t kick you out. That’ll be all, though.”

We both looked each other up and down.

“That’s so uninspiring”, I said.

“I agree”, he said. “What we need is something that provides stability, and underpinned by some form of common purpose."

I laid out my demands. “Alright. I’ll come with you, and we’ll watch Love Actually over a glass of Merlot.”

"No", he said. "We'll come home, and you'll have sex with me twice."

"Forget it", I said. "I have my principles. I don't have sex twice on the first date."

"Okay. Let's have sex four times."

I saw an opening. "We'll do it twice", I said. "That's my final offer."

He darted back into the crowd for about two minutes, then returned.

"Where'd you go?"

"Oh, it's alright, she didn't seem interested. Though I think we were closer in terms of personality, I just don't think there was much chance of a lasting partnership."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and her boyfriend was against it."

We had reached a crucial stage in the negotiations.

"Alright", he said. "But I don't want this just falling apart after a night. I want something that lasts, for the good of us both. Let's say five years?"

"Five years? What if we end up falling out?"

"We'll be able to break up, if 55% of us agree."

We knew immediately it was love, subject to an agreement that he'd silence himself when the conversation turned to nuclear power.

"Let's go, baby", I told him. "I want your Member in my Cabinet."

"Sure thing", he said. "I want to get to tackling your deficit." That didn't quite work either.

He took my hand, and we fled. He cycled, and I took a taxi close behind. When we reached his house, he opened his big, black door, and with his long, toned arms picked me up, and carried me over the threshold. He rushed up to his room, set me down, undid his zipper -

"Oh, that's hardly proportional", I said.

“I know”, he replied, glumly. “It's so unfair.”

License to Shag: Shag to Kill, book 1: Return to Murder Cove

I mentioned my first novel in my interview. Well, here's the first draft. Don't be too harsh!

The book's undergone a name change. it will now be the first of seven in the Licensed to Shag: Shag to Kill series. The first one is called "Return to Murder Cove", as I feel that there's a few words that will always make your title a better one. One is "Return", another is "Revenge", the third is "Killer".

In case you're thinking, "how can it be 'return', it's the first book, they've not even been to Murder Cove yet", that's something that happens in the book at some point. Here is the first chapter. I have put notes to explain why I've written some stuff.

Click the images to make them larger.

Shagazine

Sorry for the absence, but I’ve a great excuse. Shortly after my email, I had a phonecall. British Grazia had already gone to print, they said, but Polish Grazia would be thrilled to have an interview. So I flew to Warsaw on April 11 with just a credit card and a box of rubbers. I was to be famous!

I wouldn’t recommend Poland – everyone there looked really miserable for some reason, probably something to do with all flowers piled up in the streets. I didn’t think it was anything to be upset about – they clear up easily enough! I even put some in a bin myself, but that just seemed to make them sadder.

“Well how do you propose to get it done?”, I asked them. “No-one ever solved endemic litter problems just sitting round and reading about plane crashes”. Anyway I was quickly deported, but it turned out they wanted to do the interview by phone the whole time anyhow.

So - if you’re in Poland, my short interview is on p.43 of this month’s issue, right after the 8-page feature on Bishops’ Wives.

---

GRAZIA: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

SAO: Thanks. It’s great to be here.

GRAZIA: This is a telephone interview.

SAO: Yeah, but I sat down especially.

GRAZIA: What first inspired you to take up blogging?

SAO: Well, I’ve always been a fan of blogs – blogs with cats looking funny, blogs with cats wearing things, and blogs dedicated to divisive crypto-fascist polemic (also cats). So when I saw that there was a word that combined “blogs” and “sex” – the word “sexblog” – I realised that the world needed my contribution like a hole in a donut head.

GRAZIA: So you’ve been a blog fan for a long time?

SAO: Yes – I’d say they were the major inspiration in my decision to learn English. On discovering them I bought 100 issues of "Readers’ Digest", from which I learned from scratch.

At the end of the day, I thought, build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. If you build it, they will come, and time is money, and money talks. So I guess what I’m saying is, don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. A stitch in time saves striking while the iron’s hot.

GRAZIA: That sure is a lot of clichés. But why make it about sex?

SAO: Well firstly, ever since I was about 13 I’ve always felt this strong urge to procreate. But I never used to understand the power girls like me have until recently.

Let me tell you a story. I once knew a guy who could barely look at me, and found five-minute conversations with me a chore. One night we had sex five times. Sure, we broke up the next day, our one-month anniversary, but the sex certainly improved things. So I suppose you can say it’s about sex, because I found out that sex makes me popular. “If you want to get ahead, you have to give-a head”, as my Italian grandfather used to say!

GRAZIA: There’s around 40,000 sex blogs already, and 3000 involve students. What makes yours better?

SAO: I go to Oxford. Sex here is very different to sex anywhere else; I've lost count of the number of times I've been on top, and accidentally blurted out a view as to the potential horizontal effect of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights since the Lisbon Treaty. Of course, this probably happens to girls at all universities, but their arguments are rarely as well-referenced.

GRAZIA: You seem to have a few followers now. Would you recommend sex-blogging to others in your position?

SAO: From a free-market economic perspective, certainly. I mean, if you accept the assumption that all rational beings will want to maximise their economic potential, then to have sex gratuitously, without at least opening up the opportunity of a lucrative media deal is patently inefficient – wasteful, if you will.

We wouldn’t accept it in business. We wouldn’t accept it in government. Why should I accept it in my vagina?

GRAZIA: What are your future plans? Are you currently working on other projects?

SAO: I'm working on my first novel, about an everyday Oxford-educated sex blogger who gets recruited by the CIA for some sexy reason. It'll be called either "Licensed to Shag" or "Shag to Kill", I haven't decided yet. Maybe "Licensed to Shag: Shag to Kill".

It's still very much in the planning stages, but it'll definitely be a Choose Your Own Adventure, because no-one's written a good one of them in ages. I'm a firm believer that there's no book that can't be improved with a Choose Your Own Adventure format. Even with my favourite books - The Complete Works of Shakespeare, A Child Called It - I just feel, I need more choice!

GRAZIA: Do you have anything else to add?

SAO: Erm... if you're ever in the area, do go see Amsterdam, as the doubledicking there is something really quite sumptuous. Oh, and to my parents: I owe you everything.

----

Well, that's it! I think I came out quite well, though they did edit out the bit in the middle where I listed every man I'd ever slept with with names, addresses, dates of birth, penis size and a rating on a twenty-point scale. I'll post that up here later.

Correspondence #1

TO: graziadaily@graziamagazine.co.uk

SUBJECT: My Oxford Sex Blog

Dear The Editor of Grazia,

I'm a (female!) Oxford student, and I've started a blog about my sex life at Oxford - http://oxfordsex.blogspot.com/. I started this on the same day as someone else started their blog about Sex at Oxbridge. Now, I'm not bitter - far from it! Ha! Ha! - but I can't help but think that she has stolen what is rightfully my success.

I've heard on the grapevine that you're thinking of printing a story based on her, even though I've slept with more people. What kind of just universe is this?

Anyway, all I ask - ALL I ask - is that you take out her story from your magazine and replace it with mine. In return:

- I will ask for just half the money that she's getting. Since the death of print media you need to cling to every penny, no?

- I will promise to have sex with as many people as I can find between now and my article. These will be as famous as possible; if you would like to suggest some people for me to try to sleep with, I'll happily oblige! People have already suggested Graham Norton, and (Oxford Professor of Constitutional Law) Vernon Bogdanor, though that might be unrealistic, as Bogdanor's really old.

- I will make sure that every one of my words is absolutely brilliant. When I feel a word is at all out of place or mundane, I will get a thesaurus and find a better one. This might sound arduous, but it is the modus operandi I use for all my manuscriptions (!).

As the old saying goes, "I'm making you an offer you can't refuse"!

Now, I know what you're thinking, surely I could just take this anywhere? Well, perhaps - I already have offers for exclusives from Seatback Magazine (the official in-flight magazine of Virgin Atlantic), and reputable London freesheet The Daily Note! But they don't inspire me quite like yours, with its perfect mix of words, and pictures relating to those words.

So - you put my words in your magazine, sell it for a profit, and give me a small percentage of those profits. Everybody wins, right?

Yours hopefully,

The (Anonymous!) Oxford Sex Blogger

Jeremy Rogers

7:13 I decide that for this post, I will write down everything that happens to me, and put the time next to every one of my comments. This will help my audience to identify with the author, living as they all do in a universe containing time.

It will serve no other purpose whatsoever.

7:16 I leave the pub for my date. I had been drinking with T, my old friend. He had introduced me to S, his brother. His brother brought along TR and DS.

Later on I saw E=MC^2 and Vague Description Boy. Vague Description Boy I had met once before, with Stereotype Man. I first met Stereotype Man when I was dating A^n+B^n=C^n (where n>2).

A^n+B^n=C^n (where n>2) was a great fuck, but I could never quite figure him out.

7:39 I meet with Jeremy, my date. You might remember Jeremy from my night with Gavin, who I haven't heard from since. Jeremy had spent the whole night wearing dark glasses, which I presumed was because he was blind, and with a wire running into his ear, which I presumed was because he was hard of hearing.

It was hard to see why Gavin had had him for a bodyguard.

"I've got something to tell you", he told me.

"What is it?"

"Gavin, who you met the other night? His name wasn't really Gavin. He was Bilawal Bhutto."

A wave of shock hit me, then a wave of horror, then a wave of revulsion, with flotsam of anger. "Surely you can't mean Bilawal Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, and the eldest child of the late Pakistani politician and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan?"

7:40 "Yes", he replied.

Everything fell into place. It all seemed so obvious, now. That nervous quiver in his left eye. The repeated assassination attempts as we walked. That time he said "if I don't love you with all of my soul, my name isn't Bilawal Zardari Bhutto, wait, I mean Gavin Smith".

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"When Bilawal first took on a fake identity, I thought he'd use it for good. Maybe open a Blockbuster account, join The Times' Wine Club. That sort of thing. And when I saw he was using it to get women, I thought, why not? He's his own man. But not with you. Not you."

"Why's that?"

"Because, [my name]

7:42 , I'm falling in love with you".

"You're... what?"

"I knew he was going too far, [my name]. I spent years as a bodyguard - just moving from one body to the next, never caring when I ended up. But then there was you. I took one look at you - your crackling laugh, your glacial eyes, and I knew you had to be mine."

"Could you repeat that?", I said. "I'm trying to get this down."

"I took one look at your crackling laugh-"

"Slow down", I said. "I don't know shorthand."

"Glacial eyes-"

"Eyes, right."

"Knew you were the one."

"Knew, me, one. Cheers."

7:43 He fixed me with a longing gaze. "And what about you?"

I browsed my notes.

"Oh... yeah. That. You too."

7:59 I have a bit to drink by now. £Y'see Jemmy, "I said, "I never liked him anyway. kept talking about being vice-pseident of stuff. I mean yask me, thassjust pretentious. I min the social secretary, the boat club, the social secretary, do I go on about that?"

"No", he said.

"yask me I said", yask me, no."

[At this point my notes from the evening become less legible]

7:74 i mean snolike secret identity all bad I say i mean I runna sex blog on the on the online an it has like nine follows "i saw that" he said "was that the one in the express" i said "no that was the other one, mail wanted interview but then ryan kisiel the journalist stopped replying my emails the fucking cunt

8:ssss i think i should wal you home
fuck you im fine you chauvinist
no i think we shotld
no i done want
o is that my vom, i thought it was his
apogies your holiness


[Here the notes end, except for illegible scribbles and the word "dick" written 81 times. The following is as much as I remember from the rest of the night.]

"I'm sorry that woman was such a bastard", said Jeremy. "Everything you did in there was hilarious, and people just need more of a sense of humour over vomit. In addition, I agree that you are certainly more talented than that other, Sex at Oxbridge blogger, not to mention more attractive than both her, and all other sex bloggers."

"I daresay I agree", I replied. "May I add that your walking me home is most magnaimous. The streets of Oxford are grim so late, and there's a fair chance one may encounter trouble!"

We went home. He took out his penis. It was big. I have always said that with penises, the larger the better, with no upper limit. Thus a six inch penis is better than a three-incher, with a twelve-incher better than both. This is true regardless of the sexual experience or technique of the holder.

As the saying goes, "it's the size of the boat".

We had sex four times.

(PS It turns out that Jeremy is a stinking liar and nothing he said was true. Maybe I'll explain why somewhere. But this is lies, all lies, and ONLY A MORON WOULD TAKE ANYTHING WRITTEN HERE AS FACT.)

Around the World pt 2: The Welsh-Mexican

I often told him that Welsh-Mexican was a weird mix of cultures. "Welsh-Mexican is a really weird mix of cultures", I'd tell him. "It's a really weird mix of cultures, Sven."

His grandparents on the Mexican side had fled to Wales as teenagers - stricken by the Great Fajita Famine of 1912, which reduced the economy of a great nation to nacho hats and cocaine. The Welsh side had farmed there for generations, in abject poverty until Sven's father (the first to be educated) suggested milking animals other than pigs.

His father and mother were married in the spring of '83, and met only moments later, consummating the marriage atop her father's largest shed, as is the Welsh tradition. From then until now, the rest is history.

Two months in, Sven and I were dining in London's swanky Chinatown ("if you can find a more authentic Chinese, you're in a different Chinatown"). Our relationship was at a crossroads; the kind where I could either go forward, or back. Forwards would mean losing my virginity to Sven. Backwards meant not losing it, and staying in the same place. I gazed into Sven's eyes, as they peered out from beneath his sombrero.

"We've got nothing in common", he said.

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"

He said, "I think I remember the film. And as I recall, we both... kinda liked it."

And I said, "Well, that's one thing we've got."

I'd gotten through to him. Within seconds he'd thrown down his burrito - how he'd snuck it inside I'll never know - asked for the bill, paid, waited for change, and got it. We dashed outside, and he kissed me passionately. I bathed in the scent of leek and tequila. He was the one.

It was all I could do not to undress him then and there. The next minutes flew past in a blur. Next, I was on a bed. He was undressing me, by taking off my clothing one piece at a time. He kissed me, panting. "My first time", I thought. He breathed sweet nothings into my ear.

"You know, Tiffany's wasn't the only film we watched", he whispered at me.

"What others?", I asked him, begging for more with my eyes.

He undid my bra, and kissed my breasts.

"Patch Adams?", he said.

My skin quivered with anticipation.

"I don't think it was Patch Adams", I said.

He stripped me naked, and drove me wild with his hands.

"The one where Robin Williams plays a quirky outsider unwilling to conform to the rules of his strait-laced superiors?", he said.

I gasped at what he could do to me with just a fingertip.

"I think you mean Dead Poets' Society", I said.

He slipped his boxers off.

"It wasn't Dead Poets' Society", he answered.

I gazed into his eyes. I wanted him more than anything; I wanted us to connect, for me to surround him entirely, for us to intermingle and become one.

"Mrs Doubtfire?", I suggested.

He was rock hard, eager to please me. He wasn't wearing a condom, as it was my first time.

"No, not that either", he said. I grew wetter in my longing.

"One Hour Photo? Bicentennial Man?", I pleaded. "Jack?"

He entered me, and I could feel his hardness inside. My first time!

"No, Jack was the kid with the ageing disease", he replied. I gasped.

"Hook!", I cried. "Hook!" I could feel the pleasure welling up inside of me.

"Nowhere near", he whimpered. "Hook was the middle-aged Peter Pan returning to Neverland. Which, though critically mauled, was nominated for a number of Osc-ah-ah-ahhhhhhhhhh".

I could tell he was close.

"I suppose the conclusion we've reached here is that Robin Williams has had a cinema career of little to no variety", he screamed.

"Yes!", I yelled. "Yes!"

"Eureka!", he yelled. "Good..."

"Good what, darling? What's good?", I asked.

"Good... MORNING VIETNAM!!!"

With that, we collapsed into each other's tired arms.

I guess having "good morning Vietnam" screamed in your face as your boyfriend ejaculates when you're losing your virginity might not be what you'd call classically romantic, but at least it wasn't "JUMANJI". For a first time, I couldn't have asked for more.

Sadly, Sven's back in Wales studying for a PhD. But I'll never forget watching some of the finest Robin Williams movies of my life with him, and some of the best sex I've ever had.

===============

Just a quick thanks to all the fans of this blog - at the time of writing, my last two posts have had 21 comments overall, while that Sex at Oxbridge imitator's only had 20! Cheers to you all for making my blog more popular, and therefore better than hers!