I liked Richie; Richie was cool in the older boy way that younger boys idealise them. This was ’69 and I too desperately needed to be cool, cool eluded me even then when I was closer to the ground in terms of age and interests, I got to wear some of the latest fashions… Hangover poverty, mainly in terms of spirit still informed those times and pervaded all colours with a grainy black and white morality/sense of purpose.

Richie had a delivery round, delivering groceries to the middle classes on a big black bicycle with a wicker basket out front. I wanted that job, to a small town kid without a bike; I was due freedom and wages. Life couldn’t get better. Richie kept saying to me ” you’ll love this job” and couldn’t somehow explain further. Richie was like that, in later times he would ask me about church collections and how fundraising for the third world was going. It took me months to connect him to the burglary and his new white cord Levi Jacket, maybe I was naive but I liked Richie and he had given me his job.

The job started after school, I would turn up, take off my school coat, put on a jacket and loading up the bike ride out to wherever my list said. I was twelve coming up to thirteen with money earned in my pocket and the occasional tips to spend on cigarettes. Looking back the sun was always out and I was lord of all I could survey, other kids appeared greenly jealous of me. The shop was small, crammed with pots, jars and tins from places I’d never heard of. It smelled sweetly of fresh ground coffee and just pressed hams, cooked out back in a smaller kitchen. After my first week I was settling in, getting used to my routes, regulars, who tipped, who didn’t, where the bad dogs were, when Marie asked me to help her upstairs to find boxes to put my deliveries in.

Upstairs was colder, stuffed with preserves and green coffee beans and boxes piled into corners. Marie seemed in no hurry, asking me about the job, how it was going and general stuff. She was 18; slightly plump in puppy fat and too much fresh pressed ham in white nylon uniform. She came closer, kissed me, took my hand pressed it against her breast and then was gone. I stood there in a daze, not knowing what had happened, sure I’d kissed girls before but this? My hand was burning, my face itched where she’d bussed up her lips, I could feel hardness never felt before caused by a woman, not in the flesh any way.

I rode off faster than ever before wanting to get back in case this could happen again. I’d had a hardon before, Melvyn had introduced me to hardons and wanking earlier in the year, he wanted me to hold his thin cock as he pumped away, I didn’t enjoy his red headed coppery smell but liked the collection of magazines stolen off his dad. We stopped wanking together after he wanted to put his cock in me, I couldn’t see the point and after that he found others to play with. But this, this was closer to my dreams of breasts and sweeter smells. Closer to those in the magazines, smiles and available. The round passed in a daze.

The next day, nothing, and the next, then she suggested we meet after work. We met in the park, walked holding hands. We lay in the grass, kissed, her hands in my pants, mine on her breasts, feeling them large hard yet soft, she asked if I wanted to put it in her.

That first look at a woman: Small pink, framed in dark hair and paler skin, time and time again after this all I would ever feel would be excitement about what was to happen, no feeling for Marie or those to follow her on the ground. Those on their backs in the open, those in beds wanting to love and be loved.

I put it in her, what else was there to do? There was nothing left for me but the world of sex and some kind of adulthood connected with that in some way I wanted but couldn’t say. I pumped away, moving in and out of her, smelling vestiges of coffee and hams, she kissed me and I came. 30 seconds later we were sitting on a bench smoking cigarettes as I shook with the enormity, she had taken my virginity, she was happy about this, then she had to rush for her bus.

Telling this now, I could tell you of her need for love, being raised in a kids home, due to be pushed out soon as she gained adulthood, my own need for comfort from strangers with little felt at home. But that’s all trite and hindsight, all I felt then was an end to my virginity, the cold chill of after sex thoughts of pregnancies and would other be able to tell in some way that I’d passed over into the carnal world. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Delivering groceries became the secondary part of the job, I would deliver a round, come back fuck Marie on green bean coffee sacks, deliver another round then to the shop to put her on her back again, sometimes we’d meet after work and do it again in the park. I stopped attending rugby practice, lost my place in the team; my heart was no longer in it. They sang great songs in the showers about sex but none had yet to do it. School became even more of a joke, I could pay attention to my cock, to Marie, to getting the job done for her but couldn’t connect any of schooltime to my needs. Teachers seemed so asexual, dull grey men who surely never felt the thrills I was getting. All they seemed concerned with was neatness and fitting into whatever it was they were packaging.

Marie continued to hold me, need me, as time went on she needed me more and I had nothing more to give her than my dick.

Others now took my attention, I would hitchhike and fall prey to men who would ask about girlfriends, leaving porno’ books on seats for me to see, they would want to wank me offering cigarettes and money in exchange. I once turned down a months wages for one little Welshman to see my cock, instead I waited five hours on some greyslate wet junction, hungry and cold, cursing myself for not taking up the offer. I didn’t reject these offers from any sense of morality, more disinterest and lack of contact. I was drifting thru’ all of this. My world had become narrow, school, deliveries, fuck Marie, and go home.

The only person who seemed to get any handle on this was Kev’

His folks were dead, there were hints at suicide but nothing ever said, Kev’ and I were the only kids of our age with a grip on the times, we’d pretend to take pills “acid man” out in the woods, smoking hemp seeds together, listening to the latest sounds, sneaking out to see bands play. Adults separated us of course. Kev’ went on to play guitar, roadie for bands, moved into drugs real time…

One snowed in Christmas Kev’ and I took all the gates off driveways, knocked the doors to tell people about it and offered to retrieve them, the money went on Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes and Cider-the rest we wasted.

I became a sexual predator, hunting for fresh prey for miles around, having girlfriends in local towns all around. At 13/14 I dated girls of 18/20 having to sneak out from my bedroom to meet them in light darkened houses just for sex, If we met to go to the movies or for Beer they would have to pay. I think they enjoyed the attention I gave them, certainly the sex only seemed to be good for me, I remember them now as passive, uninspired lovers interested in kisses, holding hands, sex being something they felt they ‘should do’

I felt nothing.

I made it to nightclubs, hitching there; begging lifts back, stealing unattended drinks, sneaking back into my parent’s house. Feeling shitty in the mornings but remembering the buzz of being out and about late at night, having the streets to myself, freedom and space. The catch of cigarettes in the throat at 4 a.m. the grit behind the eyes as booze begins to lose it’s hold, stale perfume on a woman’s neck after sex, their eyes as I leave, harbours for young men.

I tell you this, these tales of how I never loved, to tell you of how love changed. To tell of the sex/love madness that underscores my earlier life, I never went off the rails, I ran charging up the embankment, escaping a route set out for me. And now, I can never get that young boy back, Marie took more than my virginity, I don’t live in regret, more in sorrow that she would settle for so little from me, she too could only offer so little. Marie found her love, an older man who took her away from that little town, they married had children, hopefully they found love.

I left town, moving on as soon as I could, leaving the 60’s and moving into the colder 70’s I had seduced until my name became mud in that backwater. Later years some of those girls/women would become friends with my mum, she would introduce them as work colleagues, both of us would blush, take the introduction as new.

I never found out what it was women wanted, in a southern port I met Pat, a beautiful large stunning redhead who told me she loved me, would dress me in the latest fashions, she broke into office’s just for somewhere to have sex. We listened to records, had sex in her parents house while they watched t.v. in the other room. One time we fucked on a tombstone in an abandoned church, her hissing that we were being watched. It was a policeman; he threatened to report us, next time. Pat was fun, alive but eventually wanted more, commitment she called it. I was 15.

Next time I saw Pat she pointed me out to some men, they started chasing me, I ran for three hours thru’ the docks hiding in packing crates, trying to find a way out. She’d told her dad and brothers that she was pregnant and that I was leaving her. I got away but stayed out of the docks for a while.

The world was colder now, my hands and feet were always cold, I was fit and active but still felt cold wind chill across my head and shoulders, memories of events in the world are hazy, music I can remember. From somewhere I picked up an anti world feeling, a sneer against things that didn’t fit my ‘cool world’ this was sexy as hell for young women similarly afflicted. Anything that wasn’t cool got ignored; this helped make my world smaller and safer.

The names have gone from me now, strange conversations, passed me by, drinks in warm places full of cold intent. I can think of barmaids and drinkers, we met, fucked and never said hello again. In Harwich meeting a girl on the customs house steps, where we found an abandoned building, did the deed and said goodbye in the space of an hour. I cannot tell why only that I did, seemed then to be my only purpose, what else were we to do? There was no love, no warmth, no feeling other than lets do it, lets spend this time together hanging on to things we cannot say but feel the lack of by our coldness and rage at the world passing us by.  One time I was proud of these things now holes in my raincoat let in rain and cold breezes from places where once I knew not their origin.

Neil Benbow

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