I thought I would Love once.

One big love that would see me through until deaths bony fingers clawed me away from Her and everything.

Who ‘Her’ would be I was yet to know, though knew in some way she would be like my Aunt J. who I’d adored since I became aware of her in the way small boys do: sniffing at her perfumed head and knowing that I was ensnared by feelings for her warm bosom and rasping stockinged legs.

Then later came the neighbour who sunbathed in a bikini in her back garden, another mystery but one that stopped me dead in my tracks to make me sit until aching adolescent hard on had disappeared.

Whether erection or blush went first is moot, what I do know is that slim women are imprinted forever internally to haunt my erotic dreams.

There were other lusts, girls who ‘let’ me fondle their A cup breasts through training bra’s, those who enjoyed my fingers but no more in damper places, these came and went and only the occasional name now returns, their names were carved only in school desks.

I doubt they would remember me too though I look for their faces, blurred by age, weight and the toll of newer lovers, I will never see them except in memory of corn fields, grass tickles and sweet coca cola’d kisses taken in haste.

Love was to be mine, my birthright, all three-minute songs promised love, betrayal, excitement, death and glory.

I chose Love each time, ignoring other existential traumas offered, these furnished the disco playgrounds of my youth.

The false pregnancies to force declarations of eternal love, the whispered urgent refrain say you love me and we’ll go the whole way, tell me you love me and you can put it in, I knew the falsehood but promised anyway and sold out for sex.

Throughout youth I did sex first and friendship later, perhaps no wonder their names escape.

The sex itself was pretty desultory, fumbles, clinches and half damp girls who wanted like I did but who too didn’t know how to ask or want.

They would cling, silent, breathless in expectancy of Love, Orgasm or babies, who was to know for none happened despite our fears.

I was in my early twenties before I witnessed true orgasm, poor, sad deluded boy I was, I lay in silent concern until she could speak and I knew she would live.

Her chest and neck inflamed, reddened, her breathing short and deep, I wondered of heart attack and mouth to mouth resuscitation.

She asked me of my thoughts and I lied to hide my unknowing, again another short passion who’s name passes now amongst another’s’ flames.

Somewhere sex became a sport, an Olympic feat of endurance, mixed pentathlon of grinding hips, deep thrusts and pounding until heads ached.

Slow marathons of rhythmic coupling or jealous competition to see who could make who come first. Girls who would suck cock once and then never again, would want my tongue but then could never kiss if I’d ‘been down there’.

All insanity surfaced in sex, authoritarians needing spankings, sex pots in dowdy cotton knickers and vaginismus, proto lesbians needing stories of dirty girl happenings between other sheets.

Ropes, chains, stretched lost in sweeter agony creation of my search for love and finding only dust of Lust.

Hips that pass in the night. 

No place for a poor boy like me, needing comfort, care, a quietened place to lay and maybe the promise of action some time later on.

I couldn’t find or offer Love as I’d yet to find it in myself, though not knowing didn’t stop serious search.

Closest I came from offers to get serious, settle down, raise babies and paunch. These seemed colder traps to cut short search for whatever beauty lay ahead.

Too many times I found myself in cold dirty rooms, wishing for morning and chance to escape and then time to think for myself.

They loved me, they told me as long as I slept beside them, but my eyes were caught by light coming through curtains, sounds of the street lit my ears, like slow steel guitar, steady and rising to seduce me away.

I would leave without backward glance excepting that of now as I strive for sense in this.

Shame does not fill me, embarrassment catches only slightly for they too were only playing games, games we built together or culled from others who held more imagination and had taught. 

Somewhere along the way I lost my own sex, Like dancefloor boogie, others steps led me away until my rhythm  fitted another’s and I’m still not sure today these echoes have completely faded away.

I wanted to play, I knew no other way though the words, moves and feelings felt borrowed from some smaller brother, not quite a tight fit, more straining for comfort.

I cannot discern who taught me to be so accommodating, there were so many who accused me different to make space for themselves, those with spikes and she within drink.

I can always pretend, as then, that fever swept me away, even if youth no longer serves as excuse, I can still pretend that we cared for one another.

And all I wanted was a call to home.

I have tasted Love, held its savour deep on my tongue, lips and etched memory.

Felt its brand deep into the night caressing in ice fire yet comforted to know that I belonged with another but that too proved transient.

Love to be unvarnished truth, intimacy, no secrets only opening steady flower passing through seasons, this may appear less beautiful at times though in truth all is but a culmination of what has developed before.

I’m still not convinced I can do this, I am a child who has fallen too many times off his bicycle and now bloody kneed is fearful of gaining deeper wounds.

I want training wheels again where I can enjoy the experience but none of the pain. I fear that you will despise me for this too, but then you cannot do this for me either.

Neil Benbow

neilbenbow(c)2026