Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:17:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: georgie pants <georgiepants@btinternet.com>
Subject: Sholto's Suprise.Part 2. (Beginings)

100% Pure fiction.
Thanks for reading.
 For Federico.

Sholto's Surprise. Chapter 2.

 I was ill and out of it for the first few days. My medication was slowly
reduced. I was being weaned. At the ripe old age of 27. And my body
protested. It ached and groaned and shat and puked. It was in revolt. But
however ill you were feeling you had to take part. Join `the
community'. Even if you had to be supported around the building. As I
was. I did not remember the faces of those that helped me and I did not
thank them. I could not form thoughts, let alone words. And if I could
there would have been little gratitude. More likely a `fuck you'.
Every minute of every day was accounted for. No books (apart from AA/NA
literature), no music, no t.v, no films, nothing to divert us was
allowed. Up at 7.00, breakfast (all meals had to be attended); group
therapy until lunch, then exercise which meant walking around the grounds
in groups of 3 or more. Then more therapy; then some kind of activity ^Ö
painting; lectures, presentations. All about the evils of addiction and
how to live in the REAL WORLD. Supper. Homework. An hour off where
everybody smoked themselves silly. Bed. Day in, day out. Day in, day out.
The rules; well there were two cardinal ones ^Ö no mood altering
substances of any kind to be taken and no sexual contact. Break those and
you were out. Immediately. The rest you could play a bit more by ear and
depending who was on duty. If you dared slip out for an evening stroll,
stuff like that. Petty things but that took on immense importance in the
claustrophobia of that doomy house and all us desperate people. All
clean. All raw. All hurt. All full of rage and shame and regret. Once the
bravado and bullshit had been cleared out. All babies, whatever the age.
 It took me a while to get into a rhythm. To understand how the place
worked. But slowly it happened. With each day the edges got a little
sharper, I ached a little less, I began to remember names, I stopped
getting lost in the building. I still would not talk. Unless spoken to
and then I was monosyllabic. I drifted in and out of the therapy
sessions. When I did listen I was shocked by how open people were. I
thought they should shut up. But even though I rarely used my voice, I
did begin to use my eyes. I watched. At first I pretended it was because
I was so bored and had to do something. Darling. Viewing how the other
half lived. But that was just veneer. I watched because I became
fascinated and then I became jealous. Two very unfamiliar emotions. How
everybody tried to get on, how they listened, how they did not plot to
get drugs in or how to get themselves out, how they made their own
entertainment, how they supported each other, how they really wanted to
learn, and how much they wanted to change their lives. Not everybody of
course. There were troublemakers and some who had so thoroughly fried
their brains there was no way back. But the core bunch, they were getting
on with it. They were going for it.
 And from that bunch individuals began to emerge. There was Stuart, my
`mentor'; Mary, the mother hen of the group who had been a shit mother
to her own kids; then a group of girls, they had been prostitutes to fund
their habits, 5 of them, all sweet, all sad. Although they seemed no more
than children themselves, they all had kids. All in care. All five from
different places but same story. Also Siobhan a copper on sick leave.
Sick leave brought on by the bottle of vodka she drank before she went to
work everyday. She made everybody else nervous. Most had form, all had
broken the law.  But soon she stopped being referred to as `oink,
oink'. Different job, same story.
And there were others. But I won't go on. This story is not about them.
It's about Paul. Paul and me.
 And so to him. He was part of a group dubbed `the lads'. 6 of them,
all from East London, all in their twenties, all wide boys and had spent
their lives ducking and diving. None had ever had a proper job.  Bright
eyed and funny. Laugh out loud funny. Cheeky and sharp. Clever. Not that
any of them had been given a chance to use their brains.  Most of their
parents had been junkies and all had been using for as long as they could
remember. Togs was the leader. His real name was Tarquin. Which he hated.
His father had been at the races the day he was born and won on a horse
called `Blue Tarquin'. Hence the totally inappropriate name `Another
reason to hate the cunt' as Togs so eloquently put it. He was tall and
broad with close cropped hair. His face was worn but still handsome.
Tough looking. There was also Colin, Mark, Dez and Mac. And then there
was Paul.
 At first he did not stand out for me. But Paul was in my group therapy,
the only one of the lads who was. It was his kindness that I noticed
(never a characteristic that I had much time for). He took the piss and
called anyone up who was spending too much time on their `pity pot'
(his phrase; it still makes me smile) but he was also very kind. He could
not help himself. Despite everything.  He had a horrible upbringing and
had been a heroin addict since he was 13; he began smoking pot when he
was 8 having learnt to roll joints for his mother. He had been in prison
twice and hospital more times than he could remember from overdosing. He
had never been anything else except a junkie. He had a daughter he never
saw. He still lived at home in his mother's tiny council flat. He was a
dealer and everybody he knew was a dealer or a user. Usually both.  But
he was brimming with intelligence; unformed, untutored but razor sharp
(.He could have ruled the world if he had been given my chances. The
chances I had pissed away). And he wanted this. He knew that this was his
last chance to change his life; before he got too old  or died. He was
scared but he wanted it. He kept to every rule, he did all his homework
and he was totally honest in group. No machismo, no bravado, just
straight forward, telling it how it was and how he did not want it to be
anymore. And I started to admire him. As well as like him. Not that I
thought about him much, but when I did it was with respect.
 After 5 days I was `officially' clean. I had finished my medication
and my junkie drugs were out of my system. So I was told. And I was
becoming more alert and more with it. And I began to concentrate.
Especially in group. That morning Paul was talking. He was remembering
his needle fixation. That even if he could not get hold of smack he would
inject himself anyway. With whatever he could find; ground up aspirin,
whiskey, sleeping pills. He was as addicted to shooting up as he was to
the drugs he used the needle for. And then he began to describe in detail
shooting up in his cock. I won't repeat what he said. Trust me, every
man in the room was squirming. But then I began to squirm for a different
reason. I began to squirm because I was turned on. Not by the needles or
the pain. None of that; I had used needles but never liked them. They
were just a necessary evil. No I began to squirm because I had a sudden
picture of Paul, his hand and his cock. And I felt myself begin to go
hard for the first time in months. It was strange and disconcerting. I
was odd about sex at the best of times. And I was taken aback to be
aroused in such an unlikely place by such an unlikely person. Because
Paul was just not my type.
 He was shorter than me and redhaired. Both no-nos. His body was compact
and wiry; I liked long and lean. But here I was, turned on. Turned on by
him.  I looked at him again, at his face. It was fine featured with
amazing eyes. They were bright green with long lashes. Girl lashes. And I
liked his mouth, red and rich, malleable and expressive with small teeth
and a tongue that flicked out when he was thinking. He was covered in
freckles, but only faintly, so you had to look to find them. As if they
were your own discovery. And he had an ease about him. Like he knew
himself and he knew his body. He was all of apiece and that's always
sexy.  But where he transformed and suddenly, out of the blue, took my
breath away, was when he smiled. And that morning he smiled at me.
Directly. For the first time. He saw me staring and flashed this
dazzling, open, bewitching smile. I felt breathless and elated. And I
smiled back. The first genuine, spontaneous thing I had done in months.
 I suddenly realised the group leader was talking to me
 `Sholto, do you relate to what Paul just said? About drugs and sex,
becoming linked.
What was your experience of drugs and sex.'
 I hated being put on the spot. Especially when it interrupted my musings
on Paul's smile. What I now think of as my first moment of innocent
pleasure. And when I started to get better.
 I did not want to talk. I had nothing to say. But suddenly it felt rude
and childish not to after Paul's frankness.
I began to mumble.
`Well, umm, umm you know (this from a previously articulate person) umm
by the end, you  know the end of my using I didn't have sex. It didn't
feature. Umm, well, I lost my sex drive, just wasn't interested (nods
from around the room). Just sort of forgot about it. Ummm, Uh. Didn't
feel horny. And also, nobody was wanting it with me anyway' (a few
laughs this time)'
 I had been staring at my feet as I talked.  I looked up. Paul was
staring at me intently. I realised he was trying to encourage me. I made
a decision. I stopped being coy and childish and began to talk. Properly,
like a grown up.
I carried on, my voice was hesitant but  clearer.
 `The first time I had sex, I took drugs. I had sex and then heroin.
Both from the same person. This person, this person. Well it was a man.
All men, always men. I like to have sex with men. Only men. And this man
he went down on me and then injected me. I wanted both. I was 14, out
from boarding school for the day. He must have been in his late twenties.
He picked me up next to Russell Square. I had gone to Russell Square to
have sex. To have sex for the first time. I wanted it to be anonymous and
I wanted it to be rough'
I was talking fast now. Fast and fluid.
`And that is how I continued to have sex for years. Finding men, big
men, tough men.
I thought I was a fucking gift to them. I thought that when they saw me
all their Christmases had come at once. Lucky, lucky them.'
The room was totally silent. I could not stop talking. And I suddenly
understood something. For the first time in my short, wasted, vain life.
`But that first man. He saw me coming. I thought I was doing him the
favour. Gracing his life. But it was the other round. There were no
spoils, I was the spoils. I was a sitting duck. I was the fool, not him'
I did not know if I was making sense any more but I did not care. I had
always been rather proud of myself that I had never had sex for money.
Never sold myself but at that moment I knew I had sold myself, again and
again and again. I kept this thought silent but then carried on
`I always played around with sex. I have never had it sober. I have
always been high. And I remember being surprised that when my libido went
I was relieved. Which was odd for me, `cause I had always put sex so
near the surface of everything. But I was relieved because sex for me had
always been about power. Never about connection. The opposite. The
fucking opposite. And love. Never been in love. No way. Where I come from
love is a bad thing, a dirty word. My family, our friends we were all too
rich, too special, too worldly to fall in love You had arrangements, you
had partnerships, you had dalliances, even obsessions (because they were
about drama and what YOU wanted) but not love. Oh No. And if you felt it,
if  you felt the tendrils of caring curling round you you stamped on it.
Hard. And punished the person, the person who might have made you feel
something. Love was too vulnerable, too needy, too human by half.'
Suddenly the flood of words stopped. And I began to cry, me, who never
cried. Weeping in a room full of strangers.  Now I really was the poor
little rich boy.
 Mary got up and gave me a hug. The rest of the group, instead of
avoiding my eyes were looking at me with pity but also with love. And
care. It made me cross and embarrassed. Defensive. I wanted to find a
rewind button, Take it all back. But I could not, it was out there.
 `Alright, mate'
It was Paul. Smiling. Next to me. I began to feel better.
`You've done it mate, you've started. Got to get all the shit out. Or
why fucking bother'
He put his arms around me, hugging me tight and close. I hugged back,
exhausted and lost. He lead me down to lunch.
 And that is how and that is when I fell in love. For the first time in
my life.
But he didn't fall in love with me. Not then anyway.