I won’t lose my virginity to a man in a gas mask.

 

Thomas blinks at the text message from Alice on his phone.

‘Just found your pornography. We need to talk.’

Fuck, he thinks, sensing trouble ahead. He’s tired. He’s been lecturing at the university all day and he has a pile of work on his desk, but he knows he has to leave it, go home and face the music. 

Alice is his girlfriend, a pretty, innocent who moved into his apartment a year ago, because she had no money for rent and she was in awe of him. He met her at a party and adored her from the moment they started chatting. She’s a pretty English rose, slim with blond hair and a cute turned up nose. She’s very bright and witty too, but she’s an innocent. Thomas has been patient and understanding, taught her how to masturbate and to orgasm, and now she enjoys the sex they have and is more confident of herself and with her body. But she’s still a virgin, still terrified of being penetrated. 

In contrast, Thomas is middle-aged and has had much experience of sex. He’s been bisexual half his life and explored a wide variety of sexual deviations. By the time he met Alice, he was weary and exhausted by it all. she inspired him to turn a new leaf.  It was her innocence perhaps that excited him the most. When she decided she would move in with him while she finished her post-graduate studies, he threw away his suitcase of bondage gear, the rubber dresses and the thigh-length boots. He stopped going to the fetish clubs and leather bars, and deleted all the fetish dating sites.  All he kept was a memory stick in the bottom drawer of his desk, which contained a few of his favourite images. She must have looked hard to find it. 

As he drives home through the early evening drizzle and rush hour traffic, Thomas thinks about what he’s going to say, and what he imagines she will say in response. 

He gets home, pours a strong drink. Alice is waiting in his office. She’s wearing a polo neck and jeans, and her hair is tied back tight behind her head. She sits in his chair with her bare feet on his desk. His laptop is open in front of her, his memory stick plugged into the side. 

‘Sit down. We need to talk about this right now.’ she says.

She’s clearly tense and can hardly look him in the eye. 

He takes a slow breath and starts the speech he prepared on the drive home.

‘Listen. Alice. All I want to say is that we really haven’t known each other for long, and there are bound to be masses of things we don’t know about each other yet, and also, you know, I mean, well, I don’t think it would be fair for a man to be judged by the things he might have experienced in the past. I’m different now.’

Alice looks up. 

‘So these are just sentimental souvenirs?’ 

Her voice is calm. Her face is deadly serious. She’s clearly had time to prepare herself too. 

‘Well, yes…’

She slides her feet off the desk, swings round and presses a key on his laptop in front of her. 

‘I mean if it had just been a few naked women, I wouldn’t have been so shocked. But it isn’t.. I mean, take this photo I’m looking at right now. It’s a naked guy with a massive erection, wearing a gas mask.’

She pauses, looks up at him.

‘Does wearing a gasmask feel sexy to you?’

‘Yes, well. It has done. In the past.  You put a mask on a man, he tells you the truth.’

‘What?’

‘Oscar Wilde.’

Alice looks at him.  He gingerly offers her a weak smile.

She’s not impressed. She clicks again. 

‘This girl is dressed like a school girl. You going to justify that?’

‘It’s not a girl.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look close. It’s a man. He’s wearing a female rubber mask and body suit.’

She looks down and it dawns on her he’s right. Thomas feels he is starting to win the arguement.

‘Men can get aroused by transorming themselves into women, and these days it’s getting ever more sophisticated. I can show you that guy’s website.  It’s just a skinny Japanese guy, who’s bought all that gear because it turns him on to look like a schoolgirl.’

She clicks again.

‘This one is disgusting. A naked man peeing into the mouth of another naked man, lying on his back in a pool of pee in giant urinal.  Are you gay?’ 

‘No. I have had sexual experiences with men. It’s not the same thing.’

‘Does this turn you on?’

Thomas sighs.  

‘OK. I went to club in Germany many years ago. A gay club, and I saw this kind of stuff happening, and yes, to my amazement I did find it intensely erotic.’

She looked at him disbelievingly. He continues. 

‘You know, one of the things I discovered when I was a young man, free of any commitments or responsibility, was that there’s something fundamental about sexual desire which is base and savage. There was this steam room in Berlin. I can remember going in there by myself late one night. I could hardly see a thing, The mist was thick and the room was dark, and as I lay there on a bench, I saw a shadow appearing, nothing more, a dark mass approaching, and then I felt a hand on my calf. I had no idea who it was, but it didn’t seem to matter then. There was something primevil and….’ 

Ignoring him, she clicks onto the next image.

‘- A boy being buggered by a giant horse.’ 

‘That’s a cartoon, isn’t it. It’s just erotic art, that’s all. If prostitution is the oldest profession then drawing images of sex on walls is probably the oldest art form.’ 

She clicks onto the next image.

‘Two fat men in furry bear costumes, having sex by a swimming pool.’

‘I find it funny. It makes me laugh. Sex can be funny…’ 

Click.

‘A woman with huge strap-on fucking a man.’

‘Women taking control. That’s not bad thing. And men enjoying being penetrated.’

Click.

‘Two women in rubber nurses uniforms and white latex gloves, holding a naked youth onto a hospital bed. One holds a cloth against his mouth while another is jerking him off. You want me to do that to you?’

‘No. Not if it didn’t turn you on.’

She clicks again.

‘Here’s another image where the women is tied up and the man is whipping her ass.’ 

‘The one where he’s tied her to a tree?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s a couple who make bondage videos because they love bondage. I think it’s a really interesting image. It’s an example of the wonderful evolution of erotica. No commericalisation. People post what they’ve eaten for breakfast. Why not what they get up to?’

‘Why are they all about violence, and control? I can’t work out whether you’re a masochist or sadist.’

‘I can be both. You can be both.’

She stares at him like he’s a stranger. Thomas has never seen her look at him like that before. He waits while she flicks through more images till she finds the one she wants.

‘Ok. Now I am looking at another young pretty woman tied naked to a chair….’

Thomas closes his eyes, brings his hand to his forehead and strokes it. 

Alice’s voice changes. It’s hard and aggressive. 

‘She has a clear plastic bag tied over her head.’

Thomas says nothing. He’s stomped for a moment. 

‘I didn’t have you down as a mysogynist.’

‘I’m not. You’ll also find many breathplay images on that file where the men are victims.’ says Thomas defensively. 

‘Would you want to do that to me?’

‘Only if you wanted me to.’

‘Why would I?’

‘People are aroused by all sorts of things. As long as it’s adult consensual, I don’t have a problem with that.’

‘This photo was taken in your kitchen, and the guy standing next to her, wearing a rubber suit and a gasmask, that’s you, isn’t it?’

Thomas takes a moment to consider his reply, and she gets up, walks out of his office. He follows her. 

‘Listen Alice. Sex is pleasure. It’s not just about making love to someone you love. 

It’s… where are you going?’

Alice is in the bedroom, pulling her suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe. 

‘I’m leaving.’ 

‘Why?’ 

‘I don’t want to lose my virginity to a man in a gas mask.’

The arguement continues as she packs her case, and then walks round the flat picking up her posessions. 

Once she has slammed the door behind her, Thomas sighs a long sigh, walks into the lounge and pours himself a large whisky. Then he wanders back into his office, sits down at his desk and stares at the image of the woman tied to a tree. 

He sighs again, thinks, then leans forward, clicks on a few links till he finds the gay cruising website he used for many years. The password comes back to him at once and within seconds a guy he used to meet for regular bondage scenes strikes up a conversation.

‘Long time, mate. Thought you’d disappeared. You looking for some action tonight?’

Thomas reads the message and smiles. That was quick. Seems like it’s meant to be, he thinks. He finishes the whisky in one gulp. 

Later that night, Thomas is in the bedroom, being tied up with thick silver tape by a skinny 53 year old transvestite called Rosie, who wears a black pvc dress and long blond wig.  While this is taking place, Alice sends him two text messages. 

In the first, she tells him she can’t stay at her mothers, and she’s been sitting in a bar with a close friend crying, and now she’s a bit pissed and regrets walking out just like that. In the second message, which she sends about midnight, she says she is coming back and he shouldn’t put the latch on the door. 

Thomas is unaware of the messages. He’s switched his phone off. 

When Alice steps gingerly into the flat at 2am, she hears the sound of Thomas groaning, only this time it’s ten times louder than she’s ever heard before. She puts her suitcase down, walks over silently to the bedroom and stands at the door. 

Rosie sits on the bed, holding a leather horse-whip in one hand, and a joint in the other. The room is clouded with marajuana. Thomas is naked, his hands and feet are bound and he stands unsteadily on his feet a few feet away. He has a black bin-liner taped over his head. 

Rosie looks up, sees Alice and after a moment of surprise, smiles. 

Alice is drunk and in a bit of a daze. The transvestite holds out the spliff, inviting her to smoke, then holds out the leather horse whip. He gestures to Thomas’ ass and winks.  Alice thinks for a second. She takes the joint first, and after taking a puff she hands it back, takes the whip and swings it down hard on Thomas’ buttocks, and all at once he ejaculates all over Rosie’s pretty pink dress.  

Daniel Guy