Daniel Guy's Blog

  It’s 2am and Private Berenger is showing his two room mates an AI porn video on his laptop.  ‘I mean - look at the size of that cock!’ He whispers, keeping his voice low so the night duty sergeant at the end of the corridor doesn’t hear.  Berenger began his army training a week ago and is hating it. He didn’t want to be a soldier but he came back from college without a degree so his father made him join up, or lose his inheritance. So there he is, making the best of it. He’d hung his head out of the dormitory window to smoke a joint earlier, and now he’s pleasantly relaxed.  But this was not a good idea.  Sergeant Tomkins passed by, smelt the cannabis as he was patrolling the barracks and reported it straight away. Suddenly the door opens and a shaft of bright neon light from the corridor outside illuminates their faces as they sit around the bed staring at the laptop.  A tall silhouette switches on the light dormitory light.  It’s Com...

  is being held in an abandoned church, miles from anywhere, which is no surprise because Tom was never a conventional man.  He and I met up half a dozen times.The last hook-up was a few years ago and I have great memories of it, so when I heard about his funeral,  I decided that it was important to go. I arrive ten minutes late, park the car, and walk over to a magnificent white stone chapel, tucked away on the edge of a lush green forest. Guests are milling about outside, chatting, and smoking. It’s a pleasant sunny afternoon.  I enter the church and find the interior decorated with white flowers.  On the walls are framed photos of Tom, dressed in either leather or rubber or sometimes nothing at all. In some photos he’s chained to steel chairs, in others he is mummified in pallet wrap.  One or two I recognise. He loved to post images of him posing in his rubber-suit, or strapped with thick grey duct tape to a lamp post.  There are several of h...