As a handyman I am pretty much useless when it comes to skill, knowledge, and general ability. Put me in front of a computer and I will make it stand up and dance, waltzing you around the room and charming your socks off. Hand me a hammer and nails and I'll stand there looking like a fool. This doesn't make me entirely useless in the handyman field. I'm what is known as unskilled labour.
The reason I mention this is because a friend of mine is a genius in the handyman field. He'll just look at nails and they jump into the wood where he wants them. Right now he was in the process of redoing some of the rooms in his house. You haven't lived until you find yourself standing in the middle of a large empty room using a broom to hold a sheet of plaster on the ceiling while your mate casually climbs ladders and inserts nails. Every moment I stood there I was expecting the broom to break, or my hand to slip, and a giant sheet of plaster to descend upon me.
Once the plaster was nailed to the roof and walls things got easier. My mate did some esoteric things to the walls and ceilings and then handed me a paintbrush on the reasonably intelligent assumption that even I couldn't get it wrong painting everything in sight with a white undercoat.
Working together we quickly had the two rooms he was currently renovating replastered and painted with the undercoat. We rested for an hour or so and then we started painting the ceiling with the primary colour, which happened to be white. Again, how could I go wrong just slapping white paint on white paint? I couldn't and I didn't. Two ceilings, nicely painted.
That's when the mistake was found. Jimmy grabbed the paint for the walls, also white, and said a very rude word.
"Ah, what's wrong, Jimmy," I asked, content that I hadn't screwed up.
"We used the wrong paint on the ceiling," he said. "We were supposed to use this paint."
Um, colour me confused. We shouldn't have used the white paint on the ceiling because we should have used the white paint? You see, this is why I'm not a handyman. Jimmy explained it to me.
"This," he said, holding up the can of paint, "is ceiling white. It's a slightly different white to wall white which is what we just used. While it looks good now it will look off once the walls are painted. We'll have to redo it."
OK, so we'd have to redo it. I got paid the same amount either way. A big fat nothing, but he'd owe me a favour sometime.
"We can't repaint until the ceiling dries," Jimmy said. "Why don't you sit and watch the game on TV while I run down and replace my paint for the walls."
That sounded like a plan to me. A half hour or so of doing nothing wasn't going to kill me. I settled down in front of the TV and Jimmy headed off to get fresh paint.
Jimmy had so sooner driven out onto the road when Marie and Katherine walked into the front room. Their timing was so precise they must have been watching him to leave. I was immediately suspicious.
Marie is Jimmy's sister and Katherine was her best friend. They were both about nineteen and were attending university. I don't know exactly what they were studying. It was a warm day, bordering on hot, and they were dressed accordingly, wearing tights and t-shirts. I might add that in my considered opinion they did some flattering things to those tights and t shirts.
Marie is a nice girl and I've always got on well with her. I'd never tried the seduction routine with her but that was only because she was Jimmy's sister. Katherine I didn't know nearly so well, but well enough to suspect that she was trouble. The fact that she was trouble would probably have encouraged me to make a pass if I knew her just a little better. Looking at her right then I made up my mind to get better acquainted.
"Marie, Kat," I said, politely standing and nodding to acknowledge their presence.
"Brandon," was all Marie said, nodding to acknowledge my existence.
"Brandon," cooed Kat, all smiles and niceness. "How are you? Um, we were wondering, if you're not too busy, if you could give us a little advice on an assignment we're doing?"
OK. I'm as gullible as the next man. They wanted advice I'd give them advice. If they asked me something I didn't know the answer to I'd simply make something up. I gave them a look of helpful interest.
"We're doing a joint assignment for our psychology class," Kat told me. "We have to provide an essay on male sexuality. We thought the easiest way to get some answers is to ask a man."
"Ah, male sexuality? Why not female sexuality?" That would seem more reasonable to me.
"Oh, the men in the class are doing the essays on female sexuality," Kat said with a vicious smirk on her face.
The men in her class had my sympathy.
"As a matter of curiosity, why don't you ask Jimmy?"
"Ask my brother about sex?" gasped Marie. "The poor guy would have a heart attack. Unless I have an attack of the spasms when I try to ask him."
OK. I could see her point.
"So what do you want to ask me?"
"What causes an erection in a man? And I don't mean it's just because he's horny. What is it that actually triggers the relevant emotion that gets him hard?" Kat could be quite blunt in her search for knowledge.
I gave the question some serious consideration before answering.
"OK, one of the words beginning with S," I said. "Um, those would be sight, shape, scent, sound, sexiness, and self-control."
"Why self-control?" Marie demanded.
"You can consider that a negative trigger. A person with good self-control would over-ride the other senses and stop an erection from happening, even if he was interested. If it wasn't for self-control all the men at nudist beaches would be walking around with permanent erections."
"I see," giggled Kat. "And all the others are positive triggers."
"They can be positive or negative. If a girl has a sensational shape, a voice like an angel, and a scent like a depraved skunk, guess which trigger would have the most effect."
"Got it," said Kat. "So you're really saying that barring self-control, any of the other triggers would work as long as there isn't a stronger negative component."
"That would be right," I agreed.
"OK. So Marie and I probably tick all the boxes. Does this mean that you have an erection right now?"
"No. It means I have good self-control right now. Another trigger that I didn't mention is the forbidden."
"What's the forbidden?"
"The lure of looking down a ladies top or up her dress. Seeing slightly more than she wants you to. That's why you wear clothes. To stop us seeing you and lure us in on our search for the forbidden. Hunter instinct, I suppose you could call it."
