After Fred got married I knew it would be wrong if we went on having sex together – at least for the first two years of marriage – and I seriously weighed up the options of getting married myself. My mother was keen, maybe because I was still living in her house, but it was convenient for both of us and she was used to having me around. I worked hard at my job and I missed Fred but in no way did I resent what he had done. But there was an emptiness within me which was not easily satisfied by wanking and yet I didn't want to strike up a new relationship with another guy, so I was in a sort of sexual limbo which came to an end in a rather unexpected way.
Maynard and I had been neighbours all our lives. His dad had died soon after his birth; and his parents had waited a long time for his birth, his mother being nearly 45 when he was born. She told my mother that he had been conceived "on the turn of life" as she put it and that she was unaware that she was pregnant until she was about six months gone. It was the most wonderful thing in her life, as she had given up hope of having a baby and this late son was to be the cleverest and handsomest baby there ever was. She loved him to distraction, and when her husband died he was her sole consolation. He was well formed, good-looking and peaceful and it seemed that all her wishes had been granted until he went to school, where it was discovered that he had difficulty in learning to read and write, and his speech was never fluent or prolonged. Nevertheless he was a popular lad - popular with the girls because he was so good-looking and trusting; and popular with the lads because he was good at football and a good sport. He always looked up to me because I was a year older and made good progress at school.
However, while I was at University I lost touch with him. He had left school at 16 and got a job with a local factory which turned out cigarettes by the million. He didn't smoke himself but it was a safe job and he didn't have any scruples about supplying cancer sticks to the great British public. His job was to mind and repair the machines which made the cigarettes so he didn't come into contact with the tobacco. I saw him from time to time during my vacations : he left home on time for work and came back promptly to his mother for his evening meal. Then, when I finished university, I got a job as a trainee manager. My mother was on her own because my father – to our great grief - had died suddenly just after I started my job, and two of my sisters had married and moved away, another was abroad and the youngest was still at University. So I continued to live at home.
One day, not long after I'd started my new job, I came home in the evening to see Maynard struggling with a large cardboard box at his front door. It turned out to be a new television set which he had bought as a present for his mother who was away, looking after her elder sister who had fallen ill. The box containing the new TV was so large that it would not fit easily through the front door, and it was so heavy that he could not trundle it by himself through to his living room. I offered to help him and he said "Thanks" and between us we managed to get the set out by opening the top of the cardboard box, turning it upside down and removing it bodily from the TV inside. We then carried it proudly into the living room. The old set was still on its stand, so we removed it and the new one just fitted, with some overhang on each side. I re-attached the aerial, took out the handbook and read the instructions for the automatic tuning and soon it was working. Maynard was grateful, as he would have found it difficult to do himself, and he offered me a beer.
I said "Thanks" and added that before we drank it, it might be a good idea to dispose of the old set. He agreed and said he had planned to take it up to his bedroom. So we took it upstairs (I had often been in his house as a child) and placed it on a table he had prepared for the purpose. He had forgotten about the aerial so I promised to return the next day and fix one up. I looked round his room, which was very simply decorated. There were no books, no pictures on the wall and I could see why he wanted a television up there. By his bedside there was a small table with a lamp and a box of tissues on it. The bed was neatly made and the work clothes he had changed out of when he got back to the house were arranged on a chair on the other side of the bed. But what grabbed my attention was the waste paper basket by the bed : it was full of tissues scrunched up into damp-looking balls! As he didn't seem to have a cold – or to have had one recently – it was an easy guess about their use and, of course, he knew himself what he had used them for.
So, because he had seen me looking at the crumpled tissues, he was quite flushed and embarrassed when we got downstairs. He handed me a can of beer, then sat uncomfortably on the sofa while I sank into a chair opposite him.
"Er .. I didn't think you would be going into my room, Urlen, and I'm sorry …" Here his words petered out, so to encourage him to admit what he found so hard to talk about I said disingenuously "What is it that you do up there?"
He blushed again, looked down at his lap, put his hands in his pockets and then said shortly "You know ….." Then, while I waited for him to go on, "It's my secret."
"Your secret, Maynard? Tell me about it."
Again he looked confused and I realised he had never talked about wanking with anyone else and was feeling acutely embarrassed.
"I do something there." His hands were deep in his trouser pockets and he was not looking at me as he spoke.
"Do what?" I asked, innocently.
"You know …" – and he took a hand out of his pocket as if to gesture at his crotch, but he couldn't go through with the action so he put it back in his trousers.
"Is it something that worries you?" I asked – again as innocently as I could.
"Yes …. And no," he said uncertainly, still avoiding eye contact.
"What do you mean? It's something you like doing, isn't it? Is it something you do with your hands?"
"Yes" he said, at last looking guiltily up at me.
"Is it something that makes you feel good?"
"Yes" he said, with emphasis.
"And do you think that nobody else does it?"
"I don't know. It's something I found out for myself."
"Everyone finds out about it for themselves" I said wisely. "It's called wanking."
For a moment he looked shocked. Then he relaxed a little. "Is it? When my mother caught me doing it one day she was cross and told me I must never do it again. So every time I do it I feel guilty."
"No need to feel guilty," I said. "Everyone does it, though they may not admit to it. How often do you do it, by the way?"
Again that hanging head. "Pretty often."
