CHAPTER 6
By the time I made a decision about my working future Olga was well out of the scene. My sexual duality left me confused and guilty. I was clearly different from other boys I knew, at least from what they were telling me, and I was still naïve enough to believe what others were saying about their sexual experiences. Nobody had yet told me that, when it comes to sexual experiences, people have a tendency to lie, or at least exaggerate.
Despite the confusion, or maybe because of it, what prevailed in me was a desire to be of use. If I managed to be of some value to others, if I helped someone out of predicament and make a difference to his or her life, that would in turn give purpose and meaning to my life. Call that my altruistic phase. Now, it may seem paradoxical that at a time of great personal conflicts that plunged me in a crisis of identity, I should be thinking of helping others. Perhaps I was deflecting focus away from my own complications. Let’s say that in my mid-teens, when most are fixated on their own wants and their dreams are extravagant, I was tossed about by winds of contradictions.
The trigger that led me to a lifetime of handing out tablets in a pharmacy was - yes you guessed it- an infatuation with the local pharmacist. I must have been around seventeen when I walked into Mr Roper’s pharmacy with a doctor’s script for an ear infection. He was not an imposing man, average height and build, but had a surprisingly deep voice that trilled in your ear like notes from a double bass. He was also the possessor of an impressive moustache which he prodded with the nib of his pen as he deciphered the script. By the time I reached home with the packet of antibiotics in my pocket I knew what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to be like Mr Roper. Isn’t it amazing how a chance encounter can determine the direction of your life? At least it did in my case.
It won’t come as a surprise that, five years later, I was in Roper’s pharmacy doing my two hundred hours of clinical placement. Proximity can dampen desire and sometimes kill it off. Not in my case though. My infatuation with Mr Roper intensified with proximity. He had dark eyes, that stayed down intent on the work, but when they occasionally met mine I felt that there was no better place to be than under the reflectors of Roper’s eyes.
Yes, I had friends, young men I hung out with in the streets, in shopping centres, the beach… where I too struck poses of bravado and masculinity appropriate to my age, but I found their antics immature and their company tedious. All I really wanted was to share the same space with Mr Roper. The sound of his quiet, gravelly voice in the confined space of the dispensary stirred my desire and fuelled my night dreams. The accidental brushing of his hairy arm against my shirt sleeve, led to flushes so intense that sometimes required a dash to the toilet.
Mr Roper seemed not to notice my fits of agitation. Occasionally though, I caught his eyes looking at me furtively then they quickly flick away, gazing in the distance, past his own desires to another realm where he felt comfortable, safely garbed in the guise of a benevolent father-figure. And then…
One day at work I stood over in the toilet, my pelvis thrust forward when the door was flung open behind me, the outer edge brushing against my left shoulder. I turned and there was Mr Roper with glazed eyes, like he was having a fit.
‘Oh sorry,’ I said mortified at being caught in that predicament, even though it was he who had burst in on me.
I went to tuck away when Mr Roper grabbed my forearm and simultaneously kicked the door shut behind us with the heel of his shoe. His glazed eyes were those of a man drunk with long-repressed feelings. His chest heaved as he sniffed all around me, dog-like, then fell to his knees. I suppressed my groans lest they should be heard down the corridor.
I returned to the front, serving customers as if nothing had happened, but inside I was battered by a tempest of emotions ranging from shame to exhilaration. My imagination flew to territories where Mr Roper and I were doing things and sharing a life. All too soon I learnt that my fantasy was taking me to places impossible.
Mr Roper returned some minutes later, his face newly washed, his breath smelling of Listerine, his tie pushed up all the way against the top button of his collar. During a break at the counter, he sidled on my left, put his face right up to my ear and for a moment I thought he was going to whisper a word of tenderness. Vain hope, what he said was,
‘You mention this to anyone and I swear I’ll kill you.’
What truly shocked me was the transformation in Mr Roper’s demeanour. The kind, mild-mannered man I knew and loved, was now a mask of resentment. What? I had been the passive party in an act that I had neither encouraged nor anticipated, though I had welcomed it. Later, much later, I understood that the hate I saw in Mr Roper’s face was a form of self-loathing, stemming from long-repressed emotions that for once had managed to crash through his guard.
Decades have passed since that incident, in that time I have been to places exotic, done things. Recently though, I came across Roper at a function for the opening of a new IT section in the Council library, sponsored by the Rotary club of which he was president. At first I didn’t recognize him. His hair was sparse and streaked with grey, his eyes have retreated inside pink, tired rims, his midriff has expanded, grown out of his navy-blue, pin-striped suit. The fit man I knew long ago was gone; in its place was a vestige of a man: a sad, sallow figure. He looked worn out. When he shook my hand with measured limpness, his eyes gave me a brief look of recognition and I thought I perceived in them a flicker of the old fire. What I found instead, was an expression of regret that life had passed him by. And now old age is beckoning the other side of his dulled vision.
Clearly Mr Roper has roped himself firmly to society’s norms, to a wife and children whom, I have no doubt, he loves and a circle of people he is comfortable with. He has dedicated his life to them, playing the husband and father to a T, never allowing his desire to ruffle the feather of propriety, nor strain the bonds of family life. He will continue to tread the boards of respectability, steady and dependable, staying the course mule-like, never considering what visions might be either side of his blinkers: reined-in, steadfast, growing old in the shade of society’s opprobrium. He’ll die satisfied in the knowledge that at his funeral oration he will receive a formidable bouquet of adjectives like stalwart, loving, hard-working, good citizen, selfless family man. Society loves its Ropers, the solid pillars that keep it standing. As for myself, I still feel a little love for him, but I can’t decide whether to envy, to respect, or to pity him. It depends on what sort of moment I am having.
Comments
Amby
“I believe the world is full of Ropers”
That’s about the truest thing you have written. As a bi man I have known a few Ropers, men weighed down by repression and guilt.
Salubrius
Amby, do you realize that your behaviour is the worst of the worst, if nothing else because you introduce diseases to innocent people.
Amby
Salubrius, chill. I always insist on protection.
Pascal
“Perhaps I was deflecting focus away from my own complications.”
Spot on, Janus, you were foisting your troubles on others, so as not to have to deal with your own.
Musical Audio to accompany chapter 6
Audio created by John Brennan
Lyrics by Suno AI
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Janus 5
A Novella
Sep 14, 2024
Janus 5
I must have been around 13 years old when I discovered a dark, horseshoe patch above my genitals. It seemed too deliberate, too symmetrical to be accidental. Was I the carrier of some mysterious disease? Neither my mother, and certainly not my father, had prepared me for this change in my body, I did not have that sort of relationship with either of my parents. It was only when I mentioned it to a school mate, a few months older than me, who dismissed my alarm with a snigger.
‘That’s nothin’, I got it last year. It means you’re a man now.’
In the coming days the stain burst through the surface, as dark pinheads pushed up beneath the skin like an army of subterranean ants. I didn’t know it then that they were the harbingers of a force that was to control my adult life: desire.
As the hairs grew they became the focus of secretive, lustful moments in dreamy nights and clammy, dimly-lit spaces. Soon the focus transited from my own body to that of others. Desire awoke and slid sensuously, over the naked body of men and women, whose images I saw on screens and magazines. In the streets my eyes looked for signs of muscular strength on the arms of men. Later, years later, when I experienced all the ecstasy and the guilt of sex, I could not decide whether I had been blessed or cursed.
At the same time- and this is where the narrative gets convoluted- I desired women, and loved them intensely. Olga was as classy as her name suggested. Her family were pioneer farmers and by far the biggest landowners in the district. Olga’s father employed a manager to run the farm, while he travelled extensively as president of the Woolgrowers Association. Olga’s catholic college for girls had an arrangement with my school to hold combined events, mainly school dances. When the two schools decided to do a combined stage production of’ Picnic at Hanging Rock, Olga got the role of Miranda, while I was given a bit part.
Olga was born to play the beautiful Miranda. She was tall, refined, long-necked. Her long dark hair framed her sharp cheeks and fell in a cascade of curls around her shoulders. I wanted to bury my head in that mass of hair, take in the perfume, hold on to the dream. When making a point Olga would twirl the ends of her hair around her middle fingers and occasionally toss a lock over her shoulders for emphasis. I wanted to kiss those bare shoulders.
I did not dream of doing sex with Olga. For me sex was still a mystery, I had vague notions I picked up from remarks I heard from time to time. I imagined it had something to do with pressing oneself on to a female, with suggestions of violation and violence. I had no desire to do any of that with Olga. I did not want to spoil her perfection and certainly did not want to spoil her flawless beauty in any way.
My fantasy contact with Olga was restricted to the upper part of the body. The kiss I had rehearsed many times since I first set eyes on her deliciously pouting mouth, involved some imaginary fluid exchange, of which I was a little ashamed. Olga was my angel, perfect and virginal, and to think of her in any other way pierced my conscience.
More earthy were the fluids I dreamed of exchanging with Miss Marinovic, the drama teacher, who directed the play. She was in her mid-thirties, voluptuous and moved like a flamenco dancer as she demonstrated movement and posture to the young actors.
Olga was a few months older than me, a good deal taller and more confident. She was also the star of the show. All of which fascinated and intimidated me in equal measures. On those rare occasions when Olga’s eyes met mine I was astounded that she even noticed me. To my mind Olga was destined for the West End, but her ambitions were less lofty, if more rarefied: she wanted to be an air hostess. Like all of us, she wanted to escape our small world. One day, out of the blue, she turned to me with a defiant expression and asked,
‘Have you ever thought about being a pilot?’
I was so amazed to be spoken to at all, that I felt my face turn red and unable to speak. Then she rested her eyes on me, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and added, ‘You’ll have to grow up a bit though,’ and she brushed the nape of my neck with the back of her fingers, the same fingers around which she twirled the ends of her hair. Decades have passed and I get a charge of pleasure every time I think of that touch.
Of course I got taller than Olga, but by then she was leaving for places in her quest to escape the humdrum of small-town world. At 15 she was sent to an expensive school in the city, no doubt a stepping stone to a jet-setting career. Twenty years would pass before I connected again with Olga, on Facebook. Ah, the miracles of technology!
‘Of course I remember you, Janus. I really liked you. You were different from the other boys. There was a… sensitivity about you. But it wasn’t easy to get near you, you were so timid. I guess that was part of the attraction’.
‘How did you wind up in Sacramento?’
‘Ah, long story.’
And not a particularly happy one, by her regretful tone.
Missed chances! I still think about Olga. I fancy that my life would have been very different had we managed to connect. On the other hand, my friend Ambrose (more of him later in this narrative) has a different take on this, ‘You should never marry someone you’re besotted with. Have an affair, by all means. Marriage? Never, that’s really asking for trouble'.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, a lifetime of jealousy, insecurity. Always worrying about whether she is getting bored with you and how to keep men’s eyes and hands off her.’
Comments
Cynic2
“I fancy that my life would have been very different had I been with her.”
I doubt it, even if this story is true, which I also doubt. I tend to agree with your buddy Ambrose. Let me quote Boy George referring to another rocker, “Robbie will do anything to be seen as straight…”
This whole narrative is designed to show that you are, in essence, a straight man. You are not.
Amby
Cynic, Janus has already confessed he is bi, that means both homo and hetero, therefore not straight. And if the likes of you are a sample of straight, then I’d rather be me any day.
Cynic2
I don’t care how hard you try and make yourself a victim. You’re still hiding something, and I don’t believe half of what you’re saying, anyhow.
Lady S
Personally I think you’re wonderful. As for you, Airies whateveryoucallyourself, if you don’t believe Janus, why are you reading his blog?
Airies (and proud of it)
Because Anna is reading it. Are you still with us, Red Anna?
Red Anna
I am, Proud Airies, but not sure for how long. This story’s dragging out too long for me ...
Airies (and proud of it)
So, Red Raw Anna, slow doesn’t suit you either?
Red Anna
Depends!
Airies (and proud of it)
On what?
Red Anna
Mmhh!
Salubrius
Aries and Red Anna, do you have to carry on like this? You’re behaving like a pair of pubescents.
Cynic2
For once I have to agree with Salubrius, these two are pathetic. And I don’t believe for a minute that there is anything pubescent about them. I think they’re a couple of retirees with time on their hands, playing out their fantasies on line.
Amby
Stay on course, everybody. The juicy bits are still to come.
Red Anna
Can’t wait for it, so far it’s pretty tame. How about some real action.
Cynic2
How do you know, Amby, you’re not by chance Janus, are you?
Amby
Definitely not. Unlike Janus I sorted myself out a long time ago. I know who I am and I’m comfortable with me. I also know where this is going. Been there, done that.
Musical Audio, chapter 5
Audio created by John Brennan
Lyrics by Suno AI
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