Odyssey In A Teacup (4 page)

I imagine the seeds of fawkey go back a lot further.

At the beginning of my fourth year in high school, I was learning about ancient Greece in history class. Greek mythology was a very large component of this because my teacher had a passion for it. His name was Zero Kosta ... poor bastard. For me, it was bad enough being a mistake, but this man must have truly felt like he was worth nothing from the get-go. Suddenly, my name didn’t seem so bad.

I think Mr Kosta had first-hand knowledge of ancient times because he looked like he was raised from the crypt. He was cadaverous. Painfully thin, he had sunken cheeks in a narrow, ashen face, greyish teeth, and his hands were gnarled and shook a lot. But he was a mine of information and probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever had because he made the subject
interesting
. And although history in general wasn’t my favourite course, I devoured the classic tales. They fascinated me. Maybe it was because my existence felt like a Greek tragedy. But as Mr Kosta told us, our lives were just ancient myths cloaked in the modern attire of defences and pretences (the ancients didn’t give a crap what the neighbours thought).

Mr Zero Kosta was worth plenty to me. He had a highly developed sense of humour (with a name and looks like that, you’d have to). I regarded him as my mentor. Life, he said, is a tragi
comedy
. This perspective kind of explained the idiocy I had to deal with daily; it made it tolerable. And I think the ancient part of my brain was plump and full like Mr Kosta’s because I was also attracted to the origin of things.

As for the origin of fawkey as a pet name for penis, in ancient myth,
Phorkys
was the sea-god that presided over the hidden dangers of the deep. Combine Sylvia’s fear of the hidden dangers of the vagina with man’s tendency to worship his penis and hang its helmet in the deep, then it wasn’t a real stretch to understand that herein lies the root of fawkey.

It also wasn’t a real stretch to get the twofold meaning behind Sylvia’s ‘just keep your pawpaw covered up’. This says:

) Do not put out.

) It is not a pretty sight (and so said the mirror).

Sylvia had been trying to cunningly steer me towards converting that uninhibited fanny-celebration of childhood into the fanny-shame that takes hold in adolescence, and plagues us in adulthood. She was like a humungous, externalised, personified hymen.

‘Sylvia obviously didn’t pay much attention during biology,’ said Ralph when we were discussing her prudish attitude one day. ‘A beaver’s very social, you know. Its natural habitat is outdoors. And it likes to gnaw on wood.’

Ralph’s droll take on things suggested he also had a strong connection to that cobwebby primeval part of his brain. And it helped defuse many situations for me. At sixteen, though, my beaver wasn’t quite ready to come outside. Nor were Maxi and Vette’s. But there was no shortage of dates for any of us as we moved through adolescence and became increasingly easy on the eye (or so we kept being told).

Vette has porcelain skin, black corkscrew curls, green eyes and lush Betty Boop lips. She has an old-world look about her, like she’s just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel. Although small-breasted and a smidge over five foot four (half an inch taller than me), she has a fat arse. Of course, we don’t really know if the heroines of these romance novels had fat arses because their bustles would have hidden them. Our fashion trends didn’t.

One Sunday afternoon when the relatives were at my place, the four of us were sitting with the caterpillars in that little park near Ralph’s place. We were all lost in thought for a bit as we watched Vette drawing well rounded ‘Ws’ like so—(_)(_)—in the dirt with a stick. She suddenly rubbed them out with her hand and looked up at Maxi and me.

‘I wish I had a bum like you two.’

Christ, I’m so glad I don’t have one like yours!

Neither Maxi nor I responded. Ralph did, though, distracting me from my shame over this unkind thought. ‘Hmm ... having a big caboose is not such a bad thing, you kno—’

‘Good one, schmuck! She didn’t say anything about having a big
bum, did she?’ Maxi leaped to Vette’s defence very quickly, maybe as a means of mitigating thoughts as unholy as mine.

‘No. I, er, I, er just meant it has its advantages. It can provide good leverage during sex. When you decide to start fornicating, I mean.’

Fornicating?
Ralph—working class upbringing; upper-class diction.

‘How would you know? Are you holding out on us? Have
you
started ... “fornicating”?’

‘Not yet. I read it in a Playboy magazine. simon keeps a stash of them under his bed.’

‘And you look at Playboy for the articles?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I like to think I’m deeper than your average male.’

‘Uh-huh, and reading Playboy articles is a real indicator of that!’ said Maxi.

We girls laughed. Ralph didn’t.

‘Hey, I’m trying to help you. You girls want to know more about sex; I’m just imparting a general male view that I’ve read about on the ins and outs of, yes,
fornicating
, so you won’t feel completely at a loss when some guy tries to penetrate more than your mind for the first time!’

Ralph’s sensitivity meant he was always more comfortable in female company. His views were diverse—from incredibly stupid to incredibly insightful, and more often than not, eccentric.

Vette’s views could be a little too rigid. We girls were caught up in the fairy tale with its handsome prince and happily-ever-after, but Vette was so totally lost in it, she couldn’t read between the lines. She dated lots of guys, but pulled the plug early in the piece on a few potential relationships because the guys did, well, annoying human stuff.

‘He scratched his balls in front of me.
Like a dog.
’ She whispered this last bit. It was a deal-breaker for Vette in a very promising six-week-long relationship with Anthony.

‘So what? As long as he doesn’t lick ‘em.’ Maxi was the most pragmatic of the three of us.

Vette’s father died when she was only two. Because her mother never remarried and didn’t even date (she worked long hours), Vette had no male role model when she was growing up. Her mum was also a stickler for good manners, so Vette didn’t really get to witness primitive male behaviour from her brother or anyone else. Unlike me. The only time Joe didn’t openly go at his knackers was when Vette and Maxi slept over.

‘I don’t recall the handsome prince scratching his nuts in any of the fairy tales I grew up with!’

‘Of course not. But fairy tales also don’t tell you the damsel in distress could turn into a bloated, hissy, snarly bitch once a month.’

‘A woman’s irrational behaviour doesn’t need to be mentioned. It’s a given. It’s justifiable because we’re at the mercy of our hormones. An itchy scrotum might be organic but it’s not caused by a hormonal imbalance. So there’s no excuse!’

Easy to say if you don’t have balls.

Vette dated a procession of guys: Harry, Danny, Sam, Ari, David, Alan, Greg, Eric, Leslie, Adam, Derek, Michael, Martin, Benjy, Richard, Dennis, Roger, Raymond, Peter, Carl, Brian, Phillip, Eddy, and Teddy. Then came Henry.

At twenty-seven, Henry was ten years older than Vette. He was her counterpart in almost every way. A good-looking guy, Henry was short, small-breasted, had green eyes, thick lips and black frizzy hair. If she were the heroine of a romance novel, Henry would have been her hero (except without the fat arse). They seemed so right for each other.

‘I’m gonna go all the way with him tonight,’ she announced after three weeks of dating.

‘Isn’t it a bit soon?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but I’m at risk of dying a virgin!’ Since Anthony, she hadn’t dated anyone for more than two weeks.

She would be the first of the four of us to surrender her virginity. Ralph and Maxi spent that night at my place and we couldn’t wait for Vette’s call the next morning. Instead, she turned up looking forlorn.

‘He was happy, but it was so disappointing.’

Maxi and I hugged her, but Ralph stood there pensively, rubbing the sparse bristles on his chin while he looked skyward for about ten seconds. This was his contemplative look.

‘Hmm ... ’ (Ralph hmmed a lot—had from an early age). He was weighing up all the information and formulating his thoughts. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ He dashed off and he returned half an hour later with a library book under his arm. The local library was just around the corner and Ralph had borrowing rights; he’d given my address when he applied for a library card.

‘What have you got?’ I asked. He held it up.

‘
Human Sexual Response
by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson. Turns out women can blow too.’

The four of us sat on the floor of my bedroom with Sylvia’s homemade pound cake and cups of Bushells coffee as we pored over the pages in the book.

‘We should have stayed at my place last night,’ said Maxi.

‘Why?’

‘You know ... sex and drugs.’

She had a point. We’d be sitting on the floor of
her
bedroom with hash cookies and cups of Irish coffee. Even though there was a large bar in my house in between the L-shaped dining room and lounge, and it was chock-full of assorted bottles of alcohol, neither Joe nor Sylvia drank. The bar was purpose-built, but as a room divider and showpiece; the bottles stacked four deep in the bar all remained unopened, including the Irish whiskey.

The location and refreshments were irrelevant, though, as we learned about the four stages of physiological response to sexual stimulation: the excitement phase, plateau phase, orgasmic phase and resolution phase. Just reading it brought all four of us to the excitement phase, but Ralph had no doubt reached the plateau phase. I heard him moan almost imperceptibly as he leaned across my bed, grabbed my pillow and perched it on his lap. Maxi, Vette and I smiled at each other conspiratorially.

‘What?’ Ralph caught us out.

‘Why d’you need my pillow?’

‘To rest the book on.’

‘What ... to prop it up, hey ... Pinocchio?’ Maxi couldn’t resist.

Ralph blushed; we laughed. But I had to sleep with that pillow.
Please God, don’t let him reach the orgasmic phase.

With all we discovered, when Vette left three hours later, she felt hopeful. She told Henry everything she’d learned, and he tried to please her but it didn’t happen for her. Vette was despondent. Turns out Henry had located her bean and worked it, but he was a man-child. It was like being on a road trip with a six-year-old who keeps asking every thirty seconds, ‘Are we there yet?’ Makes relaxation a real bitch.

Vette had a few more short relationships over the next couple of years, and then she entertained the idea of becoming a Jubu (a Jewish Buddhist). Strange. She wasn’t into organised religion any more than Maxi, Ralph and I were.

‘Why?’ Maxi asked.

‘Because men irritate me.’

‘You can always become a lesbian. No study required for tha—’

Ralph interrupted Maxi. ‘You do know that in Buddhist philosophy, a woman can only reach enlightenment on her deathbed if she becomes a man?’

‘I know.’

I was confused. ‘Er ... why would you wanna become a man if they annoy you?’

‘Because this way I get my own dick to play with.’

We all laughed, but we were shocked to hear this from Vette.

‘That’s more the sort of thing
I
would say!’ said Maxi.

Ralph and I nodded in agreement and then he said, ‘Hmm ... looks like we have penis envy.’

‘We? You’ve already got one, you idiot!’ Maxi never held back. At five foot three (half an inch shorter than me), she might be small, but she sure could pack a wicked wallop.

Maxi is slim, and with her creamy skin, ample heaving bosom, piercing blue eyes, chestnut hair and pretty, heart-shaped face, just like Vette, she also looks like she’s stepped out of a historical romance novel. But of the bodice ripper variety, with a swashbuckler cover. Maxi was too much for Sylvia’s prissiness.

‘That one, hmph! She’s a “nice” girl. A bad influence.’ Sylvia was an authority. And a logician. ‘Yvette? She is a “good” girl. Quiet; polite.’