Hello, I thought to myself, something’s gone on there then. I made a mental note to try and wheedle it out of Hazel with booze the next time she came over the pub.
‘Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it,’ Paddy said. ‘I don’t care, live and let live as far as I’m concerned. If I was a bird I’d probably be a lesbian too.’
‘I’m not a lesbian,’ Hazel insisted.
‘Neither am I,’ Susie echoed.
‘Alright then, bi-sexual, whatever you want to call it, it’s still gay, isn’t it?’
‘No it’s not. There’s no gay or straight as far as I’m concerned, I just have sex with people. I don’t exclude half of the population from my bed,’ Susie said.
‘So I’ve heard,’ Matt chipped in.
‘You know, you are all truly pathetic. How anybody as closed-minded as you lot ever got into porn I’ll never know. You’re no better than those idiots out there on building sites or in factories, you’re a lot of reactionary Neanderthals,’ Susie told us. ‘Let me ask you this then, and there’s no gun involved or million pounds or anything, what would be so bad about sleeping with another man?’
‘Fuck off,’ Paddy smiled, lighting a fag.
‘Why? Why fuck off? Have you even ever wondered what it would be like? Seriously, have you? Aren’t you even a little bit curious?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ Matt said, followed by a unanimous round of ‘no ways’ by the rest of us.
‘Then how do you know you don’t like it until you’ve tried it?’ Susie asked.
‘It’s alright for you lezzas, sorry bi-planes, because you’re all just munching down on each other but for us, if we wanted to go that way, we’ve got to get a big cock up the arse,’ Paddy explained.
‘Yeah, and a big black one at that,’ I shouted over.
‘So what? That’s where your G-spot is, that’s the male pleasure point. Get shagged up there and you’d love it.’
‘And this is something you’d know all about then, is it?’ Paddy asked her.
‘Doesn’t work like that. The female G-spot is some other place.’
‘Oh, how convenient,’ Matt said. ‘So while we’re all off buying tubes of Analsooth and wiping the tears from our eyes, you’re in a field somewhere having your elbow patted.’
‘It doesn’t hurt that much,’ Mary looked up and said.
‘Mary, you don’t?’ Jackie said, shocked at such an admission.
‘Yeah, I love it. Why, haven’t you ever done it?’
‘No I haven’t and never will. It’s horrible, it’s not for that purpose.’
‘Well neither’s your mouth but I love that too.’
‘Hey, Mary’s a party in one body!’ fat Paul pointed out, reminding me of Howard and Claire’s offer the other day. ‘Come on everybody, dive in.’
‘I’m up for it,’ Mary giggled.
‘See, look at the double-standards,’ Susie was still banging on. ‘It’s alright if Mary takes it up the arse but none of you are willing to try.’
‘Ah no, just hold your horses,’ Hasseem said. ‘I had a bird do this to me once while I was shagging her. She kept trying to stick her finger up my arse, telling me that I’d love it, so in the end I let her.’
‘Yeah, what was it like?’ Paddy asked.
‘It was like someone had their finger up my arse,’ Hasseem replied.
‘Oh yeah,’ Paddy nodded thoughtfully.
‘A finger’s nothing,’ Susie objected. ‘That’s not the same thing at all.’
‘She was wearing cricket gloves at the time,’ Don said, causing Susie to scowl at him.
‘Do you mind? We are trying to have a serious conversation here.’
‘Correction,’ Paddy pointed out, ‘You’re trying to have a serious conversation, the rest of us are trying to fuck about until lunchtime.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Susie nodded, her patience ebbing fast. ‘You know what, I don’t know why I even bother; you lot are a waste of time. I don’t think you’re even capable of having a serious conversation, that’s why you’ll never do anything with your lives. You’re going to end up sad, lonely old men that no one will want to talk to because you can’t be serious.’
This was girl logic if ever I’d heard it, and I had, several times from several different girls in fact. The argument, from what I understood of it, went something like this: Because we were always fucking around, cracking jokes and generally being silly, in the future no one will pay us the time of day because they’d know that serious and important issues such as feelings, relationships and hopes for the future would be brushed aside in favour of jokes about masturbation. No one would ever learn anything from us because we’d refuse to face up to cold hard truths in a stern and sober manner, therefore talking to us would be a waste of time as they searched for truth and beauty.
Now I can see this and would even go so far as agreeing with it if it weren’t for one thing: surely when we’re all lonely old men we’ll still have each other to get drunk and talk bollocks with and all the sour face old mooses like Susie can fuck off and fill their homes with cats. Or we’ll be dead.
‘What’s so great about serious conversations?’ Paddy asked. ‘We’re not curing cancer here, we’re publishing wank mags for crying-out-loud. Why have you got to be so miserable all the time? It’ll get you nowhere. Lighten up, enjoy life while you can because we’ll have enough real problems to worry about in just a few short years, you can count on that.’
‘Really? What are they then, Pad?’ Matt asked.
‘You know, old age, illness, World War III, they’re all on the way so we don’t have to go looking for things to worry about, they’ll find us.’
‘This is precisely the reason these things happen, because nobody is willing to discuss them. Everybody’s so busy cracking jokes that the real issues get lost!’ Susie exclaimed, like this was so obvious she couldn’t believe we’d all missed it.
‘How does Godfrey taking a cock up the arse from Hasseem start World War III?’ Don asked, not unreasonably in my opinion.
‘HAVE YOU DONE THOSE PAGES YET?’ Susie screamed at him.
There was a second or two’s silence as this latest humiliation sunk in then Don suddenly exploded.
‘BOLLOCKS TO THIS! BOLLOCKS TO ALL OF IT! I’m not taking this shit anymore. Fuck it! Fuck it!’ he shouted, jumping up from his seat. I thought at one point he was going to launch himself across his desk at Susie but instead he just looked her straight in the eye and squeezed as much bitterness into the following statement as he could muster. ‘You... are... a fuckingggg... WANKEEERRRR!’ he told her, practically spitting out each word. He then looked down at a startled Hazel and told her, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, ‘And so are you.’ He grabbed his bag and started stuffing his personal belongings into it, all the while raging about how there was only so much shit a man could take and how working with ‘you two lesbians’ was enough to put anyone off women for good, and how their only redeeming quality was that they were both mortal and would one day die, but why didn’t they do the world a favour and go and chuck themselves in the Thames because that’s all they were good for… etc etc etc.
‘I’m not a lesbian,’ Hazel objected.
‘Well you fucking should be. And what the fuck you two ironing boards are doing working on Bangers! I’ll never know.’
‘Right, that’s enough,’ Susie said, finally finding her voice. ‘Sit back down and get on with your work otherwise you’ll find yourself with a written warning.’
Don almost laughed.
‘I quit. Write me up all you like but you’ll have to post it to me at home because I’m out of here.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, you can’t just quit, you have to give a month’s notice.’