FOND MEMORIES AND SWEET DREAMS

So in yesterday's blog I revealed that I was something of a late bloomer when it came to the art of onanism. My body was ready for years before I worked up the nerve to, well, crank one out, and I spent years both falling asleep and waking in a state of arousal. I remember having a fair number of wet dreams but I thought all us guys did; it wasn't until years later I learnt that, despite what you might have been told in sex ed class, in the real world nocturnal emissions are fairly rare, most guys using up their resources during the day.

I have two vivid memories of the actual content of such dreams, and they are both ridiculous. The first dream prompted me to get angry at myself for being so pedestrian; I had literally dreamed that I was browsing an honest-to-goodness porn site and admiring the pictures, an activity so wildly selfish and shameful and exploitative that there's no way I'd have had the courage to do so in real life. Now I'm telling the story for the first time it's obvious my subconscious was fulfilling my literal fantasy of looking at a picture of a naughty lady like I'm sure every other boy my age was. Still, back then I couldn't believe that was the most imaginative scenario I could come up with.

Another time I was asleep in bed and woke up to the sensation of cumming. I was squirting out ropes of jizz at an inhuman rate, the sensation of orgasming lasting for what seemed like minutes, never fully relenting but increasing and decreasing in intensity like pulsing waves. It felt like having 1000 regular orgasms one after another, more akin to descriptions I've heard of the female orgasm. Still cumming gobs, I began to worry about how best to extract myself from this situation. How would I get a bucket from downstairs without leaving a trail of slimy cum in my wake like a giant perverted slug? How much of my discharge had already soaked into my mattress? WHAT WOULD MY PARENTS SAY?!

As these anxieties built up the feelings of pleasure subsided and I fully woke from my slumber. Obviously I had still been dreaming, and a quick inspection of my nethers revealed I was bone dry. I hadn't cum a single drop, let alone the literal gallons my body had tricked my brain into thinking I was producing. I experienced the exact same dream only one other time and again pleasure lead to anxiety which lead to stark relief.

I teased in my last post that I would share thee one time I was rewarded for my self-imposed teen celibacy. When I was sixteen I went away to a subsidised Summer activity camp for a week in the holidays between secondary school and sixth form. There was abseilling and archery and the like. None of us knew each other, and I was surprised to be considered one of the cool kids by both the other campers, who were all the same age, and the slightly older counsellors. I think because none of us knew each other at all a lot of the kids were nervous about seeming cool. I knew I was a loser and so wasn't afraid to make conversation with anyone, joking and singing with confidence bolstered by the fact that once you removed all the bullshit labels and status and hierarchy that can make school a toxic environment, people liked the nice, funny guy who was comfortable in his own skin.

Exactly this sort of thing.

When the week was over and we all boarded coaches taking us back to our respective homes, I found myself sitting next to a pretty blonde named Kat on the back seat. We had the whole seat to ourselves; in fact, we had a couple of rows between us and the next kids on the mostly empty bus. She was a firecracker, and she spoke to me like no girl had before. She was talking dirty and acting lewd to impress me well before the bus pulled away for the long drive home, in fact she dropped her trousers, unprompted, and placed her ass against the rear window (no pun intended!) and gave a nice pressed ham to the lucky campers still waiting to board their buses. She told me she was embarrassed to be at the camp. She had told her friends she was spending the week in Paris, and I asked her why she would do that, genuinely perplexed. I think that although she undoubtedly had more experience in matters of the heart (and hey, who didn't?) I was a lot more mature than her in many ways, and she was acting like I was a handsome young substitute teacher, too cool to follow the lesson plan and not above flirting with his students. She told me all kinds of things to get me going, and I eventually admitted that I had a hard-on for the first time since arriving at camp. (This was true; we slept on camp beds inside a two person tent that was permanently erecred over a concrete base. My tent-mate was an obese lad with a learning disability who smelled odd and snored loudly - it was not a sexy scene!)

She had looked at me aghast, and asked, a little confused "What, not even in the shower for a wank?"

 "Oh no, " I had told her, "I don't do that." She looked at me like I was a unicorn, and it wasn't long before she was kissing me hard, and daring me to fondle her tits through her blue striped cotton top. It was one of only two times in my life where I am sure that, given a little privacy, I would have absolutely gotten laid.

Rugged exposure is right!

I e-mailed her once and wasn't surprised when she didn't write back - whatever magic was between us evaporating as soon as she was back with her friends. But for a few brief hours, I was The Man.

The one other dead cert I passed up on I met on another solo expedition far from home. I had been granted an award to travel to Italy, in order to learn more about the manufacture of dry cleaning equipment and innovations being made in the dry cleaning process. I was given a thousand pounds and a couple of Italian machinery owners that would look after me, with the understanding I would write 500 words suitable for publication about possible innovations in the industry. I told you I was one of the best!

They awarded one other scholarship and the night before flying out I met my travelling companion, Chris, a rather basic chap who was a lot less adventurous than I was. We met up and I discovered he hadn't brought a phrase book or a phone charger or printed out any tickets. I never saw him take a photo or write anything down, either.  We had dinner together and I soon discovered he was difficult conversation.

 "Do you watch Game of Thrones? " he asked me.

 "I haven't gotten around to it yet, I don't know who I should be rooting for."

 "Me neither. "

 "Oh. Well, a girl I work with is always telling me I should watch it. That and The Walking Dead. "

"Haven't seen that either. What's the name of that other one people are talking about?"

"Uh... True Detective?" I guessed.

 "No, I don't know that. The one where the teacher's making drugs."

 "Oh, Breaking Bad! I love Breaking Bad!"

 "I haven't seen it either."

 Later he asked me what my favourite food was. "Uh, pizza, I guess" I answered, feeling like I was sat at the kids table whilst the real adults talked freely elsewhere.

 "I love a good curry, me. We'll have to find a curry house one night."

"Uh, yeah!" I appreciated him trying to make a connection, but this was hard work. We were two lads in our twenties, pockets full of cash (the host companies paying for our accommodation and most of our food) with three scant days in ITALY, and the most this motherfucker was hoping for was a curry? We never even saw a curry house from our car as we were travelling around. Not that it mattered, the only chance we had to choose where we are was on the first night, and Chris didn't want to venture past the hotel restaurant. Oh well, they didn't serve curry but somehow pizza had made its way on to the menu! I ordered the Sicilian from their menu and it was amazing. My new friend made the route one error of ignoring the menu and ordering a pepperoni.

 "No, they don't deliver curry. Stop asking."

I was hoping Chris would join me in a little jaunt but he wasn't interested in taking a cab to the centre of the city and I didn't fancy going alone, worried about the language barrier and navigating a foreign city at night without a map or a smartphone. I strolled around the streets near the hotel that evening and that's how we spent our little free time; he would stay in his room in whatever fancy hotel whilst I wandered the streets, visiting shops and taking in the sights. I'll share one more story about Chris just so you'll get an idea of what I'd been dealing with before meeting The One That Got Away (Sorry if you thought this was leading to an awkward embrace between Chris and myself!)! And after that we'll get back to some proper smut!

Chris and I were picked up from our fancy digs (I think I had done a better job of making a good impression before flying out because I was staying in the fanciest hotel suite I've ever been in - bright and airy with what looked like antique furniture. Chris's room was still very nice, but occupied about half as much space!) and we were driven to a restaurant a little out of town. The place was like a fairy grotto, lots of natural light, clusters of tables on platforms around a central water feature, warm lights hanging everywhere. The open planning and abundance of greenery made it hard to tell who was sitting inside or outside. The place was literally called Class.

For an entree I ordered the Tuna Three Ways, glad for a respite from pizza and pasta! The tuna was served as a steak, tartare, and sashimi - wafer thin strips stop a bed of lettuce -all played beautifully alongside some basmati rice. I couldn't believe how well these simple ingredients must have been prepared, because they tasted amazing. Chris asked our host to translate a few menu items for him before settling for... a burger and fries. Of course he did.

I took a solo mission to the square where they filmed the advert for Anything Italian!

Once we had finished our main course a waiter came over to ask if we wanted any dessert. He didn't have any menus, I'm guessing because he saw Chris badgering our host earlier. Chris asked what desserts were available and the waiter reeled off a dozen different desserts, using English names where possible and describing the dish in English when it wasn't. When he was finished Chris ignored everything he'd offered and asked if they had any sticky toffee pudding.

I thought it was a hilarious request - of course they fucking didn't! You couldn't have scripted a more ridiculously English dish. For those who don't know, the pudding is a dense sponge full of chopped dates and smothered with treacle. It's old fashioned enough that you'd be lucky to find it in a modern English restaurant, let alone this fancy-schmancy Italian bistro! He failed to explain what he wanted and ended up with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I had the tiramisu.

When we finished our scheduled your Chris was dropped off at the airport for his flight home and I was dropped off at the train station. I took the train to Florence, where I had reserved a slightly squalid room in a cheap hotel, having paid for this one myself! No way was I going to fly all the way to Italy and only look at bunch of dry-cleaning equipment!

The first thing I did was unplug this lamp, the lead of which never touched the floor!

 I woke up in Florence, glad As you an imagine, I was glad to finally set my agenda walking the streets, visiting Michelangelo's David at the Accademia, climbing the cathedral tower, snacking on fresh pastries. I had booked a place in a coach tour that night; they would take us around the city to see all the best architecture illuminated, view the city at a distance from a hillside outlook and end up at a restaurant for an inclusive meal and wine.

One stop on the tour was the busy square where the cathedral was located. We gathered around the tour guide as he filled us in on the construction and history of the landmark. A street vendor tried to sell a rose to a couple of Australians: a pretty young lady who seemed about my age and an older man I gave even odds to being her father or her lover. They declined to buy a rose, and the street vendor offered me a rose of my own. "No thanks," I told him and then added, after a beat, "Tempting, though." The Aussies laughed at my sarcasm and I grinned at them; I hadn't made the joke for their benefit and it was funnier because of this.

When we ended our tour at the restaurant our little tour group had the place to ourselves. The room was bisected by a load-bearing wall and I sat on a table by myself in the far section. The Australian girl headed straight to the table next to mine, sitting on the far side of it so I was looking straight at her. As her compatriot sat down she asked if I wanted to join them for dinner at their table. I politely declined - the tables were designed for two and I'm a big fella - but moved around my table so I could take them both in, saying I saw no reason we couldn't conversate as we were. We had that half of the restaurant to ourselves. and as their table was right up against the dividing wall we were shielded from the view and the multi-lingual conversations of the rest of our tour group.

It turned out they were in fact father and daughter, and they were taking some crazy three month tour of Europe whilst he took a sabbatical from his high-paying job designing production lines. They told me that it was often assumed that they were a couple, maybe honeymooners, and it was easy to see why as they had a playful, comfortable energy. She confided that although her father had booked twin rooms at the various hotels they had stayed at they kept finding that the staff had pushed their beds together, mistaking them for lovers.

When the waiter brought our menus he informed me that two ladies from our party had requested my company at their table, no doubt pitying the only lonely tourist, and the young sheila looked annoyed. That look was replaced with a broad smile when I refused their invitation, saying that I was having a lovely conversation with my new friends here, and her dad chuckled at the way she was wearing her heart on her sleeve. I felt very sophisticated!

Almost any question I asked over dinner was answered by the father. Though he was interesting I found it a little patriarchal and annoying, I was hoping to learn more about the girl who seemed so smitten with me! She was asking me a lot about myself and my life up to that point, and every answer I gave seemed to impress or amuse them both. They were impressed by my academic history (people always seem more impressed that I took on the difficult and incompatible disciplines of Philosophy and Management Science than dissuaded by my dropping out), my competence at my job, the little traveling I'd done and the amount of time I'd given to the British Heart Foundation and St Johns Ambulance. She seemed happy that her daddy approved of what I told her; it felt like a weird mixture of blind date and meeting a girl's parents for the first time.

At one point she told me she liked my accent and her father told me it was nice to talk to someone who understood theirs. I said that we got some Australian TV in the UK, and that I was a big fan of Chris Lilley and Summer Heights High. She said she hadn't heard of the man or the show and felt stupid that I knew less about her country than I did. I told her that was stupid; it was just one comedian and a short-lived TV program, nothing important. Her dad gave a little laugh and she blushed and smiled and squirmed in her chair, clearly enjoying me calling her out in front of her daddy.

We had dessert and a third glass of wine and I told them I'd have to bid them farewell. She was clearly dismayed and suggested I stay with them for another pre-paid glass of wine so she could carry on getting to know me. I told her that I really couldn't: I had to take an early flight to London and hadn't counted on a long walk back to my hotel room, wrongly assuming the night tour would end more or less where it started. She asked if it were safe to be walking the streets of an unfamiliar city at night. I told her I wasn't worried, I had a map, my cell phone and an Uzi tactical pen designed to shatter glass (and probably skulls!). She told me she would really love to keep in contact via Facebook and I told her I wasn't on social media as I didn't see the point. "Good man" said her father and she seemed impressed though clearly disappointed. To this day I have never had another person make it so obvious they were attracted to me. There is no doubt in my mind that if I stayed for another drink or invited her to walk through the streets of Italy to my hotel room she would have absolutely ravaged me. Twice if I mentioned kinky Australian kids show Round the Twist.

There's never been a better theme song

It's fun to look back on that trip and imagine what could have happened if I had another day in Florence I could spend with her, wandering aimlessly and pontificating like Jesse & Celine in Before Sunrise. Maybe we would have stayed in contact via email and phone. She could have invited me to leave my home town behind when my place of employment burnt the following year, her rich Daddy paying for a ticket. I know this is pure fantasy; she was attracted by my sense of humour and list of accomplishments; I enjoyed having value to a girl literally born half a world away from my small town and being shown off like a prize to her doting father. Nothing gold can stay, but it's nice to pretend sometimes.

Peace! ✌