3:AM Magazine

By Tim Scott.

Dear God, when I was fourteen I had sex with the poet John Donne and it was amazing. God’s truth. You’ll never have been fucked like that. Not ever.

I get the same reaction every time I tell people. There’s no need to be confused. You know who I’m talking about. You probably did John Donne at school but not the way I have.

And I know what you’re thinking – he’s straight – but hear me out because it’s true. I was lying in bed one night, a school night, and he came to me. Not through the window. This isn’t a ghost story. This actually happened. He opened my door and in he came. No one had to let him in.

Now I’m older, I know when I’m going to get done and I prepare. I lose a bit of weight. I sort out any dry skin. I shave around there. It’s a ritual and it’s easy. But this, I wasn’t expecting this at all. That’s why it was exciting. It was a first and it was a surprise. I had tartan pyjamas on, bought for me. That’s not the way I wanted to look to meet someone famous, for my first. It wasn’t perfect but you work with what you have. I pulled the trousers down slightly so I showed a line of hair and some bone around my hips. He liked that. I looked okay.

He looked better though. He had on this blue V-neck thing, white shirt underneath, khakis, an ugly belt. I don’t remember about the shoes. He looked posh. His hair didn’t fit him though. It didn’t fit what he was wearing or how I thought someone famous should look. It was cut down to nothing, like a soldier’s.

He’s still the oldest person I’ve ever let at me, on me. He was near the age of people’s Dads. I don’t know exactly how old he was. I didn’t think to ask. They probably told us at school but I never listened to that sort of thing. ‘No concern for detail.’ I do know that he was old though. And that he had something about him. And he had this ugly smile, like a sneer. He only lost that when he was in.

He turned a lamp on. He said he wanted ‘the appropriate lighting.’ He said that was ‘imperative.’ I don’t know why he used words like that. I never understood the need for them. He ran a tap too. He said it was to cover the noise he knew he was going to make.

He said he’d left his collected works at home. He couldn’t recite any poems to me. He told me that’s what he usually does before the act. His words have this effect on people. That’s how he put it. I didn’t have anything clever to say back. I just tried not to laugh at him. At someone playing like that.

I’d have done it anyway. I didn’t care about the poems. Besides, I didn’t want him talking too loud. Mum was definitely asleep next door. We could hear her snoring. I don’t know if Dad was.

He didn’t ask if I wanted to do anything with him, or how far I wanted to go. He must have thought he didn’t have to. First problem came when I couldn’t get his belt off. It didn’t have an obvious buckle. All I could see was metal. Nothing seemed to have a catch or do anything. I didn’t know what I was doing. I said sorry and he said fine, did it for himself. Crack and click and he was all out. After that, he did everything else for me.

He was a top. Obviously. You can tell that from his poems but he was still sort of gentle. It was face to face at least. He said that was more personal. He had this thing for kissing my inner thigh. Like the bit that gets hidden by the balls, where no hair had grown on me yet. And he didn’t close his eyes either, call it a cunt, pretend that I was a woman. I never thought he was trying to hurt me. I shiver, get a semi when I think about the sex itself now. Or when I remember seeing his face vanishing down there, when all I could see of him was the top spikes of his hair.

It was making love if making love also means getting done. Don’t get confused here. I’m being as clear as I can but I know you could get confused. It was romantic and it was fun but I don’t want to make him sound wet. I knew he was in there.

He wasn’t floppy or scared of himself like any of the other bi people I’ve been with since. His hands weren’t shaking and his voice wasn’t falling into a whisper. He was steady. He was a real man. He could do damage if you made him angry. I reckon he’d be really jealous if you cheated on him. He had big arms – I mean he was built but he was also sweet or he seemed it. I think it was the way he stroked my cheek that made me think that. I don’t know.

He stayed and talked to me for hours afterwards. It was almost light when he left. He didn’t say that he had to get up early the next day. He didn’t say that his wife would be worried. He didn’t use any of those lines I’ve heard too many times now. He did have a wife though. I found that out later.

When he was lying with me, he told me he wanted to write again. He said it’s been years, didn’t say how many, since he wrote about anything but God. Doing that can get boring or it can get heavy. He wanted to have some fun again. He was restless.

He explained to me that all the poets do these visits, take the people they want. I didn’t know that. He got a bit mardy after I asked who the best or the most popular was. He held nothing back. Wordsworth’s not worth the time he takes. Rochester’s filthy but he’s rubbish. Plath was just for women, limp, miserable. He said he was the best but of course he’d say that. He wouldn’t say he was the worst. I think I knocked his pride a bit just asking.

He even wanted to know about my life, said it ‘might inspire him.’ I didn’t believe that, even then. I told him about my Dad and how he was. I told him about his drink, about the girl from school. I told John what I’d seen him do, what I’d heard him do. I didn’t have to explain much to him. He already knew.

When he left I wasn’t sad. Because then I thought at worst it would be a one off. I thought at worst it was a good story and a good way to lose it. I mean lose it properly. It turned out my at worst was right. He never came back. It did make me sad after a bit, that that was that. I went around telling people at school that Donne was rubbish. I told my lab partner. I told the second year that got my bus. I told my English teacher the most times because he’d care more. No one believed me. I couldn’t fool them. I thought it’d get back to him and he’d feel bad about what he did. That never happened. At least, if it did, I never found out. I never found out anything about him again.

I kept telling anyone who’d listen he was rubbish. Quick and small. I think I was still saying that even a year ago. Any time poetry came up which wasn’t often. But now I can admit, God, the best first time you could ever have.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Scott is a young writer from Manchester and a graduate of the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. This piece is taken from his collection Sudden Scripture, which is inspired by the Old Testament. Other pieces from this collection have been published in Wufniks magazine and online at The Manchester Review and Rainy City Stories. He is looking for a publisher for this collection and his novel-in-progress.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Thursday, April 1st, 2010.