Ode to Cookers

Bite into this carrot, it has been roasting in the oven for an hour,

Its flavor has intensified, the sugars turned to a caramel glaze.

I am in carrot heaven.

Savor this beef; it will melt on your tongue, so tender.

The red wine has melded with the garlic and the herbs,

It is a rustic sauce of perfection.

Sink your teeth into the earthy skin of this baked potato

Allow your self the pleasure of devouring the fluffy white flesh

With the melted butter, and fill your soul with comfort.

Smell the warm bread and delight in every bite,

It took the time to rise for you and it’s grand finale 

Upon leaving the oven deserves a standing ovation.

Have you ever tasted a peach when it has been grilled?

It’s warm flesh melting the ice cream below,

It’s partner in crime; a raspberry sauce once sour,

Is now sweet as nectar from being swirled around a pot over fire.

Fire is older than the blender; heat it up, cook it, roast it, grill it,

And enjoy it. 

poem

You wished for me to like you as you like me.

I am not in your head. I didn’t know how.

But I think I understand better now.

I am a friend, a lover, a wife, and a mother.

I play, I cry, I weed. I cook, I love, I read.

I organized my world into neat little compartments.

I became someone to everyone,

Fulfilling a different role to meet the needs.

The need for me to feel sensual pleasure

Brings me to your imaginary embrace.

Thoughts of your skin next to mine

The image of your face, excite my senses.

And even in your absence, momentarily I am yours.

Your're tacky and I hate you

“You're tacky and I hate you!” -Billy from School of Rock (2003)

I recently read a short story written by my best friend exploring her relationship with her mother. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the close bond she spoke of, reaching all the way back to her difficult birth.

I think of my best friend and her sister like the sisters I never had, and their mother has a special place in my heart. She is beautiful, has a dry wit, great taste, and writes in a way I could only dream of. My friends’ mother had a difficult relationship with her own mother and I have always felt comfortable sharing my darkest feelings on the matter of my relationship with my mother, with her.

I was adopted at four months and I consider this the reason why a) I felt displaced all of my childhood and b) I felt a cold animosity between my mother and me.

As a small child, I would look upon my mother as the epitome of beauty; she had long red hair, always done; her nails were done, her face was done, and her clothes were pressed. Men whistled at her, and she would toss them a dirty look, but I’m sure she loved the attention. She was not very articulate, but her smile was magnificent. My mum showed me how to be feminine and flirtatious; she taught me from a young age that being an attractive woman could be powerful.

I was obsessed with beauty as a child. I considered the difference between beautiful and pretty; Audrey Hepburn was pretty, and Sophia Lauren was beautiful. I loved Olivia Newton-John—she was pretty, and then she was sexy. My husband, who happens to be one of the funniest people I have ever met, said one of the funniest things about my childhood favorite movie: “Grease taught women that to win the guy, they should start smoking and dress like a slut.” Around the time Grease was made and Legs and Co. performed each Thursday evening on Top of the Pops, a family friend asked me what I’d like to be when I grew up. The answer was easy: “I want to be sexy.”

I begged my mother for a pair of tight, black, satin pants like the ones worn by Sandy in Grease. Grease came out in 1978 when I was nine years old. When I was twelve, my mum came home from C&A with a pair of hot pink, slightly flared, satin, stretchy pants; they were hideous. I was the new kid in school, and I braces on my teeth to straighten the front tooth that overlapped. My mother purchased a V-back, V-front, pastel pink T-shirt and a pair of old-lady, cream-colored, strappy sandals to complete the look and then insisted I wore the look to the school disco. I don’t think I ever lived it down.

My mother is very easy to poke fun at; her behavior at times has seemed so extreme that she resembles a character in a sitcom more than an actual person. Poking fun at my mother has always helped me deal with the sadness of our tempestuous relationship. My close friends enabled me to vilify her at times.

My best friend, Lizzie McPhee, a spritely and bubbly friend I had met while at a drama camp when I was sixteen years old, would call my mother “eye-shadow woman.” My mother disliked Lizzie tremendously, and whenever Lizzie would come over to my house to stay, my mother did her best to make us both feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. I loved to stay at Lizzie’s house, where her family seemed laid back and cool. Lizzie would take a bath and ask me to sit and talk to her while she lay soaking in the warm water, her perfect round breasts floating as she shaved her stretched out legs. I adored Lizzie, almost as if it were teenage love. Her mother had been an artist; she was married to a photographer for the Guardian newspaper. His award-winning photos and her art adorned the walls at their suburban home. There was orderly chaos in their house; music played, and friends could come and go as they pleased. I felt relaxed and happy there and dreaded going home to my uptight, angry mother.

It is customary in England to sit around the dinner table on a Sunday evening and talk politics, philosophy, etc. My father loved to play devil’s advocate; I never knew what his true political or philosophical beliefs were, as he always took the opposing argument. My mother had very little to say on any matter, but would laugh gleefully when my father shot down any of my arguments. I think she despised the fact that I was able to hold my own in debate. I do appreciate those dinnertime debates however, because it taught me how to draw my own conclusions in life. I was not swayed one way or another politically or philosophically. I noticed as I got older just how much I disagreed with my mother on everything: fashion, art, music, culture, and values.

I clearly remember walking through the city streets of Manchester and spotting a homeless teenager sitting with a dog and a sign which read “hungry and homeless.” My mother shook her head in disgust and indignantly said, “It’s one thing if she chooses to live on the street, but she shouldn’t subject the dog to it.” It was this kind of bizarre mindset that seemed so outrageous to me; it became the subject of ridicule in my opinion of her. As for her level of taste, I began to see this as not only questionable, but lacking in any sophistication.

There were some happy times as a child, and there were times I have felt close to my mum, even as an adult. However, I felt it was obvious that she disliked me immensely: “I love you, but I don’t like you.” That sort of gave it away. I was a disappointment; the sweet little girl she thought she’d picked out from the orphanage turned out to be a clumsy, forgetful, messy, obstreperous child who, at times, had a loud mouth and a big temper.

I was one very frustrated kid; I didn’t understand half of what the teachers were talking about in school, mostly because I missed about fifty percent of what they said. School sounded like an endless recording of the adults muffled speaking in the Charlie brown shows. But I clearly remember overhearing a conversation between two classmates, I was around nine years old at the time: “Who do you think is the dumbest, Natasha Bee or Peter Smith?”

Ironically, my best friend was probably the smartest kid in our class and went on to become a doctor. I have always loved smart people, and I don’t think I’m really dumb at all; I just wasn’t really a very good student. My school reports were appalling; parent-teacher conferences must have been terribly disappointing and embarrassing for my parents. "Natasha is a distraction to others.” "Natasha could try harder.” “Natasha is silly.” “Natasha does not take woodwork seriously.” I broke every sewing machine in school. I blew up the test tubes in science. I spent hours standing outside of the classrooms in the corridors, laughing hysterically; something would make me laugh, and the more the teacher told me to stop, the more I would find it funny.

I showed promise as a gymnast as a young girl; I never had lessons, but two of my friends did. They showed me what they learned on the field at school, and I copied. I asked my mother if I could take lessons, but she was afraid I would break my back. This wasn’t actually that unreasonable; by the time I was nine years old, I had been to the emergency room three times for multiple stitches. I had walked into a door, rollerskated into a wall, and tripped and smashed my head on a brick step.

Because I feel as though my mother disliked me so much, I feel permitted to denigrate her in anyway I choose. My mother has an air about her as though she feels better when she is looking down her nose at people she considers beneath her; she is a self-proclaimed snob. However, in my opinion, she does not have this right. In the past, she has worn shell suits; she wears lots and lots of gold jewelry all at once, which looks very tacky. Her house is decorated, and by that, I mean it is adorned with knick-knacks. There is no art to speak of; only decor like one would expect to find in a three-star hotel. She listens to Celine Deon endlessly and puts the word “my” before anything she enjoys as if she holds the monopoly on enjoying such things like “my scallops.” Incidentally, when she spoke of “my” scallops, she expressed her preference to the larger kind, not really grasping that the small, local bay scallops were sweeter and more desirable.

We're all a little weird

“I know your whole life through your exes. It’s like learning U.S. history through the presidents.”- Anonymous.

“I know your exes better than I know mine.”- A different anonymous.

I have no desire to grow up to be an eccentric. I do not like being labeled either weird or crazy, but this doesn’t mean I do not have eccentricities, or that at times, I don’t feel crazy or at times in the past I have not been labeled weird. All people at some time or another have seemed weird in one way or another to someone.

I think my parents are weird, yet in many ways they are very normal; it is their normalcy in my opinion that actually makes them slightly weird. Perhaps it’s knowing someone very well and when their behavior is slightly odd it makes us sit up and notice just how odd they are.

Around the age of seventeen, old things fascinated me; I liked old furniture and clothing, the older the better. I wandered the streets in my hometown browsing through antique stores; I could spend hours looking at crafted furniture and hemstitched silk nightgowns. Having no place of my own to house these beautifully crafted pieces of furniture (or the funds to purchase them), I instead bought clothing. I purchased bloomers and petticoats, an old velvet cape, and hit Laura Ashley’s sale rack for any Victorian style dress within my budget. I was nicknamed one Nora Bashly a morph of both the designer and the old lady with the crumpled up stockings that had fallen down to her heels from ‘last of the summer wine.’ My purse was a wicker basket, and I wore knee socks and Doc Marten boots to complete the ensemble. I looked like I belonged in another era, but I thought I looked awesome.

I worked nights and weekend at Tesco, the local supermarket, I’m sure my fellow workers thought I was mad as a hatter. The trainee manager was a tall and confident young man a couple of years older than me; he remains one of the funniest people I have ever met. My dream back then was to be an actress, and after being told that my voice was high-pitched and nasally, I worked very hard on using my lower register, which gave me a deep and sexy voice. I would use the intercom to ask for a price check, and the trainee manager would receive my request. “Eight-ounce Heinz baked beans?” I’d ask in my sultry voice.

Before the trainee manager and I were dating, however it was short-lived. On our first night together in his new house, I told him the reason I had shaved pubes was due to the fact that I had gotten crabs from my previous boyfriend, Glen, the Brian Ferry look-alike, who was so enamored by the singer and their similarity that he had framed clippings of the pop star and placed them around his house as if they were his own family portraits.

I was sixteen when I met Glen at Yesterdays Nightclub in Alderly Edge. I was out with the staff from a local wicker and pine furniture store I was working Saturdays at while at a sixth form college pretending to study for A levels. I spotted Glen at the bar, he was very good looking and I was very bored. I had observed the tall blond by his side but this did not deter me one bit. I slid in beside him when I noticed his date had left for the loos and asked if we had met before (yes, it’s not only men who have pick-up lines). “You look so familiar,” I continued, “Maybe you saw me playing, I’m a musician?” “I sing and act too.” I chipped in swiftly, hoping he would hurry up and ask me out before the blond came back. He did as I expected and scribbled down his number on a napkin, “call me.” A few nights later Glen took me out on our first date, the date ended up back at his place. I told my parents I was staying at my friends house for the night, they thought nothing of it until my boss called to ask if I could work, my parents attempts to track me down led to my lies and I came home from Glens to all of my belongings bagged in black dustbin bags on the front lawn. I was sixteen years old and now moving out for the first time and in with my new boyfriend Glen; the musician who turned out to be a dustbin man (waste transfer engineer), not yet divorced and twice my age.

It blows me away when I think of my own daughters and how in two weeks they will be sixteen. The idea of them behaving as I did is preposterous.

I moved back in with my parents a few months after meeting glen. I tried to study for A levels but the reality was; I wasn’t ready to take education or myself seriously. Instead I got a job at a jewelry store, and went on with my life falling in and out of love, not really knowing what I wanted, except really wanting to not live with my parents.

It would be more than two years before I decided to go back to college and study. In the meantime, I dated a twenty-four year old artist and busker named Chris (one) who looked like Maxx Headroom, he had grown up in a rough part of Stoke-on-Trent, played guitar on the street for money (even paid taxes on his earnings) and was a sex maniac. We would have sex all the time and it didn’t matter where we were; behind a tree, in the bathroom on the train, behind a building, down an alley, etc.

Chris had no understanding of conformity, although raised by extremely poor factory workers he had a first honors degree in fine art from the Royal College of Art, he was a wonderful musician, and writer. He wore vintage clothes; typically old pajama tops and 1940s suits. My parents found him to be a terrible catch; his manners at the dining table were not acceptable, he sang on the street and wore their parents old clothes, what could I possibly see in him?

Chris painted dozens of nude oil paintings of me, they were beautiful, but I don’t own any of them. He refused to sell his art, believing that his work would be worth more when he was dead, and he couldn’t bare the idea that he would have sold them for so little during his life.

We were together for six months, before meeting and falling head over heals in love with Chris two. I left the jewelers shortly before Chris one and I broke up, after losing the keys the first day of their grand sale. Head office had sent someone with a diamond drill to get us in the door and I was asked to recall my whereabouts from the night before which had included several pubs in both Macclesfield and Stoke-on-Trent; but the most humiliating part of the experience was being severely reprimanded by my angry mother in front of my work mates while we sat on the ground waiting for the diamond drill guy to break in.

When I opened my own store years later I made twenty copies of the keys, I have never been very good at keeping keys in my possession. My house does not own a set. As a teenage I was not given house keys, instead each day when I came home from school, right after morning registration, I would walk around the side of the house, take the ladder, and somersault onto my bed through the window I had left cracked.

I left the jewelers to go work in a factory that made fitted furniture for hotels. I was a telesales girl; calling clients with my sultry voice and asking for appointments to show them what our furniture could do for their hotel. It was there I met Chris two.

Chris one kept a journal, he took it everywhere with him, one day when we were riding the train together he left it on the seat, jumped off at his stop and I picked it up and began to read. Expecting to read tales of our lives together for the next two stops, I instead read about his ex coming to visit him, how she had landed on his doorstep and they had spent two days together making love, I was mortified. The next day Chris came to the jewelers on bended knee asking for forgiveness, I forgave him.

I was working at the factory a few weeks later and developing a crush on Chris two, his softly spoken voice and his watery blue eyes fascinated me, he came by the office each day to take our lunch orders and I flirted with him. The factory secretary was throwing a house party and I called my boyfriend Chris to let him know of the upcoming event, he said he couldn’t make it. I knew he was planning on meeting his ex, something didn’t feel right, so I marched into the factory and asked Chris two if he’d come out for a beer with me after work. He agreed, but said he needed to go home and change. I insisted we go straight from work, and that we didn’t need to dress up. Just as well really, because I came to know that Chris’s idea of dressing up meant bondage pants, a can of hairspray and lots and lots of make-up.

My mum asked Chris once, “Why do you wear women’s clothes?” By the time I saw him dressed in all of his gear I was already taken with him and in some strange way it was a turn on. Chris one tried to win me back, but it was over and I never saw him again.

The wrong shoes

I find things either hysterically funny or terribly tragic. It’s as though I feel too much. In the past, when things were not going well I would do anything to try to ease the pain, and often the things I chose to do would bring about the opposite result. I’m bummed; therefore I’ll drink. I’m broke so I’ll buy myself something pretty when I do get some money. I’m fat, so I’ll eat. I feel unloved so I’ll comfort myself in the arms of a man who doesn’t love me.

The past two nights at bedtime I have watched a self-hypnosis video to improve one’s self esteem. Yesterday morning as I began to wake I was dreaming that I was running around a field pretending to be an airplane, my dog, Bo was chasing me. My online lover (ex) was playing poker; he typed something to me and then said, “That was nasty, I’m sorry.” I stopped for a moment and then said: “Oh, I didn’t notice.” I laughed and then started to run with my dog again. I concluded from this that no matter what anyone says, I am responsible for making myself happy, and that his words can no longer cause me pain. He’s not a nasty person, he never meant to cause me any hurt and I’m sure his departure was partly due to the fact in many ways he felt responsible for my unhappiness. He told me try to remember I like(d) you. This was very little comfort to me, mostly because I didn’t believe him, and the reason why I didn’t was because I wasn’t really liking myself anymore. This has to change, and I am the only one who can fix it.

As a child my moods were just as extreme; I was either sitting in the grass making up little songs and making daisy chains or I was reacting to being teased by my parents, as the English do so well. The reaction was to throw a huge temper tantrum, I would yell something as hurtful as I could think of, run up the stairs as fast as I could, slam the door and then hurl my dolls around the room. If no one came to reprimand me for my insolence and violent behavior I would run back downstairs say something as spiteful as I could think of and repeat the process. At this point I was now in trouble and reprimanded, now I could cry. With my face in the pillow I would sob uncontrollably and inconsolably. I have seen my daughter behave in much the same manner and I feel her pain viscerally.

There wasn’t always any logic to my extreme emotions; even the wrong shoes could cause me anguish. My Mother said I had awkward feet as a child; skinny ankles, narrow heals and wide toes. This meant buying the cheap shoes from the fashionable stores was not an option, and shoe shopping was a traumatic experience for me. Once I was bought a pair of fashionable shoes and within a week they began to fall apart, my Mother returned the shoes to the store, the manager put up a big fight as to the reason why the shoes fell apart: that I had caused their demise by abusing them. We got the refund and my mother marched me off to Clarkes to buy me some ugly ones that would last and fit well. I loved the shoes I had abused; my new sensible shoes made me feel ugly and weird. I remember as a child looking first at what women wore on their feet. I believed I could tell the personality of a person by what they chose to attach to the end of their legs, and that the right shoes could make or break the look. Pisces are ruled by their feet; so it’s no wonder that my first retail store began as a shoe store. Incidentally I hate feet, I find the idea that a man would find feet erotic, grotesque. I do not want my toes sucked, or my feet massaged, don’t look at them, don’t touch them, and don’t even think about them.

I ran away from home twice as a child, the reason for the first time was as irrational as the despair I felt at wearing the wrong shoes. I was around eight years old, and I had a bunny named, Thumper. I begged my Mum and Dad to buy us the bunny, our dog, Emily had met him in a pet store window while we were out walking one evening, it was love at first sight, the two of their noses pressed up against the glass, loving each other. I was told we could buy the bunny but I was to be responsible for feeding him and cleaning out his hutch. The problem was I had no idea just how much rabbit pooh and pee stank, and after a couple of weeks I could not stomach the idea of having to shovel out the vile smelling, pee and pooh soaked sawdust. Instead I ran away from home, I walked down the street running into my two best friends along the way and told them I was going to need supplies, like biscuits (cookies), they obliged, and off to the meadows I went to spend the rest of my days. My two older brothers were sent out to find me, they soon caught up to me in a field, I began to run, and they chased, my slipper got caught in a cow patty, but I didn’t stop, like Cinderella I continued to run wearing only one pink fluffy slipper, until I reached a stream. My brothers each took an arm and marched me back home. I could see my mother standing in front of the house, her hands on her hips her face redder than her hair, she was furious. I was sent to my room where I sobbed into the pillow. My father was actually quite sweet to me that afternoon, he said: “I knew where you would be, where you go play hide and seek with Emily.”

The second time I ran away from home was after being grounded for getting a hickey. I was thirteen years old; my best friend Caroline Green had thrown a party at her house, at the party I hooked up with Steven Moore. Steven was the first boy to ask me out. He had red wavy hair; he was very confidant, and funny. I did NOT find him attractive in the slightest, but I wasn’t sure if a boy would ever ask me out in my lifetime so I told him I don’t know. Eventually (later that morning) I said okay. He leaned over toward my desk and said lets meet outside The Flower Pot later, (the local pub) suddenly I panicked: Oh my I was actually supposed to hang out with this boy, it wasn’t just some badge you wear stating I am Steven Moore’s girlfriend? Hastily I told him I couldn’t see him that afternoon as I had already agreed to meet Michael Metcalf, (my neighbor, the voyeur, whom I had the BIG crush on). “You two-timing slag.” Steven exclaimed. Our relationship was now over. At lunchtime I received my punishment for my hideous two-timing ways; in the playground outside the bathrooms I found myself surrounded by about forty kids who chanted slag and slut at me and hurled tennis balls in my direction. I had only been at the school two weeks; it wasn’t exactly the welcome I’d hoped for.

Despite the fact that I had not found Steven attractive in the least he seemed like the key to my potential popularity, so when he asked me to kiss him at Caroline’s party months later; I consented. We spent the night lying on the floor, him biting my neck, sticking his tongue in my mouth, with his hand up my shirt, or up my skirt. My parents had been away for the weekend; my brothers and I were under the care of my Grandmother. Upon arriving home, my Mum was curious as to my whereabouts, why is Natasha already in bed? My big mouth, big brother, announced the vampires had gotten to me, and my mother came flying up the stairs, pulled back the covers and announced I was grounded. The next day after school I walked home with Steven and told him, I was running away from home, did he have any biscuits (cookies) and where could I find shelter. He scrounged some snacks together and then showed me a structure where they kept the dustbins (trash cans), he could remove the dustbin and I could sleep there. “Okay.” I said. And off we went to the soccer field where I would adoringly watch him kick a ball around. My parents eventually tracked me down, and I was grounded.

Steven decided I was too much trouble and the only physical contact we had with each other after that was during a rain shower where my trainers (sneakers) began to foam up from not being rinsed properly after I had soaped and scrubbed them to make them white again. Steven thought my foaming feet were hilarious and as we walked home from school he kept standing on them to create more and more bubbles.

Honest ramblings...

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I think about lately. My daughter this morning told me that she read somewhere recently that ‘great’ people speak of ideas, ‘average’ people speak of events and ‘dummies’ (hm, don’t think she said dummies, however) speak of other people. I am taking ideas as meaning concepts. I think I mostly I think and speak of people, my relationships with them and how that makes me feel. And I am not too happy about this.

Ironically I am focusing on my feelings concerning this matter, which does nothing to resolve the issue that my focus is yet again on my feelings.

I am drawn to people, who speak of ideas, who have lots of interesting facts to share, yet I am quite selfish in conversation and as my other daughter will freely point out, I live in my own head. This does not invite the other people or person to bring the topic of conversation away from my endless self analysis, and as such I am denying myself the enjoyment of the other person’s company. Again, I’m analyzing.

Perhaps it is a feminine trait to focus so much on emotions and feelings. It’s not that I don’t have ideas and I love to explore them; in fact I have so many ideas that I find it difficult to stay with one and see anything materialize from any of them.

And then there’s the constant distraction of my pussy, I’d say my heart, but the reality is, it’s all about the pussy. This has been a recurring theme in my life for a very long time. I love the Sylvia Plath quote “If I didn't think, I'd be much happier; if I didn't have any sex organs, I wouldn't waver on the brink of nervous emotion and tears all the time. ”

Someone recently told me I need hobbies, “and I don’t mean crocheting.” Well I do have hobbies, but they’re not very healthy ones. Poker is my number one hobby, and playing with my pussy is a close second. There are two reasons I enjoy poker, the first is that it allows me to zone out of reality, I click endlessly on the screen; check, call, raise, fold… I’m in a zone. The other reason is the company; I like the chat-box.

I wonder sometimes if the people I am attracted to online would hold the same attraction in real life. Usually in real life I like humble people who find me funny; I need to make people laugh. In my online world I am attracted to confident and highly intelligent people. The two people in the past four years of being trapped in cyberspace who have swept me off my feet are both extremely arrogant and very bright. I’m not very confident, although I can pretend to be and my self-esteem is very low, so being around such egoists in real life brings me down. For some reason these types online it makes me feel special. And these two individuals took my imagination on a flight of sexual fantasy that in all honesty was better than the real thing, which thus explains my other hobby.

My weakness is being watched. When I was a young teenager I was neighbors with a good looking boy who was a year older than me, he would call me up and ask me to stand on my window ledge and remove my top, I always obliged. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t be my boyfriend. He was perfect, intense blue eyes and broad shoulders, a year older, and very arrogant. He had two older brothers, they were all handsome and I think I would have slept with all of them had they asked me. One night we camped in a neighbors yard, Michael, my neighborhood voyeur came into my tent and kissed me, I was thirteen at the time, I had no chest; he put his hand down my PJs and fingered my tight cunt, then he left and went into my friends tent, she was a year older and had giant boobs. I was crushed. Any time he wanted I let him touch me, but he never wanted to be my boyfriend. It is my earliest memory of rejection. A few years later, Michael had left school and had become an apprentice chef, he obviously tasted his wares a little too often and had become quite a porker, we ran into each other at a night club and after walked home together, he went to kiss me, but first he actually asked me if I’d like to be his girlfriend, I said no, of course I said no; I wanted him when he was smoking HOT!

When I was in my early twenties, shortly after meeting my husband, I went to the Canary Islands for the winter to work. The plan had been to go back home to England, find a nice English boy and settle down, I had met my husband only days before going back home. I knew I was going to marry James; in part because a psychic had told me I would meet my soul mate in America and after eighteen months in the States and not having met one guy who came anything close to being a possible soul mate, I assumed he was the one. Staying on the island however was not an option, my flight was booked and I had no job, so back home I went. Upon arriving home, my Mum opened the front door and the first thing out of my mouth was “I met my husband.” ‘Steven?” She asked.

Steven had been my boyfriend for three months before he left for the winter to Telluride; he was by no means a soul mate, but we had fun. Steven was a non drinker and belonged to NA I had once said to him, I don’t see why you don’t have the occasional puff on a joint, I ran into him a few months later when I was back on the island and he had a giant bag of weed he proudly showed me, saying “I took your advice.” Oops sorry Steven, that wasn’t exactly what I meant.

I too was a non-drinker at the time, after a night of drinking my bosses’ beers with his underage nieces and his wife’s underage cousin on the roof of the building above their funky clothing store where I worked. The bars were letting out, we were noisy exchanging banter and singing with the drunks passing us by while they stumbled home. My boss told me to leave; I was jobless and homeless. It was suggested if I quit drinking I could have my digs and my job back so I complied, instead I had the occasional puff and it was around that time that Steve and I started to go out.

Incidentally Steve was also the first man I gave a blowjob to in a car, and this still remains my favorite way of giving head.

I digress… I was only home a few days when I realized why I had left England in the first place; the weather mostly, there is nothing more depressing to me that the damp grey days in the north of England; the lack of opportunity, and the grim attitude held by so many northern Brits. It’s as if they want you to fail and find great joy in the moments of others when things don’t go so well for them.

I actually had a pretty good time as I remember in the short time I stayed there before heading off to Gran Canaria. It wasn’t long before I began drinking again, my first night out with old friends, I announced that I don’t drink; I will never forget the look of puzzlement on the curious faces of my English friends. “Why don’t you drink?” “Are you allergic?” They were bemused and within a few minutes so was I. Yes why don’t I drink? Needless to say I am pretty sure I was wasted in no time.

I hung out with my friend John. John was a wild man who lived with a very normal girl-scout-leader; he smoked lots of weed, rode a motorbike and made me laugh. He owned some houses; I love telling how he came to be a landlord; how he went into Macclesfield forest before Christmas, chopped down some trees, sold them, with the money bought a car, drove it down to London, flogged it, hitch-hiked back to Mac and did it all over again until he had enough funds to buy his first house.

John knew I had no money, and no job, so he asked if I would like to come and clean out a house of a non-paying tenant of his. The idea was he would toss out anything that was not needed and sell off anything of value at a car-boot sale. While sorting through stuff I found an ATM card, “look John!” ‘It’s no good without the pin.” he said. A few minutes later I found the pin number in a stack of papers. We ran to the bank, not knowing what to expect, I put on leather gloves to be sure my finger prints would not be found and we withdrew as much money as we could from the account, we did this for several days until the funds were gone, and we split the dough. I rented a car and drove to Wales to go visit my old Buddy and then booked a flight to Grand Canaria.

It was in Gran Canaria that I profited from my exhibitionism; I rented an apartment in a building full of transients, the rooms were small and very cheap. My breasts fascinated the manager of the apartment building; in exchange for a months rent he asked that he might see them. All I had to do was remove my shirt. He obviously wasn’t very bright he could have come to the rooftop any morning where I was usually topless sunbathing and seen them for free.

I don’t look back on my three months in Gran Canaria as a happy time in my life, however I do think it makes for a great story. The first morning there I spoke to the pervy manager, enquiring about where I might find employment. There was an older Spanish man at the reception, who began singing, I of course joined in and he liked what he heard, asking me if I was interested in singing with him that evening at one of the hotels. We went back to his placed and practiced for a while and that evening headed to the hotel where he set up his keyboard. The hotel was full of German tourists. My accompanist had written the lyrics to the songs phonetically on the score, I began singing along “I’m sinking wit terrain, just sinking wit terrain…” I had had a couple of drinks to calm my nerves and as I stared out at the stony faces of the un-amused Germans I lost it, and there was no way I could continue. My fellow musician was not amused, he drove me back to the apartment tried to grab my pussy, I told him no effing way, and he threw some bills at me making it quite clear my singing career was over.

The next morning I told the manager and a Welsh guy who was lurking near by the funny tale of my first night s employment. The Welsh guy said “Well you seem industrious, would you want to be a hostess at a strip club?” I had seen what hostesses did for the past 18 months living in the states, it seemed pretty easy, they greeted people at the door and showed them to their seats; “sure, why not?” So that evening we went to the strip club where I met the manager, he said “I’ll hire you.” Oops, I didn’t quite understand the job description at all, I was expected to sit and talk with men and persuade them to buy me champagne, which was cheap, nasty and cost them an arm and a leg. I did manage to make a little money and I needed the cheap champagne just to get my head around what it was I was doing. In some strange way I actually had fun, I liked watching the girls dance and observing the weirdness of the night, almost as if I was not in my own body. I didn’t go back though; one night was all the experience I needed.

The following morning I went back to the reception, my Welsh friend was there again. “How was it Natasha?” “Not exactly what I’m looking for, any other ideas?” I answered. That night he took me to a small bar in a shopping complex next to a round-a-bout; the bar was ugly, painted red and black. My job was to stand at the round-a-bout and accost tourists arriving in cabs to get them into the bar, armed with little tickets that said two for one; I got paid a commission on the tickets handed in. It was one of the most degrading things I have ever had to do in my life. I remember standing waiting for the next cab and looking out at a high-rise building across the way, imagining that James (my future husband) would land on the roof in a helicopter, would jump out and call my name through a megaphone. I really had the wrong guy, this is about the most unlikely thing James would ever do.

One particular night I walked over to a cab, two young good-looking guys stepped out, “hi, where you guys from?” I asked. “Greece”, the one answered with a boyish smile… ah “Ti-kanis?” (How are you?) I had spent a summer in Crete, so now I was feeling confident I could persuade the boys to go to my bar. I told them about the special, and the flirty Greek boy agreed if I would join them. I sat with him for a few minutes before having to leave but I agreed to meet him later at a nightclub. He turned out to not be Greek at all, he was Italian, not only Italian but also he was a drug smuggler, who packed a gun and was part of the Gambino family. I became his bitch, and I was not sure if or how I could squirm out of it. One night we were together a man tried to talk to me, he pulled a gun out on the poor fella and told him to leave me alone. I was a little afraid for my life. I don’t remember his name now. He was an extremely sexy lover, but I was relieved when he vanished without a trace.

I didn’t work at the round-about for long, I got word of a temporary job at another bar as a bartender, a girl was going home for Christmas, could I cover for her? Hell yeah!!! The little bar didn’t do a lot of business; the girl I was covering for was short and stocky. The owner had not yet understood that having attractive, friendly people working for him might actually attract customers. I flirted with the guys, played the right music and in a very short time had every bar stool filled. Needless to say my job was safe for as long as I wanted it. I met the sugar cubes manager there one night and ended up in bed with him for a week, he was dreamy. I also ate bull penis for the first and last time (an Icelandic delicacy, I do not recommend).