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MAMMARY ORGASMIC POTENTIAL � A CASE STUDY

Georgina lost patience with the subject of Human Biology in 1967, when she was sixteen, after reading, in a much-hyped popular science book of the year, that fatty breast tissue in female humans had evolved in order to attract males. Till then, Biology had been her favourite GCE subject, her interest fostered by her ex-science teacher mother, who was a fan of Lorenz and Leakey and, since giving up her job on marriage, had become an ardent armchair ethologist. Young Georgina had limited experience of the world, and of men, but she was not lacking in common sense. The idea that in mankind's pre-monogamous past, males had played hard to get, or turned up their noses, so to speak, at flat-chested females, was preposterous. It was a fact, was it not (Georgina and her mother were anticipating Dawkins here) that the natural drive of every man was to attempt to plant his seed as often and as widely as possible, even if this ambition had been, in the more recent past, culturally curtailed. And the result of this would have been pregnancy � and so descendants � for all. If there ever had been intrinsically choosy or continent males, their lines would obviously and quite logically have died out. Indeed, it even occurred to Georgina � though there was no mention of this idea in the literature, even to dismiss it � that men's bodies might have evolved to suit women; she knew that in the animal kingdom, at least, males were commonly excluded from the procreation business by a female penchant to welcome into their society and bodies only a limited number of strong and handsome males. Much less trouble all round, possibly. So the bodies of these males would have been shaped either by the females' needs and likings, or � and Georgina conceded that this might actually be more likely � by competition with their peers for access to the females. It was a red- letter day, brain-wise, the day she realized that the phrase 'dominant male' referred to dominance of a male over his fellow males, and only incidentally (in the sense that once a bully, always a bully) over females.
������ Of course, this was not to deny that males, in her society anyway, did find large breasts attractive. Or at least noteworthy. At street level, quite literally, Georgina (34DD) knew this, as suggested by unsolicited remarks such as 'wouldn't get many of them to the pound' or 'lor, luv, give us a handful', though the males offering such appreciation usually looked, in terms of present-day society, far from dominant. However, what males found attractive, indeed their general likes and dislikes regarding the female form, did not, Georgina felt, indeed could not, have influenced that form.
������ Georgina's irritation with evolutionary theory was, as it turned out, relatively short-lived (in the scale of things), because during the seventies � her twenties, which she spent in London working as a secretary � the world (or male biologists, rather) caught up with her, and belatedly acknowledged their mistakes. A new wave of evolutionary literature hit the bookstands, which put into words and so validated her private thoughts. One of these postulated a semi-aquatic past for early man, and suggested the development of floating, fatty breast tissue as an aid to breast feeding in water. This Georgina was happy to accept; partly because another breast-related question, only recently emerged, was now fascinating her. Okay, so breasts were fatty, floated, and under stimulation (such as sucking, as a baby might do) acquired teat-like nipples. Logical and sensible. But why were female human breasts so powerfully erogenous? For a while after this question occurred to her she imagined that it must have something to do with breast feeding � an inducement and reward for women suckling their young. The nipple was, undeniably, the focus of erotic sensation. But towards the end of the seventies, Georgina acquired both a husband, Hayden (one of those males grateful for fatty, floating, female breast tissue, but not tediously obsessed with it) and, a year later, a baby. Breast feeding, she discovered, was a pleasant activity, but hardly erotic. The sucking mouth of her son, while it certainly encouraged the teat- like shape of breast material, did not awaken the sensual threads that under her husband's stimulation, and indeed her own, could lead, with only a modicum of attention elsewhere, directly to orgasm. Under questioning, and in practical experimentation, Hayden denied that the same was true for him. Indeed, he found her experiments a mildly irritating (in both senses) waste of time. So why, Georgina wondered, did women have this facility; this double route to satisfaction, as it were, and not men? And, moreover, why were women capable of echo-orgasms (multiple orgasms, the magazines called them, having recently triumphantly discovered them) when men weren't?
������ She had plenty of time to ponder these questions because, as was normal for the times, she had given up paid work to care for her child. An interest in sexual biology and evolution had, she recognized, over the years, become her hobby. Her mother always said that everyone needed a private intellectual interest. A mental passion. She scoured the literature. Could it be that females needed more reward for intercourse, because the consequences of fertilization for their sex were profounder, and that to counter any caution this might engender they had therefore developed as more generally orgasmic? Or, to put it another way, women with low orgasmic potential avoided sex, because there wasn't a lot in it for them (grunting deadweights, complications of pregnancy, puerperal fever leading to certain death, etc) leaving their more enthusiastic sisters to provide the next generation? But did early humans understand the connection between sex and babies? If they didn't, well, even a low sex drive would probably result in almost perpetual pregnancy, and so gene-bearing descendants, and, if they did understand the connection, even so, wouldn't it, in those days, always have been a good idea, despite the risks, to have lots of babies? Wouldn't a big group of humans always have been more successful than a small group? And, if talking about a time so long ago that women had an oestrus cycle, a season, wouldn't they all have been at it with the enthusiasm of rabbits, hormonally driven, whatever the consequences? Oh, questions, questions. And what about the fact that women could enjoy sexual satisfaction very easily without the penetration required for conception and pregnancy? To where did that point? To a whole new direction?
������ It came to Georgina in the mid-eighties, at a time when her husband's sexual capacity seemed to be diminishing but hers was still increasing, that, despite the mysteries, there was one certainty about all this. This certainty was not an evolutionary explanation, but a simple, logical conclusion. Women, not men, were the true � if often latent � sexual hedonists. Men could achieve orgasm only during the sex act, or in close simulation of it; women could have biologically satisfactory intercourse without orgasm (millions, apparently, did so regularly) but, crucially, were also capable of orgasm outside the sex act (or close simulation) without any penetrative element at all. Indeed, with only the slightest direct involvement of their lower, specifically reproductive organs. Women had achieved what men had not: the separation of the sex act from sexual pleasure.
������ There is something about discovering a facet of behaviour to be 'natural' that encourages acceptance of it. That reduces any guilt one might otherwise have felt regarding it. How many men, after reading Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, for instance, have not felt their wandering eyes excused? Sexual rampancy, they tell themselves, is part of their biological inheritance. Lust is all right. It's only natural.
������ So felt Georgina. Biology had not given her a body purpose-built for pleasure for nothing. It was there to be enjoyed. To explore its capacity was part of self-fulfilment. Almost a duty.
������ And she didn't have to behave destructively, or disloyally. Despite all her self- education, and the feminist times, she had no wish to break up her family. She liked Hayden. But, fortunately, nothing except her own body � well, breasts, to be specific � was required.
������ It was surprising how many normal, everyday activities orgasm could be incorporated into. And how little was required in the way of privacy. So much easier for women. Masturbating men seemed to need vigorous stimulation of the rudest area of their bodies � hardly an unnoticeable activity � plus the paraphanalia of visual triggers; women could achieve the same with much more discreet, oblique stimulation and had the invisible triggers of imagination and memory. Men discharged something at orgasm of a quantity that had to be dealt with. What women produced could safely be ignored. Just a matter of remembering to try it, really. Anything mentally (and preferably manually) untaxing would do. Showering. Exercise-biking. Sun-bathing. Watching television. Leaning against chest-high barriers... being put on hold when ringing public utilities... killing time in parked cars waiting to collect husband, son...
������ She was experimenting, of course. This was about pleasure, but not simple self- indulgence. She investigated how remote stimulation could be, breastwise, yet still trigger orgasm... the effects of different clothes and fabrics (and discovered the amazing efficacy of stiff taffeta over a peephole bra)... how many echoes could be achieved... how many repeats in 24 hours... she established the truth that the more you did it, the faster and better the result...
������ Eventually, innocently, she told Hayden � in broad terms � what she was doing. She hadn't planned to, and, if she had had time to think about it, possibly would have seen the dangers. But the subject of masturbation just came up, one evening, after they'd watched a Channel Four television programme about puberty. Hayden was reminiscing nostalgically about adolescence and the sadness of the single male. He seemed to be assuming that only teenagers and lonely men would indulge. She thought, well, I've got to tell him. He's obviously wrong. There was nothing to be ashamed of.
������ But Hayden was stunned. Didn't believe her at first - indeed, refused for a long time to accept that orgasm could be achieved exclusively via the breasts. It was idiotic � what, biologically, would be the point?
������ However for a while � a couple of years, no less � the aftermath was gloriously positive. His sexual appetite increased dramatically, as if in appalled yet stimulated response. But then, in the early nineties, suddenly � almost overnight � waned to nonexistent. He had recently discovered that she was still masturbating. He seemed to give up. Retire defeated.
������ In 1995, when Georgina was forty-four, nine months after she and Hayden had last enjoyed successful penetrative sex, Hayden announced that he was having an affair with a work colleague. He said that while he was perfectly content to maintain their marriage at least until their son left home for college, he no longer wished to share a bedroom with her, or to be subject to any sexual contact. Georgina, who felt she had been a supportive, affectionate and sexually-compatible wife (and an easily good-enough mother) was distressed. She demanded to know why.
������'Because I feel unneeded by you,' said Hayden. 'In fact quite redundant. And now I've found someone who does need me, and she's what I want.'
������ 'For God's sake,' said Georgina. She translated the 'someone who needs me' to 'someone who needs me sexually' and thought this most unlikely. Unless the woman was ridiculously naive and inexperienced.
������ 'I have never been unfaithful to you,' she complained. 'Never.'
������ Hayden set his jaw. Clearly he would have liked to dispute this but couldn't. 'The effect is the same,' he said mulishly. 'You have damaged my self-esteem. Unmanned me.'
������ Georgina refrained from saying, 'Well, balls-for-brain, that depends how you define yourself, doesn't it?' because she didn't honestly think that Hayden would have got as far as taking a lover if he wasn't serious, so there seemed little point. 'I don't see you as a pleasure machine,' she said. 'But as a loving friend who is the father of our child, and the man I have lived reasonably happily with for more than twenty years. My husband. However, if you feel as you do...'
������ 'I do,' he said. 'I don't think you realise how important these things are to a man.'
������ Georgina didn't argue. Clearly he was right. Important to him, anyway. It was not until a few days later that it occurred to her that perhaps Hayden had been expecting her to forswear all masturbatory acts, now and forever, for the sake of his self-esteem and potency, and their marriage. Such a promise was obviously unthinkable; but it was sayable. No, she thought, stiffening her heart. Hayden was jealous of her sexual capacity. That was what it came down to. He wanted, and needed, to limit her potential, for his own selfish sake. As if he, and he alone, should control her pleasure. That was oppression, and she couldn't live with it.

Four years later, their son in his second year at Reading University, Georgina and Hayden divorced. The break up was as amicable as these things can be. They sold the family house and split the considerable proceeds. Hayden immediately moved in with his girlfriend, who had three small children from a previous marriage, and was certainly in a position to make him feel needed (domestically and economically, at least). Georgina spent a large sum of money visiting relatives in Australia and touring the Far East, and on her return decided to pursue her long-standing hobby in a more organised, academic fashion. Take up where she had lost patience, all those years ago. In the library opposite her sister's house (where she was temporarily staying) she scoured the further education prospectuses and discovered she could enrol as a mature student at the University of Greater Torrington for a degree in Human Biology that included the modules Reproductive and Sexual Studies and Feminist Evolutionary Theory.
������ She applied immediately and, in due course, was called for interview. During this she offered a short verbal presentation of her readings, thoughts and researches to date, and was offered an unconditional place on the spot. In her first semester the following September she found herself, unsurprisingly, streets ahead of all the other students.
������She is now in her third year, predicted to get a First, and has already secured sought- after funding to stay on for an MA, the provisional title of which is 'Mammary Orgasmic Potential � A Case Study'. The only downside of her new life is the procession of academics and fellow students � all male � who beat a path to her door, claiming to wish to assist in her research. She has told them to wait until she embarks on her PhD, where she hopes to pursue research that will challenge and open out the whole issue of human sexuality and function. The title, in her mind at least, will be The Primitive and The Progressive: Gender Discrepancy in Sexual Evolutionary Development.



The following story appears in Catherine's collection Of Sons and Stars, Honno 1997. Contact details for Honno are on the Staff Publications page of this site. This story has also been published in the Literary Review vol 44 no 2, published by Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA.

LEARNING TO SPEAK KLINGON

The streets of the Valleys' town are cold and blustery in January, but not unfriendly. The square in front of the cinema is even picturesque, in a downbeat, frontier-town way. It bears a passing resemblance, certainly after a few pints, to the fifties town square filmset in Back to the Future.
������ Up a sideroad is a row of tall, substantial brickbuilt houses and in one of these Iestyn and Dale, two young men in their early twenties, rent a large first floor flat. They have two bedrooms, big sitting room, kitchen and bathroom, with gas central heating, all for �35 a week each. Which the DSS pays, as neither young man has a job. Neither, it should be said, is seriously looking for one: Iestyn is lead singer for a local heavy rock band called War Zone, a group much in demand, and Dale is taking A levels in Media Studies and Psychology at evening classes and doesn't want to overstretch himself. Both young men are, anyway, of the opinion that in the present economic climate, with not enough work to go round, it would be positively selfish of them to hog jobs they don't want, when there are others clearly desperate for them.
������ Both young men's weeks, despite their unemployed status, are full. They rise about noon. During the afternoon they do chores such as shopping or tidying up or going to the launderette or signing on, and Iestyn walks his dog Duffy, which he isn't meant to keep at the flat but which the landlord has given up nagging him about. Iestyn is a young man of infectious good humour and even the landlord is susceptible. While he's out Dale does any college homework he's been set. Both drop in on parents, sisters or aunties for tea, or treat themselves at the chippie, and then the day's real business begins. For Iestyn, Tuesday and Sunday are band practice nights - held in a nearby disused chapel - and most Fridays and Saturdays the band has gigs. As far away as Swansea, sometimes. The money they make covers their expenses. On Monday nights he has a regular spot at the Bridgend Pub down the road, comp�ring their Karaoki evenings, singing himself, in his confident, rock-singer's voice, if no one else will take the microphone. Despite - or perhaps because of - his Red Indian-length hair, earrings and tattoos, he is a favourite with the regulars, especially the women. The pub manager pays him in Pilsner beer and a tenner in cash.
������ Dale's evenings are almost as busy: he has his classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, seven until ten, and roadies for Iestyn when the band has gigs. Wednesday night both young men make sure they are home early evening for Star Trek. Dale is a model- maker as well as a Star Trek enthusiast and his bedroom is ornamented with neat rows of Federation Enterprises, Klingon Birds of Prey, Ferengi Marauders and Romulan Warbirds. After the programme he is often inspired to start a new model. And this January he has begun teaching himself the Klingon language, from a Star Trek dictionary given to him at Christmas by his mother. He's tried to persuade Iestyn to learn too, but with only limited success. 'It's a warrior language, mun,' he's insisted, thinking this will appeal to the hard man of rock in Iestyn. Klingons, with their long hair and macho dress, look very Heavy Metal. 'The language of brutal reality,' he stresses. 'Genuine fighting talk. And half as many people in the world speak Klingon as speak Welsh, you know.'
������ 'Not in Wales, they don't,' Iestyn points out. But he has deigned to learn the odd word. NuqneH, for instance, pronounced nook-NEKH, which translated means what do you want? the nearest the barbaric language gets to hello. And Qo, kkho, which means I won't.
������ So: Iestyn with his music, and Dale with his hobbies and studies, enjoy busy, relatively fulfilled lives. Which doesn't seem to be the case for their neighbours.
������ Below Iestyn and Dale, in the smaller, darker, ground floor flat, live a young couple and their baby. Pete, Mouse, and baby Mouse. (Dale and Iestyn have never been told the child's proper name.) Pete is unemployed too and not a great conversationalist. Iestyn and Dale feel that Pete is the sort of unemployed bloke that they'd like their non-participation in the labour market to benefit, because he clearly needs a job, and isn't good at managing without one. He doesn't seem to have any hobbies or enthusiasms or inner resources at all. He always looks miserable, always at a loose end. Trouble is, he's also the sort of guy who doesn't get jobs. Who's the last to hear about the few there are. Doesn't put himself about. You have to hustle for jobs these days. The quiet, passive types don't stand a chance. 'He's dull, too, man,' Dale says with a sigh. 'No two ways about it.'
������ Mouse, however, is not dull. They actually see more of her than Pete because the baby often has colic and colds and she comes upstairs to ring the surgery from their phone. (Rock bands have to be bookable; group funds pay the rental.) Mouse is tiny, as her name suggests, and would be pretty if she didn't look permanently tired. Iestyn thinks it's a miracle that a body as small as hers carried and gave birth to a baby. Baby Mouse is fat and cute - more hamster than mouse, really - despite the colic and colds.
������ In February the manager of the Bridgend asks Iestyn if he'd like to work behind the bar Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Iestyn says no, ta, his diary's already full, but he'll find someone else, leave it to him. He sees a chance to do Pete and Mouse a favour. He tells Mouse, who tells Pete, who is told again, impatiently, by Iestyn, and finally it's fixed. Pete will work 8 till 12 both evenings for twenty quid a week.
������ There's only one problem: Mouse, though she wants the extra money and thinks the work'll do Pete good, doesn't like being left alone in the flat at night. It's on the ground floor, and the back kitchen doesn't have curtains. They've had one attempted break-in already. The garden outside spooks her. Anyone might be looking in. She tells Dale and Iestyn, who invite her and the baby upstairs on the nights that Pete's out. The baby is tucked up on the big sofa, Duffy warned not to slobber on him, and on Wednesdays Mouse watches Dale build models and Iestyn sketch War Zone flyers and CD covers. Dale practises his Klingon on her too. Hijol! he says, which means Beam me aboard. Or bImoHqu which means you look terrible. Most Klingon phrases are negative or aggressive and require a back-of-throat explosive delivery; it's the brutal Klingon way. Mouse has a sense of humour. While Dale is trying a longer phrase on her she inquires if he's being sick. 'That means surrender or die,' Dale tells her. 'Ah, useful,' Mouse nods.
������ On Thursday nights when she goes upstairs Mouse has Iestyn to herself until ten thirty, because it's a college night for Dale. Normally Iestyn would go out, just for a quick pint and perhaps a video to watch later with Dale, but he's only going out for company, and if company's coming upstairs, he's happy to stay in. Mouse has very neat handwriting and helps Iestyn copy out lyric and order-of-play sheets for the band. He discovers that she and Pete have family down the valley that they don't see much of, because there was bad feeling about the baby. Pete used to have a good job when they lived down there, but the firm went bust and he didn't even get redundancy. She says Pete worries a lot and used to be more fun. She says it apologetically and even a touch flirtatiously, suggesting that she still likes a bit of fun. And maybe likes Iestyn too. Iestyn can flirt with the best of them and knows how automatic it is in the company of anyone half-way attractive - which he knows he is - so doesn't take it seriously. He has sex regularly enough with girls he meets at gigs not to want to complicate life at home. And although he likes Mouse, he knows that any attachment they made wouldn't last. A rock singer's life is too promiscuous. So, for Mouse's sake, he makes no move on her.
������ But Pete starts to get paranoid about the arrangement anyway. He says he didn't realise Dale was out Thursdays, and he's not sure now he wants Mouse upstairs alone with Iestyn. People talk about Iestyn in the pub; how the women try to touch him up when he sings I'm too sexy on the Karaoke, and how he wiggles his bum and encourages them.
������ Pete and Mouse row about it one night. Mouse has a very loud voice for someone so small. From upstairs Iestyn and Dale can hear her shouting, 'You think!' 'You think!' 'You think!' over and over again. Finally the baby starts screaming, which shuts them up. Dale says to leave them be, but Iestyn's restless - you could kill Mouse with one punch, he thinks - and goes down and knocks on their door. Pete opens it and says, 'And you can fuck off, too,' and slams it shut again. But Iestyn has heard Mouse snap, 'For God's sake, Pete,' from somewhere inside the flat and is reassured, so he doesn't knock again.
������ Mouse tells Iestyn when they pass in the hallway the next day that she won't be coming up again. He tries to help her with the pushchair over the front steps but she says, 'Leave it. I can manage.' She sounds angry, and tired.
������ Then, next thing they know, Pete has given up the pub job. And the manager is cross; he tells Iestyn they've had the DSS in, checking up on workers. Iestyn's annoyed, because of his own position, and pissed off with Pete, for getting caught out on a job he organized for him.
������ Next time he sees Mouse, on the street outside with the baby, he asks what's going on. Mouse's chin stiffens and she shakes her head and says, 'It's not fair. It's always us.'
������ 'What is?' Iestyn asks.
������ Mouse sighs and invites him in for coffee. Pete is out. Mouse puts the baby in the cot in the front bedsitting room and boils the kettle for Iestyn in the kitchen. 'They've stopped his money,' she tells him. 'Because he was working.'
������ Iestyn asks how they found out, but Mouse has no idea. Iestyn reckons Pete gives off guilty vibes. He's met this before; it's always the honest one, the ones who really want jobs, who hate being on the dole, who get investigated. They get asked if they've worked, and they can't lie convincingly. It's like the teacher's end-of-tether punishment that always falls on the one kid who doesn't deserve it. The DSS never touch people like himself, people who can pull strokes with confidence. They hit men who are already down; the easy targets.
������ Mouse says they haven't stopped her or the baby's money and they'll maybe start Pete's again in April when they've finished their investigation and he's paid back what he owes. 'But it's made him really low,' she says. 'He's not sleeping. And he doesn't talk. Except to keep saying that he's gotta get a job.' She pauses, and then says, with her jaw grim as if it's a hard thing for her to say, 'He doesn't do much about it, though. I'm going right off him. He's a loser, I tell you.'
������ This is no news to Iestyn. Iestyn knows that these days you've got to use the system, or buck it, and be tough about it. Decide what you want, for you, and go for it. You've got to have energy, drive, purpose. Pete can't hack it. He's waiting for someone else to help him, the system to work for him, and it won't happen. It's a jungle out there; jungle laws apply.
������ Thinking about Pete makes Iestyn angry. With Pete. It's as if Pete's a reminder he doesn't want. He suddenly feels a desire to hurt Pete himself, for being so helpless, for being a loser.
������ Mouse is looking very small and vulnerable and it's easy to put his arms around her. She responds as if she hasn't had her hands on a man, her body against a man's body, since Baby Mouse was conceived. Iestyn can almost convince himself he's doing her a favour. They don't want to disturb the baby so they move to the big plastic-covered bench the dining end of the kitchen. Iestyn can be an unselfish lover when he puts his mind to it, and he particularly wants to give Mouse a good time; by the end her small naked body is tacky with sweat, her arms and legs squeaking as they jerk against the plastic, and she is making faint glutted noises in her throat. Iestyn pulls her up from the bench - she weighs nothing - and cuddles her, and she cries a little, but smiles at him too. Iestyn knows that sex can make people happy and sad at the same time, though he doesn't feel anything himself now, at all; satisfying her seems to have emptied him.
������ He doesn't tell Dale what has happened. Dale would disapprove. Dale's got a girlfriend himself at the moment, a seventeen year old schoolgirl who doesn't laugh at his spaceships and who has learnt My engine is overheating and Does it bite? in Klingon.
������ Nor does Iestyn repeat the experience with Mouse. He makes no decision about this; the opportunity simply doesn't arise. Pete seems to be home all the time. Iestyn sees Mouse taking Baby Mouse out to the park, and sometimes he thinks about following her, but what would be the point?
������ He admits that he now actively dislikes Pete. This is rare; there aren't many people Iestyn dislikes. But seeing Pete screws his guts up into a tight fist. He tried to help Pete, and Pete fouled things up. And made him feel responsible. He resents that. He thinks of Mouse sharing that dark dismal flat with Pete, eating with him, sleeping with him. Having sex with him, maybe. Bring dragged down by him.
������ Then one Monday in April, late afternoon, there's a knock on the door. Dale answers it and it's Mouse, in a coat and carrying Baby Mouse, also swaddled up for outdoors. She says hello, Dale, Iestyn; long time no see. There's a taxi outside - she's going back to her Mum's. Just wants them to know, in case anyone asks after her. She gives them an address and phone number. Iestyn wonders if she's trying to give them to him but can't tell - or ask - with Dale there. He can't imagine wanting to use them, anyway. He had sex last weekend with a girl built like an Amazon who licked her finger and notched him up on her bedstead afterwards. Not the sort who wept over him. He's glad Mouse is going, for her sake, and his own. He wonder's what Pete'll do now.
������ It doesn't take long to find out. Nine days later the police come round. Pete has fallen - or jumped - off one of the disused railway viaducts at the edge of town, and he's dead. Dale and Iestyn go round the dark downstairs flat with the policemen, to see if Pete's left a note, but he hasn't. Just a pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The bed in the bed-sitting room is unmade and the bottom sheet is grey. The bathroom and toilet are filthy. Iestyn remembers Mouse's skinny naked body splayed across the plastic-covered kitchen bench and is relieved she got away. He reckons Pete would have done this anyway - at least he didn't take anyone else with him. He tells the police the guy was out of work and always miserable and he's not surprised he wanted out. Maybe it's even for the best. He gives them Mouse's address and phone number, and says she'll know where Pete's parents live.
������ Then he and Dale go back upstairs. It's Wednesday evening and as usual they watch Star Trek. Iestyn can tell from the way Dale stares at the screen trying not to blink that he's upset by Pete's death; so afterwards, to take his friend's mind off things, he encourages him to paint one of his models and offers to test him on his Klingon phrases. Looking at the Useful Klingon Expressions section of the dictionary he gets Dale to say the Klingon for That is unfortunate and It's not my fault. And, eventually, though it's a long difficult sentence, he gets Dale to master the quintessential Klingon life-is-cheap saying: Four thousand throats may be cut in one night, by a running man.

Stephen Knight

These poems have previously been published in the Literary Review vol 44 no 2, pub. Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA

The Gods

���wear woollens all year round,
brandish plastic-coated bus passes
everywhere, & lose their glasses
(broken glasses someone's bound
with sticky tape) once every day.

Their faces crack. Their marble ears
lie, snapped off, in the grass for years.
The years are wearing them away.

We say "YOU'RE LOOKING WELL"
& yet an overcrowded shop
can frighten them
����������������������� - so, with a mile
to go before they reach their stop
they rise, wobbling in the aisle

to ring & ring the bell.



Some Other Forms of Modern Treatment
for my father

We need a cure for snow:
a level tablespoon,
one jab to make the winter go.
We need a panacea soon
-something for pain-

perhaps a doctor to explain
low cloud away,
a tonic for the rain
washing over Langland Bay,
an ointment to apply to fog,

inhalers, creams, blue pills
to combat hail and sleet
or medicine that kills
black ice on every street:
something painless, please,

something strong to ease
the squalls, to calm
the shaking of the trees
-their naked arms,
their hollowed hearts.

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