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Any Excuse for a Tyrant
"Like many things, the story Edie told me that warm evening just after those first lockdowns was reconstructed in retrospect. It had to be as she was asleep for parts of it. You must remember how we all felt like we had beaten the demon at the end of the first lockdown? Not quite the carefree like before the pandemic, but nonetheless a time of joy. Almost like first love, in a way, which was why I asked her about first love.
"She answered immediately that Ant was her first love. Sometimes she has declared he will be her only love, sometimes she has been a bit more coy.
"Sorry, I am getting distracted. It was when she and Ant were still in school, you might remember those awkward days of wanting to talk to someone and not quite knowing how. Thinking there must be a clever formula that no one told you because they seem to do it and all you end up doing is pulling their scarf. Edie started the tale at that point: Ant's abortive attempts at seduction that fell flat. He kept trying, and she reminisced about the smile he would wear in her presence. Then came the visits to her house. There was always plenty of opportunity to be alone in friends houses with working parents. Gosh, think how tough that must be on the young these days.
"They did the usual things: listen to music, hold hands, kiss, shoulder rub.
"She remembered once they listened to music and he put out his hand to dance, he gently eased her shirt from her skirt and slowly started undoing her buttons from the bottom but she said wrra, wrra, it's ok, I'm not too hot now.
“Wrra wrra is the sound a lamb makes when a wolf has made an uncalled-for assumption. It is written in my version of the fable of the Lamb and the Wolf.
“And once when holding hands as they sat on the sofa, he stroked her leg a little causing her own fingers to hike her skirt up but she flattened it and said: wrra, wrra, that material is most beautiful when it is smoothed down.
"And once when they were kissing on her bed he pulled her T-shirt but she wiggled her shoulders and said: wrra, wrra, you can't pull my shirt while we are kissing.
"And then one day he offered to rub her shoulders. Edie was always tense, she imagined how relaxing it would be and said yes. Ant rubbed a little while she sat then suggested she lie on her stomach. She agreed, but she gave him a few pointers. Always massage towards the heart. Knead the muscles in tiny continuous actions. Don't be afraid to try anything. Well, Ant went for it, sensitively and divinely. It was not long before Edie said: wrra, wrra, it would be better without my top.
“Sorry, a little poetic licence with my use of wrra wrra. Anyway, soon Edie fell asleep, when she woke an hour or two later Ant had gone. She felt refreshed, she felt revived, she felt worshipped. Back rubs settled into a pattern, of an afternoon Ant would come by for a puff and a chat and he offered a little massage before Ant left. All very idyllic for the time it lasted, as Edie left to live with her mother about a month later, but clearly, as you can see with your eyes, she came back. When she came back they got together but there was a small interlude when he visited her at her mums, you know how it goes. But those are all stories with other wolves and lambs, and bears and tigers and maybe even a unicorn. All stories for another day.
“This story ends with any excuse for the tyrant. I am not quite sure how Edie learned about the truth of what happened on those massage afternoons once she had fallen asleep. It might have been in an argument, I can imagine Anthony shouting: Well, you know when you thought you were getting a loving massage... Or it might have been a deluded attempt at seduction: I have always loved that, you know when I gave you those massages when we were young... Edie revealed to me that Ant took her narcoleptic moments of bliss to expose her and wank away as if she were his personal porn magazine. I was outraged for her when she told me, and I still feel that way but she said she had done underhanded, unkind things herself and, sure, she would have preferred something more honest but it has ended up as an anecdote to tell in the pub, a tale with a nice little twist. And, she said, we are all a little twisted sometimes. But I found it difficult to shrug it off which is why it came to mind when talking about the moral: Any Excuse for a Tyrant.”
