33: end

Sees what?  Is she going to come in with us?  After a bit? to make sure.

“She won’t follow us in here.  Will you, Nell?”  Uncle Willy raises his voice to show she’s not there though there’s a sound and the empty doorway’s full.  I look up at him, abashed he read my thoughts but he answered them.  “It’s not A read your thoughts,” he reassures, reading them again, “though they’re not hard to read.”  Everybody reads them; they can’t be: my mind’s an open book for everybody to read.  “A could tell from the way you looked back what you were thinking.  A had the same feeling masel: would she follow after us?  A didn’t put it past her.  Nor did you.  Would she ‑?  She didn’t have the face for that.  We’re safe for a bit.  But she’ll be waitin for when we get oot.”

Not word for word, pretty close, the evidence he read my thoughts is inconclusive.  This is our first real conversation though I haven’t said anything.  Roy does that too.  There must be a word for it.

There isn’t.

“A suppose A should be flattered at all the attention A’m gettin and A would be if it were for me but it’s not, and A’m not; it’s for you, for your benefit, Johnny.  Aren’t you flattered? Don’t you feel pleased?”

It isn’t a conversation.  He’s talking to me but not talking to me, and there’s a tone.  Uncle Willy’s doing something clever.

“No.  You feel humiliated.  That you do is a comfort to me, small comfort but a comfort nonetheless, for the humiliation I feel doing this.”

Talking to me.

“But A’m doin it.  A want you to remember me kindly for this if for nothing else and knowing you it’ll be for nothing else.”

“A’ve to remember you kindly for this, if for nothing else.  There’s nothing else,” nothing much.

“A’ll have to make do wi this then!”

Since we’re together I make polite conversation, asking him about his thumb, will the nail grow in again over the brown corrugated bit.  It won’t, it happened a long time ago ‑ I really knew it wouldn’t; it hadn’t the time I’d noticed the thumb: I don’t know why I asked.  Uncle Willy thinks he knows why I asked and offers I look at his other thumb where he has a nail. I know this.  He thinks it might interest me to take a look.  I’ve seen it.

I look up at his neck which is red and consider asking how it got red, below the ear where my own neck will go red though we’re not related, but he won’t know the answer so there’s no point asking and I’m further from the point.  What’s the point?  Peeing.  I look down at my willy.  Nothing happening yet, but she knew I didn’t need.  He didn’t either.  So what are we doing here, both with our willies out not peeing?  Is this what she wanted? us waiting to pee.  This can’t be what she wanted.  Pee, she said, knowing I didn’t need.  Pee’s the excuse, but for what?  What can pee be an excuse for?  Nothing.  Pee’s pee, but peeing’s not pee, peeing can be an excuse, to see Sheila’s cunt.  Uncle Willy doesn’t have a cunt.  Anyway it’d be Mum’s.

I used an excuse!  I do that too.  I had to.  I could’ve said I’ll show you mine.  Is that more or less an excuse?  I don’t know.  I do know I don’t need to see Mum’s or any other cunt now I’ve seen Sheila’s.

Need?  Yes, need; it was a necessity: I hadn’t seen one.  Now I’ve seen one, A haven’t seen them all, but A have satisfied ma need and need never see another cunt the rest of my life.

A don’t need to see a cock.  A see a cock all the time.  A’m lookin at it now!  Uncle Willy did need to pee, though since he did why hadn’t he?  I don’t need to see a cock.  I’ve seen Roy’s, Eric’s.  A didn’t need an excuse there either.  It’s if you have a need you need an excuse?  A would like to see a man’s cock because A think it must be different.  A might need an excuse for that.  But A don’t need to see a woman’s cunt?  A’ve seen yet need to see another cock; that’s worrying: why, if I’ve seen one cunt, I don’t need to see a woman’s but, having seen several, I will want to see…?

Mum doesn’t need an excuse to see a man’s cock; she sees it all the time: that’s not her reason.  And if it were she wouldn’t send me and Uncle Willy off to pee together when she’s not here to see it!  I don’t know what her reason is.  It’s not for me to see a man’s cock, I know that.  It’s the last thing Mum would want me to see.  I don’t know why.  That’s why I’d need an excuse, a bigger excuse than for a cunt, nothing to do wi need unless it’s Mum’s need A’ve to get roond.  How?  I don’t know.  Mibby A’ll just give up, wait until A’m a man. She can hardly object to me lookin at ma own.

A don’t know what her reason is but whatever it is, Uncle Willy’s a man, his cock’s a man’s, A might as well take a look while A’m here, save waitin, and A’d better hurry up before she realizes she’s given me the opportunity she’d most want not to give.  How could she not see what was starin her in the face!  How could I not!  It’s not exactly staring me in the face.  I can’t expect him to put it in front of my face.  He doesn’t know what I want.  Even if he did, I couldn’t expect it.  Peeing couldn’t excuse what he’d be doing to do that.  Easier for me to turn my head.  I feel sneaky.  I’d rather not do it than feel sneaky but I can hardly ask him first if I might look at his cock since to do that I’d turn my head and if I’m going to do that I might as well look without asking.

It’s going to be difficult getting you sex if you’d rather not than feel sneaky!

I might improve with practice.  I wouldn’t, but he’s pleased by the difficulty.

I look up.  Uncle Willy is holding his cock in an unnatural way, the thumb along the top side, presenting it to me, not giving ‑ If I took it I’d have to give it back or he would; it’s attached ‑ affirming my attention on it by a rearing, buckling of his body which ends with an abrupt shake of the cock.

It is enormous!  It’s different not only in size but degree, almost in kind if it weren’t recognizably a cock from position.  I look down at mine, perfectly adequate for its function.  Uncle Willy’s willy has another.  By looking I try calculating our volumes – I’d go into his leg twice ‑ and not sure how many times bigger he is, seven or eight, or how much bigger his cock is, twelve or sixteen, it is proportionately bigger.  I realize mine will be too though not as big as Uncle Willy’s but I’ll be in my prime while he’s past it, remembering what he was, and the memory too he in his was bigger will affect me, not much, not long; the present’s mine: I can afford to acknowledge the bigger man he was.

There are other considerations but basically it’s the bigger the cock the bigger the man.  The men compare cocks and the man with the biggest is the man but each man is the man within his own family where he can believe with his wife’s flattery he’s the man.  They go from the to the and a without any difficulty and each can think however small he’s a man because he has a cock.  Some men with small cocks do things, important things, but always have to come back to the reason they’re doing it, the comparative smallness of their cocks they can’t escape from.  The power of a man is based on the size of his cock, for which he is flattered and made a fool of by women.  His cock makes a fool of him and he wants to be a fool for the sake of the pleasure it gives him.

I’d have the power of a man!  Of any man.  I could make believe I was the man.  All I’d have to do, apart from lie to myself, is be a fool.  If I’m a fool, and to be a fool I’d have to lie to myself, I’d never know the truth about anything; I’d never understand anything.  But it’s a price worth paying for the pleasure, the flattery of women making a fool of me if I wasn’t one already which I am, making it easy for them.

I want to understand.  I don’t want the power of any man if it’s incompatible with truth, and it does seem to be.  Society seems to be!  I do want power.  I’ll be a man; I can use any man’s power, but, if the choice is to give it up and base my power on I don’t know what but suspect it’s my man, I’d choose that.

Am I compatible with society?  Because of my man I’m the man, to myself.  They’re a man, not the man ‑ because I am ‑ certainly not the man.  They might think they’re the man in my presence or even the man.  They’re wrong but so long as it’s only thinking and they don’t act as if they’re the man or even the man I won’t have to do anything about it to prove them wrong, to prove to them who the man is.  It’s enough I know.  I know they really know who he is, me, not them.  I might let them away with thinking they’re the man, depending on circumstances.  Their thinking they’re the man, as I’m thinking they are, lets me think, from their point of view, I’m the man, although what I’m actually thinking is I’m the man and they’re men, that’s all, just men, which they may be thinking too for all I know but I think what they’re thinking is they’re the man, not pushing it, because if they did, if I thought they thought they were the man, I’d have to do something about it or pretend they’re not but think they’re the man, as I’m doing, although I really know they’re thinking they’re the man but if I had to prove they’re not and I am I’d never stop and I couldn’t win every time because I know I’m not.  I’m a man but I’m not goin to admit that’s all I am, except sometimes, depending on circumstances, in a crowd of men, in a man’s home where he’s the man, though I might push it a bit, even though I’d want him to be a man in mine, to be a bit more distinct, not too much, I don’t want to stand out too much, because all the other men would think I thought myself the man and they’d all try to prove I wasn’t.  None of them could prove he was if they all attacked me.  I couldn’t succeed against all of them.  If I could, if I did win every time, if I won enough times to think it’d be all, then I could think legitimately I was the man and wouldn’t need to prove it, unlike all the others.  So that’s what I’ll do.  That’s what I’ll do!  I’ll need to know that too.  If you’re the man you should know it.  Others should know what they are but shouldn’t be forced to, except when necessary.

It’s going to be confusing for them I don’t have the biggest cock.  Couldn’t I…?  It’d save confusion, and lots of fights.

“Did he have a good look?”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off it!”  That’s not true!  Did he have to tell her everything?  It was arranged between them.  “A hope you’re right.”

“A’m right.  A know A am.  I’m right, aren’t I?  A know Johnny.”

Nobody knows Johnny.

She heard!  A think she heard.  Did she hear?  Her smile’s fading.  It does.  It’s not really a contradiction, I apologize to my man, over the kitchen door, “Yes, Mum”, and it makes her happy.  My man and I exchange a smile.