I had picked up a leaflet on the nineteenth century canal boats in a tourist information centre in some God-forsaken town when I heard a woman’s voice.The words sounded a little clumsy as they floated around me, and had they not done so, I probably would have not looked up, but I did, and there she was. She was very brown, and when I say that, I do not mean tanned. Her skin was pale, but her hair was chocolate, and so were eyes. She was wearing a fleece, and as I descended downward from nape to heel, my eyes fell to the most perfect of backsides, so perfect, it felt almost wrong to look at it. She woreblack Lycra walking pants that were so tight it was easy to mistake the girl for wearing no pants at all. I am, regardless of what people say, a gentleman, so I instantly averted my eyes, and did not return to her wonderful backside for at least three seconds. The more I stared the more I imagined grinding my crotch in the vale between each cheek while breathing in her chocolaty tresses.

I was saddened to discover the woman was not alone. Beside her was a man of equally age. He had long greasy hair that was controlled by an Alice Band.He too was dressed in walking apparel and seemed quite fit. While it sickened me to think of the woman with another man, I assumed between them they were both quite energetic sorts and probably engaged in marathon sex sessions. To help quell the envy rising in my gut, I looked at the young woman’s bottom again. To make matters worse, the man seemed unperturbed that his girlfriend was flaunting her cheeks for all and sundry. I would go so far as to assume he probably encouraged the woman to purchase the damn pants to begin with! I felt sick. I decided to leave, and was very close to going over to the couple and telling them my reason why, but decided instead to turn my back on them both and cough very loudly. This did not rouse their attention, and served only to make me a little hoarse for the rest of the day.

Every window-shop mannequin, every hanging basket, every lollipop and headlight that I saw that day reminded of the girl in the Lycra pants, and later that night I fell in bed with such a thump that I swear my dreams were haunted by that sweet derrière. I beat my stick every morning, afternoon and night for eight consecutive days and grew quite weak from it all. The doctor prescribed me iron tablets, each one small and round, and I could not place them in my mouth without thinking of that woman’s curves. Every day I walked the esplanade with bloodshot eyes fixed toevery woman’s behind I passed. None slaked my thirst for each were oversized, misshapen, too small, flat or hidden behind long skirts. One woman came close. She wore beige jodhpurs and riding boots, yet there was no horse between her legs. This intrigued me and I followed her for a spell and found the rhythm of each arse cheek rubbing against the other hypnotic. I followed her for nearing a half-mile before feeling her palm against my face. I visited that same tourist information centre most days and milled around the carousels with expectancy labouring each breath. The brown girl with the Lycra pants never returned. I began to worry about my wrist. Several ganglion cysts had formed due to “excessive wear”. I used a bible to remove them, slamming it down hard on each raised lump. All but two remained: twins ofequal size and circumference. I took a black marker from my drawer and coloured the skin, including the index and middle finger. I shaved the hairs from the lumps, leaving a little between the valley. I danced the hand on a table, angling it in such a way it sashayed provocatively. They were very sexy bumps and I took out my stick and beat it again with the free hand. As it turned out, the lumps were not cysts but tumours. I had never heard of such a thing, and had the lumps not continued to swell, I may never have. But they had, and I visited a doctor.

A week later, they were removed and took to a laboratory where they were divided and tested and what they found inside meant I needed to stay in hospital for a lot longer than I expected. They treated me, drew blood from my veins and fluid from my spine. They took the hair from my head, face and body until I looked like a little hangman drawing. And that’s how it felt with every day: as I asked a question and never received a right reply, another strut and plinth was formed to form the gallows that would eventually end my days. One day a man dressed inblack with a little white collar came to my bedside.He asked me questions and told me to be strong because Christ the Lord Jesus would soon welcome me in his arms, and all the while he was sat with me a man wailed down at the other end of the ward because he was in so much pain. And I guess there’s where I blacked out, and all that remained was for me to find the arms of Jesus in the dark, for He would be my guide into the after glow of life. But I will tell you all this, as I reached out my hands I felt not the flesh of Christ but the warm silken skin of that wonderful rump I saw the day in the tourist information centre.And maybe it was the woman’s or maybe it was Jesus’, but whoever bared their arse for me in that darken hour led me to the light with a smile on my face, and the stiffest stick in my free hand.