Therapy

looked as if he was wearing the England strip.
    I thought of trying one of the telephone sex lines I’d heard so much about lately — but where would I get a number from? The Yellow Pages weren’t any use, and I hardly thought I could consult Directory Enquiries. Then I remembered that there was an old listings magazine in the magazine rack, and sure enough I found columns of ads for phone sex in the back pages. I chose a number that promised “Fast Instant Sex Relief, Hard Smutty Sex Talk” with a footnote explaining that “due to new EEC regulations we can now bring you European-strength action.” I listened for about ten minutes to a girl describing with much sighing and groaning the process of peeling and swallowing a banana, and began to wonder whether it was EEC agricultural regulations that were being invoked. It was a total con, and so were the other two lines I tried.
    It occurred to me that I was only a few minutes’ walk from the largest concentration of pornographic bookshops in the country, and although it was now well past midnight, some of them might still be open. It was a bind having to get dressed again to go out, but I was determined to bring my experiment to a conclusion. Then, just as I was about to leave the flat, it crossed my mind to check the front porch on the entryphone video screen — and, sure enough, there was my squatter of last week, curled up cosily inside his sleeping bag. I recognized his pointed nose and chin peeping out of the top of the bag, and the hank of hair over his eyes. I stared at the picture until the camera cut out automatically and I was left with my own faint grey reflection in the screen. I imagined myself going downstairs and opening the front door. Either I would have to wake him up and have an argument, or I would have to step over him as if he wasn’t there — and not just once, but twice, since I would be returning after a short interval with a bundle of girlie magazines under my arm. Neither of these alternatives appealed to me. I undressed again and went back to bed, suffering acutely from Low Frustration Tolerance. It was as if this vagrant was holding me a moral prisoner in my own home.
    Eventually I managed to produce a spurt of jism by sheer physical effort, so I know the plumbing is basically sound, but my cock is quite sore and it hasn’t done my tennis elbow any good either.
     
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    Thursday afternoon. I’m sitting in the Pullman lounge, Euston station, waiting for the 5.10. I meant to catch the 4.40, but just missed it. The ticket-collector saw me running down the ramp and shut the barrier when I was ten yards short, at 4.39 precisely. The station is plastered with notices saying that platforms will be closed one minute before the advertised departure times of trains “in the interests of punctuality and customer safety”, but he could have let me through without endangering either. I had no luggage except the briefcase containing my laptop. The last coach of the train was only twenty yards away, with the guard standing at ease beside it, looking up the deserted platform, waiting for the OFF signal. I could have made it easily, as I vehemently pointed out, but the guy at the barrier, an officious, determined little Asian, wouldn’t let me. I tried to push past him, but he pushed me back. We actually wrestled for a full minute, until the train finally pulled out, and I turned on my heel and walked furiously back up the ramp, uttering empty threats about making a complaint. He has better grounds for complaint than me (should that be “I”?) — indeed, he could probably have me for assault.
    I’m still trembling a bit from the adrenalin rush, and I think I’ve pulled a small muscle in my back in the struggle. Pretty stupid behaviour, really, when you come to think about it, as I shall do very shortly. Low Frustration Tolerance will give way to Low Self-Esteem, and another wave of depression will move in to cover the Passmore psyche with low cloud and outbreaks of drizzle. Quite unnecessary. After all, it’s only half an hour till the next train, and the Pullman Lounge is a very civilized place to wait in. It’s rather like a brothel, or how I imagine brothels to be, but without the sex. You go up the stairs that lead to the table-service restaurant and the Superloo, and halfway along the passage to the latter there’s a discreetly inconspicuous door with a bell-push and speaker grille in the wall