Chronicles of a Changed Man 02

Paddy Gets Another Call

After Tina had left I felt exhausted and badly needed to sleep, not surprising, I suppose, when you consider what had just transpired between us. My studio apartment was equipped with a drop down double bed cleverly concealed behind a panel in the wall and required only a minimal rearranging of the seating in order to deploy it. I went to move the chair in which Tina had masturbated and, as I lifted the towel, I got the heady aroma of her womanly secretions still wet on it and the leather cushion. My penis twitched involuntarily at the memory of her spraying her vaginal juices copiously as she brought herself to orgasm.

I became aware at that moment that I was still holding the fifty euro in my hand and smiled softly to myself at her mischievousness in allowing me to believe that I was paying her to strip and masturbate for me. She was right too, it had added an extra dimension of illicitness to the whole scenario.

I knew that I would have a couple of hours before the nurse arrived on her afternoon visit so I got the bed down, undressed completely, crawled under the covers and fell into a deep, contented sleep.

The nurse I speak of was resident in the building I lived in at the time and provided medical care to the occupants, making two rounds of the home each day, one at about ten in the morning and the other around seven in the evening

She was a rather surly lady in her mid forties given to bouts of complaining about how she had been unfairly overlooked for promotion in the mainstream health care profession for years. She blamed this flagrant oversight of her obvious talents by the-powers-that-be for her gradual professional decline to the incongruous position of 'resident nurse' in an old folk's home. A position she clearly thought beneath her while choosing to ignore the fact that, rather than occupying a derisory post in a run down, under funded, state owned old folks home, what she actually held was a well paid job in a private retirement home funded entirely by the residents and their families, with adequate funds and backup provided, to enable her to provide the necessary care to her patients.

She clearly felt she should have been matron at The Coombe or some other similarly prestigious hospital in the country and always wore her white nurses coat pompously adorned with an impressive assortment of medical insignia of dubious significance and even more dubious origin on the lapels and shoulders with the requisite stethoscope draped around her neck.

As well as making her twice daily rounds, she was on call in case of emergencies, and each resident of the home had a panic button to press if they needed her to be summoned to their assistance. Because of her unwelcoming nature, most of the residents used it as an absolute last resort only, or perhaps she assumed her unwelcome persona to achieve precisely this result.

Thankfully, other than some minor physical limitations of my age, I suffered no ill health and had never in my three years there had to use the panic button. I didn't need to see her on a twice daily basis, in fact, I didn't need to see her at all, given my exceptional good health, and tried to tell her so politely on many occasions, but she insisted that it was in her contract with the management firm of the home and written into her terms and conditions of employment. She indicated to me, quite sternly, that she wasn't about to jeopardize her job for my convenience and in so doing, unwittingly indicated to me also, that she obviously valued the position more than she was willing to admit.

It was to this nurse's persistent knocking on my door, several hours after I'd fallen asleep that I awoke with a start and instinctively threw back the covers to sit up in the bed and swing my legs over the side.

My rock hard penis stabbed me in the stomach when I did!

I hadn't awoken with an erection since my early twenties, before alcohol had started to inhibit my bodily and mental functions, and this 'stabbing' was a total shock to me.

The nurse's rapping at the door came again and I quickly pulled the covers back over my rampant penis as I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Are you alright in there Paddy?" her muted voice sounded through the door.

"I'm grand nurse, I'm grand," I answered, "Eh, I'm just not dressed, I was in the shower." I lied, instinctively making a sign of the cross to absolve myself of the lie the moment it left my lips. Oh, Holy God, I thought then, I have far more things to be asking absolution for, other than a venial sin like that.

Suddenly the euphoria and elation of the afternoon were eroded by a dark, heavy cloud of guilt, shame and utter self-reproach as I realized the enormity of the more serious sin I had committed.

"What are you showering for this hour of the day." the nurse inquired.

"Eh, I spilled something on myself and had to change my clothes." Oh Sacred Heart of Jesus, I whispered under my breath at this second lie in as many minutes. I began to murmur an act of contrition immediately.

"Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you.."

"What were you doing that you spilled something?" the nurse asked.

Fornicating! I was fornicating!

"Making a bit of lunch." oh Christ, I'm a liar, I'm a fornicating liar!

"...And I detest all my sins, because of Your just punishments.."

"What did you spill Paddy?" she further inquired.

I spilled my seed. Oh Holy Mother of God!

"Milk, a bottle of milk."

"...But most of all because they offend You, my God.."

"Where did you spill it Paddy?" she asked next.

In her belly. Christ, leave me alone woman, you tormenter!

"All over my clothes."

"...Who are all good and deserving of all my love.."

"That'll stink to the heavens." my tormenter stated.

Oh merciful hour. I stink to the heavens! For shame, for shame.

"...I firmly resolve, with the help of Your Grace.."

"It won't just wash out either, you'll need to steep it." she advised.

I'm unclean! Steeped in uncleanliness!

"...To sin no more and avoid the near occasion of sin"

"That was very careless of you Paddy." the nurse admonished me from the far side of the door. "Anyway, I'll leave you to your own devices."

Leave me to my own devices!

I felt utterly alone! Utterly lost! I had sinned against God and all the angels in heaven. I had tarnished the memory of my Martha, who had kept me from drifting off the righteous path for over thirty years. Left to my own devices and I was a weakling in the face of the first real temptation that I had been confronted with since Martha's death.

I fell to my knees by the side of the bed and began to pray fervently.

Naked!

I was praying to God, naked! The lingering odor of hedonistic transgression drifted up from my genitals as I knelt, naked, before God! Mercifully, my erection had completely subsided and my penis hung placid, if aching a little from the insurgence of blood with which it had been engorged on my awakening. God forbid that I should have assumed the position of worship in a sexually aroused state!

To what depths of debauchery would I plummet, if left to my own devices!

Cleanliness is next to Godliness!

I arose and rushed to the bathroom to run a cold shower in an effort to cleanse, at least my body if not my soul. I lathered myself with shower gel and began to scrub my entire body, but when it came to my genitalia, I couldn't bring myself to wash them. I couldn't bring myself to touch my penis, my testicles, the very instruments of my uncleanliness, the very things I needed most to cleanse, I couldn't bear to handle. I massaged copious amounts of gel into my lower abdomen and upper thighs, creating as much of a froth as I could in the hope that it would be enough to expunge the lingering odor of sex from my nether region.

I rinsed and turned off the shower with the intention of drying myself immediately, getting appropriately dressed for prayer and focusing my attention on seeking forgiveness for the fornication I had engaged in.

My entire body was frigid from the cold water, making me shiver, but rather than stepping out of the shower quickly to dry myself and dress, I lingered. My focus drifting from the absolution I needed, to the very act of fornication for which I needed it. I felt my penis respond ominously, despite my initial efforts to suppress my memories of Tina. But, paradoxically, the more I tried not to think of her the more her image assailed my mind, and still I shamefully lingered in the shower, ignominiously giving in to the temptation of allowing those images to crystallize in my mind. Until I could see her, clearly!

Tina of the silky hair and dimpled smile. She of the large breasts with russet nipples and long, stocking clad legs. I couldn't stop myself thinking about her, her nakedness before me, her awe inspiring, yawning sex which I had gazed into, transfixed, transferred to another realm, transformed into another person. That same, lusciously wet sex into which she had welcomed my rampant, raging manhood with such eagerness and abandon. Her bottom, pear shaped and perfect! Her enticing anus! That forbidden orifice, the dissolute exposure of which had been the instigation to my inglorious release.

Tina's voice, so soft, so beguiling, so sexy, so intensely provocative and arousing.

"The fifty euro's to let you see my cunt." Oh God.

"And I'll let you see my tits for free." Help me Jesus!

"That's it, Mr Murphy, look at my tight fucking arsehole while your spunk up my hot cunt." Mary, Mother of God look down on me!

I don't know how long I stood there like that, but, presently, I was snapped out of my vulgar reverie by a sudden cold breeze washing over my body and, to my horror, I realized that I was holding my, now erect, penis in my hand. The cold had affected on my body as a result of the warmth emanating from my aroused genitalia and beginning to pervade my entire being. The penis I hadn't been able to touch, to cleanse myself of the revulsion I felt at having offended God with my act of fornication, I was now grasping in my closed fist and slowly beginning to massage.

I snapped my hand away, horrified, stepped briskly out of the shower cubicle and grabbed up a clean towel to dry myself. I dressed hurriedly and left my apartment, I couldn't risk being on my own that evening, so went down to the ground floor of the building and entered the communal room.

There were at least twelve to fifteen residents there and when I walked through the door, everything not driven by electrical current stopped. Conversations came to an abrupt halt, hands wielding playing cards froze in mid air, arthritic fingers manipulating knitting needles seemed suddenly stricken with paralysis that had previously been held at bay for years by medication, half finished jigsaw puzzles lost their enigmatic attraction, jaws dropped, eyes popped and tongues lolled out of open mouths.

I hated this place of mendacious conviviality and false friendships, but I was going to have to endure it that night if I was to avoid temptation and being drawn into the dark abyss of immorality.

After hesitating momentarily in the doorway, I strode over to the television corner where I found an empty chair, away from the maddening crowd, and there I sat for the next four hours, staring blankly at the TV screen.

If someone were to ask me what I watched on that television screen for the rest of the evening, I wouldn't be able to tell them, but the ever changing images and inane drivel which emanated from it had the desired effect on my troubled consciousness. By midnight, the communal room was empty and I was alone with the flickering images and inanity and I had calmed down sufficiently to return to my studio apartment.

I was able to pray, for a good half hour, real concentrated, meditative prayer which relaxed me further until I could recline on the ruffled bedclothes and attempt to sleep, but I was unable to. I lay awake, scared to undress in case the mere act of disrobing would somehow reignite the hideous temptation to reawaken the images of Tina and the lewd act we had performed together. I managed, that restless night, to keep my thoughts on other things, my departed Martha, our life together and our children.

I thought about my children, growing up in a predominently Irish suburb of London, seemingly happy, at least early on! I thought I had been a good father! I worked hard, brought home the money to keep them in reasonable comfort and well fed. I supported their mother and provided her with everything she needed to raise them. I didn't interfere, bringing them up and attending to their dietary, clothing, religious and educational needs was a mother's task surely.

Having been raised in a dysfunctional family myself, I had no model on which to base my parenting method, I was not proactive in disciplining or rewarding them whenever an occasion merited one or the other. Being out of the house all day, I had little chance to observe or interact with them and trusted their mother in every aspect of their upbringing. I rarely saw my children in their formative years!

I didn't understand then, when they reached their teens, why they appeared suddenly to want to engage and involve me in their activities, their interests and most curiously of all, their relationship with their mother. I thought it was my job to support her, she who had reared and nurtured them while I kept a respectful distance and allowed her her rightful place at the head of the household. I was the provider, the breadwinner, she was the nurturer and home maker. I was sorely troubled then to watch my adolescent children grow rebellious and disrespectful towards her, but didn't know how to react to the tensions slowly building in the household.

Having attained the lofty position, for a man of my modest education and intellect, of general foreman, I had many responsibilities to my employer beyond the requisite daily attendance on site. My commitment to my work often involved weekends away to resolve some problem or other on sites not under my control and in far flung corners of England, but for which I was adequately experienced and skilled to resolve. For this I was handsomely rewarded financially and thus able to bring home a substantial wage to my wife, to keep our home and raise our children.

I was vaguely aware that my presence in our household, when I was there, seemed sufficient to bring an uneasy peace between my increasingly rebellious offspring and my spouse, who seemed to grow more and more exasperated at their behavior. I supported my wife in her struggles to keep a tranquil home, but somehow, deep down, I knew I was failing my children, I just didn't know in what way or how to redress it. They grew ever more distant from me and when they left, each in their turn under a cloud of simmering hatred and hostility towards Martha and open apathy and indifference towards me, I was heartbroken, but didn't know how to tell them.

I had only Martha's opinion and standpoint, that our children were ungrateful, spiteful and disrespectful, despite all she had done and everything she had sacrificed for them. I continued to accompany my wife to mass on Sundays where I prayed for my children's physical welfare and spiritual propriety. All the while the chasm between them and I grew deeper and deeper until Matrha cut off contact with them altogether and by extension severed my ties to them also. By the time of their mother's funeral, which they dutifully attended, my children were complete strangers to me.

Oonagh, to her credit, had approached me at the graveside, offering me her condolence while slipping a mass card into my hand with her phone number on a business card in the same envelope before rejoining her current, same sex partner. Sean hovered nearby with his 'brazen hussy' of a wife, waiting for his sister. Somehow I felt it was Sean I had failed the most, not providing a good role model for him, thinking in my ignorance, that being a conscientious worker and breadwinner was sufficient example for him to follow. When Oonagh rejoined her partner, Sean and his wife, the four dparted, a close knit group and I was glad to see they had some form of supportive framework in which to conduct their daily lives.

I particularly recalled, as I stood by my wife's graveside after they'd gone, the heated argument that had ensued between her and Oonagh when our daughter informed us that she was leaving her husband of two years to move in with her 'girlfriend'. Martha had been vociferous in her condemnation of Oonagh for abandoning the church and sanctity of marriage for such a grossly indecent, depraved and disgusting lifestyle.

I remembered remaining stoically, silently entrenched in my wife's camp as Oonagh looked to me for some sign of understanding, of compassion. A sign I couldn't deliver because, quite frankly, I didn't understand my daughter's position at the time and compassion was an emotion I struggled to receiver or deliver, but I knew where my loyalties must lie, with my wife and the teaching's of her church, our church.

On the day of my wife's internment, I accepted the envelope as graciously as possible, but couldn't bring myself to converse with my daughter because of the betrayal of my dearly departed Martha such a conversation would imply. Still, I did accept the cards, kept them in a little wallet in a drawer, had them on that restless night and still have them to this day.

I must have eventually drifted off to sleep because the next thing I remembered was awakening, in my rumpled clothes, on the unmade bed and thinking 'I'm late for mass'. The ambient light and unfamiliar muted sounds beyond the confines of my apartment indicated to me the lateness of the hour as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. No stabbing penis in my stomach, the normal order of things had been restored in that respect and I quickly went about arranging a contingency for the missed mass.

It was ten past ten! I had not slept so late for many years, or ever, that I could recall, certainly not in all the time I had been married to Martha. The issue of mass was easily resolved as there was an eleven o'clock service in a church in Artane, about half an hour's walk from my home.

As I walked there, I felt good and confident in my resolve to banish the memory of Tina and our indiscretion and vowed to take confession on Sunday at my local chapel, that particular sacrament not being available during the week. I could of course have requested to see a priest specially, something I recalled Martha doing on several occasions, often at strange times of the weekend, but I felt sure in my resolution and decided to wait until the Sabbath.

I passed that Friday and most of Saturday at relative peace with myself. Yes, I had sinned, but it had been only once, the Good Lord would surely forgive me and allow me back into the fold after a suitable and just penance. My Lord was all forgiving and I would be saved by His Grace. But!

Slowly, insidiously, the images and thoughts of Tina began creeping back into my mind, she started tugging at the corners of the mental screen I had hidden her behind and attempting to completely reveal, expose herself to my mind's eye. It was only by absorbing myself in the one television programme I consistently watched and now enjoyed in high definition and wonderful digital Dolby surround sound on my widescreen tv, Match of the Day, that I was able to suppress the images of Tina and the temptations they evoked. I followed my viewing of Match of the Day with The Football League show and by one o'clock in the morning, Tina was gone, safely concealed behind the screen, perhaps sulking but subdued. The following day I would be able to confess my sin and commence my journey back into The Fold, the prodigal son returning, adequately repentant to his all forgiving Father.