in my ear, ‘I can see your nipples getting hard through that top.’ Every single time my cunt twitches and I feel that stinging lust in the pit of my stomach—they’re all descendants of that initial spark.
The first thing I ever wanked to was a book.
Not a book with any particularly saucy images on the cover, or, as a surprising number of my male friends have confessed, a hardback compilation of ‘arty’ Pirelli calendar shots. To my utter adult horror, my first teenage wank came about via a sadomasochistic novel that belonged to my dad.
Allow me to explain:
My parents were divorced. Not in an ‘oh God, why must they tear the family apart?’ way, but in a ‘well, that seems to have calmed them both down’ way. No doubt it was agony for eight-year-old me, but I’m sure she’d forgive twenty-eight-year-old me for being a bit blasé about it, given that both of my parents subsequently settled down with lovely partners, neither of whom hit me or made me sweep out cinders from the fireplace.
It’s well documented that post-divorce many children cash in, and benefit from having two of everything: two Christmases, two birthdays, two trips to the special cake shop to be congratulated on not fucking up your GCSEs. And it’s also well documented that this isn’t a great idea, and can leave your children well and truly spoiled. Luckily for me my parents read the documentation thoroughly and did their absolute best not to fawn over, bribe, or otherwise pander to any of their children. This means that my brother, sister and I have all grown up relatively balanced, if a little light on presents.
I did get one special treat when I visited my dad, though: my own bedroom. Initially this meant peace and quiet, personal space and the ability to lie in on Saturday and read book after book after book. Eventually, though, as I grew up and discovered the brilliant things I could do to myself given enough ‘alone time’, I started to look on weekends at my dad’s house as simply forty-eight hours in which I could wank to my heart’s content.
During the week I’d share a bedroom with my sister, which was split according to the rule that says ‘she with the loudest voice gets the biggest space’, so I got the crappy space.
Late at night my sister and I would have feisty rows over why I’d borrowed her good hairbrush, then settle into our respective beds to recharge our energy for tomorrow’s big fight. She, I imagine, would fall instantly into a deep and unshakeable slumber, while I would focus on learning to wank without moving the bedsheets.
It’s trickier than you think.
First you have to manoeuvre your body into a position that befits wanking yet also looks like a plausible way for a human to sleep. If, like me, you sleep lying on your front, this means bunching the duvet up around you so you can ever so slightly raise your arse from the bed to make enough space for one hand to fit between your legs.
Don’t jump the gun, though, my hand is not between my legs yet. First, I have to lick my fingers. I have to coat them in spit in a way that makes absolutely no sound whatsoever. Try it at home. In a silent room, in the dead darkness of night, coat your fingers in spit without making any lip-smacking, finger-sucking sounds. Tricky, no?
Having achieved this Herculean feat, next you must move your hand under the bedsheets without a) wiping any of the spit off or b) letting on that you might be about to do something inappropriate. It is impossible to do this without rustling the duvet, so don’t even try. Instead, make sure your movement appears casual and insignificant—a slight shift in sleeping position, a scratch—you’re just getting comfortable, that’s all. Under no circumstances must the movement be done with the gleeful eagerness of someone who is about to have a wank.
Next comes the good bit—the actual wanking. And this works much the same as a full-on, adult, ‘I’ve got my own sofa and I’m not afraid to rub one out on it’ wank, only with much smaller movements.
As an adult I’ll wank openly, joyfully, safe in the knowledge that not only is an Englishman’s home his castle, but that if anyone looks through the window of my particular castle, they have no right to judge me. All I’m doing is having a nice, healthy wank. Like almost everyone does of a Saturday afternoon when something hot strikes them and there’s nothing on the telly. Rubbing frantically at my clit, without guilt or fear of being caught, I can bring myself to an express, functional orgasm within about thirty seconds.
Sadly, it wasn’t so for teenage me. Very slight movements and delicate rubbing built to an infinitesimally gradual increase in pressure as I tested whether the duvet could withstand small vibrations without giving the game away. And I won’t lie—it didn’t always work. Sometimes I’d lie there, tensing every single muscle in my body, rubbing in tiny tiny strokes with just one finger as hard as I’d dare. My nipples hard, my fingers slick, my forehead creased into a frown of agonising concentration … and still I couldn’t come. I knew that with just a bit more pressure it would work. I just needed a slightly faster rhythm, longer strokes, or to have my other hand free to pinch one of my nipples or grab at myself more tightly. On those occasions I’d cough, get out of bed, wrap a towel around myself and retire to the well-lit bathroom with its heaven-sent door lock, and lie on the floor with my legs open, frigging myself to a twitching, guilty climax.
But that was rare. Having had plenty of practice, the silent wanking was usually a success. Fixing a fantasy in my head (pirates tying a willing wench to the mast of their ship, and whipping her with the cat-o’-nine-tails, since you asked), I’d rub harder, push harder, and feel the first waves of orgasm tearing through me.
There were no post-climax sighs, no groans, and very few rustling noises as I took my hand away and shifted back into a sleeping position. Exhausted after the effort, I’d nod off to the sound of almost-silence: the quiet, steady breathing of my sister, curled up tight in bed, definitely not wanking either.
But that all comes later—younger me didn’t quite understand what wanking was. The closest I’d come to coming was when I’d act out scenes with things that happened to be lying around my room—books, stuffed toys, marbles. I’d move objects around like a general directing a battle and inevitably the childish stories—man rescues woman from the clutches of evil kidnappers—would evolve into slightly more adult plays as my mind got that bit filthier—man rescues woman from the clutches of evil yet sexy kidnappers. Eventually, as I started growing up, the players in my games would more frequently end up in contrived situations that gave me a sexual thrill.
There was always a kidnap victim, lost princess, stepdaughter, or pirate’s wench who would inevitably have to be punished. The leaders were eager—never reluctant—to punish the wrongdoer. She was always female. Usually surrounded by a group of pissed-off men. The men would threaten to punish her and she’d be more than stoic—like she’d got into trouble deliberately just because she wanted to hear the word ‘thrash’. As in ‘I’m going to thrash you for that.’
Thrash.
That word still does good things to me. The sound of someone being thrashed, the sight of a guy’s arm, holding a whip or a belt, tensed ready to strike, gives me a dark, hot feeling deep in my stomach.
In more literary books people talk of ‘sexual awakenings’ where the world becomes more vivid, where you notice things you’d never noticed before and suddenly become alive to your sexual sense. It all sounds very poetic and meaningful, without the sordid stains that come with our actual, real-life awakenings. I’m not going to lie and tell you that any of this filth was poetic. The truth rarely is. What I’m telling you is that I lay on my bedroom floor with a bunch of marbles and quimmed my pants at the word ‘thrash’.
Thrash.
Shudder.
Having worked out that this word did weird things, I experimented with other words. ‘Beat’. ‘Whip’. ‘Spank’. ‘Hit’. ‘Thwack’. Each of them resonates with me, conjures stark and immediate images of men straining at the shoulder, bearing instruments of stinging pain. Beat. Whip. Thwack. ‘I’m going to beat you now.’ ‘I’m going to whip you.’ All so good that just writing them makes the back of my knees tingle. But no other word gives me that kick in the gut quite