The Living Museum

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I class='c243'>woke up and I knew Brick had gone. It wasn't only the
physical absence, I felt it mentally too, as if his leaving had
dislodged something deep within my psyche. It scared me more, this
empty unknowingness in my soul, than perhaps, the actuality of his
leaving.

class="c245">    The night before we had had a
furious argument. I had come home earlier than usual; an unexpected and
unexplained power outage having closed my place of work for the
day.

class="c245">    On entering our second storey
single room apartment I had found Brick spread-eagled and naked on the
bed, his ankles and wrists tied securely to the bed posts with
fluorescent pink ribbon. Coming out of his mouth was a length of
industry standard rubber hose. At the other end of this hose was a
funnel.

class="c245">     The
funnel I distinctly remembered buying from Ikea when Brick and I set up
home together a year previously. A lack of funds had led us to the idea
of making our own wine. We both believed that to achieve these ends a
funnel was of absolute necessity. It seemed of significance now that we
had never made the wine, or indeed, attempted to.

class="c245">    The funnel, today, was being
held by one of the other two men in the room. The men were unknown to
me, although they were both dressed in the distinctive blue uniform of
the local sanitation department. This was either ironic or par for the
course. I say this because each man had his trousers around his knees
and was peeing, in what appeared to me, a quite copious fashion into
the funnel.

class="c245">    For the moment after I entered
the room nobody spoke. It was one of those awkward silences that could
only happen in situations such as these. The only sound I could hear
was the gentle gurgle of the urine as it continued on its passage down
the tube.

class="c245">    Eventually my eyes came to rest
on Brick. I noticed a number of things. Firstly, he had an erection.
Secondly, the almost metronomic way his Adam's apple moved beneath his
skin to allow the passage of liquid. Thirdly, how not a single drop of
this liquid had spilled onto our bed. That was typical Brick,
fastidious as ever, and it was this that caused me more anger than
anything else.

class="c245">    How, even in this situation,
Brick was so intrinsically himself. This seemed to me to represent a
shattering of our intimacy.

class="c245">    It was later, after the two men
had gone, that we argued. I stated that if this was what Brick truly
wanted, then I could oblige myself. That was what a relationship was; a
negotiated stance of give and take.

class="c245">    "You don't understand," Brick
had shouted. "This is a comfort that only can be given by strangers. To
establish any kind of sanity we must live our lives with a dual
universe, separate from each other. Now you have straddled both of
mine, I feel you have spoilt everything."

class="c245">    Those were the last words Brick
ever spoke to me. The next morning he was gone.

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***

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I class='c243'>fixed myself two rounds of toast and strong black coffee.
After, I called my boss to enquire whether the problem of the day
before had been solved.

class="c245">    "Problem?" he barked into his
end of the receiver. "What problem?"

class="c245">    I mentioned, as casually as I
could, the previous day's early closing of our facility.

class="c245">    "I've got bigger fish on my
plate," came the boss's reply. "Do you think I've got time to take
calls from every tomfool member of staff? Just get your ass in
here."

class="c245">    The underground was less crowded
than normal, and by the end of the line, my carriage totally empty. The
absence of people almost led me to wonder if I was, in fact, there
myself. I was on the point of shouting something out, I wasn't sure
what, when with a vroom of air, the train arrived at the
station.

class="c245">    I showed my security pass to the
guard on the gate and went directly to the changing-room. Here I
inserted my key into my personal locker and carefully removed my
clothes, item by item. As always, my underpants were last, and as
always, I folded them neatly into a square and placed them on the top
of the pile. I closed the locker and hung the key from its chain around
my neck.

class="c245">    My place of work was on the
eighth floor. I took the lift naked and alone, showed my pass to the
guard and entered the access corridor.

class="c245">    My position was six down on the
right. I nodded to the other workers already at their stations and
then, when I got to my spot, I turned around and put my naked bottom
through the hole in the wall.

class="c245">    I was an integral part of the
'Bums of the World' exhibit. On the other side of the wall beneath my
bottom was a plaque inscribed with 'Replica of Edwardian Posterior,
circa 1920, England'.

class="c245">    On my right was the supposed
bottom of a Dinka tribe member, and on my left, the bottom of a cowboy.
Our section, give or take a few temps, numbered twenty-four.

class="c245">    I had started work at 'The
Living Body' museum approximately eleven and a half months previously.
Initially I had had some trepidation about even going for a job at such
a place but at the interview everything was conducted in a most
professional manner.

class="c245">    One week after making the
initial enquiry I was phoned to say I was in.

class="c245">    "An opening's come up in bums,"
said the clipped tones on the other end of the line.

class="c245">     Of course, the first thing
that crossed my mind was that I would have to be naked. I had imagined
myself in the mouth, or perhaps, foot section.

class="c245">    "Don't worry," came that clipped
voice again, "there's a rope around the whole area. No one can touch,
and believe me, the bum section is one of our best jobs. If you want,
you can read all day."

class="c245">    This final piece of information
cinched the deal for me. Ever since I was a small child I had had a
love of reading. And every day in the job I had read. Every day, that
is, until today.

class="c245">    I had a book with me, Jack
London's 'Call of the Wild' but somehow the words looked alien, like
Japanese kanji or Egyptian hieroglyphes. Going around and around in my
head were the words Brick had said. I wondered particularly what he
meant about a dual universe.

class="c245">    Sure, there were things that I
had thought about that I hadn't done but that was the same for
everybody. If we all went about doing exactly what we wanted then the
world would be chaos. Or perhaps that was what Brick did mean. That we
had to find an alternate space to carry out these desires.

class="c245">    Now that I was thinking about
it, perhaps the whole situation yesterday had not, in fact, happened.
Perhaps I would go home and find Brick there, evidence of this so
called dual universe.

class="c245">    I was knocked out of these
thoughts by Gus, owner of the cowboy's arse next to me, prodding me in
the side.

class="c245">    "Are you alright?" he said. He
gestured to my book. "Not reading."

class="c245">     Gus,
as ever, had a porn mag in his hands. He always had the same kind of
porn. It involved women with exceptionally large breasts interacting
with animals. I don't mean sexually interacting, quite the
opposite.

class="c245">    These women always were involved
in scenes of bucolic innocence; kittens gambolling or cows being
milked. However, quite obviously, they served the purpose.

class="c245">    Gus had received two warnings
for masturbating. He had an enormous penis and in more than one way I
was scared of it. Several times on my days off I had attended the
museum and stood looking at Gus's arse. I wanted to spend hours there
buried deep inside it, almost suffocated. That scared me
too.

class="c245">    "Not reading?" said Gus again,
as if I hadn't heard.

class="c245">    I tried to think of words to
answer this question but finding none, I merely smiled. Gus seemed
happy with this. However, after five minutes he lowered his magazine
again.

class="c245">   "You heard about the massive shake up
on the arse section? Apparently we're going to be told tomorrow." Gus
made a dry hacking sound in his throat and spat a string of phlegm into
a tissue. "It don't sound like good news to me. No sir, not at
all."

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***

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When
I got home, one part of the riddle, at least, was solved. Brick was not
there, and the scene that I had so precipitously barged in on, was not
a dream.

class="c245">    Not feeling hungry I took a can
of beer out of the fridge and lay down on the sofa. I knocked the can
back quickly, went to get another one and returned to my former
position.

class="c245">    I thought back to when I had
first met Brick. This had happened shortly after I had started work in
the Living Body museum and in my mind these two events were linked as
the start of the most harmonious period of my life. In fact, my meeting
with Brick was linked to my work at the museum.

class="c245">    On receiving my first pay check
I had decided to go out and celebrate. I took a table at a restaurant
more expensive than one I would usually frequent.

class="c245">    It was as I was having the
desert, a banana flamb?ed in the particular style of a particular
region of France when a number of drunken voices began to drift
over.

class="c245">    "Have you seen that new Living
museum?" one of them said.

class="c245">    "I like the bums," said another
one.

class="c245">    This brought a general murmur of
amusement.

class="c245">    "No really," said the same
voice. "The Edwardian one I have taken a particular shine
to."

class="c245">    I felt my cheeks glowing in
embarrassment. I glanced over my shoulder, thinking perhaps that I was
the butt of some cruel joke, but no, the voice continued in a manner
that was obviously quite genuine, if a little drunk.

class="c245">    "I have been to see it five or
six times alone this week. It is like those books your parents buy you
when you are thirteen or fourteen years old and they are too shy to
talk to you about the birds and the bees. Of course, they think they
are doing something educational, but what could be more exquisitely
erotic?"

class="c245">    The matter might have ended
there, but on attending the urinal I found myself standing next to the
speaker of those complimentary phrases.

class="c245">    Not knowing exactly how to start
up a conversation I decided for once in my life just to go for it. I
mentioned to the young man that it was my arse he had been recently
talking about.

class="c245">    There could have been only one
answer to this and it was the one I got.

class="c245">     "Show
me."

class="c245">    I did and moments later a tongue
was exploring there.

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***

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The
next day, on arriving at work, I was told to go to the conference room.
Already there were the other members of the 'Bums of the World' unit
and at the head of the table, our illustrious boss.

class="c245">    He gave a long speech punctuated
at various points by colourful pie charts and diagrams with fierce
looking diagonal lines and numbers. The general gist of the matter was
that while the Living Museum had started off well, for the past number
of months numbers had been declining.

class="c245">    "What we need to do," said the
boss, "is to make the whole experience more interactive."

class="c245">    "There's nobody getting
interactive with my arse," said Gus loudly and this was followed by
other similar complaints.

class="c245">    The boss held out his hands palm
forwards and he stayed like this until the room had returned to a
semblance of quiet.

class="c245">    "What we are talking about are
speakers. A small speaker will be placed in the rectum, then at the
push of a button, a commentary will be given from the speaker detailing
the history of that particular bottom in history.

class="c245">    "Ears will be placed against the
sphincter but that will be the only contact. We've done our research.
It's what the public want." The boss coughed gently into his hand, like
a crow. "Anyone not complying will be out on their arse. So to
speak."

class="c245">    It seemed the boss had us over a
barrel. As I stood in the queue waiting for my speaker I had again that
feeling of unreality. Brick had gone and now this. I felt as if the
world were slowly unravelling and I was somewhere near the centre of
it. I felt powerless to stop the process, rather like a pea fired from
a heavy duty gun.

class="c245">    At last it was my turn to enter
the room. The nurse was at the sink washing his hands and as I went in
he twisted his neck to face me. As I did I had the feeling one has upon
entering a church; that you are nearer to God despite your disbelief in
his existence.

class="c245">    "You're the Edwardian, right? If
you could take off your clothes and hop up onto the bed."

class="c245">    The nurse was younger than I
expected and more male. He had an unusual face that to my eyes was
remarkably attractive. I looked around for a robe. Although I was naked
daily in front of any number of people I was still more than somewhat
shy.

class="c245">    "It's ok," said the nurse. "I've
seen it all before. Believe me." class="c245">   

class="c245">    Up on the bed the nurse
instructed me put my feet in the stirrups there, hanging down from the
ceiling.

class="c245">    "You may find this gives you a
hard on," he said as first he dipped his fingers in a bowl of viscous
looking liquid and then thrust the fingers inside me. "Yep, there she
goes. Don't worry. It's quite natural." And he smiled.

class="c245">    Lying flat on my back as I was I
managed to lift my head slightly. "I'm sorry about this." I tried to
find the right words. "My boyfriend, he left me. Before that, I don't
know, we hadn't been having sex. That's natural, isn't it? We
had

been together a
while."

class="c245">    "You might be more comfortable
on all fours," said the nurse. "If you'd like to twizzle
round."

class="c245">    I shook my head.

class="c245">    "I was having these thoughts
myself," I said. "About this cowboy that I know. Actually, he's a work
colleague."

class="c245">    "Everybody has fantasies," said
the nurse. "Don't beat yourself up about it. The passage seems free and
no sign of distension. Now I'm going to fit the speaker."

class="c245">    "Will it hurt?"

class="c245">    "Do you want it to?"

class="c245">    The air suddenly seemed to have
been vacuumed out of the room. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on
something purposeful. I couldn't think of anything.

class="c245">    "All done," said the nurse. He
wiped his fingers backwards and forwards against his white coat. "If
you don't mind, I've given you a more experimental speaker."

class="c245">    "Experimental?" I said. "In what
way?"

class="c245">    But the nurse refused to answer.
As I made my way to the display I thought how some could see the
nurse's penetration as a violation but, strangely enough, it felt like
the most human contact I had had in a long while.

class="c245">    It was partly his good looks,
partly his jokey manner, but more than that it felt like the beginning
of something new. Part of me regretted mentioning the
cowboy.

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***

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The
boss must have put word out for no sooner had we taken our positions
then we heard the buzz behind us. Next, I felt a hand touching my bum,
my cheeks being deftly parted and something warm placed against my
sphincter. I guessed, from the whole communiqu?, that it was an
ear.

class="c245">    Gus lowered his magazine. "I'm
hoping mine is some busty chick. Who else would want to listen to the
history of a cowboy's arse? If she wants she can tongue me."

class="c245">    Gus was evidently putting a
brave face on the whole thing. For my part, I did not try to picture
those behind me. Warm hands, cold hands, it was all the same to me. I
even liked the sensation of the ear pressed against me. It reminded me
somewhat of a conch shell and for the whole day I could hear the
reverse of the sea in my head.

class="c245">    Brick had never placed his ear
there. True, I didn't have a speaker implanted at the time, but it made
me wonder when had we ever listened to each other truly. Now, for the
whole day, a whole procession of strangers were listening to me most
intimately.

class="c245">    Then, like a hammer late at
night, it struck me what Brick had said, that I didn't understand the
comfort of strangers. Yet here I was now.

class="c245">    I was on the point of following
this thought further when to my left Gus suddenly lurched forward with
a yelp. He reached behind him and came back with a lollipop
stick.

class="c245">    "Some little bugger shoved this
right up my arse."

class="c245">    I looked at the way his penis
dangled between his legs and for the first time, it didn't scare me so
much.

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***

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That
night at home again I found that I wasn't hungry. I took another can of
lager from the fridge and went to what was now my habitual spot on the
sofa.

class="c245">    Not wanting to spend another
night in fruitless self examination I picked up my book, Jack London's
'Call of the Wild'. The story was a simple one, the tale of a journey
across icy plains, yet it seemed that these days it was a story that
would never be told.

class="c245">    It was archetypal and our
society was no longer one which cared for such things. In our shying
away from dealing with the big issues, out of fear that they had
already been dealt with, we ended up saying nothing. In our world of
mass communication we had lost the ability to communicate.

class="c245">    It was as I had this thought
that I became aware of a low buzzing. No, it wasn't a buzzing. If I
listened carefully I was just able to make out words.

class="c245">    "Testing, testing, one two
three, testing."

class="c245">    Thinking that perhaps the young
male who rented the flat next to mine had invested in a CB radio I went
over to the notoriously thin wall and pressed my ear against
it.

class="c245">    The phrase was still there,
however, it was no louder or distinct than before. Puzzled, I tried
each of the walls and each time the sound was the same. It was then
that it hit me. The sound wasn't coming from either without or within
the room, it was coming from inside me, from the speaker.

class="c245">    Quickly I took off all my
clothes and at once the words were clearer.

class="c245">    "Testing, testing, one two
three, testing."

class="c245">    As they finished their looped
phrase, I don't know why, but I said, "Hello?"

class="c245">    "Hello," came back the reply
right away, "so you are there after all."

class="c245">    I laughed at this, the irony of
it striking me. "And where else would I be?"

class="c245">    The voice belonged to the nurse.
Like when he had inserted his fingers inside me, I didn't feel him
speaking to me like this an imposition.

class="c245">    "I did tell you the speaker was
experimental. Are you sitting down?"

class="c245">    I went to the fridge, retrieved
a beer and lay back down on the sofa. I lay with my legs slightly
apart, my head on the arm and I put the beer on my chest.

class="c245">    "Now tell me," said the nurse,
"what are you wearing?"

class="c245">    Situated as I was I had a clear
view of my body. The beer can moved up and down as it followed the
pattern of my breathing. It was not in my habit to lie naked
thus.

class="c245">    "I'm not wearing anything," I
said.

class="c245">    "And you are hard,
yes?"

class="c245">    "Look, about before, I shouldn't
have told you about my boyfriend. Or about that cowboy. My life is
quite normal."

class="c245">    "Close your eyes and whatever
you do, don't open them. This is very important."

class="c245">    I thought back to my meeting
with the nurse, the way his neck twisted. I could see the scene with
utmost clarity, the way the tap gleamed, the material of the cotton
trousers, how they clung against his buttocks.

class="c245">    For perhaps sixty seconds images
of our life together flashed through my head; naked walks along a
beach, moonlit treks to hospital to visit a birthing sister, having sex
in a taxi in New York, sudden trips to poorly air-conditioned hotel
rooms in Abu Dhabi. 

class="c245">    These were things that may or
may not happen.

class="c245">    "This speaker," I said, "why did
you choose me?"

class="c245">    "Just keep your eyes closed. And
don't say a word."

class="c245">    I heard the door to my apartment
open. I thought it might be Brick returning, but I remembered the
nurse's order and I kept my eyes closed. I knew it wasn't
Brick.

class="c245">    Footsteps came across the floor
to where I was lying. There was the sound of a zip and trousers being
dropped. I felt that I could see the nurse, for I knew it was him,
stepping out of his underpants.

class="c245">    When I was younger I had never
indulged in promiscuous sex. I believed, somehow, that me being me, I
wouldn't be able to please anyone. My first boyfriend had been
thrity-five years older than me. I chose him because I thought he would
be grateful.

class="c245">    I felt something cold on my
erection, like a jellyfish perhaps, and then a hand running smoothly
down it. A body moved across me. I put up my hands and felt the clear
outline of a chest. It was there because I could feel it and also not
there because I hadn't seen it. The two senses in conflict with each
other.

class="c245">    There was a hand on my again and
this time I felt against the tip of my cock, the crinkly sensation of
pubic hair, then skin.

class="c245">    The body pushed down and I was
inside. I thought I had not heard that voice for a while and then all
sensation was directed towards my penis as the hips of the person on me
began to gyrate.

class="c245">    The desire was there equally to
both open my eyes and to keep them closed. I felt somehow that if I
opened them, then this sensation would be finished and I squeezed them
tighter shut.

class="c245">    I thought of Abu Dhabi again.
The hotel room sweats and the nurse comes out of the bathroom naked
apart from an old sock pulled over his cock. "Is this respectable for
dinner do you think?" and we laugh and I take the sock off with my
teeth.

class="c245">    Moments later I came and to my
surprise I felt a spattering of come against my chest.

class="c245">     My eyes racked open. I
blinked and clearly in my head I could see the naked body of the nurse.
It was like a photograph from a holiday I had taken years before. I
blinked again and the image was gone.

class="c245">    
"Hello," I said. "Hello," I said again. "Is there anybody
there?"

class="c245">    "Testing, testing, one two three
testing," came the voice from my arse.

class="c245">    It repeated this over and over.
In a loop.