Helena Read Online Free PDF Page A

politically correct views about
homosexuals, bisexuals, and where it was mutually consenting,
sadists and masochists, but I didn't feel it. After my hand had
stimulated my clitoris and my mind had conjured vivid images of
domination and submission, of buggery or orgy, of what I then
considered to be the grossest practices of defilement and
depravity, I would be swamped by a terrible guilt, by a sense of
betrayal, by a deep depression that I was so sexually incontinent,
that I had so easily submitted to the temptations of the flesh,
even if, at this stage, it was only my own.
    For the vast
majority of time, I was happy with my relationship with Gregory; I
was more than happy, my mind brimmed with love for him as I
anticipated our future life together. When he moved to London and I
was stuck at university completing my final year, I longed for him
with such intensity that I swear my body ached. I counted down days
in my mind until the next time I would see him. Every day, no
matter how laborious my studies, I would write ten page letters,
and although never straying into the language of my felt sentiment,
the sheer prolificacy of my letter writing bespoke of my urgent
need of him.
    However, as
happens, people do not always live up to expectation, and sometimes
when we met, I felt a certain bathetic disappointment. This was
less Gregory's fault than mine, having invested perhaps too much
hope, too much faith in a mere mortal. I had imagined him to be
wittier, to be kinder, to be better in bed than he was in reality.
How the keenness of my imagination has often let me down! Sitting
on trains, or when money was tight, hunched up on coaches, my heart
would race with anticipation, expectation, the hands on my watch
turning painfully slowly. I would be exasperated by a short hold up
on rail or road, and then as I entered the station, the excitement
of seeing him would almost overwhelm me, and then I would be there,
kissing him, hugging him, only for five minutes later to be
wondering why I had made such a fuss.
    How can I
explain this? Gregory was not deficient; he would make the
necessary fuss over my presence, but he was, after all, only
Gregory, not the fantasy figure I had imbued with so many qualities
that he did not possess, or at least not possess in the abundance
that I had imagined. We fitted together, that was all. We were made
for each other; the man was my fate. I could get bored with Gregory
as I got bored with my own company. The hoped for ecstasy did not
happen, or after our initial embrace, did not last.
    This is not so
unusual. As a species we are quick to disappointment, our dreams
can be crushed by the lightest contact. I do not wish to disparage
Gregory, and there was nothing too unusual, I think, about my
occasional disappointment, but I mention this in the light of my
only sexual experience outside our relationship, before that is,
Freddie, meeting you.
    The weekend
before my finals, Gregory arrived. I hadn't seen him for two weeks,
and initially I hadn't discouraged him from coming to see me, but
once he was there, I realized what a mistake it had been for him to
come. Not only was he in my way, he also seemed to lack the
sensitivity to see it. I wondered whether it was because he
thought, subconsciously though it might have been, that my exams,
ergo my career and my ideas, where somehow less important than
his.
    Over the two
days, my anger began to build up. I was annoyed with myself too for
having allowed him to come in the first place, and maybe I turned
that anger on him as well. It was, of course, impossible to study
with Gregory sitting there in my cramped student room; Gregory kept
on telling me that there was no point in cramming, that it was too
late to learn any more so I should relax, take a break, go out with
him instead. It incensed me, this attitude. When he had been
studying for his degree, I had sat patiently with him, asking him
random questions to aid his revision. He did not offer to do