What the butler didn’t see…

A bit that didn’t make the cut…Danny spends a penny on Swanage pier and drifts away (cert 15).

Hastily, I paid my penny and watched a blur of images until I saw boobs. And after just three days in a car with two men, that glimpse of boob was the most erotic image I have ever seen—including all of the actual boobs I have been luckily enough to see.

The least erotic set of boobs I’ve ever seen were during a live sex show in Kings Cross, Sydney. I was drinking with a viking of a man called Aussie Dan, a bearded giant so Australian his nickname among other Australians was ‘Aussie Dan’ which worked out well for me because I could slot into that social circle with just the name ‘Dan’. Aussie Dan was dragging me around Kings Cross and I was trying to keep up, physically and in terms of booze. Walking down the main strip we were accosted by a man:

“Live sex’ $20s each.”

Without consultation Aussie Dan (at this point he does sound like a fictional fraction of my own psyche, but I assure you he exists because other people I know have met him) says “Sure”. When we got to the entrance Aussie Dan said with aggressive confidence to the girl behind the glass partition “we’re paying five dollars each, less if you argue” and loomed. I’ve never seen looming as a conscious act before, but sure enough Aussie Dan is actively looming at her and she is desperately making eye contact with the barker that dragged us in. Having never been to a live sex show before I blanche, but this seems to be standard behaviour and we get in for the five dollars.

The basement is a dive, paint peeling with sweat on the walls and seats. I hope it was sweat. After the waitress has served the table next to us a round of pinkish cocktails, she comes over. Basically the choice is between the house cocktail that costs six dollars or a bottle of beer that would cost us fifteen dollars. We take the same pinkish cocktail that the group before us took.

After one sip I say: “Dan! Dan! Don’t drink the cocktail.” He takes a long pull from the cheap straw.

“Why?”

“It tastes of drugs.” I say, trying to articulate the chalky, bitter taste that the fruit juice and very cheap vodka was doing a very good job of hiding.

“What?’ he says taking another pull.

“Trust me Dan, I have taken a lot of drugs in my time. A lot.” A take my own tiny sip to be sure “This has got something in’ he looks at me quizzically and I gesture over at the six or seven men that had drank the cocktail before us on the other table.

They were in the process of being led up a side door upstairs by some girls in their underwear.

“Two beers, please” says Aussie Dan to the passing waitress “and leave the caps on.”

The live sex show itself, which out of what I can only presume is Aussie Dan’s bloodymindedness we stayed for, was a bored red head with stretch marks. She lay a towel down on dirty dusty stage, picked a member of the audience and laid him down on it. She lazily fellated him for what seemed like seventeen months, rolled a condom on him and then squatted on him for a few minutes. She never bothered to feign enjoyment, I remember looking at her boobs thinking that I should be aroused but only ever mustering sad.

I now know if she had wanted to be really erotic what she should have done is record the whole thing on a series of pictures nearly a hundred years ago and charge a Victorian penny to watch them erratically flick forward on a pier on the south coast of England.