Mick Wall - Bad Sex

We had been introduced at a Rory Gallagher gig. Rory had been on form that night but, as usual, it was afterwards that all the real fun started. Turned out the old girl lived in her palatial mansion a few miles from where I lived at my parents' far more modest abode. The offer of a drink came with the promise to drive me the rest of the way home afterwards. Having barely the price of a pint in my pocket let alone enough spare dough for a taxi, I eagerly accepted her invitation.

When we got there I noticed the plush white carpet and all the gold and silver records on the walls. It looked exactly like the sort of pad you would imagine a famous rock manager's wife might live in.

She poured me a large brandy which I pretended to enjoy. (As a teenager, I was more of a cider and Valium boy.) Then she took out the cocaine, which I had never even seen before let alone tried. As with the brandy, I sat there pretending to know all about it, as she invited me to “a little one-on-one.” That is, one snowy white line sniffed up either nostril. I watched what she did and simply copied her when it came to my turn. My nose immediately froze. A few minutes later, I noticed my insides had frozen too; my brain an iceberg suddenly floating in some vast unexplored region of the Arctic Ocean.

We sat and chatted for a while, she talking about her husband's world famous rock band, what nice guys they were, blah blah blah, me drinking her brandy and snorting her coke, getting more out of it by the minute but not knowing what else to do, just trying to stay cool. Fat chance.

Then she looked me in the eye and said, without smiling: “Well, now, am I going to drive you home to mummy or are you going to take me upstairs and fuck the arse off me?”

I looked at her, shocked but still trying not to be. Was she joking? She was not. So I took her upstairs and pretended to enjoy that too. It was hard work, though. I was so drunk and gacked I couldn't get it up. In the end, she pulled a vibrator from the bedside table drawer and handed it to me. By now she could have handed me a gun and I wouldn't have been surprised. I simply did what I was told to. I don't know whether she was pretending but she certainly made a lot of noise before she let me stop. Then afterwards, she threw me out, told me her husband would be home any minute, told me to hurry. I shuffled down the road and stood there waiting in the cold for the first bus.

Another time, maybe five years later, I was lying on my bed in a New York hotel room when I heard scratching at the door. Again, I was out of my head on booze and coke only now I was old enough not to have to pretend to enjoy it.

I staggered to the door and opened it a crack. There she stood, more my age this time, the wife of a (very) famous rock singer. “Let me in,” she commanded. She was more out of it even than me, slurring her words and falling over as she pushed past me and threw herself onto the bed.

We didn't talk, just got straight down to it. I ripped at her clothes, she ripped at mine. I knew her famous husband was sleeping down the corridor but I was too gone to care. Not just on the booze and drugs but on everything. Who knew or cared what was right or wrong anymore? We were on the road, that was all. She was the same, worse maybe. She knew he was not faithful when they were apart, now she was determined to have her fun too. We began to fuck and then - boom! - I passed out. When I awoke, thankfully, she was gone. Was it a dream, I wondered idly? Then it hit me, a sick feeling in the guts: no, it wasn't.

Then another time, maybe 10 years later, I was the old one doing the chasing. She was a young Playboy model who liked fucking rock stars - or failing that, people who knew rock stars. As chance would have it, on this particular night all the available rock stars in the room were taken so I stepped in. Well, I knew all the rock stars in the world by then so I was the obvious choice as stand-in, as I made sure she understood.

After a while, she agreed to come back with me to my expensive LA hotel suite where I plied her with cocaine and champagne and chocolate and good strong weed. Then I looked at her. “So,” I said, smiling, showing what good fun I was, “am I going to call you a cab or do you want to stay the night?”

She knew what I meant of course. So we took our clothes off and I lay her down on the big double bed as she looked over my shoulder thinking of something else, pretending to enjoy it.

When I awoke the next afternoon, groggy and green, to my surprise she was still there. I asked her if she wanted breakfast. “Mmm,” she said, her mind clearly elsewhere.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I was wondering,” she said, “why don't you call Slash and ask him if he wants to come on a double-date with us? I've got this girlfriend at the Playboy mansion just dying to meet him…”

I picked up the phone.