143. Following

An old friend from university had contacted me to help him move house. He was a full-on hippy; previously, he lived in a vegan squat up in Manchester, the problem for the vegans was that their house was overrun by rats; they refused to kill the bastards, so the rats ate up all their oats and they were starved. In the war for survival between hippies and rats, the rats were winning—the rats had endless litters at the expense of the hippies.

Eventually, my friend moved to London. He decided to advertise for couchsurfers; he got some cute Japanese or Thai chick to stay with him. There was an Albanian in his houseshare and he decided he liked the little girl, so he pinned her up against the sink and touched her up. She was upset, being a modest Asian, and complained to my friend; he suggested the police, but she demurred—probably enjoyed the experience, the little tart. Anyway, being English, my friend decided to take the passive aggressive approach. He told the Albanian’s girl he liked raping Asian tourists and washed up the man’s cutlery without permission in his presence.

Unlike the English, who live for these passive aggressive performances, the Albanian was more direct and burst into my friend’s room and pushed him about, mumbling about a knife. The Albanians might be a load of thieving, blood-feuding savages but at least they tackle the issue head on, minus the passive aggressive bullshit.

So I helped my friend move out—being evil, I owned a car—before the Albanian carved him up, though he probably just went back to beating his girl instead. My friend ended up living with one of those strange homosexuals who loves Margaret Thatcher: this guy had a giant cut-out of her in the kitchen, just to watch him while he cooked—and pictures of the pommel of a whip inserted into an anus on his hard drive as well, but we will draw a veil here. You know the type.

At the housewarming, I talked to this little Polish girl. She had been to the doctor that very day to discuss her drinking, she told me, sipping her wine; she came with her girlfriend and her gay boyfriend—she was a type, too. We argued Brexit and she ended up on my lap. I had already decided to take a firm approach, to hold her down during sex. A few months before, a girl had moved my hand to her throat while we were at it—“Huh?” I thought, “This is what they want?” It seemed a little distasteful, but this is what women are, apparently.

My error was pinching her bum; somehow, due to the drink, I clung on instead of cheekily letting go quickly and she sort of dragged me about the kitchen while the Conservative homo and my friend and her girlfriend watched. Well, that was me done for. She flounced off with my friend and started to make nice with him. It was the Tao: if you try, if you presume, if you push—well, it will go the opposite way. I had to keep talking to the homosexual about Thatcher, while, upstairs, they were groaning away; sometimes I would raise my eyes, a little mournfully, to the ceiling.

The next morning she told me I was weird, by which she meant she liked me really. My friend showed me his back when she left; it was covered in scratches. “She was insane,” he said. I understood at once what happened. Psychically, I had communicated to her exactly what I was going to do; she needed to be held down. My friend, being a hippy, did not have the demeanour for it; as a result, he got scratched. You see, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are contained in your philosophy—and that includes psychic communication with drunk Polish tarts. Well, I know who she really wanted, anyway—the daft cow.