It's a line in the sand.

I am named!

I can't go on, clearly I can't. And so this, my dear readers, is my gentleman's excuse me.

You'll be relieved to hear my reasons are not ethical, let alone philosophic. I'd love to plead some higher consideration, oh you know I would, but it's quite pragmatic. In being named, I am not free. In being named, I cannot write as freely or honestly as the blog necessitates. This project has assumed a complete and ongoing anonymity, and that's now gone. It's past. And how quickly the past assumes its innocence, its simplicity. Clearly, I am no longer free to transgress, digress, or cast my wayward gaze wherever I choose. No, I have to assume the mantle of my position and, thereby, protect my career and my reputation. I will do this and I will top up my pension. I will do this, all this. I will take full responsibility for the angle of my smile. I will, in fact, say and reveal nothing. And yet, I stand by this blog. I stand by every word. And so, of course, a note to you, the reader. I may have appeared, on occasion, to be writing this like an autistic, a solipsist, but, of course, as with everything in life, it was entirely supported and sponsored by you, and your gaze. For that, I thank you. I will miss your gaze. P.S Just for the record, there is no publishing deal. I didn't ask for half a million, but I did ask for a hundred thousand. It was flatly refused and I was happy with that.

Hello you.

You're reading this, oh yes. I know you are.

But that's all I know, isn't it. You know my name and I don't know yours!

Of course, I have some faithful readers and to them I am bound forever. Yet I must also warn these readers that I have received two comments on this blog from someone who, it seems, knows of me and knows my name. They were deleted, of course. The comments were blunt, factual, lacking entirely any style or wit and, therefore, somewhat aggressive. And so I could spend hours ruminating wastefully, pointlessly, on this person who knows my name. I could turn a suspicious gaze on, for example, Gareth. Helen, even. Well, it could be any number of acquaintances or past clients, present clients, family or friends. It could be the agent. In short, I may not know your name and while I may lack in nomenclature, I am well versed in the state of your poor soul. And when I see it next, I'll know it. I'll whisper ashes in your ear.

And so on this, the first day of my recovery, I wake to this dull, this inane and literal minded slug at, at what, the truth? Oh god, not again, grow up. Am I really writing this for someone like you? And what do you think you have on me anyway? I take that back. It wasn't the agent. Unless he did some relentless digging, it wasn't him. I used a pseudonym. Yes, for you I did! Oh, it's all seeping out now. All the bickering of detail, of facts, like a teenager, or a lawyer. Oh god save my soul from the sword, and from children with all the facts!

A card.

Did you get our card? Helen asked, as if receipt of the card itself would improve my health, not to say my morals.

I got the card. I spent far too long studying the graphology of the signatures. Clearly, Helen had rallied the troops. This was obvious in Neil's impatient scrawl. Yet Gareth's signature was a revelation. He signed his name, then drew a circle round it. There we have it, definitive proof. The man really does live in a bubble! I took an overlong, teenage glee in this, and spent the rest of the day in bed, reading Chekhov. Illness has rendered me, my life, defunct.

He laughed.

A hundred grand, I said, a hundred. I heard him gasp, then laugh.

Well let's be clear what you're asking me, shall we? This is my life, my career, and you're asking me to ruin myself. You want me to take myself to the cleaners and you think fifteen grand is the cost? It's a hundred grand, a hundred, you hear. And that's minimum.

I left my unbuttered toast on the table, whoofed up the Gorecki, and took the most pulsing, compacted, painful crap alive. A hundred? Even that was self abasing. I staggered out of the toilet, empty and craving impact, definition. I tore into my toast, ready to call the agent and fuck him sideways.

Half a million, we'll talk.

With that, I went to my bed, a better view of my extended horizon.

Ah, the humiliation.

A mere chest infection. I rather fancied myself the inspiration for a run of TB along the coast, or perhaps the importer of a little French Legionnaires, but a fucking chest infection! And me doubled over in the shower, arse and naked elbows, like the ghost of a Bacon, furious with memories of ancient, unending intercourse only to look down, cupping my frightened, shrivelled dick in my hand. What is this, the end, or the image of that end? And what are these if not my moments in time. If I don't heed them, who do I imagine will? Or worse, without heeding them, why have them? I mean, really.

With my fever at 39, I took a shower and collapsed in the cubicle. I spent four hours, naked, clutching my feet for dear life. Was the house being washed out to sea? My intention was to spruce up for Thom. We'd planned to spend the morning buying a pair of skates. Very likely it wasn't four hours, but I'd made a cocoon of my body, a shield, and nothing, not even time, when it knocked, got an answer. I sensed if I ever got out of the cubicle I'd either be dead, or a mystic. I could smell, taste, or feel an amorphous understanding of the transpersonal. I saw endless vista's enveloping over each other. It was like flipping through a travel magazine, or a deranged search for pornography. To be frank, I'd rather have been dead. I cancelled Thom, cancelled Helen. It's my fourth day alone.

Who would ever tell anyone anything?

That was a lesson I grew up with and very likely one I'll die with, all the therapy merely a circular, somewhat decadent detour, back to what I really know of life. Unwashed and too sick to do a proper tour of my collection, I cancelled Helen until Sunday. I called the agent and said, again, I was too ill to speak. That was pleasurable, if demented. Clearly, I need antibiotics. The future quickly shrivelled, along, I noticed, with my dick, to nothing, or next to nothing, and all I look forward to now is finding the ivory cane, my dressing gown in purple, pottering around the house, showing Helen the finer moments in Victorian erotica, allowing her to know her body is of interest to me with, and yet also without soul, and that for all my fervour, she cannot own the scheme of my life. And not even that of her own.

For comfort, I called George.

15,000 pounds.

With a fever in the early hours, a slug in my lung that smells of Legionnaires, I took the phone call with a delirium that felt almost transcendent. I then fell asleep until lunch and slowly, by mid afternoon, pieced it together. An agent- Baxter? Dexter? is offering his services and a publishing deal, all in one happy, brief, handshake.

For The Secret Life Of..? Great Title.

Oh if, if, if.

And yes, anonymous, definitely.

I wasn't going to negotiate money from my duvet, one needs to stride across cemeteries to do that, yet I was well aware his paltry offer won't even replace my car.

I am far too ill, too demented with fever, to even consider the ethical. Right now, I'd sign anything.

I rang Thom and prior to answering, yearned for him aged three, his little red doctor's box, rushing to my side. We made a plan for the weekend. What was it? And why am I making plans.

Helen called. Drop by, shall I?

Tomorrow, my dear. I can only hope I am well enough to show you my entire collection.

Hah.

Sick as a dog.

Something has taken root in the lung. Yet I staggered to work, delaying the full hysteria of my symptoms, the stridency of denial such that it cast a reminder of my early twenties, all intense and feverish. I staggered on, swaying from one age to another like a toy in a storm, greeting Helen in the kitchen, finally, as if I were a functioning, consistent thing. It was only in seeing her that I understood I should be in bed. I said nothing. Anger, was it?. Oh god, had her paltry admission of sexual feeling for other people, had that hurt me? Was I ever so precious? What now, as I take the stairs to my room, is it me or my illness belittling me? I was spiralling away. The dream of the huge arse, merry on my face. I found a dictionary of psychiatric terms and discovered, with some elation, the clinical definition of nightmare. It is a dream of being sat upon, to the point of suffocation, by a female monster. Oh Helen, what have you done? I staggered home, cancelling everyone.

Was ever an arse proferred like Boucher's Odalisque? While not overly appetising, she was on my mind this morning. I had woken from a dream where, in short, I was suffocated by the rolling fat of a woman's arse. And so, as I buttered my toast, I understood the woman was archetypal and clearly a rendering of my current situation and yet surprised, too, that such a vicious assault should arise in these quiet, almost tranquil days. One should never underestimate the shadow, I suppose. I cleaned my teeth twice and, on the walk to work, imagined the arse to be Boucher's rumpy Odalisque and, pleasing me, this quickly evolved into a plan of activity for Helen and me tomorrow afternoon. And so it was, alive with vengeance, I breezed into the house, wiping out Gareth with my grin.

Kindly, Helen.

She came with tea. Clearly, she thinks I am disturbed by her revelation and I am happy to play along, the better to hide my own affairs. And yet, in ministering to me like this, as if I were a child requiring appeasement in the light of his slutty mother's explosive, menopausal sexuality, I felt a coldness that jarred me into facing her, and in facing her, into speaking.

Thank you, I boomed.

Are you well? She recoiled.

We stared and, for a second, were both locked into that ancient, demonic battle for sexual imperative. Oh how did that happen, Helen? Kindly Helen. How did it happen? Eventually we looked away, fell into our bodies, and returned to matters of tea, tea and biscuits.

Dad.

I noted the dust on the handle of the zimmer frame. Clearly, he'd rather fall over and piss himself in style rather than use the zimmer. In denial over his capacities, he insisted on the walking stick. While he was in the kitchen, I had an impulse to try out the zimmer. So, imagining myself my dad, I took a few steps. I was as smooth and intent as a crab, yet had to focus hard on my feet to ensure I was enacting this for his benefit, not some perverse role play of my own agenda. I put the frame away and on cue, my father entered with two cups of tea. Later he made a third cup, leaving me alone in the lounge with the District Nurse. I was pleased to note that she was a robustly attractive woman. Her job had clearly depressed her needs in relation to men and I sensed, contrary to her desire, every voice she used was, finally, a professional one. My father was spending too long in the kitchen and, unable to fathom what he hoped I'd say to the nurse, I returned to the safe, yet animating topic of her teenage sons. In speaking of the ambiguity of their behaviour, I sensed the return of her hidden libido and, finally, as father returned, I knew I'd nurture this further, in my evening's fantasy. However, splayed out on the sofa, the scenario took a long while to elaborate and I must concede, I had not anticipated how central my father's role was to my final, belated satisfaction. I awoke in the same subterranean mood as the fantasy, noting the handle of the zimmer and the claw hands that, finally, had used it in the night.

My mute.

Today, I was ready. Bounding over to work on a summer's day in November, a critical state of affairs, I decided to summon all my powers of empathy and osmosis. I had not seen client G. last week, requesting her doctor wean her off the high dose of diazepam and so it was, this morning, with the atmosphere in the room allergic and viral, my mute and I reunited. I sat at an angle to her, suggesting alliance against a terrible, demonic third party. I summoned, again, the imago of myself as a boy. A sickly thing, stricken with shame. I happily exaggerated, seeing myself as frozen with pain, tearless, and borderline catatonic. I stayed with this boy for twenty minutes, hoping my mute would feel a subterranean empathy. In short, I created a silent, hypnotic attachment between us and yet, while she didn't speak, I felt layers of psychic shifting, as if tectonic plates were easing off. Of course, this technique is entirely unproven and unregulated but, like some forms of magic, it can be highly effective. And now, in the dark of my study, I still feel a precious, if precarious attachment to the experience and, for the first time, wonder at the risk of writing this, and tampering with the trance. Instead, to counter it all and tantamount to a good bollocking, I rang my father where, once again, I will spend the weekend.

Client R.

The Zichy print had been preying on my mind. I placed it in the bedroom, but it haunted me this morning while in the kitchen, buttering toast. It preoccupied me on the toilet where I took a silent, unthinking, almost unconscious shit. In depicting a moment of climax, Zichy has shown the most intimate, most literal moment and yet it gave rise to endless abstract speculation, so much so I walked to work resembling nothing more than a breeze of air. I spent an hour trying to return to my body but when client R. entered, not unpretty but heavy, crushed by last week, I wanted to absorb something of her substance, her corporeity, so I clasped her hand and pulled her into the room. Within a second the flare of transference returned to her eyes and she kissed me, quickly, on the lips. What a bollocks. It was as instantaneous for her, as clasping her hand was for me. A right and proper fucking mess. What was I doing? Had I ever been so unthinking, so cruel, in fact? The ambiguity of my behaviour could only lead to madness, suicide, or open the door, perhaps, to a life of servitude to my dick. All three choices vied for attention, until client R. relaxed, and forgave herself the kiss. It was this forgiveness, and therefore the client, R., who did the healing today. The animal warmth of her own good sense filled the room and, inevitably, when she left I had only the awareness of how quickly, how ordinarily, I will invite my own end.