In Unexpected Places

We first got to know young Craig soon after we moved into number 178. Actually it was through his mother we got to meet him. His mother Maureen, and father Sid, lived at number 174. Soon after we moved in they dropped by to welcome us to the street. They brought young Craig with them in his wheel chair.

Maureen and I became great friends and eventually she told me about Craig’s problem. It seems it was one of those genetic things with a long name and the poor lad would never be able to walk. He was about eight when we first met him, and for all he couldn’t walk, he seemed as bright as a button and it was amazing how he could get around in that wheel chair.

My two girls, Suzanne and Josephine, took to him almost immediately and they quickly had him out in the back garden playing. There again Craig showed his mettle.

It seemed he went along to some sort of organization where they had wheelchair sports, and he played that game where you use your hands and arms knocking a ball over a net. He didn’t do much good in our garden because it was all grass, but his father had put in an area of smooth asphalt in their garden, and when the girls went to play with him there he could hold his own against either one of them.

My husband and I soon became Aunty Cindy and Uncle Ted. We had wanted a boy but by the time we met Craig, and with Suzanne seven and Josephine nine and for all our regular nightly efforts, it began to look as if it would never happen, and it never did. So especially for Ted, Craig became a sort of substitute son.

Craig and Ted spent hours together down in the shed, where Ted taught Craig some of the finer points of woodwork and metalwork. Craig was, as they say, “sharp as a razor.” Tell or show him a thing once, and it seemed to be there for ever.

We found out that his school work was outstanding, leaving other kids of his age for dead.

Maureen and Sid had no other children, and as Maureen confided in me, that despite the doctor’s reassurance that the chances of another child having the same problem as Craig were very slight, they decided they didn’t want to take the risk.

Of course, Craig was a bit more demanding than most kids, but they didn’t seem to mind that. In fact, Craig was the centre of their lives. They were very proud of his achievements given his handicap, and especially his school record. If ever a child was loved by parents, it was certainly Craig. I’ve noticed over the years that some people who sustain an injury later in life that leaves them permanently incapacitated can become very bitter.

I suppose because Craig had never known himself as anything but the way he was, he had no bitterness. People would say of him, “He has a sunny disposition,” and it was true. Certainly when Craig visited our house, coming in with his, “Hello Aunty Cindy,” it was like sunlight breaking through on a dark day.

So frequent did Craig’s visits become, that he and Ted down in the shed, made ramps for the front and back doors for easy wheelchair access. When the girls were around they would play board games with him or watch television, the more strenuous activities being reserved for the asphalt area at his own house.

So the years rolled by with Craig a regular visitor to our house, and our girls often at his place. After primary school he went on the high school, and continued to outpace his fellow students.

There are certain times in our lives that when we look back on previous stages of our life, we tend to idealise them. Those are the days we would have liked to go on for ever. In our younger years we tend to have the arrogance to think “it will always be like this.” In our strength and vigour; when there is a happy marriage; when the children are young, you think it will go on for ever.

But children grow up and parents age. The first twinges in the joints remind you that the years have rolled on. Then comes a day when it is no longer a few aches and pains, and a shattering blow alters the whole fabric of your life. You know, one of those things that always happens to someone else, but will never happen to you.

When the girls began high school, I took a part time job at a bakers shop. There are certain periods during the week when extra help is needed serving at the counter, and I’m good at that sort of thing.

One day; in fact the day is burned into my memory; it was on Thursday the twelfth of June, a man in a business suit came into the shop. “Mrs. King?” he asked.

I seemed to know him, but couldn’t quite place him.

“I’m Michael Gray; I’m the manager of Burgess and Sons.”

Then I could place him. I had met him at the annual works party at the cabinet making factory were Ted worked.

I thought he was just a customer and started to ask how I could help him, but then he said, “Could we go somewhere private, Mrs. King.”

Then I knew something was badly wrong. There was a small room in the back of the shop were we had our break, so we went in there. My heart was banging away and I felt weak at the knees. “What is it,” I asked in a choking sort of voice.

“Sit down, Mrs. King,” he said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Your husband had a heart attack at work.”

“Oh, my God, where is he? Which hospital did you take him to?”

“He went to the Royal City Hospital; I went with him in the ambulance. I’m afraid he was dead on arrival.”

I couldn’t take it in. I began to say pointless things like he was perfectly well when he went to work, there must be some mistake.

“I’m afraid there’s no mistake, Mrs. King.”

The world went dark and I fainted.

When I came too I was lying on a doctor’s examination couch. Within the shopping complex was a doctor’s surgery, and somehow Mr. Gray and Peter the shop owner had carried me there.

The doctor gave me something nasty to drink that nearly made me vomit and when I was able to get to my feet Mr. Gray took me home in his car.

He asked if there was anyone he could get to come in and be with me, and of course, I asked for Maureen. She stayed the rest of the day and night. I was in some hellish nightmare world and was quite incapable of caring for myself or the girls.

It was Maureen who broke the news to Suzanne and Josephine, and Maureen who held us when we wept and prepared the food that none of us could eat. It was Maureen who sat through the night with me as my mind still struggled to accept that Ted was gone.

Craig came in and burst into tears when he saw me. “Aunty Cindy, Aunty Cindy,” he sobbed over and over again. Such had been his relationship with his Uncle Ted I think he was just as devastated as the girls and me.

The following days went by in a blur. People came and went; papers had to be signed, identifications made. I seemed to be like a still point of misery in a world that whirled around me.

The minister of our church who was to conduct the funeral service arrived. He asked me to talk about Ted, but what could I say?

Ted had been some eleven years older than me. I had met him at a party when I was nineteen. I suppose it was love at first sight for after that no other man interested me.

It was not that Ted was outstandingly good looking. I suppose “pleasant looking” best describes him. It was his gentleness and consideration for others that touched me most of all.

It was that gentleness and his understanding that led to him refusing to have sex with me anywhere but in what he thought was the right surroundings. I wanted him badly and would happily have given him my virginity in the back of his car, but passionate though he was, he would not have it.

It was three months after we had met that we went to a motel for the night, and it was there we first made love. He was so careful over the splitting of my hymen, and when he saw the pain he wanted to stop but I wouldn’t let him.

I hung on to him begging him to ejaculate into me which he did, but he did not penetrate me again that night, he simply caressed and kissed me, telling me how much he loved me.

Our sexual contact after that was intermittent because he said, “Only when it is right and comfortable for you.”

When we got married a lot of whispers went round about our difference in age. “She’s looking for a father image,” was the favourite comment.

Perhaps that was partly right because I had never known my father. My mother had got pregnant to some man when she was eighteen, and on receiving the news of her condition, he fled.

After that there were a series of “uncles,” many of whose wandering hands I had to fight off. I suppose it was a miracle that I was able to come to Ted in tact.

“Father image” was a bit ridiculous because even in these days of sexual promiscuity among young people, Ted would have had to be an extremely enterprising boy to be my father. In the sense that he cared for me throughout our marriage you can, if you like, see a paternal aspect, but along with that he was a wonderful lover.

For all his restraint before we were married, once ensconced in our own bed, he proved to be a very potent lover and able to match my own rather fervent sexual needs. Even in this he was very considerate, never leaving me “hung up” and always ready to enjoy the full potential of sensual love.

I have been one among the more fortunate women in that the emotional bond between Ted and me had always been there, as witness our frequent love making, although it was more “love expression” than “making”. Even when Ted entered his early fifties, if the frequency of our couplings declined a little, they were always just as ardent. His love embraced not only me, but our girls and, I must add, Craig.

I tried to delicately express these things to the minister and in his wisdom, what I left unsaid, I think he was able to work out for himself. At the funeral service, when speaking of Ted’s life, the minister moved through my relationship with Ted with the utmost sensitivity and although I had steeled myself not to cry at the service, I broke down and wept.

I suppose it was at that funeral service the reality of Ted’s death began to take hold of me. Before that, I had intellectually known Ted was dead, but emotionally he was still with me.

Of course, for long afterwards I still listened for the sound of his footsteps, his whistling as he worked in the shed. I still anticipated that I would wake up and find it was all a terrible dream, or I would meet him round the next corner.

Gradually I picked up the threads of my life again. The company he had worked for paid out what they called, “His entitlements,” that amounted to more than I had anticipated.

Ted had paid into the superannuation scheme for many years, and although this did not leave me a “rich widow,” it left me with sufficient to see the girls through their education and keep the wolf from the door for the rest of my life as long as I could top up with my part time job.

It must have taken me about two years to finally overcome my grief for Ted. I had often wondered how women, left widowed at a reasonably young age, that is, while they still have their sexual powers, managed. Over those two years I found out. I went into a sort of sexual limbo. In men it would probably be called impotence; what it might be called in women I don’t know, perhaps “frigidity,” but I lost all interest.

The true depth of Craig’s relationship with Ted came to light at that time. He seemed to grieve almost as much as I did.

I told him to go on using Ted’s shed/workshop, but for a long time he did not seem to be able to bring himself to enter the place. I suppose it was the memory of the happy times he had spent with Uncle Ted in that shed that deterred him. Eventually, however, he did start to use it again, and to good effect.

Ted had often remarked on how good Craig was with his hands, and how creative he was. Now Craig began to make various items that he started to sell through a couple of craft shops. I don’t say he made a lot of money, but it did give him reasonable pocket money.

Craig and the girls were now well into their teenage years and when she was nineteen, Josephine got married. After she had gone from home there developed a bit of an emotional tangle.

Craig had always been close to my youngest, Suzanne, and when a bit over a year after Josephine’s marriage, Suzanne announced that she would be getting married, Craig was very upset. Had I been more perceptive I might have seen how his feelings for Suzanne were running, but it had never occurred to me that Craig had set his heart on her.

The poor boy tried to hide his feelings but I was at least perceptive enough to see what was happening to him. The depression that comes from unrequited love can be hard to keep hidden.

He had reached the end of his high school years having achieved considerable success. We all expected that he would go on to study at the university, but right out of the blue, Craig announced he would not continue his studies.

His parents were both disappointed and bewildered.

Not only did Craig refuse to proceed to university, the wheelchair sports he had been increasingly involved in were also dropped.

I thought I knew what the trouble was. The love-lorn Craig, being as he saw it, rejected by Suzanne, had given up on nearly everything. The only thing he did carry on with was his visits to me and the shed. He used the shed more as a place to hide in than a place to work.

It must have been about three months after Suzanne got married and left home when one day Craig visited me. I was working in the kitchen and Craig was helping by shelling some peas.

There was nothing unusual about our being together like that. Craig was always ready to be helpful, and since he had often shared meals with us, he had no objection to being party to their preparations.

The unusual feature about this day was the sombre aspect we both presented. The worst of our grief for Ted had passed, but for me there was still a feeling of waiting for something to happen. It was as if my life was still somehow on hold.

For Craig there was the loss of Suzanne. Neither of us had ever spoken about this. From my side I felt it would be too invasive, on Craig’s side I am not sure. Possibly he felt it too humiliating to reveal his feelings. Such is love; one is very vulnerable.

So Craig and I worked away with only half-hearted communication. Apropos of nothing in particular Craig suddenly asked, “Do you still miss Uncle Ted a lot?”

I paused for a moment, contemplating just how much I still missed Ted, and how I should reply. Finally I said cautiously, “It’s not as bad as it was, but of course, someone you’ve loved and lived with for so many years is probably always with you.”

“You and Uncle Ted loved each other a lot, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did, but Uncle Ted was a very loving man, as you should know.” “I do. I used to look at you and Uncle Ted and think, ‘I’d like to have a love like that one day’.”

Trying to sound encouraging I said, “I expect you will one day.”

Instead of having the desired soothing effect, my words produced the opposite response.

“Who’d want a cripple like me?”

I was taken aback by this reaction. I had never before heard Craig speak negatively of his condition; his situation accepted, we had almost ceased to consciously notice it, and it had always seemed the same with him. Now he was voicing his despair over his future relationships with members of the opposite sex.

I thought to say something about his meeting with girls who had a similar problem as himself, but realised that at this stage that would be to tear at the wound. I stayed silent, waiting to see if he would go on.

“Never to know,” he said cryptically.

“Know what, Craig?”

He looked as if he had stepped beyond where he wanted to go and didn’t know in which direction to go now. Speaking hesitantly he went on; “You, know… what…what it’s like…like to have…to be with…be with a…a…”

I couldn’t stand the agony of his fearing to express him self and not being naïve, I knew what he was getting at, and so I said it for him. “You mean, knowing what its like to be intimate with a woman?”

He dropped his head, hiding his face, and said, “Yes.”

“I’ve read books and seen films and videos and sometimes they make it look beautiful and at other times ugly, but it doesn’t help, you never really know.”

“Of course it doesn’t help,” I said, “I think in some ways it only makes it worse. Looking at those sorts of things it a bit like eating chocolate with the paper still wrapped round it.”

My little metaphor momentarily made us both smile, but then Craig went on; “Oh, Aunt Cindy, there are times I feel so…so…”

I finished for him again.

“Frustrated?”

“Yes.”

Even today there seems to be a view among some people that those with conditions like Craig’s, or other disabilities, don’t have sexual feelings, or if they do, they have no right to have them. I think this reflects more on the person harbouring such a view than upon the person with a disability.

Without ever saying so, Craig and his parents had always managed to make it clear that pity for Craig was unacceptable. Even now, as I heard behind his words the yearning of a young man longing for love, or more bluntly, sexual communion, I felt not pity but compassion for him.

Having experienced life with a virile man, I understood the frustration that especially in youth cries for an outlet. As I have said, I could match Joe’s needs out of my own powerful sexual drive, but had in the days before Joe known sexual frustration.

Having refused to pursue tertiary studies and given up his wheel chair sports, Craig had, probably unknowingly, set aside even these outlets that might at least in part have ameliorated his sexual stress.

I was at a loss to know how to go on. To lecture him on the imprudent giving up on these outlets would at this stage be unhelpful, so I said nothing. The subject seemed to be closed, so we got on with our tasks in silence.

This conversation had an after effect on me that to this day I am not sure if it was for good or ill. It awakened the sleeping giant of my own sexual potency. It had lain quiescent ever since Joe died, but now it began to stir. Barely forty years of age, with potentially many years of sexual activity before me, I began to feel the pangs of sensual hunger.

That night I had for the first time in ages, to masturbate. It was a weeping affair as I longed for the reality of what I had lost in Joe. Some women I believe find greater satisfaction in masturbation than in the sexual act itself, this is not true for me.

The sleeping giant, once wakened from sleep, not only stirred, but began to rampage through me. It got so I seemed always to be in a state of sexual arousal, my vagina always wet with my sexual fluid.

I began to consider my options which seemed limited. Should I seek a man to gratify myself with, or did I need a doctor?

The first option had its hazards, as many women know. If you are reasonably presentable, and I believed I was, it is not hard to get a man to “fuck you.” It is no doubt possible to get a different man for every day of the week if that is what you want. That was not what I wanted.

I had experienced the fullness of a loving sexual relationship, and that is what I longed to experience again.

As for the doctor, what could he do except give me some pills to quell my sex drive and just about everything else as well. I had no wish to go through life in a half conscious state.

In seeking to find a way out, a thought began to grow in my mind that at first I rejected as shocking, yet that thought grew and would not be denied. How it could be…how that thought could be brought to fruition even if it should be, I did not know, but there it was, whispering away constantly.

It must have been about a fortnight after Craig had spoken of his frustration that I finally spoke out. Craig was a frequent visitor, but it had taken me time to summon up the courage to say what I had to say. I knew I risked our friendship, but the pressure on me was now unrelenting.