The Mystic List
So I just sat there for a while, gaping at the laptop screen with just one though going through my mind...
This is just too freaking amazing!
I had only been googling for a book I needed for my design coursework, "Desirable Residences - The Renaissance Years", when I spotted a short entry in the search results list, one that English speakers could very easily overlook - "Les Désirs des Femmes"
I only had rudimentary French but even I could translate that, and just one inevitable click later (because of course you click on links like that if you are like me...) and I was there.
The all-black screen simply offered a box for me to input, "Votre nom complet", my full name. Below that it simply said - "Ici vous allez découvrir qui, entre toutes les femmes du monde, a vous désiré, ou qui vous désire encore maintenant."
I thought I got the gist of that sentence, but checked it up with the help of my 11th grade French grammar book (from only 2 years ago, I am 19 now, and male, by the way) and I was right; it translates as: Here you will discover who, of all the women in the world, desired - or still desires you.
Holy Fuckbuckets!
This is the most tempting page online I have ever wanted to get to. And get to it I did, moments later, glancing round to check that my bedroom door was closed behind me.
Again, a second black screen.
Yes, I want to know. Yes, I need to know! Which women want me?
And the list, in white, was in pretty small print, almost too small to read easily, maybe because the list was actually quite long, so I clicked low-right on the zoom-in feature, going to 200%, and the top fifteen or so names were there before me.
I barely registered any of them at first. I don't know why but I felt compelled to find out first how many names there were on the list before getting into exactly who was who, so I scrolled down, and after a double-checked count up, it looked like there were 44 names. Forty Holy Christ-ing four!
So then my slightly flustered mind kicked back into some kind of rationality, and I took a deep breath and told myself to go through the list, clarifying one-by-one who these women were, or are, all the while wondering just where this online list was coming from - who the hell's in charge of it all?
Top name on my list... Mary Evans.
Who the hell is Mary Evans? No idea. My head was mixed up a bit now. I'll decided to think more about who Mary was later. Is Mary even a name these days..?
Now, who's second? Julie Banks. I had to think for a while, but I soon got there. Julie was a girl who had been in the year above me in school. A bit reserved, and we'd never even spoken to each other, and I started to wonder if this list could be relied upon. How can it know which women had private thoughts about me, or about anyone? This is just BS, isn't it?
Julie had moved away for studies and then settled in London, I think. So I decided not to go down that rabbit-hole for now; maybe I didn't want to. Surely, Julie has other hopes and friends, other men in her life, a couple of years later. Maybe best to leave her alone. So, 42 more names.
My eye inevitably went right down the list, seeing what better excitements it could discover. It was too tempting not to. And something quickly became clear. I did not know over half the women named here. Tamsin Earl? Rebecca Smart? Stephanie Hayworth? Who, who and who? And Margery Adams? Whose grandma is that? Or
was
that?
If this list is reliable, it just goes to show: plenty of desires and lusting-after happens without the object knowing about it, maybe from a distance, with no contact, friendship or even passing aquaintance needed. I assure you, I do not know half these names!
My ex-girlfriend, Amy, was there. Why wouldn't she be? We had a great sex-life, before that abrupt finish. But that's a chapter of my life I don't need to go back to now. Next...
Harriet Ranger.
No. Just no!
About three weeks before, I had been at a careers fair and had chatted to a woman, attractive, in a smart dress-suit, aged mid thirties I'd guess, with short, trendily gamine black hair, about a career in Law. I had no great dreams about working in Law, but I'd been told the money can be amazing, so I'd at least stopped to ask a few questions, and yes - her name, on a dark lapel badge, had been Harriet Ranger. She'd had a pretty well-to-do accent, maybe private school and all that, and I remember now how she had taken a second or two longer than expected to answer my last two questions, but... wow! Ms. Ranger had wanted me? Men never notice these things, right? Even if the evidence is staring them right in the face.
I wondered for a while about what kind of desire she had had. Was it just a passing feeling? Was she lonely, and a bit desperate? I mean, I am no great looker. Not a disaster to look at, and taller than average, and I'd been wearing a smart shirt, I remember, one that others always complimented me on (mostly women, come to think of it). Or did she, like me, - and this began to excite me a little - have a healthy appetite for lusting after the opposite sex? And if so, where did she go with it later? The same day, or next day? How much did she think about me? What were those thoughts? Did she think about other men she'd met that week? Was she some kind of nympho? Did she plan anything with me? Wish anything? How turned on did she get? Just how much would she like to be face-to-face with me again, alone?
# # #
I was more than a little fascinated about what the future could hold for me and
Miss
Harriet Ranger. Yes, Miss... Or was she married? How would that change things? I told myself to leave that thought for now and look further down this mind-boggling on-screen list.
Of the remaining names, I immediately knew who eight of them were (more on them later), and thought I knew another five or six, and was amazed to see two of my former teachers on there, Miss Lewis and Mrs Edgerton (music and English, if you must know.)
Well, well... Mrs Edgerton was still teaching, and must be mid-fifties now, and this was four years ago that she had taught me. She was a softly-spoken woman with a slightly humourless face, and you could tell that she was not a very out-going type, even though she came out of her shell a little when we got into the passion of Shakespeare, Golding or her favourite (just hers, not ours) Virginia Woolfe. But there she was, on my list. Again, I wonder what form her desire for me took. I had never touched myself thinking about her, but had she done any self-pleasuring while thinking about me?
Ms Lewis was a different story altogether; a wizz-bang of enthusiasm and energy, leading class sing-alongs on the piano and often hilarious chats about composers, bands, and musical styles and evolution, and all the boys had massive crushes on her, not least because she was the sexiest woman in the school, aged around 28, always well made up, with a great line in really cool fashions and boots, looking great everyday, a little bohemian.
And quite often she was pretty hands-on with us (I loved those touches!) trying musical instruments, putting together funny shows and reviews, acting out this and that. She was as much a drama teacher as a music teacher, and the best thing: she seemed to be allergic to doing up the top three buttons of any blouse she was wearing, with favourite bra colour: black.
And she had all the shapes I wanted to see. All.
Boys don't know how to be discreet at that age, so she must have seen me and dozens of others regularly oggling her body as well as enjoying the classes. It was because of her enthusiasm, I guess, that I got into guitar in a big way, and still play, just for myself, at home, every day (thanks, Miss Lewis!)
