» My most treasured possession

First anal experience
A lot of people have posted about their most treasured memories so I thought I'd post one of mine. It was when I first tried something anal.

One day while reading about men's health, I read something about the prostrate. I came to the conclusion that this was an alternate means of sexual stimulation for men than penile stimulation. I was intrigued, but at the same time, the thought of sticking anything up my bum, be it a finger, another man's willy or even some woman's strap-on did not appeal to me. But then, I had a brainwave. Naturally, poo comes out the bottom, but what if I make a designer-turd that's specially designed to rub against my prostrate. It would be very solid, with a softer coating on the outside. If I held in the solid turd, it would be widened by amassing a less solid turd to the sides.

The following day, I set to work. For breakfast, I ate an entire box of bran-flakes, a loaf of bread and six apples. For lunch, I went to a fast-food place that had an "all you can eat" offer. By now, I was starting to need a crap, but knew that if I held on, I'd get the desired effect. By dinnertime, my bowels were beginning to feel heavy. To add icing to the cake, I ate a chicken vindaloo.

When it was nearly bedtime, I moved around a bit. I felt something I had never felt before. The rough insides of the core of my super-poo were rubbing against my prostrate while the softer coating was pushing the rougher parts in the right place. After experimenting with different bodily contortions, I found the one that was just right for my current bum-recipe. By bending my pelvis, I found the sweet spot. It would send me into heaven every time I made that special pelvic movement.

While I badly needed the toilet, the stimulation was causing me such great pleasure that I went straight to bed. Further experimentation found the best sleeping position to give me my newly found ecstasy. I kept this up for some time, but inevitably, the urge to go for a crap overcame me.

So I got up and went. However, once my new bum-baby started to move, I felt yet another feeling I had never felt before. As it was coming out, the textured turd was giving my prostate the time of its life. I just had a very big smile of both relief and pleasure. The expression on my face must have been more akin to a cartoon character than a human. The crap seemed to perpetually go on for a long time. I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but I tried to slow down the exiting. Towards the end, the heat of the poo vindaloo was giving my ringpiece a pleasant sensation of fiery heat. Normally, this would be a bit painful but because I was so aroused, it felt pleasurable. There were so many new sensations that I didn’t even think about touching myself, yet I managed to cum. I didn’t remember cumming, but the evidence was clearly there. Gradually, my mind was becoming more and more open to alternate means of anal stimulation. With a warm afterglow from both the vindaloo and my feeling of wellbeing, I went back to bed very content. And that was my most treasured po session.
(Fri 9th May 2008, 20:45, More)

» Customers from Hell

A friend of mine used to work at Ann Summers
As you all know, Ann Summers tries to euphemistically market itself as something more highbrow than a sex-shop. That is, it gives an impression that it's all about the "unicorns and rainbows" side of sex and is in no way sleazy and to re-enforce this, only women (and accompanied men) are allowed inside. However, in practice, this is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Most of the customers there would feel equally at home in a regular sex-shop. How do I know this? I have some insider information...

Years ago, I used to share a flat with one of my female friends called Melanie (not her real name). Melanie wanted to become a hairdresser, but couldn't find the work, so instead, she took on a stopgap job as a shop assistant at Ann Summers. Often when she came home, she would tell me tales of some of the moronic customers she had to put up with.

There were all the usual stories about rude and ignorant customers, but the ones that stood out the most were the ones that had something to do with the nature of the business. Some were amusing, such as the multitude of women who complained that their new 'best friend' was either too large to go in or didn't touch the sides, and so wanted a refund. Often, these frustrated women would just place the used toy on the counter, not realising that not everyone wanted to handle someone else's used sex-toy. Sometimes, these stories were a bit on the off-colour side. Melanie often said she wanted to say, "For goodness sake, if you've got a raging yeast-infection, please clean the toy you want a refund for!" Melanie would say this with a straight face and not look grossed out at all.

However, some stories were slightly more ... ermmm... how shall we say ... interesting. There would be the occasional customer who would complain that the quality of the orgasm she received was insufficient. Melanie would then explain that either they read the instructions properly, or try and be 'creative'. They would then reply by going into great detail about their masturbation habits and how they used it. Melanie relayed these stories to me in graphic detail.

One of the things that turns me on is a woman pleasuring herself. Some of these stories went into so much detail that I would often have to make a trip to the toilet to take care of business as soon as our conversation ended. Me and Melanie were good friends, and that's as far as it went. She wasn't my type, and to be honest, I did not find her attractive in that kind of way, so I just pictured Melanie's customers in the scenarios they described. Also, I was too courteous to ask if Melanie ever took home a few 'goodies' from the shop, and had no interest in finding out.

One day, after telling me a particular story that involved a customer discussing in great deal a step-by-step guide to using their new Deluxe Vibrating Rabbit, I was getting so aroused that I couldn't wait for her to stop talking about her day, so I just made a beeline for the bathroom. When I finished, Melanie was still there.

"Did you just go and have a wank?" she asked me forthrightly.

She had never questioned me about this sort of stuff before. I just stood there and blushed.

"Look, you head off for the bathroom each time I talk about my customers' masturbation habits. Surely there's a connection."

Words were trying to get out of my mouth, but I didn't know what the words were. I just stammered for a bit.

"It's OK. I know you're single, and need some release from time to time. Men will be men. Don't worry about it."

Sheepishly, I admitted that I did 'do it' in the bathroom.

"As long as you clean up afterwards, there's nothing to worry about."

Before I could say anything, she said,

"Tell you what. Tomorrow, Ann Summers herself is coming into the shop to give a demonstration. If you're interested, the space under my counter is big enough to hide someone. There's a small gap you can look out of, and the whole space is covered, so you can do what you like with yourself without anyone seeing."

I trusted Melanie enough to realise that this was not some kind of prank.

"Ann Summers giving a demonstration?" I thought to myself. "That will certainly be something I can tell the grandkids."

I would finally get to see the mythical Ann Summers herself. I had heard about these so-called Ann Summers parties where someone would come round to a group of women and try and sell them sex-toys. I was always intrigued about how this would work. Would Ann just organise an ordinary party but when an appropriate moment in the conversation popped up, would she then steer the conversation to launch it into a sales-pitch for a particular sex-toy? Would she give a demonstration? Was she that much of an exhibitionist? Did this turn her on? Thinking it through, I started to wonder if this was just part of her elaborate masturbation ritual. Was her empire of stores nothing more than a by-product of this? So many questions that needed answering; so I agreed.

We got there before opening time, and Melanie let me in. We were the first ones there. She pointed out the space behind her desk and I just hid myself there. I soon found the opening. It was at just the right height for me to lie down and get a good view of the shop. The store was soon opened. As with all retail outlets, Ann Summers had its fair share of goons, loons and buffoons in the checkout queue. There were no interesting incidents, but thankfully, Ann Summers herself showed up. She was in her mid 40's but looked quite fit for someone of her age. She carried herself with great confidence. For someone who goes around giving public demonstrations of sex-toys, it was something I had expected of her.

Ann soon stood at one end of the shop. She started to introduce herself to the crowd. Most of the customers stopped their random milling about to listen to Ann. In my hiding place, I had an excellent view. Nobody was blocking it and I could see Ann in all her splendour. After talking for a bit, she took off her fur coat and shoes to reveal that she was dressed only in a red bikini. However, something seemed a bit wrong. At first, I couldn't figure out what it was. My attention then zoomed toward her bikini bottoms. There was a rather 'un-feminine' bulge at the front. Could it be that the legendary Ann Summers was in fact a transvestite? I desperately wanted to believe this wasn't true, but evidence seemed to suggest otherwise.

Just then, Ann took off her top. Her breasts were round and small, but pretty firm for someone of her age. Their small size meant they didn't have much chance to sag. Her nipples stuck out just slightly below the centre. She got out a set of nipple-clamps and attached them. The sight of this was starting to arouse me, but because I still had doubts about her true gender, I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. 'She' was giving out commentary about how it was making her feel. I pretended to ignore it but it was turning me on. It was certainly getting my attention, but I felt dirty. I had to know the truth.

After a while, Ann took off her bikini bottom. What I saw took me completely by surprise. While there was no willy to be seen, it was the hairiest bush I had ever come across! The hairs seemed to defy mistaspakkaman's first rule of pubic hair that states they only grow to a certain length and stop. Hers seemed to go on much longer. But the bush looked very well maintained. The hairs stood out on end in a uniform pattern. It was like she had grown her bush into a perfect afro. I swear, it was as if Foxxy Cleopatra was constantly going down on her. No wonder she had a bulge!

My imagination immediately started going into overdrive. Could she hang sex-toys off her pubes like Christmas-tree decorations? In fact, every day would be Christmas for her if she had that many sex toys to play with.

It was at this point that she repositioned herself. Safe in the knowledge that she really was female, I could now touch myself without giving myself any psychological scars or putting my morals into a spin. However, in her new position, all I could see was her afro-bush and not much else. Without being able to see her face contort into orgasmic ecstasy, I just had to make do with seeing what she did to herself, and because it was completely covered by a massive bush, I couldn't see anything. To make matters worse, she chose the smallest vibrator she could find and started talking about it.

Without being able to see anything, I was feeling somewhat disappointed. I then remembered that Melanie was a trained hairdresser. Maybe she could trim the afro-bush just enough so I could see what was going on. I got out my Swiss-Army knife and got the scissors out. I tapped Melanie's leg to get her attention. I then whispered into her ear the following:

"Cut Summers' 'fro Mel!"

Apologies for length.
(Wed 10th Sep 2008, 2:23, More)

» Guilty Pleasures, part 2

Ladies loos
Sometimes, I like to sneak into the girl's toilets when nobody's around and lift up the seats.
(Wed 19th Mar 2008, 13:00, More)

» Pointless Experiments

[Various] Assorted Pointless Experiments
This QOTW was made just for me, but some of my experiments are so utterly pointless that they've probably just been forgotten about completely. So I've racked my memories and here's what I remembered from the deep and dark archives of the mistaspakkaman research institute.

-

[Physics] Does something good happen when you stick things in plugholes?

One Wednesday afternoon aged 5, I thought electrical wall sockets were mysterious. Things go in them and they can be turned on. Somehow, I had gotten hold of a piece of wire where both ends went into a headphone socket. Headphone plugs fit nicely inside Continental wall-sockets, so I wondered what would happen if I stuck both ends into both holes of a plug.

Result: A blue spark flew out and the electricity in the house stopped working. Not realising how a fuse had saved me from 220 volts of electrifying goodness, I had more immediate things to deal with - my angry mother (although she may have been more glad I was still alive). That night, we had our dinner by candlelight, as we couldn't get the lights back on. In fact, we enjoyed the candlelight dinner so much that we started a new tradition at our house - every Wednesday, we'd have dinner by candlelight.

Conclusion: Fuses are your best friends. And besides, as any regular reader of QOTW knows, there are better ways of spending a Wednesday afternoon. And do have a candlelight dinner afterwards.

-

[Biology] Can girls wee standing up?

Aged 12, it was something I was curious about. Not having the right *ahem* apparatus to test this out myself, I would need to find a subject. Being shy, I was unable to bring this up, but I came up with a plan. At the time, me and my dad were on holiday staying in some kind of bed-and-breakfast place with shared toilet facilities. So what I did was to sneak into the girls' toilets and lift up the seats. The idea being that any women entering would assume the previous occupant of the stall had done it standing up and this might encourage them to try doing it standing up themselves, rather than it being done by some 12 year old boy feeling disorientated from the sudden activation of his pituitary gland. The acoustics of the place were such that I could hear what was going on without being in a suspicious position.

Result: Sadly, I always heard someone putting the seat down on entry. However, it was only many years later that I discovered this.

Conclusion: The Internet rocks!!!

-

[Psychology] Does subtly imitating someone make them fancy you?

In my final year on my school bus, I was feeling bored. On top of that, I had a crush on two of the girls on the bus and was too shy to do anything about it. This had been going on for some time and I was getting fed up of it. For various reasons which I won't go into I'm saving for a future QOTW, I had just gotten into the habit of wearing a Walkman (we had proper Walkmans back in them days - Discmans were around but were too seedy for my tastes).

So there was this new girl on the bus and she too was wearing a Walkman. I remembered reading somewhere (possibly me sneaking a read of my sister's 'Just 17' magazine) that subtly imitating someone would subconsciously flatter them and cause them to fancy you. She was sat just a few seats in front of me and I could see how she moved and rotated her earphone-clad head. In a fit of boredom, I copied her movements exactly.

Results: Nothing happened. No chatting up, no marriage proposals, no attempts to initiate the baby manufacture process. However, there was one major flaw in my method. This was because she was facing away from me most of the time (and only occasionally glancing sideways to look out the window). As for me, it did not cause me to fancy her either, but it did offer a brief mental distraction.

Conclusion: Inconclusive.

-

[Psychology] How are women affected by their menstrual cycle?

Noticing that various girls I knew changed their personality without warning, I decided to see if the patterns followed the menstrual cycle. I knew that the menstrual cycle was approximately the same length of time as the Lunar orbit, so I installed a Lunar calendar on my computer that showed what the phase of the moon would be at any given time. By comparing girls' moods with the current phase of the moon, I could see if I could notice any patterns.

Results: Seeing that I was actually nerdy enough to think this way, it meant that I didn't get enough contact with my 'subjects' to properly test this hypothesis.

Conclusion: I needed to get out more!

-

[Psychology] Am I strange enough to automatically get the blame if something strange happens?

At one of my jobs, we had this system where there was a pile of sweets/chocolates etc. and you took one and the company had faith that you'd pay for it by putting in some money or an I.O.U. in a small nearby plastic cup. Just to see what would happen, I put in a worthless banknote with a high numerical value from a certain east-European country in the plastic cup.

Result: At first, I heard nothing and I thought that was that, but several weeks later, we got a company-wide email from a shocked receptionist asking why we had done this (she was so shocked the e-mail was in all-capitals). This lead to an e-mail flamewar from two of the bored employees that had somehow descended into a discussion on Scottish banknotes. I got away Scott free (I did pay for my chocolate bar and the banknote was absolutely worthless, even though the denomination was four digits long).

Conclusion: I hadn't yet established my unusual-ness. Perhaps I should have posted my previous experiments to the office-wide e-mail system beforehand.

-

[Psychology] Does sending a postcard once a year alter someone's perception of me?

I once spent a night at a B&B in Blackpool. After having come back in from a night on the town and not yet wanting to go to bed, I went down to the B&B's bar and stayed around a bit. Feeling a bit overly-excited, I decided to let out my weird imagination in its unrestrained form. This was too much for both the other guests and the proprietors and they just couldn't handle my unorthodox personality. I was getting frustrated with their closed-mindedness, and my weirdness was causing their heads to explode.

After I left, I had a sudden urge to send them a postcard a few days later. Since then, I've been sending them a postcard once a year. Currently, they have no means of contacting me. This experiment is ongoing (even though I've not sent a postcard for 3 years). I'm not sure where I want to go with this one. If anyone has any ideas for where to take this, the mistaspakkaman research institute would like to hear from you.

-

OK. That's my experiments. Does the mistaspakkaman research institute get a grant?

^{Previously... | Next...}

(Wed 30th Jul 2008, 15:46, More)

» The nicest thing someone's ever done for me

My dark period
Oh well, here goes...

Everyone seems to be revealing their darkest secrets here, so I thought I'd jump in. I should warn you, parts of this story are pretty disturbing, so if you came here for the fluffiness, please move on. I have been wondering whether or not to post this, and have no idea how people will react, but have spent so much time writing it that I thought I'd post it no matter what.

This story continues from where this story left off. In a nutshell, from an early age, I was brought up in a foreign country. My parents in their infinite wisdom sent me to a school that spoke a different language, and obviously, speaking a different language at home than at school had an impact on my social development. This had the unsurprising effect that during kindergarten and infant school, I was often left out.

This lack of stimulus must have lead my mind to generate its own worldview and sown the seeds of my fertile imagination. Because I had no way of expressing it, nobody knew it was there. This also led to frustration and me often being bored out of my mind. I also suffered from the usual childhood phobias (e.g. being scared of the dark) and unusual childhood phobias (e.g. being scared of milk), so having not much else to think of, didn't move on from them so easily. This meant that for much of my early childhood, I was either scared, bored out of my mind or in an environment where nobody liked me (although I did have a small number of not-so-close friends). In other words, I was under stimulated. To top things off, my infant-school teacher was a total bitch who I hated with a passion. She would often use me as a scapegoat to blame whenever she couldn't figure out who did something, and not having well-developed verbal skills, if someone accused me of something, I couldn't protest, but anyway, I digress.

So what better thing for an under stimulated toddler to do than to fall in love. Aged 4, I started infant school. In my class, there was a girl who I'll call 'I'. I cannot for the life or me remember why I fell for her - all I do remember is that she seemed pretty in my 4-year-old mind. She also lived on the same street as me. Once, when me and my mum were walking past her house, she was just outside her house. My mum pointed her out to me. I was shy, and my mum told me that I appeared to fancy her, and not to be shy. This is actually the first memory I have of having some sort of crush on 'I'.

So anyway, to my scared/under stimulated/isolated mind, she seemed like a beacon of light in a hostile and boring world - a world in which I had come to terms with my perception that there was no alternative. At first, the crush was just something that happened. I do not remember how long I was at school with her - it could have been up to two years (to the mind of a four year old, that's a very long time). It started off as just a small crush, but over time, turned into something that completely consumed me. This was pretty intense. I'd even go as far as to say it rivalled many of my teenaged crushes in intensity. How someone could develop a crush on someone at such an early age remains a mystery to me (I was only 4 FFS). Maybe it was a result of being under stimulated for so many years.

I had absolutely no idea how I could express my love. At first, I just let things pass, but as time went on, it became too overpowering not to do anything. I was shy and completely useless at verbal communication, so I showed my affection by stroking her. 'I' was not keen about this and tried to avoid me. Even so, I persisted. It looked more like pestering than showing affection. This was becoming obvious to the others in the class. Whenever we sat round in a circle, I always made it a point to try and sit next to her. The other kids always tried to sit either side of her before I could find my place. In fact, at one time, things got so bad that the teacher even sent me outside the class for being 'over-affectionate'. This troubled me deeply as I had done something so nasty to the one I loved that I had been sent out of the class for it.

This of course did not deter me in any way. I continued to look forward to seeing her. So intense was my crush that even during school holidays, I was looking forward to going back to the hostile environment of my school and Mrs. Bitch just to be with ‘I’. Still, there was no reciprocation of feelings and I had nobody to talk to it about. I was well and truly cursed.

By then, being in a foreign language environment was having its toll. My communication skills weren't developing. Concerned, my parents sent me to a child psychiatrist. As a psychiatrist, he was not much use, but he was a fun guy and I enjoyed seeing him. Soon after (aged 6), my parents finally sent me to an English-speaking school, but by then, it was too late - the damage had been done. Being in an English speaking school seemed strange at first but quickly got used to it. The teacher I had (Miss C) was much nicer, and I felt more at home. It was as if I was having a nice dream and was worried I'd wake up from it. By then, I had been at the previous school long enough to become bi-lingual, but I wasn't very good at making friends. I did manage to make a few friends, but because it was mainly a school for expatriates, there was a high turnover of pupils. I was unlucky enough to pick friends who would leave shortly after. It was as if everything I tried to build up in life kept toppling over.

I was glad to have left the old school behind, but there was just one drawback - 'I' was no longer at school with me. While my life had a more solid foundation, I found that I did not feel for any of the girls in my class the same way I felt for 'I'. This void in my heart, along with the constant departure of what few friends I made made me feel like I was trapped in some kind of pit of hopelessness. It had been some time since I was in my new school. I still had the feeling of sadness I had of being apart from 'I', but had forgotten what it was like to be in the same class. This made me depressed and because the status quo did not involve 'I', I believed this state of depression was my natural state of mind. In time, I forgot about 'I', but this void in my heart persisted. I guess that if this were to have happened today, I would be labelled 'Emo'. I had very little hope and just learned to accept things the way they were.

But then, one fateful Tuesday afternoon, something happened. While gathered around in semicircle listening to something or other, a girl who wasn’t in my class joined us. I had a more or less instant crush on her - something that I had not had for any of the girls in my school. This was just a one off event, and I didn't get to see her again. This had the effect that from then on, I would be constantly thinking about her. As it turned out, she did not join my class. At first, I thought that because this had happened on a Tuesday, I might see her the next Tuesday afternoon. This of course did not happen. It was only two months before school broke up for the summer holidays. Maybe she'd join us once school started again. Needless to say, I was dieing to see her again. I felt really bad for myself for not having talked to her when I had the chance. By the end of the summer holidays, I had absolutely convinced myself that she would be joining my class.

September came. It was decided that I wouldn't be moved up to the next class. This was because my mind had been too unsettled to sit down and do some work, so I it was decided I was not ready to move up a year. This meant I was now the oldest kid in my class. The girl I had seen a few months back had not joined my class. However, I soon found out that in the class above, there was a girl who looked just like her. Her name was 'P' and to me, could have been the same girl I saw earlier. I soon found out she wasn't but even so, felt frustrated at not having been moved up a class.

I cannot remember the sequence of events very well. I guess I may have tried to be 'affectionate' to 'P' in the same way I was 'affectionate' to 'I', or I may have just made a brief but shy attempt to talk. 'P' of course was uninterested. After that initial display of non-interest, something inside of me just snapped. That rejection pushed me over the limit. There was already a part of me that was dead. Something else must have died at that time. Any hope I had had was completely crushed.

What happened next is something I am not proud of in any way.

Feeling frustrated at this turn of events, I turned my anger towards 'P'. This manifested itself in a physical way. At first, I would just hit her whenever I had the chance. Initially, there was a part of me that was shocked by my own behaviour, but I soon got used to it. In fact, I was starting to find this addictive. It wasn't about vengeance for being rejected - I was enjoying this. What started off as just hitting her soon turned into a full-scale bullying campaign. I would attempt to beat her up and at one stage, even tried to strangle her. My inner demons that had been nurtured were now well and truly unleashed.

Fortunately for 'P', she had her posse of friends. At one time when I tried to beat her up, she ran off into the bushes. All the other girls in the posse broke off a branch from nearby shrubs and started to hit me with them. In my frenzied state, I was oblivious to both the physical pain and the mental anguish that so many would gang up to do so much to hurt me.

This behaviour did not escape the notice of my teachers. At first, the measures taken were ineffective. Once, I was brought in during the lunch break and made to sit by the headmaster's office. While he was not paying attention, I escaped. I then got into trouble again, was brought in and escaped again. This repeated itself one more time that lunch break. In frustration, I even bit the headmaster when he tried to catch me. I was so consumed I did not care about the consequences.

By now, I had dug such a deep hole for myself that I had absolutely no hope that I'd ever get out, and that things could not get any worse. My thoughts were consigned to me thinking I had no way out.

This was also having an affect on my performance at school. I was extremely unsettled. I would not sit and do any work. I would often pace around the classroom. My teacher (still Miss C) was understandably having a hard time coping. By now, my parents and teachers were starting to throw threats at me saying if I didn't change my behaviour, there would be trouble. This made me stop and think for a bit. What had happened to me? Here I was tormenting the girl I loved so much. How could this state of affairs have come into being AAAAARGH! Panic!!!

My solution was to somehow be able to make amends. It would be a long and steep uphill path, which just exacerbated my panic. I would have to give her some sort of gift. Not being in possession of much to give her and not knowing what she'd like, there was only one choice - money. Now, I had never stolen any money off my parents before, but my mind felt so 'disconnected' that I thought I'd do it and be able to get away with it. So I took some of their money (about £2 which was a lot for a kid back in the early 80's), hid it until I got to school (btw, my way of hiding it was by building a Lego 'box' around it). I approached 'P' and offered her the money. This was an incredibly creepy thing to do, but to my disturbed and panicked mind, I thought I had no alternative. At first, 'P' was reluctant to accept, but in the end, it somehow got passed round to the headmaster of the school, who told my parents. My parents were understandably shocked at this turn of events - after all, it was the first time they had heard I had taken money off them, but by then, my mind was so 'gone' that I didn't seem to care much.

Meanwhile, a new girl joined my class, 'M'. She had a similar effect on e that 'P' did. In my troubled mind, I realised that so I just unleashed the same treatment on 'M' that I had on 'P'. This was obviously causing my teachers to think that something had to be done. I was pretty close to being expelled from my school. My parents realised that if that were to happen, I'd have to go back to a foreign language school - possibly even the one I hated so much. Having learned from their mistakes, they realised that sending me to a foreign language school was the last thing I needed, so they tried very hard to keep me in the school. This lead to them becoming involved in the affairs of the school so they could have some leverage on any decisions they made. My mum became involved with the PTA, and my dad became the treasurer of the board of governors.

After some discussion with my teachers and headmaster, it was decided that I would only be at school for the first hour of the day. My teacher would have a policy of ‘earning time’ where if I behaved myself, I would earn some more time at school. To my 7-year-old mind, this seemed like a sort of anti-punishment. I would only be spending one hour a day at school. This seemed too good to be true. What kind of way of punishing someone was this? Looking back on it, I think my teacher just wanted to get rid of me and this was some sort of compromise reached to prevent expulsion.

Even though I thought having all this free time was a privilege, I found that in practice I did not have may opportunities to torment 'M’. Of course, I kept this a secret from my parents and I just expressed this sentiment by saying I wished I was at school longer. Of course, my parents interpreted this as me missing being in school. My mum ended up home-schooling me for part of the remaining day.

My behaviour did not improve much. In the first two months, I only earned an extra 15 minutes. It was around this time that the headmaster resigned. He had only started at the start of the school year. It remains unknown if his inability to expel me contributed to it. At school, I was still tormenting 'M' whenever I had a chance. My parents had decided that drastic measures needed to be taken to change me. Their solution was to offer me bribes in the form of toys (usually in the form of Lego-sets). This seemed to mostly work with regard to not bullying my fellow pupils, but it did not help me settle down at school.

At this time, my only real pleasure in life was going to the arcades and playing video games. This was 1982, but even so, the games they had were fun. For me, playing these games was a form of 'meditation' – I could put all my focus into playing them. I only got to do this a few minutes a week. Computer game consoles did exist at the time but were hideously expensive. When at home, I would spend a lot of the time drawing. I wasn't good at it, but I loved drawing. I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to make cartoons.

Meanwhile, the school got rid of Miss C. I'm not sure of the circumstances, but it was said that she was offering a sub-standard education. Miss L. the substitute teacher became the de-facto teacher of my class. Even though this policy of 'earning time' was Miss C's, it was continued under Miss L.

Because of the bribes my parents were giving me, my behaviour had stabilised. I still didn't do much work at school but instead just sat in a corner and read various books and comics. By then, the school felt it was safe to let me out during the morning playtime. To my twisted logic, I thought that if I pestered girls outside of school that it somehow didn't count. I won't go into the details here as I've gone into enough details as it is.

At this time, I had this fantasy that had been brewing in my mind since the 'troubles' began. I would imagine capturing any girls I fancied and keeping them imprisoned in some kind of hidden underground harem underneath the back garden of my house. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what I'd do with them once I got them there, but I thought about building an upright wooden box on wheels as a means of bringing them there.

My worldview at the time was of a world full of forbidden pleasures. My mind was completely consumed by these unholy thoughts. I was well and truly a pariah. I could see no way out of this downward spiral of destructive behaviour.

Towards the end of that school year, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to get out of this hole. I was too afraid to approach anyone for help (even the child psychiatrist I was still seeing who was not much use), and even felt uncomfortable making the necessary change in behaviour pattern required to get me out. I was overwhelmed by how hard it would be. At one time, I did try much harder than usual to do some good school-work once - I put lots of effort into it, was praised by both Miss L and my parents, but it seemed like so much effort to me it didn't seem worthwhile. Looking back on things, I now see that this must have been a cry for help!

But then, things reached a turning point. After the summer holidays, I was moved up a year. I was still the oldest in my class, but I had a new teacher - Mrs. D. She was also the head teacher of the school. She was well aware of my behaviour problems of the past year and I damned well knew it. Even though, she acted as if she was oblivious to all that had gone on before, gave me a fresh start and encouraged me to move forward. I took up the challenge to turn over a new leaf that had been laid before me.

Mrs. D gave me positive encouragement, and this inspired me to settle down and get some work done. I still hadn't earned my full day so still ended up spending plenty of time not at school. However, I sat down and always did what was asked of me. She knew how to bring out the best in me, brought it out and it stayed there.

Just about every aspect of my life was improving. Be it little things such as my handwriting, or larger things such as developing the ability to sit down and concentrate and improvements in behaviour. In fact, after only a few months, I had improved so much that when I looked back at some of my work from even only a few months ago, I would feel ashamed that I could ever have done something so badly. Things seemed to be going well, but as the Christmas break approached; I had a bit of a re-lapse on the behaviour side. My old ways were coming back in the playground, but fortunately, Mrs D noticed this and put me to shame. She was very good at doing this and knew just the right thing to say.

After the Christmas break, we went back to school. Using my imagination, I had invented a weird story to try and explain my behaviour over the past few years. This involved some sort of alien abduction (obviously). I was one of the first to arrive on the first day. Most of the early arrivals were girls, but soon, some more boys started dribbling in. The kids were discussing the number of boys compared to the number of girls. I absent-mindedly said, "There are now enough boys to beat up the girls". Mrs. D picked up on that comment like a shark smelling blood. "Stop saying that nonsense!" she said. This one comment hit its intended target with great force and accuracy. It made me look at myself objectively for a bit. In that brief moment of clarity, I saw myself how others expected to see myself. Mrs D put so much shame into me that I did not tell the story I had in mind in the end (in fact, I've completely forgotten the story I came up with except the bit about the alien abduction). I can say that those few seconds were the fastest I had ever done some 'growing up'. As it was the first day after the New Year, we were asked what our new year's resolutions were. Spontaneously and out of nowhere, I decided that mine was that I wouldn't hit girls. I kept that resolution right the way up until my year with Mrs. D ended and beyond. I soon earned enough time so that I got my full day of school back. By the end of the school-year, my behaviour and level of accomplishment at school had long since returned to what was expected of me, and I felt like my troubled times were so deeply buried that I just concentrated on the present and future instead. In fact, even back then, if I looked back, I would be so washed over by shame that I would immediately drag myself back to the present again.

So what Mrs. D did to me was the nicest thing someone's ever done for me. She had faith in me. She gave me a chance. I took the chance. She gave me the encouragement I needed to sort myself out. I sorted myself out. Thank you Mrs D for having faith in me, believing me and putting me back on track. Thank you for teaching me that 'Emo' is a load of shite years before 'Emo' was invented. You are the best teacher in the universe. Also, thanks for my mum and dad for putting up with me and preventing me from going back to the foreign language school. And finally, thanks to you, the reader for having read this right to the end.

Even though I had gotten over my troubled times, the underlying shyness which may have been the cause of all of this in the first place still persisted.

To be continued...

_{Apologies for lack of pun. All of this really did happen, and I'm not proud of it. But once again, thankyou thankyou thankyou Mrs. D.}
(Wed 8th Oct 2008, 21:10, More)