Dara

working as an assistant for other doctors in the neighbourhood.

'I was heart-broken when my mother died two years later, for I loved her most dearly. That was when I started my wanderings, setting up a number of establishments similar to this health institution. They never lasted more than a year or two before some member of the medical profession in the locality discovered that I had no qualifications and hounded me out of town.'

He paused for a moment to blow his nose and I used this opportunity to exclaim, 'So all this moving about from one place to another made it impossible for you to take on the responsibilities of marriage.'

'No! No!' he answered impatiently. 'That is not the explanation. I had many opportunities to wed good ladies who made it clear that my advances would be welcomed.'

'I can believe that, Lionel, for you are a handsome man and must have been even more attractive when you were younger. Why didn't you marry any of them?'

“The answer to that will come later,' he said. 'First allow me to tell you about my youth. I felt the first radiant glow of love at sixteen when I became infatuated with the daughter of a farmer who was a new arrival in our neighbourhood. Just to catch a glimpse of her as she walked past our house would transfix me with breathless admiration and yearning. In my eyes she was an angel of purity and beauty that could only be worshipped from afar. I was too shy to approach her to make her acquaintance and I spent many anxious hours at our front window in the hope of seeing her walking into town. She had a springy step that bounced her virginal breasts which quickened my senses and sent the blood rushing to my head.

'I was in desperate straits, unable to concentrate on my studies and off my food. She was constantly in my thoughts throughout the day and tormenting my dreams at night. Writing poems was one way that I could express my feelings for this angelic girl who stirred my imagination to raptures of heavenly love.

'One drowsy, hot summer afternoon I was sitting in woodland seeking inspiration for another poem that would describe the noble qualities of the one I loved when I was disturbed by the sound of someone kicking the fallen leaves that lay under the trees. Peering through the thorn and brushwood that hid me from view, I trembled like an aspen leaf in a gentle breeze, when I saw it was she, the goddess of my dreams. Carrying a towel under her arm, she gave a searching look at her surroundings before she proceeded to undress. She was facing the river and had her back to me as she slowly removed each article of clothing. In the shimmering light of the river and the woodland her pearly pink skin took on a delicate translucent beauty that caught my breath and held me in silent awe. Her form was perfect and without a blemish. Walking warily to the river she brought into view a proud, shapely breast that matched the fleshy symmetry of her buttocks.

'I had to sit back and try to control my senses as she splashed in the water like a wood nymph at play. The next time I looked she was on the river bank drying her shoulders with the towel. Anger and horror gripped my mind as I gazed in disgust at a large triangle of damp, dark matted hair that clung to the apex of her thighs and crawled upwards to her belly like some grotesque crab. It was as if the good God above us, jealous of her perfect beauty, had taken up a handful of foul, slimy, mud and splattered it between her legs. Nauseous vomit began to gather in my throat and mouth and I bent down and hammered the earth with a raging fist. Before very long I was retching in disgust at this vision of black obscenity normally hidden from the eyes of man. It was this vision of the female body that was to lie at the back of my mind like a festering sore for the rest of my life.'

Lionel had lapsed into a gloomy silence and, curious to know more about his boyhood, I urged him to continue.

He sighed as if saddened by the memories of the past. 'Some weeks after this emotional upheaval to my finer susceptibilities, I had to accompany my father when he was called to the bedside of a woman who had been in labour for five days. At the time he had taken to his bed with a feverish head cold. On learning that the strength of the woman in labour was ebbing fast and that her relatives feared she was near to death, he struggled out of bed and nearly fell as he was so unsteady on his feet. My mother protested most fervently that he was in no state of health to travel the four miles to this woman's home. But, on seeing the determination in his face, she gave way on condition that I drove the horse and buggy. Despite the coverings of two or three warm blankets, he shivered and coughed throughout the journey. Helping him as far as the bedroom door, I then retired to the kitchen to partake of a bowl of hot soup.

'Only two or three spoonfuls of soup had passed my lips when my father cried out for my assistance. He was crouched down between the woman's ample thighs, holding on to the wooden forceps that he had inserted into her vagina. “Hold on to the forceps, my boy,” he said, “I am just about all in and will have to rest awhile.” There were large beads of perspiration dripping from his forehead as he stumbled to the nearest chair. Taking over the responsibility for the forceps I closed my eyes but had to open them again when my father called out in a hoarse voice, “For God's sake keep a firm hold on that baby or it will slip back again.” With a firm but gentle grip I pulled on the forceps until the baby's head came into view. “That's better,” my father muttered, and then, raising his voice, “Bear down, woman. And, you, Lionel, go on pulling. We're nearly there. Go on, woman, bear down. It won't be long now.” As more of the baby's head began to appear the vagina was distended to an extent that, up to that time, I wouldn't have thought possible. Catching a glimpse of a mass of bushy black hairs above the vagina stirred my stomach and filled my head with nausea. The next thing I knew was a sudden movement of the wooden forceps and there lay the baby between its mother's thighs, covered in streaks of blood. Dropping the forceps beside the new born infant, I got outside, rushing through the rooms with my hand over my mouth, to spew the contents of my stomach outside the front door.'

My heart went out to him, but I could think of no words that would express adequately the pity I felt for the young Lionel of those days. To be subjected to what he thought was a desecration of the pure young girl he loved, and then this messy birth, must have been a terrible shock to his fastidious, sensitive nature. Such events in our youth can scar us for life.

It was as if he had read my thoughts for he said haltingly, 'I am not seeking your pity, Dara, but only trying to explain how this emotional disturbance early in life affected my future relations with decent women and forced me into the company of whores.

Although I was mentally disturbed about certain aspects of women, physically I was in good shape. Indeed, there was a virility in my body so strong that I was often put to shame on awakening in the morning to find the evidence on my nightshirt of the nocturnal emissions that came with my dreams.

At twenty, a young widow took me to her bed and, although I made repeated attempts to enter her, the sight of the black hairs spread around her private parts wilted my manhood. With scorn her angry words bit deeply into my pride and self esteem. The mystique and allure of the female body, nevertheless, continued to have enormous attraction for me but, try as I might to have union with those ladies that favoured me, it always ended in miserable failure.

'There is a powerful force that drives us men to expel our seed and, because of frustration and the complexity of my disturbed thoughts, I turned to prostitutes to relieve my passions. Their ribald laughter and coarse remarks when I requested nervously only a hand manipulation of my male member made me cringe with shame. Nevertheless, many of these debauched creatures will do almost anything for money and, after seeing the earnest expression of my countenance, would lead me to some dark, fetid alley where, with skilful hands, they would assuage the burning flesh of my loins. I suffer such unspeakable anguish each time I have to resort to whores to relieve my lustful desires and, each time, leave them with a feeling of degradation and loathing for my affliction.'

He sat in brooding melancholy unable to say any more and afraid to look at me for what he might see in the expression on my face. He had no need to worry on that score, for I only felt a great sympathy for him.

There was no resentment in my mind at Lionel's revulsion of certain parts of the female body. I remembered a similar feeling in myself when hair first began to appear above my giny, but it didn't bother me unduly. Stroking the hairs gave me the same pleasant sensation as I got when I ran my hand over the back of a pussy cat. Indeed, when intimately chattering with other girls, they often used the word 'pussy' when referring to their private parts. Many's the time when I couldn't get off to sleep at night I would play with my 'pussy' and get a sensual gratification from a gentle finger caressing between the lips of my giny.

I have a great need to be attached in fond affection to someone and I had become very fond of Lionel during the last few months. Although I didn't fully understand his predicament, I didn't doubt the strength of his desires and the conflicts they created in his mind. Acting on impulse, but with great pity in my heart, I took him by the hand and led him to the small yard at the back of the institution. He followed me like a small boy who was about to be reprimanded for committing some misdemeanour.