Untamed

‘Are you all right?’ he asked me finally, taking my hand as I looked down at my feet and the floor around me. Here the tears come, I thought to myself, as the feeling of my eyes beginning to water started. A tear rolled down my cheek as I shook my head, feeling confused and responsible for all that had happened. Responsible for what has now become the life of a man who had been, as he would say, ‘saved’ and ‘helped’ by me from allowing his past to continue – before there was me, narcotics and lethargy were things that man were fluent in. Now that I had left, there must have been a feeling that there was no reason to go on, no reason to try, no reason to keep the past from repeating itself. Why should there be? The one thing that had helped him, that had cared enough to stop the past from happening again was gone. How could I not feel responsible for that?

There was so much confusion inside me that I wasn’t certain how to deal with. I recall vividly the request to remain friends, despite all that happened and yet the entire time I had been subjected to commands not to do anything. “Don’t contact me, but tell me how you are,” were just some of the mixed signals that were directed toward me. It had been so long since then and there were many things that were left behind, many things that I made an effort to deal with and move on from. At no given time did I expect to hear this, and at no point did I foresee the consequences being anything like this. I knew that where I was then is a lot worse than where I found myself in the present day; there was much more that I cared about, much more that I cherished and was thankful for. So much that I wasn’t going to take for granted, and a reason to be happy sat inches away from me, with my hand in his.

My mind still wallowed in confusion, guilt and responsibility despite all the logic and reasoning that at least one part of my mind tried to throw around and convince me of.

Several more salt-tasting tears wet my cheeks as he pulled me by my hand, raising me off my ass and bringing me into his arms. There was no stopping it now; I simply began to cry more freely with every second that passed in his arms. A feeling of stupidity sat in my mind as my head rested on his shoulder and my arms held him closely whilst he stroked my hair. Only several moments before, we were laughing at a joke that I can no longer recall; both of us doing our own separate things, yet managing to do them together and now there I was crying like an idiot. He roamed around in his fictional world as I paid attention to my reality; at times I would slip out of my reality and into his fictional world for a few moments. Eventually, my own reality tugged me and held me there as I read the words of the past. I wasn’t laughing anymore. My connection to this past was an unstable one, so many times severed and reconnected that I forgot to keep track of it.

It didn’t take long before the expression on my face to change and he noticed it, asking me what the matter was. He began to learn as I turned my reality toward him, the past staring him directly in the face as the words entered his retina and translated their meaning in his brain. Silence fell upon me as I sat there, watching him delve into the past, thinking about the drug ridden state. There was no other way to answer his question, I felt as though I had to show him, to let him see for himself. It made me feel bad that I had to involve him into the problem – I really didn’t want to make my problem his too. ‘Oh…’ he said, as the ending finally came and my reality had now become both of ours. Nothing came to mind to respond with, so I nodded and made a small sound as a way to recognise that I was still listening. That fictional world of his had just gone on hold.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked me finally, taking my hand as I looked down at my feet and the floor around me.

I happened to stumble across an interesting, yet quite lengthy, blog post made by a user who had a bad experience with an online company called PriceRitePhoto. The user had purchased a camera online via the stores website and experienced nothing but problems from that moment on; the company called confirming details of shipment, attempted to sell additional parts with the camera and made threats to the person when the customer informed them that they would be writing an article on their experience. Apparently the store claimed they would contact this person’s boss and CEO, would also contact the police and have them arrested, if they dared to say a negative word about PriceRitePhoto. Oh, and the customer never received their near $3,000 camera that they ordered from the store.

The user goes to the effort of posting several reviews they had found that claimed similar testimonies about their own experience with the store, with one user even reporting that PriceRitePhoto threatened to charge their credit card $100 if they wrote a negative review, with an additional $250 for every posting after the initial one. None of the customers ever received their product and plenty of people have gone to the lengths to try and get the store delisted with places such as Yahoo! Shopping. It makes me feel pleased to say that I not only fail to have a credit card but also choose not to purchase products online. For most, buying online probably works for them and is an incredible help to their shopping needs, but I think I’ll prefer dealing with in-store bullshit, as opposed to people who are half a world away from me.

After spending some time roaming around the Internet and stumbling on a few blogs, I manage to come across one particular blog called Hecho en Mexico. At some point, Adam happened to read a book called Around the World in 80 Babes written and self-published by a rather amateur author by the name of Nigel Gohl. Adam took it upon himself to write a review on the book that gave his opinion on the contents of Around the World… and, as any decent person would do, added the correct details to the book.

Nigel didn’t seem to appreciate the fact that Adam put Nigel’s name beside the title of the book that he, indeed, did publish and write himself. As a result, Nigel Gohl wasn’t very impressed with the contents of the review and also requested that Adam change Nigel’s name in the author details from “Nigel Gohl” to “Nige54.” Several e-mails passed between the two, with the author of Around the World in 80 Babes saying, in my opinion, some very ridiculous things. You can read the e-mails, which Adam has been as kind as to share, by reading his entry Only Fools and Horses.

The following few quotes are taken directly from one of the e-mails Adam shared with the public that Nigel Gohl had sent to him, as well as a few things Nigel wrote on his own website. There were a few comments Nigel had made that I felt the desire to comment on myself and address. Here’s hoping that the infamous Nigel will find my particular entry and care to explain a few things.

Now obviously I don’t agree with what you wrote, however everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, having these kinds of comments on the net about me are never good and I would appreciate it if you could remove this review from your blog as it’s not good for my day job…

While I could understand how some people might not wish for certain things to be said about them and easily accessed by those who matter, I hardly think that Nigel has much right to request things not be published about him. Nigel, you published a book that can be obtained by anyone in Australia; I would be more worried about women stumbling across your book, which does nothing more than reveal how you manipulated women to spread their legs, than I would about my boss finding some random person’s blog that, Lord behold, speaks an opinion about you. I suppose that you are unfamiliar with the definition and idea behind “freedom of speech.”

If you can write a book that is nothing more than a 233 page wank-fest about every encounter you had with the “divided pussy,” and publish many copies of it for people to read, then a few people should be allowed to write about you and your pathetic excuse for a ‘book.’ I wonder, Nigel, when you wrote your book about the sixteen year old German schoolgirl you picked up, as well as the many intoxicated tourists and what-not, did you wonder whether they gave you permission to write about them? I wonder if you considered how their careers might have been affected if a colleague or bosses of any of these women happen to find your book and read about them – or is it that you only think about yourself.

…if you refuse and you decide that for some reason it is absolutely necessary to keep the review out there, you will continue to piss me off. But this feeling will be some what relieved if you could you at least change ‘Nigel Gohl’ to ‘Nige 54’. This would ensure that ‘Nigel Gohl’ no longer comes up on a google search…

Is it that you’re concerned about fellow workers finding you and realising what kind of person you truly are, or you just cannot handle having such opinions being publicly said about you, for anyone to take at their own discretion, and have your name put right beside the words of the writer. Will it annoy you that Adam keeps his review there merely because he might be closer to speaking the truth than any little “testimony” that someone has probably been paid or written, by you, to say?

You should have understood that people would want to comment on you and your book and surely you aren’t as deluded to actually believe that every feedback you received would be positive. What, you think that every person in the world is in complete support of sleeping with just about anyone they could lure into their bed? I also wonder if the partial reason for you wishing to hide yourself from fellow workers might possibly be because they too have been lured into your bed. I doubt you would want them to know the game you play – it would be much harder to get them to sleep with you a second time around, if they knew all the tricks you pulled, right?

I noticed that Nigel went to the effort of addressing us lovely blog users who chose to write about him, saying:

1. Blogging

Reading blogs is about as interesting as it sounds because invariably people generally just crap on about nothing really that exciting. However, a couple of bloggers out there have come across my book and spent a good couple of blogging sessions debating the merits of it. As blogging is not policed these bloggers can say whatever they like and as such, some of the phrases used to describe me and my book are nearly unprintable.

That’s right, Nigel, because when I have a keyboard in front of me and my WordPress “write a post” page ready to take any word that I wish to write, I suddenly feel invincible. I suddenly have an opinion that I normally wouldn’t have and I suddenly dare to press ‘publish’. Gee, it must have felt very similar to the way that you felt when you dared to write over two-hundred pages of female manipulation. I hardly doubt that you would dare tell these things to the faces of the women to play these games with.

Ironic that you choose to self-publish your book, also; you knew that would be a way for you to get what you want to say out to the public without your words, thoughts, opinions and whatever else being policed by someone else. You say that we crap on with a lot of things, purely because we’re hiding behind our blogs and no one polices us but as far as I recall, it is you trying to change your name from Nigel Gohl to Nige54 and choosing to avoid going through a real publisher, who would review and edit and police your book.

Shouldn’t it be you that we say is crapping on about anything and because you’re trying to change your name to Nige54 and hide behind that, so no one will know that it is you? I fail to see the point in publishing a book, if you aren’t willing to expose yourself to everyone, including those whom you work with. Perhaps you should just keep your stories of deceit and female trickery to a select group of male friends, if you have any and provided they want to listen.

But I did some research and the downfall of these bloggers is that they have probably forgotten how much information they have offered about their personal life during their drunken blogging sessions and as such, these intimate details are available for everyone to see.

Yes, because every person that has a blog has made drunken posts that reveal their innermost secret and intimate details. I wonder, you say that they hide behind things, yet here you say that bloggers have revealed quite a lot about themselves. It’s either one or the other, my little tourist porking friend.

It should come as no surprise that both of these individuals – they are not worth naming – are very sad and from what I can gather, very lonely individuals who have two things in common:
1. they have never enjoyed the company of a real woman, and
2. they hate all guys like me.

Wait, wasn’t it you who had said in a previous e-mail to Adam that, you simply don’t like being called an ‘A-grade cock head’ when he had never met you? Yet here you are saying that he and someone else hates you and has never enjoyed the company of a real woman (although I believe your definition of a ‘real’ woman is horribly skewed), despite the fact that you have never met either of these blog users.

They hate guys who are successful, live life to the full, encourage goodness wherever they go and manage to date a serious amount of hot babes along the way. And why is it that they hate these things?

What is there to hate? You tell, in your own words, “white lies to women and they love it.” The only reason these women sleep with you, regardless of their profession, age and quantity, is because of those white lies. If you didn’t lie about the job you have, and a few other things that you’ve had to tell them, the fact is that these women wouldn’t even sleep with you at all. If they would, why is there the need to say any kind of lie in the first place? Face it; you aren’t even half the woman entrepreneur that you believe you are.

You aren’t successful and I don’t think having a collection of sexually transmitted diseases can be classed as “living life to the full” or “encourage goodness.”

The irony!

Tell me about it, you’re dripping with irony like a woman who marinated herself in her favourite perfume for fourteen hours.

A thought struck me today as I was listening to a comedy CD of a live performance. Has anyone actually ever listened to the clapping from the audience, particularly when the entire performance is over? It’s a bit obvious that I have. It is probably the second most entertaining thing to listen to, right beside the jokes that a comedian makes. Honestly, if you listen carefully enough, you notice that at some point everyone has decided to clap rhythmically with each other. There are no “off-beat” claps; everyone is clapping at the same time, at the same pace.

Have you ever wondered how that happens? I mean, clapping isn’t that difficult and I can’t imagine that an entire audience needs to rely on one person to keep the beat so they know when to clap again. Whose clap timing do they follow? Someone must be standing there applauding and then coming to the conclusion, “I must be the leader” and then start their very own kind of clap that everyone begins to follow. Are we really that incapable of clapping; are we that unoriginal that we must copy the applauding methods of another? These are all questions that will probably never be answered properly.

The funny thing is, I know that every one of you reading this are saying, “I don’t clap with everyone else.” You’re all sitting there thinking that you’re the leader and everyone follows you with a clap, because you certainly don’t follow them.

This traffic will never move much faster than this, not at the moment at least. It will only grow thicker for a few hours before finally thinning back to its restful, casual little pace. This road is blood and will thicken with every inhale of pollution, every lip pursing draw of the blue-grey smoke that is infested with foul, pungent, vile toxins. That is how it is for me, for us, every time we travel this way, into the direct force of that dissipating sun that slowly sinks behind the mountains some several hours drive away. The colours of the sky shifting from the vibrant blue to a luxurious pink before laughing in the face of me, in the face of him and lavishing an insipid shade of grey, followed by a deep black.

Another fifteen minutes of this thickening blood and his hand falls onto the thigh of his leg, resting, knowing that it has plenty of time to do absolutely nothing. His flesh is as pale as my own, a white that would be confused for unnatural if it weren’t for the few hours of sunlight the each of us receive every day. Those few hours are enough to force a little more ‘peachy’ colour into our skin, to send us back into the ranks of “human.” The smooth rear of the car in front gleams under the setting sunlight, the paling sky reflecting softly off its over-waxed surface and my hand finds its way across the thirty to forty centimetres of space between us to rest on his hand. Our fingers entwine with each other, as if to greet and welcome the other before each hand moved to embrace the other.

He had never done this before, and it became a little more obvious as the blood in his hand quickened, his pulse pumping a bit harder than moments before and his hand sweating ever so lightly. Holding a hand was something he had done before, but he never had the opportunity to hold the hand of a woman in his own car, at any time he pleased. My eyes continued to look at the tail of the vehicle before us, the cell that waited on the thickened blood, carrying its oxygen and in dire need to get to its destination. Even something as simple as touching his hand so secretly made me giddy and excited; no one else at that moment had any idea; at that particular space of time, we were alone.

A few more inches slipped slowly under the four pieces of thick, black rubber. We paused, we waited, this road will not thin out any time soon and we were powerless to stop it. “The Sunshine State” read the licence plate before me and finally I had decided to work up enough courage to look at the two pale hands that rested on his thigh. A smile worked across my face as those blue eyes of mine travelled up his body to his face, where my smile became more evident. It never struck me as something that I would say often, but he truly was something beautiful to me. Before long my mind convinced myself that I was brave enough to take his hand and raise it to my lips, softly kissing the back of his hand. He made an almost silent sound, yet my ears heard it all the same and his hand was lowered back to his leg, still holding mine.

That smile worked itself into a slight grin, as he looked at me with a smile of his own. “I had never done that before,” he said and my heart stopped for a few moments, with me still grinning with happiness in such a way that must have painted me as a fool. My heart stopped in awe yet the blood of the road began to flow again, began to thin and we drove on. Home.