It’s incredibly easy to picture having sex with Samantha. She is so burned into my subconscious that it’s no trouble at all to whisk myself back a few months to when my life was a happy place to be.
I close my eyes to better block out the world around me, making the memories even more intense. I can almost smell Samantha’s perfume, and feel the soft, supple sensation of her skin under my fingers.
I now have an erection that you could pound nails in with. This wank is not going to last long.
As I continue to relive memories of sexy times past, I begin to feel the unwanted emotions encroaching again. This is the price I knew I would pay for using my memories of Samantha to masturbate over. All the pain and sense of loss that I’ve been attempting to keep at bay comes flooding out as I fall deeper and deeper into my memories of her.
This is becoming torture.
I really should stop.
But I’m approaching the point of no return, and stopping would leave me frustrated – as well as heartbroken.
This does mean that I have to conclude this wank with tears streaming down my face, though.
I must look like a sorry, sorry sight. Quite pathetic, indeed. A grown man with his pants around his ankles, his hand gripping his penis, and a look of abject anguish on his face.
I’m eternally glad no one is around to see me. It would be incredibly embarrassing.
The music begins to reach a crescendo, as I begin to reach my own. I really want to get this over and done with now. The combination of mental pain and physical pleasure is becoming too much for me. I just need to finish up and get back to squirrel watching.
It gets closer . . .
And closer . . .
And closer . . .
As I get into the home straight, I gasp and open my eyes.
Staring down at me, with large, liquid eyes, is the most beautiful deer I have ever seen.
Its head is poking in through the tent door, which I had neglected to zip up before commencing my masturbatory trip down memory lane.
I instantly freeze in place, gazing up into those luminous liquid eyes – which have a slightly disapproving look about them.
I do not scream. I do not flail around. I am simply too shocked and appalled by this turn of events to do anything other than sit there rigid – in every sense of the word.
How long has the deer been there?
I simply do not know.
Has it just popped its head in right at this moment? Or has it been staring at me with those disapproving eyes the entire time I’ve been flogging my winky for all I’m worth?
It really is quite a stunning-looking creature, and in other circumstances – where I wasn’t gripping my willy for dear life, while ‘Teardrop’ comes to a conclusion in both of my ears – I would reach forward and give the deer a friendly pat.
I’m sure the deer would very much enjoy a friendly pat. And possibly a tickle under the chin.
Not from a raging pervert with tears coursing down his face, though. There are very few creatures on this planet that would enjoy that. With the possible exception of some Tory MPs.
I really should put my penis away.
This should be the first item on the agenda, following this strange and unwelcome turn of events. But there’s a part of my brain that is refusing to accept that any of this is actually happening, and will not relinquish its grip on what it perceives is the only real thing left in the universe. It’s as if letting go of my pulsing, purple member will force it to confront the unlovely new reality it has found itself thrust into.
It’s at this moment that the deer’s tiny offspring pokes its head into my tent as well, to see what all the fuss is about.
This is a spectacular turn of events, of course.
Now I am basically having a wank in front of Bambi.
Well, Oliver. Perhaps at this stage it might be a good idea to put your bloody penis away.
I have to wholeheartedly concur with my inner monologue. Nothing would give me greater pleasure right now than to pop the old chap back into my boxer shorts.
If only my boxer shorts weren’t currently around my ankles.
‘Could you go away, please?’ I ask the deer politely.
You might think that shouting and wildly gesticulating at them might be a better way to get them to remove their heads from my tent – and you’d probably be right. But they look like such gentle creatures. I don’t want to scare them. Far better I speak to them like an old English butler, with one shaking hand covering my rapidly shrinking penis.
‘Shoo!’ I say lightly, flapping the non-penis-holding hand about ineffectually.
They do not shoo.
In fact, Bambi now starts to root around in my rucksack with his nose. There’s a Belvita soft bake in there somewhere I was planning on having for breakfast. That’s probably what the little guy is after. I’m sure the scent of a chocolate oat soft bake is like manna from heaven to a herbivore such as he.
‘Please shoo,’ I say again. ‘Shoo, shoo, shoo.’
The doe looks at me quizzically. She probably can’t decide if I’m asking her to go away, or fetch me the nearest available footwear.
Neither is allowed to happen, because at this point, dad turns up.
This was inevitable. You don’t get a doe and a baby deer in your tent for long, without daddy deer turning up to see what’s going on.
Dad’s got a big pair of antlers parked on his noggin, though, so he can’t actually get into the tent with me. He settles for peeking in over his offspring’s rump, sniffing and rolling his eyes.
That sodding Belvita. I knew I should have just bought a bag of porridge.
Speaking of said delightful breakfast treat, Bambi has now pulled it out of the rucksack and is trying to chew his way through the foil wrapping.
This distracts his mother from her continued inspection of my person. She turns her head and sniffs at the Belvita, just as the youngster finally manages to get at the soft bake within the foil.
All three are now distracted by the oaty bar of chewy goodness, which is probably a good time for me to get the hell out of here. Maybe if I evacuate the tent, the family of Belvita fans will do so as well.
I slowly turn around and start to pull up the tent canvas behind me. The canvas is very tight and taut, but I manage to open enough of a gap to squeeze my head and shoulders through.
At no point during this do I think to pull up my boxer shorts or jeans.
Which is why, about three seconds later, as I’m half out of the tent, I feel the cold and slightly wet feel of a small deer’s nose upon my bottom – in an area still mostly devoid of hair, thanks to Laughlin McPurty.
‘Maaggahaana!’ I exclaim as the nose probes areas that no nose should probe.
It would appear that I am able to speak an alien language when I have a baby deer’s nose up my bottom, as well as when I’m on a rollercoaster.
Good to know.
To get away from this unexpected and unwelcome development, I start to yank myself forward at high speed across the grass, like a soldier under fire. All the time I’m doing this, I’m screaming – also much like a soldier under fire, probably. The slow-moving virtual paralysis that consumed me with the initial shock of finding deer in my tent has evaporated, to be replaced by an energetic desire to remove myself from their vicinity with as much haste as the human body allows.
I cover a good ten feet of dewy grass in about three nanoseconds. It would have been even faster if I wasn’t still dragging my boxer shorts around my ankles.
I really do need to pull those up at some point, before I have to start asking some serious questions about myself.
I do that very thing, and grimace as I yank the soggy black material up over my privates. My jeans are long gone. I think I lost them during the tent escape.
In the rapidly dwindling evening light, I can see the deer family starting to remove themselves from the tent. Dad backs away first, then mum, and junior brings up the rear, his f
ace covered in Belvita crumbs.
The little bastard. I was really looking forward to that.
It’s at this point I realise that my woodland glade is actually full of deer. I can count a good dozen surrounding my campsite. It would seem that I inadvertently chose a favourite foraging ground of some of the New Forest’s finest fallow deer to make my camp. No wonder the grass was so trimly chopped.
I watch as the family amble their way back over to the other members of the herd. The father deer snorts a few times. And then he does something that makes my blood run cold. He looks right at me.
As soon as he does this, all of the other deer also look right at me.
Fifteen sets of ruminant eyes staring at you through the gloom of twilight goes way beyond disconcerting. We’re entering the territory of being properly alarmed, here. And maybe even a little terrified.
Slowly, the deer all start to move towards me. Bambi is at the front of the herd, still licking his chops.
‘I don’t have any more Belvitas,’ I tell him. ‘All the Belvitas are gone now.’
I’m still speaking in that soft and irritating English-butler voice – because God forbid I actually do something horrible like spook the bloody deer, eh?
‘Please leave me alone,’ I entreat, without having any effect whatsoever. ‘I really don’t have any more food on me.’
By way of demonstration, I pull the sides of my boxer shorts out a few inches, in the time-honoured gesture, to show that my pockets are empty. As my boxer shorts don’t have any pockets, I just look like I’m putting on some kind of bizarre display for the deer, like one of those tropical birds with its wings splayed open. I might as well start dancing around in a circle and have done with it.
Bambi and pals are having none of it, though. They are unconvinced by my display. They clearly believe I am the holder of more delicious Belvitas and will not stop until they have shaken me down for every last one.
‘No more Belvitas!’ I say, trying to sound harsh. I even jab a finger at them to show just how authoritative I am. It’s the gesture of someone fully in command of the situation. Surely they must realise now that I am being serious about my lack of soft bakes? My finger is as pointy as it can possibly be!
Nope. The big sods are still coming.
It’s probably time to run for it.
Bloody Wolf Moresby . . .
If I get out of this, I’m sending him an empty Belvita packet through the post.
What transpires next is not a high-speed chase through the forest. Far from it.
In actual fact, I only get about ten yards, with my arms flapping about like windsocks in a hurricane, before I realise that the deer aren’t following me.
I am oddly disappointed by this. If I’m going to run away from something in terror, I’d prefer it to make some kind of effort at pursuit, otherwise I just look silly.
I turn and stare back at the deer, who are already dispersing into the forest, having come to the conclusion that I’m not going to be supplying them with any more oaty breakfast snacks any time in the near future.
The last deer to take their leave of me is the doe who caught me masturbating. There’s still that disapproving look in her eyes, but it’s now mixed with what I’m sure is a degree of pity. At least that’s what it looks like in the fading light, from ten yards away. She could just be keying up for a poo, for all I know.
Still, at least I wasn’t actually attacked by any of the deer. Not that this was ever really likely. Deer are placid and happy creatures, by and large. Especially ones who are quite used to humans tramping over their foraging grounds. I was never in any real danger.
No. Fallow deer are quite harmless, unless you do something to annoy them.
Not like wasps.
Wasps will have a pop at you just for being alive.
Now, this might seem like an odd thing to say. Why on earth have I suddenly started talking about wasps? It’s deer we’ve been dealing with, so why the mental leap from large, foraging mammals to small buzzing insects?
Because I’m stood right under a wasp’s nest, that’s why.
Not two feet above my head – clamped to the branch of an overhanging oak tree is a nest about a foot long and a foot across.
And wasps don’t need any excuse to have a go at you. Not even when you flap your hands around your head like windsocks in a hurricane.
I feel the first sting on the back of my neck.
‘Oww! Bloody hell!’ I wail, one hand instantly going to the back of my head. I look up and see the nest, from which several pissed-off-looking wasps are erupting.
Not that there’s any other way to describe a wasp as anything other than ‘pissed-off-looking’. It’s kind of their raison d’être.
‘Oh . . . for the love of pernickety,’ I say in a tiny voice, as the buzzing maniacs fly straight at my head.
The next twenty minutes of Oliver Sweet’s life can be accurately chronicled just by relaying the sounds that accompany them. They are as follows:
Buzzing.
Two loud screams.
Bare feet running through a forest.
Three more screams.
More buzzing.
A zip being quickly pulled up.
Another scream.
The rustling of canvas.
The clanking of metal.
Lots of buzzing.
Yet another scream.
The unzipping of a large bag.
Scream.
More sounds of rustling canvas and clanking metal.
Buzzing.
Scream.
Heavy, fast footsteps.
A large bag being dragged across snapping twigs.
Buzzing.
A blood-curdling scream.
A car door slamming.
Another car door slamming.
A car door opening.
The sound of fast footsteps.
Buzzing.
The noise of a man rummaging around in a tall thicket of grass for a mobile phone.
Yet another scream.
Incredibly fast footsteps.
A car door opening and banging closed again.
A car engine revving loudly, before fading away.
The sound of buzzing growing distant.
The tweets of a single bird.
Silence for a moment.
The sound of a rough tongue licking a foil wrapper.
A small but satisfied mammalian grunt.
Of course, there’s no way I’m writing any of this up for ‘Dumped Actually’. What do you take me for? A bloody madman?
Can you actually imagine what the reaction would be to me telling people all about my experience of masturbating in front of a family of New Forest deer?
What on earth would people think of me?
What would Wolf Moresby think of me, specifically?
It was his suggestion to take myself off into nature to rediscover my happiness. If he were to know that I took his innocent suggestion, and twisted it into an event bordering on accidental bestiality, what would his reaction be?
And anyway, ‘Dumped Actually’ is supposed to be about my attempts to find things to help me get over the heartbreak of Samantha leaving me. People don’t need to hear about how much I am failing to do this, by nearly sending her a bloody text message. It’s not uplifting – or helpful in the slightest.
It just makes no sense whatsoever for me to go into the office on Monday morning, sit at my desk and write a feature for Actual Life about this weekend.
No.
I shall not write the truth about my camping experience. I will make something up that is a lot less embarrassing, and a lot more helpful to my reading audience.
There’s no way I’m mentioning the text message, the deer or the Belvitas.
Okay, it probably won’t be as interesting, funny or as exciting, but that’s just the way it is.
I do not need to describe my excruciating thirty-six hours in the New Forest just to get a bigger readership.
<
br /> I mean, what kind of person would do that? What kind of person would want hundreds of thousands of people to know he sat in front of the eyes of a disapproving doe, grimly clutching his penis for dear life?
It would have to be the kind of person who has a near-pathological need for attention and affection.
Someone who has weighed up the embarrassment that it would cause him against the thrill of being popular with an audience, and come out in favour of the latter.
What kind of deep-seated need for approval and recognition would this person be cursed with?
They’d have to have severe emotional problems, wouldn’t they?
CHAPTER SIX
VANITY, THY NAME IS WOMAN (WITH APOLOGIES TO SHAKESPEARE)
The Deer Porker.
That’s what someone on Twitter called me.
Somebody else called me Captain CampyWank.
A third christened me The Belvita Bandit.
I also got a tweet from the British Deer Society. They weren’t happy with me, let me tell you. Not because I pointed my gentleman’s sausage at a family of their beloved creatures, but because I allowed Bambi to eat human food. They told me at length how foods such as soft oat bakes can be very bad for the deer’s digestion.
I felt awful.
For the rest of the day, I went around with a mental image of Bambi yakking up all over his mother.
So, not only do I get to feel the hot, pulsing embarrassment I have brought down on my own head, I also get to feel the shame of hurting an innocent creature.
I truly am blessed in life.
Needless to say, the third edition of ‘Dumped Actually’ went down a storm again. Partly due to my masturbatory shenanigans, but also due to the way I described nearly sending Samantha that bloody text message, and how I thought about her during my ill-fated five-knuckle shuffle.
I was deeply shocked to find out that I am not the only person who has tried to have a fiddle with themselves after being made single again, only to find themselves crying like a baby.
I was equally as shocked to realise that so many people wanted to share this kind of intimate information with me.
Dumped, Actually Page 11
