CLICK TO PLAY Preheating the Oven MP3
Read by Lin Sagovsky
Brendan snapped his banjo string in Sharon’s vagina the first time they tried to have sex. There was blood everywhere. It spurted out of his willy like it was a Super-Soaker 5000. The two of them raced to Accident and Emergency. The bed sheet wrapped around Brendan’s waist dripped blood the whole way there.‘Holy Mary Mother of God!’ cried a nurse.
‘It’s his willy!’ Sharon shouted, mascara melting down her chin. ‘It’s his fuckin’ willy!’
Brendan’s “official” first time was against a wall a year earlier with a different girl whose name he couldn’t remember, in plain sight of thousands of festivalgoers. He had met the girl only that morning and a few cans later, was one minute talking about her beautiful eyes and the next, kissing her. She tasted like spearmint chewing gum and grabbed his hard willy and the upper-hand in the experience-stakes. Not to be outdone, he pulled down her jeans and attempted to stuff himself inside. He thought the mechanics of sex would have been like magnetic attraction and something would just click, but it didn’t. He concentrated, trying to line things up down there.
‘Take it out, boy,’ went a garda, tapping Brendan on the shoulder even though what he was being told to take out was not technically in. He was a bit relieved if he was being honest. He had been badly prepared;porn was a load of bollocks.
For the rest of the summer, Brendan worried he would be in the newspaper for riding in public. As cool as his friends thought it all was, his mother would have fucking crucified him. Nonetheless, he counted it as his first time even though technically, it was nowhere close.
*
Sharon’s “official” first time was around the same time as Brendan’s.
‘The Oedipus complex is when you want to kill your father and have sex with your mother,’ went the fella involved. He had just finished his first year at University. Eventually, he touched her knee.
‘And the Elektra complex,’ he went.
‘Will I get this for you?’ went Sharon.
‘Please.’
Sharon took off her bra.
‘Jesus,’ went the fella, grabbing his crotch and making a moan. And that had been that. She counted it and the pressure was off.
*
Brendan thought he might never be right again after the, well, the incident. It took two operations to get it all back together. And a circumcision. They had to go to England to get it done. Word went around. Men were squirming in solidarity from Ballybeg to Barrytown. Sharon thought no boy would ever go near her and her vagina of doom again.
‘It’s OK. Not your fault at all,’ went Brendan to her in his hospital room after the operation.
‘You have to preheat the oven before you put in the turkey,’ went his father.
‘Actually,’ went Brendan, ‘It’s probably Hollywood’s fault. The way they portray sex it's like you can just wham, bam and thank you ma’am. What film do the protagonists talk about the importance of a properly lubricated vagina?’
‘You should write a strongly worded letter,’ went his father.
‘Enough now of whammin’ and bammin’,’ went his mother.
The surgeon was in the room, too, doing his best to maintain professionalism. ‘You mustn’t masturbate or engage in intercourse for six months.’
‘Oh, you can be rest assured he won’t, Doctor,’ went his mother, giving Sharon the evil eye from across the hospital bed. Brendan’s father giggled in the corner.
*
In the six months of recuperation, Brendan and Sharon went to the cinema often. They bowled and went for Sunday afternoon walks. They laughed a lot. After the ordeal, sex was the easiest thing to talk about in the world. There was a scar on the willy. Her mark. His mark. Their mark. He showed it to her every week so that she could see the healing.
When the six months were up, they both actually had sex for the first time, breaking a bed right away. Breaking it into shite. Brendan’s parents were in Cyprus but the neighbours heard it two doors down. It was the first time but absolutely not the last. They done it in nightclub cubicles, in a cleaning storeroom at Sharon’s sister’s boring wedding, in the back of a cinema, on back of a bus, in the back of Sharon’s Peugeot, on an overnight train to Belarus with four other people listening to them in their carriage, in several swimming pools across the globe, on three of the top five beaches on the planet, and on a 14 hour plane journey to Abu Dhabi.
After the travelling, they got jobs and found their own place. They broke shelves, a coffee table, two shower doors and a sink. They were the very butchers of zippers, hooks, buttons, straps and elastic. They dripped strawberry sauce and licked chocolate treacle, ate edible underwear, dressed up, left the boots on, role played, had angry sex, celebratory sex, hungover sex, delicate sunburnt sex, make-it-last-all-night sex, quick-I'm-late sex, sleeping sex, beat-the-couple-next-door sex, birthday sex, rough sex, soft sex — fucked, rode, screwed, shagged, banged, balled and made love. They got married and tied each other up, erotically massaged, used oils, pearls, beads, feathers, whips, paddles, inflatables, added post-its to the Kama Sutra and had three children together from all of it.
But having children didn’t slow it all down one bit. It just made it more of a challenge. A bit of creativity was needed. Cloak-and-Dagger sex. Friends of theirs planned date nights and kept sex diaries to make sure they were having sex at least once a week. Brendan and Sharon thought this hilarious and ploughed on, going down on each other on drives, sex in dark car parks on the way home, sex in the car on the side of the M50. Everything was code for riding; Mammy’s tired or Daddy’s tired or Sharon, can I’ve a hand up here with this?
The kids grew up and went to friend’s houses for birthday parties, then the cinema, then the pub. It was becoming easier again. The three of them were out at Phelan’s. The youngest was sixteen but they let him on, it being Halloween and all that, a reward for doing well in his exams. They told him to only drink bottled beer and instructed his older sisters to keep a good eye on him.
Brendan had sent a text that morning telling Sharon he wanted to ride her hard enough to place first in the Grand National. Sharon had picked up the bridle half price on the way home. They crashed down on the couch, sweat-soaked and naked except for Brendan’s cowboy boots, the belt for his holstered cap gun and Sharon’s bridle. Brendan squeezed the tip of his willy. He noticed the scar.
‘Do you remember that night?’
‘Course I remember. Your mother hated me till the day she died for it. Me and my vagina of doom leading her baby boy astray.’
‘She didn’t hate you.’
‘She fucking did so. For thirty years that woman gave my vagina a wide berth when we were in close proximity. And made sure I noticed.’
‘If someone offered me a billion euros for this scar, I wouldn’t take it.’
‘A billion?’
‘A billion.’
‘You’re full of it, Brendan Dunne.’
‘I’m full of nothin’. Haven’t eaten all day. Do you want some toast?’
‘No thanks, sheriff.’
Brendan sauntered on in to the kitchen bare-arsed and made himself some toast. Sharon took the cushions off the foldout couch and prepared it for round two.
‘It was,’ went Brendan when he came back into the sitting-room ‘without shadow of a doubt, the best lesson I ever learned.’
He lay down beside Sharon on the foldout.
‘What lesson?’
There were shouts outside, screaming and crying and the young lad was shouting don’t-fucking-touch-it on repeat. The front door burst open. There was shuffling in the hallway. The middle kid stormed into the sitting room first, dressed as a witch. She’d been crying. She put her back to the wall and didn’t say a word. Her mother and father, naked on the foldout didn’t even register. The oldest came in next dressed as a cheerleader. She looked around at the candles and the rig-outs on the both of them.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘What sort of fucked-up family is this?’
The young lad came in behind her in his cowboy costume, blood-soaked —blood all over the legs of his jeans, blood all over his face and his hands, his fly undone, walking in like a little shot-in-the-groin John Wayne. The young girl from down the road followed him in. She was dressed as a Cherokee Indian, mascara and war paint melting down her chin.
‘I think I’m fucked,’ went the young lad.
‘Not even close,’ went Sharon.
Brendan stood up like the real John Wayne — the holster, the cowboy boots and the scar to prove it.
‘What did I tell you, son?’ he went with a mouthful of toast. ‘What did I tell you, eh? Always, always preheat the fuckin’ oven.’ And got the car keys.
(c) David McGrath, 2013
David McGrath is performing stories from his novel Rickshaw for Spread the Word at Towersey Festival later this month. He would like to thank the real "Brendan & Sharon" for being so cool about sharing their story tonight.
Lin Sagovsky’s credits include talking books, TV narrations and BBC R4/World Service programmes aplenty. She’s equally passionate about taking her actor/playwright background to all corners of the business world via her consultancy Play4Real, helping businesspeople use voice and body to create presence and fun in their working lives.
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