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March 28, 2024, 05:56:19 PM

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Archie and other stories

Started by Partridge's Love Child, May 19, 2004, 04:47:08 PM

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Just found this again.  A short story what I have wrote when I was younger.

I was twenty-five when I first saw Archie Wiseman.  He was a tall, thin fellow who looked, under certain light, like a cross between a tawny owl and a tin of Swarfega.  He was a self-confident Oxford graduate, leaving its famous portals with a BA in Roger Moore impersonations and a slight smell of lavender.  Since graduation he was running some kind of dodgy sex-parlour in Soho, that catered for business men who like to screw gardening equipment.
During this time I was working in a near-by firm of solicitors as a rug, with the hope of making my way up the firm to become a ceiling tile, and would often pop into Archie's during my lunch hour in order to plant my seed with some hoe.  I had learned to Archie's establishment one sunny afternoon when a scantily clad hanging chair slipped a business card into my hand.  I later learned that she had made a beeline for me after overhearing me say that my favourite position was the wheelbarrow.
From that day on, Archie's place was to become a regular haunt, but I still turned up frequently as I had never really feared ghosts.  Despite my repeated visits, I did not meet Archie until I had been going to his parlour for three months.  I later learned that Archie did not like to be seen by his clients, instead disguising himself as a doorframe in case the police should burst in unexpectedly.  Apparently disguise ran in his family.  Archie's Dad had been an impressionist, but his career and his life came to tragic end when a friend challenged him to do an impersonation of Hitler; he reciprocated by doing one final Nazi salute, then shooting himself through the head.
Despite Archie's quest for anonymity, our paths were thrown together by surprise one afternoon when I demanded to see the manager, after a particularly frigid lawnmower wouldn't let me get inside her grass-box.  As soon as the call-out was announced for him, Archie seemed to suddenly appear – quickly removing his disguise and allowing the door to fall to the floor.  Despite the seedy nature of his trade, he delicately asked me what the trouble was, and I remember musing to myself that he was amongst the nicest doorframes I had ever spoken to.  I told him of my frustration with his mower and what had (or rather hadn't) occurred.  He apologised without delay, and offered me a free session with a wood-handled rake.  I didn't want to refuse the hospitality of such a polite portal, but I told him that I wasn't a fan of excessively thin women, and so he suggested I try a pair of shears.  Although not to my usual taste, I decided that trying it with twins might provide some fun.  It was the greatest sexual experience I ever had in my life, and whilst getting dressed to leave afterwards I found that my pubic hair had been trimmed into the shape of a peacock.
I was immediately impressed by Archie's irrefutable charm, and was sad that it was to be under somewhat inauspicious circumstances that I would meet him for a second time.  During one lunch break, I was trotting around to Archie's place, intent on receiving the sexual favours of a No. 3 shovel, when I realised that the whole area was swarming with policemen.  Initially I thought that it was the Chief Superintendent popping in for his weekly coitus with compost, but as I drew nearer I saw Archie Wiseman sat handcuffed in the back of a panda car.  They were here to dig the dirt, and what was more galling was that they were using his own shovel to do it with.  Archie was clearly pleased to see me as I approached, but the officer taking care of him order that he stop panting and licking the windows.
After some time I realised that I had been hanging about rather too long, and might be arousing suspicion – particularly as I was wearing a spiky dog collar and holding a nine-tailed whip in my hand.  I quickly introduced myself as Archie's legal representative, and we were whisked off to the station together.
From that day on the fates of Archie and I were inextricably linked, although we did try to separate them through surgery.  Despite the evidence of lewd conduct under Archie's roof, we got off with a caution after we sang like canaries (the judge was particularly impressed with our rendition of Moon River).
I later learned that this had not been the first time that Archie had appeared in court for lewd conduct.  As a philosophy undergraduate he had been investigating the concept of Original Sin by buggering an otter dressed up as Cassius Clay (he never said with it was he or the otter that wore the costume, and I never liked to ask), when the police turned up.
After a short time Archie and I became firm friends.  We discovered we had many things in common; a love of cricket, the theatre, and matching tattoos of The Everly Brothers.  On several occasions Archie and I would mix business and pleasure, going on double dates with a two-seater garden chair.  I loved Archie's company.  He was quite the most extraordinary man I had ever encountered, and I knew he was fond of me also ("You're the nicest fellow I've met since Mussolini", he once told me).  He had immense poise and grace, could talk for hours on politics, art, literature and he had a wit to rival that of Oscar Wilde.  Plus he could spit tobacco through his front teeth.
As the years passed, the nature of Archie's business resulted in him being repeatedly hauled into court.  Despite the facile manner with which he chose his disguises, the Vice Squad would thwart him by threatening to hit his teddy bear with a snooker cue until he showed himself.
   During his repeated visits to court, however, I never saw him panic, indeed I have yet to find someone who was so at ease in court – on one occasion I had to bring him around with repeated slapping and giving him the kiss-of-life.  It was for this reason that the judges often felt that he didn't take his position seriously, although he promised that in future he would not bring the unicycle.
   Archie had a great mind for business and sex, and ability he put down to his first sexual experience being getting an erection whilst watching The Money Programme.  It was this that always saw him go free from the courtroom, his argument being that he was keeping nothing more than an over-sized garden shed.  He once even gained compensation after a careless police raid broke several objects, meaning one trowel would never fork again.
   However, I found myself in constant fear that it would all be taken away.  Outwardly I was intensely happy – I was continuously enjoying the company of an intellectual giant (although I found it tiresome that he would begin every new discourse with the phrase, "Fee Fi Fo Fum"), and I had sex on tap – so much so that I was the only man in the neighbourhood who could reach the plumber on twenty-four hour call-out.  Internally though, I knew that this rakish lifestyle could not go on forever, and once it came to an end I would be left with nothing.
   The end was to come sooner than I thought however, when one fateful day justice was to be served upon myself and Archie Wiseman.  During one particularly moist evening, the police burst into Archie's place and I was caught inflagrante doing some weed with two spades and a roller.
   Drugs, sex and gardening – I had been caught red-handed with green fingers.  I was so embarrassed by the situation that I could no longer show my face in public again, only daring to step outside of my house if I was wearing a dark balaclava or a mask of Tommy Cannon.  Archie on the other hand was sentenced to five years in prison, with an extra three years for good behaviour after he found he liked it.
   On that fateful day Archie Wiseman swore that his life in sex was over, although I later learned that this meant he was engaged to be married.  Although he went through with his wedding, the married life didn't suit him, and he left his wife for a younger, more intelligent woman whose temperament was akin to a mixture of Sigmund Freud and Shirley Temple.
   I never married myself, because marrying yourself is plain silly, and the sex is unexciting.  For me, life without Archie became dull and lifeless.  What's more my lawn became over-grown.  The scandal over my association with him resulted in me losing my job, and I am now left with nothing more than my memories of those halcyon days, and an inflatable hedge-trimmer.


Now post yours, bitches.  If Rats is listening, I'd love to see that school essay he wrote again.