Old Long Since

I had an email from my old friend, Maxine, a few days ago. I didn't even know she was on-line. We used to be in a band together, only a handful of gigs, but it was fun while it lasted.

Once, when we were very drunk - which was not that unusual at the time - she told me about her first lover, Samantha. Maxine was living in London, Hampstead to be precise, when she met Samantha. As they were both living with their parents at the time, there wasn't really a place for them to get together. So they used to take a couple of bottles of cider into the cemetery when it got dark.

Anyway, Max told me about this one particular night when she was particularly drunk and... well... she couldn't respond when Sam went down on her. No matter how long, or how hard Sam tried, Max just could not come. What made it worse was that it was their final night together, they were off to different universities the next day (well, Max was on her way to Wolverhampton Poly - which is how we met, but that is another story - and Sam was off to Kent University). They had promised to keep in touch, but deep down they knew they would grow away from each other.

Whether it was the drink, or the anxiety of separation, or a combination of both Max did not know. But she told me how frantic Sam got, how desperately she tried, how urgently she wanted, maybe even needed, to get Max to come.

Eventually, Max had to get up from the grave she was lying on. She told a now-tearful Sam that it just wasn't working, she was sorry; it was her own fault and all that. But Sam just couldn't accept it and ran off crying into the dark. It was the last time Max saw Sam for a long, long time. Max said that she was so sore, from where Sam had been nibbling at her labia, that she could hardly walk for two days afterwards and couldn't wear her favourite tight jeans for nearly a whole week.

So, when Max told me about this story it was very late at night, we were both drunk and we were in a band together. So what happened next was almost inevitable - we wrote a song about it.

The song was probably the best we had ever written, but unfortunately the band broke up not long after - mainly out of frustration at not getting anywhere, I suppose. Not long after that Max split - she was always restless - and disappeared on her travels.

So, it has been almost thirty years since we last met. She is back, living in Hampstead with a new lover - Jane - and she wants me to go down and visit her in May. She said, in the email, that she wants to show me the actual grave where that incident with Sam took place. In fact, she has sent me directions on how to get to that specific grave, and that is where we are going to meet. Of course, I am going, taking my guitar along, and we will probably get drunk again and - almost inevitably - we will sing that song again together.

So, I'll meet Max by graves when it is spring again and we'll sing again of her chewed lips from Hampstead Sam.