“Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,
but yet the body is his book.”
John Donne, The Extasie, Line 71
*
Are you so ugly you’ve been exiled?
Does your sweetheart swear like a trooper and yodel like an angel?
Do women moon you in scorn?
Has your girlfriend grown opposable toes?
Are you being pursued by someone whose freckles burn?
*
In this richly varied collection of 31 stories, each one dedicated to a particular part of the physique, Body Parts: The Anatomy Of Love explores the common themes experienced by all of us at some point during the mating game, whether it occurs at the point of initial, exhilarating attraction and its lavish promise of hope; during the course of an habitual lifetime of snidy remarks; or at some unenviable, fumbling circumstance in between.
Desire, jealousy, belonging, need, tenderness - all emotions have their place. From head to toe via freckles and fingers, by the end of this painfully funny, at times disturbing and never predictable journey, the agony and enchantment of love in all its guises has been expertly dissected.
Sample excerpts follow below. If you’d like to find out more, please go to Richard’s page at Salt Publishing by clicking here.
Award Longlisting Update!
Body Parts: The Anatomy Of Love has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2008. To visit the official site, click here. to read a Guardian article about it, click here.
Interview Update!
Richard has been on the couch with Eric Forbes, talking about the longlisting and other things. To read the full interview, click here.
Prologue:
The Whole Being
‘I Love Everything About You’
She was new to the village and when I saw her for the first time, stars appeared, swirling around before me.
Stars.
I grew dizzy and fell to the ground. She came to my aid and from that moment I was besotted. I loved her in all her entirety, from head to toe, and all that was fashioned between.
Her ways dissolved me. There was nothing I could do you see.
*
It was the translucence of her pale skin, which had the ability to refract the daylight in innumerable ways, and appeared always to be naturally and delicately scented with dewberry. It was the dense black hair that closed in around her wonderful oval face like the perfect frame; the soft down on her arms that goose-pimpled at the roots when I first touched her; the crooked smile which formed on her silken lips as she picked up something she had dropped from her elegant fingertips, and she was always dropping things.
It was the way she walked upstairs in front of me, in little stomps which tensed the curved, eclipsed moon of her sculpted calves; how she winced and furled her button nose when unscrewing a bottle cap; the giggles that emanated from her throat when she found every-thing so strangely delightful; the line of her waist and hips which lay curled before me like an art nouveau masterpiece.
It was all these things and so many, many more, I couldn’t begin to tell you.
I marvelled at everything she did, was constantly bewildered by how such peculiar beauty could exist. There was not a thing wrong with her, not that I could see, and I wager that if I had been able to see her intestines, her liver, her lungs and her heart, and if I had possessed the scholarly eye of the surgeon, then I would no doubt have been amazed by their individual quintessence too.
Do not get me wrong as I carry on with all these eulogizing. Though she was perfect to me, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder and you no doubt have your own criteria. She was not by any means the most beautiful girl one might lay eyes upon and for all that she dissolved me, you may perceive a forgettable instance of female mediocrity.
But that was not my experience.
My experience was a love like I had never been party to before in my life. In my eyes — which never ceased seeing stars in everything that passed before them when she was by my side — she could do no wrong.
*
‘You complete me,’ I said as I woke one morning with her soft, spongy buttocks spooned against my adoring tumescence. ‘I really don’t need anything else,’ and I kissed the nape of a neck that was as graceful as the finest Ming vase.
She turned and smiled at me once again with the love I had waited my whole life for, smiting every part of my being.
‘Nor I,’ she cooed, and we kissed vigorously.
The stars became too much and I passed out.
*
It was true though, that as long as I had her I required nothing else. So with that thought in mind, later in the week when she had left the village for a few days to tell faraway friends and family of our love, I determined to get rid of everything, absolutely everything, all our worldly possessions. I wanted to show her how much I loved her, that I had meant what I had said, and what could be a more resolute enactment of my devotion?
We would eat whatever nature provided for us in the fields and forests, sleep under the infinite cloak of the night sky with our smouldering love to keep us warm, bathe in waterfalls and rosewater, and fuck each other inside out, wherever and whenever we so desired.
It took longer than I thought to get rid of our belongings. We had a lot of stuff.
When finally I had removed everything from our dwelling by giving it to the lonely and loveless, the poor and needy, I set about demolishing its stone shell with a sledgehammer until it was mere dust which then blew away in the wind. With nothing remaining apart from the hammer, I tossed it to the bottom of the deepest lake with a joyous cry of liberation.
Word of my activities spread like wildfire. Friends visited, enquired what exactly it was I thought I had done.
‘Begone !’ I said. ‘Begone ! I do not need you !’ And I gestured them away with two hoisted fingers.
My love returned later that day to the place of our previous, superfluous existence.
‘Where is our home?’ she cried. ‘What happened?’
I explained.
*
I explained. Later, I pleaded.
I thought she had felt the same. Had she not agreed with me as we had lain together?
Her words were not true. She did not love me as I loved her. She thought me insane in fact, mad as a balloon. Perhaps I was, but then love can do that to a person.
She left the village and went faraway, and I now sleep alone on the ground where our home once existed, with nothing but memories of her big round eyes, the sweep of her arms, the dimple of her bellybutton, the waggle of her toes and all the other things that made her, her.
As I speak I lie freezing on the ground in the middle of the night, and I no longer see the stars I once saw when she was by my side, not even those purported to be in the sky. Instead I see black holes. I see black holes everywhere I look.
Darkness.
I loved everything about her you see.
Part One:
The Head
“Tongue”
The first thing she said to me was horsefucker, and I understandably took affront. I had bumped into her trolley in the cereals section of the supermarket, but nonetheless, it seemed a little harsh.
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“Dickhead fannytushpuller. Nngh.” She twitched jarringly, and I instinctively held a supersize packet of cornflakes against my chest in defence.
“No, I’m sorry,” she continued. “It was my fault. Wankpie.” She smiled bashfully, then a tic scrunched the right side of her face as if it were a crisp packet. It was then that I understood she had Tourette’s.
“No problem, shitflicker,” I said lightheartedly, and she laughed. “By the way, is a wankpie a new Fray Bentos line?”
“Yes,” she said, blushing. “I should think it’s an acquired taste though. Be steering clear of it myself.”
There was a pause, and we looked at each other in the way that people do sometimes.
“Well, no damage done. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, as they say. You’ll have to try harder than that.”
“Give me a chance. I’ve only just met you.”
So I did. We continued our shopping together in a hail of blissful crudities.
“Ooh Babybel! Pissnob.”
“Turd monkey Marmite.”
“CupaSoup. Never liked it. Jizzlobber.”
“Can you grab me some…some…nngh…fuckstick. Daz?”
By the time we got to the car park, we were so at ease it was like we’d known each other years. We swapped numbers. She moaned and juddered as she tried to control an all-consuming twitch, then blurted out the words whilst she had the chance.
“Fuckingcallmedickhead,” she said.
“Dickhead,” said I, and pecked her on the cheek.
*
Her name was Calliope and she worked at the Job Centre. Unable to hold her tongue at the best of times, she gave as good as she got from any abusive clients she encountered. Her colleagues weren’t allowed to lose their rag with such people, having to remain professional at all times, even under a hail of Diamond White fuelled abuse. Calliope could however, thanks to a new European ruling concerning the Disabilities Discrimination Act, say whatever she liked, and put it down to her affliction.
It was a problem at first, and she had to do a spiel to interviewees explaining that she had no control over how she might act, but as the regulars got to know her and realized that it wasn’t some kind of put-on, they accepted her peculiar diction and came to like her.
What was not to like?
Some of the younger ones even learnt new cussing conjunctives to impress their mates with as they hung around off-licences and kebab shops on knocked-off scooters, and so were getting an education in the process.
“Mornin’ Cal. Owzit goin’?”
“Fine thanks. And you?”
“Not bad innit. Bit o dis, bit o dat. Yennaw. Jus’ keepin’ it on da level an’ reprazentin’ nartamean?”
They’d then wait expectantly for Calliope to mutter something inappropriate as she searched the computer for their details.
“I’ll just be a moment. Minge whacker cock puke.”
“Large!”
“Sorry.”
“You is one bo rackley! Can I fam yo tacka?” (Street slang; “You are one good lady. Can I touch your bottom?”)
“Um. No?”
“Ah well. Worf a try innit. Luvvin’ you!”
Clients loved Calliope even more when they saw her ask Janet, who sat next to her in a taut ball of overbearing school-ma’am righteousness, for a pen or form or some suchlike.
“Janet. Could you pass me a JSAL74 please dickslapper. Gashrag.”
Cheers and applause sometimes ensued from the queued masses when this happened, and Janet would yell, “BE. QUIET. Don’t mock this poor woman.”
“She’s a bit of a cunt,” explained Calliope, as we sipped two Angel Tit cocktails in a bar we’d arranged to meet at a few days later. “And that’s not the Tourette’s talking. I hate her. She’s condescending and talks to me like I’m a terminally ill child who didn’t get to go to Disneyworld. I used to feel like that - I’m fine now - but it took me a long time to feel normal. One day I’m going to give that cow a piece of my mind.”
“I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of that,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry fucker about that,” she said. “You’re really rather nice.”
“So are you. You foul mouthed wench.”
That evening it was sealed. I walked her home and we kissed, partook of frottage outside her flat for what seemed an epoch, just like teenagers.
We believed each other to be lovely.
*
We began to see a lot of each other very quickly, and thus found ourselves in bed together one night. It was very nice, but one thing hadn’t gone as I had expected. You see, since Calliope was now so at ease with emitting involuntary muck from her lovely mouth in even the most inappropriate of situations - and indeed played on it - I’d thought that maybe there would be a chance of... well, some excitable banter.
But there was none. Zilch. Nada. Not a syllable of salacious smut slipped out during our impassioned bobbing.
It didn’t really matter, but somehow I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. Feelings of insecurity popped into my mind too, like I wasn’t doing it right or making her feel comfortable enough to totally let go.
“Um. Yeah,” I said as she snuggled against my chest.
“That was lovely,” said Calliope. “Mmm.”
I chewed my lip as I pondered how to best phrase my next sentence.
“Yeah. So. You didn’t say much back then.”
“What?”
“I mean. Y’know. Um. Words. Naughty words.”
“What about them?”
“You didn’t say any. Back then.” This is why I like to talk dirty. I like to get it all out in the open, otherwise I’m a blithering idiot who feels like he’s having a conversation about felching with his nonagenarian grandma.
“Ah.” Calliope put a fist on my chest, then rested her head on it, gazing off into the distance. “No. I suppose I didn’t”
“No. Um. Why’s that then? Not bothered like. Just wondered.” I could feel my face glowing red hot, a supernova of gracelessness, as if I were some fetishistic pervert who liked to be verbally abused and this was the only reason why I had ended up in bed with her.
“Ok.” She turned her head towards me. “Well there’s two things maybe you should know about me, related to my idiosyncrasy. One. I have no control over it. Two. Apart from when I’m doing either of two activities that completely focus my mind and seem to banish it. One of these is sex. And you should take that as a compliment - the less I say, the more I’m away, as it were.”
“Ok. What’s the second activity?”
“Hmm. This is somewhat embarrassing.”
“It can’t be any more embarrassing than saying ‘clitface’ to Princess Michael of Kent when she opened your new job centre.”
“S’pose not. Oh well. Here goes. I told you I’ve always had this, but obviously when you’re seven, eight years old, one’s not off having sex with nice men like yourself, so I tried lots of other things to focus my mind instead. All the usual girly nnnggg…”
“Steady.”
“Shitstabber! Pissmop!
“Attagirl.”
“All the usual girly things like ballet, tap dancing, anything that required my utmost attention. But none of them worked. Then one day I saw The Sound Of Music.”
“Oh dear.”
“I know. Dreadful film. But there was a bit of yodelling in it.”
“Yodelling?”
“Yodelling.”
“I hope I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“I took up yodelling.”
“No!”
“I was a little girl with no friends because I was placed in a class with the special needs children – the early eighties weren’t very enlightened - whom I kept on insisting should fuck off and die whilst sticking things up their bums. I had to do something.”
“You did. I’m sorry.”
“So I pretended I was Maria Von Trapp and took up yodelling. It worked and I never looked back. It’s a very difficult discipline, requiring all my concentration, and whenever I yodel, I’m completely calm inside.” She nodded gently to herself, and her eyes glazed over in contemplative serenity. “I’m at peace.”
“Aw.” I kissed the top of her head and then stroked her hair. “I’d like to see you yodel.”
“No!”
“Please. Pretty please. With little fluffy kittens and Quality Street on top.”
“No. I…”
“You shall never have me again, and then there’ll be only yodelling for evermore, till the end of the universe.”
“You’re evil. You’re blackmailing a disadvantaged person.”
“You’re not disadvantaged. I’m disadvantaged. I can’t yodel. I’ve always wanted to yodel. And play the Jewish harp.”
I began to tickle her round the waist and back of her knees.
“Ayiiee! No!” she screamed, but I carried on regardless, and mercilessly so. “Nooooo! Eee! I…Eeeee!! Nnnggg…Bastardbugger! Motherflangefuckhead! Nnggggghhh!”
Suddenly, her whole body contorted, and it wasn’t the tickling. She was having some kind of seizure, and twisted and writhed like someone possessed by Beelzebub. I immediately stopped and tried to comfort her but she developed the strength of ten men and pushed me aside. I fell off the bed, knocking my head on the corner of the bedside cabinet on the way.
For a moment I was disorientated. Then I heard an angelic ululation. I turned round and saw Calliope standing naked on the bed, yodelling her heart out.
Her head was angled towards the heavens, caught in a beautiful profile of oblivious necessitation. It nodded up and down in time with notes that sprung forth like souls joyfully released after centuries of bondage under the cruel will of the Gods. Her eyes stared at a fixed point in space, rapt in yielded concentration and her arms were as if pinned to her sides. And the sound, oh the sound. I don’t think I’d ever heard anything quite like it. I know I hadn’t. I’d heard yodelling before, but only common-or-garden Tyrollean absurdity, and nothing in Calliope’s voice was akin to such tedious warbling. In technique, perhaps; in execution, no.
No.
It surpassed anything one might hear at the finest opera houses and cathedrals. It was as if during her convulsions, instead of Lucifer, a choir had succeeded in taking occupation within Calliope and different notes emanated at the same time, in perfect harmony, sweeping in and out and across of each other. Also she never paused for breath, seeming to achieve the whole recital by circular breathing.
It was a magnificent symphony, beginning with something mightier than Beethoven’s Ode To Joy. Like a tsunami under which one can only wither, it built to a crescendo, then unfurled, releasing a timbre of greater solemnity than the Lacrimosa in Mozart’s Requiem, which in turn bled into a lament more beautiful, frail and poetic than the most melancholy Romany ballad.
I was spellbound. How could such beauty come from one who had dubbed me a horsefucker on our introduction? But then it came to an end, as all good things must. She looked down at me, energized yet tranquil.
“You should never tickle a girl,” she said. “You don’t know what might happen.”
“What was that?” I said.
“That was me.”
“You’re a strange fruit.”
“I know.”
“I think you should meet my parents.”
“I’d like to, but I’m afraid I may cause offence by calling them something regrettable over the tiramisu, if not sooner.”
“Then I’ll disown them, and we’ll run away to Gretna Green.”
“Will you marry me there?”
“You know what? I think I just might,” I said. There was a lot to find out about this girl, and I’d be a fool to let her go. A fucking fool, and that’s swearing.
Interregnum:
“Veins”
For nearly sixty years Najwa has found it necessary to pass me a wet towel.
Though our love has matured and its incandescence is perhaps less frequent, the pulse of its electricity still courses through my veins. Sometimes, as she grabs my hand or tightens my tie, it is simply a tingling sensation, but on other occasions – there is no telling when - it can strike with more intensity. Then I feel a trembling throughout my entire body, which soon develops into judders and convulsions.
Now is one of those times.
“Oh my,” people in the street ask Najwa, “Is he alright?”
“He’ll be fine,” she replies in her wonderful lilt, and calmly reaches into her trolley, but the fact that people’s hands are over their mouths indicate they are not reassured. An old man in difficulty is less likely to recover than a young one.
“He doesn’t look fine.”
I probably don’t. In the past, I have been so seized by love that the heat and surge of its energy hints at taking me, as the electric chair might a prisoner in Texas. I stand rigid and impotent as my blood begins to boil.
“He just gets a little hot under the collar sometimes. Bite your tongue dear,” says Najwa, hastily pulling out a hand towel and dampening it with ice-cold water from her Thermos.
“Most of the heat in a person escapes through the head,” she informs the gathering crowd, and she is not wrong. If she fails to act quickly enough, my smouldering crown may soon catch fire.
(When we first met, in Alexandria at the end of the war, I had a striking leonine mane. I miss it very much. Now I have become so very old, there is only the bald, spotted and scarred pate of an OAP. Najwa calls me her beacon of love.)
It never takes her more than ten seconds to react to my plight, but it feels like forever. I cannot begin to tell you how soothing the wet towel feels when it is placed over my head.
Though I have never read of anyone else in my predicament, I am confident it is the source of spontaneous human combustion. I know Najwa will not ever allow it to be the death of me though, so instead it informs me that I am still alive and very much in love, and I will hold onto that for as long as I am allowed.
If you’d like to buy the book, please click here.
© Richard Bardsley 2008
