‘Hands off cocks, on socks.’ It was a line from a book we’d read in class, and the teacher had seemed to enjoy that line when he read it out loud, putting on a cartoon northern accent. And the girls had all sniggered behind the covers of their copies of the book, and the boys had stayed silent like the teacher was talking to ‘em and they was all a little embarrassed.
It was a book about a boy and he wasn’t really school-smart but he was smart in other ways. He got this bird, see, a hawk or a kestrel, and he trained it hisself. Our teacher said it was a book about education and how we has all of us got potential and how we is all of us smart in some way or another.
It was a book, I reckoned, about love. The boy didn’t love school one little bit and so it never worked for him; but he loved that bird and he gave it a lover’s attention and it was really something, till his fucking brother went and broke its neck for spite.
I remember I was going with this girl called Ruth at the time and I kept reading the best bits of the book out to her. We’d be sitting up in her bedroom, and there was music playing and her da downstairs singing along to the music. And Ruth was just listening to me reading like she was in church and hearing the minister quoting scripture.
‘It’s about love,’ I said to Ruth. She looked at me funny, like I was speaking a different language. I told her about the boy and how he loved that bird and how it was his whole life. I said he lived for that bird and he came alive with it there on his gloved hand.
Ruth nodded, like maybe now she understood. And she leaned in and kissed me, her tongue touching between my lips, teasing.
I asked her then, if she loved me like that, if she loved me more than she loved anything else in her world. She looked at me funny again, really looked at me like she wasn’t sure of what I was saying.
‘Love you more than popcorn or peppermint,’ she said.
I didn’t know what that meant, ‘cept it sounded cute. I kissed Ruth then and I put my hand under her blouse. She didn’t push my hand away. I want to say that I remember what it felt like – I should be able to say that. It was my first time and Ruth’s. It was warm and soft, but try as I might, I can’t recall anything more than that.
What I do remember is that in the bedroom dark, my own bedroom dark, later that night, I was hard thinking about it, thinking about Ruth saying she loved me more than popcorn or peppermint and my hand touching her tits. I put my hand between my legs and pulled up and down on my cock, slow and slow, till I was breathless and shaking.
In the morning I woke and I was hard again and holding myself still. And I remembered that line from the book, the one the teacher had read with so much pleasure. And I heard him reading it out loud again, and I laughed.
Ruth is nothing more than a memory these days, and even then, bits of that memory have gone, lost down the back of the sofa with paperclips and pennies and bus tickets. But if I close my eyes, and hold my hard man-cock, I can still hear that teacher telling us all, ‘Hands off cocks, on socks,’ and his voice all pantomime northern and the girls laughing and the boys all pretending to read their copies of the book, reading with an uncommon intensity and following the words with their fingers running under the lines.
Patricia Ann McNair 
‘Hands off cocks, on socks.’ It was a line from a book we’d read in class, and the teacher had seemed to enjoy that line when he read it out loud, putting on a cartoon northern accent. And the girls had all sniggered behind the covers of their copies of the book, and the boys had stayed silent like the teacher was talking to ‘em and they was all a little embarrassed.
It was a book about a boy and he wasn’t really school-smart but he was smart in other ways. He got this bird, see, a hawk or a kestrel, and he trained it hisself. Our teacher said it was a book about education and how we has all of us got potential and how we is all of us smart in some way or another.
It was a book, I reckoned, about love. The boy didn’t love school one little bit and so it never worked for him; but he loved that bird and he gave it a lover’s attention and it was really something, till his fucking brother went and broke its neck for spite.
I remember I was going with this girl called Ruth at the time and I kept reading the best bits of the book out to her. We’d be sitting up in her bedroom, and there was music playing and her da downstairs singing along to the music. And Ruth was just listening to me reading like she was in church and hearing the minister quoting scripture.
‘It’s about love,’ I said to Ruth. She looked at me funny, like I was speaking a different language. I told her about the boy and how he loved that bird and how it was his whole life. I said he lived for that bird and he came alive with it there on his gloved hand.
Ruth nodded, like maybe now she understood. And she leaned in and kissed me, her tongue touching between my lips, teasing.
I asked her then, if she loved me like that, if she loved me more than she loved anything else in her world. She looked at me funny again, really looked at me like she wasn’t sure of what I was saying.
‘Love you more than popcorn or peppermint,’ she said.
I didn’t know what that meant, ‘cept it sounded cute. I kissed Ruth then and I put my hand under her blouse. She didn’t push my hand away. I want to say that I remember what it felt like – I should be able to say that. It was my first time and Ruth’s. It was warm and soft, but try as I might, I can’t recall anything more than that.
What I do remember is that in the bedroom dark, my own bedroom dark, later that night, I was hard thinking about it, thinking about Ruth saying she loved me more than popcorn or peppermint and my hand touching her tits. I put my hand between my legs and pulled up and down on my cock, slow and slow, till I was breathless and shaking.
In the morning I woke and I was hard again and holding myself still. And I remembered that line from the book, the one the teacher had read with so much pleasure. And I heard him reading it out loud again, and I laughed.
Ruth is nothing more than a memory these days, and even then, bits of that memory have gone, lost down the back of the sofa with paperclips and pennies and bus tickets. But if I close my eyes, and hold my hard man-cock, I can still hear that teacher telling us all, ‘Hands off cocks, on socks,’ and his voice all pantomime northern and the girls laughing and the boys all pretending to read their copies of the book, reading with an uncommon intensity and following the words with their fingers running under the lines.