The Homeless Millionaire

I was a mess when I woke up. I'd had an erotic dream while I was sleeping, and had come into my underpants. It was something that kept happening to me every few weeks.

It kept happening because I couldn't masturbate. I couldn't masturbate because my rig shrivelled the moment I touched it. It was as if it knew it was being cheated, and refused to cooperate. I knew this wasn't normal. I knew guys my age were constantly pulling on their dicks, boasting how many times they'd come in a single day. It made me green with envy.

When you are a teenage male, you have juice coming out of your ears. You are ready to fuck anything, anytime. A glimpse of breast, of leg, the mere smell of a woman could be enough to make my dick stiff and ready for action.

My inability to masturbate initially used to give me a lot of grief. The constant tension was agonizing. I thought of telling a doctor about it, but I was too ashamed. I could imagine the guy I'd told hanging out with other doctors or going to a party or whatever and saying: you know something, this kid came into my office the other day with an interesting problem. He can't jerk off, he loses his erection when he touches his dick. Isn't life cruel for some people, ha ha ha.

All that took place just as my parents began to give me a hard time, and it really made me suicidal for a while. But then two things happened. I got my first girlfriend, and I developed the ability to recollect my dreams—I couldn't do it earlier, whenever I woke up my dreams were completely erased from my memory.

I met my first girlfriend when I was in Vienna, at the school that diplomats' children attended. She was French and her name was Brigitte; her father was the trade attaché in the French embassy. There was a small spinney, a clump of young beeches in the corner of the school grounds. Cigarette smokers of both sexes congregated there during breaks; the teachers turned a blind eye.

She bummed a cigarette from me one day, then another one a few days later, then another. She wasn't especially pretty, but she was fun to be with. She had a sharp eye and an equally sharp tongue, and some of her comments about our teachers and classmates made me laugh out loud.

A few months after we'd first met, she invited me to her birthday party: she was turning sixteen, she was almost a year older than myself. Halfway through the party, she pulled me into her bedroom, shut the door, and took out a thin, hand-rolled cigarette from her handbag.

"This is for all those cigarettes you gave me," she said. "A very special cigarette. You'll like it."

That was when I smoked my first joint, and that was when I kissed a girl for the first time. A few weeks later we were necking at my house. I was kissing her small, naked breasts—the first time ever that I caressed a female breast—and I was going crazy with excitement. She unzipped my pants and put her hand inside and I immediately fell in love with her.

It didn't last; two months later, my family returned home to Toronto. Brigitte and I wrote each other for a few months, less and less frequently. We were living in different worlds by then, and it could take nearly two weeks for an airmail letter to travel from Vienna to Toronto. Eventually, the letters stopped. I had a new girlfriend by then, and I was sure that she had a new boyfriend.

When I met Brigitte, I discovered that my prick didn't object to being touched by a different hand, a female hand. In fact, it liked it a lot. I also started remembering bits and pieces from my dreams soon after we'd all returned to Toronto. It turned out that whenever I was horny I dreamed about girls, beautiful girls, lots and lots of different girls.

I really looked forward to bedtime each night. I didn't regret that I wasn't able to jerk off any more. I even started to feel a little superior. The star wankers in my class, the guys who boasted of being able to come half a dozen times a day, didn't seem to be able to score with girls. Maybe they just didn't try hard enough: they didn't have the motivation.

As I was cleaning myself in the bathroom of that cottage by the lake, I remembered that I had been dreaming about the girl in the red bathing suit. It made me very determined to meet her, one way or another. It was a grey day and it looked as if it might rain at any moment, but I didn't care. I had a light breakfast, just a few slices of bread and jam, and a couple of cups of that mind-blowing coffee. I spent a few minutes admiring the drawing I'd made the previous evening while smoking a post-breakfast cigarette. Then I put on my jean jacket and went out.

It was cold outside, and for a moment I thought about turning back. But I was like those dogs whose jaws go into a spasm when they clench on something: I couldn't let go. When I was possessed by an idea I would pursue it to the end, even when it was increasingly likely it would be a painful end.

It took me a while to find the perfect spot to start my swim, the spot I'd selected the previous day. When I got there, I tested the water with my hand and it was fucking cold. I smoked a cigarette trying to talk myself into waiting a day for better weather, but it was no use. The dream I'd had that night haunted me. I couldn't remember what the girl's face looked like, and I had to find out right away.

I undressed quickly—I had my swimming trunks on under my jeans—hid my clothes under a bush near the shore, and stepped into the water. Jesus! It was freezing. The thing to do was keep moving, so I splashed forward a few steps and suddenly the bottom fell away, and the next thing I knew I was blowing bubbles. It was so fucking cold I screamed underwater. I struck for the surface, banging my foot on the edge of a submerged cliff.

I emerged from the water with a whoosh and a wheeze. I was standing on the edge of that cliff, and in that spot the water barely reached my knees. I was facing the shore, and it was really close and tempting. But I turned away, and started swimming across the lake with a crawl. I knew from experience that would warm me up in no time at all. I'd intended to breaststroke all the way to keep my head semi-dry. It was thoroughly wet now, not a good thing in this weather, but at least I would get across twice as fast with a crawl.

I went through the water like fucking human torpedo. I was wearing my Swiss Atlantic watch, guaranteed waterproof to a depth of 30 metres, and I timed myself. I was on the other shore in just under three minutes. I wasn't cold any more, in fact I felt quite warm.

I shook the water out of my ears and looked round. I was roughly a hundred and fifty yards from her house. The shore's rocks and stones changed into inviting grass just a few steps away.

I started walking in the direction of the house. The grass felt great at first, then something pricked my toe. I took another step and nearly yowled with pain: at least half a dozen sharp needles pierced my foot. I retreated, sat down after quick safety check, and inspected the damage. A few small brown thorns were stuck in the sole of my foot. I pulled them out one by one, releasing drops of blood.

I wished I could smoke a cigarette. I was starting to wish I hadn't undertaken that journey.

After a while I got up and inspected the treacherous patch of ground, feeling like one of those guys in Vietnam they showed on TV. Vietnam was in the news constantly, for many reasons. American guys were running from draft and into Canada, and for once the government did the right thing and didn't send them back. Yeah, I definitely felt like one of those guys in Vietnam, walking back and forth examining the ground, now and then throwing an anxious glance in the direction of the house.

Those fucking brambles stretched a long way from the shore. They ended together with the grass, to be replaced by a mix of twigs, pine needles, and sharp pebbles chipped from rock. This was terrain for serious footwear. By the time I got to the house walking barefoot, I'd be leaving a trail of blood. Full-sized Vietnam, no kidding.

It was time for what my father called a realistic appraisal of the situation. It took a while, because I was really torn. My heart wanted me to go on to that house, but my brain issued a firm refusal. I started to get cold during those deliberations, and eventually my brain won the battle.

I almost ran back to the shore. I plunged into the water and set off with an ultra-fast crawl, glancing at my watch. I wanted to see whether I could set a new record.

I got hit by cramp in my left calf about halfway across. It felt as if someone had stabbed it with a sharp spike, and it made me catch my breath. I wasn't scared. I was a good swimmer, and I knew that inhaling water would make me drown. So I made sure I didn't inhale any—it was that simple. It was also easy to stay afloat, all I had to do is fill my lungs with air and my head was pushed clear of the surface.

I bent my left leg and grabbed my toes with my hand and bent them back with all my strength. This usually got rid of the cramp by stretching the affected muscles. Doing that put my head underwater, and I could only hold on to my toes for maybe half a minute. Then I had to let go, strike for the surface, take another deep breath, and do the toe-bending thing again. I had to do it a few times before the cramp began to ease.

My bad leg forced me to switch to breaststroke: there's a lot of kicking in a crawl. It took me a long time to get to the shore and by the time I did, I was exhausted. I tried to tell myself I was lucky not to be one of those guys living in the Amazonian rain forest; going into the water with a bleeding foot there meant the piranhas tore you to shreds. It didn't work. Fuck the piranhas, I thought; at least the water would be warm.

I discovered that I should have brought a towel only when I began to dress. Cursing and swearing, I got my clothes on and hobbled home. Halfway there I realized I could finally smoke a cigarette. I lit one; it helped a lot.

There was a half-full bottle of brandy in one of the kitchen cupboards. I had discovered it the previous evening while overdosing on self-admiration after completing that drawing. It had sat there like that for many months; most likely, no one would miss it if it was gone.

Roch's family hadn't been to the place for many months: the worst case scenario was that they'd assume Roch had drunk it. I'd kept my paws off that brandy the previous evening, but now there was a justifiable medical emergency. It was one of those situations that figured on the prescriptions Toronto doctors wrote out in liquor stores, back in the fifties.

I had my first glass of brandy while I was toweling my head dry. I had another while I was waiting for the espresso machine to spit out my coffee. Then I had a third brandy with the coffee, and a fourth with a cigarette. It was great. It was fucking wonderful. I felt great regret when I saw there was no brandy left in the bottle.

By that time, I'd decided my next assault on that house would be on foot: no more amphibious landings. I was also very hungry, but I decided that I was too drunk to cook. The stove in the kitchen was a gas stove, and I would probably set something on fire, or blow the whole place up. So I just scarfed down a can of cold baked beans with bread, and had a beer. That did it. I got up and walked around the house, smoking cigarettes. The medicinal brandy was working: my foot didn't hurt any more.

Night fell, and a light came on across the water. I didn't feel like getting the binoculars. I rolled a joint instead. I smoked it on the deck, looking at the light. When it got too cold, I returned inside the house and stood behind the glass door and looked at the light some more. It was like an earthbound star, bigger and brighter than the ones that were starting to show up above.

The sky was clearing, and I felt sure it would be sunny the next day. Sunny but not too warm: perfect weather for a long hike in the forest.

Somewhere in the dark, a bird let out a rusty screech. It sounded ironical.

"Fuck you," I said out loud, and went to bed.