Simple Pleasures

---

I'm not what you would call any of these things:

• Healthy - A big bag of deep friend chips, with a jumbo bar of chocolate to follow. That's my idea of eating out.
  
  
• Athletic - Run for a bus? How?
  
  
• Thin - I'm something like 230 pounds, with a discernible cleavage. I've met exactly one man who found male cleavages attractive - and he had an impressive one himself.
  
  
• Sensual - Other people like to look at mountains and flowers. I'm more interested in geology and botany.
  
  
• A drug user - In my life I've tried ecstasy once - a gift from someone who'd decided to give it up and had one tab left. I spent three hours wondering at how red the roses were, and how musical ringtones had suddenly become.
  
  I've been given speed twice - and both times tried to have sex while on it. The first was brilliant and amazing, the second a dismal failure.
  
  This apparently is normal with amphetamines. Though Ted Haggard managed.
  
  
• A dancer - I actually quite enjoy dancing, I'm just absolutely hopeless at it. Imagine a walrus having a seizure, and you're probably close.
  
  
• Especially cheerful - I quite enjoy TV and radio comedy. I just very rarely laugh our loud about anything.

So, with my general level of health making me depressed, I decide to try to dance and be athletic so as to get thinner and healthier. The problem being I've got all the stamina and willpower of a sloth on a Jersey Shore marathon.

The obvious solution? Drugs! The kind which let you use up all of tomorrow's energy in a frantic two hour burn today - provided you have no plans for tomorrow.

But no one's dealing drugs anymore, on account of idiotic laws pandering to the passionately ignorant voters. So...legal drugs!

I tried drinking six cups of insanely strong coffee...and fell asleep. I tried a bottle of guarana pills...and fell asleep.

So I got some Floradrene, in the form of 'Hummer' pills, available at GBP10 (EUR11.5, USD15.5) for 4, at all good shops with yin/yang symbols in the window and middle-aged women with hair in multicoloured braids at the counter. You know the type.

The first two items in the ingredients list are caffeine and guarana, so I'm not expecting to be impressed. I swallow a hummer and go out for a brisk stroll. Forty minutes later I'm exhausted from my stroll, and sitting on a bench like a big fat lump, getting my big fat breath back.

Then quite suddenly after twenty minutes I'm...jogging! And jumping! And (back home behind a firmly closed door) dancing! It's still like the spasming walrus, but I can do it for ten minutes at a time!

An hour of this, and I'm covered in sweat, breathing hard, and coming down. There's no trippy sensations, no enhanced senses, no feeling of oneness with the universe, no craving for twice your own body weight in biscuits, and no compulsion to talk vast streams of utter horseshit at anyone and everyone.

At least I don't think there is, because I'm leaning against a wall with my shirt off, cooling down and...

...the last time I was pressed against a wall for any length of time was fifteen or so years ago, and I was drunk and being buggered by a man who looked suspiciously like a certain TV celebrity. He was loving it and I was patiently waiting for him to finish, so I could get off the cold, damp, comfortless concrete.

I think he was drunk too, as he was informing the empty air that "This guy's got a great arse! Really tight!". Which was nice to hear.

This time I must have spent 15-20 minutes resting alone against the wall. Enjoying its coolness, breathing in the faint musky smell which I'd never notice before. On impulse I...licked the wall, kissed it, and continued to taste it for several minutes.

The way the light played on the irregularities of the surface, the gradations of colour, the sound of an aircraft overhead, mixing with someone's stereo far away blasting dance music. The feel of my own skin and the sound of my own breath.

Need I emphasise: This is not like me. I don't do touchy-feely, least of all with inanimate objects. I don't even like to kiss people.

It was, well, sexy. But not genital - more like a whole body sensation. When people talk about enjoying what their senses give them - taking in a sunset, sipping a wine - is that what they mean?

None of the reviews I'd read of 'Hummers' mentioned this. But the endorphin rush which some athletes report - but most dispute - sounds a lot like it.

It's now exactly midnight, three hours since I took the pill. I'm wide awake, thirsty, and I've a feeling my muscles are all going to ache tomorrow.

So there you have it. In order to not die of a heart attack in middle age, I have become a drug taking pervert with a fondness for walls.

Life is full of surprises.

---