Kurt Vonnegut wrote "I will say that I still can't get over how women are shaped, and that I will go to my grave wanting to pet their butts and boobs. I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve.” He wrote this in Timequake when he was seventy four.

My father needed a check in the hospital so I took him. He was having his prostate checked. I drove him and after I had made sure that he was settled I left him. He seemed fine. As fine as he could be knowing what it was that they were going to do to him, a Victorian clap style scrape of the penis. He didn’t want me to be around for that.

I wandered back through the ward and then out past the private rooms. I was drawn to this room because I heard a voice. Hospitals are full of them, but this voice was quite desperate. When I looked in through the door I saw this old man all alone lying on his back. He was very frail and could not move. He was close to death I would say, which is probably why I could hear him, because he spoke without talking.

He knew that his life force was leaving him rapidly, so he was calling for an anchor to this life. But of course, as you will understand, no-one would help him even if they could hear him. I have thought about this a lot. I have thought about how I just stood there, there was nothing I could do anyway, as they don't cater for what he needed to watch in a hospital. They do in hotels, of course, and since then I have wondered whether a hospital needs to be more like a hotel, especially the private ones, or the ones in America where you have to pay a fortune for health care. It is all about choice after all. Health care for this man would have included this.

He spoke slowly, resolutely.

"Turn the porn on… Turn the fucking porn on, for Christ’s sake, I’m dying, I’m dying. I can’t move my arms, this wheezy breath is dragging me down. I can’t do for myself… I can’t fucking move. Please, please make an old man happy, turn the porn on."

"Nurse, turn the fucking porn on, please. I won’t wank. Honest. Christ look at me, I can’t move. I just want to remember what it was like. I want to remember that feeling of rubbing close to a body. Sliding over that silk. I want to remember her breathing and steaming my eyes up. I want to remember."

"Stop this, stop it. There ain’t nothing wrong with longing. I want to let go of this world fucking. When I can’t breath no more I want to be breathless, go out on a bang. But you can’t hear me. Just switch me out with soft channels and cop shows. Don’t press the discovery pages I don’t want to think my self to oblivion, what point is the knowledge. I want to feel. I want to feel wet pussy. I want to feel pointed tits. I want to feel her little death in my arms, her heart miss a beat. I want to remember coming apart and sticking back in an instant. I want to remember pumping until it hurts. I want hair in my teeth and the back of my throat."

"Please just five minutes, make an old man happy, the banter, that old banter running around until the lips meet, that first accident, that first smile with teeth touching, that first smile with eyes melting together, and then a wander around the edge of her tongue."

"Don’t let me die now, not just yet, five minutes more - no ten, make it a whole hour, just one more hour, just time enough to remember what flesh is like. Just a bit more time to hold on, a bit more time to hold her, to roll her, to fold her flesh, to bite it, lick it, suck it, just a bit more time before I let it go."

"I can feel my spirits lift, oh, yes there is life in this old man yet. Oh yes, I can feel my heart picking up, I can feel my breath getting deeper, my chest rise, I love life, I love everyday, I love walking, I love talking, I love eating, I love reading, I love looking at people, I love jostling with crowds, I love hard rain, I love being angry, I love shouting, I love screaming, I love running, I love throwing money away, I love getting on the wrong bus, I love it when it’s freezing cold, I love being a child, I love growing up, I love knowing more than I did then, I love knowing that you don’t know what I am thinking, I love the moments when you do, I love staying out late, I love wine, I love drinking, I love wishing that I didn’t, I love working, I love hating bits of my life, I love hating bad food and terrible films, I love not wanting to let it all go."

"And now I’m in and we’re down to it. Wow she’s wet, I had a great time drinking her. And now we’re pro’s we’ve been here so many times and it’s never without colour, even though the red rouge of her cheeks is slowly growing dull and the pitch black of her hair has long since passed grey to white. This is one land that I don’t mind walking again and again and again."

"Please nurse, just turn the porn on. I want to enjoy this last few breaths, because I can’t let my body go. It’s doesn’t work like that. Each one of your tubes is holding me to the earth like a ship to the land, keeping me here with nothing to do, except remember. So turn the porn on. Please, turn the porn on. I want to remember. I want to remember it all. Before it stops. Before it stops."

And then he was done, his words gave way to deep heavy breaths and I went on my way.

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