Girl on the Net

I told this story briefly, while at the festival last year: ‘I sucked a dick at Glastonbury’, I tweeted, with undertones of ‘achievement unlocked.’ The response was a combination of welcome high fives and entirely unwelcome shame: eww, blow jobs? At a festival?! I hope you used wet wipes first! Some people are so weird. But to each their own. I don’t tell sex stories without knowing that sometimes I’ll press people’s shame buttons. Some people’s instinct to say ‘eww’ when they hear that some random slag got facefucked in a field in Somerset is as natural as my instinct to brag about it in the first place. I sucked a dick at Glastonbury last year. And as I pack my bag for this year, I’ve decided now’s the time to tell that story.

I’ve tried to write it so many times already, but each time I start I realise there’s a different way to frame it. I could give it to you as pure porn, I think: sexy snapshots from that playful day, with the climax being a hot guy burying his cock down my throat at 2 in the morning. Or I could tell you it’s a story about friendship: that this only happened because I ran into a good mate’s boyfriend and she gave me permission to borrow him. In the first draft, I zoomed in on confidence: rediscovering my impulsive, slutty side after years of feeling smaller and weaker and less brave than I used to be.

I don’t want to have to pick one. Right now, I want to say everything, all at once: vomit it all out at you in bright colours and eagerness and emotional intensity. It might make me smile to do that, so let’s give it a go.

When I was seventeen I wore fishnets with tiny skirts. Snogged black lipstick onto the face of a boy I loved beyond reason. I’d make out with him for hours to a soundtrack of punk and grunge and old school rock. I gave my first blow jobs to Nirvana. Learned how to fuck to Green Day and NOFX. Fell in love while Guns n Roses belted out Appetite for Destruction. My life felt huge and exciting but in hindsight it was so, so small. The biggest thing I had back then was bravery.

Fast forward twenty years. My life is bigger now, but I lost a lot of courage along the way. I no longer wear fishnets or snog lipstick onto boys, and it’s been over a decade since I listened to Guns n Roses. But in recent years I’ve been trying to reclaim a little bravery. Exorcising the ghosts that still flutter in my head, ghosts shaped like people who have told me to be quieter. Smaller. Be less me.

Coming to Glastonbury for the first time at the age of ‘pushing forty’ is part of that exorcism. I’m a terrible cliché, sure, but a braver version of me wouldn’t feel the need to say that. Later that summer, I’ll be even more of a cliché as I set off on some ‘find yourself’ travel. I’ll hop on a bus bound for Brussels, then beyond, on my way to a different festival: thirty hours with my knees jammed up against the seat in front, interspersed with rapid sprints through unfamiliar cities to make each connection. My hammering heart reminding me that I do have the courage to do difficult things, I just haven’t exercised that muscle much lately.

When I head to Glastonbury, along with my standard jeans and tattered t-shirts, I sling a pair of fishnets and some tiny, tight black shorts into my backpack. I won’t wear them, of course: I’m too shy about showing my body these days, but packing them ‘just in case’ makes me smile. And sometimes you just have to do the things that make you smile. Maybe if you keep doing that over and over, one day you’ll turn around and realise your life makes you happy.

There are a lots of those kinds of smiles at Glastonbury: that’s what a festival’s for. You pitch your tent with people who make you grin, then dance with them to music that captures your heart. You watch comedy that makes you laugh, eat and drink and indulge in other substances based purely on what will bring you the most joy in this moment. You can plan a little, if you like, to make sure you’re ready to rock out to this band you’ve loved for years, or be hyped up at the Pyramid Stage in time for Guns n Roses, but in between you just walk and smile and dance and smile and drink and smile and hug your friends and… yeah. You get the idea.

I smile so much at this festival that I start to regain a little courage. I temporarily forget all the ways I’ve been told I am ugly and messy. Clichéd, overemotional, silly and so fucking weak. My random impulses, which normally seem childish and unimportant, suddenly feel like things I’m allowed to indulge just for fun. I follow the sound of laughter when I hear it. Watch any band whose name is a pun on ‘brass’. Walk miles and miles to find stickers so I can cover up some bigoted graffiti that’s rubbed me up the wrong way, then sit exactly where I am in the sunshine just to feel warm. One morning I spend five quid on a bag of ice so I can hug it while I walk to meet my friends, then hand it out in chunks to the strangers who dance beside us. I do the things I feel like doing, as and when they occur. I take up space when I want to and hide when I’m feeling shy, always following impulses to do things that might make me smile. In this way I manage a whole day without worrying I’ve done something wrong. That I am somehow wrong, and therefore in trouble.

On Saturday night, just before Guns n Roses, I remember the fishnets in my bag and think ‘fuck it, why not?’. I wear those, the black shorts and a lightweight top for dancing, plus a big smile and a few smears of glitter. I hope that by this point I don’t need to apologise again for being a cliché. I wanted to be one, it made me fucking smile.

In the field by the Pyramid stage, loaded down with cider and buoyed up by festival joy, we run into a guy I know quite well. He’s the boyfriend of one of my mates, and not only does he look like he’s just stepped out of a metal gig – black clothes, tight trousers, exceptional tattoos – he also brings a puppyish enthusiasm. Bouncing up, he matches our grins and dispenses hugs and throws up rock horns. Bellows “FUCK YEAH GUNS N ROSES!” then slides neatly into our gang.

I’ve been anxious for so many years I had almost forgotten this feeling: the contentment that comes when you’re certain you won’t be told off. I’m not afraid that I look wrong or act wrong or am wrong. I’m brave and smiling. Surrounded by people who won’t ever criticise or correct me. I’ve already spent three days pursuing my silly desires, so when my good friend’s boyfriend makes a vaguely flirty comment I blurt out my next gut feeling:

“I really want to suck a dick at Glastonbury.”

My best mate overhears, and laughs, and this guy laughs as well. There’s no shame in it, just friendship. Play. In the spirit with which I’ve embarked on everything else this weekend, I hint to this rock-looking man that I’d love to suck his dick. And he replies:

“Let’s make that happen.”

Glee. Smiles. Flirtation. We text his girlfriend for permission. Not because he needs it (he does not), but because I think it would be hot to include her too, even though she can’t be here to hold back my hair while I swallow him. She reassures us that permission isn’t necessary, though agrees it’s quite hot that we asked.

We’ll save it for after the music, though: we’re horny, but rock must come first.

Axl isn’t on great form, though obviously it’s a privilege to get to watch Slash. But towards the end of their set we make tracks, because Fatboy Slim is elsewhere and I kinda feel like hurling my body into a sweaty mass of people. Throbbing and grinding to Eat Sleep Rave Repeat. I want to watch the pretty lights and feel the bass and wave at the sky and grin and then touch and be touched.

The crowd’s too big by the time we arrive, but still… I fucking love it. Being squashed in the scrum in the darkness, knowing that I can just close my eyes and bounce and pulse and let go. Enjoy my mate’s boyfriend squeezing my arse from behind while I wriggle against him. This guy’s not really into Fatboy Slim, he’d prefer us to have stuck with Guns n Roses. But he followed where I and my bestie went, I imagine because it seemed fun in that moment: we’re all here in pursuit of the simple instinct to do what the fuck we want.

For the first time in God-knows-how-long, I don’t give a shit about impressing any men, I settle instead on enjoying them.

When my bestie heads off to rejoin the group I take my prize (I don’t think he’ll mind me referring to him as ‘a prize’ – I hope he finds it hot) back to the tents. On the way we stop off at a weird liminal bar in the middle of nowhere. Drink whiskey and coke and talk about missing his girlfriend – we love her so much.

After drinks, I lead him to my best mate’s tent because it’s bigger than mine. The second we’re in he grabs me by the throat and shoves me onto my knees – the haste of this is like fucks we’ve shared before, and that makes me grin too. The lightning swiftness with which he switches into ‘fuck you up’ mode washes over me like drug-rush as I fumble with his belt and fly, balancing speed and silence in deference to the quiet camp around us. I’m used to making noise with this guy, and I’m used to most of his noises being slaps and spitting and barked orders, but there’s something immeasurably filthier about having to try and stay quiet. He scrapes my hair back from my face as I swallow his dick, gathering it into a ponytail that he grips with both hands while jamming his twitching-hard prick in my mouth. I’m drooling and half-choking yet holding all my muscles tense to avoid any audible gags. The head of his cock punches bruises into my throat, blocking my air with such a fierce-fast rhythm that occasionally I double-tap his thigh. He instantly pulls out when I do this, trailing thick strings of saliva from the taut head to my wet, open lips. I look up at him, grinning, chest rising and falling, panting as quietly as I can manage. He goes at sex with aggression, this dude. That’s very much the core of his charm: he applies festival rules to sex, following his instincts. Picks people to shag who enjoy this kind of brutality. Fucking as fighting. Blow jobs as a challenge.

I slip off my shorts and he kneels down – the tent is big but you can’t really stand in it for long without fucking up your neck. Then I put his hands on my thighs and ask him to tear through my tights: “Go on,” I urge in a whisper, “rip them off.” So he does. Rough, nimble hands making short work of the material. In the dim light I admire the way his muscles tense and tattoos ripple as he yanks at them, then I crouch lower so he can fuck my face some more. Replaying in my head the sound of him trashing my clothes as I once again swallow the full, rock-solid length of him.

At one point I beg him to fuck me. Just a murmured ‘please’ and the rustle of a condom packet. I remember feeling such joy that he could get at my cunt through the tattered remains of my tights and my knickers – just strings of black fabric hanging off my thighs and hips as he thrust inside – me splayed messily across the ground sheet on top of clothes and sleeping bags and wires and Rizlas and other detritus. And although this story will always be told in the way I originally tweeted – the ‘achievement unlocked’ headline that I sucked a dick at Glastonbury – the climax of this evening was not my friend’s boyfriend dumping cum down my throat. It was me gripping tightly to his hips with legs that were knackered from dancing, his hand over my grinning, satisfied mouth and his cock ploughing deep inside me as I silently shuddered and came.

There you go: I sucked a dick at Glastonbury. That’s the story that caused strangers on Twitter to ‘eww’ me and ask about wet wipes. What’s more, for understandable reasons, it made my ex boyfriend uncomfortable. He didn’t like the idea of me writing porn about a past shag, especially with someone I still see fairly regularly. I totally understand why. It must be awkward to read your monogamous girlfriend talking about sucking a different man’s dick, and even if you choose not to read you still know it’s there. Besides, most people never get forced to make that weird choice in the first place. I was convinced though, in my stubbornness, that if I just wrote the damn thing he would soon understand. He’d get that this is worlds apart from the intimate stories I used to write for him, and thematically it’s less about sucking cock than achieving self-acceptance. That’s what I’m aiming for, at any rate.

I recently interviewed Robyn, of Robyn Eats Everything, who has contributed lots of incredible smut to the audio porn project. If you’re interested in sex clubs, one night stands, banishing shame and kicking back against bullshit societal ideas around what kinds of sex are ‘acceptable’, I urge you to join and listen: Robyn’s amazing and I found so many things they said incredibly affecting. One thing that really hit home was this: “I just reached a point in my life where I simply didn’t give a fuck any more. I didn’t care what other people thought of me… Some people might get to [this point] earlier than others, but I had it around five years ago. I became kinder to myself, and more accepting and just dedicated to pleasing myself and living my life the way I wanted to.”

Hearing Robyn say this gave me the same feelings as buying a bag of ice at Glastonbury, or donning a pair of fishnet tights and some festival glitter. Whether it’s telling my friend’s boyfriend that I’d love to suck a dick, or allowing myself to give you this story in all its chaotic detail… that particular day has brought me so many flashes of a feeling that had become far far too rare for me: self acceptance. It washed over me when Slash ripped up the Pyramid stage, reminding me how I’d felt at age seventeen, snogging black lipstick onto a boy while Appetite for Destruction played in the background. That feeling powered me through my bus journey in Europe later that summer, too, and gave me the courage to do other fun things like chat up a man in real life or say ‘yes’ when a woman I barely knew set me up on a random blind date. That festival was the start of me remembering that sometimes I’m allowed to do things just because I want to. It helped me exorcise some of the ghosts who used to tell me I might be in trouble. It allowed me be braver in the weeks and months that followed.

The person my ex met about a month after Glastonbury – the grinning, eager mess who bounced into the pub on our first ever date – couldn’t have grinned so widely if it hadn’t been for that day. As she couldn’t have taken her courage in hand and told him, a mere nine dates later, that she was already in love. I loved him not least because despite his discomfort and the fact that he didn’t understand why I had to spit it out… he told me I should tell this story anyway.

Writing this story down has helped me remember the person I was back then. The ‘authentic self’ therapists bang on about. The person I can be if I stop worrying that I’m annoying or clichéd or somehow in trouble. It’s messy and chaotic and full of too many feelings, but telling you this story makes me smile, just as it made me smile to send that initial tweet: “I sucked a dick at Glastonbury”. And even if it takes the best part of 3,000 words and makes a bunch of strangers go ‘eww’ and recommend wet wipes… sometimes you just have to do the things that make you smile.

Maybe if you keep doing that and doing that, one day you’ll turn around and realise your life makes you happy.