"Another Melody"
by
Timothy Stillman
(the following story is, very vaguely (obviously) based on imperfect memories of the first half of a tape of the movie, "Melody", 1970-- With Mark Lester and Jack Wild--and Tracy Hyde as Melody. Story and screenplay by Alan Parker. Directed by Waris Hussein. A British Lion Film; Cattulus Productions. This is an unauthorized version of how the movie should have gone, but I have little doubt did.
Melody said, "don't be shy, baby `k?" As she took her hand and touched my penis through my jeans, and it sprouted even more, of course. And I forgot about her calling me baby, way too damned confused Melody had just done this. I've never liked that--being called baby. Mum calls me baby all the time. I've told her and told her to stop it, but she would rather say that than eat kippers, so balls to her.
And her touching me, and the insinuation in her voice? Where did that come from? She called Mark that all the time, now that she's Mark's gel and all. She was sexy with him. But never with me. We're at the end of our final form. Going off on to college I suppose. Least Melody and Mark are.
Let me tell you some things at this point: Me, I'm a foundling, in my soul at least. Me mum don't have the scratch and me dad died when I was eight. But Melody and Mark have parents who have the dough. And I don't and that's the way life is for scruff of the necks like me. My name's Jack by the way. I like to drink vodka when Mark buys some for me. He used to. He wanted to be my friend. But he was all sweety poo and all of that, looked like a gel and all dandified and scared and awkward. He was my shadow. But he gave me money.
I let him. It was his decision, after all. But I got to like him well enough and then he lays his peepers on this gel Melody and he falls for her right off, and I think well hell he's not got the stuff to be taken in by her, and it kind of confused me, `cause I thought he was a fag, if you want to know the truth of it. But he falls for her and she falls for him, and I see me holding the bag and not getting money from Mark no more, and I was mad, though I tried not to let Mark know. For, you see, it's funny--I was chasing him down school corridors, hey Mark, wait up a bit, and so recently, it had been reversed and I wanted to tell him to bugger off, but I just couldn't bring myself to. When the Melody thing is over, he will have no more friends again. So I have to be there for him. Don't I?
I was being right gentlemanly about it all, I thought. But he was running to Melody standing there, demure like, holding her books in her hands, shielding her golden snatch. And they laughed and danced about a little, when he reached her and he never heard me saying wait up. I was just between gels at the time.
But he was an ok kid as kids go. He was my age but I'm lots older and I just like to get a drink when I can and go all dreamy thoughts in my head and that's fun, cause there's Mark and there's Melody and they can't get out of sight of each other or they will go bonkers. I never seen them touch, `cept like kids half their ages do, and I never knew Melody knew I was around--it was embarrassing, this miniature toff going steady with this really pretty girl with the brown eyes and the black shoulder length hair, but she's real looking. you know; she looks like a really pretty human being, while Mark looks like some teen girls' cuddle doll, kind of unreal like. Me? I've got strong features and long coal black hair. I got me Cockney accent, and proud of it. Mark and Melody more la de da in their speaking.
My nose is a bit big, but my face is kind of, you should excuse the self advertisement, kind of regal. And I've got a good voice and a pleasing personality.
So obviously, Melody must go for that dreamer type and that type that if you wants the truth, doesn't seem to have much substance inside him. He would sit for hours on a Sunday afternoon just staring up at the summer sky, lying on the ground at Hyde Park or somewheres, dreaming up at the sun, like a bleedin' old man, really, he seems like a bleedin' old man inside himself. He says Melody is his dream come true, and he goes kind of goony eyed when he says it. And Melody was just drifting through with a smart head on her shoulders for sure and right, but with Mark she has achieved substance, while he is more of a balloon floating through the sky than ever before.
And Melody touched me that golden evening on Delaney Street, near a pub where I sometimes used Mark's money to get some old rum dum to go in and bring me out a refreshment. There's a little green sward next to it, not a park or nothing, just a little green grass break from the cement and steel and glass of London town. And we're sitting there in the late summer afternoon, late enough for the sun to be going down, and no one round really, and Melody was sitting staring at Mark, with her legs curled up under her skirt, and Mark was sitting in his plaid shirt and his gray shorts and soft shoes, with his pencil thin legs stalked out in front of him, all pale and wan. And they were caught up as usual in each other. Virgins.
It's what they are. I know they haven't done it. Cause they are in, pardon the expression, love, and they don't want to spoil it. I think Melody wouldn't mind some from him, but Mark is scared to death. Me? Oh I lost me virginity a long time ago. Girl my mum knew who baby sat me one night when Mum went off on the town with some money she saved up from work; long ago, she's on the dole now, and finds the never never and our crummy flat easier than working, just her all day noshing and the telly on and her just sitting there in the flat easy chair, getting horsier and horsier. Anyways... this teen girl was baby sitting me and she asked me if, this was while we were watching telly, I knew what to do with my penis, and I was pretty young so I had never heard it called that, and I kind of brushed her off with my hand at my ear kind of to let her know I'm interested in the movie that's on, and she asks again, kind of a sweet girl, really, and I shrug.. ..adult as far as I was concerned....don't like `em...didn't then either..but really she could not have been more than a couple of years older than me, and should not be baby sitting, but she was and there's the situation of it.
So I look at her at the other end of the spring broken sofa that was already an inch from the floor, that broken, and she reached over and put her hand on my shoulder and I looked at her and got this bumfuzzled thing inside me and she said we could have a good time, she's heard things about sex and the penis and stuff, and she thought it would be a good thing to try it out, and I had of course heard of sex, been in some circle jerks with my mates, but never thought of it as sex, and then remembered that the dick was also known as the penis, and she was shy, this gel, but kind of bold in her shyness, and she was a mite pretty, thin and a nice face and little breasts that kind of struck me fancy, and I felt my dick--my penis--gotta be grown up you know, though penis sounds like such a childish word, but that's the official name, so anyway she put her hand on my arm and brought me to her...didn't have to try too hard, and I felt my penis stiffen and I would have felt embarrassed if I weren't such a rough and tumble kind of fellow. I had already been in a lot of fights and bested most of them, or at least gave as good as I got.
But I was a mite nervous and I did move awkwardly, for me that is, toward her and she put her arms around me and she brought her face to mine and she touched my penis and it was stiffer than ever before and it had been pretty stiff before, but only when I was by myself and she kissed me and I quite liked it; the taste of her lips and her orange lipstick; the smell of her perfume and her mascara that was a bit much for a gel her age, and she put my hands kind of shaky they was but getting steadier, on her boobs and she wasn't wearing a bra and I felt her nipples hard under my hand and she unzipped me..and pulled me penis out and I loved the feel of her hand warm and soft and friendly like on my naked curvy dick--
--"Oh, he's a proud one, he is" and she laughed and made me feel warm all over, and she stroked it and I kissed her real deep like and I was pulling down her blouse and it was more than a little all right to see her naked chest...and I was off in memory reverie of that, had to think of something while I was kneeling having a smoke while Mark and Melody stared goonily into each other's eyes and not saying a word to each other, when Melody still looking at Mark reached back to me and touched me, like I said before, and I was already horny, thinking I was back then with that baby sitter, then I kind of came to, and the shock of what had just occurred, I didn't think she had even registered my name when Mark introduced us, made me fall on me bum. All saucer eyed for Mark and all. And now, what was this? Believe you me, it was a situation I had never been in before--me a hanger on...odd thing...and I hated it.
And I closed my eyes when I fell, and when I opened them a second later, I saw Melody and Mark now sitting beside her, and they were looking at me real curious like, and they were smiling and I got right angry. Okay, I had grown to like Mark, I ain't a fag by God, but he was a kid needed looking after in this great big bad old world and Melody would not last forever, for Mark was the kind of kid a dreamy girl falls for cause they're both kids, but she needs someone with depth and character and smarts on how to get money and make it in the world and not be on the dodge all the time, and that would be me.
Mark was already yesterday's memory. Only neither of them knew it. Mark, weeping. Mark, laughing. Mark, confused. Mark, pixilated. Mark, sexualized. Mark, embarrassed. How the features of his face worked and how he always looked timorous and how he always looked as though he were about to be beaten half to death and he was always crumbling inside himself, from the fear that gave him, when there was absolutely nothing to fear, and how his face was interesting in every expression on it, how, Melody at least, liked looking at it and the complexity of it and how his muscles worked and how they worked when he smiled or when he was curious and how the skin round his eyes crinkled not at all but smoothed out in a soft of buttery way when he frowned, and how angelic he looked when his eyes closed and he seemed asleep and you just could not look at him long enough or close enough.
Now that's what Melody saw. And imagined. I imagined. I am good with empathy, you see.
So I got back on my one knee, dusted my butt off, kind of casual like, and picked up my still burning cig from the grass and put it back in my mouth, my head fuming with steam of embarrassment and I told them flat out I did not have to be here but they were babes in the woods and you don't go around embarrassing your protector cause you would not last five minutes without him and I covered for them the day they went to the fun fair and I went through that mock marriage ceremony they kept bubbling me about and I finally gave in and was the preacher and they kissed so tenderly and cute for about half a second I would have rather had boils on my butt that see anything quite that icky poo again in my life.
And they were giggling at me and I stood up and walked away from them. I was still hard though, couldn't get that baby sitter out of my mind, forget, Melody, who needs her?, or him, for that matter?, let them both suffer the crack up alone--see if I care--
--though as it turned out we were no babies; me or the sitter; I remembered--we were both tearing our clothes off in a trice, and we were holding each other and examining each other and it felt so good being handled by her and she said she loved me a million times over, and though I knew we were just caught up in the emotion of the thing, I said so too, as I kissed her budding breasts and they were so warm and soft and I just wiped my whole face in them and she examined me uncut dick and said it like had a little flesh jacket on it, and could she pull the jacket down?
And I said, cough, cough, be my guest, real gentleman like, and I held my torso up for her so she could pull me foreskin down and marvel at what was no longer hidden and touched it all over and rubbed it some as I examined her and found what girls are like down there and it was a great evening and we totally forgot the movie and we lost our virginity to each other; she said my dick hurt her at first, but that was the rules of the game, and she explained it to me, though she didn't have to, but I pretended not to know, and we had the sex thing twice and we lay naked for a time on the couch and then on the floor where there was more room and the flat wasn't dirty or run down or filled with summer dust or dirty window panes, or shameful anymore, it was like a tent on the soft hot desert, all beautiful robed and sunset purple and yellow and blue and it was so good to nuzzle on her, and she asked if after we washed up a bit if she could...and I said `cause she didn't want to say it so I said it for her...suck me knob? And we giggled and she nodded. And I said let's get the loo stuff over and she said, so quick? And I said, so quick. And off we ran.
I stood up and smoked my cig and walked away from Mark and Melody. Even their fuckin' names were cute. Damn. I had just got a few steps when Melody asked me to wait up a sec, and I stopped, not really wanting to, and the night was finally coming on and I was eagle eyed to see if someone had some money to buy me something from the pub, since Mark spent all his money on Melody and Melody spent all hers on Mark. I stood with my back toward them.
Melody said, and her voice was true to her name, beautiful and melodic, but this time, something else as well--somewhat halting, hesitant; it didn't occur to me till later they must have rehearsed this a long long time, "Jack, look, we've been selfish. I know you and Mark are friends. Were, before I came along." And I thought yes, right you are about that, thanks for reminding me, gel. And she continued, "Jack, Mark and I are in love." I snorted a bit. God, my throat was dry. I tossed the cig down on the grass and crushed it out with the toe of my boot. "And we've hurt you." You bloody well have, you two gits. But I started to deny it, but Melody put her hand on my shoulder. "We're asking you something, Jack...we're asking you forgive us.." I said "no need; didn't even notice.." and Melody asked me to turn to her, so, very reluctantly I did so.
Me mum would be wanting me home soon to fix her damn sausages; she was such a lazy old bat, she could only bring herself to get to the fridge for beer; none of which she let me have, but I had to cook for her, `cause she couldn't stand on her legs except long enough to make the beer run of about seven steps to the fridge and back to the TV. And the baby sitter never came back. Mum went on the dole soon after that. And I saw the girl with a boy at school one day and I said, "Uh..hi"--kind of shy, just pretending you know, to be a little kid like she thought I had been, and the boy with her knocked me flat and I beat the living shit out of him and he broke my nose and I got tossed out of school for a couple of days and the girl was so mad at me, she would not talk to me she could not tell me she was so mad at me and would not talk to me. And Mum had a purple hissy with the fringe on top, I should say she did.
And then I heard Mark's high girly voice that trembled a bit as did he, pretty much all the time, waif, Oliver Twist, and me his Artful Dodger, "Jack. Please, will you...we don't know...we don't want to get it wrong...we..." And I turned to them, and Mark's peaches and cream face was blushing, and he and Melody were both looking at the ground. "Oh," I said, real put off by the whole bleedin' lies they was handing me--"come on; chipmunks know how to do it. Don't hand me this stuff. You both ain't that damned pure. Bugger off." And I started to walk away. God, my throat was so dry it was sore. and Mum would be mad as coots if I didn't get home soon, her big gut angry for being empty, and Mark or Melody, I honestly could not tell which, they even sounded alike, I turned from them, said, "Jack, we want you to teach us what you know, everything; we've done a few things...but mostly, we want you with us..get it?" Oh good, now, they are a charity hospital. And I told them so. And I told them to leave me alone. And I was crying and could not turn round to look at them.
I wasn't crying aloud or making a big to do about it like Mum does at the cast changeover on "Coronation Street"--she carries on like they dropped dead or something, stead of getting better work or their ratings drop or they get too damned old. Course some of the actors really do die. Even them. Fancy. So they couldn't know I was crying. I didn't even know why. Only times fore this I could remember crying was after a fight and I waited till I was by myself to do that. And even then I didn't do that often.
Melody was saying, "I like your dick, you know. I liked to touch it. And Mark...come on, please, we don't have the words." Stunned to hear that from her, all warm toast and butter and clear skin and Saturday morning, Melody, sweet song Melody. I never thought her mouth so pretty could say those words, have those thoughts. She did say "dick" didn't she? Where had she heard?...No, not from Mark. They really were pure as the proverbial driven snow it did seem to me. It was like imagining hearing Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck in a swearing match. I recovered, a bit, in a moment.
And I said, "I kill people who attempt to make fun of me." And Mark, I think it was, said, "there's a place we got picked out behind the Funfair. It'll be dark almost by the time we get there." And I turned to them. Forgetting I had been crying and my eyes red, though dry eyed now. "We don't want you to be alone, Jack. And we want, we truly want, to make up for things." And she seemed to mean it. And Mark was standing beseeching beside her, but he always looked like that, and he always looked kind of sexy, if you were Melody or anything, and Melody looked, like always, very pretty and very real to Mark's very pretty and very Sassy pin up, but they were both real enough. And I stumbled around a bit, smoking another fag and said, "Got some money for me in this?" And one or the other said, aggrieved, "What?" I said it again. Mark said, "go away, then, and to hell with you." And I said, "So, what have you two done with each other so far?"
Well, when I hear the phrase, there was a pregnant pause, I now know exactly what it means. It was more like a two babies nine months apart pregnant pause.
When they got the nerve, Melody went first; the gels always do, it seems, she, biting her lip, avoiding my eyes, and a bit later on Mark, oddly, a bit bolder now than she, told me: they hadn't seen each other naked, but they had felt each other up, and though Melody had gotten Mark to unbutton his pants and she had masturbated him, he had never seen what she had, and they had lain together and rubbed against each other and she had let him feel her butt under her panties, and she had made him cum twice and he had had nice cum and she had tasted it... So, the pregnant pause was in my court. We were all quite stunned by these words. And the saying of them. By all of us really. Kind of turned me on. And the images of them doing these things.
They seemed turned on by them too. Mark did not crumble into himself. Should have. But his face shone happy and brightly and proudly as the sun. He smiled hugely. And we smiled at him in return. Could not help it. Corny as it seems.
I said, "But you haven't fucked?" I know at that moment Mark's dick started to harden. I saw it noticeably swell in his shorts. Hey, Mark, not a bad dick you got there. And Melody, in a total world of her own, sighed. Ahhhh....
They took a minute to compose themselves. So did I. Our minds weren't on having a conversation. "Or sucked him off?" No. Shaking moppet heads. Eyes downcast. "And you haven't done her?" I asked. My voice a little squeaky. Mark said, his hand outstretched a bit, embarrassed again, wanted me to stop, it was suddenly actual, it had really happened, they were really telling me, and more, and he felt guilty, "We haven't--that--we just said." "No, I meant, the other ways of doing her." And they both looked confused. Melody said, "With his hand?" Interest flashed in her eyes. "Girls can't do it with their hands." Mark said that so sure of himself it made me smile. And Melody turned to him and said, "A lot you know, luv." Which really confused him. He looked so endearing, when confused.
And I said," And the other way." And they both turned to me, both excited, seeming over their shyness--the awkwardness being oiled and loosened and more comfortable as this went on; what had seemed like a duty, no matter how pleasurable, now seemed to be, turned by me of course, a lark. And Melody said, "There is no other way. Those are the only two." I smiled, a bit devilishly. And I said, "Wrong, old girl." And we stood in silence. Mark holding hands with Melody, and I didn't mind seeing that anymore, `cause they wanted me to be a part of it for a while, and when you really stop and think about it, why should that be such a shock to a randy sex monster like me anyhow, I ask you? And they looked at me and then at each other. And we all started laughing. And now our circle was three.
"What is it?" Mark and Melody said each.
"Show you."
One of us said, "Race you to the back of the Funfair" and we all started running. Mark was ahead of us, running as hard as he could. His blonde hair long and flowing in the wind he made on this warm almost evening. I could have raced in front of them both, but manners and all, and I didn't want to embarrass him and his athletic prowess in front of Melody who was beside me, running, and she put her hand in mine, and we smiled those smiles people do at the end of happy movies, and we raced through the London night, past the pubs and the shops and the organ grinder and the panhandlers and the red double-decker busses, and the other traffic and passing by people walking down the streets, existing in their drab little worlds, with nothing at all in front of them. And us, me and my friend and my friend's gel off to a series of wild adventures and it was to be even more glorious than I had imagined.
All secret like. In the shadows behind the Funfair. Safely hidden behind a wooden wall. With the happy music and the rejoicing sounds of candy butchers hawking their wares, and the screams and laughs and shouts of kids on rides, the human sounds of just plain being alive, and the general merriment of the place. The background for our evening.
It was moonlight and magic and a fairyland world it seemed, to eye and ear, where they took off their clothes, and she touching Mark's already stiff penis and he touching the tip of her left breast, solemn they were, serious, seeming even prayerful, and held each other, clothed in themselves, and then, with my aiding them, they lay on the ground, and there in front of my lusting eyes was Mark having Melody there on the grass tufts.
I honestly never saw anything more beautiful in my life--his creamy little girl like butt moon light painted, going up and down as he pumped his not unimpressive dick into her, twice, their kissing and her stroking his chest and he tenderly cradling her breasts, as her legs wrapped around him, and I just had to hold to hold his warm curvy butt for a time, keep him steady was the reason, as he came and she sighed after the gentle hurt of her hymen being broken, and they held to each other so tightly I thought they would be stuck together forever, and they moaned and kissed and came together even more. Later, me naked as well, and both of them stroking my dick and my balls, lazy and free, all of us, Melody guided me into him. Mark almost screamed. I held still. And he said, could I have some more, please?, and I guided my dick in further, and I held his ass as I fucked him, and he gritted his teeth and fisted his hands and sighed hard and deeply, and both of us came as I pumped into him, and leaned back trying to kiss my face, and he pumped into Melody's hand all that beautiful Mark stickiness. Then, they started pounding me with what was the other way of bringing Melody off? I said: "Mark, extend tongue." He did. I said, "Melody, extend vagina." She did. I said, "Let the games begin." Whoa.
They were quite amazed at that. Then it was my turn--Mark held me, guided me in, as I fucked Melody and though she was not as tight and warm as Mark's butt, she was moist and she knew how to press my penis and make me squirt. And we lay together naked, wriggling, giggling, feeling each other, touching here, kissing there. Our own particular buttercup chain.
I was so excited, I didn't even think of a drink till I got home way way late, and my mum screaming about not having her boiled sausages, and she wanted some bubbles and squeak, but we didn't have none, and the next check a week away, so I fixed her boiled sausages without a word and helped her off to bed, heavy useless old cow, "ungrateful street urchin," she called me and she tumbled into sleep, and I lay on the sofa and brought myself off again that night. And I thought I'm the luckiest boy in the whole world. And I was too. As I drifted off into the best sleep I was to have in ages, I thought, which one do I love the most? Mark or Melody.
Then decided as I drifted away. Both.