King of the World

(contains sexual themes and language)

“It’s all right, darling,” his wife whispered.

Richard lay staring at the ceiling, crestfallen at his most recent failure.

“We can try again later,” his wife went on, stroking Richard's hair gently, with love.

Richard grunted and flipped onto his side, with his back to his wife, leaving her hand and affection stranded in mid-air.

*****

“Why the long face, man?” Denis asked; Richard had been subdued all evening.

“Ah, something at home.” Richard took a long draught of his beer, as if this would put an end to the questioning.

“Really? What?”

“Personal stuff, Den.”

“Not getting enough?”

Richard looked sideways at his best friend; his expression told Denis that although he was wrong, he was warm. The penny dropped.

“Ah, that…”

Richard said nothing, effectively confirming the guess. Instead, he got up, collected the glasses, and went to the bar.

By the time he returned with two more beers, he’d made up his mind to see if his friend had any ideas. It was going to hurt – men don’t normally confide in each other about these things – but truth be told, Richard was getting a little desperate and needed a solution asap. There was really no one else he could talk to about it … apart from his wife, and that would be a last resort.

He placed one beer on the table in front of Denis and took a swig from his own glass as he sat. Denis put a hand on Richard’s shoulder and tried to assume a sympathetic expression.

“Listen, there are loads of men who go through this,” he said.

“You’ve gone through it then, have you?” Richard asked.

“Me?!” Denis scoffed. “Not on your life! I’m norm--…”

He screeched to a halt, realising he’d been on the point of flying through Sensitivity Junction without stopping.

“I’m normally okay in that respect,” he said, hoping that he’d corrected himself in time to spare his friend’s feelings.

“I don’t know what to do,” Richard bleated, apparently oblivious to Denis’s near-faux pas.

“Those blue pills?” Denis said.

“Not sure my ticker would take it,” Richard said. “I’ve read up on it on-line. And I’ve got low blood pressure too – that’s another red flag.”

“So the doc, then?” Dennis suggested. “He can tell you what’s wrong.”

“It’s a she,” Richard said with a shrug.

“So what?”

“So I wouldn’t be able to tell her,” Richard said. He noticed the woman at the next table leaning towards them slightly, evidently trying to eavesdrop; he lowered his voice. “I mean, I can’t even talk to the wife about it!”

“Don’t be daft! That’s what doctors are for,” Denis remonstrated.

“Nah,” Richard said.

The two friends concentrated on their beers now. Denis wanted to change the subject after having exhausted his ideas for a solution, so change it he did.

“How’re things at the museum?”

Finding the discussion of his problem as difficult as he’d feared, Richard welcomed now the chance not to address it. He told Denis about the new exhibition of South American artefacts that was to open the following day at the Museum of Anthropology, where Richard was a security guard.

*****

“You take the main room,” the manager told Richard.

He changed into his uniform and made his way along the central corridor until it opened out into an airy space with a high ceiling. On the white walls were tapestries, brightly-coloured blankets, and tools and weapons mounted on hooks. Against the walls, in Perspex cases of various sizes, were beaded necklaces, carved wooden boxes, pots with intricate designs, plates, utensils…

Richard strolled around the room, reading cursorily the information on the descriptions for each exhibit. At the same time, he kept one eye on the trickle of visitors; there was no suggestion that they might try to steal or damage anything, but it was his job to make sure that didn’t happen.

Once he’d exhausted the outside of the room, he moved on to the middle. There were larger pots and a couple of carved wooden heads, but taking pride of place was something that had Richard transfixed.

Bang in the middle, under Perspex, was a large, erect phallus in terracotta, the case balanced on a transparent plastic stand. It was lit subtly to bring out the rich red of the clay and the line of semi-precious stones running from base to tip. Richard got closer and saw that on the other side of the shaft from the stones were various symbols, indecipherable to him.

He peered at the legend on the case and read:

Mayan fertility symbol, circa 500 CE.

Richard would have liked more information, but he stood back anyway to admire the sheer power of the artefact.

At that moment, a young boy came running past, chased by a mother at the end of her tether.

“Danny, you come back here this instant!” she cried.

Richard grabbed a hold of the boy’s arm but his momentum sent him spinning against the case Richard had been observing.

The stand wobbled … about to fall, Richard thought. He released the boy, who scampered away down the corridor, his mother in hot pursuit. Richard grabbed the case to steady it, averting a catastrophe. He breathed a deep sigh of relief and made a mental note to report the incident later.

*****

The next day, Richard worked the afternoon shift and was assigned to the same room again. He saw that the stand bearing the main attraction hadn’t been changed, despite his having informed the manager of the near-disaster with the boy.

Ah well, they can’t say I didn’t warn them, he said to himself.

He spent the afternoon sitting on his chair at the entrance to the room, watching visitors come and go. Occasionally, he’d get up and approach the central exhibit. Each time he did, he experienced a strange sensation: a kind of wave of warmth coursing through his body. It must be my imagination, he told himself.

The day wore on and closing time came and went. When the room was empty, Richard approached the central exhibit once more. This time, though, he knew what he was going to do, and the urge to do it was stronger than him: he lifted the case off the stand, opened it at the base and took out the phallus.

Holding it in his hands, he first felt embarrassment – he had to look around to make sure no one was watching – but then the wave passed through him again, followed by a localized throbbing that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

He giggled at the feeling and quickly replaced the artefact in the case, and the case on the stand, before leaving the room with a spring in his step.

*****

That night, Richard and his wife made love like they were teenagers again – not once, not twice, but several times.

“What got into you, darling?” his wife gasped finally.

“A strange thing,” Richard replied cryptically.

He didn’t know how, but something told him the energy apparently entering his body needed to be replenished. So on subsequent days, Richard made sure to volunteer to cover the main room. At the end of each day, he took the phallus out of the case and held it for a short time, enjoying the warmth and welcoming the throbbing.

And things were looking up at home.

*****

“Things are looking up at home,” he told Denis the next evening in the pub.

“I can tell from your smile,” his friend said. “Was it the pills?”

“No.”

“What then?”

Richard tapped his nose with a finger; he might reveal the secret one day. However, he didn’t want to risk putting the kibosh on his good luck through an indiscretion that might be frowned upon by whichever god was working its magic.

*****

On the Friday, Richard dallied again in the main room at closing time and took out the phallus, just as he had done on the previous days. In his mind, he’d need to hold it for a little longer since the energy had to last until Monday.

He was holding it up to the light, admiring once again the beauty of the stones and the symbols, when…

“Hello?”

Richard spun round to find a visitor – an old woman – standing at the entrance to the room.

He thrust the phallus behind his back, it caught on his jacket, he fumbled it, it fell to the floor … and shattered into tiny pieces, the stones skittering away.

“Oh, dear!” the woman said. “Was that my fault?”

Richard gathered his senses.

“No, no … mine entirely.”

The old woman squinted at him; he was confident that she hadn’t seen what he’d been holding.

“I was in the toilet,” she said, “and when I came out … well, the place was deserted.”

“Yes,” Richard said. “The rest of the staff will be in the changing rooms getting ready to go home. I’ll see you out.”

While he was escorting the woman to the exit, he formulated a plan. He saw her out and hurried back to the room, stopping only to grab a dustpan and brush from the storeroom.

He swept up the pieces of the phallus and poured them into the case, laying the stand and case on the floor as if they’d fallen naturally. Then he switched off the light and made his way to the changing room.

On his way home, he played over in his head what he’d say on Monday; he could refer the manager to the warning he’d given about the precariousness of the stand. He hoped they’d buy it.

But his thoughts soon turned to the phallus, the magic of its energy, the fact that it was no more … and what that would mean to the situation at home.

He needn’t have worried.

*****

“That was … all right, darling!” his wife whispered with massive understatement.

Richard lay staring at the ceiling, glowing from the most intense love-making they had ever experienced together – better even than Friday and Saturday night’s.

“We can try again later,” he said, turning and stroking his wife’s hair gently, with love.

It was Sunday, two nights after the disaster, two nights after he’d last held the Mayan fertility symbol, circa 500 CE, in his hands, two nights after the sensation of what he’d assumed to be some kind of magic spreading through his body. Whether it was or not, perhaps – just perhaps – he could go it alone now anyway. Time would tell, of course. But for tonight at least, Richard felt like a king.

Like the King of the World, in fact.