I Remember Erewhon
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I remember Erewhon. I remember the crenelated turrets, towers and 
spires overshadowing a city of unheralded bends and unexpected 
corners and alleyways. I remember the cobbled streets, the gaslit 
esplanades, the flint-studded churches, the winding river, and the 
expansive city square. I also remember the soaring modern edifices 
that truly scraped the sky and which reflected one on another; the 
multi-lane highways-sometimes slow and congested, occasionally 
empty and open, and most often dense with speeding sports cars-
that radiated outwards in ever-widening rings from the city's hub 
alongside elegant apartments, decrepit slums, shadowy lanes 
illuminated by brightly-lit curtained windows, and towards endless 
rows of suburban streets dotted with bus-stops, corner shops and red 
post boxes.

      And weaving about the city, snaking beside the roads, diving 
through the tall buildings, above crossroads and emerging from and 
disappearing into mysterious dark tunnels of promise and dread, were 
railway lines on which chuffed steam trains and sped electric trains, 
diesel trains and trains levitated by the magic of magnetism several 
centimetres above the rails. This spaghetti of railway track 
transported me and everyone else who chose to board the train past 
advertisement hoardings, above dark sinister streets, beside 
monotonous rows of semi-detached and mock-Tudor suburban 
houses, beneath rivers and through ornate, wooded and open-lawn 
parkland that were as integral to Erewhon's enchanted appeal as 
anything on the streets. And it is to the parks-as much as to the 
shopping malls, the cavernous railways stations, the motorway 
intersections and the overarching concrete bridges-that my thoughts 
so often return.
      
      When I was a young boy, racing about with my red toy 
balloon, blue rucksack and silver sneakers, it was Erewhon's parks 
that were most important to me. Only the zoo, the museum and the 
red-and-yellow fast food outlets offered competition to the attraction 
of the varied and always spacious parks that were never far from the 
perambulations of a boy whose greatest source of pleasure was to 
climb the steps and then descend the metal slope of the park's slides. 
But roundabouts, swings and see-saws were only a few of the 
distractions on offer at Erewhon's extensive parkland. There were 
hedges, paths, fences and fields stretching in every direction: from 
the imposing gates that threatened to close at some mysterious 
mythical hour to the bandstands that sometimes presented the .latest 
pop sensation to a remarkably small audience and onwards to statues 
of commanding and impressive figures of authority of which the 
most disturbing feature was that none of the men these statues 
represented, in a sense barely understood at all by me, were any 
longer living: in fact they were in a state of incomprehensible non-
being known as death.
      
      And amongst these statues-some with a noble gaze set to a 
far distant horizon, some abstract in form and at all times both 
pregnant with and absent of meaning-there were statues of women 
startlingly different from real-life women. These statues were of 
women who were not the pink, brown or black skinned women with 
handbags, open-toed sandals and a ready supply of tissues that a 
young boy might otherwise encounter in Erewhon. Nor were they 
like girls who differed only from boys in that they played with dolls, 
didn't watch the same cartoons on TV and never tired of reminding 
you whenever you did something wrong. The women represented by 
these statues were clearly not real people because they were all 
marble-white and almost never wore clothes.
      
      This last observation was of little significance to me during 
my early visits to the city of Erewhon, which in those days was a 
magical place in which a train ride towards playing fields and swings 
and zoos and museums was the chief attraction. But as the years went 
by, these statues that were at first barely glimpsed became 
increasingly centre-stage. The idea of what a woman might be 
became steadily more important to me and the mysteriously austere 
and classical vision of nudity represented by these statues that made 
them seem so distant and unobtainable became increasingly 
irrelevant. Instead, a more lurid, fleshly, Technicolor vision had 
become more prominent. Indeed, everything about women was now 
something altogether different. There was no longer a divide between 
those girls that were much the same age as me and therefore 
inherently uninteresting, and those older than me whose main 
purpose in life was to provide sweets, medicaments and lunch-boxes. 
There was a new species of woman that I was becoming aware of 
and, like everything else that was important to me, this woman also 
inhabited Erewhon.
      
      Her name was Ydobon. And, of course, she'd always been 
there in Erewhon: I'd just not noticed her. She was the girl or the 
woman (probably either and possibly both) I had always glimpsed 
from the corner of my eye. She was like the naked women statues 
because she displayed what the other sex might offer, but different 
from them insofar as her skin was pink, brown or black; her hair was 
in many colours and shades and styled in many different ways; and 
she had a way of smiling that unlike the girls and women I'd known 
before had an impact not between the ears or even in the beating 
heart but more fundamentally and more significantly below the belt 
and above the knees.
      
      I don't remember the time when I first spoke to Ydobon. And 
I don't remember where. It might have been on the sixty-fourth floor 
of the tall buildings that I so often visited simply to stare at the 
vertiginous view below. It might have been in the oddly rural crinkly 
orange wheat fields that interspersed Erewhon's cobbled streets and 
tarmac highways. It might have been on the ferry that crossed the 
broad rivers of Erewhon so quickly traversed by underground train 
but so difficult to cross by other means. And I'm sure that my first 
remarks were stumbling, boastful and embarrassingly juvenile. I'd 
probably attempted to interest her in Star Wars paraphernalia. Maybe 
I'd discussed the intricacies of Premier League Football. Perhaps I 
thought she'd be as interested as I was in the latest Marvel 
Superheroes movie. After all, what girl wouldn't be interested in 
Ironman or the Mighty Thor? 
      
      Curiously, Ydobon was always interested in, even fascinated 
by, me and our early encounters very often climaxed in a warm kiss 
or a tentative grope that left me with an acrid-smelling damp patch 
between my legs that disturbed me when I first became aware of it 
between sheets that otherwise had the odour of conditioner and fart. 
As time went on, these relatively innocent encounters became more 
adventurous, but never proceeded far beyond the bounds of my 
ignorance. There were opportunities for nudity and even an early 
fumbling between the legs, but these were always short-lived and 
curtailed by the increasingly frequent release of warm dampness on 
soft linen that so swiftly became crinkled and stiff.
      
      I would meet Ydobon in so many strange places. At first, they 
were in my more familiar haunts, such as parks and playgrounds and 
woodland paths, but with fresh interests came new and seemingly 
more exciting rendezvous points. These might be shops in the mall: 
as often as likely to be a computer games shop or comic book store as 
a clothes shop or department store (but never, these days, in a toy 
shop or other such childish venues). Sometimes I was with friends 
who would mysteriously fade into the background whenever Ydobon 
came into view. Just as often, we would meet in train compartments, 
multi-storey car parks, public squares (beside imposing statues of 
lions, dragons or horses) and all the other places one could meet by 
chance rather than by design.
      
      Sometimes, Ydobon recognised me. Sometimes it was as if it 
was for the first time. Sometimes we'd been close friends since time 
immemorial. Sometimes it was a brief kiss and tell. And Ydobon 
changed so often. Her hair changed colour and style, as also did, but 
less frequently, her skin-colour, plumpness and height. Her clothes I 
barely remember except where they best allowed vantage of an ankle, 
a knee, a shoulder or even (and this was guaranteed to dampen the 
sheets) a belly-button or the heave of her bosom.
      
      But it was also I who was changing. My voice first cracked 
and then deepened. My awareness of details such as a girl's choice of 
clothes, shoes and hair-style was growing at the same pace as I 
became conscious of my own choice of shirt, trousers, shoes and 
jacket. Ydobon became less generic and more concrete. She had a 
definite twinkle in her eyes. A memorable dimple in her cheeks. A 
slender wrist and long fingers with bracelets that clattered as she 
brushed a hand through hair that was brunette or blonde (and no 
longer merely brown or fair). An ankle that was pleasingly slender 
and a knee that was impressed on my memory as firmly as if it were 
impressed on my groin.
      
      And the time came when Ydobon changed no more. Or only 
by increments. Her hair-colour; her complexion; her small pursed 
lips; her wide-open eyes; her signature phrases: these remained more 
or less the same. She was a more constant companion on my frequent 
visits to Erewhon, whose absence would be a matter for comment. 
And, bit-by-bit, little-by-little, my focus of attention shifted from her 
nose to her lips, from her blouse to her bra and then to her breasts, 
from her knees past the thighs to her crotch, and then, divesting each 
onion shell of feminine vestment to pure, simple nakedness. And 
never before (and never since) had sheer nudity been so exciting, so 
enticing and so desirable. 
      
      And I couldn't get enough of it.
      
      It didn't matter where we were in Erewhon. We could be on a 
busy pavement jostled by hurrying commuters, high above the city 
streets on the top floor of a tall building or, most often, in an open 
field of wheat under a blue sky and our skin baking under a yellow 
sun. But wherever we were, there was nakedness; accompanied often 
by fumbling and thrusting and, more often than not, premature 
release. 
      
      But these golden days of sunshine and simple sexual craving 
and satisfaction couldn't last forever. Just when it seemed that my 
life with Ydobon would stay the same until the end of eternity, all 
changed. Ydobon became more harshly delineated; she became less 
compliant and more argumentative; our encounters became as likely 
to end in conflict and tears as in tender moments of prenuptial bliss: 
until such a time they were never anything other than occasion for 
anger and sorrow and regret.
      
      And then Ydobon as had I known her at that time vanished.
      
      But Erewhon didn't vanish with her. It was still there: a city 
of turrets and towers and cobbled streets, of highways and byways 
and railway sidings, of malls and night clubs and coffee shops and 
pubs. More often than it used to, the weather would change from the 
constant sunshine of my childhood and my happiest early days with 
Ydobon to overcast and drizzly and the city became more gritty, 
neon-lit and sometimes forbiddingly ominous.
      
      It was inevitable that Ydobon would return. But her return 
was hesitant and sputtering. And her new look was more diverse than 
it had ever been before. Her lips were pursed or full, with large 
square teeth bursting forth or a pencil-line of barely glimpsed 
enamel. Her flesh became sometimes opulent, sometimes emaciated, 
sometimes dark, sometimes white tinged with blue. Her eyes were set 
under eyelids that fluttered or barely moved, with irises from blue to 
brown to a scary black. And her body was sometimes easy to take 
(perhaps far too much so) or otherwise unobtainable and therefore the 
more mysterious and desirable. Her bosom rose and fell. Her wrists 
and the arms to which they belonged swelled and withered. Ydobon 
was a woman who pursued me in many guises as Erewhon's 
landscape steadily mutated to provide space for university halls of 
residence, night clubs and concert halls, cafeterias and pubs. 
Sometimes she would be glimpsed through the shadows of the night 
or brightly illuminated by the lights of the night club (only to be 
obscured as the lights swivelled and their attention swerved 
elsewhere).
      
      In those days, there was a chaotic fragmentary dissonance 
associated with Erewhon that spilt over into my encounters with 
Ydobon. Shapes were brighter and more clearly delineated like a 
painting by Gustav Klimt or a sculpture by Jeff Koons. Or they were 
scattered into shards like a Cubist painting. Occasionally, shapes and 
sounds were as abstract and unfocussed as a Jackson Pollock or Mark 
Rothko canvas soundtracked by Peter Br”tzman on saxophone and 
Cecil Taylor on piano. But just as often, the city of Erewhon 
reasserted itself in strong primary colours that Roy Lichtenstein 
might favour and accompanied by the bright and bouncy rhythms of 
Ti‰sto and David Guetta. And where there was chaos in Erewhon, so 
too there was in the many and varied apparitions of Ydobon: who 
somehow managed to move from the Pre-Raphaelite beauty of her 
earlier years to something more like the subject of an Egon Schiele 
painting. She was now a woman of flesh and pungent perfume: 
armpits, crotch and chipped toe-nails. My penetrations into Ydobon 
were now characterised by sweat and struggle. I might focus on the 
metal stud through her tongue or the similarly metallic taste of her 
fillings. I might dive again and again into a pussy that mewed rather 
than purred. I might renounce the front entrance altogether and 
sometimes come to regret my decision, even in Erewhon, where the 
damp warm spot that was once my close friend and companion 
became sullied with other less pleasurable associations.
      
      However, Erewhon was a city that continued to give. The 
wide avenues and narrow streets, the towering modern buildings and 
the ancient mediaeval relics, the railway lines that threaded through 
tower blocks, tunnels and open fields: they still provided plenty of 
opportunities for nocturnal secretion.
      
      Ydobon became steadily less mutable and more reliable. Her 
hair colour became more solidly brunette and had a definite curl to it. 
Her eyes took on the steady green-brown they've remained ever 
since. Her skin settled on a slightly olive pink. Her voice became as 
memorable a part of her as every other feature and in a sense less 
prone to shift and vary. Compared to the Ydobon I'd once known or 
the many versions of her that I'd got to know as I'd frequented the 
night clubs of Erewhon, she was perhaps less exhilarating. These 
days, Ydobon was not the kind of girl (or even the kind of woman) 
who would shriek in triumphant recognition as a tune by the Swedish 
House Mafia or Avicii stormed across the dance floor and pushed 
aside all the other contenders for my attention. She wasn't the kind of 
girl who'd start the evening with a line of coke, follow by a tab of E 
and finish with a potent mix of skank and whiskey. She wasn't the 
kind of girl who, even when we met in Erewhon, would tear off her 
clothes literally in wild abandon, grab my erect penis between her 
teeth and pummel me into total and absolute submission. She was no 
longer as intoxicating as strong liquor, as electrifying as a DJ's break 
or as numbing as a legal high.
      
      But on the other hand, however relatively unexciting Ydobon 
might now be, however much even in Erewhon she would now no 
longer let herself loose, she was a steady reliable anchor which 
moored me to a less chaotic version of Erewhon.
      
      There were fewer streets I chose to roam in the city now. I 
steered clear of the dark alleyways, the lurid lights of the night club, 
and the sticky table surfaces of the city pubs. I favoured a different 
kind of shopping experience in the city's malls. I discovered clothes 
shops in Erewhon I'd never known existed before. I took more 
pleasure at sitting by Ydobon on a bench on the station platform 
where we'd watch the trains go by but most of all talk with the 
woman who I now recognised more as a wife than as a girlfriend or a 
brief encounter. 
      
      And it was about that time that Erewhon began to fade. I still 
visit it on occasion, of course, but I am more likely now to visit other 
places that are less thrilling for a younger man and more suited to 
someone with children, a mortgage and a steady but secure job. And 
the Ydobon I've got to know so well is now no longer a nobody in 
any sense of the word and no longer to be seen in Erewhon and 
probably was never meant to even visit. She is more likely to be 
found in other places that my younger self could never imagine 
visiting (even in my dreams). These are places that are child-friendly, 
provide healthy options and may even offer family discounts.
      
      But Erewhon is still there. It is always waiting for me to 
return should I ever feel the need. And, of course, no one can be sure 
what the future may bring.
      
      But if I should ever visit Erewhon as often as I once did, the 
city would be a different place. It would be less magical, less 
fantastical, more mundane and much more slow-paced. It might be a 
place for chance encounter as it once used to be. It might be a place 
for adventure and wonder and exploration. But it would be full of 
women who (like the ones I meet on my relatively infrequent visits) 
are older, wiser, less excitable and whose voices are more prominent 
than their physical features. And Ydobon would now be a very 
different creature to the Ydobon I once knew. She would be scarred 
by life's experiences. She would be wise in her ways and 
understandably wary of chance and fortune.
      
      But as I roll over under the sheets and gaze lovingly at my 
wife as she breathes softly beside me, I hope that I need never again 
have to get to know the Erewhon I still remember so well.