Several women peed in front of the riot police at the Bristol ‘Kill The Bill’ protest 21ts March 2020. One masturbated standing up in the crowd against the wall of shields, she then either squirted on them or wet herself. The police did not know what to do so they bonked her on the head.
Her friends cried as the shields broke their noses, as bottles flew over their heads and the dogs with jobs barked. She just stood there, amid the chaotic tide, watching those long, thick batons. They pounded again and again in and out of the crowd, they took control. Her innards clenched, pulsing at the idea of them. The air tasted of foreign coins as she moved through it, quicker than her normal pace, she greeted the ground like the unexpected reunion with an old friend.
The gravel pressing through the fabric of my top I felt its indentations on my skin. The crown of my head on the road. Eyes focused yet still glazed I could see the world upside-down, gravel grey sky – dotted with clusters of feet, the legs attached to those feet stretching to bodies dangling from the grey into the blue below. I guess they’d crystalized back into a structure, giving up on the free molecule approach– stronger together and all that – affirming bonds created by righteous belief. I watched them as they pulsed, a confused angry tide not yet ready to break, they hadn't reached the crest.
In front of the barricade of riot police she lay in no-mans-land. Naked legs raised in prayer like arms in a gospel church she displayed her genitalia. Lifting her head she examined the glistening black armor, a uniform sheet of firm haughty discipline. Her hand moved down lazily, as if she was unaware of the laser - like eyes upon her, she began to circle herself.
I was never very good under pressure, in tense situations. Whenever anything awkward happened, I tended to be the one to break the silence, blurting out something completely inappropriate, usually making everything worse. I remembered arguments my parents had over dinner as a kid, I’d be locked in the tension - unable to break it. It made my heart pound and my body tense in a way I now recognize from nights at the pub flirting with strangers. It was never the conflict that stirred me, but the chunky soup of suspense that hung in the air. Yearning to be broken, yet the feeling was so palpable that it was too precious for me to ruin.
She eyed the hard batons, the uniformed bodies, and the slick visors as she entered herself.
They say go to your happy place but get disgusted when I do.
They say I have a problem, ‘an unfortunate compulsion,’ but only in this can I loose myself.