Tuesday, 21 May 2013

The Portaloo (beware: not for the squeamish)

Festivals are funny places. With a free flow of alcohol, dancing and our favourite music, it’s no wonder we sometimes take the opportunity to comport ourselves outside of what is considered the ‘norm’.

Picture the scene: my then-boyfriend Harry and I had landed at a music festival, after travelling around Europe with several friends. Skint students at the time, accommodation throughout the trip had consisted of a variety of hostels, with three to six bunkbeds in each room, and virtually no privacy. My relationship with Harry was highly physical, it was a very hot summer, and we were both more than ready to jump on each other as soon as the opportunity arose.

On our first night at the festival, we were dancing in a field to reggae music, drinking cheap cocktails and ‘feeling the love’, if you want to put it that way. Imagine the dilemma: some friends were already back at our shared campsite, the fields were full of party-goers and there was no obvious privacy for miles... except... “No”, I told him. “We can’t!” But eventually desire won out and we made our stealthy way to the line of reeking portaloos.


Don’t ask me what possessed me to do it. Usually, I’m a clean freak who can’t go two hours without washing my hands. But, I did it. I told him I wasn’t going to touch a thing in there, so he sat on the closed loo seat and I straddled him, one foot on either side of the raised ‘throne’. Luckily, the relief of having some release after so long soon made me forget where we were; I could have been in heaven or... well, I’m struggling to think of a place worse than a portaloo here, but you get the idea.
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 Suddenly, my worst nightmares were confirmed: moving my hand away from its position on the shoulder of his white T-shirt, I noticed a dark patch where it had been. Now you have to bear in mind that this was at night, in a small enclosure, so I was all but blind. But there, on his shoulder, was the unmistakeable dark smudge. “No”, I thought: “No, this isn’t happening to me!” I had to be sure so, tentatively, I lifted my hand to my nose, waiting for the putrid smell of someone else’s poo. But it didn’t smell! Inebriated and confused, it took us another minute or two to realise that between our bodies, creeping up the fabric of both of our T-shirts, was more of the dark substance.

As you can imagine, that killed the mood, and all we wanted to do was head back to camp and shower. So, one by one, we snuck out of the portaloo onto the path leading towards ‘home’. Only then, under the clarity of the floodlights, did we see that it was blood. My first thought was that I’d come onto a freak period, but there was far too much of it for that. It was dripping down my legs in two sinister streaks, soaked into both of our clothes, running down my arms and even in my hair. I’ve never seen so much in my life. We looked like we’d just murdered someone.

Reaching the showers before our camp, we both headed into the freezing water, fully-clothed, shame-faced and completely mystified. I was having some pretty scary thoughts when, through the shower wall, Harry shrieked. Running into his shower, I found him staring at his foreskin, which had torn away from the head. I believe they call this phenomenon a snapped ‘Banjo string’.

Needless to say, that was as far as our holiday lovemaking, or any for a long time after that, went. Was it worth it? Probably not, although Harry always was a bit highly strung...


love... V

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