The man who never looked at tits

He remembered the day he made the decision with a clarity that it was shameful he never applied to any other memory, but given the extent to which that one decision had changed his life he supposed that his memory was simply attaching to it the importance it deserved.

It was a bright summer’s day three years beforehand. Summer had wrought its usual magic of conjuring girls into existence who didn’t seem to exist for the rest of the year. Long limbed, clear-eyed and unattainable, and, as such, all the more desirable. He had just turned a gawky and uncomfortable twenty and, if not never been kissed, certainly felt that he was lagging behind the peloton in such matters.

The problem was that this was summer, high summer, flags getting cracked, the air heavy with the scent of municipal flowerbeds, every girl in the street just a garment or two away from shudder inducing nudity, every breast quiveringly restrained by the flimsiest of gauze. It was agony for him. Sex was everywhere and he wasn’t getting any. He wasn’t even, as his mate Ben often complained of being, in the category of I think of you as a brother / friend / insert emasculatory appellation of your choice here. He was, largely, ignored. Smiled politely at or just gazed through by girls en route to an encounter with a man with tinted hair and a smile that came a little too easily.

And that day was the hottest of a very hot summer. His error (though, looking back it struck him as a stroke of tactical genius) was to nip out for a quiet and contemplative lunchtime pint, at precisely the same time as the offices disgorged secretaries by the hundred, loosening hair and losing jackets, and the schoolies steamed provocatively from their gates, shedding ties and undoing buttons. A schoolboy error. The area around the clocktower was, or so it seemed to him, a seething hormonal ocean of untouchable smooth, tan flesh. Panicking, he struck out north, for the relative safety of the pub, run as it was by a short-arsed little Hitler with a droopy moustache no beauty, he felt sure, could intrude there, and it was then that he saw her, or, more accurately, Them.

They were barely contained in a small vest. Large, but not huge, a smooth coffee colour and a cleavage which made him want to sprint forward, bury his head and make raspberry noises with his tongue. They were perfect, he was dimly aware that they were attached to someone, and after marvelling for a couple of moments looked up. And nearly died on the spot.

They weren’t false advertising, she was beautiful. A sleek bob of black hair, dimpled cheeks and lively, sparkling eyes, which he imagined probably danced with a mischievous laughter (or something like that) on those occasions when they weren’t staring at him with a pure and profound hatred. He’d been clocked, and she wasn’t happy. He turned and ran.

It was over a restorative pint that he had his revelation, and from that day forth he never looked at a pair of breasts ever again, unless they were being specifically offered up for his appraisal, which occurred more often than before. He’d look first at the eyes, then at the hair, a look of vague admiration on his face but never more than that, and he would never let his gaze drop below jaw level. Not ever. It was a miracle, really. After a couple of weeks of this he struck up his first conversation with a girl in six months. Her name was Rachel, she was a criminology student with a profound interest in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, a horse that she loved and a seemingly insatiable appetite for Italian food, all of which he discovered whilst studiously ignoring the more obvious facts of the consequences of said penchant, over a couple of meals until permission was granted and he looked at them for a good, long time.