My wife had a little rubbery toy she used to pleasure herself with. I used it too occasionally. It resembled an octopus, lots of dangly tentacles and a largish, smooth head. We called it Tommy.
We liked Tommy so much that we also took him along on our travels. A big mistake, now I realise. It ruined our last holiday.
We were in Istanbul. Staying at an absolutely charming boutique hotel in the old city. From the windows, I could see a small square dotted with touristy shops and the ubiquitous presence of a mosque not too far away. My wife had gone out for a bit to explore on her own and do some groceries, particularly the delicious-looking plums we had spotted earlier at a greengrocer. I fell asleep to the lull of the sounds from the square. Then the horrible, unimaginable thing happened! Tommy came to life! I woke up in fright to loud giggles and shrieks. I looked around, imagining my wife deliriously happy after her outing, waltzing in the room like Maria from West Side Story. But no, it wasn’t my wife. There wasn’t anybody in the room. Yet the loud noises were clearly not coming from the street but were inside. I even checked the smoke alarm, thinking it might be how the Turkish fire warnings operated. It was really that loud. What first sounded like one woman’s moan and screams during sex became a chorus of perhaps a dozen women panting, moaning, screaming, interrupted with shrill bursts of laughter.
“Tommy!” I yelled out. It was the only reassuring thing that sprung to my mind in my hapless confusion. “Where are you, Tommy?”
I cautiously got up and walked towards the door. The entire commotion was happening at the doorstep of my room. Then I saw Tommy. He had squeezed through the antique keyhole, half his body in and half out, entertaining the hotel guests. The screaming women were gathered in the hotel corridor by my door. I had known that octopi were intelligent and sensitive creatures, but had never expected this much. For a brief moment I felt proud that I owned such an intelligent and entertaining toy. But my feelings quickly gave way to apprehension. We had caused a huge commotion in the hotel. The management could possibly call the police. We could be deported or worse still jailed indeterminately. This was Turkey after all. No one was going to believe that I had had nothing to do with the events. Tommy, sensing my agitation, tried to squeeze through more to free himself to the other side and join the chorus of giggling women. I grabbed it from its tentacles just before it could escape. I had to tug it hard until I forced it out from the keyhole, and Tommy fell onto the floor. He was covered in blood.
“Why did you do this to me?” he said, “They loved me.”
I was shocked that he could also talk and sounded so despondent. Before I had time to recollect myself and face the bloodied sight of Tommy, he swiftly slid out to escape through the threshold of the door. I never saw him again.
When my wife returned, I was still shaken by what Tommy had done. I told her the whole incident. I said I was asleep and woke up to women having sex. I was hoping she would take me into her arms and console me. She didn’t believe me. Even after she searched for Tommy and couldn’t find him, she still wouldn’t believe me. She became more adamant and furious, thinking that I had hidden Tommy to bolster my story. She said it was all my fault. I had flirted with everyone from the moment we had arrived at the hotel. No, no, even before, I was already flirting on the plane. I was a womaniser, everybody knew that.
Needless to say, our holiday never recovered from this incident. It was also to be our last.
