The Curse of the Balls
Prologue
James was pulled out of his mother’s vagina by his left leg. He was gripping her insides with both hands, furious that he was being taken away from the warm and moist habitat into the freezing Scottish air. The birth was difficult and bloody. When James opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the eye of Christ in a stained glass window. It was round and it was green. James was born with tunnel vision, a side effect of his anger.
Although James could see properly on the fourth day of his life, the glass eye of Christ had made a lasting impression. James developed a fascination for all things round and all things green. As he grew older this evolved into a passion for balls: all shapes, all sizes. When James learnt to sit up he discovered that balls could be played with, not just looked at. At first James played with his own balls, that is, his genitals. This got boring. He needed other types of balls, other textures, other sizes.
James’ want for balls was ignored by his parents, so he stuck with the human kind, moving on from his own to his brother’s. The siblings were caught, and separated. David was sent to Fife, to starve, James was sent to England. Eighteen years of prison ensued. James kept himself busy whilst locked up. He combined his two obsessions by inventing the game we now commonly know as tennis.
Joan’s arse was reminiscent of a peach, sliced in two. Each cheek was very round, and put together, the cheeks made for a wide behind, which was connected to two short stumpy legs. Joan was ever so slightly overweight, but this didn’t bother James much.
James’ favourite position for shagging his wife was from behind. Mid-thrust he liked to slap each cheek eighteen times, one slap for each year that he was imprisoned. Another thing which he liked to do was bite on each cheek just as he was about to come. Joan didn’t protest to any of this. She just lay there with her face in the pillow. She’d given James eight children.
James’ favourite time for shagging his wife was just before sunset, when the light was more sympathetic to his wife’s body’s lumps and bumps.
It was Tuesday evening. James had just won a game of tennis with one of their children. He was worked up and sweaty and fancied getting frisky. He summoned Joan to his chambers. She came at once. Joan was now too fat for James to throw her on the bed, but they’d also been together so long that she knew the routine, there was no need for such preliminaries. Joan took off her gown and her corset and her undergarments and got on the bed, face down as always. James already had an erection. He was thinking of someone else.
On the thirteenth slap on the left cheek James heard footsteps. He carried on. On the sixteenth slap they seemed dangerously loud. On the seventeenth the men were in the room. Six of them, all with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other.
‘Are you King James I of Scotland?’ said the leader of the gang.
‘No,’ James said.
‘You are,’ they said. ‘We’re pretty sure.’
James was a clever man. He knew he couldn’t fool these assassins. He quickly dismounted from his wife, and without further ado ran through a secret door. He was naked from the waist down. The stone floor was cold on his feet and as he ran his testicles swung from side to side. He grabbed them with both hands.
Meanwhile the six men stared at Joan’s white flabby body. She pulled the sheet up around her and wailed. The sound was so bad that the men quickly regained their wits and started after James. Through the secret door, down the secret passage, and down some circular stairs they went. There was a great clanging sound as their shields smashed against the walls of the narrow escape route James had chosen.
James ran for his life. He knew where he was going. Down a sewer he scuttered. He knew the way, the sewer built chiefly should such an occasion as this present itself. It was half filled with water, and James waddled through. It stank. He’d not experienced such a stench since prison.
At last, he was around the last corner. The escape was in sight, casting a dull yellow light onto the water. Yet, the six assassins were catching up. James could hear their ungracious splashes getting louder. Finally, he was at the hole that would get him out. He stood up straight and got ready to clamber out.
‘Bollocks!’ he said, loud and clear. ‘Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!’ It was at this moment that James remembered three days previously he’d had the hole secured with a circle of metal meshing in order to stop the balls from his private tennis court falling in.
James lowered his head and waited for his death.
