Jan 23 2014. PIGGY HIGGINBOTTOM
Here’s an extract from my new book, It’s Not Cricket! Availble from Amazon and no good bookshops. In fact no bookshops at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Piggy Higginbottom Affair
When they are children men with the surname Higginbottom are often given the nickname ‘Piggy’. It is easy to see how this is arrived at – Higginbottom – Higgy – Piggy. However this is not the case with Jason Higginbottom, the Piggy Higginbottom who plays cricket for Upper Medlock. Jason is known as Piggy because he once had sex with a pig.
At the age of fourteen young Piggy had two ambitions in life. The first was to play cricket for Upper Medlock, a goal he would achieve on the date of the first league fixture of the following season. The captain and star batsman of the fifteen-and-under side, he was already good enough for the senior team – everyone in the village who knew anything about cricket said so – but his father, Brian Higginbottom, who was the current captain of the team and protective towards his son, didn’t want to introduce him to the hurly-burly of senior cricket before his fifteenth birthday, which would pass during the coming winter.
The timing of the achievement of his second ambition was not so certain. Like most boys of his age Piggy was still a virgin and as such desperate to shed his virginity. Despite having invested all his weekly pocket money for the last two years on gifts of sweets and ice cream to all the girls of his age in the village he hadn’t even got near to having sex with a single one of them. The nearest he had come was a feel of one of Gina Jones’s bare breasts, and even that small victory was by no means certain as not having had the advantage of feeling a bare breast before he wasn’t even sure he had felt it; it had felt more like a bony shoulder and, in the dark of the cinema, could well have been. The breast certainly didn’t feel like he expected breasts to feel, didn’t feel how it explained they felt in one of his father’s paperbacks, like twin heavenly orbs, soft yet firm, round with stiff -standing nipples. As far as he was able to discern in the gloom of the back row of Studio 2 of the Middleham multiplex Gina’s breasts didn’t have any nipples, let alone stiff-standing ones.
Several of his friends had had sex, or claimed they had. Most of them would be lying, Piggy assumed, like he himself lied whenever anyone asked him. Troy Parkinson had had it – although everyone at school was unsure if it officially counted, as it was with his sister – but Piggy knew for certain that Tommy Boe had had it because he had paid him fifty pence to watch him having it, with the school bicycle, Honor Baxter (inevitably nicknamed ‘Honor and off her’). Piggy had asked, even implored Honor to let him have a ride on her too, for the going rate of a Mars Bar, but she had always turned him down, telling him he was too weedy and it would be a long time before she was in that much need of a Mars Bar.
It was in another of his father’s books, The Last Picture Show, by an American author named Larry McMurtry, that Piggy came across the notion of having sexual intercourse with farm animals. He thought at first it was a joke – he had heard of the expression sheep shagger but had never thought for a moment that people actually did shag sheep – but on reading further, and learning that it was boys who were not much older than he himself who were having sex with the animals, he could see why this might well be true, especially if the boys had been as desperate for sex as he was.
He wondered if having sex with a farm animal would be as good as having it with a girl, but even as he wondered knew he had no way of knowing since he’d never had sex with a girl and therefore had nothing to compare it to. So, his search for sex being no nearer to becoming a reality than the day he had set out on what was turning out to be a very long road to finding it, he decided to go down the farm animal route.
He suspected it would be much less of a problem finding a farm animal to have sex with than finding a girl to have it with; there were at least half-a-dozen farms within the boundaries of Upper and Lower Medlock and they all had cows. At a guess he would say there were at least a thousand. Whether one of them would consent to having sex with him with was another matter – there was nothing in Mr McMurtry’s book about the difficulty or otherwise of this – Piggy just hoped they weren’t as awkward about it as girls. There was also no indication by the author as to any enjoyment the cows might get from the act, the book concerning itself only with the pleasure the boys derived from the trysts with their bovine inamoratas.
Apart from wondering whether or not Mr McMurtry had written from personal experience or was just the possessor of a very vivid imagination the book had raised several questions in Piggy’s young mind. Would having your penis in a cow’s vagina, or any other farm animal for that matter, feel the same as having it in a girl? He very much hoped so. Tommy Boe said having it in a girl felt like liquid velvet. Troy Parkinson said the same and added the word ‘warm’ to an already mind-blowing description. Piggy didn’t know what liquid velvet felt like but it sounded very nice, warm or otherwise.
There was also the possibility that cows were as unwilling as girls to bestow their favours. And even if they weren’t, even if cows were up for it, what if there was the cow equivalent of Honor Baxter amongst their herd, a cow which would do it for a handful of grass and a few buttercups with anyone who was prepared to pay the price, but refused point blank to do it with Jason Higginbottom? And should he milk the cow first? Boys played with girls breasts as a prelude to having sex – although all it had led to the night he might have felt Gina Jones’s breasts was a request from her to move his head out of the bloody way because she couldn’t see the film – so might fondling a cow’s breasts be a sort of cow foreplay? And did cows have periods? Several girls had told him they would have been only too willing to have sex with him if only they hadn’t been having their period; would cows be the same? He didn’t know the answers to any of these questions and more. There was only one way to find out.
That night, as soon as darkness had fallen, Piggy made his way to a field belonging to Farmer Johnson, the owner of the nearest farm to his home. He made the sortie under cover of darkness, fearful that someone might see him – it was one thing having sex with a cow but another to be seen having it.
Since reading the sex with farm animals passage in The Last Picture Show he had wondered which breed of cow might offer up the best sex – the book didn’t give any advice on this – or whether having sex with one cow was very much like having it with another. However, having observed that boys and men tended to gravitate more towards the pretty ones at the expense of the plain ones, and that there must be a good reason for this, with the possibility that it was because the quality of sex was better, he opted for a Jersey as they were a nicer colour than the others and had big limpid eyes and even longer eyelashes than Kylie Waterhouse.
Farmer Johnson had several Jerseys in his field along with the Friesians and Ayrshires but unfortunately when it came to picking out one of them the cover of darkness ploy worked against him as it was so dark he couldn’t distinguish one breed from another. This being the case he settled for the nearest one that was standing up, took up a position behind it, undid his belt and dropped his trousers. He had thought, when contemplating what he was now about to do, that he might have trouble getting an erection, since unlike a girl’s vagina a cow’s sexual organ usually has the off-putting sight of a load of dried shit encircling it. However, although he could certainly smell the shit, he couldn’t see it, and was able to dismiss it from his mind by thinking of Christina Aguilera in her red knickers. Giving his penis a few brisk wanks he was erect in seconds. Thus primed he took hold of the cow’s tail, for something to hang on to in case it got a bit too frisky, and snuggled up to its bottom.
He realised more or less straight away that things might not be as straightforward as he had thought. In addition to being of slight build Piggy was small for a fourteen-year-old, not much over five feet, and even though he had more than his fair share in the penis department – the third biggest in the class when they’d all measured them behind the bike sheds last month, one up from fourth place when they’d last compared them – it was immediately apparent that the business end of it was still some way from the cow’s vagina. He jumped up in the air to see if he could leap high enough to reach the cherished target. On the third attempt he felt the end of his penis make contact, but in doing so realised that he would have to jump a good deal higher if he were to obtain penetration. Could cows be persuaded to bend down a bit? If he could persuade the cow to drop down on its front legs, like they did prior to lying down, then that would be just about right. He paused in thought for a moment. Was it cows that dropped to their knees before lying down, or was it camels? He couldn’t remember. But even if they did, how do you get them to do it? Was there a command that cowherds used when they wanted a cow to drop to its knees? He tried a commanding “Bend down” in one the cow’s ears but its only response was a non-committal “Moo”. He tried jumping up again to see if he could manage to jump a bit higher – even the end of his penis in would be nice, and if he could leap high enough to get it in he might be able to haul himself up on its tail and with any luck get the rest of it in. He tried again and failed again. Defeated, exasperated, and wishing he’d tried harder when the games teacher was instructing his class on how to do the high jump last week, he went home to give the problem some thought.
The following night, again under cover of darkness, the benefit of the night skies being even more important than it had been the night before as he was now carrying a mop and a bucket of soapy water and didn’t want to risk anyone asking him what he was doing walking about thus armed at nine-o-clock at night. On arriving home the previous evening he had discovered that the light blue shirt, dark blue pullover and grey trousers he was wearing were now a sort of khaki-coloured shirt and pullover and trousers, thanks to their being covered in cow shit, deposited there by his coming into contact with the cow’s bottom. His intention in providing himself with mop and bucket was twofold; one, to give the cow’s bottom a good swabbing before attempting to have sex with it; and two, to then turn the bucket upside down and stand on it so he was at the correct height to have sex with it.
The first of these ambitions was accomplished, so far as he knew – so far as he knew because due to working in the dark of night he couldn’t see the cow properly, and even if he’d been able to it wouldn’t keep still, possibly because it objected to having its bottom mopped at a quarter past nine at night. There was no doubt about the success or otherwise of the second of his ambitions; it ended in abject failure when he stood on the bucket, discovered that his penis was still a little shy of the target, jumped up a bit in order to reach it and put his feet through the bottom of the bucket when he came down. It took him the next ten minutes to extricate his feet, one of which he thought might have sustained a broken ankle, and at that point he called off the attempt for the second time and limped his way home.
Fortunately the ankle was only badly bruised and four days later he made another attempt at cow heaven. This time he had abandoned the idea of cleaning the cow’s bottom in favour of wearing his mother’s plastic pakamac over his clothes. The bucket was dispensed with in favour of a stepladder. That afternoon on getting home from school he had set up the stepladder in the backyard and climbed to the top step to check if it would bring him up to the required height. It confirmed to him that along with a cow there would be an excellent chance of being able to fuck a giraffe as well, should he so desire. It was all systems go.
Piggy felt the cover of darkness to be just as necessary as it had been before, as although walking through a field of cows with a stepladder was slightly less suspicious-looking than when armed with a mop and bucket it was still fairly suspicious-looking.
Using the stepladder to stand on to have intercourse with a cow turned out to be an excellent idea insofar as it brought Piggy up to the required height concomitant with executing the act, but a bad idea inasmuch as when he was standing on the step that brought him up to the right height the end of his penis was about a foot away, on the other side of the stepladder from the cow’s vagina. Not a boy to give up easily Piggy’s next strategy was to employ the stepladder as an ordinary ladder, lean it against the cow’s rear end, climb up it and enter the cow by that method. In attempting to achieve this he mounted the makeshift ladder successfully, but not the cow, as every time he started to walk up the ladder the weight of him pressing against the cow’s behind caused it to move forward, with the result that the ladder crashed to the ground, taking Piggy with it. The third time it happened he trapped his already sore foot between one of the steps and the ground and was forced to retire hurt.
September 8, 2003.
Upper Medlock v Lower Medlock. Wickets pitched 2pm. Umpires R Montmorency, M Wilks.
Upper Medlock.
J Hopkins b de la Mare 10
J Hopkins jnr c & b Sneed 35
A Warnock b Sneed 20
G Green run out 17
A Watkins lbw b de la Mare 14
B Higginbottom (C) b Springfield 2
M Coffey c Spragg b Taylforth 22
O Whittaker st Swann b Sneed 0
J Jennison not out 10
B Swindells lbw b Cliff 3
K Gee b de la Mare 0
Extras 14
Total 147
Lower Medlock 145 for 2
V Chambers b Jennison 47
R Roderick not out 70
W Colon c Whittaker b Swindells 18
J Penberthy not out 0
Extras 10
Total 145
Match abandoned
Whilst he was waiting for his wounded foot to heal in readiness for another attempt on a cow it occurred to Piggy that a smaller farm animal, one with which he could have sex without the aid of something to stand on, might better serve his purpose. A hen was discounted as being too small and too noisy; a duck, with which to figuratively break his duck, was rejected for the same reason. A local farmer had two pet llamas in his field and although Piggy judged them to be about the right height he wasn’t convinced that just because they lived on a farm they could be counted as farm animals. Besides, the only time he had ever got close to one of them it had spat at him. Sheep too, which were about the right height for purpose if you bent down a bit, were also a non-starter, the Medlock villages being dairy farming country and there not being any sheep to be had and had. There was, however, at least one pig; in fact a conveniently located pig, housed as it was in a corner of the farmer’s field adjoining the Upper Medlock cricket ground, a spot Piggy passed most evenings during the cricket season when he was returning home following batting and bowling practice. A pig would be just about the right height; he might have to squat down a little to achieve penetration but he certainly wouldn’t have to jump up and down. Furthermore he couldn’t foresee any other problems; when he’d looked at the pig with the eyes of a prospective suitor for the first time, rather than with the disinterested glance he occasionally gave it as he passed by, the pig had looked quite placid and accommodating.
This time, to give himself the absolute best chance of success, he decided to eschew the cover of darkness. His reasoning, apart from it being the first time he would be able to see what he was doing ,which he thought must increase his chances by a fair number of per cent, was that it was very unlikely anyone would see him as he planned to do the deed in the covered part of the pig’s sty. As a further insurance against being spotted he opted to do it on Saturday afternoon, when it was unlikely there would be anyone about – many of the women in the village would be busy doing the weekly shopping and those who weren’t would be with their husbands and children at the annual cricket match against Lower Medlock.
Cometh the hour and Piggy arrived at the pig’s sty without incident. Fortunately the pig was in the covered part of its quarters, which saved Piggy the trouble of coaxing it in there with the bag of apples he had brought with him for that purpose, leaving nothing to chance. It didn’t even look up when he stepped into the sty, being much more interested in the pile of potato peelings it was noisily munching its way through.
Piggy saw a snag almost immediately. Whereas cows have a long tail the pig had a curly little excuse of a tail, hardly a tail at all, and certainly not tail enough to hang on to. As luck would have it help was at hand in the shape of a short length of rope hanging from a nail on the wall of the sty. Piggy wasted no time in putting it to good use by fashioning it into a halter. Pleased with himself he slipped the halter over the pig’s neck, pulled it tight, hooked his thumbs under it to ensure he had a good grip on it, and was ready to go.
All the time Piggy had been doing this the pig had remained singularly uninterested. It ceased to be uninterested and became very interested the moment Piggy dropped his trousers and entered it. In fact it was fortunate – or perhaps unfortunate in view of what was to follow – that Piggy was hanging onto the halter, otherwise the intercourse might have stopped from the moment the pig suddenly took off at a rate of knots Piggy had previously not thought possible in a pig.
Whether having one’s penis in a pig’s vagina is an enjoyable experience Piggy was never to know – it could have felt like liquid velvet or liquid nitrogen or liquid anything as far as he was concerned – when the pig shot out of the sty and into the field he was far too busy trying to disengage himself from it in his efforts to preserve life and limb to concern himself with such matters.
If Piggy had closed the gate behind him when he had entered the farmer’s field instead, in his haste to have sex with the pig, leaving it open, the terrible events that followed would not have happened. They still might not have happened had the pig, on passing through the gate, turned left and ran up the lane that led to the farmhouse. But instead, for reasons best known to itself, it chose to turn right, and that way led only to the cricket ground.
Piggy’s father Brian, bowling his off-cutters from the end facing the farm, was the first to see the pig with his son aboard (although at that distance he did not at the time know it was his son). The match was at a critical stage, with Lower Medlock requiring only two more runs for victory. This being the case Roger Taylor, the batsman to whom Higginbottom was bowling, thought he was the victim of yet another example of Upper Medlock gamesmanship when Higginbottom suddenly came to a dead stop in his run up, looked agog, and pointed straight ahead. (Only two years previously one of the Upper Medlock bowlers had done precisely the same thing and when the Lower Medlock batsman turned round to look the bowler had continued his run up and bowled him out.) Taylor, wise to this, wasn’t having any of it thank you very much, and remained unmoved and unmoving.
“It’s a pig, there’s a pig heading straight for you at about a hundred miles an hour!” Higginbottom shouted, waving his arms desperately and pointing in the direction of the pig again.
“Pig my arse, Higginbottom,” said Taylor, and stood his ground.
It was the last words he spoke for some time as two seconds later the pig ran into him, knocking him unconscious to the ground and demolishing all three wickets in the process, before continuing on its way. The bails were never seen again. When smelling salts failed to revive Taylor, and the offer from Hopkins of a smell of his jockstrap as a stronger alternative had been rejected by umpire Montmorency, he was despatched without further ado to the cottage hospital. Seizing on the situation as a golden opportunity to avoid defeat Higginbottom suggested to the umpires that as a mark of respect the match should be called off. The Lower Medlock captain Jacobs would have none of it and proposed that the umpires should do no such thing, as in all probability Piggy, on seeing the state of the match and certain defeat for his father’s side, had done what he’d done on purpose. Higginbottom countered this by saying that it was far more likely that his son was an entirely innocent party and had merely been trying to stop a runaway pig. To which Jacobs said that if that was the case why was he fucking it with his trousers round his ankles? In the end, more to stop a potential fight than anything, the umpires abandoned the match as a draw.
Whilst all this was going on the pig had come to an abrupt halt when it ran full tilt into the sightscreen at the bowlers end, rendering itself as unconscious as it had rendered Taylor. Whereupon Piggy withdrew from both the pig and the scene, before awkward questions could be asked.
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