FIfty Shades Of Whatever

Going down is not easy with glasses

I love robots and got into them when I started writing my first Planet Hy Man book. However, Pete was not inspired by a robot but by a binge-on Jeeves and Wooster TV series followed by a binge-on Jeeves and Wooster Audiobooks; which I listened to while driving to and from all the places in Scotland where my husband worked.

Rain, hail, or sunshine the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry, and the blunderings of Hugh Laurie always made a long journey an adventure. I imagined Pete talking like Stephen Fry, Mex with a voice like Joanna Lumley with the comic height of Miranda Hart, Legless blundering about like Hugh Laurie, and Beryl a cross between Emma Thompson/ Tilda Swinton.

Over the years my vision has changed as the characters evolved, and now as I write Pete's diaries I’m discovering there is more to his feelings than I first planned…

Summer 2008

Robots don’t do couples on Planet Hy Man and if a woman does, it’s undercover, strictly gossip.

Procreation on my planet is a one-egg wonder in a Petri dish, men are as obsolete as the horse and cart and as ancient as the Bible, partnering up with them is as useful as an earth spark plug, and as much fun as hitting your head on a gas pipe.

As for women ‘fraternizing’ with each other, that is usually done to move up the ladder, for more privileges, or a penthouse with a view. Affection is as hidden as the rulers on our planet and those who show it tend to be ostracized, laughed at, and sometimes even demoted.

Which all made sense until I met Don and Bunnie. I have never seen a connection of affection like it which has me wondering if the women on Planet Hy Man are as smart as they think.

Bunnie and Don have a look just for each other, hidden smiles and touches, jokes just between them even when Don moans about his piles, which has me on the edge of my seat, well that and Woody.

Piles on our planet merely refer to stones and the like. It has nothing to do with all that business ‘down below’, which according to Don, predicts the weather, traffic conditions, and Bunnie's moods. Years of living on hemp and soya have seen to that. Hemp and soya keep the innards of a Planet Hy Man woman on track, Mex was as regular as the sunset—-until she came here and tucked into all that sugar. Now she is never off the loo and starting to look a little puffy.

Bunnie riles at everything and when she doesn’t Don pushes her. Don seems to find her anger humorous, spurring him to new heights of wit and calling her ‘Buns’ which she answers even though she swears she doesn't like the name. Watching those two is better than Earth TV——- well that and Woody's attire.

Sitting next to him has aroused something in me that I have never felt before. Until I met him, I only felt the sun on my skull, the bristle of dry wind, the mulch of mud between my toes, and the pinge of a stretch too far. Sure yoga classes give me a buzz in stretching out tension sort of way, but it’s not like looking at Woody.

Sitting next to him in the back of a people carrier inches from his army trousers has me feeling all sorts of weird things—— in my chest, a place that on Planet Hy Man opened like a trap door purely for lubrication purposes.

Suddenly “Love Actually” makes sense, ““The Proposal” is engaging, and don’t get me started on “When Harry Met Sally”———I want to watch them all again.

The thing about Woody is he is kind and intelligent about things I had no idea of. Well, that's what I tell myself the truth is I can’t stop looking at him. I want to pat his dreadlocks, tuck in his shirt, and…well, do up his shoelaces.

I look at him and feel giddy like a cat spun around a dozen times blindfolded.

I was staring at his trainers thinking of an excuse to head down there and do a double-breasted-Planet Hy Man tuck-in knot. A knot I had perfected when packing up my yoga mat for a distant march to a class. The sort of knot that is un-do-able even in a hurricane or dropped from the height of Mex’s patio.

Then friggin Mex started going on about her lack of hero status on earth, capturing Woody with her ‘look at me’ antics. I was invisible, I couldn’t get Woody attention if I ripped open the trap door of my chest and cooked a sausage in it once she started, Mex grabbed it all, exaggerating like a UK tabloid or Donald Trump on Twitter, how she had saved Planet Hy Man and all I could do was fall into my ‘yes mam” mode.

I mean calling what she did slaying was a complete fabrication it was more rounding up of men like cattle. Ok, she had a whip and terrorized the men into submission…pulled them from the depth of a cave and the heights of a tree but there was no slaying…just rounding up like a cowboy without the horse.

I was staring at Woody's undone button on his shirt and the slogan on his teeshirt underneath, wondering if the writing went all the way around to his back, while he was taking Mex and her pickling saving the planet speech all in like a kid watching Harry Potter, until Bunnie turned to Mex and said.

“I can’t imagine you slaying a mosquito, let alone tall men.”

That stopped her in her tracks.

And before I could jump in and make myself sound intelligent, Bunnie was looking at her phone talking of her with the beehive. Turns out, our Esteemed Leader Beryl is not only on Earth but terrorizing Bunnie's dog Izzie, in her leather Leadership outfit. The sort of outfit which on Earth makes her look to quote Don “like a Granny porn star.” Not that she would have any idea she is as capable of reading a person as the blindfolded cat before or after spinning.

“The porn star” comment had Mex as confused as Bunnie’s dog when you call it Lizzy instead of Izzie, and trying to explain porn to Mex let alone a grannie made her even more confused.

Woody did his best lubricant being the main thrust of his speech but lubricantion on our planet is merely something a robot deals with. He may as well have talked about the Quran in Arabic to Mex as try to explain the use of lubricant.

Mex flustered with confusion, tried to stammer her way out of it. “Oils?” said Mex. “Pete’s good with oils, aren’t you Pete.”

“Think of a no-holds-barred Fifty Shades of Grey,” I said.

“Hair color?” said Mex.

“Porn is not all it’s cracked up to be,” muttered Don. “There are better things to do with a woman.”

And then it hit me. It wasn’t Woody’s shoelaces I wanted to down for at all…

Not that I would tell anyone.

And now for the third part of The Three Amigos…no grannie porn just a couple of elderly folk living out their dream.

Until next time happy reading.