“What the balls is wrong with you, Brian?” My wife yelled when she caught me masturbating in the shower this afternoon. And in not as polite a voice, I might add, as you may have used to read out her question, provided you’re the type of person who reads stuff aloud while on your own or you just have a particularly polite inner-monologue. What nerve! What the balls is wrong with me? What the balls is wrong with you, woman?!

We had this whole conversation about it afterwards. During dinner. By the way, in case you’re wondering, no, masturbatory habits are not the make-up of polite conversation. But that doesn’t matter, ‘cause our conversation wasn’t all too polite, if you get my meaning. You do? Good. Then I don’t have to tell you how mad I was at my wife at the time, but I want to, so I will anyway. Furious is what I was! In fact, I was so beside myself I could see myself grimacing in the corner of my eye(s).

Anyway, our dinner debate contained none of the arguments one might suppose would have been included in a debate, held over a nice vegetarian dinner with one’s spouse, on the topic of oneself having been caught masturbating in the shower. You see, after she had yelled ‘What the balls is wrong with you?’ and had slammed the bathroom door, I was left, manhood in hand, in a contemplative state of mind. And as I concluded my wank (I’m not about to blue-ball myself, am I, what with my wife doing that plenty enough for both of us?) I tried to predict her side of what I rightly concluded would be an unavoidable dinner debate.

What I came up with was this: Shelley – that’s my wife – would enquire about whether I felt fully satisfied, sexually, in our relationship, and, if yes, why I resorted to giving myself a clandestine front-rub in the shower. My response would invariably be something along the lines of: “Sweetheart, I am. I wasn’t. You’re mistaken.” I would probably have to add an “I love you” to that as well.

Next, Shelley would ask if I thought she was attractive. Or, rather, she would want to ask this, but I wouldn’t let her. Having cleverly predicted the nature of her next enquiry, I would only allow her to speak the first two or three words of it before interrupting her with the phrase “By the way, have I told you how beautiful you look today?” To which she would try to sarcastically retort with a sly “Do I just look beautiful today, or have you told me today?” Naturally, I wouldn’t let her finish that one either. I’m not a fool, after all. I’d interrupt her by saying that she looked even prettier than she did the day before, when I spent all day thinking about how she was the prettiest thing alive.

In any case, the pretend-argument in my head went on and on. Ultimately, my conclusion was that I’d get away with it. And I would have, too, if she’d only stuck to my script!

Instead, she asked three completely different questions.

They were, in chronological order:

• “Why was it that you decided to take a shower in the middle of the day, when – only two hours earlier – you had already showered, and had engaged in no tiring, sweaty or grimy form of manual labour whatsoever since?”
• “Brian Jones, how long have you been cheating on me?”
• “What the balls is wrong with you?”

I produced no response to either of her questions, save a stunned look in reference to her second one. She explained that masturbation during marriage, unless performed in the presence of--, on behalf of--, and as per the request of one’s spouse, was equal (in terms of its value of sin) to infidelity. I couldn’t believe my ears! She was accusing me of cheating on her with my hand! I’ve never ever cheated on anyone with another person, let alone with just an isolated part of their anatomy. How would that even be possible? And even if it were, how would I go about to rectify the situation? Would she, my hand and I sit down together around the dinner table and talk things over? Would she be cool with it and would we subsequently engage in a ménage-à-trois? Wasn’t she implying that my guilty hand, as well as my semi-innocent one, had always been secretly taking part in our private acts of lovemaking? Wasn’t she in fact in some bizarre way confessing to have cheated on me with my hands? And what the balls was I going to do if she told me I’d have to choose between her and my hands? I most certainly wasn’t about to even start to contemplate even considering the prospect and consequences of amputation.

Right, I’m not going to delve any deeper into that subject, but I will tell you this: Our conversation would have been a whole lot less awkward if we hadn’t had a guest over for dinner at the time. My best friend (That’s right! Mine, not Shelley’s!) was sitting right next to me during her entire rant, at first silently chewing his food and attempting to conceal his discomfort by feigning an interest in the configuration of asparagus on his plate. After a while, though, he chose to convey his own subjective assessment of our situation. And to my great surprise and disappointment he chose her side. Well, he didn’t choose mine anyway. “What the balls is wrong with you?” He asked me and proceeded to call me both a moron and a compulsive liar. “They should name a disorder after you and make you a regular visitor at Brian Jones Anonymous,” he said.

I responded quite wittily, I thought, by saying: “I wouldn’t be very anonymous if I did, dumbass.”

But, yes, I suppose that in some perverted way the latter of the two labels he assigned to my character could be construed as being somewhat less than a long way from the truth. Sure, I tended to make stuff up sometimes.

Yes, I lied to Shelley about my shower experience. I did spend some quality time with myself in there, if she must know.

Yes, I lied about not having considered amputation as an option. Suffice to say, on occasion, I have.

Yes, I lied about us enjoying a vegetarian dinner. Neither of us is a vegetarian. In fact, our mutual loathing of all things vegetarian is what has kept our marriage going for the past few decades, and, if we’d had vegetarian food for dinner, we certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed it in the least.

Yes, I lied about having an atrocious wife or even being married in the first place. I’m only 18 years old, so I don’t and I’m not, but you’re a fool for having believed me.
In your face!

And, sure, I lied when I said I had never cheated in my life. I have, but that one time doesn’t count because I cheated on a former girlfriend ages ago, and I did it to her with Shelley. In fact, that’s sort of how Shelley and I became an item. But that doesn’t make me a compulsive liar, now does it?

But why am I telling you all this? This doesn’t concern you! This is personal stuff and I’m getting sweaty just thinking about it! Think I might need another shower, in fact.