Work Text:
Hey Babe, take a walk on the wild side. Lou Reed c. 1972
Present Day Oxford
Miss Joan Thursday felt weary which was not surprising, as she had just
celebrated her Eighty First birthday.
They had all gone now, her three husbands, even her one true love ...Morse.
He left her standing at the altar in floods of tears, more than forty years ago,
but she bore him no ill will... she adored him, always had...always will,
although sometimes she thought she hated him.
Her younger Brother Sam was the only one left from the old days, he lived
in France now, becoming a French citizen after serving with distinction
for 5 years in the French Foreign Legion.
He always remembered her birthday, a bottle of fine French wine,
a bouquet of red roses, and a birthday card that she could never understand.
*******
After putting her shopping away,
Joan turned the tap of the gas hob on, to make herself a nice cup of tea to
wash down her last slice of Marks and Spencer birthday cake.
She had always treated herself to a birthday cake, her mum always bought
her a cake before she passed.
Lou Reed was on the radio, singing her all time favourite rock song.
“Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.”
She turned the sound up, and settled down in her dad’s favourite armchair
to listen to the words.
Joan began to feel very drowsy, she began to drift away, her mind going back
to the early Seventies when she took her own walk on the wild side.
*******
Early 1972 Oxford
Planning for the wedding had been a rush, Joan’s decision to suddenly get
married to Jim was a big surprise to everyone, it was probably due to the
chaotic life style she had enjoyed in Stevenage and for a while beyond.
Now she felt she needed a steady pair of hands in her life, someone to
keep her on the straight and narrow, she knew Jim would certainly do that.
Joan was determined her days as a loose cannon were over.
Doubts began to creep in, as they often do, her reason was probably this...
She only slept with him once before they got married, it was after their
second date to see The Carpenters at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
She knew he hadn’t had a girlfriend since her old friend Maureen had
dumped him back in ’66. So, she was fearing the worst, but hoping for the best.
As she expected she had to take the lead, as he proved clueless in the
art of lovemaking compared to the much more experienced Morse.
Joan could only hope he would be a quick learner, preferably with someone else.
*******
After her sexual shenanigans in Stevenage, and later when she returned
home to Oxford. Marriage to “Little John”, as she now cruelly tagged her
new fiancé, promised to be a deathly dull affair, especially in the bedroom.
She seriously considered taking Morse as her lover when the time came.
They had a brief fling at the end of last year which ended in tears, mainly
Endeavour Morse’s tears.
Moving to a two up two down police house in the small town of Kidlington
did not fill her with glee either, but her baby needed a father.
Jim just assumed the baby was his, and proposed to her on the spot, when
she told him she might be pregnant, she never claimed he was the father.
Joan played it safe, and asked him for time to think about it.
Morse was still mysteriously away, where was he when she needed him?
Jim knew all about her previous lovers, well some of them, but he knew nothing
about her time on secondment, and Joan intended to keep it that way.
Jim was “proud as punch” forever telling anyone who would listen that Joan was
“Way out of my league,” and he was right, but not in the way he intended.
Joan reluctantly accepted for the sake of the child, but she wasn’t sure about a
lot of things her only feelings for him was as a friend, who more importantly
made her feel safe. She still had occasional anxiety attacks from bad memories
of the bank robbery, and her time in Leamington.
*****
1970 Stevenage
Joan was very lonely, missing her family, and friends in Oxford,
but it was still early days in her secondment, and she had to make the best of it.
Perhaps things would improve?
They did when she later discovered a new pastime, and a friend willing
to show her the ropes.
Despite her sadness that Morse was not getting on well with dad, his letter
was a lovely surprise, it made her feel a lot better about herself, she couldn’t
believe it was the same Morse... he was so romantic!
At last she felt loved by somebody other than her parents and brother.
Joan took to sleeping with the letter underneath her pillow.
Who knows maybe we will finally get it together?
Joan wrote back asking if he would like to visit her, there was plenty of room
for them both in her flat, which was a thinly veiled euphemism for her bed.
Too late for him to back out once he was here, she looked forward to seducing
the shy, dishy detective. His reticence made him all the more desirable to the
sexually frustrated Joan.
Joan was devastated when he didn’t reply.
He was in Venice, not sure if he would return in a box.
The letter was “lost” by Fred, who got the gist of it straight away. Her dad was
not happy with her starting an affair with an adulterous drunk.
Sleeping with his mate’s wife for God’s sake!
******
Stevenage is an “overspill” town 33miles north of London, straight up the M1
motorway. The residents roots were, with very little exception the East End
of London, as were Joan Thursdays.
Bearing this in mind, she expected to fit in, and soon make friends,
but that wasn’t the case, because of her accent she was regarded as a
posh outsider by many of her work colleagues and clients.
A typical Home Counties girl who thought she was far too good for the likes of
Stevenage... or its residents.
It caused endless amusement when the reason for her yearlong secondment
or exile (to be accurate) to Stevenage was discovered by a junior clerk...
Repeated sexual misconduct with a senior married police officer.
This piece of scandal meant that the very attractive Joan was considered
“Easy meat” by her judgemental and secretly envious workmates.
The other girls at the Welfare made sure she never socialised, or came within a
mile of their boyfriends. Creepy bald headed middle aged men, or drippy
spotty kids were the only ones open to her, however the young post boy
said he succeeded in getting her knickers off after the drunken Christmas
party, which he never stopped boasting about it. Joan denied it emphatically,
but nobody believed her, so her bad reputation took another turn south.
The good looking single ones although attracted to her, thought she was a
man eater, and trouble with a capital T, someone best avoided.
********
Joan was very depressed when she was ostracised by her cruel work mates,
and although she lived in hope there was still no word from Morse!
She did however make one friend or maybe not, it depends how you look at it.
A fellow loner from the typing pool who had heard all the rumours about her, and
was determined to recruit the beautiful, but vulnerable Joan into her kinky circle
of deviant friends.
******
Her new friend seduced her into exploring the weird world of Dogging.
“Don’t believe all you hear Joan, it will be a completely new exhilarating, and
liberating experience. Exciting anonymous sex with no ties, anything goes,
but only if you want it to ..., and you will make a lot of new friends.
The last thing Joan wanted was ties, but she still missed the pornographic rough
sex she had enjoyed with Ray, even if he was a vicious brute, he was a good lover.
*******
April 1968 Oxford
Joan considered herself to be in her prime.
And yet even with her own flat she had only been fucked a handful of times,
since coming back to Oxford.
A blind date, and a one night stand she met at the pub, that summed it up.
(I must be losing my touch, I had loads of boyfriends when I worked at the bank.)
Money was very tight, but she was determined not to go back to that cosy
billet she still called home.
So Joan decided to follow the advice of her forthright flatmate.
“First of all stop worrying, and cheer up, you’re a very pretty girl so find yourself
a nice-looking randy sugar daddy, preferably with a big cock, and have some fun.”
Her rich lover gave her affection, attention, money, and some security.
Everything she wanted.
Ray gave her a black eye, bruises, a baby, and a miscarriage.
Joan was no novice when it came to adultery, Ray wasn’t the only one.
She knew the risks, and the way the game was played.
It was great while it lasted, but they were far too careless.
His wife gave her boy friend an ultimatum, after finding a foil sachet
that once contained a condom, fallen down the back seat of his Rolls Royce.
Everyone was stoned on dope, at her house warming party, it turned into
quite an orgy just as Joan and her flatmate had planned.
Everybody got a fuck, except for poor Joan
She ended up looking after one of Sam’s army mates who was very drunk.
When he sobered up she discovered he knew nothing about foreplay, or
anything else regarding the opposite sex.
Her plan had originally been to fuck Morse, but the bastard ended up fucking
one of her best friends.
Joan watched from the balcony as they walked back, arm in arm to her flat.
But most notably she was seduced by her dad’s boss in the bowels of Castle Gate,
which was terrific until they were caught red handed by her boss Viv Wall.
*******
1970 Stevenage
After giving her friends suggestion a great deal of thought she finally decided
to give it a try, on the grounds that Morse was obviously not interested in her,
and neither was anybody else... so what the fuck!
“So you’ve decided to take a walk on the wild side” her friend said.
“You won’t regret it I promise you.”
******
Joan quickly developed a taste; some may say an addiction for the abandonment
of morals in front of an audience, and contrary to her expectations she proved
to be very good at it.
“You’re a natural exhibitionist, a crowd pleaser.” her friend told her proudly.
She discovered that rough casual sex in the back of a car, with a stranger was
much more of a turn on, and fun than making love in the privacy of her cosy flat.
The thought of getting caught “flagrante delicto” by an outraged Morse,
gave her the biggest thrill of all.
“Perhaps I could have a threesome?” Joan giggled to her enthusiastic friend.
“That would really piss him off, me fucking two men at once,” she laughed
In her imagination she could see him peering through the steamed up window
beside himself with jealousy.
Her friend had been right she did feel exhilarated and liberated, and most
important...in complete control.
*******
February 1971 Oxford.
Joan returns to Oxford, and decides to find a nice respectable boyfriend.
She’s twenty-nine now, she wants to settle down, and put her past
behind her, she just prays no nosey parker with a grudge ever finds out.
Joan is in the enviable and flattering position of having three suitors to choose
from. Morse found himself pretty much out of the running after he turned up
at her flat roaring drunk, swearing and waking all the neighbours.
Jim Strange unexpectedly called at the battered wives refuge she managed,
and out of the blue he more or less begged her to be his date at the posh
May Ball the Masonic Lodge run every year for charity. She accepted, it was
not her thing at all, especially the people, but she figured that she owed him a
favour for getting her out of all the scrapes she had back in the day,
and most important for keeping quiet about them.
Finally there is the blonde haired blue eyed doctor who calls round in
his own time to check on the residents of the Hostel. Everybody except
Joan realises he visits hoping to see her.
Some women at the refuge egg him on to ask Joan out, which he eventually does.
Joan is delighted, it is the first time in ages she has been asked out for a proper
date, her only reservation is that the Doctor is a few years younger than her.
Things go really well, they have a lot of interests in common, the sexual chemistry
is amazing, to put it another way they really fancied each other.
It is not long before the Doctor is sharing her bed at the Hostel, when not on
night duty at the John Ruskin Hospital.
Everybody can see Joan has never been so happy.
********
May 1971 Oxford
Joan has been thinking of introducing the Doctor to her parents, although it was
still early days, she was sure he was going to propose to her sometime soon.
Meeting mum and dad might give him the confidence he needed to
pop the question.
Joan decided not to tell her young doctor about her date with Jim at the
Masonic Ball, she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about her and Jim.
******
“You bastard... You rotten cheating bastard.”
Joan has just thrown a full glass of Bollinger champagne straight into her stunned
ex-boyfriends face.
When he shakes his head like an old English sheep dog, a shower of vintage
champagne droplets land on her borrowed emerald green ball gown, and Jim
has to restrain her physically from slapping the doctors face.
Jim had just told Joan that the Doctor was the son of the Grand Master, and the
pretty young girl he was with was his fiancé, an eighteen-year-old heiress.
The pretty heiress was just over 10years younger than Joan, that’s what hurt.
Joan stormed off with tears prickling her eyes, but she had to smile when
Jim Strange said,
“I take it we’re leaving, shall I call a cab?”
Joan spent the next week waiting by the ‘phone, praying he would call to say,
“Jim’s got it all wrong, she’s my sister.”
But he didn’t.
*******
Christmas 1971 Oxford
When her mother ‘phoned to say her brother Sam was missing in Belfast
there was only one person she wanted to be with, Endeavour Morse.
“I badly need a friend to night, please come round.”
He arrived shortly after her emotional phone call, carrying an overnight bag.
They spent the evening just holding each other, with an occasional chaste kiss.
He did his best to reassure her, he told her that some old friends who were
still in the Royal Signals promised to let him know if they heard anything.
When she asked him about the letter she sent him from Stevenage.
He replied,
“of course, I would have come, darling, I would have loved to have spent
some time with you, just the two of us.”
They avoided watching the news from Belfast.
Instead, they watched “This is your life “presented by Eamon Andrews.
Joan couldn’t stop laughing when her friend Morse made a bumbling cameo
appearance as a bodyguard for a hulking great professional footballer.
He told her he was “on the wagon” for good now, which really pleased her.
********
A freshly showered and shaved Morse, fragrant with the spell of expensive
after shave and talcum powder, was an entirely different proposition to
the whiskey sodden detective who often had more than a slight whiff of B.O.
Her baby doll night dress, and his candy striped pyjamas were soon lying
unwanted on her bedroom floor.
********
She was in the grip of a tidal wave of primitive ecstasy, being cheered on
by the raucous crowd to achieve ever higher heights of passion, while plumbing
ever greater depths of sexual degradation.
The very antithesis of making love.
Joan and her partner of the night were rutting like animals, and her crowd
of followers were loving it.
But it was what she wanted, or maybe needed to be sexually defiled,
and applauded for it. It was a heady cocktail for a girl with as many
psychological problems as Joan.
It was inevitable it was going to happen one night.
They were not as careful as they might have been.
His swollen cock started to throb insistently it felt delicious deep in her womb,
and strangely familiar too.
She Knew he was on the verge of coming, he had not lasted long, but nor did
anyone else, and there was always someone willing to take his place.
She thought back to sex with Ronnie or Paul or even Peter, she didn’t realise it
at the time, but it was very tame in comparison.
Pale faces were pressed against the windows of the violently rocking
Range Rover, waiting expectantly for the climax of the thrusting lovers.
The baying mob were thrilled by the obscenities the sweating fornicators
were exchanging in between their hot kisses.
Joan pulled him in to her, and with a deep sense of satisfaction felt his cock
pump his acrid seed into her love juice filled vagina.
Something felt wet, and not quite right, supposing the sheath had split?
She knew the consequences of being pregnant out of wedlock in the early ‘70’s
She had promised herself she would never let this happen again.
In her panic she ripped his mask off to find her grinning lover was none other
than her old abuser Ray Morton.
His face then morphed to her dad’s despicable boss Ronnie Box, who got
off scot free from their brief, but torrid affair a couple of years ago.
And then into the killer Paul Marlock.
And then into the whirling kaleidoscope went all the other men’s depraved faces.
Men who had had sex with her without the love and affection that should
always go with it.
“Hello Joan fancy meeting you here, Sergeant Morse not enough for you?”
They all said with one voice.
*******
Joan sat bolt upright in bed, screaming her head off and waking her flatmate,
who came rushing into her room to check she was o.k.
She was shaken to her core that Marlock or Morton might have impregnated her,
or any one of a dozen equally disgusting men, all it needed was a split condom.
It was only a nightmare, this time, but it could easily have happened, she
could not remember if it had, no one had said, but they wouldn’t, would they?
Her flatmate found Joan sobbing in the arms of her lover Endeavour Morse.
Joan had more than her fair share of secrets, but she guarded this with her life.
She felt now she had to confide in someone, and so she told Morse everything
about her time in Stevenage, and the vivid nightmare she had just had.
Joan feared the worst because Morse just sat on her bed like stone statue,
without moving a muscle, not saying a word.
He was visibly shocked, because this woman whom he loved and idealised
above all others turned out to have feet of clay, and the morals of an alley-cat.
He could not stand to be in her presence, the disillusionment was too much
for him to bear.
After hearing her out, he rose got dressed and left without saying a word.
He wandered the streets of Oxford for a long time, trying to come to terms
with what she had told him.
*******
When he finally got home he fell off the wagon in spectacular style, he
consumed so much single malt, that a concerned neighbour called an ambulance.
The ambulance men had to pump out his stomach.
“He’s not out of the woods yet, he could still die from alcoholic poisoning,
but what made him do it?”
The neighbour didn’t have a clue, only Joan would know, and she wasn’t there.
******
Morse was hoping Miss Thursday might show, but instead a deputation arrived
at his hospital bed from Castle Gate. He was summoned to an inquiry
to ascertain if he had intentionally made himself unfit for duty.
When Morse was released from Hospital a week later, he was obliged
to attend the meeting chaired by Mr Bright which could result in his
dismissal from the force if things went badly.
It was a split decision; it was decided to give him a last chance to sort out his
out of control drinking habits.
He was sent to The Rose Cottage Clinic, a sort of last chance saloon for
prescription drug addicts, and alcoholics the force did not want to lose.
He had physical and psychological tests a punishing regime of physical
fitness, and a month to dry out before being re-assessed by the inquiry.
Morse passed his re-assessment with flying colours.
There was no phone at Rose Cottage, so the first thing he did when he
was given the all clear by Mr Bright and the board of inquiry
was to phone Joan to apologise, but it was too late she had just accepted
Jim’s proposal of marriage, and she had told her delighted parents.
Morse just sat there shocked, with tears streaming down his face.
*******
The prickly question of the baby’s father was resolved when it turned out
Joan was suffering from a phantom pregnancy which was discovered during
her first visit to an Ante-natal Clinic.
Jim and her parents were heart- broken, Joan less so.
Joan offered to release Jim from their engagement, but he wouldn’t hear of it,
and so, to avoid disappointing her mum and dad yet again she felt compelled
to go through with this marriage.
Joan was getting more nervous, and apprehensive as the weeks passed,
and the wedding preparations began to fall into place.
When she ‘phoned Morse a week before the wedding she was desperate.
It was just after a disastrous meal that her mother had arranged for Jim Strange,
and his ancient Granny, a sort of family get together.
She never said a word, and he only talked to dad about work.
To cap it all Sam came blundering in....stoned, and Jim insisted on interfering,
lecturing her brother about the misuse of drugs act, something Morse would
never have done. No wonder Sam couldn’t stand him.
*******
Morse was very keen to meet her in secret for that long awaited drink,
he apologised profusely for leaving her when she really needed him, and
for the first time he told her he had loved her since they first met.
She was sure he would come up with some brilliant scheme to get
her out of this loveless marriage.
Running off together to Gretna Green was her choice, even if her dad and Jim
never spoke to her again...It was their time; they could make a go of it.
If only Morse had turned up
*******
Present day Oxford.
The police, and the ambulance service did not have a lot of trouble breaking down
the front door of the run-down semi-detached house.
The overwhelming smell of gas hit them as soon as they stepped inside.
“Get those bloody windows open, break the glass if you have to, and somebody
find out where that fucking gas is coming from.”
When everything seemed under control, he looked round and said,
“I remember this gaff, it belonged to D.C.I Thursday.”
“Back in the day I was stationed here for a few days when his squaddie son went
missing in Belfast.”
“I was ordered to keep the press and sightseers away.”
“Sarge have you got sec. it’s urgent.”
A p.c. called him into the shabby sitting room, where Tony Blackburn was
blaring out of the old-fashioned radio, and there was still a whiff of gas.
The old lady looked peaceful sitting demurely in the brocade armchair, but
she had passed away almost 24 hours ago.
The sergeant respectfully took her pulse, and signalled for the ambulance men
to take her away, and then he spoke to anyone who wanted to listen.
“That was Joan Thursday, she was a rare beauty, and a very nice lady.”
“She was always happy to chat to the lower ranks at Castle Gate.”
“She had a lovely smile, and a terrific figure ...we all fancied her.”
“She married my old boss Jim Strange, but it was never going to last... chalk
and cheese you know.”
“He was always dead straight a Mason, and she was one to kick over the traces,
bit of a rebel with plenty of men friends if you know what I mean.”
“It was an open secret about her affair with D.C.I. Morse, lasted until the
day he died, always blamed herself she wasn’t there with him when he went.”
“Apparently she bought this house when it came back on the market, because
it was where they met back in 1965... at that very front door we broke down”
“I don’t suppose she would be too happy about that.”
“Well at least she died with a big smile on her face Sarge.”
"Perhaps there is a heaven, and she's together with Morse again."
The End
********