You can now search previous New York articles -
Index Previous Letter
Next Letter
Sex in the City - The Miller's Tale
And unto Nicholas she seyde stille,
"Now hust and thou shalt laughen al thy fille".
This Absolon doun sette hym on his knees
And seyde, "I am a lord at alle degrees;
For after this I hope ther cometh moore.
Lemman, thy grace, and sweete bryd, thyn oore!"
The wyndow she undoth and that in haste.
620 "Have do", quod she, "com of, and speed the faste,
Lest that oure neighebores thee espie"
Chaucer - The Miller's Tale (1397 - 1442)
Translate
"If music be the food of love
then laughter is its queen"
A Whiter Shade of Pale - Keith Reid (Procol Harem) 1967
What has this photo have to do with sex? Not much. However it is where I was one morning last week, waiting for my bus - stage one of my daily commute.
As you can see (below), it is a far cry from the same bus stop in summer. But my mind is wandering ...
Which is apt, as my mind was wandering as I waited in the snow for my bus that morning last week.
I was trying to remember when I'd been as cold as I was that morning My thoughts leapfrogged back decades. To a 5:00 a.m. swim at Elwood beach in the middle of a Melbourne winter.
At the time I was living in half a house. It was divided down the middle by a passage. I lived on one side with my mother and little brother. On the other side was an elderly couple. Standing at the bus stop all those years later, I remembered their names. Jim and Muriel Miller. It is amazing what the mind retains.
Jim Miller used to take an early morning swim every morning, rain, hail and shine. One day, I accompanied him. I was a kid - I don't
remember WHY I went with him that cold morning in June, but I did.
The water was freezing and I can still remember the jolt to my system though over forty years have passed.
The Millers - I thought about them as I stood in the snow and reminisced about the two elderly aussies who lived across the corridor in the weatherboard house in Elsternwick in the late sixties.
I remembered in particular being awakened one night by what were clearly sex noises coming from their bedroom. Groan, groan, 'more Jim, more'. I couldn't believe it! My mother awoke - we shared the one bedroom. "My god!" she said, "those old Millers are at it. At their age, who would have thought!"
Strange that this childhood memory has stayed in my brain.
New York 2005 - The bus still hadn't come, and I stood in the snow, 12,000 miles and 40 years later, remembering the Miller's Tale.
The human brain, being what it is, decided to jump forward several decades. To 2001 New York City, 1661 York Avenue. I had lived on York Avenue in a "studio" (aka bedsit) for about eighteenth months, while I was deciding whether to stay in New York or to return to Australia. It was cheap but reasonably well located, and ideal as a transit point for someone uncertain as to what to do next.
Knowing little of the neighbourhood except that it was relatively inexpensive and close to the subway stops that I needed for travel to work, I'd jumped at the chance to pay out $1,700 per month for basic accomodation.
While there, I rarely saw my neighbour - or neighbour
s as it turned out to be. Yes, I noticed a different woman leaving the apartment next door as we both waited for the elevator.
I thought nothing of it. In New York you quickly learn to accept that almost anything is 'normal'.
At nights I'd hop into my futon and fall asleep, only to be awakened regularly at 2:00 a.m. by --- yes, sex noises. The Millers revisited.
I later found out that this part of Manhattan is frequented by 'ladies of the night'. Of course the neighbouring 'studio' was merely a place for a group of prostitutes to service their clients.
But the sounds of fake satisfaction from the women, and of sad relief of the men, was disturbing to say the least.
What was I to do in order to get an unbroken night's sleep? The bed next door was just a few inches away from my own.
When it came, the solution was obvious. The next time the sex sounds came through the wall, I started moaning and groaning myself. Sigh, sigh, 'Do it again, more more', I sighed and screamed, my face to the wall, three inches away from the pro and her client. Their noises, fake and real, stopped immediately. Success - never again was I to be awakened by the false joy next door.
And what does this tale tell me? I suppose it is that human nature is much the same, whether it is Melbourne, Australia 1968 or Manhattan 1996. Sex, whether it is between 80 year old Australians, or New York prostitutes and their clients, sounds the same.
Yes that, plus you can just never tell what sounds will drift through the walls.
As Chaucer wrote circa 1400, in an earlier Miller's Tale,
"Have do", quod she, "com of, and speed the faste,
Lest that oure neighebores thee espie"
Till next time,
Kate Juliff
New York
December 2005
