H. G. Wells was a very sexual being. He wanted you to know this.
“Let’s get it on,” he would say, “and this time let’s put some stank on it.”
Yes, H. G. Wells–professorial chubbychops, writer of Mr. Britling Sees It Through, and all-round Proper Old Chap–secretly wrote a book, which I am reading, about his career as “the Don Juan of the intelligentsia,” or, to update the parlance, his life as an absolute shagger.
Wells sealed the manuscript into a box, using goodness knows what adhesive, leaving stern instructions for it to be published only after his death, when he could be fairly sure they couldn’t catch him.
Don’t worry, I’m not here to gleefully reveal H. G. Wells as problemattic–“Not Wells!”–but rather the contrary. I’m actually a bit miffed at the book’s lack of sauce. I’m afraid I made up the line about putting some stank on it.
I’d been hoping for descriptions of a frisky H. G. Wells squirming among the velour cushions of his ornate and brass-knobbed time machine, plucking a candlestick telephone receiver from the gilded dash and bellowing into it, “get the poppers out, Maura, IT’S NAUGHTY TIME,” before zipping promptly home to put some hot breath on a butt plug.
“Maura, I have returned and I’m partial for it!” I hoped he’d call up the stairs, before compressing an unlikely wall panel to reveal a hidden doorway, a golden glow cast upon him from the brassy domes of The Latest Devices within.
“The steam-driven rump padeller,” I wanted him to say, his eyes twinkling over a cityscape of potential intrusions, “the gentleman’s personal gentleman… and, ah yes… Mrs. Beaton’s Christmas Special.”
And then Maura would appear, dressed as an Eloi.
And then an Eloi would appear, dressed as Maura.
But no.
I am, I should say, only half way through the book, so there’s still hope we’ll be treated to such beautiful scenes, but there’s been an unexpected lack of imaginative rumpy-pumpy so far.
He never propositioned a chimneysweep, never asked for time alone with the Mechanical Turk, never ordered a zoo animal to his rooms under the pretense of science, never telegraphed Houdini in a state of panic (“MY DEAR DISCRETE ERIC. STOP. REQUIRE KEY FOR A SCOTLAND YARD STANDARD ISSUE BRACELET No. 12. STOP. ASKING FOR A FRIEND. STOP.”), and never bored a hole in a melon.
“I have never,” Wells implies with his silence on the matter, “taken a neckful of hot Victorian chod.”
Look. I’m not saying people should try such things if they’re not completely into them, but he describes himself over and over in this here book as a libertine. It’s libertine this and libertine that, but so far as I’m able to tell, he only has about six notches in his bedpost and it never once crossed his mind that he could lower himself onto it.
And that’s fine! But it’s normal, not libertine. It’s like saying, “I’m mad for ice-cream, me” and confessing you’ve only ever tried strawberry. One word, H. G.: Choconut.
One might almost say his life was chaste when you remember he was a celebrity, loved by all. In fact, it was probably the law in 1910 that anyone crossing paths with “The Marvellous Mr. Wells” must take their trousers off and await his instructions.
“Tell us a story about your day, Grandpapa.”
“Ee, well, it were a right honor to be asked to serve as an on-street toast rack to the great futurist, Mr. H. G. Wells…”
I realise it’s a bit strange that I’m getting bent out of shape about things that didn’t happen a hundred years ago. I just think it’s a shame is all. Entering that mouth, I’m sure you’ll agree, would have been like going through a car wash, sudsy bristles rubbing along the roof. And all the while, you’d be thinking, “I can’t believe it. The tip of my dingus is but inches from the brain that gave us Kipps!. Two inches, now three inches, two inches, three inches…”
Still, despite his dissapointing lack of imagination in the bonking department, he was no stuffed shirt and it’s nice to think of an elderly H. G. Wells finishing a bowl of soup and then harumphing off to write his sex memoir.
Fine. I accept it. H. G. Wells was a sexual fellow. Vanilla perhaps, but sexual.
And now at least we know where the inspiration came from for those tripods.
🍆
If you enjoyed this story, (a) shame on you, and (b) please consider buying my books A Loose Egg and Stern Plastic Owl for countless other flights of fancy.