Sporting Cardigans 2

For the second in my sporting cardigans mini series I'm going to take a brief look at the bowls cardigan. That's bowls, not bowling; the British game of marbles played by elderly gentlemen (and some ladies) on billiard-table smooth lawns or indoors. I know little about the game itself, but it's enthusiasts appear to be old and competitive. A look at their websites reveals this latter trait, they seem obsessed with competing and winning. A secondary, but also important concern seems to be with the sartorial; competing and being well dressed seem to go hand in hand.

In a sense this is understandable. Some people are just competitive and when the body starts to exhibit those failures and limitations which flesh is heir to, a more sedate outlet for this naked aggression is likely to be sought. Bowls would appear to be such an outlet.

I illustrate my piece with a picture of a Balmoral  bowls cardigan, one I bought on ebay. I have another which I bought from a bowls outfitter on Scotland. They are made of a dense and thick acrylic with five 2-hole buttons. They appear to be generously sized probably to enable their increasingly portly wearers to claim to be medium when they're in fact, how to put this politely... er... not. They are always white, the cardigans and their wearers. Being white they show stains, which in my experience don't wash out too well, so real enthusiasts need to watch where they're putting their gentleman's relish.

I have done an extensive search today and discovered that they are no longer available, can't find the men's version anywhere. We may have seen the end of an era.

Not a word of the following is true.

I used to help out at the local bowls club, helping the elderly gentlemen in their clubhouse. They used to get changed into their whites before matches and most of them wore the bowls cardigans. Some of them used to encourage me to help with their cardigan buttons and one of them, a particularly portly gent, name of Flowers took a particular interest in me.

I didn't think much to it. He was a married man and I wasn't really much of a gerontophile, apart from wanting to help portly elderly gents with their cardigans at the weekend. This particular Sunday he had made sure he pressed his ample tummy against me as I helped him on with his cardigan and I must confess I copped a feel just to feel how prominent and curvaceous it was. This appeared not to be lost on him, as the match proceeded he glanced in my direction on several occasions.

As with all bowls matches, what seemed like hours of tedium were leavened with moments of sheer monotony to the extent that it would not be hard to persuade oneself that these players out there on the lawn had started the game as much younger men. At last it finished and all retired to the clubhouse to boast of their achievements and remove their cardigans, a task with which I was enthusiastic to help.

I was to be thwarted in my desire to play with a lot of cardigans by Mr. Flowers's insistence that I help him and only him, and that interrupted by his insistence that he give me a lift home in his car. He was most forceful and I soon found myself in the passenger seat of his car. Large as it was, and commodious as the interior was, Mr. Flowers was a tight squeeze behind the wheel, his embonpoint  having been emphasised by his seated position. So enthusiastic had he been earlier to leave the clubhouse with me in tow that he still wore the sporting cardigan, now somewhat distended by his posture.

We set off, not in the direction of my place but his. He told me during the brief journey that his wife was away and that she didn't understand him anyway. At this point he put his hand on my knee. We eventually arrived at his house and he invited me in. By this time I was intoxicated by the sight of cardigan restraining ample tummy and followed him.

He closed the front door and bade me wait in the hall while he disappeared upstairs, he came down moments later and invited me to follow him upstairs. Bereft of all other garments he was still wearing the cardigan.

I shan't bore you with the details. Suffice to say he had an old fashioned view of sex, gentleman on top and very much in charge. I remember the sheer weight of him compressing me and the vigour with which he had to fuck to reach orgasm. I didn't have one and wasn't invited to have one, I suspect he was unused to his sexual partners having such things.

He appeared less frequently at the bowls club after that and eventually I heard through the other members that he had died of a heart attack. One of his closer friends brought me a cardigan. It had belonged to Mr. Flowers. The friend, who had helped his wife clear out some things, thought I might like it.

Like I said, they stain easily, and it doesn't wash out.

I took a photograph of Mr. Flowers on my phone that day. I still have it but those prudes at google have deemed it unsuitable so I've had to remove it.