Later in my chilldhood: Rubber glove voyeurist moments....
.... I carried on fighting the urge to look at gloves, daydream about them and pretty much wish that every glove I saw would be possible for me to try on, if not own. I was fascinated with what they must feel like; the different fabrics captivated me, but even then it was the leather and the rubber ones that had the greatest mystique. As I said before, my mother is no lover of gloves so they seemed even more exotic. While she had plenty of rubbers that she garotted and punctured to death in no time she never owned any leather ones. The idea of one day owning a pair of black leather wrist long gloves became the holy grail to me, a life long aim I dearly aspired to which stabbed at me acutely whenever I saw such a glove adorning the hand of someone else.
Now rubber gloves were a far more commonplace sight in the suburbia in which I grew up, where wives were still housewives, some even going as far as to wear housecoats, tabards and aprons to protect their clothes and you even saw the odd headscarf a la Hilda Ogden (from Coronation Street) to keep the hair tidy while doing housework. Naturally I got to see a lot of rubber gloves, worn in houses, worn outside in the street and in gardens and it was common to see ladies coming to the door wearing them too . Sometimes this brought out a strange surge of confusing delight, such as the time the lady across the road opened her front door, her hand enclosed in a pretty shade of pink rubber, which I found to be the only glove she wore when the door opened fully. She kept that rubber on the hour or more me and mum were there having tea and biscuits as if it were perfectly routine to do so. When I could no longer take looking her unbalanced hands I interrupted the adults conversation to enquire about the whereabouts of the other glove to be told it had been damaged and binned quite some time ago. Another time my next door neighbour was admiring how blonde my hair was to the extent she felt compelled to stroke it with one of her yellow rubber encased hands. I can still feel the drag of my hair against the grips on the fingers and the palm of her glove and it is a sensation that doesn't get any more pleasant with time. The neighbour on the other side never seemed to own a single rubber glove, I knew because while round there playing with her kids I snooped through the cupboards ever watchful for gloves. Much as I liked her for being younger, more fun and nicer than some of the more fuddy duddy neighbours, at least they seemed to wear rubber gloves an awful lot.
As did my mum. The abiding memory of her rubber gloves were the sounds they generated above me while she stood, rubbered up at the sink as I looked on, desperately wishing she would remove the gloves, dress my hands in them and ask me to do the dishes instead. She never did, which made me want to thrust my hands deep in those forbidden gloves so very much more, even to this day she has never allowed me to wash up in her house. I loved the snappy, stetchy noises they made when she pulled them on, though the snap noise, like a balloon being gently pricked could signify the death of a glove, many I time I saw a finger bursting through a finger sheath violently as drew on her glove which distressed me, I hated seeing a precious glove departing like this. Then there is the flobbery wobbly noise a glove would make,slapping against her arm, somehow moving like opaque jelly. By far the most familiar glove noise I remember was the glove wringing noise, where she would take a cleaning cloth in her rubber hands and twist and wring it until there was not even a droplet of liquid left in the cloth. The grinding, snarling sound of the rubber writhing, stretching and being pulled ridiculously taut was a process I could not bear to watch or bear to miss either. If mum was doing any housework involving a rubber glove I would be there, watching avidly. Admiring the glove and worrying about how cruelly she would be abusing it this time, wishing it were mine to treat kindly and gently instead.
Like the clumsily yanked on gloves that her fingers burst through, the excessive wringing lead to so many casualties too, so many times I saw the clenched fist encased in rubber that became more and more see through across the knuckles the more she squeezed and twisted that cloth, eventually giving in, revealing a finger or equally as often, a huge tear across the whole glove which almost caused the now useless piece of latex to fall off her hand in one go. Whereas I always have a spare pair of gloves to hand and replace a glove the moment I suspect there is even the tiniest puncture in the rubber, my mother is a very different proposition. Many a time an entire finger would penetrate the rubber, sometimes leaving sheath dangling and flopping around like one you would see on a bridal glove during a wedding before the newly ringed and wedded finger is re-ensconced back inside the comfort of the glove. When I became too anxious at seeing nine rubber encased digits and a bare finger and simply had to point it out that she required a new rubber glove I seldom recall ever getting a response that I found satisfactory, she didn't cry out 'of course!' and immediately don a smart new pair or even dig out a single replacement glove that had lost its partner. More often she would remark that at least one hand would remain dry and well cared for, and what remained of the other glove might offer some protection. I was left to observe the finger retreating inside and then darting back through the slashed rubber and water seeping into the glove and down her arm, often accompanied by a wince of discomfort as her poorly protected hand made contact with the scalding water.
Sometimes she would perservere with a slashed up glove for a few days in a row while washing up, but all to often she would be doing the dishes wearing only one glove. 'Well at least this hand will be lovely and dry' was the response I got when I broached the subject or 'it doesn't ,make much difference whether you wear one or two rubber gloves'. Sometimes the excuse was 'oh I can't afford to buy new ones' but sometimes I knew fine well there were other pairs of rubbers in the house, brand new ones even. She'd ignore my suggestions and plough on, single gloved but giving both hands the same exposure to the boiling water she'd always insist on cleaning with, coming away with one rough, chapped hand whose nail polish was damaged and scratched off whilst the other was softly cared for with pretty manicured nails. All too frequently she would do entire housework tasks with only one hand protected, saying that only one glove was necessary as it wasn't a big job or could be done with one hand alone, only to go on and do it with both, generally the ungloved hand at that once she got engrossed in the task, irrespective of what she was doing; be it wipe up a bit of spilled lemonade, through to using Jeyes Fluid or some skin rotting caustic stuff to strip paint off doors! What made this worse was the knowledge that on the rare occasion where she hadn't already trashed that the gloves' partner the poor other glove lay rejected on the draining board untouched. Ultimately it was thrift that dictated her use of rubber gloves, a pair meaning both gloves would need to be worn out before a new pair were embarked upon and sometimes even then there was a few days of both hands being nude before she made the vital purchase of more gloves. I'd let her get on with the housework unobserved on those occasions!
Was it really too much to ask for for my mother to always have several pairs of perfectly good rubber gloves at her disposal I used to despair?. I vowed that when I grew up I would never be without a replacement pair of gloves at any time for the ones I was wearing and similarly would have brand new untouched duplicate pairs for the numerous pairs I would have for the variety of jobs each set of rubbers were assigned to. I've kept that promise too, sometimes having two spare pairs as back ups for the rubbers I am wearing and I have never ever donned a glove that I knew or thought to have become damaged. The very idea makes me shudder.
Imagine my surprise and delight when one time I found a stash of brand new Marigold gloves under the kitchen sink; three pairs still in their packaging. Deep red ultra thin dishwashing gloves, yellow Fleur rubbers for more general work and a pair for heavier tasks. As the latter interested me the least I can't recall the colour these were but I have a feeling they were either pink or orange. But I was in love with those thin red gloves....mum was next door or somewhere so I chanced my opportunity and slid the large gloves onto my small hands, the soft flocking inside felt smooth as if I was being caressed. I clenched my little fists and watched the way the crimson rubber became taut over my knuckles and felt the reassuring flapping of the long cuffs which extended almost up to my elbows. If I had thought I could have got away with it I would have stolen them, such was my longing to own these and if humanly possible, never have to take either off my hands. They had the added illicit thrill. What if mum saw? She would know, she would guess my secret. With regret I slipped my hands out and returned the gloves to their packaging but I had a plan, they may not be mine, but me and those beautiful gloves would have our moment yet....
With mum safely halfway up the road I bolted to the kitchen and had those gloves on my hands so quickly I scarcely got to savour the moment but by God it was blissful! Relief, excitement, terror at being caught in the act and some kind of thrill all coursed through me simultaneously. I was too young to know about sex and a few years more from knowing what masturbating was but even if I had I would not have though to do anything like that, it would have defiled the gloves to do anything like that with them, something I largely continue to feel to this day. The gloves themselves provided that magical feeling where my heart beat faster, the noises and sensations they generated even by the smallest of movement of my hands sent a good kind of shudder through me. I loved the feeling of having my hands encased in softness and the smooth moulded, seamlessness of the rubber. The mystery of your hand being disguised; looking different on the outside to the world and to what was concealed inside, hidden away struck me as awesome. Then there was the sensation of being gloved in rubber, there was the obvious wet on the outside and dry on the inside but it had never occurred to me that while the gloves may appear bone dry the hands inside weren't necessarily, the lack of air getting to my hands and the longer I had them on I saw that the opposite could be true too. That contradiction, that mystery sent another of those shudders through me.
I do write a lot generally and its nice to get some feedback, thanks for the encouragement 
