“Yes, very nice. Ta.”
She couldn’t be more obliging but she’s obviously waiting for me to do something. So am I.
“Chocolate finger or a ginger nut?”
“Ginger nut, please.”
“I won’t join you because I have to watch my figure.”
“I should think you have a lot of company.” That’s not bad and I can see it goes down well.
“Cheeky. No, its alright for an old married woman, I suppose, but I have to work at it.”
“What does your old man do—” I say very casual.
“Oh, he’s in the navy. In Singapore at the moment, lucky basket. I can just imagine what he’s up to.”
I’m glad there are a few thousand miles between us.
“How long is he away for?”
“Oh, months at a time. Why, are you thinking of moving in?”
“It’s an idea.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic. I know some blokes who would jump at the chance.”
I would jump at it too if I wasn’t such a stupid tongue-tied twat. I can listen to myself like some gormless berk you overhear on the bus and feel sorry for, but I can’t get off my arse and tell her I want to fuck her. I feel it so badly I’m nearly crying but it’s stuck inside me and I don’t think anything is going to bring it out. Now, I can’t think of a thing to say. Not a single bloody little word. I’m sitting there concentrating and I know my face is setting as if its in a jelly mould. I’ve got to get out. The whole thing was a stupid mistake. Its much better if you stick to thinking about it. I stand up fast and my knee jars the tea cup across the table.
“Well—” And then it rains. It doesn’t just rain, it explodes. One moment there’s nothing and then the water is hitting the ground like bullets. One moment Viv is looking at me startled the next our eyes are pulled towards the window. Its frightening – and exciting. Watching it I forget my tensions and when she struggles to close the top window I help her and our bodies are touching and the rain’s splashing all over our faces. I don’t know whether she starts kissing me first or it’s the other way round but it seems like the most natural thing in the world and when I feel her beautiful soft mouth against mine I want to come, it’s so fantastic. Her housecoat falls open and I pull her down on the floor knocking over the garbage bucket as we go. All the rubbish spills out and for some reason I find myself looking at a tin which says ‘Honest Katkins – a satisfied cat or your money back’. But not for long. Viv is coming at me like eight drunken Irishmen locked in the ladies’ and she tears at my fly like it’s the way out of a burning building.
“Get it in, get it in!” she hollers and I’m struggling with my skin tight jeans in a graveyard of potato peelings. I tear my boots off with my feet practically still in them and she’s plucking the buttons off my shirt as if she’s shelling peas. Talk about ‘Beat the Clock’. At last I get my jeans off and she grabs my cock like it’s a lifebelt and she’s going down for the third time.
“Come here,” she howls, and I’m so twitched up I nearly do – on the spot. Once she’s got her hands on you you’d be a fool to try and resist and I’m inside her faster than a pouf on a choirboys outing. Then she really starts. If I didn’t know I’d think she’d just plugged herself into the electrical circuit. I’m not complaining mind you, but it’s all a bit overpowering for me considering it’s my first time and I soon realise that things are getting out of control.
“Yowee,” I howl and suddenly its like going over a bump on a toboggan incredibly fast. Everything speeds up and I hear myself shouting as if from the other end of a long corridor.
“Thank you, thank you,” I sob, “you’re marvellous, fantastic—”
Viv moves her head to one side and squints down my body.
“You’ve cut your heel,” she says, ‘We’d better put something on it before you bleed all over the mat.”
When I leave Mrs. Stanmore’s – that was Viv’s name because I saw an envelope with her address and a foreign stamp on it in the kitchen – I feel about a hundred feet tall. I’ve scored at last and I want to rush off and tell everybody about it. I am a bit disappointed that Viv seems so unaffected and is thumbing through the T.V. Times when I leave but you can’t have everything. The main thing was that I’ve got my end away, and on my first day too. I rolled my eyes at all the girls I passed and wonder if they knew what they are missing. And a married woman too. She must have been on the pill – or something. How should I tell Sid? For no reason that I can think of I terrify everybody waiting for a bus outside Balham Station by shouting ‘Up the Blues!’ and race myself home.
But I don’t have to tell Sid. A couple of hours later he comes in and chucks himself down in front of the telly. Mum was getting tea and Rosie is washing her hair. Dad is presumably down at the Linnet explaining to those who haven’t heard it before how he won the Second World War.
“How’s it go?” I say waiting for him to ask the same question.
“Much as usual. I brought your ladder back.”
That takes the wind out of my sails. Sid grins.
“Yeah, you start leaving those all over the place and its going to get expensive.”
“Sorry Sid, my mind just went blank.”
“Only just?”
I try and smile but I don’t really feel like it. What did Sid go back for? I don’t have to wait long to find out.
“Viv told me you had a little tussle. Very little I believe, You’ll have to do better than that with Viv, she’s a very greedy girl.”
It occurs to me that Sid has secretly been a bit jealous once he’s handed over his bird and hopped back smartish to see that everything is alright. His swagger suggests that he has been reassured that he is still Number One in the farm yard. Lucky old Viv. She’ll really be looking up when we take on a few partners. I can’t help feeling a bit choked about it but at the same time the fact that Sid might have been worried gives me confidence. I’ve never known him show any signs of flapping before.
“She didn’t seem overimpressed with you if you must know.” I lie.
Sid goes scarlet. “What did she say?”
“Oh, nothing really. It’s not worth talking about.”
“Go on. What did she say?”
“Well, she said – oh, no. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Sid.”
“She didn’t say anything. You’re lying.”
“That’s right Sid. I was just having a little joke.”
“She’s never complained to me.”
“No, of course not.”
Poor Sid. You can see him racking his mind to think of every single time he’s had it away with her.
“She said I was the best poke she’d ever had.”
“Well, there you are.”
“What did she say?”
“I told you Sid. It was nothing really.”
Sid is starting to speak again when Mum comes in with our tea.
“What you got lined up for me tomorrow?” I says to him all innocent like.
“You can get stuffed,” he snarls, and storms out, nearly knocking over Mum’s tray.