top

She sliced bacon on a bright red machine with a whizzing wheel and a blade which could cut off an unwary finger in an instant. She wrapped cheese in white paper, weighed loose tea into green bags, (half a pound for one and sixpence) and sugar into blue ones with the tops folded down intricately, an origami model in it’s own right. (They lost money on sugar)

No it wasn’t a deli, we didn’t have them then, but it might have been the International Stores or the Co-op and the girl I knew worked there.

She rode a pink Raleigh bicycle with a basket on the front with her little hat in it. The bike had a brown leather saddle which smelled of her minge, or so I discovered when she stopped in a gateway and waited for me.

“Don’t tell your mother” she said “an’ I won’t tell mine”

I wondered what I wasn’t to tell her so we walked along to the hollow place in the meadow where there were primroses and sharp new nettles which stung our legs.

She spat on a torn dockleaf and handed it to me. To stop the stinging, she said.

I knew all about that, knew it didn’t work all that effectively. It was the thought that counted more than anything.

She stopped by a tree and looked at me.

“Bet you can’t guess what colour knickers I’m wearing!”

The thought had never occurred to me.

“White!” I hazarded. It was the first colour to come into my head.

“No they in’t!” she told me gleefully “Guess again”

“Black !” I said “They’re black aren’t they?”

“Don’t be silly she said “Only old maids wear black knickers!”

She walked into a hazel bower where long tendrils of ivy hung down like broken chandeliers.

“I c’n show you if you like” she dared me.

There were hazels and silver birches in a little thicket and a lot more ivy to screen us from prying eyes.

She leaned against one of the little trees and lifted her pinny and the front of her dress together.

“Mum says……..” I began.

“What colour are they?” she interrupted, “can you see?”

They were white, just as I’d guessed the first time so I said so. White and as broad as my hand at the crotch.

“You lied!” I said “Told me they weren’t white an’ they are……..”

“Ah you din’t say they were white with little flowers on”

“That’s cheating!” I said. “I can’t see no flowers. You’re only sayin’ that!”

She moved her feet apart, pulled the dress up higher then laughed when half crown fell out of her apron.

“That’s two and six I’ve got to pay my mum” she told me.

“What for?” I asked

“You know” she goaded “for keep”

The idea of paying your parents money to live at home was a new one on me. I’d always assumed I lived there for nothing but I looked at again I suddenly realised she knew more than me.

“See there are flowers!” she taunted. “See ‘em can you, can’t you, are you interested?”

“I can see them, yes” I said.

“You’re a liar!” she chortled “Me underwear is all white and plain!”

“Then you’re a liar too!” I told her “Doubly so ‘cause you tricked me!”

“An’ I’m going home now!”

“Don’t go yet!” she urged, scrambling towards me “I……I’ll tell you a secret if you stay!”

“What secret?” I demanded hotly. No-one ever told secrets to me.

“I know what your mother and father do in bed!” she whispered “Mine and all……….”

“No you don’t!” I said “You don’t know nothing!”

“I know what Jake Emerson does before he comes for his cheese………”

“What?”

“Washes ‘is ‘ands!” she laughed.

“You’re stupid” I told her flatly “and you don’t know nothing! And you’re a liar! That’s worse!”

It didn’t seem to bother her, what I said so I leaned against one of the other trees and looked at her.

“What are you staring at?” she asked after a couple of minutes.

“I ain’t starin’!” I said “I’m goin’ home in a minute……”

“Tell you a secret if you stay” she offered. “’nother one!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Pearl Savory is ‘aving it off with Jake Emerson” she told me flatly.

“Having what?” I asked, not at first knowing what she was talking about.

She smirked.

“How……how do you know?” I asked, dim realisation slowly dawning.

“Cos I seen ‘em!” she said “Watched I did. The other night when……”

She looked at me strangely suddenly, sort of worried, concerned that she might really have given a real secret away.

With carefully calculated carelessness she regarded me.

“Show you what they do if you like……”

“That in’t no different to what animals do in the fields” I told her “Matin’ and that……”

“Yes it is then!” she corrected “’Cause a man an’ a woman’ll do it for pleasure……!”

“I’ve heard about that……”

“Mmmmm but you in’t never……you know……done it yourself……yet?”

I thought I knew what she was asking. At least I had a good idea. She was asking me about sex and I felt myself blushing faintly.

“You can kiss me……” she offered.

The idea seemed repulsive at first.

“……if you like……”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because” she replied.

“Then I’ll show you what Pearl does for Jake Emerson in his dad’s barn.

“She mates with him. You said!”

She grinned, leered at me her face reddening. In a minute I thought, she’ll be as red as me.

“Kiss me an’ I’ll show you……”

As slowly as I dared I leaned towards her and put my mouth against her cheek.

“That’s no good!” she said grabbing hold of my shoulders “You got to do it right, lips t’lips!”

She tasted really funny when we did it. Soapy sweet or something, not at all the way I imagined she would taste.

“Errrr!” I yelped turning away.

“Tha’s only lip balm!” she said “T’ stop ‘em crackin’ when I’m on me bike’”

Well that was several new things I’d learned in a couple of quick minutes but I’d learned something else too. Something which was much more disconcerting. No-one had ever told me that kissing a girl made a boys cock go hard.

We did it again and the taste wasn’t that unpleasant. In fact it was rather like those soft peppermint sweets I liked.

“Tha’s better! You’re learnin’” she told me that time.

Of course I wanted to do it again straight away but she had a couple of other ideas.

“A man an’ a woman t’gether don’ mate, they make love!” she told me slyly. “Tha’s what Pearl an’ Jake do an’ my mother and father……”

“And mine?”

“Course!”

“Is that different?”

“Yes an’ no!” she said. “Y’see a cow will go to a bull to get a calf an’ t’ keep her milk a’comin’ but she don’ go for anythin’ else. She don’ go f’ no pleasure, she only goes t’ get ‘erself a calf. A man an’ a woman do it anyway, not course they want a calf, or a baby but b’cause o’ th’ pleasure!”

I kissed her again, without her asking. She didn’t resist, didn’t say anything and I began to wonder what I should do next. My thoughts were elsewhere, up in my room in the dark under the blankets in bed.

“Do you call it willy or cock? she asked.

“Cock!” I said “Sometimes. Sometimes nothin’……”

“I dare you to show me!”

“……alright! But only if……”

“’Course!”

At least it was more comfortable when I got it out, it didn’t take much, only a couple of buttons and out it came like a spring.

She didn’t laugh at me but I still felt embarrassed and excited and very strange when she lay back on the grass and took her knickers right off, down her legs and over her feet and put then into one of her shoes for safe keeping. They did have little flowers on them but they were so faint they could hardly be seen.

“Can you see?” she asked.

“Yeah……!”

“Dare you t’ kiss me again……”

“That i’nt no dare……!”

“You know what I mean. Th’ pleasure……”

“Yeah……”

“C’mon then, do it…...”

“Yeah……”

She made some funny noises when I mated with her, like a bull in a field, ‘cept we were in a hazel thicket behind a hedge. Funny noises like she didn’t like it much.

“Don’t stop!” she urged “Now you’re……now, keep doin’ it…...!”

I thought it was hurting her somehow but I couldn’t see why. I know it wasn’t hurting me. Not like that anyway. Not like nettle stings but in another, different sort of way. A nice way but still a hurt.

“Go on!” she said again which was silly ‘cos by then I wasn’t going to stop.

“You’re a man now!” she said holding onto me tightly after she’d made me put my stuff inside her.

I didn’t feel like a man. I just wanted to cry, wanted to hold onto her and go over it all again. Instead I looked at the little red bumps on her legs where the nettles had stung her. I even had a proper good look at her minge with a smear of my stuff on it.

She pulled a face when she saw me looking then pulled up her jumper and showed me her tits which weren’t very big and didn’t look anything like those on the cows in the fields.

“You don’t go telling no-one will you?” she said, lying back and letting me look my fill. “not your mum, I mean, an’ I won’t tell mine”

“Alright” I said.

She had something else for me the following night.

………………

Where did this come from?” Mother demanded.

“Alison Gee at the shop gave it to me……”

“What for? What have you been doing?”

“Nothin’ I……she jus’ likes me!”

Mother gave me an oddly knowing look.

“You must have done something for her”

“I……no, nothin’ much……”

“Well I hope she didn’t steal it, that’s all!”

It was a big one, that cheese with a foreign label on it in blue and white, a whole wheel of Brie from France, a foot across at least. Mother put in on the cold shelf in the pantry and we kept eating off it ‘till we were sick of it!

© Aahlu 230211.