Just my side of the story. K.
I have never been in love, I refused to let it happen apart from work I refused to let anyone get close enough.
In my own eyes, I was a big fat ugly girl. I had my bit of luck and was now living a comfortable but fairly boring life punctuated by a monthly breath of fresh air.
I developed late. Not physically, mentally! My mum loved me but tried to live a life she never had through me. I had to have ballet lessons, I was the fat girl in Billy Elliot who fell over all the time.
Piano lessons as well. Actually, the piano lessons were good. My teacher was an old black lady, Celia. I loved Celia. I still love her now, when I go to visit mum, soon now I suppose! I go see Celia as well.
We always do a barrel house duet. We have swapped hands now as Ceila has a bit of rheumatism.
I liked her straight away, she was quite strict with her two boys. If they called me fatty and Ceila heard them she made them holler.
You need to keep boys on a short lead she told me. "What about men, I asked" no such thing girl snorted Celia. They never grow up. I laughed then. I'm still laughing now because as we say in Yorkshire "There's nowt as funny as t' truth."
The boy's dad had died in a coal mine accident. Ceila was giving middle-class prissy kids lesions to keep food on the table. Funnily enough mum and she are still best friends.
I went to her house for lessons whenever mum would let me out of her sight. "She has a much better piano than us," I lied to mum.
The truth was she taught me blues piano when mum wasn't there to interfere. We still don't do the barrel house thing in front of mum.
Mum always had me on a diet because even though I was quite a tall girl I outweighed most of the boys in my class at school by quite a bit. The other thing that drove me to tears, yes real tears was her insistence that there is someone for everyone. I knew that was bollocks, well, I thought I did.
My poor old dad just didn't have a clue, he always had the best hugs when I needed one. He never said, but I know he wanted a boy,
He and mum never talked about it and even though my dad is long gone now, she still won't. I know something went wrong when I was born. I don't think mum could have any more kids after that.
So for both of them, it was me or nothing. I often wonder if he'd have settled for a tomboy. Considering I had bigger tits than my mum by the time I was twelve that was never going to happen.
Despite this they never gave up, in fact, mum still buys me clothes to this day. I have two wardrobes full of "Buckingham Palace Garden Party posh frocks" that will not be worn until she pops her clogs. I'll pick out the best to bury her in, she'd like that. The rest will be in the nearest charity shop before she is cold. Poor mum.
I'm comfortable in jeans, love leather, now my "man" is a biker I've got loads of proper and pretend bike gear. However, I play games in Latex. I love it, it brings out the best, worst maybe, in me. I'm a different person in latex.
I left school as soon as I could get into the nursing school at Jimmy's in Leeds. Yes, a certain well-known but now departed DJ had more than one feel-up of my bum and boobs. I ain't off to court, I was quite flattered at the time.
Jimmy's was my number one choice as there, we "inmates" had our own rooms, so small, there was no storage space for the clothes my mum would have loved to send me off with.
I did my training, became state registered and took every one of my nursing jobs there. I never moved out of that room, for a long time it was my whole world.
I earned a promotion to nursing sister to get my foot on the upward ladder. I'd been nursing for a few years and I was either ward sister or acting ward sister for just over four years.
About that time I met Mandy. Mandy was even more different than me. Mandy was a bit of a scandal, very open about her sexuality and that was very Lesbian.
In the common room, there was a piano. It should have been burned years ago. But if I was feeling blue I'd go and play some of the tunes Celia had thought me. Mandy came in, obviously attracted by the music.
Wow, your fucking good. I didn't know what to say. At that point, I had never uttered a sware word in my life. She stood by the piano watching me.
When I finished and went to stand up she pushed me down and said play some more big girl! Don't call me fat I snapped.
She laughed at me, no silly, I meant these. She grabbed my boobs and gave them a none-too-gentle squeeze. Ohh I could play with those for hours. Look at me, I haven't even got fried eggs, I think you were well in front of me in the queue.
I was flabbergasted. Well, you ain't running down the hall screaming. Come back to my room and ill make you squeal.
I did, I don't know why the inner me won out over the mummy-moulded outer me for once. This girl changed my life. Sex wasn't dirty after all. It was fun, to use Mandy's words. Fucking good fun.
We had an on-off affair that lasted a few months but she left, she went on a VSO contract for a year. If it hadn't been for the way my life turned I'd probably have followed her into Voluntary Service Overseas.
