Cass was a vibrant personality. Not over complicated though - what you saw was what you got. A confident conversationalist, she was very assured of who she was and what she thought. She lived with her Dad in a single storey house on the other side of town. The attic had been turned into two rooms. Up a small wooden staircase from a room that had a piano in it, the first room had a double bed in it with a door that led through to Cass's bedroom. Downstairs was a menagerie of rooms off a main hallway.
Cass's Mum lived elsewhere having split from her Dad some years before. Her Dad was a reserved guy. When at home, he would often be watching the TV or reading, with a cigarette lit. Her Mum, who I never met, was, as Cass occasionally described her, pushy and irritating.
Cass would often not be around on a Saturday daytime because she was taking singing lessons and would occasionally be involved with amateur dramatics, which her personality lent itself to easily. Cass had a good voice and her singing was important to her, although I always got the feeling she was pushed a lot early on to reach the level she'd achieved.
My relationship with Cass was complicated. It started off as us getting together at a church event. She took a shine to me and, exhibiting some of her mother's traits, no doubt, made it clear we should find a quiet corner. By the end of an hour's fractured conversation and visits outside the building, she had kissed me, I'd responded and we had apparently become an item. Those kisses were not timid either. She made it clear she wasn't pussyfooting around as her tongue danced around mine during those initial furtive exchanges.
Our "relationship" thing was really a quite confused and compromised situation. At that time, we were both involved in church groups. I was still a virgin and happy to take what she would give. In that context, this meant a deeply repressed struggle with intimacy. Passionate kissing, touching through clothes and even some rhythmic movement but remaining fully clothed.
It was a pile of confusion where both of us would have probably had each other's clothes off but felt it would be dishonouring what we believed. A recipe for disaster.
As a result, we lasted two weeks.
If I'm honest, I was daunted by being with a woman amongst girls. Maybe it was because the message from the church about the evils of sex for its own sake had overarched my youth so much that, even though I was "of age" by this time, I'd had no experience of what a proper physical relationship meant. I'd learned more from porn mags in some respects.
Although Cass was only around a year older than me, I think it was probably her background that meant she had to get up and get on with life. I was inept and foolish and I took the step of saying it wasn't working. We were both conflicted with the church versus sex issue but I wasn't mature enough to deal with it and talk to Cass. I very much felt out of my depth. Typical male.
The day I finished it was awful because, after telling her, she collapsed on the sofa in tears and told me that she'd been hoping to meet me for a while and was very excited when the opportunity presented itself.
This I found hard to believe because I was not, or ever have been, a follower of fashions. When I met Cass, I had shoulder length hair, aviator-style glasses and was basically a mostly denim-clad beanpole at that time who played a bit of guitar now and again -- not exactly a catch in my own mind. I spent the following six hours at her house with her either talking to me downstairs imploring me to reconsider or me listening to her sobbing in her bedroom.
It was this day I took up smoking, probably in an attempt to relieve what was quite the most emotional situation I'd ever found myself in. I'd ignored the fact that many of my friends smoked to some degree but it was then I gave in.
I had never done anything to make someone cry so much. We were both crushed by what I'd done.
As a result, I kind of avoided Cass for a good while after that day. I'd not seen how she must have built herself up, despite her apparent confidence, to put herself in front of me that first night when we kissed. I knew, despite my emotional immaturity, not to rub her face in it by hanging around.
Not long after our end, Cass stopped going to church and it was getting on for a year later when I happened to meet her in the town high street. I was nervous of how she might react but, in typical Cass style, she was up-front and chatty. She had hooked up with someone I knew fairly well - David.
Having, in effect, walked away from a relationship with her, it was not for me to judge who she might choose to be with. David was a strange choice though. Laid back to the point of being comatose sometimes, he was certainly an opposite to her. Cass and David it was though and, on her invitation, 10 days later, I found myself over at Cass's for the first time, since the split, with David and a few friends.
None of us had much cash. I was in my first job and just about had enough to keep a car going and pay my Mum and Dad some rent. Therefore, a sunny, early Saturday evening was spent downstairs at Cass's house with the patio doors open looking over the long, sparse garden of her place which led on to fields behind. No doubt, today, those fields probably have houses on them but, back then, it was not a bad landscape to look out on.
Accompanied by a fairly regular cigarette for me and a glass of Cinzano & Lemonade (the only affordable alcohol those of us who drank could all bear), it was all quite relaxed and a good few hours went by, chatting and laughing.
As the evening went on and the sun set, various friends made their way home which left Cass, David and me. Cass and I were having a great time -- we had a lot to catch up on. David was contributing to the conversation in his own laconic way. There was no awkwardness.
Cass seemed happy with David and it was great to see her so content. Of everybody that I knew, she was the one person the phrase "full of life" was made for so her contentment was heart-warming to see for me. Cass and I were talking so much that David almost had to signal his intent to speak. We almost seemed to have a conversational rapport that was non-existent previously.
I knew Cass and David were sleeping together. It had been mentioned to me in a conversation with a friend, in a mildly judgmental (or was it slightly jealous?) way, only a few days before when I said I was heading over to see her.
But Cass wasn't in the church now so it was her choice, and I'm sure she had a lot to give. I suspect, for her, the start of things with David sealed the end of her involvement with the church and, as a result, she became the subject of rumour and speculation when it came to her relationship amongst former friends -- not that she cared for what they had to say.
I was still a virgin. I had a number of female friends. In fact, I found their company more enjoyable. However, I was always the "lovely guy" and, although there was the occasional dalliance that strayed into kissing and closeness, the combination of church and being the person that I was meant that anything further was never a consideration.
Cass was a physically striking woman, alongside that strident personality. Long hair, often tied back at the nape of her neck, framed a face with eyes that always seemed to have an inquisitive expression to them. Her nose had a slightly prominent bridge which gave her an unmistakable side profile, that I found quite attractive, and her natural expression was one where she appeared to be on the verge of a smile.
She was only about 5'3" tall which tended to emphasise her chest. Cass's breasts were big enough that she always wore substantial bras as, without them, her back muscles would ache. Her chest gave way to a shapely waist not out of balance with her body and legs which would often either be in leggings or track suit bottoms. If she was wearing a dress, it was always just above knee-length, with a neck cut without displaying too much of the top of her breasts - emphasising her shape without being too tight.
She had a certain style and I remember her saying that her shape was such that, when she found a dress that would fit, she would get a couple because, as she would say "my boobs don't go with the rest of my body". In a dress, Cass's always bare legs would be adorned with fairly high heeled court shoes. As I said earlier, she looked like a woman amongst girls. She WAS a woman amongst girls.
Back to the night in question. It had been unseasonably warm that day. Cass was still in one of her dresses from having been at music school in the morning. The other friends who were around moved on elsewhere. With everyone else gone, Cass had decided that her, David and I should catch a movie on the TV she wanted to see. Being back in the days before even a DVD, this meant either negotiating the timer on a video recorder or actually sitting down and watching it when it was on.
We'd all had a few of the infamous Cinzanos during the course of being at Cass's. I got one more round of them in (which I'd managed to neutralise, to some extent, by taking on the odd pint of water during the evening). Cass produced a blanket to put over David, herself and I on the sofa and we settled in to watch the film.
After around 15 minutes, Cass placed her hand on my thigh. Considering this evening had been the first time I'd been back in her house since the split, it startled me as I wasn't anticipating any contact whatsoever. Her hand started moving -- very gently, kneading my thigh slowly and then, with a more deliberate motion, moving her arm so her wrist and forearm were against my groin.
