We met at university, I was a couple of years older than her, she was nineteen, I was twenty-one.
We had fairly quickly gravitated towards each other, we came from not dissimilar backgrounds, blue blood and old money. I come from the South of England, the second son of wealthy titled parents, Henrietta comes from the North West, the only daughter of wealthy land owners, race horse owners and breeders.
We did have our differences however. I had been brought up to obey the rules, to stick to the social norms and show respect for the social niceties of my position. Henrietta, or Henry, or even Hen when she took the fancy was, compared to me, a wild card. She was in her own words a "Goth." Many of our university compatriots could not see past the make-up and clothing, yes she wore black (and red if you knew where to look, and she let you), and her make-up was a bit extreme at times, but behind all that was an incredibly intelligent and beautiful person.
There was another significant difference. I was a very inexperienced, totally heterosexual man. I wasn't a virgin, but I had very little experience with the fairer sex. Henrietta on the other hand was experienced, and she freely admitted to having had sex with several other girls as well as men. Hen is a free spirit, she made it clear from the first, that sex was a thing she enjoyed, and that I shouldn't expect exclusivity. I didn't know how seriously to take her on that issue, she certainly didn't appear particularly 'flirty' when we were out at clubs etc.
I admit that Hen did surprise me when we had our first holiday together on the island of Ibiza, a place I'd never been to before, seeing her dance all night and kissing all and sundry at Cafe Mambo was a revelation! And then, in complete contrast there was her insistence on attending Gothic weekends around the country, but especially in a small fishing town in Yorkshire. Of course I went with her, but my idea on those weekends was to book a nice hotel and then go and join in the festivities; Hen's idea was to take a festival tent and sleep in a field. We slept in a field!
At the ages of twenty-three and twenty-five respectively we married. Both families were happy with the match and they were surprisingly all happy at our (Hen's) choice of a disused and then converted ancient church as our home.
I took a bit longer to come to terms with it. There were tombs under the cellar (crypt) and our garden was full of graves, albeit with the headstones removed and forming a boundary wall at the very bottom of the garden. Still I found it sort of spooky at times, even at midday I did sometimes get a cold shiver up my spine when alone.
It was Goth weekend at Whitby. Exactly why it was still called 'Goth' weekend was beyond me, as there seemed to be as many 'aliens' and robots walking around the town as Goths. However, after darkness fell the atmosphere definitely changed to a more gothic theme. Witches, vampires, ghouls, and assorted other beings that presumably went 'bump' in the night filled the town, the beach and the churchyard on the top of the cliff.
We had been in a couple of the pubs, and were making our way back towards the field in which we were camping when we came across two of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen. They were walking in the same direction as us, just a little behind us and when they caught us up we chatted as we went. It was only after walking for several hundred yards that we realised that they were not after all both girls, they were in fact a girl and a man, a very beautiful man. Even as a very 'straight' man, I could appreciate just how good looking a man 'Cactus' as he called himself was. As Cactus and I walked and chatted, Hen and 'Flower' fell a little behind. When I stopped and looked back there was my wife, in the middle of a country lane, deeply kissing another woman. She and Flower were almost devouring each other, without a care in the world.
"Does it bother you?" Cactus almost whispered.
I shook my head, as though coming out of a daze. "No."
And, surprisingly it didn't. My wife was making out with probably the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and to be honest if anything I felt a bit jealous. I needn't have, because when they stopped kissing, caught us up and then Hen kissed me, Flower grabbed me and we made out if anything more intensely than she had with Hen!
