This is just before the half way point in the story. If you want the complete version you may e-mail me and I will forward it as a Word document.
That night, after Jack left, Sophie lay in bed and cried. She wanted Jack. She wanted to make love to him, but Iain's ghost was making in impossible for her to react to his lovemaking. Iain had blighted her life, turning her from a happy girl into a desperately unhappy wife.
She had been brought up in a happy, moderately wealthy family with a place in local society. She had done well at school and, when she was accepted at the University of Toronto, she had thought that life couldn't have been better. She was away from home; amongst people of her own age and doing, more or less, what she wanted. She had enjoyed her first year but it was during that year she had made a decision which she had regretted ever since.
It was at the 1914 Christmas Ball she had met her future husband. Iain was in his third year studying mechanical engineering and while he wasn't handsome, he was good looking, articulate, clever and obviously well-off. She had danced with him for most of the evening and, when the dance finished, he had asked her out and she had accepted.
She had been on dates before, but they had been with schoolboys; Iain was her first man. At first she had been impressed. Iain was attentive and polished and introduced her to a lifestyle, including upscale restaurants and parties, she would never have been able to enjoy without his help. If she was surprised by anything it was the lack of sex in their relationship. When she had started university she was a virgin and sexually naΓ―ve but had quickly been introduced to the mysteries of sex by Jenny, her room-mate, who was sleeping with her boy-friend and who enjoyed describing her sex life in graphic detail.
By the end of the school year it had become readily apparent to her that she was far more knowledgeable about sex than him and almost all she knew she had come from Jenny. She was curious about sex and had considered making the first approach but, constrained by her upbringing, had rejected the notion as being inappropriate and possibly demeaning to Iain.
It was in her second year she had started to worry where their courtship was leading, in part due to comments from her room-mate and, in part, due to her misgivings about Iain. Jenny had a prurient interest in sex, which included Sophie's sex life, and couldn't believe they hadn't, at the minimum, engaged in something she referred to as 'getting each other off'. It appeared she and her boyfriend practiced it regularly in both its manual and oral form and, almost exclusively, when she was at her most fertile; or as she had called it; 'baby ready'.
When she had listened to Jenny describing her sexual escapades, it had excited her. Jenny made sex sound wonderful although, she had to admit, she could have made a description of someone peeling an orange an erotic act. She also realised Jenny's relationship with Tom was unconventional, at odds with the attitude of her mother and her friends to whom sex was an unmentionable act to be completed in the dark, even slightly frightening to a proper, small town girl like her but still far more interesting than her relationship with Iain.
She remembered the time when she'd had difficulty understanding the nuances of oral sex for a woman and, when she had asked Jenny to explain it, how she had removed her underclothes and given her a detailed description of her vagina, pointing out how and what the man did, followed by a description of how a woman could satisfy herself if she were on their own. When Sophie asked about satisfying a man orally, Jenny had suggested the next time her boyfriend was over and Sophie was there she would show her and, if she wanted, she could practice on him. She had said 'no thanks', but was excited by the thought and wondered what it would be like.
By the end of the fall semester of her second year she had come to realise Iain was totally unadventurous and probably a virgin. They were still going out at least twice a month but it had become totally predictable. She understood she was still too young to drink and they couldn't go to a public bar. She also understood that the occasional parties, which made life with Iain bearable, didn't take place every week, but she needed something more exciting than their regular routine of dancing at one of the hotels and watching movies at the Bay Theatre. In spite of her mis-givings she continued to date him for the rest of the school year knowing that he was due to graduate and that his graduation would provide an opportunity and excuse, if she wanted, for her to end the relationship.
Iain graduated in June 1916 and promptly announced he had volunteered with the 120th Battalion and would be leaving for France by the end of July. It had upset her, not because she was concerned that he was joining the army - she had known he would probably be conscripted when he graduated - but because she had been his girlfriend for two years and, yet, he hadn't seen fit to discuss the matter with her. .
The week before he left for France, Iain had appeared at her parent's house complete with engagement ring and asked her to marry him. She had wanted to refuse him. She didn't love him. She had tolerated the repetitive and often boring dances and trips to the cinema but she could not ignore his total lack of interest in her sexually. She had wanted to find out something about sex β perhaps not sexual intercourse - but something along the lines Jenny had shown her. Iain had not shown the slightest interest in her other than the occasion when, at her prompting, he had fondled her breasts and she couldn't believe that he would change in the future. In spite of her misgivings she had accepted him. They had been courting for almost two years, her parents thought he was a good match but, most of all, she was aware he was going to war to fight for his country and might die. How could she be ungrateful and reject him?
The night before he left for France they went to a dance at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. It was the summer; she was living at home and, as she wanted to go shopping, she arranged to stay in Toronto for the weekend at the home of a university friend. As the dance was ending Iain told her he had booked a room in the hotel and wanted her to stay the night with him. She was astonished by his suggestion as not once in the last two years he had ever once suggested they make love and now, at the last minute, he wanted her to sleep with him.