The Party Ch 01 36

This story is set in 1980 in Birmingham (UK). There was no social media, no mobile phones which take photographs, and no internet porn. Also, asking for specific consent was less of a given then as opposed to being ready to hear the answer no. The two main characters are over 18.

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It was mid-afternoon in Birmingham Central Library, and Rebecca believed she was done for the day. She returned the library books critiquing GR Elton's thesis on the Tudor Revolution in Government to the shelves. She checked that her notes were legible and made sense, folded them, and slipped them into her bag. She smiled to herself. She had now looked at all the secondary sources she could and believed she had an argument she could back up convincingly.

Mr Hampton had explained to all the Oxbridge candidates doing arts papers that what tutors were looking for was a hint of originality as well as knowledge. The danger with knowing too many facts was that an essay could become a recital of them. She needed to be able to use the facts to razzle-dazzle the examiners. She translated that as meaning as knowing enough facts to bullshit convincingly.

For once, being poor and not understanding the rules of polite society gave her an advantage. She naturally looked at things in a way her teachers wouldn't think of, and they construed this as originality.

This term was for proving her father and all those who despised her wrong. She was going to get into Oxford on her own merits and give herself the chance to have a brilliant career. This meant as few distractions as possible. Definitely no unhappy love affairs.

She had cleared the decks for the next few months. She had given up the bar job and the Saturday job. Money would be tight by Christmas, but she had a buffer until then. She had even given up being dungeon mistress for her D&D group, although they understood why. Three of them were also applying to either Oxford or Cambridge, admittedly to do physics with a view to colliding atoms in Switzerland. They knew she wouldn't have time to prep for their sessions.

She had even provisionally decided to give up sex. She had early on decided that she did not want a lovey-dovey boyfriend while she was at school. She was honest enough to know that no relationship would last after the end of school. Besides, she could do without the emotional hassle of balancing being honest and giving any boyfriend the emotional reassurance they needed. If she was really honest with herself, she was frightened of a relationship turning out like her parents.

Sex was a different matter, but last year had taught her that people thought she was a whore if she gave men hand jobs and allowed them to get her tits out on a date. She had simply followed the advice of her mother's best friend, who said that if an impoverished young woman went on a date where the man paid for the drinks, meal and tickets, she was expected to reciprocate. This seemed logical to her, as did actually watching the film you had gone to see. She'd also expected that men would be happy that she wasn't interested in going out with them.

She now knew that even if that was how things ended up, the man was supposed to make the move, and the woman was meant to resist up to a point and then become a girlfriend. Getting the hand job and snogging out of the way before the film started and resuming afterwards was seen as being tarty and scared men her own age.

It didn't help that she was a year older than the rest of her year at school, having had a breakdown after her mother had died in a car crash while cheating on her father with his best friend in the back seat. It was clear that everyone at school knew the salacious details of the crash and that her father had thrown her out because he thought she was a whore like her mother and wasn't his child.

In the end, she simply made her own arrangements and, once a month or so, would travel out of town and have a one-night stand. She was probably giving that up this term. There were too many ways that could go wrong; she had had a near miss last month while on holiday. The threat had been nearer a Straw Dogs gangbang than a Waiting for Mr Goodbar murder, but still a shock to the system. If only she could find a man who was looking for amusement without complications or a need to control her - affectionate sex would suit her.

Perhaps a version of Roy. He had been the one member of last year's upper sixth who hadn't been upset when she had laid down her rules, and she was almost certain that he hadn't slagged her off to his mates. They went out once every three weeks or so to films, theatre and meals. They'd both enjoyed themselves and dealt fairly with each other. He paid for everything, and she taught him how to kiss, cuddle, undo bras and foreplay. They'd only ever gone to what the Americans called third base, but he accepted that she had reasons for not having sex with anyone at school.

Eventually, Roy got himself a permanent girlfriend, and understandably, the woman did not want her boyfriend consorting with Rebecca. She could respect that, especially after he had told her after the first date that the woman had seemed surprised that Roy knew what he was doing. Roy had been a good pupil. A bit like her with English Literature. Not a natural, but when he was told or worked out what he was meant to be doing, he did it.

Perhaps that was why Mark liked her, and George hated her. She was good enough at English to make Mark refine his arguments without making him feel inferior. She was better than George and wasn't afraid to show it. Actually, there was more to it. She'd never got the sense that Mark wanted to have sex with her while George wanted to fuck her and humiliate her. The trick she'd pulled on George at the prizegiving would never have worked with Mark. He'd have laughed and played up to it instead of fuming and going beetroot red.

She was wearing a button-down summer dress she had bought from a charity shop. It was comfortable and showed off her figure well. It was one of those she had bought when she had started at St Tom's. The fact that the sixth form could dress smartly but not wear a uniform had been bad news for her. She could not afford to compete with the others in her class on clothes. Well, that had been one of her experiments at fitting in which had gone badly.

Still, she liked the dress. The buttons allowed her to choose between being demure and sexy. As a five foot-seven brunette with long legs and good, but not outstanding, breasts, she could easily switch between them. Even in the library with all the buttons done up (and wearing her national heath glasses), at least six men had mentally undressed her. It was good to know that she was sexually attractive to strangers even when she wasn't trying to be.

One of the men who had looked at her this afternoon was the sort that, if she had seen him on holiday, she would have flirted with him, given him a false name, and fucked his brains out on the final night of the holiday. She had smiled at him and gently shook her head. He smiled back and shrugged. Perhaps if she met him at the library later this term after the entrance exams, she would allow him to buy her a coffee at Birmingham Art Gallery and flirt with him. He'd looked like either a university student or a young professional.

She looked at her Swatch watch and saw that she still had time to catch the mid-afternoon performance of The Elephant Man at the Odeon. According to the reviews she'd read, the film was worth seeing. She'd enjoyed John Hurt in I Claudius and The Naked Civil Servant, and from the clips Barry Norman had shown, it looked visually interesting.

She would then go to the party that evening. She was good friends with two of the hosts, an enemy with the third and an object of curiouslity to the fourth. She would speak to her classmates she liked and pretend that she was no longer ashamed of being poorer than them. The reality was that most people eventually accepted her, or at least the hard-working, eccentric and shabbily-dressed personality she had adopted after the long walk. She had decided to herself that she could allow herself to be a little less eccentric this term.

She was still undecided whether she would wear another of the summer dresses from the charity shops to the party. Perhaps the one which Lorraine had identified as the one her mother had given to Oxfam. Lorraine wasn't really that much of a bitch, but her family knew George's family, and once it became known that Rebecca wore cast-offs, she had not been allowed to forget it.

Another alternative was one of her waitressing outfits. Smart enough, but making a statement that she wasn't ashamed of being so poor that she recycled work outfits.

Alternatively, perhaps some of the wardrobe funded from the tips from her summer holiday job in Saundersfoot--well, specifically out of the apology payment for the unfortunate misunderstanding. She would see what she felt like after the film. Dressing in a way that emphasised her sexuality had been fun at the prizegiving. Certainly, being lusted over and feared beat merely being despised.

She was queueing for a ticket when, to her surprise, she saw Julian buying some popcorn. She'd have thought that a slightly arty black-and-white film was not his thing, especially as the party was happening tonight and he was one of the joint hosts.

When she entered the cinema, she spotted Julian in the back row of the cinema with no one else in the row or the row in front. The lights were dimming, and the curtains were opening so the adverts would be on shortly. He had chosen one of those old-fashioned double seats designed for courting couples.

She decided she might as well be friendly and sit next to him. Let's be honest she also wanted to surprise and tease him. Her knees and thigh were automatically close to his, bearing in mind the double seat. He had the bucket of popcorn in his lap.

She was surprised when he ignored her. They got on well together, and he had accepted from early on that she marched to the beat of a different drum rather than calling her a weirdo or a whore. Julian was one of the better men at her school. According to Claire, he had been one of the few to defend her after the long walk and the Alex incident. He was too nice for his own good, really.

She decided that Julian had not realised it was her and that he was puzzled why a woman had sat next to him in a cinema with plenty of empty seats. She recalled a recent story in the Evening Mail about prostitutes soliciting for custom in the Jacey cinema during the continental films.

She smiled to herself. She was going to have some fun with him, at least until he realised who she was, or the film started. There would be about twenty minutes of adverts and trailers, so no need to rush things.

On her occasional forays when she had needed some release, she had occasionally picked up men in cinemas this way for sex in the toilets for a fiver or even gone home with them for a tenner. Admittedly, that was in towns at least fifty miles from Brum (often wearing a blonde wig and tarty makeup). Still, she wasn't expecting Julian to ask her for a knee-trembler in the ladies' toilets (far less invite her home), and if he did, she would tell him what a joker he was.

As the distinctive Pearl and Dean music heralding the adverts blared out, she undid three buttons on the dress and hiked it up so that her knees were visible. She could sense that he was staring at her legs. She further lifted the dress and parted her legs just enough to suggest that there would be a welcome in the hillsides for an exploring hand while pressing her right leg and thigh against him. She waited for what would happen during the inevitable Pernod ad.

He placed his popcorn between his legs, freeing up his hands. She'd been expecting panic rather than cpreparing for action. She still looked forward to embarrassing him, although she would be gentle about it. He was a friend, after all.

She sensed his left arm move behind her but still on the back of the chair, which she had expected. Ok, in a minute, he would turn to face her and see her face, and she could start teasing him. To her surprise, the shoulder was grabbed, but he stared straight ahead instead of looking at her. After twenty seconds, his right hand snaked across and grabbed her inner right thigh.

She needed time to think and moved her left leg over her right leg, trapping his hand between her thighs and squeezing. Was he really up for a bit of slap and tickle with an unknown woman, or was he playing chicken with her? She decided to call his bluff. He was a young version of Frank Muir, after all.

She took some popcorn from the bucket between his legs and made a sucking sound when she put the popcorn in her mouth. She then reached out for some more and placed her hand deep into the popcorn bucket. It was clear that he had a stiffy.

Perhaps he knew who she was and wanted this to go further. Of all the young men in her year, he seemed about the most broad-minded, and she could imagine him agreeing to the sort of relationship that would suit her: occasional trips to the cinema, restaurants, and theatre followed by friendly sex. She could train him to be a good lover. His eventual wife would thank her for it. She could also imagine him not knowing how to phrase the question and so was hoping that she would just let things play out.

Anyway, she owed his family. His brother and Mr Hampton had made certain the school insisted on Alex leaving the school, even though the brother thought she was no better than she ought to be.

His left arm now gripped her left shoulder and pulled her closer to him. OK, let's see where he was going with this. She looked at him and saw that his eyes were closed, but nevertheless was going in for a kiss. Surely, he must have at least glanced at her face before going for a snog. He must be playing chicken with her. She was dammed if she would be the first one to back down.

She met his lips halfway and started to snog him, gently nipping his tongue with his teeth. He was quite a good kisser, considering how little experience he probably had.

She unclenched her thighs and waited to see what his freed hand would do. It started to move up her legs, and then he changed his mind. He started massaging her knockers through the thin material of the dress.

She moved her right hand out of the popcorn and started undoing his shirt buttons. She gave a little moan to encourage him while her other hand played with his hair.

She nearly said something but decided to let it ride. It had been three weeks since she had last had a sexual encounter, and that had been the unfortunate misunderstanding which almost turned into involuntary prostitution with five men when she had been a waitress at a stag party. The morning afterwards, the best man gave her a large tip as an apology.

She had learnt last year that woman like her could never be raped. Let's rephrase that. No one would ever be convicted of raping her unless they beat her up so that she lost a few teeth or an eye. It would always be a misunderstanding or haggling about the price. Oddly, it was safer here in the cinema than it would have been in a car.

She knew she could make Julian stop anytime she wanted, so she let him have free range. Soon, the buttons on her dress were undone to her waist, and the popcorn was on the floor. There had been a minor volcanic eruption as his legs had squeezed together.

By the time the adverts had ended, her tits were out. He had not worked out how to undo her bra strap, and in the end, he had manoeuvred the straps off her shoulders and simply levered her breasts out. She wanted the option to half-watch the trailers, so she pushed his head down so he could start nibbling and sucking her tits. He had already moved his duffle coat so it covered them, although she doubted that any spectators would have thought that they were holding hands.

He was muttering things to her about "how beautiful your breasts are" and how he had "never thought she was interested in him." Now, that was a surprise - she'd never expected to find that she was his obscure object of desire. She disguised her laugh by groaning and clasping his head to her right breast.

She tried to make sense of the situation. She could have sworn that Julian fancied Claire. Claire was five feet two inches tall, blonde, respectable, and cheerfully friendly. Her breasts belonged to a woman who was six feet tall, and she hid her intelligence. Rebecca was five foot seven, brunette, notoriously clever and difficult, and she was pretty sure Julian was scared of her. Most of the men at school (other than her maths class) thought she was a bitch. Her breasts were okay but not as prominent as Claire's. Perhaps Julian had a taste for danger, which was well hidden. Indeed, if anyone had told her that Julian was up for getting anyone's tits out and sucking them in public, she would not have believed it

Hell. If she was going to have a no-complications relationship with anyone at school, Jules was as good a choice as any. He was well off and could afford to treat her when they went out. He also lacked confidence. She also thought she could persuade him that she should be kept a secret as he wouldn't want to introduce her to the family. Besides, making a man of him might be a good gig. He seemed to have some idea of what to do.

She wanted to watch the film, so she had at most ten minutes to play with during the trailers. She still couldn't believe that he had not chickened out yet, and she was not going to break first. He'd better either have meant it or have a good explanation at the end.

Well, the whole sixth form knew she was up for getting her tits out and giving men a Balsall Heath handshake in the cinema, so let's go with it. She unfastened the belt of his trousers and pulled down his zip. He had a bigger dick than she had been expecting. It was also apparent that the eruption from the popcorn had been more than symbolic. He was eighteen, so he was ready for action again.

He responded by moaning and moving his left hand up her legs and stroking her upper thighs. Fuck, she hadn't expected him to go so far or have such a decent idea of what he was meant to be doing.

Curiously, he seemed more interested in giving her pleasure than in having her jerk him off. Unless she had been extremely flexible, her hand could not have kept hold of his dick. By the end of the first two trailers, his body was between her legs, he was sucking her tits enthusiastically, and she had spread her legs and wrapped them around him. His dick had moved out of range of her hands, and she was concentrating on holding him tight, playing with his hair and making sure that his duffle coat meant that everyone around could pretend that they were merely snogging.

Two people, at least, were watching them, but they seemed to be enjoying it, and she didn't know them, so she said, "What the hell?" to herself. If anyone left to report them she should do the necessary covering up, but so far no problem.

His right hand moved u into her knickers. Fuck he was braver and randier than she could have imagined. He kept saying things like "this is better than I ever thought it could be" and "you have a beautiful body."

She could understand why he didn't want to ask her directly about going to second base with her. It still surprised her when he moved to third base and had a finger inside her.

The next trailer came on, and the advertised film was "The Blues Brothers." She later discovered that the main track playing through the trailer was called the Peter Gunn theme, but the rhythm worked for pleasuring each other. He fingered her to the beat, gently pushing his finger in and then on the harder beat, adding another finger and thrusting harder. Hell, she was going to fuck to music more in the future.