While They Were Sleeping

"One day," she said, "a long time ago, this happened."

We were sitting on the balcony of her flat, watching the traffic on the road. It was a warm day, and the breeze off the river made the balcony the most comfortable place in the apartment. We had nowhere to go and nothing to do till evening, and there was nothing to watch on TV, so we sat there and she talked.

"I have never been a prude," she said, tapping her fingers on the railing. "Although I don't talk about it much. You know, we've been together all these years and we've talked about everything, but not about sex. I don't know why. It's not as if we're shy or something. And I know my secrets are safe with you.

"Anyway, what I'm talking about happened back when I was nineteen. A long time ago." She smiled, running her fingers through her grey-streaked hair. "At the time I'd just found a job. My first. It was nice having money of my own, as little as it was.

"I was still living at home then. There was no way I could afford to move out and anyway back then it wasn't the done thing for a woman to live alone. I wasn't happy at home. I had all the things women have today at that age, the raging hormones and the desire to be free, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was frustrated.

"All those days I would come home from work, and when I wanted to go out at least at the weekends and unwind. But there was nowhere to go because I knew nobody to go with, men or women. At work we all had to slave all day, and the men were all middle aged or over. At the time they all looked ancient to us. If one of them looked at me with any sexual interest I'd feel disgusted.

"It wasn't as if I was a virgin. I'd lost it a while back, but the first time wasn't great. I did not care for the guy and the only reason I ever did it was that I was curious to know what it felt like. It hurt and it turned me off both the guy and for the time being off sex. And all that was a long time ago, before I got the job. After I got the job I was just too tired most times to think about it.

"My parents weren't too forthcoming either. As far as they were concerned, any and all thought of sex was taboo – forget actually discussing it. So I was caught out either way. I didn't like the experience I'd had but I began to think I should be having it and enjoying it, because of what I read. But I couldn't discuss it with anyone either. It was...frustrating.

"And then one evening I was all alone in my bedroom, with the window open. It was a hot night. My bedroom was on the upper floor, with a window to the side of the house, and through the window I could see the neighbouring house. There were people there I had never met because they kept on coming and going. I doubt any one set of tenants lived there more than six months.

"I could see people there in the garden. Two of them, and they thought they were invisible because there was a fence, but I could see. There was a half-moon, and I could see.

"I don't want to go into the details of what the two of them were doing, because in any case I was too far off to make out every little thing. But the moon shone on shaking breasts and dark triangles of pubic hair, and the shaft of an erect penis, and I could see them embracing and kissing. At last they sank together onto the grass and because they were below my line of sight – there was a fence, as you recall – I couldn't see them any more.

"Long before then, my hand had slipped under my panties and I was caressing my clit. I was wet right through the cloth by then, and I so badly wanted to feel something inside me that I finally took off the panties and put my finger inside my vagina as deep as I could go. It was nice. I didn't have an orgasm, but it felt so good. It was the first time I had masturbated since the time I had first had sex.

"Almost every night after that I waited at the window until I was too tired and sleepy to stay up, but I never saw them in the garden again. I never actually saw him at all afterwards. I saw her, once or twice, in a shapeless sweater and old trousers going shopping looking like a tramp lady. She wasn't pretty but I knew what sort of body she was hiding under that and I was envious. Oh, that I was!

"Some time later there were new tenants in that house, just the sort of people I didn't like. A fat old man and his stick thin, hard-faced wife. Even if they'd put on a nightly show I wouldn't have wanted to watch. Ah. Well.

"One day soon after I couldn't stand it any more. I was always cooped up at home at the weekend. My parents were home too. So I took a day off from work without telling them, and I decided to spend the day out by myself.

"I had a new dress. It was black with red roses on it, and I'd never worn it after buying it. So I put it on and went out, and since there was nowhere else I could think of going to – this was fairly early in the morning, about nine – I went to a park. It was almost deserted. This was a weekday, you remember.

"So I took off my shoes, feeling greatly daring even to feel the grass under the soles of my feet, and took a walk around the park. I sat on a bench for some time not far from a set of swings and then lay down on the grass. It was a nice day, not hot, and I soon fell asleep.

"I wasn't asleep long, maybe an hour. When I woke my face was pressed to the grass and right in front of me there was a stand of foliage. Through this I had a clear view of the swings. One of the swings had a woman on it, and was squeaking as it swung. I guess the squeaking woke me.

"She was a girl, really, about my age or younger, plump and pretty. She had a short dress on, like mine, and was barefoot, like me – her shoes lay on the bare earth under the swings. She began to swing back and forth, higher and higher, locking her ankles together in front of her and holding her legs up so that each time she thrust herself forward her swings took her ever higher. I'm sure she never realised I was there.

"Each time she swung, her dress rode up her legs, right over her plump pale thighs, and as I watched, a gust of wind blew the skirt of it back over her waist. She wasn't wearing panties, and she parted her legs so that the breeze blew on her naked genitals. It was the first time I had ever got a proper look at another woman's pudenda. It looked like a pink flower. She slowed down her swing and finally just sat like that, legs apart, and finally she got up, picked up her shoes, and left. I waited for a while before I got up. I was feeling hot and soaked through with sweat, and my heart was hammering. I had no idea why, because I did not find the episode erotic, just hugely interesting.

"Many months later I met that girl again. By that time I was working in another office and she had come in for an interview. I was supposed to take her details down to pass it on to the boss. I recognised her instantly and had to fight down the urge to tell her that we'd – er, met – and how. But I didn't, of course. She didn't get the job, as I recall.

"I'm telling you all this, as it were, to set the stage, to explain how I kept the flame of my sexuality alive through all those long bleak years. Believe it or not, although I lost my virginity at eighteen, I was all of twenty-six before I had sex again. And this is how it happened.

"I had this friend. She was a co-worker, and she was generous with her time. My father had died by then and my mother was ill a lot, so I had to take a great deal of time from work to be with her. Luckily my employers of the time were understanding, and my co-worker, her name was Laila – she had Iranian blood – she filled in for me a lot.

"She had a brother. The brother was called Masud. He was always coming to meet her at the office, so he was no stranger to any of us. But they were both exotic, brother and sister. We weren't so used to foreigners in those days.

"One day Laila asked me for a favour. Her family had a lot of relatives coming over, and she said they had a major space problem. She wanted to sleep over at our house – just for a night or two, just she and her brother. Now of course after all she had done for me I couldn't refuse. So they came over and I gave her my father's old room, and he said he would sleep on the sofa down in the living room. Which was quite all right, the sofa was big and soft.

"My mother was going through one of her better phases. I gave her the sleeping pill she had been prescribed and went to my room. Laila and Masud said they were exhausted, and they'd gone to sleep directly after dinner. I wasn't exhausted though, and I couldn't sleep.

"It was a silent night. I lay awake, and I couldn't hear a thing. I couldn't get to sleep, and after a while I got up and went to the window and looked out at the house next door and remembered what I'd seen all those years ago. I remembered that and the pantyless girl on the swing and I began to get wet between the legs. I took off my clothes – all I had on was a slip, so I didn't have much to take off – and began running my fingers up and down my vaginal slit.

"I had an orgasm, but it wasn't enough. I began feeling tense as though a spring was tightening inside me, and I couldn't rest at all. I was pacing up and down that room, stark naked, and I began to get so tense inside myself I felt I would explode.

"At last I went down. I didn't put on anything. My mother would sleep till morning, that I knew. For some reason I had almost forgotten Laila and Masud. In any case, I didn't even think about them. I went down naked to our own garden, which was walled off like the one next door.

"I danced. Naked, I spun round and round in that night air, my arms flung wide, my hair whipping around my shoulders, till I could no more. I got dizzy, I spun till I could no longer stand upright, and I fell – right into Masud's arms.

"I have no idea how long he had been there watching me. He may have been standing in the shadow, because I had not seen him. I hadn't been looking anyway. My dance had been everything.

"He laid me down gently on the grass and knelt by me, asking softly if I were all right, if I could stand. I could hear worry in his voice. He had thought I was sleepwalking or having some kind of psychotic episode. Finally I got up off the grass and went with him into the house.

"He wanted to get me clothes, but I stopped him. He was standing on the carpet next to his sofa when I went to him and hugged him, pulling his head down to mine. My need for him was desperate. I began running my hands over his body, pulling off his clothes as quickly as I could. He made no move to help me, but neither did he resist. When I pulled his shorts down off his hips his penis was already erect. I couldn't see it – it was dark in that room – but I could feel it. Oh yes.

"I lay down on the carpet and pulled him down on me. His weight on my body seemed to push my legs wide apart all in one smooth movement, and I heard myself gasp as he entered me, his soft hard warmth inside my moistness. I put my hands on his buttocks and pulled him to me, and each time he thrust I bucked off that carpet, our bodies coming together in a soft slapping, our breaths coming as gasps. I was already strung up tight, and I felt the spasms begin inside my body as my orgasm built and built. In a moment he reared up suddenly and thrust hard, and I could feel him spurting inside me. We both cried out then, at that release.

"It was his first time, he told me before I went back to my room. I fell into bed and slept like the dead. "The next night we waited till Laila had gone to sleep, and then I rushed down to the living room, naked, and Masud was waiting, also naked. And the next day Laila and he moved back to their house because their guests had gone.

"Years later Laila told me that she had known I was fucking her brother, that our cries had woken her up that first night.

" 'Why didn't you do anything?' I asked her. 'Why didn't you stop us?'

" 'It was obvious you needed it,' she said. 'And it was time my brother lost his virginity, and I couldn't think of a nicer person to initiate him, you know.' She laughed. 'That whole relative visiting thing was a put on, you know? They were visiting, but we could have squeezed in at home if we'd wanted. I had a job persuading Masud to come along to your house. Well, he's married and divorced now. And so am I.'

"So that was it," she finished, smiling at the memory. "I've had sex so many times and so frequently since then, but I still remember that time the best of all." She reached out and patted my head gently. "Let's go for a walk," she said.

I wagged my tail in delight.