It was way back in the early 1950's, but the memory remains so strong. As it should. Surely no one ever forgets their first sexual experience, whether it be with shame, disappointment or pure joy it has to fix itself into the memory bank. After all those decades, I can still classify that time as a mix of all three, with perhaps the addition of shock and surprise.
It was summer and I had a long break before taking a place at university, where, I was informed there would be willing girls galore, all longing to experience "their first stiff cock up them." Those were the words of Lenny Canning, who, weeks earlier, told me how he'd had Betty Danton in the long grass in Byker Park.
"Everybody's had Betty Danton," I told him, knowing I should have kept my mouth shut.
"You haven't."
Truth was I had no real experience of any girl, save a quick grope at Jenny Logan's left breast through her woolen cardigan at a party, before she had knocked my hand away.
Lenny Canning, I knew would make the most of my ignorance, "In fact, you've never had it with any girl, have you?" He never stopped rubbing it in about how 'slow' I was. But it was he who told me how university girls were available, because his brother was there, and he knew.
You have to remember that this was still a time when the majority of young women believed in keeping it until they were married. The trick seemed to be to find somebody like Betty Danton, a girl who was "easy", but for some crazy reason I just feared failure, even with them.
In those days the only chance a young man without a woman, had of learning about a woman's body was in magazines like 'Health and Efficiency', which somehow got away with showing photographs of bare breasted women being active, but always with their thighs lifted to shield their lower regions. This made Lenny Canning's added taunt, sadly true, when he sneered, "I'll bet you don't even know that women have a moustache, a bush, down there."
So here came this particular summer, and as I looked forward to the easy days ahead, I was also faced with the prospect of having our two bed-roomed flat to myself for the very first time. My parents had decided to take their first continental holiday, and my mother was nervous of her first experience of flying. But my father had enthused, "Seven days on the Costa Brava. What could be better? Sun, sand and ssss-" He deliberately spun it out as my mother nudged him, "-ssangria!"
On the morning they left my mother was full of warnings and advice, "Don't just live on fish and chips. I've left plenty of food in the fridge. And keep the place tidy. No wild parties."
"And no loose women," my father had laughed.
"Be careful who you open the door to," was my mother's final advice.
"Oh, mother, I'm eighteen years old."
"And he's big enough to look after himself," my father added.
For the first two days I had no bother looking after myself. Late night at the local pubs with some pals, late mornings after. Eating when I felt like it. Going to the pictures, and keeping my eye open for a chance with a girl. I had hopes of losing my cherry before I even got to university. Trouble was, I didn't know how. None of the girls I had tried to get 'into the long grass' would have any of it.
Then came that morning. It was a Wednesday, and there was no sun. I remember that so exactly. I had got out of bed before ten, and that was early for me. In my thin summer pants and an unbuttoned shirt I was down in the kitchen making myself coffee and toast, trying to decide how to spend the day, when there was a knock at the front door.
Not expecting anybody I went through into the front room and peered through the curtains. A figure with a long red and black shawl, that covered her head and reached down over the top half of her body, was standing there.
A gipsy. Of course it was the fortnight of the summer fair, when several caravans and an assortment of stalls and rides were set up in the field just two streets away. At such times we could always expect gipsies calling at the door as they did their rounds selling lucky white heather or clothes pegs. My mother always used to say, "I'll give them short shrift. One once said she'd put a curse on me." She would laugh then and add, "That was the year you were born. Funny that."
My mother loved her little joke, but now I went to the door, mug of coffee still in my hand, and ready to give this visitor "short shrift." But the moment I opened the door, the world turned around, my breath caught in my throat, my heart pounded inside my chest and the mug shook in my hand.
I had been expecting some old crone. In front of me, framed by the shawl was a young, bright face, with wide green eyes that strayed from my own face and down the opening in my shirt. This was a face, with full moist lips, high cheek bones and such delicate skin, so stunning that it was as though I had never seen a woman before.
The full lips parted as she said in a voice that, to my befuddled mind made her words sound like a song, "Tell your fortune for half a crown?"
Her lips were still parted as the tip of her pink tongue licked lightly over them, and, filling my abject silence, she went on, "Tell your fortune for a cup of that delicious smelling coffee." And she sniffed her delicate little nose in the direction of the mug I held in my trembling hand,
"Would you like one?" Was that my own shaky voice speaking out of the stupor I was in?
Her face lit up as she asked, "Is that okay?" And that lighting up sent a warm surge into my chest.
I tore my eyes away to glance nervously up and down the street, which appeared to be deserted, but unable to think straight I immediately said, "Better come through to the kitchen."
"Are you sure?" she asked but immediately added, "Thanks," and stepped over the threshold.
No, I wasn't at all sure. A voice in my head screamed to know what the hell I was doing? With my legs feeling as though they belonged to somebody else, I led the way to the kitchen. I waved vaguely at a chair, while thinking, 'My mother will go nuts.' A gipsy, loose in the house! But, this was the only way I could keep that wondrous face in view, even though it had me all a-tremble.
I was all fingers and thumbs as I fumbled with a mug and the coffee preparation, and again her voice wafted around me, "You don't live here alone, do you?"
Somehow I managed to stammer where my parents were.
"I imagine it's lovely there. So hot. No sugar, thank you." She had seen me scoop into the bowl with the teaspoon. I turned towards her with the mug, and how could my trembling ever increase? She had sat down at the kitchen table, had shrugged her shawl off over the back of the chair, and what I found myself looking at was nothing less than a pure dream image.
Her hair, cascading to her shoulders, was not black as I had expected but was a light sandy colour. A vivid red blouse seemed to emphasise subtle curves underneath, but with two buttons undone I could see the tempting flesh tones of the beginning of those curves. The table obstructed any view I might have had lower down but I could well imagine a continued line of a very trim figure.
"Don't you want to give it to me?"
Was I hearing right? "I beg your pardon?" I asked dumbly.
"The coffee," she said, a slight smile playing around those lovely lips.
God, I needed to get a grip on the situation. "Oh, sorry," I said, placing the mug in front of her. "I thought gipsies always had black hair."
"I was adopted by the Mantelas when I was a baby. My real parents were killed in a motor accident."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugged, "I never knew them. The Mantelas have been so good to me. It was good growing up with a travelling fair. They put me through university. This is good coffee,"
I had sat across the table from her, still slightly bewitched. "I'm glad you like it. University, you say?" I couldn't understand how she could be doing this door to door stuff. "How long ago?"
She grinned, "I'm still there now. Entering my final year at Edinburgh. Doing a relaxing two week stint with the show. My gipsy roots."
That was a quick clarification of her situation, and her final year, that would make her twenty one. Three years older than me, but why did that matter? Managing to relax just a little, I told her I was starting at Loughborough in September. But that gap at the neckline of her blouse kept catching my eye.
A gentle smile played on her lips as she asked what I was studying.
"Mechanical engineering," I told her, "with some sport."
"Ah, yes," she said, and didn't her eyes glance down at my open shirt once more? "I thought you looked--quite athletic. I'm doing psychology, with French and Spanish."
