'Moving Finger' and 'More Fingers' are the first chapters about my relationship with Pamela, a senior science colleague at the girls' grammar school in which I first taught. Now Chapter 3.
*
By the time Pamela's hands were sufficiently healed from the operations for her to resume teaching, we had orgasmed together many times, thanks to my busy fingers. I had loved it, but was eagerly anticipating the possibilities when she recovered. She was going to take my lesbian virginity, for if defloration consists of penile penetration, I was technically no longer virgin. I had had intercourse with three males, but I had not experienced the totality of sex with a woman. The first intromission had not caused undue discomfort, as vigorous exercise and tampons had long since destroyed my hymen. I may write about those heterosexual associations sometime, but it is my first love, the wonderful Pamela, that I want to celebrate now.
She was over twenty years older, and a virgin in the sense of not having been penetrated by a penis. She had never wanted that, though plenty of opportunities had arisen during World War Two as a Women's Auxiliary Air Force officer. She had suffered great frustration as a girl and young woman, for she had a powerful libido but little notion of how to manage it. She had masturbated almost daily, but had felt ashamed and guilty about it. Feelings expunged by her first affair, with a fellow WAAF officer who understood her own sexuality and Pamela's sexual potential. That had actually been the most exciting part of her life. The years since had been rather dull, though she had had subsequent lovers, some amongst her colleagues.
I arrived at a good moment. Pamela had no current lover, and was feeling rather middle-aged, even past it, and the chance to enjoy the admiring adoration of someone she could initiate into the lesbian mysteries was timely. And what could have been more fortunate for me?
Since we were in different departments, with the science teachers keeping themselves apart, having their refreshments in their labs, we didn't come across each other much in school. This was just as well, or we would have found it difficult not to signal our passion. Even so, at least one person suspected: Janet, our physical education colleague, who approached me one morning when I was alone in the little kitchen off the staffroom.
It was my turn to put on the giant kettle and set out the mugs for mid-morning drinks. Janet stood alongside me, and I was acutely aware of her, as everyone was, because she had great presence. She was dressed in her usual outfit of a tight, white aertex shirt and a short black sports-skirt barely concealing her capacious navy knickers. Under the shirt there was a bra which seemed to have more and broader straps than anyone else's, and cups made of buckram. Before the advent of the sports-bra, this was presumably to restrain her D-cup breasts from jouncing about when she demonstrated exercises or ran on the hockey pitch.
She threw an arm round my waist and said, 'Good of you to...visit... our Pam in the sick-house so much. Meant you didn't get much holiday.'
It was best to be straightforward with Janet. 'It was fine. I enjoyed it.'
She pulled me closer. 'As did she. Very much.'
'Well, that was good, then.'
As we were much of height her left hip was jammed against mine. 'She's not as tough as you might think,' she said. 'Been a bit lonely since her last...friend...left. Don't want to see her get hurt.'
'Nor do I,' I assured her.
The hand round my waist slid downwards and gripped my right buttock. 'Good arse,' she said. 'Nice overhang.'
'Rather like yours,' I said.
We had, apparently, said enough. I had been approved, and she and I were now allies. This is a good moment to remark, in fact, that she was universally loved for her generosity and kindness, which I was eventually to experience, and intimately.
Pamela and I scheduled our first complete love-making for a week-end early in the term, when we could be sure that neither of us was, as she mockingly expressed it, having a visit from auntie. We planned to go away to a distant quiet spot, to make sure no-one called on either of us, and that no-one in our town had a reason to wonder why we were together out of school. There was nothing illegal about lesbianism, but lesbians were still regarded with suspicion and distaste, even fear, so that it did not help your career, especially working in girls' schools, to be so categorised. Like gay men, lesbians were supposedly promiscuous and insatiable, partly, it was supposed, because they were not being penetrated, the penis being perceived as the panacea for their mistaken orientation.
We booked a twin room in a small country hotel for Friday and Saturday nights, and make our way there, separately, on different trains. The secrecy was part of the adventure. Pamela remarked that it was strange and exciting at her time of life to be conducting herself like a spy. It reminded her of the War, when she and her lover had had to be devious about their rendezvous, or 'randyvous,' as she put it.
At last we were together in our pleasant room, with its view into chestnut trees with their great leaves turning, its puffy dark blue eiderdowns on the beds, and a massive wardrobe with sagging doors to hold our few clothes. We were actually a little shy with each, laughing because of it, hesitant. Free from the restrictions of the hospital, free to do as we wished, free to fulfil our fantasies about each other, we were a little inhibited.
Then we moved together, embraced and kissed, tenderly, almost without passion. We needed to find each other in these new circumstances. As the kiss developed into open-mouthed exploration with questing tongues, our hands began to roam across our bodies over our clothing, smoothing and gently gripping. We stroked backs down to bottoms and moulded the cheeks. After a while we moved apart a little to allow hands to hold breasts. Then we stopped kissing and caressed each other's faces, gazing into each other's eyes, amused that she was taller than me, so that I was reaching up a little to brush the hair back from her forehead and standing on tip-toe to kiss it.
Eventually we withdrew a little from each other, apparently having gone as far as we could for the moment, and agreed that we would go for dinner, saying nothing about what might happen after that. What we ate I don't remember, but I know we talked easily, were silent easily, looked into each other's faces with pleasure. We felt, paradoxically, like an old married couple, taking a weekend break or a second honeymoon, in no hurry to go to bed, but contentedly aware that soon we would go upstairs and celebrate our partnership.
Once back in the bedroom there was no more shyness. Silently, it was agreed that Pamela was going to minister to me, I was to be receptive. She began to undress me without haste, but, being a talker, with commentary. 'I do like this blouse. Blue suits you. Off it comes. Perfect, that bra. So snug in there, and what a sweet valley. I've got to put my fingers down there. Smooth and warm! I've so much looked forward to seeing your breasts come free. So firm! Not much inframammary fold -- wonderful word -- let me lift them. Much heavier than mine. Nipples much bigger. Not little rods at all. Pyramids more like, but flat tops.'
She hefted my breasts, pushed them together and held them apart, admiring. 'I've got to taste...Lovely. They smell of cornflower. What about this skirt? Zip at the side. I'll take it over your head. Pretty slip. Over the head with that. Wearing knickers, then. I did wonder. Just to give me the pleasure of taking them off. Down with them. What have we here? Bosky little copse. No, a little uncut, sun-dried heather moor. Let me breathe it in -- hmm! Seaside and cedar. Lile down now, darling. That's right. I'll just strip off.'
At last I was going to see my first love's nakedness. She was wearing a flowered frock, large dark roses on a mustard-coloured background -- I can see it now. She stepped out of it, and out of a full-length cream-colours petticoat, and there she was in her bra and knickers, both of which were much smaller than mine. The bra cups were shallow, but when she drew them off, her breasts were firm, with no inframammary fold at all. They were like big tear-drops, with small, light brown areolas like little bumps, the nipples hardly proud of them. They were so charming, so vulnerable, that tears came to my eyes.
'They aren't so terrible, are they?' she said, noticing the tears and knowing very well the cause. She laughed. '"Small but serviceable." That's what my WAAF used to say.'