In the Nicers of Time

IN THE KNICKERS OF TIME 1

By Norma Jane

1

Naturally, my body has changed with age, though not alarmingly. My breasts are a trifle larger and less firm and my bottom sags a little, and both lack the tautness of youth. But frugal feeding and regular exercise have kept me in good shape. My hair above and below is silvered, and I have crow's feet and some other lines, but that's to be expected. The constant in my life is my knickers. Always the all-enveloping white cotton, the same size as when their contents achieved their full dimensions aged eighteen. Reflecting on this consistency, various knickerly experiences come to mind.

2

I was 29, working out to maintain bust and bum. And in the grip of what I called in 'Double Desperation,' the 'sex-fever,' the gym visits being also to try and drain off the furious energy of frustration. Such places were not so common in the mid-80s, but a local grammar school was, for a modest subscription, making its facilities available out of hours, including all night. Unable to sleep, I often went then, when there were few other users.

3

One night, after my routine, I was in the changing-room. A slender elderly woman had been exercising, too, and seemed to be following me. I had my back to her as I stripped to shower and was pushing down my knickers. As they reached my knees, she said quietly, 'Would you mind doing that again?'

A moment to register this unusual request, then I pulled them up, waited a moment and slowly pushed them down. She said, 'Would you do it again, please?'

A little surprised, I pursued my principle of usually doing whatever another woman wants. So, I drew up, pushed down, and awaited further communication.

'Damn!' she said sadly, 'It won't go.'

This was a cry of distress, so, I turned to look at her. She had one hand under her tee-shirt and the other down her shiny long black tights. Clearly she'd been working-out, nip and clit, hoping my revelations would prove helpful.

'Want to try it again?' I said.

'No use,' she said, 'Your behind is a beauty, the nearest I've seen, and I thought you might not mind.'

'A woman baring her bottom might help you...?'

'I was hoping it might.' She removed her hands and shrugged.

She was close to weeping, and I pulled up the knickers and moved to take her in my arms. She embraced me, too, and I felt her tears against my face. Gulping them back she said, 'So kind... because it looks like hers, you see.' She ran a hand down my back and touched a cheek. 'This, I mean.'

'My bottom looks like your lover's?'

'She died, you see, and I can't get the lovely feeling. I miss her so much.' More tears.

'Could someone else help?'

'I don't know. Never been with anyone else. I thought I could just do it myself.'

'With a little help from a matching bott'

'Probably a silly idea, but it's partly why I come here, to see if I can see one. I did see another, but the room was full, and people might notice what I was doing.'

'Well, I've never heard anyone call out "Will somebody help me come?" Sadly not.'

'But you seem so free and easy, just stripping off without caring, and you look as if you'd understand.'

'It's part of your mourning?' I suggested.

'Oh, that's so... How did you know?'

'You've cried as much as you can, and you need to grieve another way.'

'When I saw you just now, you see...that's what she did sometimes. She took her pants up and down and then...seeing her behind got me going...'

Still in each other's arms, I said, 'So although it was seeing her bottom that fired you up, it was she who actually gave you the lovely feeling?'

'Well...that's right.'

'No-one's done that for you since she died?'

No. I don't know how to...ask and I'm a scrawny old thing no-one's going to want...'

'Tell me your name.'

'Edith.'

'Well, Edith, I'm Norma, and I can tell you that your hand there and what we've been talking about and seeing you trying has got me going. You can check if you like.'

'You want me to touch you...there?'

'If you want to.'

We loosed each other and she shyly put her hand into my knickers.

'Oh yes! I've never touched anyone other than Ailsa.'

'What about another woman touching you there?'

'Norma, that would be wonderful, but I don't know if it would work.'

'Shall we try, Edith?'

'Someone might come in...'

'I don't care, if you don't. We could ask her to join in or just watch. The girl on duty's asleep at the desk, anyway.'

'What do we do?'

'Well, I suggest you strip off, and we'll see what happens.'

She pulled off her tee-shirt, under which there was no bra. The tips of her shallow, cone-shaped breasts were small, but engorged. Under the tights she was wearing some little girl panties. Once they were off I enjoyed the sight of her now uncompressed pale puss-hair slowly springing up. I turned her round to inspect her bottom. Small, rounded, neat and sweet. 'That is a charmer,' I said, before turning her back. She was, touchingly, still shy, a hand hovering coyly over her mons.

Guessing it was her lover who'd been the more active partner, I threw my clothes and towel on the floor and helped her lie down on her back. I spread her legs and moved her feet to lift her knees. Now she was open, and I gazed at her labia. 'Lovely lips,' I said. 'So neat and tidy. The outer are like little ridges over a valley and the inner are fringes to your cleft, You're a little open, and I can see that little clit peeping out. I think it's ready.'

'Oh, Norma, I hope so.'

'Let's try. Just relax. Don't strain at it. Let it build.' I leaned in and slid my tongue between those sweet fringes and led it up to the clitoris. She shuddered as I teased at her little nub. It was not long before she said, 'It's happening,' as if reporting a marvel, which she felt it was, of course. 'The feeling is coming.' And she came with a little cry of amazement, rolling from side to side, clenching her bottom, joying in the orgasm. As it receded she made little humming sounds, and said, 'I feel I've woken up like Sleeping Beauty.'

Well,' I pointed out, 'Originally the prince did rather more than just kiss her.'

'But with us women, a kiss is enough, isn't it? You kissed me and it happened.'

'I love that special kind of kissing, two sets of lips pressed together.'

'Ailsa loved doing that, and I loved doing it to her. She liked me to hold her behind. It was like yours, too big to hold it all in my hands, so I used to move them about slowly to make sure it all got squeezed and stroked. Her little thing was much bigger than mine. I could suck it like a little lollipop. We just changed the word a little. We called them "lollypips." She'd say, "Lick my pip, Edie," and I'd say, "Give me the pip, darling." And she did.'

'And all because you wanted to play peep-bot-tom with me?'

She sat up. 'Norma, what can I do? Shall I kiss your pip?'

'Too gentle for now. Could you use your fingertips?'

'Will you lie beside me, then, Norma, and let me try. I could do it for Ailsa.'

I took off tee-shirt, bra and knicks and lay beside her. She put her hand on my stomach and ran it down to my pelt. 'Tell me if I'm not doing it right,' she said,' feeling into my upper vulva. 'Here it is, isn't it? Not as big as Ailsa's but I think it's bigger than mine.'

'Just keep squeezing a little and push the fingers in and out of my slit. That's the way. Can you suck a nipple as well? I love having them sucked.'

'Ailsa had great big ones. They were like lollipops, too. That's what we called them. She'd say, "Lick my lollies, Edie," and often when I did that it gave her the feeling without my giving her the pip, too.' She rolled towards me and took a nipple between her lips.

'Edith, you're pipping and popping fine. I'm going to come. I'm coming. Lovely! Oh yes. Yes. Now just hold my clit like that.' It was a short, sharp orgasm, not a long, languorous one, probably because it was a while since a woman had tossed me off, and it was going to take a series of orgasms to ease the fever. 'Thank you, Edith,' I said.

'Your bosoms swelled marvellously,' she said, laying her head on them, 'Like Ailsa's. Hers went huge and hard, like they were going to burst. Mine don't do a lot, though they feel nice.'

After a few minutes I said, 'Edith, I think there's probably more pop in your pip. Do you like something inside sometimes when you come?'

'We never used anything but our fingers. We'd never had a man in there, so we called those our "virginas." We liked two or three going in and out with a thumb on the pip.'

'Open up, then, and let's see what Norma can do with a digit or two.'

'I hope it's not too dry. We didn't make as much squelch when we got older.'

My middle finger slid in readily enough and easing it in and out coaxed out more squelch quite quickly and I added the index and felt for the little rough patch on the front wall newly-named the G spot. Evidently, like many women, Edith and Ailsa had found it for themselves without needing to name it. She began to gasp and push forward her pelvis to answer to my rhythmic probing. I added the thumb on the button, and she panted, 'Yes. Just like that. It's going to happen. I know it's going to happen.'

'Tell me when,' I said, 'I love it when someone says it's coming.'

A few more moments and, 'It's coming, Norma, coming. Here it comes!'

Her body seemed to expand, as if the climax were flooding every tissue with its essence. She drew a huge breath and held it so long as the feeling sang in her system that I feared for a moment she was having a seizure. And she was having a seizure, of ecstasy.

When she released the breath she went limp, as if the orgasmic fluid had evaporated through her skin, which radiated heat and glowed as if lit up from within. Her vagina loosened and her pip shrank shyly back into the embrace of her fringey vulva.

After ten minutes she began to weep again and muttered, 'I'm alive again, Norma. You've given me back my Ailsa. I felt her everywhere in my body. She was the feeling.'

For the first time we kissed, gently, sealing the recovery of her lover and the joyfulness they'd shared. No more to be done for now, but I knew she needed to tell her story, to celebrate her lost love, to find her present self and live again. Perhaps find a new partner. So, I said, 'Edith, would you like to come home with me, have some sleep and some breakfast, and tell me all about Ailsa?'

4

We came here, where I've lived since I was 26, and went to my bedroom. I was developing my erotic art-works agency, and had one of my latest numbers on the wall opposite the bed.

Edith was a little shocked to see a slightly adjusted version of Gustave Courbet's

The Sleepers

(1866)(nowadays easily found online). This is, anyway, one of the most blatantly lesbian paintings, with the two women obviously in a post-orgasmic doze. The nearer woman's delicious bottom is right at the natural focus. My artist has made only one adjustment. In the original the further woman's head is resting on her lover's left breast, and Corinne has simply inserted its nipple between the lips of the woman pillowed.

Edith said, 'Oh, that's lovely. We used to lie like that when it was warm enough. The one in front looks like you, you know, Norma. Not so much facially as...'

'Bottomly. Yes, I know. It has been mentioned.'

'Of course, you've had other women here...'

'And a few carefully chosen men, actually.'

'Oh!'

'Mine's not a virgina.'

'Well, since I've never...been with...anyone but Ailsa, it's all new to me.'

'And you're new to me, Edith. Someone who's had only one partner.'

We stood contemplating the picture, until I said, 'You know, Edith, there's something special about being only the second woman you've "been with," and after so long.'

'You are special, Norma, because you understood and wanted to help me.'

'It wasn't entirely altruistic. I thought I'd enjoy "being with" you, and it would help me, too, given the state I'm in.'

'You're needing a lot of...sex? Do you want some more...now?

'Sometimes it builds up inside, into a kind of frenzy, especially if I haven't "been with" anyone for a while. And self-service doesn't ease it much.'

'I haven't been able to do that. Never needed to...But would you like me to...?'

I turned her towards me, gathered her in my arms and put my mouth to hers, more tenderly than passionately, and she responded at once. When we paused for breath, I said, 'It's not just having the orgasm. It's needing to be close to someone, responding to their feelings, sharing the excitement, the tenderness.'

'Oh yes. It's no good at all on my own. That was why I started at that gym. I thought just seeing someone might help, but...'

'You need the human warmth, someone taking care of you. That's what I wanted to do, and I hoped you might feel the same. And you do, sweet Edith, you do. So, let's get out of these sweaty clothes and be with each other.'

We were quickly naked, and I said, 'Would it be good to do something you enjoyed with Ailsa, remembering her?'

'She sat on the edge of the bed, with her legs parted and feet on the floor -- yes, like that. Then I sat on her lap, facing her, like this, and she reached round behind me and underneath, between my cushions -- that's right -- and up my groove to my pip. Yes! And that pressed her lollies against me, just like this. And I could wriggle my hand down to her fluff and touch her pip.'

'This is so lovely,' I said. 'You could just bring each other off however you felt like.'

'She put her thumb in my virgina, too. Yes, yes, like that.'

No need for more talk. I put my other arm round her other hip and held her bottom. Then we teased those little lollypips gently, finding a mutual rhythm, until I felt her cunt begin convulsively tightening on my thumb, and she said, 'Norma, it's happening. Is it happening for you?'

'Yes, I'm coming. Slowly, slowly coming...'

'That's wonderful. It's growing inside me. So strong. Now, now...'

Coming together is always special, one person's ecstasy augmenting the other's. We gave ourselves up to the mutual, the shared orgasm, which surged to our uttermost limits. And as it abated we both wept tears of relief and satisfaction.

5

We slept a few hours in each other's arms and showered together. I lent her a tee-shirt and a suitably sized pair of knickers from the stock I keep for guests requiring them, and ate an enormous breakfast.

'Now,' I said. 'How do you feel? We can go and drink more coffee in my sitting-room, or take a long walk, or go back to bed and make you happen as much as you like, and I'd love to hear your story wherever we are. I want to know about Ailsa.'

'Norma, I'm in your hands. You're so young, but so wise. You know how to help me, don't you? You're bringing me out of a kind of hibernation. What do you advise?'

'When Ailsa died the sun went down,' I said, 'And winter set in, and you froze, and now some warmth is returning. And you can help me, too.'

'I'd love to help you, Norma, but how can I possibly do that?'

'My problem isn't winter, my dear Edith, it's a torrid summer burning me up. You can break the fever. You've started already, with your charming innocence and candour.'

'Norma, I can tell you better if we're touching, I think. Like in that picture.'

Back in the bedroom we undressed, lay down and carefully arranged ourselves to match the women in the Courbet, my right leg across her and her cheek on my left breast. I said, 'We're not in post-climactic slumber, but we may be later.'

She said, 'Can I ask first what it's like having a man inside you?'

'It varies so much, with the man and the occasion and what you want and feel like.'

'Does he make it happen inside you?'

'Not necessarily, no. Many women don't get much pleasure out of penetration . Unless it's combined with other stimulation, especially the pip-clit. Otherwise, that's just what it feels like, penetration, an intrusion.'

'It sounds a bit frightening, actually. Ailsa and I didn't much like the idea.'

'Well, it needs to be part of a whole sequence, starting with the man's attitude. We're living in a new feminist time, you know, and we don't have to let men do what they want because they think they're entitled to do it. Even the nicest men still tend to feel that if they want you that's enough.'

'Ailsa and I had almost nothing to do with men. We worked in a girls' boarding school with nothing but females, other that the caretaker and a groundsman.'

'The only men I have anything to do with are those who respect me, ,treat sex with me as a privilege and regard my feelings as being as important as their own. They don't penetrate me; I welcome them in.'

'That sounds much nicer.'

'Well, end of lecture. Now, please, your life-story, Edith.'

6

'You know, you're the only person who's ever asked that. We were born just after World War One, I in Surrey and she in Provence, because her parents went to live there when the fighting ended. My parents were conventional, so I had a sheltered little girl upbringing. But Ailsa's were rackety folks, having affairs, drinking and dancing, bathing naked, free and easy. So, she knew all about sex very soon, then the next war came, and her family had to come home. While I knew almost nothing, except that I didn't seem to develop much, and young men took no notice of me. Ailsa, with her voluptuous body, had lots of admirers, and she did lots of kissing and letting them touch her, but she didn't much like it. It didn't seem right somehow, and not for moral reasons. It just wasn't what she wanted. I didn't mind about no boys paying court to me. I played lots of tennis and hockey, with both sexes, and was more interested in reading and nature study than romance, which was for other girls, not me.'

'You were quite happy, then? Didn't feel you were missing out?'

'Oh, no. It was a happy family life, orderly and calm. But Ailsa had been awakened by all that sex in France, and the boys touching her. She wanted sex but not their way. She knew about women having affairs with women. Though she wasn't sure she wanted that, partly because she didn't know quite what they did. Of course, I didn't know about that at all.

'Well, after school I went to secretarial college to become a secretary, and Ailsa went to art college. She wasn't that good or really interested, but it was useful experience while she waited to get married, though she wasn't really interested in that, either, of course. In fact, she rather dreaded it and hoped something would happen to prevent it, and it did, when the Second World War started. I didn't expect to be married and thought I was learning how to make a living as a single woman, and when the War began I thought that might offer the chance to learn other things.'

'You were both about twenty?'

'She was twenty-one and keen to leave college and do something useful, and I thought the office-work training could be set aside while I helped the war effort some way. And we were called up into the Women's Land Army, which was how we met. Because we were kitted out, down to the bloomers, and sent to a farm in Suffolk. It was tough at first, because we knew nothing and weren't used to long hours out of doors in all weathers. It was thanks to the accommodation. Because we had a room in the attic, where there was no heating and only candles for lighting. And we found each other.'

She stopped, having come to the entry into the deepest, most emotional memories. I hugged her tighter and said, 'Take you time.'

'It took a while for us to understand what was happening and how we could be lovers. I'd never thought about women being lovers. A completely new idea to me, though Ailsa knew that it could happen. She was patient, waiting for me to realise how we loved each other and how we could...make it happen.'