An Angel Out of Bed

I'm not 100% sure but I think it was the poet Philip Larkin who said that "sex began in 1963" and if that is true then I must have missed out because it began much later for me. The world was very different back in the days of black and white television. When I was growing up very few boys had any real experience with girls. We saw girls everyday of-course; but we never chose to mix with them, far from it, we actively avoided them because they were a mystery to us as if they were aliens from another planet and we didn't know how to behave around them or how to talk to them.

They made us feel awkward, nervous and self conscious about ourselves. Secretly we were all a bit afraid of them. But as we got older our interest and curiosity in girls increased and they began to arouse and excite us in an inexplicable way that we didn't quite understand except that it all had something to do with sex.

But none of us back then knew anything about sex and there was nowhere to go and find out about it. We didn't have sex education at school. There were no books about sex. There were no articles in magazines about it and as far as television was concerned sex didn't exist. We had all heard of "the facts of life" but none of us knew what they were. No one had ever heard of the clitoris and no one knew what a dildo was for. We had never heard of "foreplay" and few of us knew how to kiss properly.

Even those among us who'd had girlfriends couldn't boast that they'd actually had sex. The best they could manage was to claim that they'd "copped a feel" while sitting in the back row of a dark cinema. For boys like me the only way to find out about sex was by trying to get your hands on a pornographic magazine which wasn't easy because they were quite literally worth their weight in gold and a copy of "Playboy" or "Mayfair" was a prized possession. And as for seeing a "blue film", well quite frankly, you were far more likely to find a mermaid in your bath than get the chance to see a pornographic film of any kind.

We all knew, or sensed, that we were missing something but we weren't quite sure what. No one ever admitted that they were virgins but no one had ever seen a naked woman let alone slept with one. There were some boys of-course, much older than us, who claimed to "have done it" and while we may have had our doubts we didn't challenge them either. How can you when you know so little that you have no idea whether you are being lied to or not? To challenge their boasts would simply have invited them to mock you for being so innocent.

And no one, especially a boy trying to learn how to be a man, wants to make a fool of himself in front of his peers. And I remember how we admired those bold spirits who declared that one day

very soon

they would visit Soho that fabled land where legend had it beautiful women were ten to the dozen and sex was freely available. It was as if these brave adventurers had announced that they were going to travel to the very ends of the earth to the fabulous court of Kublai Khan at Xanadu.

There were girls that I liked at school but the first woman that I had ever really loved was "Sophia Loren". She wasn't really "Sophia Loren" of-course but she was the spitting image of the famous Italian actress. Her real name was Harriet Bishop but to me she was always; "Sophia Loren." She had the same firm and full figure; a large bust, a wasp-like waist, a lovely round bottom and long graceful legs. Her complexion was dark, her skin the shade of a glossy tan that made her positively glow. She had short dark curly hair, big brown eyes, a slim nose and a red full mouth. She walked like a model on a catwalk, and carried herself with a royal elegance and she always looked as if she was just out on her way to a dinner party.

She looked so beautiful, so glamorous and so exotic. Men just could not stop staring at her. Their gaze would be drawn to her as if pulled by a magnet and I was no different I couldn't take my eyes off her either. She was the kind of woman all men fantasized about. I certainly did. I dreamed of how one day she would fall in love with me and become my sex slave who would obey me and help me act out all my crazy adolescent sexual fantasies. In my wild day dreams we would run away to live on a desert island and have sex all day and all night long. I would imagine scenarios where she would fall into my arms and beg me to sweep her away and ravish her.

I lay in bed very night masturbating furiously while she did a striptease for me with a sexy smile on her face beckoning me towards her. It was "common knowledge" among my friends and peers that women reached their sexual peak at thirty-six and men reached theirs at eighteen. It wouldn't be long before I was eighteen and "Sophia Loren" would then be the perfect woman for me at the perfect time.

She and her husband Gerald were old friends of my parents so I saw a lot of her. And what made seeing her all the more exciting for me was that right from the start she really seemed to like me. It made me feel that we had a special connection. Whenever she came to the house she would run her hands through my hair and give me a kiss on the cheek and remark how fast I was growing; and what a handsome boy I was and she would laugh and call me her "little toy boy" and her "secret lover" and she would ask my mother if she would mind if she ran away with me. Everyone laughed at her little joke but for me it was no joke. Hearing her say things like that and the way that she smiled aroused me and fuelled my fantasies because it made me believe that "Sophia Loren"

really did

fancy me and that deep down she

really did

want me!

She didn't have any children of her own and I sometimes wondered if my parents were right when they said that I was a surrogate son to her because there was no doubt about it "Sophia Loren" did seem to enjoy my company. She was always pleased to see me and her smile was quite devastating and my stomach flipped over painfully every time I saw her. It excited me that she wanted to be with me and enjoyed being around me and took such an interest in me. I felt she treated me with respect, and most important of all she treated me as an adult.

To my mother I was just a child, to the teachers at school, for instance, I was just a gloomy teenager but "Sophia Loren" treated me as if I was a man because she treated me with respect. She was interested in my opinions, my views and my ideas on all kinds of subjects and she took what I had to say seriously.

And she asked me about the girls at school. What where they like? Did I have a girlfriend? Usually these kinds of intimate and personal questions made me very nervous and self-conscious. When my grandma or auntie asked me about girls for instance I would go red in the face stutter and mumble crushed with embarrassment. And yet I didn't feel shy or embarrassed at all when "Sophia Loren" asked these questions.

I knew that I could trust her. She wasn't mocking me or being nosey, I knew she liked me and she genuinely cared for me and wanted what was best for me. Talking to her was easy, even when we were talking about girls. I told her that I liked girls and was curious about them but also that I had no idea of how to approach them. What would I say to them?

Most important of all, I had no idea if any of them were interested in me. I worried that if I tried to talk to one that I liked she would just ignore me or think me strange? And even worse, I was terrified of opening my mouth only to discover I had lost the power of speech. I was petrified of the possibility of rejection. All girls knew that boys were only after "one thing" and so why would any girl say 'yes' to me? I was afraid of girls as I think the majority of boys that I knew were.

I remember at school disco's how my friends and I would stand around in a group eyeing up the girls who were standing around in their own little group on the other side of the hall everyone waiting for everyone else to make the first move. When it came to girls we all felt a bit like a postman walking up a driveway to a house where there was a big fierce dog and not knowing whether or not the beast would launch himself at you and sink his teeth into your leg.

"Sophia Loren" spent a lot of time trying to reassure me that I had nothing to worry about when it came to girls and she made a real effort to build up my self-confidence. I was, I suppose, her little project. Girls, she assured me were not in the least bit frightening. They didn't talk to boys for the same reason that boys didn't talk to them! But girls love being made a fuss of and they love getting attention. They are desperate for boys to flatter them and pay them compliments. Girls like nothing more than being told how pretty they are. "Sophia Loren" assured me that girls wanted boys to come up and talk to them. "Just be yourself" she advised me.

She told me that girls liked boys to be self-confident and strong and they are attracted to men who they think will look after them. "You are so nice," she would say "and such a gentleman" and she confidently predicted that it wouldn't be very long before I found a nice girl to go out with. But, she warned me, a girl wont approach a boy she likes it is the boy who has to make the first move. So I had to learn how to be bold. But that was just it, I wasn't bold. I wasn't pushy, brash or self-confident. "Sophia Loren" just laughed and told me that when a girl likes me and wants me to approach her she will let me know. How? What will she do? "Sophia Loren" tousled my hair and assured me that "she will let you know that's all." It sounded all very mysterious and puzzling to me but I trusted her and believed her when she said that it wouldn't be long before I had a nice girlfriend.

Don't get me wrong I did try to talk to girls. For example there was that time I was on the bus going home from school when I saw Amanda sitting by herself. Now she was a pretty blond that all the boys fancied, including me. She seemed very friendly and we had exchanged a few words in class once or twice. So when she saw me on the bus and waved and smiled at me I thought my chance had come and so I asked her if I could sit next to her. She looked up at me with a startled look on her face and said..."no." I felt as if I had just been hit on the head with a club. I just staggered away mumbling my apologies feeling utterly humiliated.

And once at a school disco I asked a girl to dance. She had looked at me with such destain that I'd slunk off without even waiting to hear her answer. And then there was this girl I had met when I was on holiday with my parents. We had spent a lot of time together and seemed to be getting very close. I really liked her and I thought she really liked me. Why else would she be willing to spend so much time with me if she didn't? But when I bought her an ice cream one day and teased her that; "you now owe me a kiss" she had looked shocked and only after thinking about it for what seemed like an awfully long time did she finally gave me a clumsy peck on the cheek.

She was embarrassed and so was I and the whole episode had been very awkward. On our last day together we promised to keep in touch and write to each other which I did but after writing half a dozen letters and getting no reply I got the message and stopped writing too. I was so miserable; I didn't know where I was going wrong? All I knew was that " being myself" wasn't working.

Why didn't girls like me? I wasn't some hideous little dwarf after all. I didn't have bad breath. I didn't leer at them or make stupid remarks that might embarrass them. "Sophia Loren" thought that I was a nice boy, a gentleman, and I was sweet and cute and she assured me that lots of girls would love to have someone like me as a boyfriend. But I was starting to get afraid that this wasn't true.

Standing behind the bike sheds with "the smokers" the problem with women was thoroughly chewed over. They were emotional and irrational and hysterical who would burst into tears for no reason. Women liked rich men, powerful men, funny men, big men, tough men. "Treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen." was the general consensus of opinion followed in close 2nd by "love 'em and leave 'em," while in 3rd place the accepted view by many was that women were all slags at heart who simply couldn't be trusted and if they acted like a nun it was only because they were playing hard to get as a ploy to trick a man into marrying them. How depressed I became.

I was convinced that I would never get a girlfriend! I was never going to have sex I was going to be a virgin for the rest of my life! Was I going to have to resign myself to a life of sterile masturbation fantasies? What was wrong with me? So what if I was nice and so what if I was a gentleman it wasn't getting me anywhere. What good would that do me if all that girls wanted was men who were; rough and tough?

Then one day, and completely out of the blue, "Sophia Loren" and Gerald announced that they were moving! Gerald had a new job as the "Head of something or other" down in Southampton. When I head the news I felt sick. Literally sick. By the end of the summer holidays they would be gone and I would never see "Sophia Loren" again. I wanted to kill myself. "Sophia Loren" could see how distressed I was and tried to cheer me up, but she failed.

'But I'll miss you,' I wailed pitifully.

'And I'll miss you too Ray,' she said giving me a hug. She told me we would remain in touch and would always be friends but I wasn't convinced. I did my best to maintain a "stiff upper lip" but it was no use. Day after day I would lie on my bed trying not to cry.

It was my mother who suggested that since I had nothing better to do I could help "Sophia Loren" and Gerald make their house ready to be put on the market by tidying up their garden, clearing out the garage and the attic and so on. The work on the garden just required me to cut the grass, trim the hedges and clean up the flowerbeds. That took a couple of days and then I set to work on the garage; taking out old and broken down pieces of furniture, rusted lawn mowers and bikes, barbecue equipment, tools, boxes full of junk, a table tennis table and a sun bed all of which ended up in the skip parked on the driveway.

Finally it was up into the attic that was full of musty old books, clothes, crockery and trunks and suitcases. It was dark and dusty and I had to be very careful where I put my feet as I didn't want to come crashing through the ceiling. After a few hours all that was left were some trunks. I had left them until last since they had to be emptied first before I could move them and that meant taking their contents out one armful at a time down the ladder to the skip. The first two trunks were full of clothes but when I opened the third one I found it was full of large bulky brown envelopes tied shut with string. I couldn't resist the temptation to untie the string on one and have a quick look inside.

When I opened the first one I saw that it was full of large 10 x 8 black and white photographs of "Sophia Loren". She was much younger in those photographs, but they were definitely pictures of her. And what photographs they were! They were, what in those days were called, "exotic" photographs. In other words they were pornographic. Oh sure, they are all very tastefully done but they were dirty pictures all the same, the kind that were only sold under the counter by newsagents to trusted customers slid discreetly between a folded copy of 'The Times'.

Like I said it was all very "tasteful" and "artistic" not like the dirty pictures you see these days. She posed coyly in front of the camera. In some photographs she sat looking straight into the lens with her arms draped strategically over her breasts and between her legs and in others she lay sprawled on a bed that looked as if it had just been slept in. But in one or two she showed off her stunning breasts and there was just a hint of black pubic hair visible between her silky thighs.

With shaking hands I opened the other envelopes to see if those photographs matched the standard of those I had already seen. My God they did too! And these were even better; In many of them she was in fancy dress: as a policewoman, as a nurse, as a duchess or something. But in others, half a dozen or so, she was stark naked and left nothing to the imagination. They were full frontal and you could see everything! And what struck most of all was the look on her face. Not shy or anything like that. Nor did she have the stone hard look of a street corner prostitute no, she looked like a little girl who was excited at being naked. She was showing off and enjoying it. Her expression said, "don't I look bloody gorgeous!" And she did, my God she did!

I sat there completely stunned. I was shaking. I was bloody shaking! And I only had one thought in my head. I wanted to keep them. I knew I had to keep them. But I had a problem, which was: how was I going to get them out of here without being caught? By tucking them under my jumper? No. By chucking them out of the window? Hide them among all this other stuff and come back for them later? I tried to think. But thinking was impossible especially when you have your trousers around your ankles and your cock in your hands wanking like fury over those photographs.

Seeing those photographs was my boyhood fantasy come true. If only I had been there! If only it had been me behind the camera. Had he screwed her? Oh I bet he had! I bet he had told her all about her "bone structure". I bet he had led her into bed promising to make her a famous model or actress. Lucky bastard! In the end I wrapped my jacket around them and then climbed down the ladder. I told "Sophia Loren" and Gerald that I would have to come back to finish off and when I turned up the next day I had my rucksack with me and I stuffed as many photograph's into it as I could.

By the time all the photographs were safely in my room the stack very nearly reached the ceiling! And I had another problem; how to hide them from my mother. I packed them into my suitcase and hide it under my bed. I didn't leave my room for days and this time it wasn't because I was burying my head in my pillow or smoking like a chimney and listening to Rock music at full volume now I was looking at those wonderful pictures of "Sophia Loren" for hour after hour.

During my weeks of moping at home I had listened to my mother for once and had got round to applying for a place at the London School of Economics to study Marketing and much to my surprise I was accepted. The course started in the first week of October and I moved down to London in the middle of September. It wasn't that far away from home and my parents, especially my mother made the trip once or twice during my first term to make sure that I was all right and eating properly and not walking around in clothes that were stiff with dirt.

But she had no need to worry. The university was fine, my studies were okay and my digs weren't too shabby either. Like all students I lived simply. Even though we all should have been working hard preparing for seminars and lectures and writing essays most of my fellows students were more interested in drinking beer, smoking hash, going to pop concerts, partying, planning for a "Socialist" paradise and chasing girls.

I remember the only text book that any of us clamoured to read were sex manuals. The only films that people queued to see were Danish sex films. At university I heard about "erogenous zones" and about the "clitoris" and what happened to a woman's body when it is sexually aroused. In a nutshell; there was more to sex that simply "shoving it in". Unlike school however, there were blokes there who'd actually had sex and proved it by pining up the used "Johnnies" on the door to their digs. Some of us even made the short trip to Soho and stared open mouthed at the blatant sexual invitations in the windows of the clubs and shops we passed and swapped bad tempered banter with frustrated whores who collared us only to find out that were penniless students.