by Paul Charles
Then she screamed out at the top of her voice, ‘Oh David Buchanan!’ and she bucked against me aggressively, aggressively enough to look after my pleasure as well.
I rested myself on my elbows and disentangled our heads. Her eyes were barely open and she was still drinking in the last gulps of air. She continued her heavy breathing, her eyes bare and vulnerable.
‘You got me. I can’t believe how often you’ve got me.’
What do you say to that? I certainly didn’t know. We didn’t usually talk about it much, you know, our encounters. Though it appeared that this time she wanted to.
‘No, I’m serious,’ she started, smiling up at me, ‘I can’t believe I’m discussing this with a boy, but it’s part of the excitement to be able to be candid with you about this. I… I find it hard to do that myself. I mean, I’ve had a lot of practice…’
I pulled my head back a little from her in surprise.
‘No, no, I don’t mean I do it all the time of course, but when I do, I rarely get there.’
‘And you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to abstain from sex with John for two years. Who do you think you’re kidding?’
‘This is nothing to do with John, David! He’d never bother with any of this. I think he’s strictly a missionary position kind of guy – a few pumps and he’s not going to be interested in anyone but himself.’
‘Do you ever discuss it? You know, sex?’
‘No. Never. To be honest, I’m really not that sure how interested he is.’ Then she started to wriggle around a bit. ‘Oh, you’re wet! Oh, you’re very wet, David.’
I made to move away from her but she pulled me back to her with her arms and legs.
‘No! No, please stay there for a little while more. I just love this feeling. I love doing this with you. I don’t really know what it is exactly that we’re doing but I love it. I knew when I saw you that this could happen. I knew it the second I saw you. This could only happen because I met you, no… more because we met each other. I don’t want this to sound big-headed but I never thought much of myself until I saw you looking at me. It’s even given me the confidence to try out some make-up. I’m still working at it and I’ll get there. I don’t want to develop the decadent look of some of the Marquee Club girls though, you know, like I’m wasting away because I’m taking all my pleasure in drugs. I want to continue to look as great as I now feel, thanks to you. It’s important to me, David, that I help you to maintain that look of hunger you have for me in your eyes, your beautiful green eyes.’
She snuggled her bottom in closer to mine. I was embarrassed by my dampness but she seemed fine with it. She pushed a little more against me, having felt me pulling back a little from her. She pulled me back by tightening her grip with both arms and legs.
‘It’s okay, David, I like it – it shows me the pleasure I’ve given you. And after what you’ve done to me I’m happy to know you’re pleasured as well.’
I resisted no longer and fell back against her. I don’t know whether it was her candid talk (as I’ve said before, candid but never dirty) or what, but I felt stirrings in the nether regions. She obviously felt them too because she tucked her head back into the nook of my neck and started pulsing against me again.
This time it was truly wonderful; the best sexual experience I’d ever had in my life. It lasted quite a long time and we went around and around in circles, sometimes in the same circle, sometimes in the opposite direction, until eventually, both of us drenched in sweat and with the sound of her panting and the needle sticking on the centre groove of the record, we both spent our pleasure in nearly, but not quite, the same moment.
I’d just about picked up the confidence to tell her it was the best I’d ever felt when she beat me to it.
‘I can’t believe it! You got me again! That was just the bestest feeling ever,’ Jean said, between her gasps for breath.
‘I was thinking exactly the same thing.’
‘What’s it your man Dylan says in ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’? “And something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr Jones”? That pretty much sums up what’s going on here.’
Jean Simpson stayed until about 2.00 a.m. We enjoyed one more encounter, at just after midnight, but I don’t think it was as enjoyable as the second one for either of us. I think she did consider staying the night but she said something about having fewer tracks to cover, and being worried that perhaps things would get out of control. She assured me she meant as much from her side as mine, and so I walked her to her front door in the early hours of Saturday morning, we said goodnight and guess what, we didn’t kiss.
On the walk home I considered what we’d done and were doing. What I was doing. I was admitting to myself that I was having feelings for Mary Skeffington, as in serious feelings for her, yet here I was being got by Jean Simpson – not once, but three times in the one night. So if I sat down and thought about both relationships, I knew there was something wrong in what I was doing. I knew I was doing something that I shouldn’t really be doing. I’m not even sure. But you look at it; you look at the crime, and assess how big it is. And then you decide that, okay, it’s wrong, and I’ll accept the consequences if there are any. But the truth is, you don’t actually have these thoughts. You are with Mary Skeffington and you feel the feelings you have for her and then you are with Jean Simpson, and she is who she is, and she does what she does, and it happens. It’s not even something you consider: is it right or is it wrong? None of this comes into it: you just do it. Yes, afterwards, you do consider it and you convince yourself that you’re not cheating on Mary because you and her are still in the process of deciding whether something is going to happen or long term it’s never going to go anywhere because she’s just a rebound, which was certainly still the most likely scenario for her interest in me.
I considered all of our relationships as I walked home and when I got home, I stopped considering them.
Chapter Twenty.
Right, remember I mentioned earlier that Mary had rung me around the same time as Jean on that Friday? And in a time of my life where surprises were falling fast and furious, Mary still managed to shock me with her request.
‘What are you doing for the weekend?’ she inquired, down the telephone. (Where I grew up, that question would’ve been phrased “What are you doing at the weekend?” But in Mary’s set, where weekends are a viable currency, everything was different.)
‘Not much,’ I replied. I’d kind of considered refilling my records on Saturday afternoon assuming, of course, that I’d picked up a few rarities from the stalls on my Saturday morning walkabout. But that was about the height of it: Jean Simpson had gone up to Derby to see Jean Kerr and there were no gigs worth going to see, so it was shaping up to be a dossing-about kind of weekend.
‘Good! Do you fancy coming to Bath with me?’ she asked, all matter-of-fact when it clearly wasn’t matter-of-fact.
‘Am…’ I stuttered, ‘what’s happening?’
‘Well, I promised a school friend of mine, Susan, ages ago that I’d go to her party, and I was leaving it to the last moment to ring up and cancel with an excuse of the flu or something equally contagious because I didn’t feel like I’d be in the mood to be bothered with it. But I feel absolutely great now, thanks to you, and so I thought why not? It’ll be great fun and I’d like to take you.’
Can’t get any plainer than that, can you?
‘Where would we stay – with your friend?’
‘No, actually, my mother’s boyfriend keeps a suite of rooms at the Regency Hotel and I’ve checked, we can have them for the weekend.’
I was about to ask about the sleeping arrangements in said suite of rooms, but I was in the office and walls have ears. I just didn’t want any last-minute embarrassment with, you know, her expecting us to sleep in the same bed whereas I wanted to insist, at this stage in our relationship, that we had separate rooms. Just kidding, perhaps I switched those around there… I needn’t have worried
, though.
‘We’ll have separate rooms of course,’ she said, most likely reading my mind. ‘I just thought I should point that out now, to avoid any potential problems later.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Well David?’ she pushed.
‘Well what?’ I said in puzzlement.
‘Will you come?’
‘Sorry, yes of course! I thought I’d already said so. Goodness, I’d love to.’
‘Perfect. I’ll meet you outside Wimbledon train station tomorrow at ten forty-five.’
And with that she was gone. Thirty seconds later, Jean rang, and you know what had happened, and happened, and happened, as a result of that call.
Now I was bound for an adventure in Bath, via Paddington. We arrived into Bath at about 1.30 p.m. and took a taxi – a taxi, nonetheless! – to 16 Royal Crescent and walked into an unmarked house. I thought it must have been someone’s house, a very grand house I grant you, but still a house at that. But this, in fact, was the hotel. They were so discreet they didn’t even have to have a sign on the door. The staff recognised Mary immediately and we were taken through a grassed courtyard to some buildings at the other side. We took the door to the extreme right and one flight up and we were in Mary’s mother’s boyfriend’s suite of rooms. We’d a bedroom each and Mary seemed to make a fuss in drawing our porter’s attention to the fact that our luggage was to be placed in the separate bedrooms. I tried not to look disappointed; I’m not sure I carried it off. I mean, I certainly knew that we were to have separate bedrooms, so was I guilty of my ego being bruised because the porter now also knew I wasn’t to be sharing her bed? Sad to have to admit it, but the boy Mary Skeffington considered to be ‘the perfect gentleman’ was just yet another flawed human.
Between the two bedrooms was a sitting room, with a television and tea-making facilities, complete with a couple of micro-packs of shortbread. The room enjoyed a spectacular view of the courtyard, which in turn let you see exactly what these grand crescents looked like from the rear.
Mary stuck straight into brewing us up a cup of tea and I sank back into the sofa, enjoying the comfort and the change of scene. I’d hate to think what any poor soul must have to pay for a night in a place like that. And what about Mary’s mother’s boyfriend, how rich must he have been to afford to keep a permanent suite of rooms like that? Mary seemed completely in her element in this setting and quite happily busied herself as I soaked up the affluent atmosphere.
‘I’d hate you to think that I…’ she began, as she poured the tea, ‘that I do this a lot. It’s just that Mum and Rob have been pestering me for ages to use the rooms. It’s a little treat. He works down here a lot in the family business, something to do with cars, and his father has always had rooms here and so Rob seems to have inherited them.’
‘What does he do with cars?’ I asked, wondering how many cars you’d have to trade just to stay in the hotel for one night.
‘Oh, I think his family manufactures them,’ she replied, and in the blink of an eye added, ‘how many sugars?’
‘Oh,’ I replied, dumbstruck. ‘Yes, two would be perfect, please.’
Anyway, I’d hate you to think that she was a spoiled brat, for she wasn’t. She’d been born into a rich family, but her father had run off with his secretary, forcing Mary’s mother to survive on a barely tolerable allowance. She’d found a job with a publishing house, just so she and her daughter could enjoy independence. When Mary’s mother first met Rob, apparently he’d wanted ‘to take you and the little one away from all of this.’ Forget, of course, that the little one was Mary and she was a beautiful twenty-year-old woman. Anyway, Mary’s mum continued the relationship, but she kept her job, and her independence.
Mary seemed proud of her mum, particularly the bits about having to support both of them by her own means and still refusing, when she would have been forgiven for putting her feet up, to be anyone’s woman but her own.
On the train journey earlier that afternoon I’d been telling Mary how my parents had just always got on with things. The reason they’d never split up, apart from loving each other, of course, was that it was never an option. They came from a time and a society where a marriage is union for life and you never have the option of splitting, you’d just never consider it. Consequently you always worked your way through your problems.
She said she thought I’d a wonderfully simplistic view on relationships, and that she loved me for that, and that if you really were in love that’s fine, my way would work.
We talked the whole way from London to Bath about this and other subjects relating to love. She said she loved the fact that for one so young, I was so positive about the possibilities of love. She said that because of John Harrison she should have been cynical about them but, she thought, because she’d met me, she was growing to become a believer again.
And as I saw her face – her signature mid-lips open smile below her blonde fringe and dark eyebrows – I saw that I was a believer too.
The party was okay. I mean, I knew no one but Mary Skeffington, and by the way she was dressed that was just fine by me – she was easily more than enough to hold my attention. (She wore a black matador-style outfit. Her eye-catching ensemble comprised a pair of high-waisted, figure-hugging trousers, a white blouse and an open-bum freezer jacket. The overall effect was completed with calf-length, high-heeled, black boots. She looked stunning.)
Mary Skeffington, on the other hand, knew absolutely everyone who was there. She introduced me to everyone as her friend, which was fine by me. A few of them blatantly sniggered in front of her, not quite but nearly implying: ‘Friends, yes of course, who do you think you’re kidding?’ Or maybe once again that was just wishful thinking on my part, knowing that they didn’t know what the hotel porter knew.
But by and large they were a great group of people and the music was brilliant, although if I never hear ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ by The Jeff Beck Group again it will be too soon. It’s a floor-filler all right, but the problem with such songs is that they also fill the floor with those who can’t dance as well as those who can. I’m speaking from experience here, being a paid-up member of the former of the two. Usually I can find a way to sit out most of the dances but then when something like ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’, or The Beatles’ ‘Twist And Shout’, or the Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ comes on, the place seems to go ape and I’m invariably dragged onto the dance floor. It seems that when these three-minute classics are spun, no excuse, short of permanently being in a wheelchair, will suffice. I’ve never been able to fully understand this phenomenon. I just don’t understand what’s going on in the idiot dancers’ minds. I suppose it says a lot for those songs, in that they make people who clearly can’t dance, want to dance. But do these people not realise that they have to at least listen to the music they are supposed to be dancing to? You know, at least try to clock in to the beat? That’s usually that dull thud that you hear pulsating under the floor.
Mary, on the other hand, was a good dancer. Quite deceptive, really; I mean, she’s not really loud in anything she does, but when she’s dancing she gets into this sensual little groove of hers and genuinely immerses herself in the music. On the smoochy numbers she’s positively a sensation to be with – she literally glues herself to you, or at least that’s what she did to me, Guv.
There were a couple of chaps at the party from Ireland; friends of the hostess. Two chaps from Dublin and they were invited along because they were musicians! They sat on the sofa most of the night, singing and accompanying themselves with their guitars. They’d beautiful voices with very close harmonies, which made their renditions of Dylan, Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel material stunning. They performed such a beautiful soulful version of ‘The Mountains Of Mourne’ that I’m sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I was equally sure that if I hadn’t been with Mary, then the interpretation of the classic song would have been enough for my winning battle with homesickness to falter.
Most girls I know don’t like you to interfere on their behalf in public. It was just a sign of the times, I assumed – equality and all of that – and I’m fine with it, honestly. But I’ve never thought a six-foot, ugly rugby player and a beautiful, five-foot-nine girl to be equal, in any sense other than mentally and spiritually. So when this chap wouldn’t take the hint, I politely inquired if he’d either like to visit another room or stand aside so that we could. Problem is that when you’re a bit drunk (or very drunk, as was the case in his case), you don’t really want to listen to reason, do you? You’ve had your one good eye on this girl for years and now here’s this Irish intruder from nowhere getting in your way. So, he – that is to say me – becomes the object of your frustration. You remove him – me – and you remove your problem and you claim your prize: the beautiful young woman. Logical, isn’t it?
By this point a wee bit of a crowd had gathered and people were saying things like, ‘Now Roger, steady on old chap’, ‘I say, Roger, that’s enough, let it lie.’ Then a high-pitched female voice pipes in with, ‘We don’t want any trouble here, let’s all go back to the music room, boogie and enjoy ourselves.’
But Roger wasn’t having any of it. Luckily, for me, he was drunk. He took one wild swing at me and I could see it coming a mile off, so I literally swerved to the left – a trick I’d clocked Paul Newman doing in The Drowning Pool. Roger noticed my swerve too late and although he tried to recall his troops, his brick-sized fist went smashing into the doorpost I had been leaning on just one and a half seconds previous.
