Beware the Roasburies! Pt. 01

"You're right, of course. I got carried away."

I was impressed. She was reasonable and was prepared to listen and accept another's point of view. I warmed to her even more than before. I knew then with even greater certainty that I wanted Penny 'till death did us part'.

"But you knew that I want to keep sex for a committed relationship," she said looking at me for an answer, or some justification of her actions now she was open to me.

"We met. We found we liked each other and we kissed. Short kiss. The beginning of a relationship. Eh?" I raised an eyebrow inviting agreement [Roger Moore eat your heart out! Roger Moore? Played James Bond, and the Saint - now I am showing my age. In his own old age, he's still the master of the single raised eyebrow. Drives women wild].

She nodded.

"After Christmas you invited me to stay - in your bed. We kissed and cuddled. I took it our relationship had taken a step further. Do you agree?"

Again a nod.

"Since then we have done more intimate things. Deeper kisses, french kisses, stroking further. For me the actions just reflected a still deeper relationship. I told you how much I wanted you for good.

"OK, you weren't sure you felt the same, but you were sensuous in the extreme every time I said it. Again it seemed to me that your behaviour reflected the fact our relationship had deepened."

"But we never had sex before."

"We didn't have full sex last night either! It was another step, but only a step. All your signals last night told me you wanted more. Mind you I didn't know that you didn't know what the 'more' was like!"

She laughed. For the first time, she laughed that lovely light laugh. "I never knew..."

"No you didn't," I laughed in my turn, "but I love you and I wanted to show you how much by giving you pleasure. I wanted to get even closer to you. It wasn't full sex, in fact there's a hell of a lot we could do that is even more intimate and still isn't full sex: your vagina is still untouched, unbroken. What we did last night was an expression of our love: we gave each other pleasure.

"I wanted to give you pleasure, make you happy, and afterwards you wanted to do the same for me. You were showing your love. I'm sure that was it. Mind you, it also expressed desire, nothing wrong with that. I do want you, but I'll wait until you're ready to commit to me properly as well."

"But I've always thought that sex needs full commitment. Marriage."

"Full sex. Penetration. I think when people get that far they need to know exactly what each other thinks it's about; after all, it does make babies. I agree it's much too important to treat it casually, but there's a huge range of depth in relationships between 'casual acquaintance' and being married. If you feel both feel comfortable there's a range if things you can do to show your love, how you can give your love, short of full sex."

I waited for a reaction.

This time she sat still and thought.

"You're the first guy I've been in a real relationship with. I've never allowed boys to take any liberties, so these issues haven't come up. I need to think. Do you mind?"

"Of course I don't mind."

She stood, and I stood. She came to me, put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me gently and with what I thought was real love. Then she turned and left.

--

Chapter Three

She did not refer to the matter when we met the next time, which was a week to the day after our first 'tiff', but she ended up at my flat and came to bed wearing a new bra and knicker set, much briefer and revealing than before, and that was all she wore! She had been shopping. She discarded the bra pretty quickly once I'd seen how pretty it was.

We made love, manually, as we did the time before, though this time she initiated it by giving her attention to my prick. I did the same for her pussy and her tits, and by carefully balancing her rising orgasm against my own, we managed to get ourselves to orgasm together.

I learned something about her that night. She had gone away and thought about it, had agreed with me, and then simply shown that agreement physically, and without alluding to it verbally. Perhaps that was how she was, perhaps she always just acted on what she learned, without words. Not necessarily a good thing.

--

She was not going home for Easter, but was staying to complete her dissertation, which I asked one of the secretaries at the firm to type for her on Penny's own typewriter at my flat, for a consideration obviously.

Trouble.

I was summoned to Partner Kieran Walsh's office.

"What's this about using our secretarial staff for your own personal needs?" he asked with a dour expression. He was good at dour expressions.

"A private arrangement," I said.

"You have no right to make use of secretarial staff in practice time. Consider this a reprimand."

"I object," I replied. "I demand a meeting of the partners if you place this on my record. This is a private arrangement with Holly Smithson to work for me, done for my girlfriend in Holly's own time, and off the premises. Certainly not in the firm's time. Nothing to do with the firm. Nothing to do with you."

"Another of your 'liaisons' with office staff? You are aware that our firm disapproves of relationships between employees."

"Mr Walsh," I snapped. "What staff do in their own time is their own business. You don't own us. I see no clause in any of our contracts 'disapproving' of entering into relationships with other employees, and I defy you to show me it if there is. "

"You are on dangerous ground, Proctor. Your relationships with the female staff does not enhance the reputation of the firm."

"What do our clients know about inter-staff relations?" I asked dismissively. "However, if it puts your mind at rest, I have a regular girlfriend and have no interest whatsoever in any member of staff in the way you are suggesting."

"Not the impression among the staff here."

"A false one."

"This meeting is over. Just watch your step Proctor. No one is indispensable."

I returned to my office and was followed into it by Zena.

"Walsh?" She asked knowingly.

"Yes. Objecting to Holly typing up Penny's dissertation at home, and to me having 'relations' with other members of staff."

She laughed. "It's all in his mind, Graham. He's a sad little man. Don't pay him any attention. I'm sure the other partners know all about his funny ways."

We both shrugged and went back to work.

--

During the Easter Vacation, Penny worked all day at my flat, going back to her flat for notes and books as she needed them, and she shared my bed each night. We did not have our limited sex every night, but over the three weeks of her Easter break we would pleasure each other on average two or three times a week. There was much hugging in between.

After Easter she applied for a post-graduate teacher training course at a Liverpool College of Education, and was accepted readily, depending on her gaining a pass grade for her degree.

Thinking ahead to our separation the following academic year, she urged me to get a telephone, so I made a booking with Post Office Telephones. I was told that I could get a phone on a party line fairly quickly, but a line all to myself would take longer. I would have to join the queue. I opted to join the queue. It took three months to get the line installed and the phone working, just in time for her to leave for Liverpool. It seemed something of a luxury but it made it easier for Penny to call me, and I could call her by arrangement at her local telephone box.

She graduated with a upper second class degree. I was not invited to the degree ceremony, nor to the meal with Penny's parents, her brother and his family. I was not surprised at that and made no comment. Penny looked embarrassed, and seemed on the edge of apologising and explaining, but perhaps did not have the courage to bring up the subject.

I took her for a celebratory meal the following week. It was the best restaurant I had found, and I knew it was far better than the one her family had been to. This embarrassed her further, especially since I still had not commented on my exclusion. This time she felt compelled to speak.

"Graham," she said, "I'm really sorry you were not invited to the degree ceremony. There were only three tickets available. Ingrid and the children couldn't go either."

I stared at her. "And the celebration meal?" I asked. It had irritated me, that snub.

"Well, you see..." she stumbled to a halt.

"Your parents were in charge and I was not invited by them. You mentioned me, but that idea was rejected. The excuse was 'family only'. Am I right?"

She gazed at me in surprise. "Well, yes, that's exactly how it was."

"So I know exactly where I stand with your parents. Nowhere. I'll bet they tried to put you off me as well?"

She nodded. "They said you were not suitable and you'd bring me nothing but trouble."

So the Roasburies were snobs. I bet myself their real name had been Roseberry, or Rosby or some such; affected or what! I would be happy to keep clear of them, as long as they kept clear of me. Her next comment endeared her to me.

"But," she hastily added, "they won't succeed there. I'm with you, my love. This restaurant is streets ahead of the one we went to, and the food is superb."

That was encouraging, and I felt good: I had out-snobbed the snobs! And she called me 'my love'!

I forbore to comment that it seemed the way to a girl's heart was through quality goods travelling to her stomach, though it did cross my mind, as did an unworthy thought of certain other 'quality' goods from me going into her stomach! As yet we hadn't done oral and it didn't seem likely.

We made the journey to Liverpool to find her a furnished place to live for the year. We found a Victorian house within walking distance of the college, and, as it happened, a slightly longer walk in the other direction to a parish church with six bells (yes, I looked it up at the time), which was adjacent as many are to a very pleasant pub with good 'Happy Higson's' beer. There was a small supermarket, more a self-service general grocery store really, and some other local shops at the end of the road on which the house lay. Self-service shops were still something of a novelty.

The room, for that is all it was, was fairly large on the middle floor at the rear of the house, fully (rather threadbare) carpeted, with a double bed, a cooker, a wash basin/kitchen sink, a table with two chairs, book case, one armchair, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.

The bathroom was shared with the other rooms on that floor. It was kept spotlessly clean, maintained by the owner who lived on the ground floor, rather like the flat Penny was living in already.

The room was a little down at heel but clean, and Penny paid the deposit and was set to move in the following September.

It was while we were in the room that I mentioned that the local parish church had a ring of bells, and she expressed an interest in joining me, and seeing how it was done. So once we were back home, I took her to my local tower, and she watched, then asked to learn to ring. I did not teach her, thinking that like learning to drive, it is best taught by someone else.

Summer had finally arrived, and we only had the four weeks in June before she took up a summer job with a firm in London which translated texts to and from different languages. Her degree had been in French and Italian.

For my part I had my work to do, and this included a trip to the States to put feelers out for our firm to expand our specialised services there for companies that wanted to get a foothold in Britain and vice versa, and to explore openings for an office in New York with indigenous talent. Penny and I would be apart for the whole of July and August.

I had hoped we would be able to take a week's holiday together at the beginning of September, but she was going to her parents' for a fortnight before she went to Liverpool.

I was miffed, but she pointed out that she had not seen them since graduation, and after all, they were to fund her post graduate training. I had to agree with her decision; in any case I had no choice.

She promised we could spend a week together in Liverpool before her course started and I changed my holidays to suit. I noted I had not been invited to see her at her parents' place, not that I minded much after my experience at Christmas and their behaviour at her graduation.

We did spend that week together, and I moved things a little further in our love making: I went down on her. I was kissing her breasts and fondling her pussy, and taking my courage in both hands, or rather in my mouth, I kissed down her body.

Now I had kissed her navel many times, so there was no reaction apart from her chuckles at the tickling sensation, and the little sounds of pleasure that followed them. Then I moved further south.

"Graham!" she squeaked. "What are you doing?"

"Loving you!" I reposted, "Relax!"

"But..."

"Just relax."

I pulled her legs apart; they had clenched together when I reached her furry mound. She let me, but was still murmuring her distrust.

I held her petals apart and licked from vagina to clit, merely grazing the latter. She gave a startled, "Oh!"

I began to repeat the procedure. She pushed at my head.

"Graham don't, it's dirty. I smell! Please don't."

I raised my head and gazed into her eyes.

"Penny, my darling," I said gently, "You're not dirty, and your smell is a good healthy woman's smell and I like it. So just let me get on with this."

She sighed with resignation, but her legs opened wider.

"Go on then," she said, "if you must."

I went to work. Tongue across her crease, swirl around her button, across her button. She jerked, and gave a little yip. I sucked a little on her button and she moaned. Another few traverses, and she was beginning to writhe while making more and more noise.

"Oh, Graham, what are you doing to me? Oh, yes! Oh right there! Please, ooh! Oh, I think I'm..."

She squealed, cried out my name, called upon God and heaven, and took off in a mad bucking and twitching, her thighs crashing together round my head, her hand pulling my head against her sex. It's a wonder she did not crush my skull!

"That was..." she panted as she regained the power of speech, "I thought I knew... Couldn't get better... But that! Oh I love you Graham!"

It was the first time she had ever said it. I would not hold it against her, said as it was in the languid aftershocks of a strenuous orgasm, but she did say it.

"And I've told you often enough, that I love you," and I left it at that.

We lay for a while, then she stiffened.

"Graham, I... I don't think I can... You know - in my mouth." She raised her head from my shoulder to see my reaction. I stifled my disappointment.

"It's all right, my darling," I said looking into her eyes softly. "Just do what you are comfortable with, you get me off just fine."

She relaxed and smiled, nestling into my armpit. Then her fingers strayed to my very much alive erection, and worked her magic, finding my most sensitive areas, stroking lightly then hard, slowly then quickly, until I begged for mercy, and she brought me off.

It didn't make the earth move but it relieved my tension and I enjoyed it immensely. Perhaps one day, I thought.

It was on the Monday of the week we spent together, we were in her room and heard the sound of bells. Monday was the Parish Church's practice night. The following Monday before I made my journey home, we visited the ringers and were warmly welcomed. The first ten minutes were given to novices learning to handle a bell, and Penny was called, much to her surprise. The practice she had had in June stood her in good stead, and she was handling the rope really well, holding the bell back and varying the pace. The ringing master expressed his opinion that with someone near to help if necessary, she could try ringing in rounds (rounds means the bells are rung in a scale from high to low).

I was impressed. She had a long way to go before she could keep her place with any accuracy, but she did not panic and handled her rope smoothly. She was excited as we walked back to her room, chattering about her success, giving a little skip every now and then, and giggling softly.

There was a phone box at the corner of her road, and I made a note of the number. She would send me a letter telling me when she would phone me, or we would arrange it at the previous phone call, and I would then phone her back at the box. Wednesdays at 7.30 seemed a good time. It was a system we continued to use thereafter.

I left her on Monday after ringing; she was to start the Post Graduate course on Tuesday. I heard nothing from her until there was a letter on Friday telling me how hectic it had been. It had been written on the Tuesday. Then on Friday evening the phone rang just after I'd finished reading the letter.

"Graham, can I come for the weekend? I'm lonely."

"Of course," I said. "I'll come and collect you."

She laughed. "Well actually I'm at Stretford station."

"I'll pick you up. Wait on King's Road."

"Thanks."

It was raining a fine drizzle when I arrived half an hour later, and there she was under her umbrella. She shook it and put it behind the front seats. We kissed long and hard as she settled into the passenger seat.

"Are you wet?" I asked.

"Yes. Not from the rain, but in anticipation!" and she laughed.

"That can be satisfied," I said, "All weekend!"

"I have to do some reading as well as sex, is that all right?" she asked with a grin.

"Instruction manual?" I smirked lewdly.

"No, you maniac. College stuff."

"That's fine. I'll curb my libido. I love just having you around."

"You're so good to me," she was smiling. "Don't curb it too much, I need you."

We picked up fish, chips, peas and curry on the way home, and enjoyed it with bottled beers.

"Can we go to the pub tonight - not for long?" she asked.

"Want to meet Ian?" I asked. "He'll be there tonight, being Friday."

She smiled. "Yeah, that'll be fun."

We had a good time at the pub and an even better one in bed afterwards. She read her stuff on Saturday while I did my weekly shop and completed some research of my own for work. I made a salad supper with ham, pork pie, and cheese, then we went to bed early and made leisurely limited love listening to the radio.

She wanted to go to church on Sunday and I was going to ring there anyway. She came and sat in the ringing chamber and watched, and then we stayed for the service.

She did more reading while I played around on the guitar. I roasted a chicken marinaded in Soy sauce and Sesame oil, with roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and gravy made on the chicken juices, followed by a fruit salad and ice cream.

The drizzle which had continued throughout Saturday had abated, and so we went for a walk in the afternoon, and I took her to the train in the city in the evening.

"Thanks so much, my love," she said as she hugged me, hands around my neck, her body pressed against me. "I really needed this weekend. Can I do it again?"

"As often as you want, sweetie," I affirmed, "Just having you in the flat brightens my life."

She sighed with a wide smile and tore herself away as the train pulled to a stop.

In that first term, she came home to me every weekend. She did not have to work all weekend every week, and on two weekends she did no work at all, and we took the opportunity to visit my parents, who took to her and she to them.

My mother whisked her off into the kitchen to 'help' prepare the meal. My father and I could hear them talking. Mother was asking questions and Penny was answering at some length.

"Seems a nice girl," Dad said.