Jamie's Tail Pt. 01

Some things went better, bridging a cultural chasm. They took a bus down to the coast and walked from Tynemouth, along past Cullercoats to Whitley Bay, taking in the rides at Spanish City along the way; childish but fun. They trudged along beaches which seemed remote and distantly romantic, like Druridge Bay, never once holding hands but always talking, talking. She lectured him on Drama, the Theatre, great art, (great gobbledegook, he thought). He initiated her into the magic of relational databases. They agreed to differ.

There was a moment when Jamie thought he had eventually got through to her. He cooked her a meal. He'd spent most of the day trying frantically to disperse or hide the squalor of his shared flat, shooing Jerry out of it with promises of many pints to come if only he'd give him some space. He made paella. Everything was perfect, as nearly as he could make it. Chicken breasts; chorizo; peppers; big, juicy, local mussels; peas; Spanish onions; garlic; squid; lots of saffron; rice. With a shattered bank-balance he might not be able to eat properly for two or three weeks afterwards but this, he assured himself, was going to be a meal to remember.

She said she'd bring the wine, and true to her word she turned up with something completely unfamiliar but totally appropriate. Later he couldn't remember what it was , though he had the taste burned still in his memory. Maybe that had something more to do with her than with the wine. They ate, and she loved it. They chatted, and Jamie managed to keep his foot out of his mouth. They drank coffee afterwards and sat in a sort of contented silence, thinking private thoughts. He wondered about asking her to stay overnight and decided against it. He was deeply, deeply insecure about her attitude to him; content to let things play their course. Late on they said goodnight and she took his hand in hers and gave him the slightest, lightest peck on the cheek. It was the only physical contact there had been between them up until that moment.

"That was lovely, Jamie," she said, "thank you."

"You're welcome Jackie."

Her taxi arrived and she was gone. He stood for a long time at the door, wondering about the future.

*

Fast asleep, much later, he heard the phone ringing and thought it was a dream. Still dreaming and clumsy he picked up the receiver. Nobody spoke.

"Hello?" he ventured. Still no voice. Idiot call, he reckoned, and was about to put the phone down...

"Jamie?" The voice was slightly breathless but unmistakeable. He was awake, totally awake, immediately.

"Jackie? Are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Long pause. "That was a lovely dinner you gave me..."

"Well ... I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"I should say sorry."

"For what?"

"For being mean to you. You're not really a prat are you?"

" I hope not. You sound upset, are you sure you're OK?"

"Yes, sure. I just wanted to say hello I suppose."

"Well, that's good. Hello!"

"There's something else, too ..."

"There is? And ...?"

"You haven't to think badly of me?"

"Oh, I won't, I'm sure..."

"I'm masturbating."

For Jamie, the universe stopped for some seconds while a roaring silence built to a crescendo in his head. Then there was a soft click at the end of the line as she put the receiver down.

5. Confusion

Nothing in all of Jamie's experience – and he had to admit that, boasting aside, his 'experience' was markedly thin – prepared him for the utter astonishment of her simple statement. He was baffled on all counts. Baffled to discover that women actually did it, so naïve was he despite his nineteen years. Baffled that, even if they did it, they'd actually own up to it. And baffled, above all, that she should phone him and tell him she was doing it. Since meeting her, of course, he'd done it himself, regularly, and always with the feeling of slight shame he'd had since he first discovered its delights at the beginning of his teens. But with a man, surely, it was different, sort of more inevitable? And what on earth did women actually do when they did it?

Maybe, he thought, it was like what he'd done with Suzanne Richards at their regular Saturday evening sessions on the back seats of the local, shabby cinema – but with the woman doing it to herself. He often looked back on those encounters with affection and incomprehension. He liked Suzanne (even though he promoted that feeling to 'loving her' whenever they'd settled down on those sticky seats and he was whispering in her ear as a preliminary to unbuttoning any part of her clothing he could get his hands on), but he could never understand why she let him explore her body so freely.

They'd kiss, long closed-mouth kisses which made their lips sore after a while without inflaming any passion. He'd worm his hands under her sweater and fumble for five minutes trying to unhook her bra, until she reached round and did it herself. He'd play – tentatively – with her breasts while she half-watched whatever was on the screen, paying him and his manipulations scant attention. He'd spread her coat across her lap in an attempt to hide the fact that his hand would soon be under her skirt, lunging straight for her groin with the finesse of an aircraft refuelling in flight. (Later he could never watch the opening credits of Dr Strangelove with that long probe seeking and plugging the fuel inlet of the bomber without remembering his finger and Suzanne Richards' slightly open legs.)

But surely, female masturbation couldn't really be like that, could it? Suzanne never seemed to mind how long he frigged her – that was what the other kids called it, 'frigging', so he used the term liberally when boasting to them about his fumbling exploits (though he wouldn't have dreamed of saying it to Suzanne herself) – but it never seemed to have any effect on her. Her breathing never altered. She never squirmed, or pushed back onto his fingers; she was entirely passive and unmoved. He didn't know enough to realise that his lack of knowledge and experience meant that nothing he was doing had the remotest chance of exciting her. And she never touched him, ever; a fact that he always enthusiastically remedied later on those evenings as he lay in bed and savoured the lingering smell of her on his fingers.

Surely to God, Jackie couldn't be doing that to herself, could she? For a ludicrous moment or two he seriously thought about phoning her back. Would he dare to just say, "I couldn't resist calling you. What you said made me so excited too. Tell me exactly what you're doing ..."? He'd even picked up the phone and dialled the first three digits before he realised that, No, he certainly didn't dare say any of that.

He'd been in her bed. He'd smelled her perfume. He could picture, vividly, the room in which she now lay. He tried to picture her naked, or with her nightie pulled up above her breasts, her hands busy between her thighs. He tried to see, in his head, what 'between her thighs' would look like. Would there be, as he'd seen and drooled about under her arms, the same thick bush around her pussy. And is that what she would call it? Her pussy?

And suddenly, for no sensible reason he could think of, he felt ashamed at himself, almost as if he were a voyeur snooping on her. He lay still for some moments, trying hard to think of utterly asexual things to settle his mind. Perhaps running through the rules of database normalisation might do the trick? It didn't, and with a sigh of resignation he reached under the mattress to where he'd hidden his meagre stash of pornographic magazines, switched on his bedside light and set to work to ease his problem.

6. Coming Closer

The next day was a Saturday. They'd arranged to meet at the coast again, because it was good to escape the city for a while at weekends. He waited, rather nervously (and why should he be nervous?) on a bench overlooking Tynemouth harbour entrance, a chill wind blowing in from the north east, the ruined abbey on the headland still looking forbidding and dominating, and the Norway ferry making him jump with surprise as its massive bulk eased up the navigation channel with blasts of its horn; he watched it confidently slip between the twin breakwaters of the harbour and swing east for Scandinavia, surging ahead until it was a speck in the distance.

Then she was there, standing beside him, her collar turned up and a scarf muffling the lower part of her face. She was watching him – had been for some minutes – her eyes serious and questioning. He stumbled to his feet, eager not to embarrass her, and blurted out the first thing that came into his head: "Oh, Jackie, didn't see you coming", - Oh God, bad thing to say, think quickly! – "Want an ice-cream?", nodding his head towards the solitary ice-cream van buzzing quietly to itself in the tiny car-park below them, its bored driver buried in a tabloid newspaper, an illicit cigarette dangling from his lips. Her eyes creased into a smile as she looked round the bleak, late autumn seascape pointedly. "No, I suppose not," he conceded, "stupid of me really..."

"Come on," she said, pulling him to his feet, "let's walk". And when she didn't let go of him he realised with a small thrill of satisfaction that this was the first time they'd strolled anywhere together hand-in-hand, like a real couple. She led him down the way they had come, skirting the tiny beach inlet with its lonely, stranded dinghies and yachts, up the slope towards the Abbey, along towards the north breakwater, through its rusted iron entrance gate, then the long walk towards the pier's end with its determined clutch of sea-fishermen waiting for catches without much sign of optimism.

She did most of the talking, for which he was grateful.

"Did I embarrass you last night? Maybe I shouldn't have called ..?"

"Well, no, I'm glad you did. I wasn't embarrassed, no; a bit surprised, I suppose..?"

"Because I said I was masturbating?"

(Jesus, she'd said it again, and in broad daylight ... and with no sign of discomfort on her part!)

"Well, yes, I guess ... I've never had a call like that before .. I mean, I've never heard a woman talk about ..." He trailed off, lamely.

"Jamie, be honest; I don't think you've actually heard a woman talk about very much at all, have you? You're a virgin, aren't you?"

"What?!!! No, of course not ..." A longish lull ... then, "Yes."

"Yes. I know."

"How do you know? How can you know?"

"Jamie, I know. I make you nervous, don't I? You talk a good story as if you know everything about it, especially when you've had too much to drink, like at the party, but underneath all that bluster you're a boy, aren't you? A boy who'd desperately like to be a man but doesn't know how to make it happen? Come on," responding to his sudden, sullen look, "it doesn't matter, it's not terminal!"

"It matters to me!"

"OK, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." She paused, half-way along the breakwater, and turned him towards her. "Why don't you kiss me?" Hesitantly he slipped his arms around her waist and vaguely lunged for her lips. "No, I don't just mean now! We've been seeing each other for weeks, but you never touch me, hold my hand, try to kiss me? You never show any sign of physical affection. Why not?"

"Because I'm afraid, I suppose."

"Afraid of me?"

"No ... afraid of spoiling things, like I did before..."

"OK. Well, are you going to kiss me now?"

He did. Clumsily at first, with little confidence and no technique; but she didn't expect either so wasn't disappointed. When she obviously relaxed and showed no sign of breaking the embrace, his tension and nervousness slowly fell away. The taste of her; the sensuous feel of her tongue gently exploring his; the heady, erotic allure of whatever perfume it was she was wearing; the way she used her hands to hold his face; the feel of her waist as he slipped his own hands under her unzipped coat and pulled her slightly in towards him; everything about that moment, he felt, was burning into his consciousness and changing him, on that very spot. Changing him, he knew even if he couldn't have put it into words, forever. From that point onwards, it was her he wanted, her for herself, not just for her body.

"Why so sad?" she asked, surprising him with the question.

"Sad! I'm not sad. I think you're gorgeous..."

"Do you? Well, that's nice. You're not bad yourself, when you're not acting like an arsehole, of course." She laughed when he looked immediately crestfallen. "Come on! I'm just teasing you. The party feels like long ago now and you feel like a different person. I wouldn't be with you here now, kissing you, if I didn't fancy you like mad, would I?"

He felt a surge of elation. She made to walk on, but he held on to her, suddenly desperate not to let go.

"I love you, Jackie."

She smiled, knowingly. "Do you? Well, we'll see..."

They walked on in silence for a few moments. When she spoke again he sensed just a touch less confidence. "About last night, Jamie. I didn't plan it that way – to call you, I mean. I just felt very good about our evening, about the effort you put into that lovely meal. I know it must have cost you, and I can't imagine how you learned to cook so well as a student. No, don't interrupt just yet ... let me finish, because this actually isn't easy. I was laying in bed. Couldn't get to sleep. I kept thinking about you. About us. About whether there was ever going to be an 'us'. And that just started me off, I suppose, and once I'd started I couldn't stop, even though I knew fine well it wasn't what I really wanted. I wanted it to be you. You remember back at the party..." He flinched again, but she ignored it and continued. "I think – no, I know – you were very drunk, but you said – do you remember? – that you'd like to fuck me from then until dawn. That's what I wanted last night, and maybe I should have said so, but I wanted it to come from you. It didn't. So now I've said it, haven't I? I'd love for you to fuck me, Jamie..."

He had a massive surge of anxiety, realising – stuck out on this breakwater and feeling that it was as good – as bad – as the middle of the North Sea – just how far they were from anyplace he could realistically do just that. Then she came to his rescue, again. "I took some extra cash out before I left this morning. I think I could just manage to afford a taxi back ... unless you'd rather catch the bus..?"

Afterwards Jamie was uncertain how he'd managed to stop himself from sprinting back into the town in search of a cab.

7. Coming Together

They were half-under the covers on her bed, on their backs, eyes closed, recovering. Jamie, lying to her right, propped himself on his left elbow so he could look at her better. He still felt a little self-conscious at his nakedness; she seemed unbothered by hers, though she must have sensed that he was staring, fixedly and foolishly, at her breasts. With her eyes still shut she smiled and asked, "Are they still?"

"What? Sorry ..?"

"Still 'the best tits you've seen for some time'? 'Lovely knockers' is what I remember you saying..?"

"Awww, come on Jackie, give us a break!" But he couldn't help smiling too, because this time he recognised when he was being teased. "We both know they're the only ones I've seen, don't we?"

"What! Ever?"

"Afraid so, yes. Before this it's always been 'feelsies' not 'looksies'. And I was even younger then, too."

"Well! You must have a lot of making up for lost time ahead of you then! You can play 'feelsies' with me if you want?"

He reached across with his free right hand and softly stroked her, over and over, fascinated by the firmness yet suppleness of her breasts, intrigued by the way her nipples immediately stiffened in response. She watched him in a contented silence, relishing his small-boyish delight in what he was doing. Instinctively he bent to suck on her and she put her own hand behind his head to pull him in a little, stroking his hair, feeling a little like purring. He took his lips away, laid his face against her right breast and started to play with the left.

"I'm sorry it was so quick," he said, kissing her in between each word.

"You don't have to be sorry. I knew it would be, the first time. That one was for you. I claim the next. After that we'll share; better than taking it in turns."

"Can I ask you two questions?"

"Is one of them about where babies come from..?" He mock-tweaked her nipple; she mock-yelped in pain.

"What kind of name is 'Roncoroni'?"

"It's Italian. My father's family was Italian. I never knew him, so no, I don't speak Italian or have cheap holidays there. You've just bedded Jacqueline Jayne Giulietta Roncoroni. Impressed?"

"Giulietta, eh? Impressive!"

"I don't use it. What's the second question?"

"Will you marry me?"

"You silly sod!"

"OK, maybe you need a little more time to think it over..."

"Right. I'll let you know in a year or so, OK? In the meantime," she said, extricating herself from his hands and pushing him over onto his back, "just turn over that way and give a girl some space to work." She reached under the covers, found him, took control, and whispered against his mouth just before slipping her tongue into it, "Here begins the First Lesson."

*

If you've stayed patiently with me so far you can read Part 2, 'Love Lesson' when it's posted. If you're fuming because they didn't immediately get their kit off and go at each other like rabbits you'll probably give the sequel a miss.