Playing with Dolly - Ch. 01

Chapter 1. Easing Out of Virginity

© Bad Hobbit 2023

"People who lived through World War Two, you say? Well, Pat's a bit young for that. She would've been - let's see - four when it ended. Sadly, Edna's mind isn't what it was, poor soul. I don't think you'd get much sense out of her." The matronly lady was trying to help, but she clearly felt my presence was an intrusion.

"What about that lady over there in the wheelchair? She looks old enough."

"Dolly? Oh no, you'd best not talk to her - unless you want to be offended."

"Offended? How?"

"Her language is, shall we say, 'ripe', and the things she talks about if someone's prepared to listen! Really not suitable for a young girl like you."

"I'm twenty-four, you know. I'm doing a Sociology PhD. I'm not a kid. If she has recollections of the period and is lucid, I'd like to speak with her."

"Well, suit yourself, but don't say I didn't warn you."

I walked over to the old lady in the wheelchair. She was thin and frail-looking, her hair was little more than some sparse, tight grey curls and her skin had almost the transparency of tracing paper. But the thing I noticed most was her eyes. They were the brightest blue and had a kind of sparkle that immediately attracted me.

"Hello, ma'am. I'm Gemma." I smiled. "Sorry if I'm intruding. I'm collecting some verbatim reports about lives during the Second World War and the years immediately after. It's for a dissertation to support my PhD work. I wondered if you'd be willing to give me an interview."

She looked me up and down.

"Sorry, did you understand what I'm..."

"I may be a shrivelled old crone, my dear, but I'm not fucking gaga. Yes, of course I understand what you're asking. I was simply deciding whether you were the kind of girl I would be prepared to spend time with. You're a pretty young thing, and you seem intelligent enough, so it'll make a change from this lot." She motioned with her head toward her fellow residents. Then she lowered her voice and leaned closer. "Yes, I'd be prepared to tell you my story. But first, are you a prude?"

"I - I don't think so."

"Hmm, well we'll see. You look rather innocent, and I think my recollections might shock you. You see, people seem to believe that women of my age don't think much about sex, but as that's all I can do now - think about it, that is, not the sex itself, more's the pity - it does tend to occupy a lot of my thinking. What I can offer you may not be what you're looking for. You might prefer someone who can tell you - I don't know - that they were living in an Anderson shelter eating rats before news came of their beloved Albert's death on the beaches of Normandy."

"I - I just want an honest account of how things were for you. You know, on the home front." I'd already interviewed a number of men who told me, at great length, about their military experiences. I wanted the views of some women for a change.

"Well, I can give you that. But I'm likely to focus on some things you might not want to hear. You see, being old and confined to this damn thing," she indicated the wheelchair, "nothing much works below the waist. I probably smell of piss, for which you have my apologies. And the thing I miss most in life these days is having a handsome young man between my legs and a nice stiff cock inside me. Now, if things like that shock you, you'd best go find some other grumpy bitch to talk to."

I was surprised by the weird contrast between the tone of her voice and the words she was using. Her voice had that clipped 'BBC English' tone about it, very much like Celia Johnson in 'Brief Encounter', but the casual obscenities and the blatant sexual references were at odds with the otherwise prim appearance. I assumed she was just trying to offend me so she could get rid of me.

"Look," I said, "I've been living with my boyfriend for several years. I'm quite broad-minded, you know."

She looked at me shrewdly. "Very well. But do be aware that I like to talk about the sex rather a lot. It's all I can do these days, and it helps if I remember what it used to be like. But before I let you interview me, I need you to do something for me."

For a moment I thought she might ask me to do something very personal, but she leaned forward and beckoned me to get closer. "There's an off-licence just down the road. Get me a half bottle of Bells' and twenty Rothmans. Then you can wheel me out into the garden and I can have a drink and a fag. They're like the fucking Gestapo in here." She shot a look of contempt at the nearby nurse.

When I returned from my errand, Dolly raised her eyebrows and tilted her head, as if to say 'did you get them?' I nodded and patted my bag. The smile that came back transformed her face. I liked what I saw.

It was hard going, getting the wheelchair along the gravel path to the quaint summer-house at the far end of the garden. Once installed, Dolly extracted a small glass and a lighter from her handbag and put them on the bench next to us. I noticed that the lighter was engraved. She saw me looking at it and said "Don't get ahead of yourself, missy. There's a story attached to that; isn't there a story attached to everything? If you want to hear it, be patient. Now pour me a whisky. Ooh, you bought a whole bottle. Well, that'll earn you a few hours of my time. Will you have some with me?"

"It's a bit early in the day for me thanks. And really, I'm not much of a whisky drinker. Prosecco's more my style."

She smiled. "Now I'd be careful if I were you, young lady. I've heard that Prosecco has been known to lead to spread legs. Though port and lemon used to do it for me."

I chuckled at her little joke, got out my phone and attached the mic with its windshield. Out here, I wanted to be sure that the wind noise didn't interfere with the recording, and that I didn't pick up too much birdsong or traffic in the background. She looked at the phone and the microphone.

"Used to be tape recorders back in the old days. Everything's on one of those smartphones now. Does it have a vibrator attachment?" She gave me a naughty smile at my reaction. "And that microphone reminds me of a nice thick cock. But the trouble is, everything reminds me of a cock these days." She pulled a wistful smile, opened the cigarette pack and lit one with her lighter. She blew out a long stream of smoke. "Ah, bliss! Or at least the closest I'm likely to get to it at my age."

I have to say that Dolly was definitely not what I was expecting. I didn't know whether she was deliberately trying to shock me or whether, as implied by the nurse, she was like this with everyone. If her account continued being sweary and full of sexual references, could I use it in my dissertation? I didn't want it to appear that I was easily offended, though in truth it was disconcerting, so I pressed on.

"So, Dolly, for the record, could you please tell me your name, date and place of birth, and a brief outline of your life?"

She laughed. "A brief outline? Hah! I think that'll take some time."

I started the voice recorder, and this is what's on the recording:

TRANSCRIPT:

My name is Dorothy Alicia Bartlett, generally known as Dolly. I was born on the twelfth of April 1923, in Beaconsfield, and I've been - let's see - a typist, an office manager, an aircraft plotter, a special agent, a pilot, a mother, a whore, a wife, a murderess, a grandmother and a pillar of the community. Now I'm a useless old crone, riddled with cancer, living on borrowed time. So if you're still willing to go ahead, Gemma my girl, this'll be a bumpy ride. But it would be good to get it all off my chest - or at least, what's left of my chest.

(My voice). "You are joking, aren't you?"

About what? About being a pillar of the community? Possibly. But yes, I trained as an SOE agent and I flew aircraft during the War. And for a while I earned my money on my back with my legs apart; and I enjoyed most of it. And yes, I murdered my husband, claimed on his life insurance and got away with it. He deserved it, and worse. And yes, I have several cancers and was given a life-expectancy of six months. That was nine months ago. So you see, I've had an interesting life and have absolutely nothing to lose by telling you all about it. The question is; do you want to hear it?

(You obviously can't hear it on the recording, but I nodded. How could I possibly refuse?)

Well, I was born into a nice, respectable, upper-middle-class family. Daddy was something in the City - I never really understood what - and Mummy looked after the house, though for a while we had a maidservant, as I recall. I had an idyllic childhood, and I was sixteen when War broke out. Daddy got a job working at the War Office. He'd risen to Lieutenant Colonel in the Great War and seen some serious action in Mesopotamia, so they restored his rank and he did some sort of planning job. I'd stayed on at school two years longer than many of my friends, and he wanted me to remain at home where it was relatively safe. But I felt I needed to do something useful for the War effort, so after a lot of argument he allowed me to join the WAAF. I did some clerical work - typing stuff, mostly - at RAF High Wycombe. The Luftwaffe bombed the airfield and hit the hut next door to where I was working. Several of the girls I knew and worked with were killed. And I seemed to be continually typing up telegrams and letters of condolence about the young pilots we kept losing. It was a pretty miserable time, back in 1940.

I was walking out with a boy called Neville, who was also stationed at High Wycombe. He was very sweet on me, though I found him rather dull. My parents liked him, and I had a horrible feeling that they would try to persuade me to marry him. But he unfortunately flew a dreadful aeroplane called a Fairey Battle; a completely useless death-trap, in my view. We had some good aircraft in 1940, but the Battle wasn't one of them. Neville was sent on a raid one day, and not one man in his squadron survived it. I should have been heartbroken, but in a way, I felt relieved, but guilty. After Neville, I guess I avoided male company for a while.

1940 dragged on into 1941. Have you seen those 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters? They were found a few years ago and they're treated rather as a joke these days. What people don't seem to realise is that, in 1941, Britain was all but totally fucked. We were being bombed most nights, rations kept being cut because the U-boats were sinking so many ships and we couldn't get enough food in. Our army was getting a pasting in North Africa, which was the only place we were actually fighting on land, having been driven out of Europe the year before. So 'Keep Calm and Carry On' was all the government had to offer us. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. As Winston had said, he had nothing to offer but blood, sweat, toil and tears, and he was certainly delivering on that promise. We were, frankly, up shit creek without a paddle.

Then I was moved to the Air Ministry in London. This was at the height of the Blitz. Daddy and Mummy were terrified that I'd be killed in the bombing. I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in an air-raid shelter. I couldn't get home because the railway tracks had taken a hit. In many ways, it was Hell.

But it was also exciting. You learned to live each day as if it were your last. Just over a month after my eighteenth birthday, I lost my virginity. Actually, I can't say I 'lost' it - I knew exactly who I'd given it to, and he took very good care of it. His name was Frank and he was a tail gunner on Wellingtons. He'd been wounded on a raid a few weeks earlier - nothing too serious but he wasn't yet fit to sit in a freezing turret and fire a machine gun, so he'd been posted to the Air Ministry on light duties until he could recover and return to his plane. We met in the office. The first night he took me out, he invited me for dinner at a Lyon's Corner House, and he kissed me afterwards. I liked it. We went to the pictures a few times, and to restaurants to eat meals that were a bit small and drab, thanks to the rationing. Then one night he took me to a club he knew. It was the first time I'd tasted alcohol, and it went straight to my head. I had three port-and-lemons and was feeling pretty squiffy when we left.

We were halfway back to my digs when the heavens opened. We'd been groping our way along using the tiny, dim torches we were allowed to use in the blackout, and were desperate to find some shelter. We were passing some bombed-out houses and Frank noticed that one was partly intact. It could've been condemned and dangerous for all we knew, but we had little choice, so we ducked inside out of the torrential rain. Astonishingly, though most of the front of the house was gone, there was still a bedroom at the back that was virtually untouched. It had a double bed, still made up. The window had been taped, so although the glass was cracked, it was still in place. There was even a small bedside light, and when Frank switched it on, it worked!

Our clothes were drenched. Frank removed his jacket and shirt. I couldn't help but admire his physique; he looked so physically strong and well-toned. There was a scar on his arm from his wound, but that looked like it had healed pretty well. And then he turned to me and started unbuttoning my uniform jacket. There was a chair in the corner where he hung our wet clothes, and I was impressed at how careful he was. When he started unbuttoning my blouse, I was momentarily frozen. I don't mean because I was cold - it was early May and, although I was soaked through, it wasn't really that chilly. But here was a man - a man I found very handsome - undressing me. And I let him. He skilfully removed the blouse, and then the skirt. And I just stood there and let him.

And then I found myself standing in front of a man I suppose I barely knew, wearing just my rather damp underwear. And he was removing his trousers and shoes. 'Are you going to make love to me?' I asked him, rather naïvely.

"Dolly, dear," he said, "if you want me to, I'm going to - to try to give you sexual pleasure. Are you a virgin?"

I, of course, nodded.

"Do you want to stay a virgin?"

I thought about it for just a moment, and shook my head, quite emphatically. I'd overheard girls talking about sex with their boyfriends. I'd even witnessed a couple having sex in the park, once, on my way home one night. I remember thinking 'I'd like to try that.' So here was my chance, with a man who was handsome and strong and seemed very confident.

"Good," he replied. And what he said next has stayed with me ever since. "But you said 'make love'. You have to be very careful about the 'love' part of that. I really like you, Dolly. I think you're intelligent and funny and very pretty. Sexually, I'm strongly attracted to you and I'd be honoured to be the guy who helps you out of your virginity." At the time, I thought that was a strange expression, but later I understood. "But Dolly," he continued, "please don't talk about love. We're in a war, a very bloody one. Tomorrow a bomb might fall on your office, or next week my plane could be shot down. Yesterday I learned that Harry, my best mate, who I trained with, was killed over Germany. So Dolly, dearest, none of us can afford love at the moment. It's on very strict ration. Maybe, when this sodding war ends, we can give ourselves the luxury of loving again. For now, we need to enjoy life to the fullest, day to day, because there may not be a tomorrow for us or the people we've decided to love. So Dolly, if you'll let me, I'd still really like to fuck you."

I was suddenly shocked. "Frank! That's - that's horrible!" I gasped.

"Dolly," he replied calmly, "it isn't. I promise you that I can help you enjoy being fucked. But please, don't be afraid of words. 'Fuck' is a very old word, going back centuries, and it simply means putting my - my penis in your vagina. Or to avoid the Latin, my cock in your - your fanny. Yes, I'll also make love to you. I'll caress you and please you and try my best to give you an orgasm, but if you're not going to scream rape, I need your permission before I can fuck you."

My head was spinning. I'd just decided that I wanted to lose my virginity, that night with that man. But then he used that word, that at the time I thought was horrible and ugly. I was, as they say these days, conflicted. But then something else struck me.

"You said you'd give me a - an orgasm. Women don't have orgasms. Everybody knows that. I - I read it in a in a government pamphlet..." I burbled. My God I was so green back then.

He laughed. "Oh, Dolly," he said, "you've been listening to the same old codswallop that men who don't give a toss about a woman's pleasure keep telling the women they fuck." I recall I flinched again at the word. "And the women who know no better tell their friends and their daughters the same thing, because that's their experience, and so the lie continues. The men who wrote that pamphlet probably believe that the clitoris is part of a submarine, or is some creature that lives on an island in the Arctic Circle."

"The what?" I said, naïvely.

"Oh, my sweet, innocent Dolly, I'll demonstrate and you'll be delighted," he replied. "But look, you're starting to shiver. Why don't we take off the rest of our clothes, get into that bed over there, and I'll show you how a woman can have an orgasm? Maybe more than one. And when you're ready, and I've given you as much pleasure as I can with my fingers and my mouth, you'll hopefully be ready to ask me to fuck you, and I'll see whether I can give you some more with my cock. What do you say?"

And then he kissed me, and I almost forgot to react to his awful, nasty language. It was a really nice, warm, romantic (or so I thought at the time) kiss. And his arms were around me and he was unfastening my brassiere. And then he put it on the chair, and took off his underpants, with his back to me. When he turned back to face me, he smiled.

He looked down and told me I had beautiful breasts. And I did. Of course, they've shrivelled away to nothing now, but when I was eighteen, I was very proud of my bust. I suppose I used to wear tight sweaters to flaunt my bust at men in the street, and I knew I had admiring glances - and sometimes downright stares. But then I looked down, and there was this huge thing pointing at me, and I almost screamed.

Frank saw where I was looking, and the expression on my face, and he laughed again. He said "Dolly, my sweet, relax; it's not going to hurt you. Well, actually, if you're a virgin and your hymen is still intact, I'm afraid it may hurt you just a little. But after that, my beautiful Dolly, I promise it'll be pleasure all the way. Now, can I take your knickers off?"

I had on this old-fashioned arrangement of knickers with suspenders for the stockings - you don't see them nowadays, but everyone wore them back then - and a slip over the top to stop the skirt clinging. He seemed to know what he was doing, so I let him remove the slip, unhook the suspenders, carefully peel off the stockings - they were very precious in those days - and then pull my knickers off. Oddly, I don't remember feeling self-conscious, having my fanny naked and on display to this man. All the while, I kept looking down at this huge penis and wondering how it would ever fit inside me.

The bedclothes seemed remarkably clean. My guess is that this had been a guest bed that the people who'd lived there had made up, but the house had been bombed before whoever was meant to sleep in it had arrived. I got between the sheets, lay back and started to spread my legs, expecting Frank to climb on top of me. "Promise you won't make me pregnant?" I asked, rather desperately.