'Do you know,' said Gwendolen, 'from that day to this, I simply can't remember that third time. If it really happened I must have been quite out of my mind with fucking.' 'Well it's not a bad way to go,' I said. 'But maybe Meg was exaggerating. After all, some of her stories do sound a little suspect.' 'Like seven army officers between Port Said and Suez?' 'It certainly sounds like military service on a grand scale. Three or four? Now that I can imagine. But anyway, it's a lovely story. Did you ever find out who the man was and how he came to be there? And did you get to fuck him again?' 'It was all Melissa's idea,' said Gwendolen. I remembered Melissa. A tall well-built girl. Full of energy and mad-cap ideas, she was definitely a character. Terribly untidy and somewhat scatter-brained, she was the despair of Mrs. Bradshaw and the staff. Brought up on a farm, and with a knowing eye, she had a most unladylike knowledge and interest in the less polite activities of the animals. I remember clearly an incident when we were both only just arrived at the school.
There was a rather fussy little man who in those early days used to come in twice a week in order to teach music. One day he brought in his small and rather fussy little dog. Of course we all gathered round to stroke and pet the little creature. When it suddenly started yapping and then made as if to snap at one of the girls, he snatched it up. 'Bobo's a touch on the nervous side,' he twittered agitatedly. 'A highly strung little dog.' 'She's not a dog,' said Melissa. 'She's a bitch. Look, she's got nipples.' Poor Mr.
Fotheringay was very shocked at her plain speaking and when Melissa made things worse by going on 'All females have nipples. They're for babies to suck milk from. Young ladies have, nipples too,' he became speechless and stopped the lesson there and then. Later Miss Bartholomew, the Deputy Headmistress, sent for her and she was told in no uncertain terms that she was never, never to use such language again in the school. Her parents were to be told of her misbehaviour.
She was to apologise to Mr. Fotheringay, who had had a severe nervous attack after the incident and she was to lose all sorts of privileges for the rest of term. We all thought that this was absolutely beastly of Miss Bartholomew who was such a stick-like creature that in her case it was more than possible that she in fact did not have any nipples. She certainly had no visible bosom. Anyway, Melissa had gone from bad to worse in the eyes of the Mistresses and had got better and better in the opinions of all her friends. Of course in the midst of all our passions and night-time friendships, one subject above all was the great topic of excited conversation. Men. As I have said, apart from the school chaplain, The Rev. Mr. Paddlebottom, and occasional visits from Mr. Fotheringay, we never saw one at close quarters on the school premises. We were terribly ignorant about Men and in particular about what Men did to Young Ladies. Melissa inevitably was the one who told us all, when we all were in our first term. 'They have this Thing,' she told her wide-eyed audience in the dorm. 'And they have to put it in girls' wee holes so that they can have babies.' Naturally there was a chorus of disbelief from most of us. Apart from a vague idea that having a baby involved help from a clergyman, since babies were only born after a proper Church wedding, there was a school of thought that they came out of the belly button but mostly we were just ignorant and terribly shocked. 'Ugh!' said a squat girl called Hermione, 'That sounds horrid. I certainly wouldn't want a man's Thing pushed into my wee-hole. I can think of nothing worse.' At this there was quite a babble of agreement but I noticed, here and there, a number of girls with thoughtful looks on their faces who didn't join in the general outcry. I was somewhat relieved because the idea of a man's Thing one day reaching up inside me seemed a proposition not to be dismissed out of hand and one to be considered carefully for the future. The fact was that I had already made certain discoveries about my still dormant pussey. A little gentle exploration with my own fingers had awakened feelings of pleasure and excitement. Nor, as I realised later that evening, was I alone in my discoveries. After Melissa's lecture on the Facts of Life had ended and lights were out, I voiced my thoughts on the subject of men's Things to my friend Thomasina. She at once confided that she also had engendered feelings of a quite thrilling nature in and around her hidden parts by a process of quiet self-exploration. Emboldened by our whispered conversation, I quietly did a round of the dormitory, asking a carefully picked selection of girls whether they also had any sympathy with my ideas. Quite soon seven or eight of us were sharing confessions. We all agreed that if at any time in the future, a man's Thing were to be presented to us, we would at least greet the proposition with an open mind. In the meantime several of us agreed that if we could get such pleasure at our own hands, maybe the touch of other hands would be as nice or even better. In no time at all, amid hastily hushed giggles, a mass exploration was going on. In the darkness, unseen hands were reaching out. Demurely pressed-together knees were being eased apart and careful journeys of adventure were being made into unseen places. Of course we were still too young to understand the peaks of ecstasy that lay ahead but we had made a start. So Melissa had entered my life and Gwendolen's early. Her night time lectures and quite explicit explanations had been our introduction to sexual matters. Now it seemed that, like the good teacher she was later to become, she had not only awakened our juvenile interests in the subject, but had set my friend her final examination-and one that she had passed with flying colours. In short, she had arranged her first fuck. But how? Where had the man, with his splendid Thing, come from? What had happened to him? Melissa, it seemed, had finally tired of listening to the moanings and complaints about the great lack of Men during the dormitory conversations. There was Adam the school gardener. But he was reputed to have been employed by Miss Bradshaw not for his expertise in horticultural matters but because he was safe where Young Ladies were concerned. This followed an incident in the Crimea War when he had been damaged by a Russian musket shot in those parts that are the seat of the male passions. The only other man to be found within the convent-like confines of the school, Mr. Fotheringay having retired to a sanitorium, was, as I have said, the chaplain, Mr. Paddlebottom. He however had always restricted his attentions to the backsides of his pupils. 'Spanker' as he was called, was in the habit of indulging in regular chastisements of those of his flock who had failed to come up to his expectations where biblical knowledge was concerned. All of us had at some time or other felt his rod upon our bottom but he had never displayed any interest in our other parts. So many a maiden's prayers had gone unanswered and no man's Thing had ever raised its head within either school or pupils. How we had bemoaned our fate. How eagerly we had chattered and dreamed about men and their Things. We made up stories and hoped that one day we would find such a combination within the school grounds. But our citadel was well guarded and its multitude of young pussies quite unapproachable. I remembered clearly those endless after-dark speculations, those moist sighs and breathless fantasies. But I digress. Melissa, as Gwendolen recounted, had become impatient and decided that something must be done to fill certain long felt wants. 'There is a gipsy encampment on the common,' she had announced one night. Blank stares had greeted this piece of news. 'Gipsies,' she had continued, 'are well known, in lore if not in fact, for their habit of kidnapping babies and small children. Is it not time that the tables were turned? I have a splendid scheme. We will capture a gipsy.' 'Why?' several of her audience had chorused. 'Why?' she had answered. 'So that we can make use of him.' 'How,' those same voices asked. 'We will bring him back here and use him for our pleasure.' At this there was a great hubbub of questions and objections. 'Listen,' she went on. 'I have thought this out with great care. We can smuggle him into the school and keep him in the attic where all our trunks are stored. No-one ever goes in there until the end of term. I have talked to one of the village girls who works in the kitchens. She is very taken with the idea and has promised to put on one side sufficient food for us to sneak in to him.' 'But surely he will be able to escape,' Meg asked. 'We cannot mount a guard on him.' 'But will he want to escape?' replied Melissa. 'School food may not be enough temptation but school pussies will surely be. I am quite convinced that he will be more than ready to endure his confinement when he realises that he is to be presented with a succulent diet of unblemished fruit, ripe for the plucking.' 'It would never work,' one or two of her enthralled audience had objected, albeit wistfully.