Playing with Dolly - Ch. 05

Keeping Mum

"Gemma, sweetie, please top me up," Dolly said, holding her glass out, her hand trembling a little. "Telling these stories is making me very thirsty."

I reached for the bottle and poured a large measure. I could see I'd need another bottle soon, but the memoirs were gold dust. "I'm fascinated. What was it like, being an unmarried mother back in those days?"

"It was shit, my dear. Turn on that device. This bit's going to be hard enough for me to tell without having to go over it twice.

TRANSCRIPT 5:

I gave birth at my parents' home on February 27 th, 1945. My baby girl was perfect, beautiful - and black. My parents' reaction was predictable, if harsh.

"You can't stay under this roof," my father said.

"Father, please don't do this. Where am I to go?" I pleaded.

"You should've thought of that before you became a - a black man's whore!" he spluttered.

"I was getting married! He was sent overseas with no warning, or I'd be his wife now!"

"But he's a black man. A negro. We don't want anyone of that sort in this family. We're respectable!"

I should have kept my mouth shut, but I was incensed.

"Respectable? You call yourself a Christian, you go to church every Sunday, but you reject a man - a good man who's kind, loving and risking his life for the freedoms you claim to value - because he has dark skin? Don't talk to me about respect!"

My father spluttered. "Right, Miss 'Respectable', you'll respect my will, as I'm master in this house. You'll be gone out of this house and out of our lives. I'll give you a week to sort yourself out..."

"Alfred, let's not be so hasty. She's only just given birth..." My mother looked distressed.

"Yes, to a - a black bastard! She's brought shame on this household, and she needs to be gone as soon as possible."

I sobbed, I pleaded, but to no avail. The next day, I made a mental list of who I could call upon. Charles had always been my saviour in the past, but it felt like the war was ending and he'd be going back to his wife. And he was hardly in a position to support an unmarried mother with a new baby. Ivy might take me in, but what would I do - what could I do - to support myself and my child? In the end, there was just one obvious candidate.

I called Harry. "Hello. It's Dolly."

"Dolly! Great to hear from you. How are you?"

"Not good, I'm afraid. You know that Aaron got posted overseas before we could get married?"

"Yes. Has something happened to him?"

"I haven't heard anything; nothing at all. I've asked around, and other girls with GI boyfriends haven't heard either. I think there's something wrong with the post. But Harry, I have a problem, and I was hoping you could help me."

"For you, Dolly, anything."

"Don't promise until you've heard what it is first."

Harry picked me up from Blackwater station. Agnes, his wife, took one look at my baby and smiled from ear to ear.

"Oh, she's beautiful, Dolly. What are you calling her?"

"Thank you. I agree. She's so gorgeous that I had to give her a pretty name. I've decided to call her Lily."

Agnes was clearly besotted. "What a lovely name. Can I hold her while you get yourself settled in the car?" she asked.

"It's not much, but it should be comfortable enough," Harry said, showing me into the sparse spare room over the pub. "The top drawer in that chest can be a makeshift cot until we can find something better. And as soon as you're ready, you can help behind the bar. I can't pay very much, I'm afraid, but bed and board are free."

Agnes was brilliant. Unlike my parents, she didn't see a black bastard - she saw a beautiful, innocent baby. She rocked Lily to sleep and even went to look in on her when I was working behind the bar. Harry said that more customers were coming in now that I was pulling pints. It may have been because I wore tight or low-cut blouses and did my make-up before starting the evening shift. Certainly, and without any disrespect, the men seemed to prefer watching me - and talking to me - when I was working behind the bar than they did Agnes, who was a good thirty years my senior.

And there were plenty of ribald remarks and double-entendres, the odd bum-slap - even the occasional proposition. There were many times when I was tempted; a handsome serviceman and an unfilled void between my legs was a heady combination. But Harry employed me to serve the customers with drink, not to service me, and I felt that I was - or should have been - a married woman. So, at night in my rather bare room, I would masturbate and dream of my darling Aaron and wonder where he was - if he was even still alive.

Then, in early April, a miracle occurred. I received a call from Blackbushe. "Pilot Officer Bartlett. We've had the Devil's own job tracking you down, and it seems you're just around the corner!" It was one of the duty officers. "We have some mail for you. I understand that you're staying at the Cricketers. Shall I send it round or will you collect?"

I borrowed Agnes's bike and cycled around to the base. On the way, I kept repeating "Please don't let him be hurt!" When I turned up at the gate, Irene, a girl I'd served with, was waiting for me. She threw her arms around me in a most un-military fashion.

"Dolly, so lovely to see you again. We've all missed you. And I guess you'd like these."

She handed me a bundle of letters, tied with string. The envelopes had Aaron's beautiful handwriting on them.

I looked for the most recent. The history could wait; what I needed to know was whether he was OK.

"My darling Dolly," he began. "It's been so long since I heard from you. The guys are saying that there's something messed up with the mail, and nothing's getting through. Something to do with railways getting bombed is what we hear, but it's so worrying that I've had no mail since that terrible day when they wouldn't let me go to my own wedding. I miss you so much, my love, and if you get this, please, please write me back. I can't tell you where we are, but we've come through some tough times, and we're on the home stretch. Some good guys didn't make it, but me and Clarence, we're still here, and no Nazi has gotten us yet."

I looked at the postmark - just a week earlier. I sobbed aloud with relief.

"Hey, Dolly. Is everything all right?" Irene asked with a worried expression.

"He's safe," I said with a relieved expression. "At least, he was a week ago." I looked down at the pack of letters. "It seems I have a lot of catching up to do."

"You're working for Harry at the Cricketers?"

"Yes. You must remember, I was..."

"Pregnant? Yes, of course. How's the baby?"

"Beautiful, growing quickly. And - and black."

"Oh."

"Yes, so as you can see, not everyone is delighted with the situation. But Harry and Agnes have been very kind. Come over when you next have some free time, and we can catch up. And you can meet Lily."

I went back to the pub and read all of Aaron's letters. Some had been censored, even though it was clear roughly where Aaron's unit was; it was almost as if the white guys were having fun, redacting personal things from the black guys' mail. As soon as I'd finished the last one, I started writing a reply. I wrote that his letters had only just arrived, and I hoped that he'd also received all the ones I'd written. I explained that he had a beautiful baby daughter, and I included a tiny snapshot I'd taken with my Box Brownie just a week earlier. And I begged him to stay safe, now that it was clear that the War was finally coming to an end.

The reply came less than a week later. In it was a photo of Aaron with his friend Clarence, holding a Nazi banner between them that they'd torn down from a building in Germany.

"Dolly, Lily is SOOOOOO beautiful, and you've chosen the perfect name for her. I had no idea when I was whisked off to France that you were even pregnant, but as soon as this darned war is over, I'm gonna be on the first ship to England to marry you."

Then, in May, it finally was over. The announcement came on the radio to say that Hitler was dead, the Germans had surrendered, and the war in Europe was at an end. Harry organised a huge party on the green outside the pub. We almost ran out of beer, even though Harry had ordered five extra barrels especially. A local band, mostly old folk with concertinas and fiddles and stuff, turned up to play and everybody danced. I kissed at least twenty men and, surreptitiously, a few girls. One of them, a pretty Wren, squeezed my breast and whispered: "Maybe later?" I winked at her and went back to my work. I'm sure that a lot of girls discovered they were attracted to other girls during the War, because there were so few decent men around and we had to be more open-minded.

So it was late - maybe around nine-thirty - and I'd collected up a load of glasses and taken them inside to wash them up when I glanced out of the side window and there, in the bushes around the back of the pub, I saw Irene sucking a handsome airman's cock. My mouth went dry, and my pussy became instantly wet ; I'm telling you. I couldn't take my eyes off what they were doing. I hadn't had sex in over a year. Masturbation was my only outlet, and that night the air seemed thick with the possibility of fucking. Clearly, some girls were throwing caution to the wind and taking full advantage of what might be a last night of licence before normal societal rules came crashing down on them again.

In the dim light, I saw Irene stand up, lean back against a tree, pull her skirt up and spread her legs. It seemed she'd already removed her knickers, and the young man dutifully knelt and returned the compliment. Judging by the way her head turned and twisted, I felt sure he was doing the necessary business. And then he stood up, and I saw his trousers fall to just above his knees. Irene bent forward and applied a rubber, and then her arms were around his neck and her legs around his waist, and she seemed to be enjoying something that, by now, I was craving.

'Oh for a nice, thick, hard cock in my cunt,' I thought. I closed my eyes and remembered Aaron, that glorious hard rod of his that punished me so exquisitely all that time ago. I watched the airman's muscular buttocks, thrusting his hard cock into Irene's willing hole and longed to be at the receiving end of similar treatment. Judging by the expression on Irene's face, she was relishing every thrust.

I watched until Irene's head went back against the tree trunk, her mouth opened in a perfect, sexy lipsticked 'O', and her legs started to shake. Lucky girl! She'd found a boy who could do the necessary and do it well. I put down the last glass, dried my hands and went back outside. The girl I'd kissed earlier, that sweet little redhead in a WRNS uniform, looked at me and winked. With a tilt of my head, I invited her to join me just inside the clump of trees to one side of the green outside the pub. We had to go a little way in, as we could hear voices, mostly moaning or gasping things like 'Oh yes!'

Finally, we found a clearing and, with no introduction, started kissing like crazy. Before I knew it, my blouse and bra were on the grass, and the cutie was sucking on my nipples. Her uniform was a little harder to remove, but between kisses and caresses, we both managed to end up naked on the grass. Her pussy was so sweet. The sparse red curls parted to reveal the most delicate little slit that drooled profusely when my tongue explored her neat little folds, and even more when I slid a finger up that tiny, tight little cunt. Sometimes I've wondered what it would feel like to have a cock and be able to feel the tightness of a girl's cunt around it, and that was one of those occasions. I wanted to invade her, hear her moan as something thick and hard stretched her sweet little hole. And then she did it to me - two fingers, teasing and rubbing on my sensitive spot, while her cute little Cupid's-bow lips fastened on my clit.

Gemma, my dear, I don't know if you've ever experienced an extended period of sexual abstinence, but if you're anything like as randy as I was in my twenties - and my thirties, forties and fifties, for that matter - it's absolute purgatory. The sheer relief of having someone do something deliciously naughty to you magnifies the sensations tenfold. Yes, I've had lovers, male and female, with more skill than that little Wren, but her sweetness, her mixture of boldness and shyness, her delightful little body and the way she reacted to my caresses more than made up for any lack of expertise on her part. She was lying on top of me, straddling my face and pressing her clit hard against my tongue, while she dutifully lapped away in my slit and, naughty girl, had worked no less than three fingers into my cunt. Giving birth to Lily had stretched me quite a bit, and while I was still working on my pelvic floor exercises, I was nowhere near as tight as I had been, so I could take the near-fisting she was giving me and enjoy it.

I knew I was very close to orgasm - and oh, my dear, you can't imagine how delirious that made me feel. For the first time in about a year, I was going to come, and I wasn't doing it to myself. But I wanted her to come at the same time, so I sneaked a naughty finger up above my head, teased her ring, and then slid a moistened finger up her sweet little virgin arse. I could feel her orgasmic shriek as she pushed her open mouth down hard into my slit. The extra vibrations as she let out that sexy little high-pitched cry were almost enough to tip me over the edge, but I squeezed my cunt muscles tightly around her fingers and relished the friction inside that hole as the wave finally broke over me.

We lay there, panting, for maybe a minute before she climbed off me.

"Thank you. I - I've never really, er - done it - with another girl. I wanted to try it, and you're so beautiful and sophisticated and - and when we kissed, I thought, 'This one!' I hope - I hope I pleased you."

I kissed her. "Very much. I think I pleased you. Are you glad you tried it?"

"Oh yes! My boyfriend, he wants to do it with me but - but I didn't feel ready."

"You're not a virgin, surely?"

She gave me a winsome smile. "Mmm - yes I am."

"But no hymen," I remarked.

"No, it broke during training. It was very strenuous. But I've never - never had anything inside me. Except your finger."

"This boyfriend of yours; is he experienced?"

"I - I don't know. Should he be?"

"If you want your first time to be good, and to want to keep doing it, it helps if he is. Get him to lick you a lot beforehand, and play with your clitoris while he's fucking you."

"You make it sound awfully crude and mechanical," she said, looking a bit crestfallen. I started to get dressed.

"Look, my dear, I've fucked a lot of men, as well as a few women. The ones with experience are usually a lot better than the handsome young virgins. I was very fortunate to find out quite early on how it's meant to feel. I think a lot of girls never experience that. They put up with loads of clumsy thrusting, premature ejaculation, and selfishness from men who say they love them but just love the feel of the girl's cunt."

The young Wren winced, but I took hold of her shoulders and, looking her in the eye, continued.

"I've had some amazing sex. It's strange but, with the War and all that, it seemed that the rules didn't apply. I'm guessing that we'll find things returning to normal now - whatever that is. So yes, if your boyfriend is experienced, give him what he wants, but make sure you get what you want too. If he doesn't make you come, choose someone else. You're exquisite and beautiful and delicious. If your boyfriend doesn't make you feel like that, choose someone who will. And any time you want to repeat what we just did, you know where I work."

I finished dressing, tried to straighten my hair, kissed her and headed a little unsteadily back to the pub.

"Oh, there you are," Agnes said as I came in. "Wondered where you'd headed off to. Seems like all the youngsters are disappearing tonight." She smiled. "I suppose I can't blame them. Anyway, little Lily doesn't seem to have been disturbed by the noise. She was lying there, good as gold, and I sang her back to sleep."

I smiled, and then spontaneously hugged her. "Agnes, I really don't know what I'd have done without you and Harry. You've been so good to me. Now that this is over, and hopefully Aaron can come here, and we can set up home together, maybe we can find a new kind of normal. But without you, I'd have been destitute and homeless, and I'll never forget your kindness."

The next few weeks were strange. Aaron's letters were all about working to keep some sort of law and order in a German town where everything had been smashed to bits. The pub stayed busy, and a few regulars came in most nights, often ending up talking to me across the bar.

"Why so sad, Sid?" I asked of a 40-something man who frequented the place rather a lot.

"Oh, you know. Just feeling a bit low."

"The War's over, Sid. Cheer up."

He pulled a face. "Yeah, but - but my wife doesn't understand me."

I'd love to have five pounds for every time I've heard a man say that.

"She doesn't realise that I have - needs," he whined.

"Don't we all, Sid. What are your needs?" I'd seen his type before.

"I - need..." He leaned closer. "I need sex. Proper, passionate sex. But my wife - she's not interested."

"I see. So what do you do for her to get her in the mood?"

"What do you mean?" he said. I sighed.

"Well, have you tried being romantic: roses, a nice meal, wine maybe? Have you tried lots of kissing, licking her neck and her ears, some nice gentle caresses? What about a few endearments, telling her how beautiful she is, how attractive she looks in a particular outfit? How about buying her a nice dress, stockings, luxurious underwear?"

He looked at me blankly. "Ah, so your wife doesn't understand why you expect her to be your personal tart while ignoring anything she might want. Do you think that's reasonable?"

"I knew you wouldn't understand," he blustered.

"Oh, I understand only too well, Sid. You're just like a lot of guys I've met. You want hot sex, but you're not prepared to meet your wife halfway. Try some of the things I mentioned and come back to me if they don't work. In the meantime, another pint?"

A week later, Sid was back. "I tried what you said. Didn't work. I just want to have her - have her suck it."

I thought, 'I wonder how hard he actually tried,' but decided not to pursue the thought. "Do you keep yourself clean, Sid? Front and back? A girl isn't going to want to do that if you taste of sweat and smell of shit. Would you?"

He looked at me as if I'd suddenly conveyed some deep wisdom. I found it hard not to roll my eyes. Then a thought struck me. "Given everything we've talked about, I don't think your wife will want to suck your cock." I mean, why would she when he clearly didn't give a fuck about her pleasure? "But if you come back tomorrow, clean and sweet-smelling, I might just offer you the service; for a price."

His eyes lit up. "How - how much?"

"Ten bob," I replied.

"Ten bob!" Several heads turned. "Ten bob!" he repeated, more softly.

Ten shillings was a lot of money back then, my girl. There was even a banknote for that amount if you can believe it. Fifty pence! I was offering to suck a man's cock for the price of a chocolate bar today. But back then, it was half a day's wages for a working man. In 1945, a miner earned around £5 10 shillings for a six-day week underground. Women got paid substantially less for factory work or typing, so ten bob was a lot.

"Sid, if you want it sucked, if you want to come in my mouth, that's the price. And if you tell anyone that I even offered - anyone at all - I will personally remove your balls with a rusty knife. I did training with special services during the War, so I can easily overpower and castrate you. Just so you're aware. One nice brown ten-bob note and you get to..." I leaned over the bar. "You get to use my mouth like a cunt, Sid. I bet you'd like that."

The expression on his face made me laugh. I suppose I only offered because I was tired of just scraping by and thought that a little bit of extra cash would allow me to buy a few little luxuries for Lily. Harry and Agnes were kind; they gave me a roof over my head and a few decent meals when nobody else would take me in, but there wasn't much money for extras.

"If it's too much, you'll just have to try your luck further afield. There are probably some girls in College Town or Aldershot who might do it for less. Or you can come back, clean, with a nice ten-bob note and get sucked off right here. Up to you."

Two nights later, Sid was there. He said very little while ordering his pint, and sat at a table in the corner. It was only when I went around collecting glasses that he said, quite softly. "I've got it."

"Well, don't give it to me. It's very contagious," I replied with a grin.

"No, no. I've - I've got the ten bob."

"Fine. Wait until closing time, head out into the trees - in the direction of the village. I'll join you there after about fifteen minutes."

I took a torch and a cushion with me, together with a pint mug full of water. Sid was standing nervously just inside the little copse. As soon as he saw me, he started unbuttoning his flies.

"Easy, Tiger!" I said. "Show me the money first."

"No. You do the job, and then I'll pay you if it's good."

"OK, if that's what you want, goodnight. Let me know when you change your mind." I started to walk away.

"No! No - look, here it is!" he said hurriedly, sounding desperate.

"Right, hand it over, then show me what you've got. And I warn you, if you're not clean, you can take your ten bob and shove it up your dirty arse."

"I - I just washed it again. In the gents," he pleaded. He obviously had worked himself up to this and was desperate for me to go ahead.

He pulled out a hard cock from his flies, and I almost laughed. If he was five inches long, it was only just. But I bit my tongue, put the cushion down and knelt on it.

"Give me the ten bob," I said, and he reluctantly handed me four half-crowns; not quite what I was expecting, as I didn't really have anywhere to put coins. I unbuttoned my blouse, took off my bra and put the money in one of the cups. Sid's eyes were on stalks.

"What did you expect, Sid? If you go spurting all over me, which you might do, I don't want to try to get the stains out of my best blouse, and I don't have the coupons for another one. And anyway, the sight of my titties is a bonus for you, right?"

"R-right," he replied. And then he was standing in front of me with this pathetic little cock in front of my face. I reflected that this might be the easiest ten bob I'd earned in a while.

And it was. I'd said he could use my mouth like a cunt, and that's what he seemed to want to do. Fortunately, him thrusting that tiny todger into my mouth didn't make me gag. I swirled my tongue, sucked and licked and bobbed my head as I'd done for every guy I'd sucked - until he stuck his hands in my hair and really went for the oral fuck. I guess the entire episode lasted a minute and a half. And I got a mouthful of rather unpleasant-tasting semen. God knows what Sid's diet was like!

He collapsed back against a tree, panting. I took a swig of the water, swilled out my mouth, and spat. I emptied the rest of the mug, picked up my bra, and put the four half crowns in the glass so I could put the bra back on. As I was doing so, Sid snatched the glass up.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm having some of this back. It only took two minutes," he said.

"Sid, how long you lasted was entirely up to you. You got what you wanted. Give me back my money, or you'll regret it." I was getting pretty pissed off by now.

"I'll have five bob back. That's fair."

"What's fair is that I beat you to a pulp for being a selfish arsehole. But if you'd like to avoid that, I suggest you give me back the money."

"Oh yeah? Beat me to a pulp? I'd like to see you - OW!"

I kicked him hard in the balls and, as he doubled up in pain, brought both hands down hard in a double-fist on the back of his neck. He went face-first into the ground. I then stood on the back of his neck.

"I warned you, Sid. I get that you're as thick as shit, so it's obviously hard for you to understand, but we had a deal, and I delivered on my side. So I'll take my money, and you'll get off with aching balls for a day or two. But if I ever hear any mention by anyone of what we've done, your balls won't just be aching - they'll be hanging from a branch, right here. Do you understand, Sid?"

He answered with a muffled groan.

"Do you fucking understand?" I repeated, pressing down with my foot on his neck.

"Yes," he groaned.

"So, you'll pick up the money and hand it to me, and then you'll fuck off. Understood?"

"Yes," he murmured.

I put my blouse back on before picking up the glass. Two of the half-crowns were still there, the other two having fallen onto the grass. I pointed the torch down, and he recovered them while I stood on his other hand. I didn't trust him not to make a run for it.

"Thank you, Sid. Now fuck off. And if I see you in the pub again - and I really hope I don't - I just may spit in your face. You really are an obnoxious little shit, and I'm not surprised your wife won't suck your cock."

Two days later, a woman appeared in the pub. She looked rather mousey, but she seemed angry and also looked nervous. Single women in pubs, back in those days, were a rarity. Men sometimes took their wives and girlfriends to the village inn, or to the local on the corner in towns and cities. Groups of women, especially during the war, might go in together, but single women rarely ventured into what was then very much a male-dominated domain. So when she came up to the bar, I could see she was unsure of herself.

"Are you - are you Dolly?" she said, with a curl of her lip that implied that if I answered yes, she might hit me. I replied, "Yes, are you by any chance the unfortunate wife of that worm, Sidney?"

She looked a bit taken aback. I turned to Agnes and said, "Look after the bar for a moment, please, Agnes. I'm just popping out for a second." I looked at the woman at the bar and said, "Follow me." She did.

Outside, I offered her a cigarette. She seemed confused, so I said, "You were going to make a scene in there, weren't you? You wanted to shout at me because of what your husband did to me. Right?"

"You - you seduced him!" she spluttered.

I laughed. Then I lit up and took a long drag on the ciggie. "I'm sorry, my dear, but I wouldn't 'seduce' your husband if he were the last man on earth. He wanted something that you, quite rightly, wouldn't do for him. Now me, I'm stony broke. I have a child to support, and her father's still serving in Germany, so I work here for bed and board and a few coppers. Your husband obviously made some assumptions about me and offered me money to do the job. What was I supposed to do?"

"He said..."

"Your husband is a liar, my dear." I nearly said 'fucking liar', but I didn't want to upset her. She was a victim, like me. "If you haven't figured that out yet, then I'm afraid you never will. He bullies you and uses you, as he tried to use me. Unfortunately for him, I learned some skills during my service in the War - something that he seemed to avoid, somehow - that helped me ensure he didn't use me." I took another long puff on the ciggie and waited for her to respond.

"He said that - that you told him you would - you would - use your mouth - on - on him, for a quid."

"Ha! Firstly, I agreed to suck him off for ten bob. He thought that was extortionate. I mean, what was in it for me? Ten bob would buy some baby clothes for my kiddie. Having his pathetic little cock in my mouth for two minutes - which is all it took - was a price I was prepared to pay. Look, Sid is no good. He lies to you, he wants you to do things for him, but I guess he's never done anything for you."

"He - he provides for me," she bleated.

"Which means he makes some money and gives you a bit for the housekeeping so you can put food on the table - primarily for him. And I bet you give him the best cuts. He's a user, darling."

She started crying, so I put my arm around her.

"I know. Divorce isn't an easy option. You need to have evidence of infidelity, and maybe if things were different, I'd provide it for you. But you need to stand up to him."

"But - but he hits me," she said softly.

"Right. Let's go back inside, get yourself a drink, you and I can have a chat, and after I get off, I'll come home with you and explain to Sid in words that even he'll understand why he should never lay a finger on you again."

Beryl - as it seemed she was called - slowly opened up to me over a couple of port-and-lemons. She'd had a very strict and sheltered upbringing; her parents didn't want her 'consorting' with boys and kept her cloistered until her early twenties. She ended up looking after them when her mother got sick and eventually died. She was thirty-one and still a virgin when her father was killed in an air raid on the factory where he was working, so she inherited her house. Then along came Stanley, found a woman who was vulnerable and had a home of her own, and immediately proposed. She, desperate for any form of company and companionship, accepted. The rest was - well, misery.

After closing time, I asked Agnes to keep an eye on Lily and took a key, as I knew I'd be back late. Beryl's house was just five minutes away, and en route, I showed her a couple of simple moves that I used to disarm or disable anyone threatening me with violence.

When we arrived at her house, Sid was sitting in the front room with a bottle of whisky beside him, reading the paper.

"What - what are you doing here?" he asked when he saw me, obviously afraid.

"Oh, Beryl and I have had a little chat. Now, Sid, we've concluded that you're a snivelling little shit..."

"Oi! You don't get to - OW!" I stamped on the instep of his foot.

"Shut up when your betters are talking. So as I said, you're a piece of shit. I told you not to tell anyone about what you did to me, or I'd cut your balls off. You did, so I'm here to make good on my promise."

He squealed like a pig as I pulled out a penknife while I pressed down harder on his foot. He tried to punch me, but I caught his fist and bent his wrist back hard. He whimpered.

"But I might just leave your pathetic balls where they are if you stop poncing off Beryl here. If not, you'll suffer significant violence - and they really will be hanging from a tree." I snatched the bottle away from him. "So here's how things are going to change, Sid. Next time you get your pay packet, you'll bring it home to Beryl. You'll show her the pay slip, so she can see how much you've earned, and you'll give it all to her. All of it. She'll then give you some pocket money. You're living in her house..."

"It's my house. I'm her husband, and I OW!" he said, as I gave him a sharp jab in the solar plexus.

"It's Beryl's house, and you owe her a lot of back rent, so you can start next payday. I've also shown her a few self-defence tricks, so if you try anything with her, expect to get beaten up. And if she won't do it, she just has to call on me and I'll gladly beat the shit out of you, because there's a lot in there to beat out."

"I'll - I'll call the police!" he bleated.

"What? And tell them that you've been beaten up by a woman? I'm sure that'll go down well at the nick, at the pub, at your workplace. It's time you started behaving like a man and a husband, not a pathetic ponce. So you'll do as I say. You'll stay off this." I held the whisky bottle up. "And you'll start treating your wife like you care for her. Or I WILL come and get you, Sid. And I'll make you a solemn promise that it won't be pleasant. I've learned how to inflict a lot of pain without leaving a mark."

I turned to Beryl and handed her the bottle. "Tip this down the sink, dearie, and if you find him with any more, dock his pocket money next time."

"Bitch!" he spat at me.

"Yes, and I love you too, Sidney. Beryl, if you have any trouble with this human stain, please let me know and I'll come round and teach him a lesson. Understood? Don't let me down. If he ever hits you again, they'll find his body in a ditch."

I went home feeling pretty good about myself. And two days later, the sweet little Wren came back into the pub with some female friends. When I called last orders, she gave me a look. After closing time, around the back of the pub, I showed my new friend - Connie - the joys of face-sitting. And I'd brought a dildo that Ivy had given me, so my sweet little redhead with the delectably-kissable mouth got to feel what it was like to have a cock inside her, while I frigged her little dimple of a clitoris and made her come. Later, I think she was surprised when I asked her to slide the dildo into my arse while she finger-fucked me and licked my pussy, but she gave me the best orgasm I'd had since Aaron had impregnated me, nearly two years earlier.

The following week, I got a letter from Aaron. "They're sending me home! I don't know when - there's some kind of points system that decides when you get to go home. I begged them to just let me go to England, but they said I had to go back to the USA for 'demobilization'. Darling Dolly, I'm so sorry that I can't be there yet. As soon as the Army has finished with me, I'm getting a boat back to 'Blighty' so I can be with you and my beautiful daughter. We're finally gonna get married like we should've before I left for Europe."

I clutched the letter to my heart. At last, my darling Aaron would be with me!

But 1945 dragged into 1946. We exchanged letters for months as the American Army struggled to repatriate their soldiers. The 'points-based' system they were using to determine who would be repatriated and, crucially, when, seemed to allocate coloured troops the lowest number of points. But finally, the slow-grinding wheels of American bureaucracy were poised to send my darling Aaron back to the USA and his hometown before he could get a passport and be allowed to leave the country and join me in the UK.

I met up with Connie a few times over that period. She'd been demobilised and was living in digs in Blackwater, up the road from where I was. I visited her in her little bedsit; 'gentleman callers' were not allowed, but nobody seemed to suspect that two women could be having passionate sex, so her landlady was happy to let me spend evenings with her. This was important, because the weather had turned cold and we could no longer fuck outside. I felt I mustn't be unfaithful to my soon-to-be-husband with a man, but if I was with a woman, that would be different.

The dildo we'd used on each other got a lot of use. I enjoyed having my sweet little friend spread her legs and let me fuck her with it, while working her clit with my fingers and sucking on her pert little nipples, or maybe getting my tongue down onto her pussy. I found I could make her come with just the dildo if I got the angle right, which helped her understand how she needed to be fucked when she finally let a man between her legs. And one night, I took a bottle of whisky from the pub, got her more than a little tipsy, and then carefully fucked her tight little arse with it.

She protested at first, but I insisted that I could make it feel good for her. She whimpered when I first slid it through her oh-so-tight little sphincter, moaning "It hurts! It hurts!" and making highly erotic little gasps. But as I carefully worked the hard rod in and out while gently rubbing her clitoris - her pussy was very wet before I'd even started - I was delighted to see the way her expression changed. She'd shown her initial discomfort with screwed-up eyes, gritted teeth and a few plaintive moans. But as her dark hole stretched, as she started to feel that strange pleasure that I'd enjoyed so often, having something hard, insistently stimulating some very unusual pleasure zones, then her pretty eyes opened wide, her sweet little lipsticked mouth opened, and she began to gasp in an entirely different way. When I took her to her first anal orgasm, I had to slap a hand over her mouth to avoid alerting her landlady.

And then I let her perform the same procedure on me. I so desperately wanted to be fucked again. Before I met Aaron, I'd been fucked up my cunt and up my arse so many times. Most of my lovers - or, rather fuckers - had been competent enough for me to enjoy the experience. A few had been expert enough to make me come without me having to rub my own clit, which is what I sometimes needed. I found that I craved cock. Nobody I'd met measured up to Aaron's impressive tool, but that had never been up my arse. I taught Connie how to do the deed, sticking that hard cock-substitute in both holes and licking my pussy. Yes, she made me come, but I desperately wanted to wrap my legs around a man again. I needed Aaron to come back and fuck my brains out, and the wait was becoming excruciating.

A week later, Connie and I met at a café in Camberley. She looked very pleased with herself.

"Dolly, I - I - I got fucked last night," she said with a broad smile. Clearly she was no longer offended by the vocabulary I'd taught her.

"I'm guessing it was good," I replied, feeling rather jealous.

"You know, it was. He - he's married, but he seemed to know what he was doing. He made me come. And I - I sucked his cock a bit."

"Well, I'm glad you lost your virginity to someone who knew what he was doing, though you have to be careful, fucking married men. They may find you addictive, but if you get attached, they will probably drop you like a hot coal when it suits them. You did use protection, didn't you?"

"Of course, Dolly. You've told me about it enough times. And you needn't worry; I don't really fancy him. I mean, he's not ugly or nasty. He showed interest in me..."

"Of course he would. You're gorgeous..."

She smiled. "But I just thought, 'Why not?' I mean, all I wanted was to find out what it was like to - as you've said many times to me - to have a man between my legs. And he made me come - twice, in fact; once with his mouth and then, later, with his cock and his fingers."

And yes, I was jealous, but I thought, 'Soon, my Aaron is going to come back and fill that gap in my life."

A week later, I received a letter from my soon-to-be husband, telling me that both he and Clarence were coming to England. "We finally have our passports, we've booked our tickets, and we should be with you by the end of next week."

I started looking around for somewhere for us to live, and to see if there were any employment opportunities for my soon-to-be-husband. He'd explained that he'd acquired advanced skills in motor mechanics and had also served as a medic, so I began enquiries, riding around the area on Agnes's bike. I also established that Harry and Agnes would be happy for him to share a room with me at the pub until we could get properly married and find a place of our own.

Aaron and Clarence were booked on a small merchant ship travelling from New York to Liverpool. It was mostly carrying cargo but, as was common in those days, had some basic cabins for fare-paying passengers; people who needed to cross the Atlantic but couldn't afford what the big liners were charging. I checked the published arrival time of his ship, and trains to and from Liverpool Docks, so I could be there to meet him and bring him home. I was so excited.

And then a letter arrived from the USA. The handwriting wasn't Aaron's. I opened it, somewhat puzzled, and realised it was from Clarence.

The note was brief and terse. It began with the most awful first line I think I've ever read.

"Miss Dolly, I have some terrible, terrible news. My dear friend Aaron, your fiancé, is dead."