This Is All

  In my haste, my top traps my head – why did I wear something with a polo neck? I hear it rip as I pull it off. Why do I try to take my jeans off before my shoes and get them snarled up? I never do usually. Even the hooks on my bra give me trouble, my fingers are all carrots. As I slip it off, I’m overcome with shyness and turn my back to Will. He’s never seen my naked breasts, though he’s fondled them often enough under my clothes. I’m suddenly nervous that he won’t like them when he sees them. I’ve always felt my breasts are too small. But having turned my back, I realise he can see my bum, which I’ve always felt is too big.

  Entirely naked, I feel the cold, which the heat from the stove hasn’t completely banished. And the flagstones under my feet seem to be made of gritty ice. Goose-pimples break out all over me. I feel I must look like a plucked chicken straight out of the freezer. Anxious and shivering, I stand with my arms hunched across my breasts, all the hot, excited urgency of a few moments ago dispelled.

  Then I feel Will’s warm hands on the balls of my shoulders. I know I must give in to the inevitable. I make myself drop my hands to my sides, and turn round, feeling more vulnerable than I have ever felt before. I keep my eyes closed, not daring to look Will in the face.

  Everything seems to come to a complete stop. The entire world.

  Then I hear Will let out a long sighing breath and say, ‘Dear god, Cordelia, you’re just so beautiful!’

  I’ve never heard him say anything like this before, nor say anything about his feelings in this unguarded way.

  I melt inside, but cannot help shaking my head.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘More than I ever imagined. I mean, you’re just … gorgeous … Everything I want.’

  I open my eyes. He’s standing a couple of metres from me. I see him naked for the first time. And my gaze is drawn at once to his rampant penis. Of course, I’ve seen pictures of penises before. I’ve even seen them in action in a porno movie a friend showed at a party, when we giggled at our daring while pretending to be grown up and unimpressed. But this penis is different. This one is real. This one is flesh and blood. This one belongs to the boy I love. And this one will enter me very soon.

  As I look at it I cry out, ‘O lordy!’ I know I’m smiling, and I want to laugh out loud, it’s so funny, so silly, like a pink handle. Yet also it’s so brave, so noble, so proud of itself. I want to take hold of it. And something else, something that shocks me. I’d seen it done in the aforementioned porn, so I knew it happened, but had been repelled and thought, No thanks, not me! But as soon as I see Will’s, I want to lick it, want to taste it, want it in my mouth.

  Then, as my eyes tour the rest of his lithe and lovely body, I breathe out the same long sigh of delight I’d heard from Will, and hear myself say, ‘Please, Will. Please please fuck me.’

  We’re on the bed, mad for each other, my legs spread wide, Will about to enter, when I remember.

  ‘O god! No! Wait!’

  ‘What?’ yelps Will in an agony of frustration.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I dunno! The condoms. I gave them to you.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Leah, I’m—’

  ‘I know! I know! But we have to use one. Where are they?’

  He’s off the bed and searching all over the place. And then I remember. He put them in his pocket.

  ‘Your jeans,’ I shout.

  And I’m off the bed and making for his jeans, which are in a jumbled pile on the floor where we’d thrown our clothes in our haste to undress. We reach them at the same time. Our heads collide as we stoop and our hands confuse themselves as we grab. I get them first, he snatches them from me and he’s into his pocket and brings out the carton and I snatch it from him and we chase each other back to the bed where I tear the carton open and pull out a condom and give it to Will while we’re both panting and whimpering and trying to get ourselves into a position where he can put the condom on and I’ll be ready when he is, and Will is struggling with the condom and he can’t get it to slip on and has to try again but his penis decides it’s had enough and without giving him a second chance retracts so fast it changes from a rampant fiery rod to a floppy chipolata before you can say lawks-amercy, and the sight of his shrivelled pizzle gives me the giggles.

  Big mistake. I know I should have known better, I know I should have kept control of myself, but I can’t help it.

  Will, however, is not amused. He sits back on his haunches and his urgent mood deflates just as quickly as his cock.

  I try to swallow the giggles but only succeed in giving myself the hiccups.

  ‘Sorry!’ I say between hics. ‘Sorry hic sorry hic sorry!’

  Will pauses, rather ominously I feel, but without scornful word or angry motion he rises from the bed, stalks away into the vestry, and returns bearing a bottle of water. The sight as he approaches of his detumescent dangler wagging between his legs like the cropped tail of a puppy sets off my giggles again. So now I’m giggling and hiccupping at the same time. Which is actually painful. So I start groaning as well.

  The male genitalia. The cock and balls of the human male really are ridiculous, don’t you agree? Weird, in fact. I mean, who in their right mind would design anything like them? Especially when a main feature of their specification is that they serve a romantic function of a life-essential kind. Only someone who has either no idea about romance or a cruel sense of humour – or perhaps both – would invent such equipment. Mind you, my experience since this first close encounter has taught me an important fact of life. If sex is romantic, it’s a romantic farce. I’ve learned that if you find yourself lumbered with a lover who can’t see the funny side of sex it’s wisest to ditch him-or-her pronto. In one region of Africa they call love-making ‘laughing together’. How wise of them. Failure to find sex funny, either during or after, is a sure sign of a dumbo so dull of mind or so devoid of a sense of humour or so full of his-or-her own importance that they’ll only bring you trouble and grief. To make matters worse, they probably have no staying power either.

  Beware therefore, dear one. Make sure early in affairs of the heart (or rather, of the crotch) that your would-be partner is gifted with a high comedy quotient before, during and after the sex act. Looking back on it, I can say with the benefit of hindsight – for I didn’t know it at the time – that this double fit of the giggles was a testing moment of Will’s suitability as my lover. I’m pleased to say he rose to the occasion.

  Will clocks that my eyes are on his little pencil and that this has set me off again. He stops and looks down at himself to see what is causing such mirth. Which of course means he views his penis from above, which in turn means that he sees it foreshortened, which in further turn is why most men believe their cocks to be smaller than they actually are. Another cruel joke played by their designer. To comfort them and shut them up on the topic, at least during the act if not at other times, women always tell them size doesn’t matter. But o yes it does! Only it’s not necessarily the size men have in mind, which is always huge. The size that matters to us is the size that suits us personally. But when we tell them this, men rarely believe it. As for myself, I like a good average length and thin rather than fat or stubby. I know it’s average because the stats I’ve come across suggest the average size of Anglo-American males when roused is 14cms from root to tip. Will’s was a slim 13.5cms and suited me very well. We measured it once when I was reassuring him during a typical aforementioned male penile crisis.

  As I was telling you, Will stops to view himself. Then looks back at me hiccup-giggling, peers down at his dangler again, looks back at me. His brow is wrinkled with puzzlement. But blink-blink, understanding dawns. He lets out a huffing laugh, adopts an exaggerated nude-model pose, hands behind his head, one leg slightly bent, his crotch thrust forward, performs a slow-motion double-take – me, his chipolata, me, his chipolata, me again – and breaks into such a mocking, wicked little-boy grin that I want to eat him.

  A
few months later, while flicking through an art magazine at the dentist’s I came across a photo of a statuette called ‘The Sluggard’ by a Victorian artist, Frederic Leighton. The sculpture depicted a nude young man stretching. He reminded me so much of Will posing at this moment that I tore the page out and stuck it into my pillow book.

  Naturally, I curl up with laughter and adopt in my turn a sultry sex-pot pose on the bed and give him a come-on wave. But instead of joining me, he drops his pose, remains where he is and gazes at me with such suddenly serious intensity that it puts a silence on me. I feel quite shy again but pleased as well to be looked at with such devotion.

  A few days later I sent Will an email which, like the statuette, reminds me of this moment. I wrote:

  I want to travel through all your territory and do it First Class. I want to take long stops on the way. I want to explore every nook of your crannies, and investigate every feature of your geography. I want to be an expert on your topography. I want to lose myself in your forests. I want to farm your lowlands and climb your hills. I want to eat your fruit. I want to drink from your wells. I want to laze for hours on your beaches. I want to survey and map you. I want to draw and paint and photograph you. You are my chosen homeland where I shall spend the rest of my life and where I shall die. You are my island paradise. I can never leave you. I am marooned on you for ever. I am your Cordelia.

  As he gazes at me, Will’s telescopic sausage revives and grows to its fullest engorged length. It reaches out, as if it wants to touch me as much as I want to touch it.

  Will kneels between my legs. This time he manages the condom quickly and without mishap. I hold myself open so that he can see the way in. He places the head of his cock, masked like a mugger in a stocking, at my entrance. And with our eyes fixed on the other’s, each a little anxious, he takes a breath and pushes into me.

  A lavish sensation of relief, like the feeling of arriving home after a long time away, floods from my vagina all through me. At the same time Will lets out a deep-throated drone, a hum of such anguished pleasure as I’ve not heard from him before. And the sound of his pleasure intensifies my own. He pauses before pushing further in, but as he does a pain as if I am being cut by a blunt knife makes me flinch and cry out before I can stop myself. Will jumps with shock and wails, ‘What?’ I wail, ‘It’s okay!’ But he withdraws quickly, which causes me to cry out again, not from physical pain but from the pain of loss, for it feels as if something I’ve longed for all my life has been snatched from me at the very moment I’ve been given it.

  A confused few seconds follow. ‘I’ve hurt you, I’ve hurt you!’ Will says. I say, ‘No, no! It’s nothing.’ He looks down and sees a speck of blood on his sheathed penis, which jolts him into a tizz. He sits back on his haunches, moaning, ‘Christ, Leah, blood!’ I cry, ‘It’s nothing! Shushshush! It’s all right!’ But his face turns ashen. I remember when he saw my menstrual blood the first time we went running. I sit up, saying, ‘It’s natural. Don’t worry. My hymen.’ But he goes on staring appalled at the speck of blood. His cock retracts again, leaving the condom looking like a half-sloughed skin.

  I am hurting a bit, but I’m not going to tell Will that. I know if I don’t act quickly all will be lost. I take the condom and flee to the vestry where I dispose of it and clean myself up as quickly as I can. When I get back, Will is sitting cross-legged and cross-tempered. I know this look too. It means he’s angry with himself for what he regards as a failure. Usually when he’s like this I let him brood till he gets over it. But not today. I’m determined we’ll finish what we’ve begun.

  Without pausing, I get onto the bed and push Will down onto his back. He’s taken by surprise and before he can resist I lie down beside him, and holding his face firmly with my hands say, ‘I told you it might not be easy the first time. I’m fine. I’m okay. Blood always looks like there’s a lot more than there is. Please, Will, let’s try again. Let’s finish it. I really want to. Don’t you? It’s very important to me.’ No answer for a moment. But then a slight nod and a smile. I kiss him. He responds. I caress his face while kissing him, then stroke his chest while kissing him more and more. I caress his tummy and move on to the inside of his thighs, which I feather with my fingertips. And when I sense he’s ready, I take his cock in my hand and fondle it. It’s already risen, but as I grasp it, it swells and Will says, ‘O yes, yes!’ Which gladdens me of course. His hands on my back pull me to him.

  This is the first time I’ve held his cock. I know the human penis has no bone in it, that it’s only sinew and blood, but I’m surprised at how firm and bone-hard it feels. And how alive. It responds so instantly to the movement of my hand, it’s like an independent being with a life of its own. I want to stroke it and coddle it and lick it and kiss it and put it into my mouth. I want to play with it. But there’s no time because more than anything I want it inside me. This is the imperative, the thing that must happen now.

  ‘I want you, I want you,’ Will mutters. His body strains against mine and his hands on my bum pull me to him. I sit up, take a condom from the carton, put it on him, slick it with gel, and kiss him again. And before he can turn to mount me, I say, ‘No. Wait,’ and mount him, my legs across his thighs, and place him at my entrance.

  Again that sweet flood of relief as he goes in. Again he lets out a deep drone and a sigh of pleasure.

  When he’s right inside down to the root I pause and sit motionless on him. I want to savour the feeling.

  And then, beginning with slow movements, which gradually quicken, I ride him.

  The journey isn’t long, the time before arrival is far too short. Unfamiliar with each other’s orgasms, unskilled at this art (and what an art it is – the oldest of all the arts and still the best) and perhaps because of the highs and lows and false starts and frustrations of the day, Will comes too soon, too suddenly, and with astonishing force. I’m not ready. Nor have I expected such power in it. He’s wild, almost violent as it happens. And it delights me. I want to scream and don’t know whether I did or not.

  ‘O no!’ Will says when it’s over. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

  I can’t help laughing. ‘You have, you have!’ I shout. ‘You’ve done it! You’ve deflowered me, you’ve devirgined me, you beast!’

  ‘Didn’t want to come yet,’ he says and I fear he might go into failure mood.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘It was great. And we’ll learn, won’t we, Will? We’ll learn.’

  Which tips the balance the other way and he starts laughing as well.

  ‘We will,’ he says. ‘We’ll practise.’

  ‘A lot,’ I say.

  ‘Every day!’ he says. ‘We’ll practise till we’re perfect!’

  I fall on him, covering his body with mine and covering his face with kisses.

  At which point he lets out a trumpeting ferocious fart.

  After a second of shock-horror, first genuine then mock, we both erupt in an explosion of giggles so extreme we end up wrecked and lying side-by-side exhausted.

  I’m filled with a swirl of feelings. Relief that it has happened, that it’s done. Happiness. Such love for Will, for his silliness, for his strength, for the weakness he tries to hide, for his honesty, for his beauty. These make me smile. But also a touch of sadness. Something has gone that I can’t have back. I’m a girl no longer. This brings tears to my eyes. A feeling too that I’ve glimpsed what lies ahead. My womanhood. I feel myself reaching for it. It’s as if the sex has released me, has freed me, to become what I have to be. I know I’m ready to be myself.

  ‘Sorry,’ Will says when we’ve calmed down.

  ‘Men!’ I mock. ‘You’re all uncivilised beasts.’

  ‘Couldn’t help it, honest. It just came out.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It can happen quickly the first time. I’ve read that.’

  ‘No, I mean, I’m sorry for farting.’

  ‘O, that! Yes, well, as I say, you’re all beasts.’

  ‘You were pressing on my g
uts.’

  ‘So it was my fault, was it!’

  ‘No. It’s just, I’m hungry. We’ve had nothing since breakfast. Which seems like yesterday. All I’ve got inside me is wind.’

  ‘Well, you are a wind player, after all.’

  I turn and snuggle up to him, one leg over his and my hand on his floppy recumbent cock.

  ‘And you’ve become an organist,’ Will says.

  ‘Don’t you want a cuddle before we eat?’

  ‘I really am famished.’

  And he gets up.

  ‘At least you could pretend,’ I say, trying hard not to sound as deserted as I feel.

  ‘Why? There’s plenty of time. Come on, I’ll take you for a pizza.’

  Men!

  But there was to be no pizza, nor a cuddle either. At least, not in St George’s.

  Will is pulling on his jeans when we hear a tractor stop at the gate. We look at each other, sensing danger. I go to a window to see what’s happening, but the window is too high. Will comes over and makes a stirrup with his hands. I hitch up and look out.

  ‘What?’ Will says.

  ‘Mr Tenbray. The farmer. He’s fixing a sign to the gatepost. He’ll come in when he’s done it, I just know it.’

  My mind races. I dress as quickly as I can.

  ‘I’ll go out and talk to him. Perhaps he’ll remember me.’

  ‘But what’ll you tell him?’

  ‘I’ll think of something. I’ll keep him there as long as I can to give you time to pack our stuff into the car.’

  ‘Just let’s leave it.’

  ‘No, that would spoil everything. It’ll be okay. Trust me!’

  ‘Mr Tenbray.’

  ‘What! Where the hell have you come from?’

  ‘You don’t remember me?’

  He looks me up and down. I must be a dishevelled mess. I hope he thinks it’s the latest teen fashion: the Rogered Look.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I do not. And you’re trespassing.’

  ‘You knew my granddad. He was born on your farm.’