Sunday 30th October
Phil made them both cups of tea, his hand shaking so much he spilled most of it in the saucer; and then sat on the bed next to her, his one chair was piled high with Law text books. Next thing they were kissing and then with only the slightest of insinuating from June they just drifted backwards and on to the bed. She helped him to undo her blouse and bra and slid them off and onto the floor. June unbuttoned his shirt and ran her fingers through his fine bronzed chest hair. Then with very little fuss they just did it, and then did it again and then did it again. Phil thought it was amazing, better than he had ever imagined it could be.
He was obviously a virgin, but she never told him that she wasn’t. ‘What you don’t know doesn’t hurt you, does it?’ she reasoned. And besides she was so happy to have found someone she could love in this way again. After her first love she never thought she’d feel this way about anyone again. And Phil was safe, solid, secure. It was going to work out this time, she knew it, deep down in her bones she knew he was the man she would marry.
* * *
Phil would never forget that first time and how natural it had seemed, not sordid at all. As they sat on the bed he bent down to put his empty cup on the floor and June handed him hers, he was placing them carefully at their feet when she leaned back and with one hand slowly drew some hairpins from her hair, and it tumbled and cascaded slowly down and around her face. He had never seen anything so amazingly gorgeous, so wonderful, and as he put his hands up and tried to hold her head she kept tossing it gently back and forth and her hair was dancing around her head. It was like a game, every time he tried to stop her, carefully holding her face loosely in his fingers, she moved it from side to side and set her hair going again, but secretly he was hoping this moment would last forever – that her cascading hair would never stop swirling around her beautiful face. And whenever he thought of June, that image of her hair swishing around her face came flooding into his mind. That was the day they first made love, the first time Phil had ever made love, the first time he had seen a woman naked, the first time a woman had touched him, the first time he had felt a body gliding over his, the first time he had raked his fingers through pubic hair, the first time he had ever orgasmed in the company of another person, and even while he was doing it he was imagining seeing her hair tumbling around her face. That was the trigger he always used, it never failed to arouse him, even when she had her hair cut short in her thirties he would remember those loose bangs swirling round her pretty upturned face. The way her hair had floated around her face was magical, he had never seen that before and would never forget it either.
* * *
Though June knew she had him, entranced, bewitched almost, he was like a child where loving was concerned, he really didn’t have much of a clue, she had to show him everything – but subtly – the last thing she wanted was him thinking she was some sort of slut. But once he started he was like an express train, ‘Slow down a bit’ she whispered into his ear, ‘you can take your time, its better when you do it slower.’ And he learnt quickly enough, but like a lot of men she thought, he didn’t have a lot of imagination in that department. He knew what worked for him, and he didn’t really think too deeply about what might be working for her. Not that she was complaining, it worked, that was what mattered, and in time it would get even better, or her name was not June Wilkinson, or very soon would be.
* * *
And now he had the problem of dumping Joyce. How on earth, actually what on earth, was he going to tell her? In the end he chickened out, and just mumbled that he thought it might be best if they stopped seeing each other. She looked up at him, blinking through those big horn-rimmed glasses which must have been pretty strong as the lenses made her eyes so look much bigger than they should do, and Phil kept looking down at his upturned hands, he just couldn’t look her in the eye. A strange mixture of guilt and impatience; he just wanted her to go, for him never to have to see her again. After a couple of minutes she said, “So, is this the end Phil, is it over?” and he just sat there, looking down, he nodded silently and guiltily, still refusing to look her in the eye. She sat for a minute or two myopically blinking then seemed to shake herself, as if out of a dream, she sighed, stood up and simply put on her coat and left without another word, closing his bedroom door quietly behind her. Phil had never felt so ashamed in his life. What a rat. He didn’t know if she cried when she got home, but he very nearly did, for his own pathetic cowardice. He never saw her again; she just sort of disappeared from sight. He was both relieved and guiltily concerned for her at the same time until he heard a couple months later from one of his colleagues in the same year that ‘He would never guess what, but that Joyce he used to hang around with was getting married in a few week’s time to one of the post-grad tutors in the History Faculty.’