Chapter 1

Every Sunday on the BBC's Radio 2 Programme, there is a two hour programme called 'Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs'. Listeners ring, email or write in with requests for loved ones. Children ring in about parents, husbands about wives and vice versa; wedding anniversaries and birthdays are celebrated. It is generally a programme to give one optimism about the human condition. All these people love each other and want to extol their love, while surprising their loved ones. Wonderful.

Well, yes. Except there is one part of the show when 'long lost loves' are featured. Someone would ring in and tell of a person with whom they have lost touch. It was when my name was mentioned that I wondered about the wisdom of listening to this particular programme.

"Nicola Grayson has emailed us to find a lost love. Ten years ago she was at school with Kevin Connors and they lived near each other in Sunderland. They were 'close' for their final year at high school, but after school they lost touch. Kevin it seems went off to Oxford University, while Nicola went to Durham. They wrote for a while but then university life intervened and the letters stopped."

Yes, I bet it did, I thought, and I bet I know what she was doing to lose concentration!

Also I didn't think 'close' aptly described how we were for the whole final year of High School.

"So, Kevin, once of Sunderland, if you'd like to link up with Nicola, ring us at BBC..."

I had severe doubts that I wanted to 'link up with' Nicola. The intervening ten years had been peaceful; enjoyable. Busy, but peaceful. The same could not be said of that final school year, 'The Year of Nicola'.

I still called it that; it was etched, bitter sweet, in my memory. Mainly bitter, come to think of it.

Nicola Grayson was by far the prettiest girl in the school. She had always been pretty, but at sixteen, in our final year at High School, she was stunningly beautiful.

Let's start at the top. She had shoulder length straight lustrous rich dark brown hair with lighter highlights, all natural. She kept it clean and it always shone. It was thick and she sometimes wore it in a pony tail, sometimes in a chignon, or an updo style. She had blue eyes, very blue, startlingly so. Delicate features, small nose, wide mouth. Her neck was long and slender; she was slim, her breasts medium in size and still growing, her waist narrow and her hips still slim but wider, giving her a graceful hour-glass figure, and there were those long shapely legs. The effect was staggering. She smiled easily, and when she smiled, her face seemed to shine.

She took after her mother in looks. We had all seen her mother, who was a devastating beauty in her own right. Her father was some sort of executive. She was highly intelligent, but tended towards languages, where I was into maths and science. Yes, stereotypical.

However she had always been held on a tight leash by her parents ever since we all started at school at age eleven. They never let her out of their sight, always collecting her after school. She was never seen at weekends or evenings.

However, It seemed that her parents thought she was safe enough to walk to school on her own. None of her friends lived on her route, so she walked alone until we met one morning in second year, and from then on, she and I always walked to school together.

It happened like this.

I had to take a message to one of my aunts on the way to school. I emerged from Aunt Mary's front gate to find Nicola with her back against the garden wall, and in front of her a large dog growling. She was crying and terrified, and the dog sensed her terror. There was no dog owner in evidence.

At that time we had a dog, and I knew what to do. I strode confidently up to the animal and shouted at it in as gruff voice as I could manage. I think I told it to go home. Its tail went down between its legs and it slunk off.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Yes thanks," she said giving me a grateful smile.

We fell in step and I walked with her to school. We talked about our families, where we lived, and school. The dog was not mentioned.

When we reached the school gates, she said offhandedly, "If I come by your place tomorrow morning – walk in with me?"

"OK."

No more was said. I got some grief from my mates, but I realised they were jealous and told them so. So began a routine that continued throughout our school life, until that fateful last year. We walked to school together, and parted at the gates. She joined her mates, and I joined mine.

On the way our conversations changed as we grew, and we shared a great deal about our lives, our hopes and dreams. We promised each other that our talks would never go further than each other, and they never did.

She lived a number of roads away from our house. We were an average income family, but her family were wealthy, and thought they were a cut above the rest.

That daily routine changed in our final school year. She was now sixteen and as I said, was strikingly beautiful. Something had changed at home for her: her father had to spend a year in the middle east and her parents both went, leaving her to lodge with an aunt who lived even closer to my house, only two roads away.

Now her parents were not picking her up from school, she and I walked to and from school together. My delight could hardly be hidden: I was walking the prettiest girl to and from school, though once at school she was monopolised by the captain of the football team.

My younger sister Lorraine teased me unmercifully about her.

My relationship with Nicola was all to change dramatically for the worse shortly after Christmas. Nicola asked me out. Astonishment is a word that does not do justice to my feelings.

"May I take you out for a meal?" she asked on the way to school.

"Pardon?"

"May I take you out for a meal? I want to talk with you."

"Um, well, yes!" I replied. Heaven opened its doors and the heavenly choir sang loudly.

"Friday?"

"OK, thanks Nicola."

If I was surprised by her invitation, I was about to be confounded by what she had to say. She picked me up at home in a taxi, and took me to a high-end restaurant. My family had a little money, but I knew she had much, much more. We passed the time chatting until the dessert and coffee. I was in a mellow mood, when she got to business.

"Kevin, I asked you out for a meal to ask you a favour."

"Yes?" At that stage I would have granted her anything, but I was not prepared for what followed.

"You know I'm going with Barry?"

Barry Wilkes was the aforesaid Captain – one of the jocks. I was what is now termed a 'nerd'. I was not on a school team, and had little interest or association with those who were. I was on my way, I hoped, to Oxford and a well paid job thereafter.

"Well, he's on at me to have sex."

She stopped and looked at me inquiringly, as if waiting for a reaction.

"So?" I replied, wondering where this was going.

"I want to as well," she stumbled on, "but I want it to be good."

"That's up to you and him, isn't it?" I rejoined, now totally at a loss and miffed at the direction in which her sexual interest lay.

"Well," she hesitated, "There's a problem. Thanks to the vigilance of my parents, I've never done the deed, you see. I know first time sex is painful, and I don't want my first time with Barry to be a disaster, because I'm still a ... you know ... a virgin."

"I don't follow," I said. "What's this to do with me?"

"Well," she said looking even more lost, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I want you to be my first."

Now I was floored. The most beautiful girl in the school, bar none, was asking me to deflower her. My first reaction was YES! Then wiser counsels prevailed. I was to break her in for Barry, the idiot (relatively speaking) jock, just so she could give him a good time. I was interrupted in my thoughts.

"What do you say?" she asked.

"Let me think about it."

She looked surprised. She was a highly intelligent girl, and she knew she was gorgeous. Why was her geek friend having to think about this gift from heaven? However she sat still and waited.

I thought some more. OK, so she would fuck Barry, and after him probably the rest of the football team, then a train of blokes at college and then university. I was not in her league, and there was no chance of her hooking up with me long term. On the other hand...

I was pretty certain that I was now a fairly skilled practitioner in the art of love-making. I could give her a really good time, even with the defloration. Barry would have a lot to live up to. Then a question popped into my mind, and out of my mouth before I could stop it, and when I heard the answer I wished I had had more control of my tongue.

"Why me?"

Now she really was embarrassed. It was not going the way she had envisaged it, I could tell. Still, she wanted to use me, so serve her right.

"Well," she ventured. "Pamela told me about what you did with her, so I know you're experienced."

I had had one girlfriend, Pamela, in that final year. We had sex shortly after she turned sixteen and had been deflowered by her boyfriend as a birthday present. She had not been impressed and finished with him. I had studied sex intensively in text books, manuals, videos, magazines and the internet, and not just for my own gratification. I had learned about the way women react, what turns them on, and how to set the scene. Pamela was apparently impressed. We went together for a few weeks and finished after Christmas: at that age there was no such thing as a permanent relationship.

Nicola had not finished, and this was the crusher. "And Barry's supposed to have a big thing, and that would hurt."

A long pause, then she gave the coup de grace, "I don't know how to say this, and I don't want to hurt you, but..." another long pause. "Rumour has it you are quite ... small ... thin. So it won't hurt so much."

Well, thanks a bunch. I thought.

Then thought again.

Where did that idea come from? I'd been in the showers with Barry and the rest of the Form. Some of the lads had bigger cocks than I did, but Barry didn't look all that big. My cock looked small and wizened when at rest, but by the heavens when it grew, it grew. I was a good seven inches erect (which boy hasn't measured himself?). OK, six and a half inches and a bit, but I was also thick in proportion.

No one in the showers had seen me 'in action', so no one knew my engorged dimensions. Some men are 'showers' and some are 'growers'. I fell into the latter category.

I swallowed the insult. I was annoyed. I would sort this girl out. She might find I was a little bigger than she expected, but c'est la vie!

"OK," I said. "When and where?"

She smiled ecstatically. "Oh, thank you, thank you!" she gushed. Then, more sensibly, "My aunt is going away next weekend; how about Friday?"

"I need the whole weekend," I said. "I want you for the whole time."

"But I was going to go with Barry on Saturday night..." she countered hesitantly.

"No chance! Listen. I know about these things. You might well be sore on Saturday, and that would ruin things for you. I need to be with you from Friday to Sunday. By the time I've finished with you on Sunday evening, you will not only be healed, but you will have a certain expertise. So that's my condition for doing this."

She seemed impressed. She thought for a moment.

"OK," she said.

I smiled inwardly. I was now going to be her first, something no one could take from me, no matter how many partners she had for the rest of her life. I was going to have my way with her for a whole weekend. It could not be better and I had put the captain of the football team off for the weekend to boot (pun intended)!

"Protection?" I asked. "You're a virgin, and I'm clean."

It was nearly a lie, for Pamela and her boyfriend were both virgins according to Pamela, but I didn't know how honest her previous beau had been.

"Pill?" I added.

She nodded shyly, "I don't want a condom between us for my first time."

"Barry has had quite a few girls," I cautioned. "I'd make sure he wears one. He's been with some real slags from the local college; you don't know if he's clean."

She did look thoughtful, then grateful, and nodded.

At her gate, she turned to me, put her arms round my neck and kissed me. It was a long kiss and my arms went round her waist. She pressed against me and must have felt my growing erection. She looked confused, as well she might.

"Sorry," I said, "but you do that to me."

"Not that," she said, smiled and kissed me again. We necked for about half an hour and then she went in.

For the rest of the following week we continued our journeys to and from school, and she continued to hang out with Barry during the day.

On Thursday morning she said, "Come home with me tomorrow. I'll order in."

I told my parents I would be spending the weekend with a friend; I was sixteen and practically an adult, so they did not question it; they had my mobile number. Lorraine knew what I was up to, don't ask me how, but assured me of her silence. My mate Joshua was green with envy.

On Friday, with my clothing I packed a tube of lubricant jelly and a vibrator I had bought as an experiment. It did nothing for me, but it sent Pamela through the roof.

Nicola and I walked to her aunt's house side by side, not touching, in case someone from school saw us and took the news back to Barry.

She smiled nervously as she ushered me into the house and there was a short moment of discomfort as we faced one another in the hallway. She broke the spell by taking me on a tour of the house and we ended in her bedroom.

"Would you like to shower and get out of that uniform, while I order us a meal?" she suggested.

She offered me a bath towel and left the room. I unpacked, undressed and took my toilet bag to the bathroom, where I showered.

I came out of the bathroom wearing the towel round my waist, to find Nicola in the bedroom, sitting on the bed.

"The meal will be here in twenty minutes," she said.

I went to the other side of the bed where my rucksack was, and fished out some boxers, which I put on. She kept her back to me, but I noticed she could see me through the mirror on her dressing table. I caught her eye, and she smiled at being found out looking at my naked body.

"If you go down, I'll have my shower and change," she said.

I found a tee shirt and put it on, and then went down as I was. I heard her giggle and then the shower running. I resisted the temptation to do as she had done and sit on the bed waiting for her to appear naked in front of me.

She came down wearing a housecoat and smiled shyly. She knew I was wondering what, if anything, she was wearing under it. I smiled in my turn and then the doorbell rang and the meal arrived.

We ate Chinese together with chopsticks, talking about the day and the various teachers we had encountered. We talked about our plans for university after college. She was on edge, and nervously played with the belt on her housecoat, glancing at me as she talked too fast. The meal over I interrupted her flow.

"Nicola, let's go and sit in the other room."

She looked startled and stood up, and I followed her into the living room and onto the sofa. She now looked frightened.

I sat facing her, and took her hands in mine.

"Nicky," I said quietly and with what I hoped was a gentle smile. "Calm down. Nothing will happen this weekend that you don't want to happen. You can call the whole thing off now or at any time. I won't be offended or even upset. Relax. You want this?"

She nodded, and smiled, but it was obvious she was still unsure of me and of herself.

"OK," I said, sitting back on the cushions. "Come here."

She moved over the few inches. I held out an arm and she came within it and rested her head on my shoulder.

"That's better," I said, holding her against me. "Let's just sit here in the growing darkness and relax. You comfortable?"

Again she nodded, and looked up into my eyes. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. She looked puzzled.

"I don't understand," she said, nestling into my shoulder. "Aren't we going to–"

"Make love? Have sex?"

"Yes, I thought you'd–"

"Jump on you?"

She laughed. "Sort of."

"Do you want your first time to be good for you?"

She nodded again.

"Do you trust me?"

"I do now," she said, and her smile was confident.

What a warm feeling that comment gave me! I could hardly keep my hands off her.

"I asked for the whole weekend so it would be good for you," I said, "and to make it good, you have to get in the right mood. You need the atmosphere to be right. The situation – ambiance – is more important for women than men. Making love is about our brains as well."

She nestled deeper. I continued.

I told her that I was doing this because I cared for her, and wanted her to be happy. I talked of how the boys in our form wanted her, lusted after her, but were in awe of her beauty. How we all worshipped her.

"You too?" she asked.

"Yes, me too," I replied. "But now I know you, I care about you and how you feel."

"You love me?"

"Yes, of course I love you. I'm doing this because I love you."

She made a small contented sound. Then, "I think I'd like to go to bed now."

So we stood up, and she embraced my neck and I her waist and we kissed at length, soft lips caressing each other's mouth, nibbling. Then her hands began to roam over my back and mine over hers.

"Come on," I said, and we ascended the stairs, our arms around each other, and entered her room. By the bed we disengaged, and I undid the belt on her robe, and pushed it off her shoulders.

Under it she had a sheer dazzling white baby-doll nightie, and, I was later to find, a pair of translucent dazzling white hipster knickers in the same fabric. Her legs seemed impossibly long and slender below the short nightie. My cock twitched in recognition. She giggled.

"What now?" she asked, with arched eyebrows and a devilish smile.

"Now you get into bed and so do I."

She climbed onto the bed affording me the first glimpse of her pudenda, shadowy through the translucent fabric of her knickers, and lay on her back, her legs a little apart. The panties stretched over her sex, outlining her lips.

I went round the bed and took off my tee shirt and slid down the boxers before getting into bed with her. She looked a little surprised as her glance travelled south. She stared for a moment, puzzled, then seemed to shake herself.

"And now?" she asked, as I moved closer to her body, and leaned on my arm facing her.

"Now, my darling," I smiled, "We do whatever you want to do. Take your time, we have all night and all day tomorrow and then tomorrow night and all day Sunday. You can just chill for a while, sleep with me. Wake with me. Whatever you want."

"But we're here to take my virginity," she said, almost plaintively.

"We are here for a weekend of love," I said, beginning to sound like Barry White without the deep voice. "It will happen when you are ready and only then. No pressure, no hurry." How I managed to suppress the urgency of my desire, I don't know. I was desperate to fuck her.

"Oh." There was a silence. Then, "OK."

She turned onto her side and faced me. She smiled. "This is not what I thought was going to happen," she said and traced a finger over my face, my eyebrows and along my lips. "You are very good."

If only she knew!

I lay back and pulled her against me. She snuggled and then began tracing her fingers over my chest, and down to my stomach.

I kissed her hair, and ran my hand over her back, returning along her side, over her flimsy nightie. We continued to do this for a while, and then she suddenly sat up.

"This is in the way," she said, and pulled the garment over her head. Her breasts now displayed were so perfect it hurt, perfect in shape and in proportion to her young body, her nipples pointing slightly upward and already standing proud. She looked down at her new nakedness, then glanced at my enraptured gaze and coloured, but made no attempt to cover up.

She was so slim. Her back was elegantly curved and her spine rested in a delightful depression from her neck down to her buttocks. She lay down again and this time her bare breasts were pressed against my side and my chest. It provoked the inevitable reaction and I stiffened even further.

At first she avoided touching my cock. She continued stroking me in safe areas, while I caressed her back and side, brushing her breast as I did so. She sighed. This time my hand went over the roundness of her buttock, came back in the crease of her behind through her knickers, and once again brushed her breast. She gave another contented sigh.

Now her hand strayed further down and found my erect cock. She grazed it, and then my balls, and she made another little sound of pleasure. It was the sign I needed.