Chapter 24

Monday 15th February to Thursday 10th June 1971

On Monday 15th February, Connie and the whole country were embarking on something new. The country was saying farewell to pounds, shillings and pence, and going decimal, and Connie was negotiating a new start on a degree course.

So it was back to the old routines that I followed before Connie broke into my life and changed things completely. Work every day, ringing one, sometimes two evenings, Ian at the pub, bridge on Thursdays and the odd folk night.

We had agreed she would phone me on Wednesdays at seven. Her suggestion of a Wednesday phone call caused some reflection which Connie picked up: Penny used to phone at seven thirty on Wednesdays, I told her. Connie laughed at that and said that seven o’clock made everything totally different.

In the same breath she assured me I was not only welcome but required each weekend without fail as long as I was content to read a book or bring some work of my own when she had a heavier burden of work, which was often in that period leading to her first year exams. If I wanted I could go over during the week as well. Gee thanks! I didn’t.

It was a new routine to add to the rest. I had regretfully to resign from the ringers at my local church since I would be in Keele on most Sundays, but they asked me to continue to come to practices.

I organised things at work so that I worked longer hours on Thursdays, and finished early on Fridays. In any case, no client in his or her right mind would want meetings on a late Friday afternoon except in an emergency, so that time was usually spent doing routine things, many of which I could do while I was in Keele.

I would drive down early Friday afternoon and arrive about three, letting myself into the empty flat. Connie had lectures or seminars/tutorials until four. We would eat at the refectory, have fish and chips or omelette and baked potato or some such, and then it was work for the rest of the evening with the radio playing in the background. Saturday was shopping in the morning, work in the afternoon and a meal out in the evening in Newcastle, Hanley or Stoke, followed by a few drinks in the union bar.

On Sundays we would go for long walks, or drive to Cannock Chase or a Stately Home, taking a picnic lunch. Then more work in the afternoon and then I would drive back home that evening or occasionally (if we got lustfully entangled) early Monday morning.

I noticed when we used the restaurant or the bar at the university campus that she did not seem to interact with the other students beyond a greeting now and then. I asked her about it and she said she had been invited to join other students in the evenings, but her workload was so heavy she always politely declined their invitations. There were a few women on her courses who would join her for lunch, which she had made her main meal of the day.

I had mixed feelings about that, but on reflection thought that if she passed her exams she might relax a little in the following two years. I certainly admired her dedication to her work. It paid dividends, for her grades for participation and essays were very high. The written comments by lecturers praised her incisive reasoning and the evidence of her wide reading.

So the weeks flew by, and she did not in fact ever come back home for a weekend until the Easter Break. She spent the three weeks of the break either at home or at Manchester University Library, staying until the library closed each evening.

She took a break over Easter Weekend and we visited my parents. The big difference between term time and the break was that we slept together each night, though she was usually too tired to do more than a quick hug before falling asleep, and she was out of bed early each morning for our run before sending me on my way and getting down to work, or coming with me to town to use the university library which lay on my way to work.

There was little sex over that time, though there were frequent embraces, shoulder massages for her, stroking as we passed each other, and those touches brought us to a new intimacy and appreciation of each other. She always made my breakfast, and cleverly made housework her exercise every hour. I was lost in admiration.

From time to time she looked worriedly at me, and I needed to assure her that I understood what was happening, and how much depended on her not just passing her exams but doing well in them, that our sacrifice was worth it – she was worth it.

Then it was back to Keele and the final push before exams at the beginning of June. The relaxed weekends were past. She worked every hour she could, and I spent my time each weekend shopping for her, feeding her, and massaging her tension away. She would break every hour or so and either go for a brisk walk outside or come to me for a hug, sitting on my knee and kissing me voraciously, giving me a raging erection and then going back to work. Little was said but we grew even closer in the frustration and tension of that time.

The only relief of tension for both of us came on Sunday mornings early, when she would wake, make tea and come back to bed, when her hand would immediately make its way to my penis which had been growing in anticipation of imminent action. My hands would range over her sinuous curves, fondle her firm breasts and plunge between her open thighs to run the flat of my hand over her sex. Such was the frustration on both our parts that she would immediately pull me over her and into her warm slippery depths would I plunge my rampant cock.

There would follow heedless careering fucking, I plunging again and again, and she lifting to intensify her experience and ensure her clitoris rubbed. Sometimes she would pull me to one side and we would roll over so she could ride me, sometimes she would spin on my cock and present her back to me as she rose and fell, and sometimes she would disengage and ask me to take her from behind, me standing and hammering at her. Always, before either of us came, she would return to facing me, either her sitting astride or in missionary position so that we could watch the climax of our endeavours in each other’s eyes.

A pause for a hug, a cuddle and a catching of breath and she would be up and out of bed, ready to carry on reading, sitting at her desk near the window in the nude, while I prepared a cooked breakfast. I wondered if any of her male student neighbours across the quad were enjoying her display!

I would take my leave late afternoon, and she would always kiss and hold me, not wanting to let me go, and sighing with resignation at the inevitability of our parting. Then a hurried phone call on Wednesday at 7pm, which would suffice until once again I was in her arms on Friday afternoon.

When exams started, there was a change of routine. She would phone me in the evening after each exam, telling me how she thought it had gone, until we reached the second week in June and the last exam was in sight.

The weekend before followed the usual pattern: we existed in the same pokey flat while she crammed for her last two exams, one on Monday and the other on Wednesday. On Sunday night we hugged goodbye but as usual she was still thinking about the work she’d just left.

“Last exam Wednesday,” I said. “When are you coming home?”

“Thursday,” she said. “I can’t wait!”

“I’ll get the day off,” I said, “and I’ll get here the night before. We could even go home that night if you want to.”

“Hope so,” she said. “The sooner the better. I’ve missed being there.”

With that I left. She rang on Monday, and I told her I had taken Thursday off, and barring accidents or emergencies would see her on Wednesday.

It was my usual practice on weekends to arrive mid afternoon on Friday – I think I said I organised Fridays to leave work early. There was no such luck on Wednesday. I had to clear my jobs for Thursday before I left and of course, leaving at six, I hit the rush hour out of town. At least I had the foresight to put my overnight bag in the car that morning, and was able to make straight for the motorway.

It was well after seven when I pulled into the car park and made my way to the flat. I let myself in and shouted “Hi Connie!” as I put my bag down in the living room. There was no reply: the flat was empty, but her bags were packed and sat in a corner of the living room.

I sat at her desk, got some papers out and set to review and annotate some contracts, and when I looked up it was after nine, and the light was beginning to wane, though the sun was still casting shadows over the quad. With sunset being now quite late, I had not noticed the time passing.

Where was she? Then I realised she must be out celebrating. However, I had said I would be there on Wednesday evening, and I was miffed she had gone out without me. I went to the union bar in the hope of finding her there, but she was not. I had a couple of pints, ate two sandwiches and made some more notes – Wednesday nights were clearly quite slow in the bar, and being the end of term many students would have gone home.

It was nearly ten when I returned, expecting her to be there, but the place was still empty. I stripped, switched all the lights out and went to bed. I must have dropped off, for I jerked awake hearing the sound of a key in the lock. One o’clock!

“Thanks Des, see you next term. ‘Bye!”

The door shut, the hall light went on, and then footsteps passed into the living room. They stopped. A muffled exclamation, and she came back to the bedroom, casting light into the room from the hallway. She stood in the doorway.

She was wearing her ‘going out’ dress, the short black mini dress. There was a necklace and earrings. Her hair was a little untidy.

“Graham?” she ventured. “When–?”

“About seven.” I said.

“We waited–”

“We?”

“Well yes, Daddy was at a meeting here and he and Desmond – you know, my tutor – took me out for dinner to celebrate the end of exams.”

Daddy again.

“And you told them you couldn’t go because I was coming over tonight, and you stayed in.”

She now looked uncomfortable at my sarcasm. “Well, we waited until six and then–”

“Connie, what time do I finish work?” I said aggressively.

“Er, five thirty or six.”

“How could I possibly get here by six?” I asked. It was a challenge, conveying my suspicions.

“B-but you finish early.” Now her face showed worry: I was not the loving and forgiving fiancé she was used to.

“On Fridays I finish early. I work late Thursday and there are usually no meetings on Friday afternoons. Today, as if you could forget it, is Wednesday.”

“I – I’m sorry, darling, they wanted to celebrate the end of exams with me. I thought you weren’t coming tonight, I didn’t realise Wednesday would be different.”

“Connie, I said I would get here, you know that. I even suggested we might go home tonight!” I sighed, as if defeated. “You coming to bed?”

“I’ll take a quick shower first,” she said. “Then I’ll be with you.”

She stripped off to her bra and panties and left the room. Why leave those on? And why did she need to shower? How do you get dirty going out for a meal? Yes, I knew exactly why: to cover up the smell of illicit sex. Now I was really suspicious.

So she misunderstood about my arrival and went for a meal and a drink with her father and her pastoral tutor, though why her tutor should go along, I didn’t understand.

Her farewell to this ‘Des’ was off hand and brief, but that was at one a.m. Had she been at his place for an hour or so?

Then the thought arose that it was her father ‘just happening’ to be at a meeting on this particular day, and wondered if his meeting was a fiction, designed to interrupt our relationship.

The tutor coming along was puzzling as well. Had Connie already made a date with this Des? I resolved to find out about that when she came back from her shower.

I must have fallen asleep waiting for her to return, for the next I knew the light was percolating through the curtains and it was seven o’clock. I rolled out of bed leaving her sleeping, which was unusual, since she invariably woke when I left the bed.