Chapter 25

July 1971 to Wednesday 19th April 1972

In July and August we fell into the patterns we would follow during all her vacations. A run most mornings, breakfast, work, evening meal. Connie would keep house, shop for food, and voraciously devour book after book on her courses, making copious notes as she went. There were evenings in the pub, evenings in restaurants, ringing at church which she eventually tried herself and enjoyed.

There were nights out ‘with the girls’ from which I was excluded. The girls were my three and Penny. While alarm bells might be ringing in your ears, my girls were very moral and concerned for my welfare. I had no qualms about them spending evenings together.

I struck up friendship with Martin, now Penny’s intended, and we’d have our own night out in the local pub sometimes with Ian, who it seemed had ceased to play the field, had lost weight and was courting a very pretty girl called Mina. Bridge nights were Thursdays until we gave it a rest during August. Connie went to Penny’s on Thursdays.

In September, after the schools opened, Connie and I took a holiday together, this time to Scotland. We toured the West Coast, and apart from a few sunny days, got thoroughly doused with rain most of the time. Hotel rooms varied from ultra traditional to sleek almost clinically modern, but the food was always good and often superb. I got to taste a good number of whiskies of which I’d never heard, so no matter what else happened, I was a happy camper! Connie eventually began to enjoy shopping without feeling guilty, mainly because she charged it all to her father!

Sex? Plenty on the holiday, new hotel beds seemed to bring out the randiness in both of us, and for the rest we fell into a relaxed affectionate coupling three or four times a week. We always hugged, touched, kissed and stroked each other as we passed in the flat. We always sat together and cuddled while watching TV. We both enjoyed reading our books of an evening, content simply to be in each other’s company. Morning and Night we always kissed our greetings and goodnights with caresses, which often strayed into erogenous areas and turned into more, making us tired in the mornings through lack of sleep, or morning enthusiasm.

All too soon the university term loomed and a return to our previous life, commuting from home to that tiny flat. We packed up her belongings, her books and clothes and set off for Keele.

It’s strange how I was affected by this new term. I was ill at ease about Connie. Looking at it logically I had no need for worry, but emotions don’t work like that. As we drove down I wondered what was the cause of this distrust. There was the shadow of Penny’s behaviour in a similar situation, then there was her father and a concern that he was up to no good where we were concerned, and finally her night out with her tutor, and her blithe ‘See you next term’.

When looked at like that, should I feel worse or better about her second year at Keele? Certainly there would be a difference from last term: this time she would have more time on her hands to socialise, and therefore more opportunity to find someone else, perhaps nearer her own age. That was unsettling, and it gave rise to a suspicious attitude, and a search for evidence of her straying.

We journeyed down on Saturday morning and found the campus to be chock full of doting parents installing their offspring in their various accommodations. Cars were parked all over the place and we could not get near her flat. We parked in the large car park and walked to the restaurant and grabbed coffee and toast, then returned. Connie spied a space near her front door and stood in it until I brought the car. Then we unloaded.

Thereafter we relaxed in her bed for an hour, if relaxation is the appropriate word. As we recovered from the excesses of our ‘relaxation’, she stumped me again. How did she know?

“Graham, you don’t need to worry, you know.”

“About?”

“About me. I’m your fiancée, I know you suspect Daddy of trying to wreck things. If he is, and I don’t think so, he’s not going to succeed. If I’m going out with a group I’ll phone you. I can’t see myself wanting to go out with anyone else, but again I’ll phone you first. If I can’t get through I won’t go. I know you’ve been hurt by Penny when she was away, I won’t hurt you like that, I promise. Now, d’you feel a bit better?”

She’d summed up everything perfectly, and seen my problem. How could I have any doubts after that?

“Thanks Connie,” I said, hugging her. “You’re wonderful.”

“Yes, I am rather!” she giggled. “I made a mistake at Christmas, and it still makes me squirm at how I behaved. I won’t make that mistake again.”

So there it was. My mind was at rest, and we settled into a routine. The weekly phone call on Wednesday, and weekends together. In fact she wanted to come home every other weekend, and since she had no lectures that year on Friday afternoon, she could travel up by train and arrive mid afternoon.

Christmas came, which we spent at my parents’. There was no trip to Chester, though we did send a card but did not receive one. Her father rang her on Boxing Day.

After he rang off, I had a thought. I asked her, “I know divorces can take a long time, but what’s going on there? Is he getting a divorce? Do you know?”

She looked puzzled and rang back, asking her father if she could talk to Derek. After greetings and good wishes, she asked about the divorce. She listened, put the phone down and looked at me wide eyed.

“You’ll never guess.”

“They’re together and they’re not going to divorce?”

She looked surprised, but nodded.

“Derek said Daddy couldn’t face it after all these years together. He does love her and she makes him happy I think. He’s still away from home a lot, and he told Derek that she’s his anchor. It’s only Penny and I who are at odds with mother.”

“I think that it’s she that’s at odds with you both,” I said. “Derek is a peacemaker, and you need one of those in every family, though I doubt he’ll ever get through to her.”

In fact Derek called on his way back home to Durham. We bedded the boys down in the living room and Derek and ingrid had Connie’s old room: Connie was now fully ensconced in my, now our, bedroom. He told us that the parents seemed happy enough, ‘rubbing along together’ were the words he used, I think.

So the Spring Term began (I don’t remember ‘semesters’ being in existence in those days) and once again we settled into our semi-comfortable routine. This term she had tutorials on Friday afternoons so her weekends were shortened, though she kept coming every other week. In fact she ‘came’ every week, but in different beds.

It was the week before Easter, which I think was the last week in March ‘72 we decided on announcing the date of our wedding. We had talked it over and Connie desperately wanted us married as soon after she got her degree as possible, so we agreed on July the following year.

I collected her on Maundy Thursday for the Easter break, though as usual she spent most of the time reading and studying. There were also a number of phone calls from men and women fellow students passing the time of day with her. She had made friends this year, though at that time I knew few of them.

Back at work on Tuesday of Easter week, a new face arrived at my office, a pretty teenage girl, who I thought must be in sixth form. I was right, she was in lower sixth so she was seventeen, I assumed. She was interested in law as a profession, and was using her work experience time gaining some insight into how a lawyers’ office worked. She was spending a fortnight with us in the city during her actual work experience, staying with an aunt, and had already booked a month in summer with a solicitor in general practice in Chester. Her name was Caroline Gresty.

I learned all this from snatched conversations when she brought the post each morning, and collected letters for posting in the afternoon. She was a very pleasant and cheerful girl and certainly easy on the eye. She had the shape of a teenager on the cusp of womanhood, with every pore of her body primed for life.

Now at the beginning of the second week, there was a change in her attitude. She became positively flirty, making comments about Colette and Zena and how they fancied me, and she could see why. Then wondered how many girls in the practice had ‘had’ me, and she knew about Colette and Harriet. Needless to say I remained tight lipped.

She hinted that she might be available outside office hours, an invitation I pretended not to hear. Her skirts became shorter, and they had been pretty short before. She would drop letters on the floor and pick them up straight legged, showing her knickers, which were far from demure. Yes, of course I got hard, but remained behind my desk.

Mind you, as soon as I noticed the beginnings of the change, I told Zena and she suggested I should press Zena’s button on the intercom so that she could record the conversations. It seemed a little too obvious that the girl had a crush on me and what she wanted, and the last thing I needed was a complaint about sexual aggression. It was just as well I did, because that was what I got.

On the Friday that Caroline was to leave, Zena organised a little collection on our floor and bought her a necklace and earrings set. I was deputed to make the presentation when she came for the afternoon post.

She arrived with a broad smile (read ‘the smile of a broad’) in a tight top clearly outlining her young breasts, being as they were unencumbered by a bra, and the shortest skirt to date, more a pelmet really.

As usual, since she had been to Zena first, Zena was ready when I pressed her button on the intercom. I said how much we had all enjoyed her stay with us; our floor would miss her and would like her to have ‘this little memento’ of her visit. She opened it, gasped and said I shouldn’t have, putting on the earrings and asking me to fix the necklace, which I did with the minimum of contact, but which nevertheless elicited a sexy gasp from her.

The sight of her young neck started a reaction which I would have preferred not to have happened, because she turned and kissed me on the lips, pressing her body against me.

She must have felt my arousal, since she had moulded her body to mine and pushed her tits against me. She smiled knowingly, then went to the door and locked it.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I met you,” she said pulling her top over her head, and slipping off her micro skirt. She was standing in a scrap of a dark blue thong and nothing else but a predatory look. Her body looked primed for sex.

“Caroline!” I shouted. “Put your clothes back on and unlock the door!”

“Oh, go on!” she said. “You’ve been staring at my knickers all week., and your prick has a stiffy. I want you. I want a man who knows what he’s doing. You won’t ever see me again, no one will know.” Her hands went to her thong, ready to push it off.

“Caroline, stop this. I’m engaged to be married, and in any case you’re too young and this is a place of work. It’s wrong.”

At this she looked annoyed. “Graham, your cock is hard. You want me. Don’t be such a hypocrite!”

“Look, you just stripped naked, you’re a pretty girl and I’m a man, so my body’s response is natural, but I don’t want you – I don’t want this.”

“You don’t want me? Aren’t I sexy enough for you?” she sulked. I thought it was put on.

“Caroline you know exactly how sexy you are, but I love someone else and so, no, I don’t want you that way.”

“No one will know, your girlfriend won’t know. We’re alone. What d’you think your boss would say if I said you made advances to me? Touched me up? Fingered me?”

“First of all,” I said doggedly, “I would know and therefore so would my fiancée. I don’t keep secrets from her. We love each other. Secondly, I think this is blackmail, and I’ll have to take my chances on that.”

“OK.” she said with a sigh and a pout. “Here, have these as a souvenir.” She stripped off her thong and threw it on the desk. She really was very pretty in the nude her skin just glowed. Down boy!

“Come on Caroline, please, get dressed.”

She dressed, and with an angry scowl left the room. No goodbye.

Zena came in immediately. “Wow!” she said. “That was some seduction. Hey, I like the knickers. Yours?”

I laughed, and picked them up, spinning them round my index finger.

“Put them away, Graham. It gives the wrong impression to clients!” she giggled. I put them in my drawer.