Chapter 2

Albert In The Early Morning

Albert Ferrers was up early - again! Three nights ago he had been kept up with the most persistent diarrhoea that he could remember in a long while. It had been a terrible night, during which he had been forced out of bed time after time to go to the toilet. Finally, just as the unwelcome fluidity had finally shown signs of easing he had pulled the curtains apart and looked outside at the icy wilderness that this usually idyllic village had become since that heavy snowfall of the day before.

He had been very glad to have looked out at this time! It was still dark and due to remain so for an hour but the streets were well enough lit for the girl in the house opposite to his, at the end of the cul de sac to be clearly and most delightfully visible.

He had first seen her a few weeks ago, together with another and older lady as they both left the girl's house to go for an early morning run. Both ladies had clearly been serious runners! You could tell a serious runner by the way they dressed - or didn't dress! The shortest of short shorts - tiny body hugging briefs in the case of the young blonde - expensive trainers and truncated tops, leaving the athletic bodies free of all unnecessary impediments to free movement.

The older woman had attracted his attention first. That was clearly one very fit lady, with the kind of abdomen that plenty of male body builders would envy - the quintessential washboard stomach! And the obvious strength in her thighs had caused his heart to miss a few beats as he had imagined himself encircled by them, unable to escape their clutches - even if he had wanted to! It was as well he did not know that the good lady was a lesbian from way back!

Over the weeks that the pair had been together he had noticed that the younger one was improving rapidly in terms of fitness. At first her physical distress when the couple returned after an hour was palpable, but she had become progressively accustomed to the exercise. Albert was not always up in time to see them go out but when they returned he was getting himself ready for work, after bringing his corpulent wife her early morning cup of tea.

And then the younger one had set out alone one morning, with a delightful King Charles spaniel, who had clearly been diverting his mistress from the sacred aim of improving that delightful body's fitness by the way he needed to be encouraged to concentrate on running rather than sniffing around every tuft of grass and lifting his leg rather more frequently than should have been needed. But she still looked delightful. And she was young and fresh where her companion had been mature and seasoned.

The sudden cold weather had made Albert sure that this daily display of sweet young limbs in the early morning would be off the agenda for the time being. But, NO! She had appeared at the same hour and dressed (undressed) in exactly the same way. He had shivered sympathetically but the girl had not seemed too cold herself, except that she was flapping both hands around, as if to coax heat into her finger tips. Surely she could at least have worn gloves? How would she manage to get her front door open with those frozen fingers when she got back home?

Then, three days after the start of the snow, as he watched the young blonde disappearing into the distance, her golden hair streaming behind her and her long limbs eating up the miles, he felt a hard and angry blow against his right ear. It was Edna, his fat and foul tempered wife.

"You filthy pervert! Looking at those females again! You think I'm stupid? Think I don't know what goes on in that dirty mind of yours? My dear mother - God rest her soul! - was right when she said you were a bad one. Pig! Go and get my tea."

This last command was accompanied by another stinging blow which made his ears ring. Albert did as he was told. The joys of married life! Despite his sore head, though, he still wondered how the lovely creature managed to open her front door with those frozen fingers.

This last problem had been very much on the young lady's mind on that first terrible morning. But Miss Roberts had been adamant! No concessions were to be made to the cold. None whatsoever!

She had offered to take Max with her, but the little dog had shown great reluctance to leave the house. His legs refused to budge, seeming to be rooted to the floor. Frieda had never known him so obstinate! So she had set off into the freezing darkness of a winter morn alone, wondering if she would make it back alive. Loyal to her former gym mistress and present lover she covered exactly the same route as always and after an hour had returned home, taking an age to get the key to turn in the front door's lock. Her poor frozen fingers had almost no strength left in them, although they still hurt terribly.

Snowy was waiting for her as she got back, making piteous noises, and she let her in. Max seemed as delighted to see his new feline friend as he was her!

"Have you been out all night, you poor little darling?" she asked the purring cat, as she poured her a saucer of warm milk. Snowy did not reply, as she was too busy lapping up the milk. Frieda went and had a nice shower.

Miss Roberts had forbidden her young lover to have hot showers any more. According to her it was much better for the skin tone to endure a cold one! And Frieda, a vain young woman, was anxious to have good skin tone!

On the phone on the day the snow started it had been made crystal clear to Frieda that the austere, Spartan regime was not to be relaxed - not by an iota!

"You will NOT wear gloves, Frieda! Frankly I am very disappointed! And you will have the same cold shower. It will feel warm enough after an hour out in the cold wind! Believe me!"

And it did feel warm! In minutes the feeling had crept back into her fingers, along with the ability to use them and she was ready for a hearty breakfast.

She got on with some work and the animals went upstairs. It seemed that they found her bed most comfortable. She looked in on them a few times and they were fast asleep, side by side. How sweet!

It was a long cold spell. Some of the village's older inhabitants, as is the way with the elderly, could remember that the winter of 1963 was colder and longer.

"That young Miss Frieda would never have gone out dressed like that in THAT winter" averred Miss Prosser early one Sunday morning after church to her friend and neighbour Edna. The young unbeliever had just sped by on her way to a well earned breakfast, long legs moving rhythmically and steadily as they bore her speedily onwards.

Edna scowled at the departing beauty's pink skinned pulchritude.

"She only does it to make a vulgar display! My Albert was looking out of the window at her every morning, getting up early just to gawp at that! I showed him though! The pig!"

"Not a very Christian sentiment, Edna!" said Miss Prosser. "And you heard the second reading at last Sunday's Matins. You know - how wives should be obedient to their husbands."

"St Paul was never married. And he'd most likely never met a creature like Albert!"

Meanwhile Frieda had arrived home and was letting Snowy in for her morning saucer of milk and plate of tuna steak. The sounds of furious mastication, both canine and feline, filled the air as she went upstairs to shower.

One day she would find out where Snowy had appeared from - and kept disappearing to.

Having finished showering she turned on the radio, to learn that after eleven days of heavy snow and sub zero temperatures, a thaw was on the way and Spring was soon to replace the cold. But Winter's last fling had been a good one. Frieda was glad in a way and sad in a way.

She had risen magnificently to the challenge of the cold! Miss Roberts's sister had phoned a couple of days into the cold snap to tell her that Dolores had succumbed to a heavy cold after returning from a long run and was confined to bed with hot water bottles, being plied with all manner of medicinal preparations, none of which seemed to be doing her much good. Her Doctor had ordered her never to be so silly as to venture out again without wearing proper clothing!

"A woman of your age and intelligence should know better!" had been his parting shot.

So she, Frieda, had proved herself to be a better woman than the older Dolores! Frieda had never had even the suspicion of a cold, despite feeling like death in the first couple of days when she staggered the last few yards to her front door. In fact she felt better now than she could remember in all her twenty one years. She was on top of the world and regretted the coming onset of warm weather.

But with the lengthening days there would arise the opportunity to lie in the sun and acquire a rich tan. But she still shrank from the idea of totally stripping, even in the privacy of her own garden.

No Knickers

On Monday she put her running gear in the washing machine, together with other items of underwear. Then she realised she needed to go into town to the County Stores. For that she would need a skirt, a jumper and underwear. But most of her underwear was rotating in a stately fashion around the drum!

"Never mind! There's a few sets in my drawer!"

But there were no panties for her to wear. Somehow or other, Snowy and Max had got the drawer open and dragged out all the contents onto the floor where they were using them as a bed.

"What's wrong with my bed, you two!" she asked irritably. They were a darling pair, but this was a bit annoying!

She pushed the somnolent pair aside and tried to decide which pair of briefs to wear. But they were all unwearable, covered as they were with cat and dog hair. Further to this, Snowy had been indulging in that mysterious feline habit of sucking each and every item, so that not one was not sodden with cat saliva! Yuck!

So she had pulled on her skirt and left for town without minus knickers. If a wind had lifted her skirt that day, it would have been a Deep Embarrassment! And it was a windy day.

Frieda was lucky that day and completed her shopping without any revelations of her private parts to a wondering multitude. But she was worried nonetheless. Coming out of the shop she trod absentmindedly on to the foot of a Very Nice Young Man.

He was taller than Frieda, by several inches and Frieda was hardly one of the Seven Dwarves! And there was an otherworldly look about him that reminded the now sexually experienced and morally contaminated girl of her own Lost Innocence.

He apologised profusely, despite being in the right. She prettily told him it was entirely her fault and her heart fluttered in her breast as if she were an adolescent meeting her first ever boy, instead of a brazen slut who had known steamy sex with both a man and a woman.

And it was as if the young man had never existed after that. Until, that is, she saw him a few weeks later when she was with Dolores.

Miss Roberts Again

Miss Roberts began to get over her severe cold as soon as the weather improved, but she was still not totally well. Not by a long chalk. Her sister was now far advanced on the road to recovery. Indeed, she had been looking after Dolores for a while! Dolores began to think again of her former pupil - her latest and most satisfying conquest

Before she could do anything to put these thoughts into effect Frieda forestalled her and phoned her former mistress.

"How are you Dolores? I was so worried to hear you were unwell."

Dolores was still not fully over her cold, as her voice betrayed.

"Buch Bedder, Thag you. Cough, sneeze, sniff. I god oud of bed yesterday. Wheeze, splutter, cough."

In between outbursts of coughing she asked how Frieda was. She expressed the earnest hope that she had not also succumbed to any malady. There was guilt in her heart to think she might have been the cause of Frieda suffering the same as she had.

"I'm fine, thanks. I've never felt better. You were so right to make me brave the cold, darling Dolores! It was pretty rough the first day or two, but I soon got used to it. I was really sorry when the thaw came. It was great to see just how far I could push myself. And you're SO right about cold showers being good for the skin tone! I glow all over these days!"

Dolores knew she should have been pleased to hear this, but the sound of that vibrant healthy voice, so full of the joys of life, made her feel angry. How dare this young woman thrive on a regime which had laid her low!

"It's been SO lonely running without you in the mornings, darling. I took Max for a while, but he refused to come out when the snow came and he's sort of lost interest in coming with me even now it's warm again. I run TWICE as far as we used to now. I did fourteen miles yesterday! And I was just as fresh after as when I set out. It would so nice to have you beside me again - and my bed is a lonely place these days! Come and stay whenever you like. Don't bother phoning, darling! Just come along unannounced whenever you feel like it and stay as long as you like! Bye!"

So Dolores came along three days later, still full of snuffles and wheezes and plainly not up to violent exercise yet awhile. She stayed behind in the early morning sleeping while Frieda, accustomed by this time to her minimal attire, trained for the Marathon which she had determined to enter in a couple of months. By the time Frieda had returned, Dolores would have fed Max, whom she still refused to think of as a Proper Dog, and Snowy, when she was around. Snowy, though polite as befitted a superior cat of good breeding, clearly disliked Dolores as deeply as Dolores disliked her.

Frieda had been given a rather different kind of translation task since Miss Roberts had last been her guest. It was a Japanese manual on sexual practices, with the accent being heavily on the things that ladies could do to each other! In order to ensure that she got it right, it seemed appropriate that she should try out a few of the more involved moves with Miss Roberts, who was willing at first. But only at first.

"You need to be double jointed to do some of this stuff," Dolores complained after a particularly strenuous session on her first night. "And it's no more enjoyable getting at each other from that angle that doing it face to face!"

But she carried on all the same. For the remainder of her stay she was to complain of back pain!

Frieda learned later that the book had been a great success. She was pleased to think that her talent for translating difficult procedures extended beyond the merely mechanical! And she had loved some of those moves. They had really loosened her up!

The Concert

"Now that your cough is so much better, darling and you have got rid of those sniffles at long last, why don't we go out together one evening? The local Choral Society are doing Mozart's C Minor Mass next Saturday. I'd really love to go. I'm not a very religious person, but I adore that Mass! Would you like to come with me?"

"Yes, Frieda. I too like that work. I always think it's such a pity he didn't complete it."

Frieda was relieved as well as surprised that Miss Roberts shared this taste in common. The older woman continued.

"You see, I am not just a fitness freak and a seducer of young girls! I have a soul!"

"When I listen to great music, especially great church music, I sometimes feel that something is missing from my life, you know Dolores. Do you ever get that sort of feeling?"

Dolores shook her head. There might have been a time when she might have known what Frieda was referring to, but she had long ago ceased to have these introspections. It was this world and this world alone that held all her attention. In a week or two she would return to supervising the physical education of a new generation of young women, none of whom she would ever lay a finger on.

She loved teaching and she liked Frieda a lot, but a life as a single woman lay ahead and she quite liked the idea. She could not envisage living with Frieda for ever. Although her talents as a lover were amazing and her body every bit as sweet as she had imagined years ago, Dolores knew, sadly, that they were growing apart.

But she had no idea how it would come about that the two finally did come to the parting of the ways.

At the concert Frieda saw the Nice Young Man again! He was sitting a few rows behind her - alone. What a shame such a handsome man did not have a lady by his side, she thought! If he had seen her, he gave no obvious sign but the perceptive and intuitive Frieda was inclined to think he had recognised her. He made no attempt to speak to her during the short interval, during which wine was consumed at the back of the church and people chatted to friends. Frieda and Dolores did not chat. They just stood together, their bodies touching, and sipped their wine, happy to be together for now.

Frieda saw another face at the concert. It was Ethelberta! The girl who been expelled from St Hilda's for knocking her out because of her jealousy over Dolores! The memory of that humiliating incident had never entirely left her. She still recalled lying on the ground, a ringing in her ears, as the furious Ethelberta stood over her, threatening to hit her again if she dared get up. Not that she could have got up! It was ten minutes before her legs would do as they were told and carry her again and even longer before she ceased being dizzy and feeling nauseous. Ethelberta had been hustled away by a couple of mistresses and Frieda had never seen her again - until now in this hallowed place, listening to the divine Mozart.

On Monday Frieda did her customary training, accompanied again by Dolores who slowed her down these days. Frieda was getting to be a class athlete by now and Dolores was rusty. Snowy was waiting for them when they got back. Frieda was relieved. The mysterious cat had been absent for a couple of days and Max had been visibly pining. Dolores did not share Frieda's delight in seeing the snow white beauty again. But she didn't wish to upset Frieda.

Having attended to her training for the day, as was her custom on Mondays, she drove into town and parked in the multi story car park before going to the shops. She could have the stuff delivered, of course, but she liked to get out and about - away from the house. After getting everything she needed she dropped into her favourite cafe and ordered a cafe au lait. With a shock she saw Ethelberta occupy the seat opposite her at the same table. The look in her face made it clear that Ethelberta was as infatuated with Dolores as ever and even more hostile, if that were possible, to Frieda. But she wouldn't start a scene here - would she? After all, they were adults now and knew how to behave!

"Still sucking up to Miss Roberts, I see. Great fuck, is she? You blonde stiff! I knew you fancied her at school, but you were too timid to say so, you feeble little wimp!"

"We are lovers, Ethelberta. This happened very recently and I'm sorry if that upsets you. How long have you been living around here?"

"None of your fucking business, arsehole! As a matter of fact I'm a porter at the hospital. I do lots of heavy work and I'm really strong. You can see that, can't you? You've been looking at my muscles ever since I sat down and you're still shit scared of me! Yes, I'm strong enough to flatten you again. Don't worry! No need to piss yourself in those expensive clothes! I won't you lay you out in public. But we meet in private and settle this - right?"

"Wrong, Ethelberta! Dolores and I are in love. We are two mature adults who have made a decision about each other. Brute force isn't going to settle anything. And now I must go."

She was shaken by this meeting. Ethelberta had been wearing a sleeveless top and was showing a lot of her midsection. She certainly did look strong! Strong enough to eat Frieda for breakfast!

"****

"You surely aren't running away from fighting that girl, Frieda! You can't mean that you'll refuse to fight her for me? You do love me, don't you?"

Dolores looked ready to weep. Frieda was embarrassed. She hated to let Dolores down, but was reluctant to endure another attack from Ethelberta! The last one had left her concussed for several days.

"I'd only be knocked out again. I was last time and I would be this. We two love each other, Dolores - you and I. What would my fighting Ethelberta prove?"

But reasoned argument seemed not to affect Dolores who continued to sulk. The she cheered up.

"You are a good learner, Frieda. I taught Ethelberta all she knows about karate and all that stuff, and I could have taught you to be even better if you hadn't chosen not to come to that extra curricular class. If you like, I can make you every bit as good as Ethelberta - most likely a lot better! It's as much brains as brawn, you know. You are much cleverer than she is, even if she is a lot stronger. Ask her for time to prepare and I'll arrange for you both to meet in the gym back at St Hilda's. That's it! Two old girls showing the present pupils their skills. A sort of demonstration and a fight at the same time. And, of course, the bloodshed will be kept to a minimum. I'll stop it as soon as it gets too one - sided."