My mind was somehow always filled with lines.

Angles and intersections. Properties. Distances. Distribution. Patterns. I was perfectly willing to pass the blame to my first teacher of mathematics. Mr Williams sowed a seed and I was unable to let it die. Numbers and arithmetic were of minimal interest to me, but show me a diagram, a plan or the skeleton of a building and I was entranced.

Father was not an imaginative man. His head was filled too, it seemed. But not with lines. His obsession was financial. I wasn't included in any of the discussions, but it was clear to me from the start that our move to a new town was driven by his perpetual ability to, as I heard Mother speak it once, 'back the wrong horse'.

It took some time for me to discover that she spoke of literal animals, and that Father, despite his demeanour, was an excellent example of the theory that children should not inherit wealth from their parents. It seemed I was in very little danger of inheriting that problem myself, whether or not I developed the tendency.

A new town brought with it the blessing of a new school, and was a short time only before I became accustomed to the informality of education outside the city. Mr Williams would have been shocked at the lack of academic knowledge shown by the teachers, and the similar lack of capacity demonstrated by the students.

The local teachers would have been unimpressed with mathematics specialists in turn, and would have found fault with such a theoretical focus. Here we balanced the abstract with the practical. Considering the beauty of an arched window might have its moment, but the effort would be put into undertaking the building of such an item. I found myself unwilling to decide as to the preferred route.

After a small number of weeks at the new school I was approached by James Lawrence. Jim was, he said, interested in obtaining a balance. He informed me that he was my neighbour, that we ought, if for no reason more than convenience, be friends. "Why," he asked me with what was to be a popular grin on his face, "would you not?"

I wasn't able to find myself opposed to the idea. I'd been shy of friends at my previous school, perhaps a little too focused on my lines and angles to find the time. I thought this was an opportunity to fit myself into the local community.

I was correct in the assumption. Jim introduced me to the other folk in the street where we both lived. Most were children significantly younger than ourselves, but some of the young ladies were both attractive and friendly. I was not at all reluctant when James told me that he wished to add me to what he termed his 'team'.

This group of youths congregated on summer evenings in a local churchyard to play various games, generally involving the throwing or hitting of a ball. I wasn't exactly a sterling asset in these games of physical skill, but I relaxed into the routine of it, and was soon wandering out after tea most nights, and clouting the ball in whichever way seemed most appropriate for the game in progress.

Boys and girls of various ages mixed indiscriminately in the games, joining whichever side needed assistance and working hard toward success for whichever team one was a member of at the time. It was mindless fun, and I soon became an enthusiastic participant.

It was a few months later that I first encountered another level to the games played near the church.

I had wandered down the street to join the activities as usual. When I arrived I found that only Elizabeth, the elder of two sisters who frequented the churchyard, was present. She looked around, walked to me, took my hand, and pulled me gently toward the large macrocarpa hedge that hid the lawn from the rest of the neighbourhood.

I'd crawled in this hedge a few times over the previous weeks, searching for errant balls and the like. They were intriguing in themselves, giving the impression of solidity despite actually having a sparsely filled interior, and giving easily sufficient space to disappear inside the growth.

I assumed that Elizabeth required some assistance with the location of something, but was confused at her complete silence. The girl was pretty though, and my ability to insist on conversation was hampered by the realisation that I rather liked to hold her hand. I followed as she led, and soon the two of us had slipped inside the huge hedge, and were both hidden, quite improperly I realised, from observation from the outside.

I turned to Elizabeth, who surprised me somewhat by promptly dropping to her knees while grinning at me. I should have stopped her then and insisted that she explain what was happening, but then I felt her small hands at the buttons of my flies, and I found myself unable to object.

Her fingers unbuttoned me without hesitation, while I stood stock still in shock. It was immediately apparent that she was familiar with the procedure, and in no time at all she had managed to slide her fingers through the unbuttoned space, slip her hand through the slit of my underpants, and taken me in hand, literally.

I might state at this point that never before had I been in the position of having a young lady touching me in that way. Nor would anyone else have done so. I had touched myself frequently, I admit.

I felt I should not, but I had been in receipt of conflicting advice from two of my uncles. Uncle Robert suggested that I should not 'abuse myself' for fear of blindness, infection and eternal damnation. You'll understand that I was reluctant to commit to these consequences. Uncle Garrison, a bachelor, and popular man with the womenfolk, refuted Robert's claims, insisting that the singular consequence of self-abuse was discovery. "Men of style," he said to me, as an aside at a gathering, "are not caught with their pants at half-mast, nor with their mast at full salute, Sir." He added, later in the evening and having partaken in considerable wine, that he was himself without style, and the lady he had his arm around was in full agreement with him.

In any case, neither the history nor the advice were relevant to this occasion, and I was not given a great deal of time to consider the moral requirements of my position before the stakes, as Father might have referred to them, were lifted. Not only the stakes though. My manhood was lifted as well, not that much assistance was required at this point, and then Elizabeth took the surprise to a new turn. She took me, her fingers still wrapped and stroking, into her sweet little mouth.

There are, it seems to me, times where further thought is neither helpful nor possible, and I think it fair to say that a pretty lady swallowing your privates might qualify as one of those times. Accordingly I ceased to think, and instead allowed myself to wallow in the feelings.

Elizabeth was obviously expert at this delightful form of torture, and she massaged me in ways that are beyond description. Her fingers, with her lips and tongue provided a veritable orchestra of excitement. I had planned to stop her at first when she knelt, then when her fingers were unthreading my buttons, and finally at the time she took my manhood in her hands, but I was well beyond that capability now, and not only would I not stop her, but I encouraged her further, my hands on the back of the girl's head, my body bending at the hips to thrust at her eager mouth.

All in all this delight was not going to last long, and indeed it was quickly finished. I grunted and shook, determined not to fall over, and was immediately conscious of what had just occurred. I looked down as Elizabeth licked the last from me, and then pushed herself to her feet. Without delay she was again standing before me, a mischievous smile on her face, her tongue cheerfully wiping a missed dollop of my spray from her dainty lips.

I was without a single thought as to how I might behave at this point, but Elizabeth knew exactly. She stood close, tipped her head back and kissed my cheek. I wasn't without a twinge as I recalled where those lips had most recently journeyed, but then my attention was distracted with the further realisation that her hand had found its way into my pants pocket.

Still without a word by way of explanation, Elizabeth fumbled in my pants. Prior to this secret assignation I would have been appalled at the intimacy of such an invasion, but now it was without impact of any sort. I simply stood and waited.

Elizabeth soon found that which she was in search of, and her hand reappeared, holding a sixpenny piece of mine. She showed it to me in the dim light inside the hedge and then extracted some coins of her own from a small purse she had secreted in a pocket. She handed me two coins, and allowed me to watch her deposit my sixpence in her purse. I needed not to look at the coins now in my hand. I was suddenly aware of what was happening. Elizabeth had returned a pair of pennies to me, assuring me of two things of the process. Firstly that she was, though in a presumably limited capacity, a tart of some description. Secondly that the going rate for the services provided was apparently an entirely reasonable fourpence.

It was the first time I was taken care of by Elizabeth. It was not to be the last. We withdrew discretely from the confines of the hedge, and returned to the games, other children having arrived in the interim. I felt justified in not having noticed any arrivals while I was occupied with Elizabeth.