Chapter 4

All three quickly settled into a routine. Weekday breakfasts were simple, help yourself and mostly in rushed silence. They took it in turns to cook the evening meal. Sally was the least inventive but was nevertheless a competent cook. Bill did the weekly shop every Monday. That meant he did not have to give the girls cash and could use his card. Most evenings the girls studied. Wendy was the less diligent of the two and would watch television with Bill or just chat. She was amusing and vivacious and Bill thoroughly enjoyed her company.

Wendy did run into the insatiable one again but he took one look and made off hastily. She reported the incident gleefully to Bill and Sally. "My gallant knight," she giggled but there was no doubt of her enduring gratitude to Bill both over that incident and his saving her from her hated and demeaning job. That did not mean that she spent every night with him just two or three times a week usually on Friday and Saturday when they could lie in in the morning and enjoy a cosy, sleepy time of love making.

Sally soon lost her reticence and became ready to confide in Bill. "Wendy and I only met because we shared digs," she said. "To start with that is all we did but slowly a friendship developed and now I love her dearly. I was desperately upset when she started being an escort and tried my best to dissuade her. I knew it was merely a euphemism for high class tart and I shuddered to think how her mother would react if she ever found out. She only did it on Friday and Saturday nights which is when her mother tended to ring and I had to lie in my teeth. I hated it. If I could I'd have paid her rent myself but Dad only gives me a limited allowance and I couldn't afford it on that. I know she was deeply ashamed but she is determined to be an aeronautical engineer and was prepared to make that sacrifice to achieve her ends. I could never have brought myself to do it. For that matter, I could never bring myself to have one night stands. Possibly I'm old fashioned but casual sex is not for me."

"Some people might say 'old fashioned'," replied Bill, "but I think your attitude is right. That night with Wendy was my first time ever with a pro and I was full of guilt afterwards. It was a major part in my offer to her and subsequently you. Even before I married and was fancy free I really wasn't into opportunity sex."

"That's good to know. It's such a physically intimate business I don't believe it ever should be casual."

"That's right. That was the root cause of my guilt which was compounded when I took advantage of Wendy even though she hated the job."

Sally smiled. "No you didn't. She told me you gave her the chance to opt out and she didn't take it." Her smile broadened, "And judging by the number of times she creeps in to join you at night I reckon she's pretty glad she didn't."

Bill actually blushed. "Do you hear her coming to me then?"

Sally was enjoying this. Her smile changed to a wicked grin. "No but she forgets to close the open door and neither of you is exactly silent."

"Oh Lord!"

"Ears like a bat, I have. Relax, Bill." She gave him a peck on the cheek. "Enjoy yourselves. I can always wear ear plugs." She put the tip of her tongue out at him and danced away laughing. Bill watched her.

"For a girl of her size she's remarkably graceful," he thought.

Her remark about Wendy's mother stayed with him though and he decided to find out what Wendy had told her mother about the move.

"Oh, I just told her I'd met you at a party and told you that I thought I was going to have to give up uni because I couldn't afford it anymore."

"I suspect I'm going to meet her in the not too distant future. We need to make sure our stories are the same, don't you think?"

Wendy sobered up immediately. "It's not actually a very good story, is it?"

Bill shook his head.

"Do you think she suspects I'm fibbing?"

"I don't know because I haven't met her but mothers are pretty intuitive."

"Oh, gosh! What am I going to do?"

"How close are you?"

"Very and even more so since Dad died."

"What if you told her the truth?"

"She'd be horrified."

"But would she disown you?"

Wendy gazed at him unseeingly then her eyes cleared. "No," she said. "I don't think so but it'll hurt her."

"What if she finds out by mistake if any one of the three of us were to let something slip? I'm sure she's going to pay us a visit in the not too distant future in order to vet me if nothing else. Might that not hurt her even more?"

Wendy bit her lip and nodded slowly. "Would you come with me?"

"No. I'd be in the way if you two are going to have things out. She could be angry as well as disappointed and there are bound to be tears."

Wendy nodded again. "This is going to be awful but I'd better get it out of the way soon. I'll go home next weekend." She managed the flicker of a smile. "At least I can afford the petrol now, thanks to you."

She told Sally what she was going to do. Sally hugged her. "Good for you," she said. "You can't go on living a lie. If I was you I'd go on Saturday morning and tell her straight away. Don't try and brazen it out. Confess and tell her how miserable and ashamed you were. That way she can deal with it during the day and not have a sleepless night fretting about it. You may have a pretty beastly and lonely Saturday afternoon, my love."

"Don't I know it?"

Having made up her mind Wendy stuck to it. Both Bill and Sally gave her a hug before she left. She clung to Bill.

"I wish you were coming with me," she whispered, "but I realise it would be wrong. Will me to get through it."

"I will." He kissed the top of her head. "I know it'll be all right in the end."

Wendy still had a miserable drive home. Apart from the anxiety about how her mother might react she was acutely aware of what she had done, something in direct contradiction to all the principles with which she had been brought up.

Her mother, Theresa, noticed immediately that Wendy was in a state but acted normally giving her a warm hug and a kiss.

"I wonder when that will happen again," thought Wendy wretchedly.

Theresa led her through to the kitchen and quickly produced two mugs of instant coffee.

"Now then, darling," she said sitting down at the kitchen table. "You look as though the world's coming to an end. What's the matter?"

"I've got something to confess, Mum, and you're not going to like it."

"Oh! Let's have it then."

"You know I got that job in the library to help make ends meet?"