Chapter 37

It was my 20th birthday on 17th March 1974.

It was a Sunday, so Julie and I had already arranged to go and stay with the twins in their flat in Clifton for the weekend.

Because of Grandpa Shaw's funeral, I now had some unexpected catching up to do on my studies, and I persuaded Julie to go to Bristol on the Friday night without me, promising to join her early on Saturday.

The need to study for extra hours also got me out of the flat's Friday afternoon shopping trip; an especially good thing because the week before I had got myself into disgrace with Sian, for attempting to buy a tin of corned beef without the key required to open it.

(Sian and Vee had fought with a tin of ham the previous year, having to use a tin opener because the key was missing, and the tin had won hands down. Sian had resolved, as she dabbed at her bleeding cuts, never to be caught out again!)

On the Friday morning, I kissed Julie goodbye before I went off to the laboratory for the day. I reminded her that Adrian was intending to grow a beard, and suggested that she should get up close and personal to see if it suited him - and her.

"I talked to Sheila a couple of days ago, and she isn't at all sure about it. It's got beyond the scratchy stage, but he keeps complaining that his face itches, and she says that it tickles her too much."

"Oh well, see what you think. If you really like it, I might see if I can grow one! And don't kill Adrian!"

"As if we would! We'll be saving ourselves for you!"

"A likely story! Have fun, my darling!"

I kissed her again at the top of the stairs as Malcolm and I left for the Chemistry Building a little later; and wished her a good time with the twins.

"See you tomorrow morning. Don't eat all the bacon before I get there!"

At the end of our normal working day, Malcolm gave me his notes for the two days of lectures I had missed, and I stayed in the laboratory and library working on them until almost nine o'clock that evening.

The time had flashed past as I concentrated on the notes, and as I suddenly realised that I was starving, I picked up a pie and large chips on the way home to the flat.

I ate my supper in solitary splendour in the kitchen with a couple of mugs of tea, took the greasy wrapping paper and newspaper downstairs to the bin so it wouldn't stink the kitchen out, and had a very quick bath before going to my lonely bed.

As I undressed and slipped under the quilt, I thought of Julie, who would now be enjoying a threesome with Adrian and Sheila, and hoped that they wouldn't get too carried away. I wondered if they were thinking of me, all alone and unloved?

I should have known better; I was rudely woken after only a short nap by a naked Vee crawling over my body, telling me that Julie had instructed her to keep me company, and that she hoped I was feeling energetic.

Well, I wasn't going to disappoint a lady, was I? Even if she had gone off to the pub with Sian and Malcolm, without even leaving me a quickly scribbled note to say where they were!

I made us both a cup of tea in the morning before I got dressed to go to Bristol; Vee kissed me in a way which told me that she wouldn't mind having sex again, but I thought of Julie and Sheila waiting for me, and the need to conserve my energy.

I was almost tempted to take Vee with me to Clifton to join in the orgy, but I then remembered that Jen & Hamish would be about, even though they were staying at his parents house, and Jen didn't want Hamish finding out too much about our tangled relationships until we were much more sure of him.

So I didn't say anything, and just mentioned that we'd be back the following night.

She really looked disappointed.

For one awful moment, I thought that she was going to burst into tears.

I felt dreadfully guilty. Vee was our friend, and it seemed horribly mean to leave her out of it. She'd had a rotten few weeks. And she had been the means of Julie and I getting together. We owed her.

So, instead of turning left for the station, I went right and headed to the phone box on the corner. I knew the twins' phone number off by heart now, and was talking to Sheila a couple of moments later.

Through the glass windows of the telephone box, I saw Sian and Malcolm striding along in their hill-walking gear, on their way to join the mini-bus party. I waved, but they were so wrapped up in talking to each other that they didn't notice me.

Sheila had no hesitation.

"No, you MUST bring Vee with you! She was very good to us last year, and from what Julie was telling us last night, she really needs some friends at the moment."

"I'm surprised that you had time to talk last night?"

"We sent Adrian out for another bottle of wine, as he had begged for mercy, and she told me then."

The pips went as my 10p coin expired, so I said that we'd be with them as soon as possible, and headed back to give Vee the invitation.

As I had expected, the two girls had clearly ganged up on Adrian. I hoped that he'd be recovered enough by the evening to give Vee some loving too. I suppose that it was probably a good sign that he had been able to walk down to the off-licence; though perhaps that had been early in the evening.

I unlocked the front door and trotted back up the two-and-a-half flights of stairs to the top of the house. Vee was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a mug of tea, her empty toast plate in front of her. She jumped a little as I came in, then relaxed as she realised that it was me.

"Did you forget something, Jon?"

"Yes, I forgot YOU! Julie and Sheila say that they want you to come over to Clifton for the night. We're going dancing! Will you come?"

Her eyes lit up; well, to be truthful, her whole face lit up. Her smile was absolutely radiant.

"Oh god, I'd love to! Yes please! Give me five minutes, and I'll be ready."

It was a little longer than five minutes, but Vee was ready to go far faster than I had expected her to be. Her bedroom looked as if a whirlwind had been through it, but I had time to scrawl a short explanatory note to Sian. I didn't want her to worry that Vee had been kidnapped by aliens, or had run away from University!

"Vee, there is one thing. My sister Jen and her new boyfriend Hamish will be with us much of the time, but they will be sleeping at his parents' house. Hamish doesn't know that we are all having sex with each other, so please don't let on, as we're not sure what he will think. I think that Jen has found a really good lad, and I want to give them a chance."

She looked a little sad; yet again she had been reminded that her ex-fiance Jeff had not been Mr. Right. But, being the plucky girl she was, she quickly pulled herself together and made a joke out of it.

"Hamish hasn't got a brother, has he?"

"I'm afraid not! Nor a sister either!"

We went down to the station together. Vee had a little bit of a wobble when she got her Student Railcard out; it hadn't been worth her while to pay the fee just to make a small saving on journeys home, but she had bought it to help her get to Manchester to see Jeff. Well, she certainly wasn't going to be going there again!

We chatted on the train; I told her a little more about the twins and their flat in Clifton, and reminded her how we had met Hamish and introduced him to Jen. I also asked her again to please try to remember the 'official' line about Julie being Adrian's boyfriend, and me Sheila's.

It was cold and drizzly at Parkway station; the March winds and rain hadn't yet turned into the April sunshine and showers. As there was a taxi dropping someone off at the station, I invested 75p in getting him to take us to Caledonia Place. He said that it was only the third time he'd got a return fare from Parkway, as most people were still using Temple Meads station!

I rang the bell, and Sheila came down to let us in the street door, and kissed us both in welcome.

"Vee, did Jon warn you about Hamish?"

"Three times so far! Not to let on that we all have sex together?"

"Please! We don't yet know if he would disapprove, and Jen seems to be getting on so well with him that we don't want to upset the applecart."

"My lips are sealed!"

"Adrian says that he'll make it up to you when they go home tonight."

"That's a deal!"

Jen and Hamish were upstairs with Julie and Adrian; I introduced Hamish to Vee, and then accepted a cuppa.

Adrian was clean-shaven! Not a whisker in sight!

"What happened to the beard, mate?"

"Julie decided that it tickled too much during the night, so it had to go!"

"I hope she took a photograph of you?"

"Oh yes, I wanted a record of that beard. It was a real bugger to shave off; they don't tell you that a normal razor blade really struggles with long whiskers."

I looked again at his face, more closely this time. There were definitely some red patches of shaving rash, and several traces of blood and cuts. There was even a little bit of toilet paper still stuck on his neck!

"Ouch! That must have hurt!"

"Yeah, and it didn't do the razor much good either!"

I winced. I cut myself shaving more than I thought was reasonable, and that was without going too long between sessions.

Sheila reported that we were using the last of the milk, and Adrian and Hamish were sent off to the corner shop for some more.

"Make it four pints, Twin, and two more loaves. You know what gannets these Bakers are, and if I remember rightly, Vee can also drink her own volume in tea, given half the chance."

Vee was dragged off to look around the flat by one of its proud owners, and while Julie washed up the mugs, my sister whispered in my ear.

"Happy birthday for tomorrow, big brother. I was hoping to give you a birthday blowjob, but with Hamish around, I'll have to give you an IOU instead."

"Thanks, darling! I take it that it isn't wearing thin yet?"

"God, no, he's an absolute darling! He even brought me a cup of tea in bed this morning; Catriona said that he was a reformed character, and that she'd like one as well tomorrow morning!"

"Great, I'm so pleased for you. They seem a great family, and she's probably just as good a cook as Mum is!"

Vee and Sheila then came out of the bathroom and put an end to any more of our sibling confidences.

"Jon, I explained the shower rail to Vee, and I promised her that you'd give her a demonstration overnight."

"I wouldn't mind one now! Do you know, he didn't even try to fuck me this morning!"

Jen and Julie chuckled. Sheila turned on me.

"You swine! Julie left you two in Cardiff so that you had time to do some catching up with poor Vee, and now we find you've been dodging your responsibilities!"

I was taken by surprise by this harsh and unexpected accusation.

I was about to hotly explain to Sheila that she was being a tad unfair; and that in fact I had been unavoidably delayed by a backlog of studies, and it was ME being kind enough to send Julie over the night before so that she could enjoy a threesome with the twins.

Fortunately for continued harmonious relations, the Yale key rattled in the door, and Adrian and Hamish came back with the bread and milk.

I had therefore had time to realise that Sheila had actually just been teasing me, and wasn't trying to tell me off - I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't bitten her head off. It would have been a very bad start to the weekend, and I would have thoroughly embarrassed myself.

I realised that I was tired and hungry, and a couple more mugs of tea and two thick slices of jam on toast did wonders for my metabolism, and my mood. It had been a tough week with the funeral and then catching up with my studies, and I'd had several late nights. That probably accounted for my sense of humour failure!

The seven of us then chatted and lounged around together most of the morning; to try and compensate for my earlier grumpiness, I suggested that I treat everyone to chicken and chips at the Clifton Gorge Hotel for lunch, and the idea was greeted with delight.

Having had a late breakfast, we did at least have the decency to walk the long way around, so that we were ready for some more food by the time we got there.

The chicken and chips in the basket was as good as it had been the last time; the hotel bar and lounge just as crowded for a Saturday lunchtime. The hotel owner was obviously onto a good thing, and knew it!

Once again, as we strolled back to the flat, I relished the feeling of being part of a group of good friends doing something together at the weekend. It just felt so much better than going out with Julie, or with our flatmates; perhaps it was the presence of my sister and her boyfriend that made it just that little bit special.

We messed around in the flat and played board games for the rest of the afternoon; the twins had Waddington's 'GO!' which Vee had never played; but her natural ability with cash made her the obvious choice to run the money-changing into all the other currencies, and she got the hang of it extremely quickly.

Hamish was caught cheating, trying to slip Jen one of his 'souvenir' cards to help her catch up with the rest of us; Sheila penalised them by making them sit out one turn with their lips locked together.

Personally, I don't think they considered that a punishment at all...

I thought that Vee was particularly slow at counting out my piastres when I asked to change some money that turn; perhaps she was wondering if they would need to come up for breath, or was distracted by the show of passion. They were certainly both a little bit pink in the face when they finished their kiss.

The rest of the game was rather an anticlimax after that; Sheila of course won, as she had actually concentrated on the game. The rest of us had been rather distracted by Jen and Hamish...

Sheila and Julie served us a high tea of ham, egg and fried potatoes, with several slices of buttered bread and plenty of tea to wash it down with.

"We've found a dance club where they have live music downstairs and a disco upstairs, and it's open until midnight on a Saturday. I hope you're feeling fit, Jon?"

"I'll do my best to keep up with you, just don't make me dance until I've got blisters!"

Julie and Jen then ganged up on me by singing the song from 'My Fair Lady', 'I could have danced all night and still have begged for more', which wasn't how I thought I would feel after an evening on the dance floor. But I did enjoy dancing with them all, and they were going to have a great time, so I put a brave face on it.

xxxxxxx

We got changed into slightly more respectable clothes, (with much giggling from the four girls in Sheila's room) and the seven of us then wandered down through Clifton village and then on for a mile or so downhill, until we reached the city centre at river level. Adrian led us towards what looked like a former warehouse for the port, where he paid the entrance money, and we trooped through the door into a large room with a bar and a raised dais above a dance floor.

There was music playing through the speaker system, and the band were setting up on the dais.

We bought three pints of bitter top and shared them; the girls had already firmly told us that we'd be on the dance floor most of the time, and we men weren't going to have the chance to sit and nurse our beers.

The band started tuning up their instruments, and Sheila gave us our instructions.

If the tune was just pop music so that we were doing disco-type dancing, then all seven of us would be on the floor. When there was more formal dancing, we'd take turns with each other so all four of the girls got a decent outing.

We agreed that, rather than one of the girls being left alone at the table with our coats, one of the men would sit out each of the dances with the two girls who were not dancing. All four of them were looking pretty good, and we didn't want one girl on her own to get hassled by other lads while the rest of us were on the dance floor. With Vee in her tight green sweater, and Julie wearing a black top that displayed her blonde hair to perfection, they stood out. Jen and Sheila looked pretty damn good as well.

We danced pretty much non-stop for the band's first set, nearly three-quarters of an hour. After a few warm up disco tunes, they started to play what Sheila described as 'proper tunes' and we danced as couples.

When it was my first turn to sit out, I found myself at the table with Jen and Julie.

"Big brother, do you want me to get Hamish to help fuck Vee tonight?"

"God no, it's too soon for that. Why do you ask?"

"I thought that you and Adrian might have your hands full with three of them!"

"Nice try, Sis, but two against three is still better odds than three against four when you are one of the four!"

"Spoilsport! Actually, I'm only teasing - it's too early yet to expose Hamish to your Playboy lifestyle - what would I do if he wanted to start up a little harem?"

Julie giggled at my plight. I had hoped for some support, but it looked like my girlfriend was going to side with my sister, on the grounds that they knew better than I did what was in my best interests.

I also suspected that they wanted another little session of the 'Three J's' where they would be able to treat me as their sex slave - I wouldn't have minded one little bit being their plaything again, but some of the others might object.