Chapter 28: Towards the Final Exams

Approaching the Holidays

July – August, 1975

The August school holidays were only three weeks away; these were going to be the last break before the HSC exams at the end of October. At lunchtime one day, we were all discussing the plans we had for the two weeks off school.

“Well, I’ll be going over all of the previous exam papers,” Cathy said.

Some of the others groaned, called her ‘swot’. David wasn’t being anywhere near as studious as his sister; he had arranged to take a train up to the Gold Coast to renew his acquaintance with his brother-in-law’s cousins.

“I’ve got a two week job at the ABC”, Lori said, “working in their radio newsroom, learning how to write news copy.”

That was a big surprise to me; I was hoping we could have spent the time together and maybe the chance for us to make love would arise. As we headed back to our afternoon classes, I took her by the arm.

“You didn’t mention that job,” I said. “I was hoping we could spend time together.”

“Didn’t I?” she said. “Mum arranged it for me; she knows some of the news directors and thought it would be a good learning opportunity for me. Don’t forget, we’ve got sailing on the 27th.”

I was pretty disappointed; I was hoping for some time alone with her. Still, it would be a good opportunity for her. Sailing on the 27th would be good, too; it would be the third race in the four race winter series. We were leading with two wins from two starts, so the pressure would be on us to do well in this one.

Not that there was going to be much time over those two weeks to slack off; we were given a whole bunch of previous HSC exam papers, to give us an idea of what to expect in the actual exam. I looked through them; some of them didn’t look too bad, but the 1st level math paper was going to be a tough one. Maybe two weeks of solid study with practice exams, rather than the distractions of Lori wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Sunday the 27th dawned grey and cold, at least when I woke up around 9:30am. I needed a good hot shower to wake myself fully after the night before; we had played until 1:30 to a packed house. It was just before 11:00 when I parked in the Earle’s driveway; Lori was waiting inside for me.

“It will just be the two of us today,” she said. “Don’s wife is not well at all, and Dad has some work to catch up on. But we can take the boat up to the clubhouse, unless you want to drive?”

“The boat will be fine, Lori,” I said. “With the two of us sailing together, we can still win. You will have to tell me what to do though; I still don’t know all that much about what I’m doing.”

We motored up out of the bay where the Earle’s place was; once we were past the jetties at the Alfreds, Lori turned to face me.

“Can I ask you a question, Will?” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s something I need to know, about us sailing together.”

“Sure, ask away,” I replied.

“When we are sailing, does it worry you that I give the orders, and tell you what to do?” she asked. “Do you mind taking orders from a woman skipper?”

“Why would I?” I replied. “You know far, far more than I ever will about sailing; you are the skipper so it stands to reason I would follow any order you give me. When we are on the boat, you’re the boss, simple as that. Why do you ask?”

“It probably sounds silly, but there are some guys, and men, that can’t accept having a woman in charge,” she said. “That’s why Jeff Bullpitt quit the school’s yachting team, he wouldn’t sail with me as skipper. He complained to Mr Wardle, who said he either accepts me as the skipper, or quits the team. So he quit. I was just worried you might have similar thoughts.”

“That doesn’t worry me at all, Lori; you are the expert sailor. I would have to be any incredibly arrogant arsehole not to do what you say when we are sailing,” I replied. “On board, you are the boss.”

“Okay, that’s good,” she said. “I was just worried you might get a bit, I don’t know, a bit upset with me ordering you around all the time. There are lots of guys who would, you know. That’s why I like sailing with you.”

She reached over to hold my hand, and she gave it a squeeze.

“I think we make a great team, Lori,” I said. “And not just sailing, either.”

She leant over and kissed my cheek.

“I think we make a great team, too,” she replied.

The wind was up around 20 knots for the race, so we took a conservative decision with sail choices. Lori had me put a reef in the main, and we used a slightly smaller headsail than the one we normally would use. It was a good choice; we had no trouble maintaining control over the boat; others were overpowered, and were continually suffering as the stronger gusts would heel them right over. We won, beating the second place boat by over 5 minutes.

“I told you we make a good team,” I said to her as we rowed the dinghy back to the clubhouse. “That was hard work, though; my arms and back is aching!”

“Me too!” she exclaimed. “Maybe after the barbecue we can give each other a nice massage?”

“I’m in,” I said.

After the barbecue, where prizes for the day’s event were announced, we returned to the boat. The sun was starting to set over West Head, and Lori suggested we head back to her place, before it got too dark. We timed things well; it was almost completely dark by the time we had tied up at the dock.

Lori’s parents were pleased when we told them about our results.

“So you’ve won three of the four, that’s going to be a series win,” Jack said. “There’s no way anyone can beat you, even if you don’t sail next month’s race. That’s the way it should be done.”

Since I was feeling tired, I said my goodbyes. Lori walked up to my car with me.

“I guess the massages will have to wait,” she said. “I’m sorry; we shouldn’t have hung around as long as we did at the barbecue.”

“No, that’s ok,” I said. “It’s a pity you are working all through the holidays, otherwise we could have spent time together, just us...”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply. “Are you against me having that job?”

Fuck, I think I somehow put my foot in it.

“No, not at all,” I said. “The job will be good for you, good experience. It’s just that I was kinda hoping we would have that time to do, you know, stuff...”

“Well, fuck your opinion on that,” she said angrily. “Typical, I would have expected that from most guys, but not you. I was mistaken; you are just as chauvinistic as other guys. You don’t like it when I do things for myself; you can do all the stuff for your future; a week at university on a computer course, all that stuff, but as soon as I, as soon as a woman, tries to show some initiative, tries to get ahead in life, you want to keep me back, like I should be chained to the kitchen stove, barefoot, pregnant, like my only role is to produce offspring for you, cook and clean for you. I’m not going to make the same mistake that my mother did, giving up my career for some guy, just because he’s not able to deal with her professional needs too.”

“Where the fuck did that come from!” I exclaimed. “You know that’s not what I meant, Lori; I told you I thought you getting that vacation job would be really good for you, it will be an excellent thing for your future career, good experience, and making great contacts. It’s just that we won’t have any time to ourselves until after the exams are over ... Fuck it all; I guess I was fooling myself, thinking you might want to spend some time with me, just you and I. Thanks for the day sailing Lori, that at least was fun. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”

I got in the car, slamming the door before driving off. What brought all that on? I might be mistaken, but she was starting to sound a bit like Cathy has been recently; there was a book Cathy had just read, The Female Eunuch, all about women’s liberation, claiming how women had been repressed by men for centuries. Maybe she had given that to Lori? But whatever the cause was, I had certainly triggered some deep response there.

For the next week and a half, right until the last day of term, Lori deliberately avoided me. ‘Fuck her’, I thought to myself. I wasn’t trying to put her down; I wasn’t trying to stop her from pursuing her career, all that I said was I was hoping we could have been able to spend some time together.

Eventually, at lunchtime she came up to me, told me she was sorry about the fight, she hadn’t meant to say all that stuff to me.

“I don’t know why I said what I did, Will,” she said. “I know you aren’t like that, I know you don’t want me not to have the career that I want. I guess I was just feeling tired, and achy, and moody. I get like that sometimes. I would have liked us to have been able to spend some time together, too. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did, not after all you’ve done for me.”

“That’s okay, Lori, maybe I hadn’t made myself clear, and you misunderstood what I was trying to say,” I said. “I think we are both starting to feel the stress; once the HSC is over things will be easier; it’s only another three months. Then we will have until the end of February where we can do whatever we want to.”

“Okay, can I call you at nights, so I can tell you about the job?” she asked.

“Sure, I would love to hear all about it,” I said.

She headed off to her class, and I went to my English class.

“Will, what plans do you have for next week?” Cathy asked me.

“Not much, studying I guess; going through those sample exam papers,” I said. “You?”

“The same,” she said. “Do you want to come around, we can work through those level 1 math papers together; I’ve tried some of them, and they are bloody hard!”

“That would be a good idea,” I said. “We can bounce ideas off each other; if one of us gets stuck, then the other can probably help out. You want me there Monday morning?”

“Sure, I’ll be home alone, Davy is heading up to boob heaven for the two weeks,” she said.

“Is that what he’s calling it?” I asked her.

“No, that’s just me teasing him about it all,” she replied. “I do know he’s got himself two boxes of condoms though; they aren’t easy to buy over the counter in Queensland.”

We agreed that I would arrive at her place first thing on Monday morning, with all of my books and notes, and a clear head, ready to do all the practice exams. The only other thing that was on our agenda for the two weeks was Janelle’s eighteenth birthday party on the Friday night, at the New Mayflower Chinese restaurant in Mona Vale. Most of us were going; all of our gang that was still in town, anyway.

Studying with Cathy

August, 1975

On Monday morning, I put my math textbooks and notes in my backpack, along with all the sample papers Mr King had provided us. I was starting to have second thoughts about going for the level 1 course; while it did give me a higher overall aggregate, a maximum of 175 marks as compared to 150 for the 2F course; maybe I was trying to be too ambitious? What if I actually got a worse overall combined mark? I told myself that wouldn’t happen, since I had to do the 2F paper as well, so the marks I would get from the 1st level paper would be additional marks. Anyway, a solid two weeks studying with the practice exams would stand me in good stead. I was sure doing the study with Cathy would also help; she had always got slightly better marks that I had in maths.

I timed my arrival to get there around 8:30; to give time for her parents to have already left for their respective jobs. At least David wasn’t there to add to the chaos; he was already up at the Gold Coast, no doubt sampling some large sized fresh breasts. When I arrived there Cathy was just finishing cleaning up the breakfast stuff; I help put away the things that were on the table, to give us a good work area.

“Okay, I’ve made a tentative schedule for us,” she said. Why wasn’t I surprised that she was that organized?

“Here’s what we can cover for maths this week,” she said, pointing to the list of topics on the page. “Revising textbook chapters and examples in the morning, then sample exam papers after lunch. Next week we can get into Physics, Chemistry, and some English stuff.”

She had everything planned out in great detail, what sections of each subject we would cover each day. Today would be conics, tomorrow integration, and Wednesday mechanics. I could see this was not going to be a vacation. I was beginning to envy David up in boob heaven.

By lunchtime we had already made good progress, revising the relevant parts of the textbook and our notes. We took a break, Cathy reheated some leftover beef stroganoff that was in the fridge, and we sat on the sofa to eat.

“It makes it so much easier going through everything when there’s someone else to discuss things with,” she said. “You don’t let me slack off, either.”

“True; and you don’t let me slack off, either,” I replied.

“What would you have done if you weren’t here, studying?” she asked.

“Depends, if Lori wasn’t on that vacation job, probably hung out with her,” I said. “Or practised some music, goofed around, things like that.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, Will, you and Lori, just how serious are you two?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure just how much to tell Cathy, not only because of my natural reticence to discuss relationships with others, but I wasn’t sure if she didn’t have an ulterior motive.

“Well, it varies,” I said. “I’m honestly not sure just how serious things are, sometimes she talks about us having a future together, and then she will change, and want nothing to do with me. Just a week or two ago, she chewed me out for being a bit sad that we wouldn’t be able to spend these two weeks together, because she would be working. She pretty much called me a male chauvinist pig, implying that I was unhappy about her trying to get a career of her own. The crazy thing, that was right after she said she enjoyed me sailing with her, because unlike most other guys, I don’t have a problem with a woman being in charge on the boat.”

“That was my fault, I guess,” she said, “at least in part; a month or so back I loaned her some books on feminism and the women’s movement, including Germaine Greer’s ‘The Female Eunuch’. I suggested it would be good for her to read; sorry, I didn’t know she might take things out on you.”

“I must have said things the wrong way,” I told her. “Sometimes Lori gets like that; I’ll make what I think is an innocent comment, and she’ll take it the wrong way, assume I’m suggesting something that was completely different. Then she gets all moody. I don’t know what causes it. I wish I knew what I say sometimes the wrong way, at least to avoid the arguments and fights.”

“Might that have been just before her period?” she asked. “I know this sounds silly, but I know just before mine, all the extra hormones that are released make me a bit emotional; it’s probably the same with her.”

“God, I don’t know, Cathy,” I said. “How am I meant to know when that would be? I can’t ask her ‘hey Lori, are you on the rag today?’, now can I?”

Cathy laughed. “If you said it like that, then it would serve you right if she ripped your balls off!” she said. “On the rag; where did you hear that from?”

“Oh, just one of the other guys,” I said, not wanting to dob Garry in.

“I’m sure if you asked nicely, and sensitively, she would tell you,” Cathy said. “I mean, mine will start in two weeks’ time; I’m right in the middle of my cycle. They got a little bit out of whack when I stopped taking the pill after January.”

“Why did you stop?” I asked.

“Well, there wasn’t much point taking it, was there?” she replied. “You had made it clear we weren’t getting back together, so why stick those chemicals in my body, for no real reason?”

“Yeah, makes sense,” I said.

“I really didn’t notice any difference when I was on them or not,” she said. “They’ve always been as regular as clockwork; twenty-eight days to the hour, almost; just the two and a half days of bleeding, no great drama. The only thing I have noticed now is right before I ovulate; I get as horny as all hell!”

“Maybe that’s nature’s way of ensuring continuation of the species, making you want sex right when you are at your most fertile,” I said. “Somehow, that seems to make sense.”

“About the only part of the whole sex part of life that does make sense,” she said. “Anyway, have you finished that?” She pointed to my empty plate.

“Yeah, it was bloody awful,” I said.

“So that’s why you cleaned up every last skerrick,” she replied, taking my plate. “Just as well my period isn’t this week, or I could give you a lesson about tampons. Maybe I could send you to the supermarket to get some for me, if I ran out.”

“You would have to tell me what ones you prefer,” I said. “Tampons, not pads?”

“God no! You think I would want to walk around with something like a slice of bread in my panties?” she replied. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to do that; or even help me put one in; that’s all a few weeks away. Anyway, back to work.”

We got into some of the sample exam questions, these ones on rectangular hyperbolas, calculating equations of tangents and chords at various points. After an hour of conic sections, I was ready for a break.

“Cathy, were you serious about giving me tampon lessons?” I asked. “What would be involved in those, inserting and removing?” She nodded. “Seriously?”

“Yes, why not,” she said. “If we were going steady, then I would ask you to help me with that. Don’t look at me like that, you’ve already seen me take one out, in that sea cave at Warriewood, remember?”

“How could I forget that time?” I replied. “We had the first big fight of our relationship; you wanted us to make love in that cave, and I said no. Maybe had I said yes, things might have turned out differently?”

“Yeah, well, if you had...” she started to say, before she turned her face away when she went red. “Oh well, no sense in thinking what may or may not have happened if we did things differently. Do you want something to drink? Coffee?”

She made coffee for us, and we had that with a slice of chocolate cake. I told myself I would have to make sure I exercised well each night, if this was going to be the standard of food Cathy provided for our study weeks.

We dove back into our conic sections; ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas, axes of symmetry, tangents, all of the stuff that we had spent several weeks on last year. Before we realized, it was five-thirty, and time for me to head home.

“That was a good day’s work, Will,” she said. “Same again tomorrow?”

“Sure, Cathy,” I said. “I’ll see you after breakfast.”

After dinner had settled, my father and I took our run; the first for over a week. Just because I was doing some intense mental work, there was no excuse for slacking off and getting unfit. Back home, I did some piano practice, wait to see if Lori would call, to tell me about her day at work. When she hadn’t called by 10pm, I assumed she was still pissed off at me, so I went to sleep.

The next morning I arrived around the same time; she was still cleaning things up from breakfast so I helped put things away, and stack the dishes in the sink.

“Did you mind helping me wash those up?” she asked. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

I didn’t mind doing the dishes; we had them done in no time. Then it was back to studying; today was integration. I was glad I was going through this with Cathy; it was probably the one part of the level 1 math syllabus that I never really came to grips with. It was probably one of the more conceptually complex parts of the course. At least Cathy seemed to understand the concepts; we worked through several examples, and she was able to explain things such that I understood what we were trying to do.

After ninety minutes of solid work, we were both mentally in need of a break.

“Is there still any of that chocolate cake left?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, you want some coffee, too?” Cathy said.

“That would be great; something to keep my brain going,” I said.

We went into the kitchen, and I help her, cutting some slices of cake while she put the water on for the coffee. I took the plate with the slices of cake and some paper napkins back to the room where we were studying. When the coffee was ready, Cathy came back with the two mugs, first putting hers down at one the table, then walking over towards me, holding my cup out. I placed my hands around the mug, to take it from her, but ended up placing my hands over hers.

She looked up at me, staring into my eyes. I could feel the warmth of the coffee, through the mug, through her soft hands. I looked at her eyes, her lips. The tip of her tongue slipped out, touching her lips, flicking across them, moistening them. With one hand, I took the mug from her, and set it on the table. She reached up to touch my cheek, softly, tenderly.

Still holding her hands, I pulled her closer to me. She let go of my hands, reached up to hold my shoulders and we moved closer together. Her lips were moist, parted, and ready; her eyes glistened. Our lips moved closer, inches apart. I moistened my lips with the tip of my tongue; then felt her warm, soft lips on mine. I parted my lips slightly as I felt the tip of her tongue pressing against them. Our tongues touched, pushed against each other; I felt her tongue pushing deeper into my mouth.

Her hand was behind my head, pushing my face against hers. With her other hand on my back, I felt her body pressing against mine, her small, soft breasts hard against my chest. I had a hand pressing between her shoulders; the other was just above her backside. Cathy ground her groin against me; I was sure she could feel the bulge of my rapidly hardening prick.

She pulled her face away, and stepped back from me, breaking our hug.

“Quick, up to my bedroom, now!” she commanded.

I followed her up the hall, as she pulled her shirt and bra off; the only thing stopping her from stripping off completely was the physical impossibility of removing one’s jeans while walking. Once in her bedroom, she pulled her jeans and panties off, pulled back the bedspread, and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Get your clothes off, quickly,” she said. “God, I need you; I want you touch, to lick, to rub me. We can’t have sex; can’t make love this week; I’m off the pill, and it’s not safe at all. But we can do everything else.”

I quickly removed my clothes, and we got into her bed.

“Fuck, I should never have stopped taking the pill, back in January,” she said. “I will have to wait until my next period is over before I can start again, that’s not until after the holidays. It will take another four weeks after that before I will be safe.”

“I can get some condoms, if you want,” I said.

“No, I don’t want us to have to use them,” she said. “Now shut the fuck up, and suck my tits!”

She was lying on the bed, her skin pale against the dark blue of the bed sheets. Her nipples were erect, hard, pointing right up from each breast. The darker skin around each nipple was wrinkled, and she had spread her legs apart. I knelt up, and moved my mouth towards one lovely nipple. I licked the darker skin first, moistening it. She shuddered as my tongue pushed against her nipple. As I put my mouth over her nipple and started sucking, she sighed softly. My hand brushed the skin of her stomach lightly, slowly drifting down towards her groin.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so impatient, so ungrateful,” she said. “It’s just that I’m so damn horny, I haven’t had anyone touch me for months and months ... not since last August, and I need you so much.”

“Hush, you don’t have to explain things,” I said, lifting my mouth briefly from her nipple. “There’s no need to apologise, just let me give you some pleasure.”

As my hand moved closer to her groin, she spread her legs further apart. Soon I was brushing the tuft of hair at the top of her cleft. She moaned as I pushed my fingers a little further down, brushing the top of her clitoral hood.

“Oh yes!” she moaned. “Rub my pussy for me, Will.”

My fingers pushed between her lips, feeling the warm wetness that was flowing. I could feel the hard button of her clit, and my fingers pushed lower, between her wet, smooth lips. She shuddered as I rubbed her juices around her hot pee hole, and then I felt the opening of her vagina. Curving a finger, I slipped it inside her. She moaned with pleasure.

“Oh, God, yes,” she cried out. “Fuck me with your fingers, Will!”

I took the cue and slid a second finger inside her, hearing the squelching sounds as they pumped in and out. I pressed my thumb to her clitoris as I fingered her vagina. She was starting to shake and thrust her hips up to meet my fingers, making it more difficult to keep my lips on her nipple, but I sucked harder, drawing more of her breast into my mouth.

I concentrated my efforts on her pussy, rubbing her clitoris with my thumb, and sucking her nipple. Soon, she was moaning loudly, telling me how close she was to coming, how she wanted my fingers fucking her ... when she actually came, she let out a loud, deep groan.

“Oh YES, ohhhh, fuck!” she cried out. “God, that was so fantastic!”

I pulled my fingers from her soaking vagina, and knelt up, stretching my back.

“Maybe there’s something else you might, like, too,” I suggested. “Probably something you haven’t had done to you for a while?”

I moved down between her legs, pushing them wider apart so I could get in between them.

“Are you going to...” she said. “You know just how much I love you doing that, licking me, sucking...”

I settled in with my face close to her pussy. I compared my memories of the pussies of other girls; how Jenny’s had those prominent inner lips and large clit, while Hannah’s lips were larger than Cathy’s. There was certainly greater variation in the different pussies that I had seen than between guy’s pricks. The shape and size of the lips, the size of the clit, how big the outer lips were. I wondered what other differences were related to the size and appearance; was the reason why Jenny would squirt when she had certain orgasms because her clit was as large and protruding as it was?

I put those comparisons out of my mind, and spread Cathy’s delicate labia with my fingers. I could see the darker colouring of the skin of her vaginal opening, her tiny clit tucked away between the folds of her inner lips, and the darker dot where her pee hole was. I pushed the tip of my tongue up between her lips, feeling them spreading apart as my tongue pressed between them. I could taste her warm juices, as the tip of my tongue pressed into her opening.

My tongue moved upwards, now pressing and rubbing around her clit. She moaned with pleasure as I pushed first one way, and then the other. I opened my mouth wider, and sucked on her labia, tasting her lovely juices. I could feel her hands on my head, her fingers in my hair.

I shifted my position slightly, and moved a hand up so I could finger her. I slid two fingers inside her, reaching up to press against that sensitive location that I had found with other women. I made sure not to stop licking on her clit; her moans told me that I was still giving her plenty of pleasure.

“I’m going to come soon,” she cried out, making me redouble my efforts with my fingers and tongue.

“Oh, God, ngggghhhh,” she groaned, her body shaking.

When she had finished, I withdrew my fingers, and knelt up, stretching my back. My fingers and hand were soaked, so I made a point of sucking her juices from each finger, making sure she could see.

“God, that’s still so fucking sexy when you do that,” she said, “sucking my juices from your hand like that. And you really know how to lick me to a great orgasm; I haven’t come like that for ... shit, a year.”

I flopped down on the bed next to her; not really wanting to think about the last time she had been brought to orgasm that way. I didn’t care whether it had been me, or whoever it was she met up in Queensland; either way, it was from a period I wanted to push from my mind.

“Now, if we were to have sex,” she said, “you would definitely get me pregnant. That wouldn’t be such a great idea; we are right in the middle of my cycle; I’m at my most fertile, bugger it.”

“Well, that certainly put a damper on things, on our plans for next year,” I said. “We can wait until you are back on the pill, that’s okay. I mean, we’ve gone this far waiting, what’s a couple of weeks going to do?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Now you lie there, on your back...”

She spread some of the juices from her pussy around my shaft and over my knob.

“He seems a little bit bigger than how I remember from last year,” she said as she wrapped her fingers around my shaft. “Don’t let him get too much bigger in the next month; he has to fit into me!”

I knew she was stroking my ego (as well as my prick), but she made me smile. I didn’t think I was any larger than average, but provided she liked the size, that was all that mattered. She stroked my shaft, her fingers pressing against the underside. She leant over to lick and suck my knob; scraping her teeth around the rim of my glans.