Forbidden Lessons (14 page)

"Laura, I want you in a different way tonight."

She wasn’t sure at first what he meant. She had an idea but it wasn’t until he moved his hand to a lower place that she understood. The anxiety showed in her face.

"We’ll go really slowly. And only when you’re ready," he said.

She trusted him. His went down on her while his finger probed her gently yet firmly. The sensations somehow combined, and although it felt strange and even wrong, his mouth was bringing her near the edge.

He broke off suddenly. "Don’t stop," she said.

"I don’t want you to come yet. I want you to be absolutely begging for this."

He turned his attention to her breasts and stomach, his mouth making her moan and arch against him, longing for him to touch her where she needed it most, but he wouldn’t. Instead he slipped his hand back down to explore her further.

It didn’t really hurt but she wasn’t sure if she liked it. It made her feel sort of empty because she wanted him inside her, on the front of her. She felt him use two fingers and it was a little painful as he first pushed them into her. He moved his fingers gently inside her. He was stretching her slowly, making sure she would be able to accommodate him.
 

"Do you want me?" he asked.

She wanted him desperately, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted him in the way he did. She was so wet and ready for him, but not there. She felt him using her own wetness to lubricate her ready for him.

"I want to be as close to you as possible. I want to make every part of you mine."

It was his words that she couldn’t resist, his possessiveness. It made her want to yield to him.

"What do you want, Laura?"

"I want you." She could barely whisper.

He turned her over and got her to push her knees up underneath her. She was exposed to him from behind, he gripped her wrists as he leant over her so she had no defences. Then she felt him where his fingers had been and he pushed - slowly - persisting even though her body was resisting him.

"Like this? Do you want me here?"

She couldn’t answer him. It felt forbidden and she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to stop or not.
 
Part of her wanted to be able to give this to him, part of her wasn’t sure if he would stop if she asked him to.

"We can take it as slowly as you like," he told her.

Once again it was what he said that scared and thrilled her, and made her resistance slip just enough to let him take her. She felt her body start yielding to him. It did hurt and she couldn’t help crying out, and he paused.

"Are you ok? I don’t want to hurt you," he said. Letting go of her wrists he stroked her back and kissed down her spine, making her shiver with delight. His hands reached to fondle her breasts. He stayed there for some time.

Then gradually, infinitesimally slowly, he continued to enter her. It took longer than she had thought, but he was gentle, and once he was fully inside her she felt strange and not completely comfortable, but it wasn’t terrible.
 

His touches on the rest of her body were still driving her wild, but he wouldn’t touch her where she wanted him to. She tried to move his hand there but he refused, and when she tried to move her own hand there he pushed it away.

"Be patient. We’ll get there," he told her.

She was completely in his control. He started to pull back and push again into her, tiny movements. It felt like a dragging followed by more pressure and fullness. After a while he was moving further in and out, still gently but faster.

"I want you to feel me fully, every inch of me. I want you to understand how close I want to be to you, how much I ache for you when I see you every day and can’t have you."

Then he finally moved his hand between her legs, just where she wanted it, his fingers finding the exact spot she needed pressure. At the same time he started going faster and harder, but she was distracted from it hurting by his touch elsewhere.

Then as his finger slid over her clit her body started to lose control. It was a deeper, more raw sensation that she had ever experienced with him before. It was darker and she felt it more in her stomach. She also realised she was crying.

She didn’t remember much after that. There was a memory of him finally moving from her, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her, but then she must have fallen asleep.

The next day was a bright jewel in the middle of the long, darkening season. They tried to see as many sights as they could as though they had to cram months of dates into a single day.

This was living in the moment. This was not thinking about the future, or the next week, or even the next day.

Being out in public with him was wonderful. He put his arm around her, they were a couple, in the crowds of anonymous people they didn't have to hide. She felt pride at being with him, several time she saw other girls look at him admiringly. 

Laura had a couple of anxious moments when she imagined she saw someone she knew and panicked. But it was just paranoia, they were safe. Most of the time she was able to relax.

"If that really was Pat Ayers coming out of a pub in Soho she'd have more explaining to do than us," Mr Rydell said.

No one seemed to notice their age gap. Laura knew she could look older than her age, she had managed to get into 18 certificate films at the cinema even a couple of years ago. She had tried to make herself look older, getting a new jacket during half term in a more grown up style. She was happy to see several girls in London wearing similar, some of them in their early twenties at least.

Yet there was still the thrill of the forbidden. The times when he would catch her eye and she knew they shared this dangerous secret.

"Sometimes I wonder if we should have waited until you leave school," he said as she had lain in his arms earlier that morning.

"Am I too young for you?"

He silenced her with a kiss, and with his body he again showed her just how perfect she was for him. "You are perfect for me. We fit so well."

Laura felt like she could never get enough of him. Even when he was demanding it was never too much.

But she was worried. Worried that he would get bored of her, or change his mind and look for someone older with more experience. She had nothing to compare anything to, as he was her first lover and first real boyfriend.
 

She tried to explain this to him, how she was anxious she couldn’t meet his needs as much as she wanted him.

"What we did last night, that’s not something I need often. Never, if you don’t want it. I just needed it one time from you," he told her.

They saw the Crown Jewels and the famous waxworks, then had lunch in Soho before going to the British Museum. At one point they passed a jewellers and he went inside. Coming out he gave her a box.

"This is for you. It’s not the Cullinan diamond but you have to have some souvenir."

It was a sparkling stone on a fine gold chain, like a raindrop. Laura loved it and put it on immediately. "I can wear it under my uniform," she said. Jewellery was forbidden at Francis Hall except for discreet Christian crosses worn below clothing.

She was gladdest of all that they had gone to the British Museum. Something about it moved her, it felt hallowed.
 

There wasn’t enough time to see everything so they picked the most famous artefacts. Laura was imprinting memories: if she ever saw the Elgin Marbles or the Rosetta Stone again she would always remember him.

She liked the Greek and Roman statues best with their smoothly perfect, lifelike marble. Now she had known his body she could look at them and imagine how their muscles would feel beneath her hands. The sculpture she had been making in Art class had transformed after she first slept with him and properly understood how a male torso should feel.

"Charlotte’s got us working insanely hard at Latin but I can’t make out any of these inscriptions," she said.

He had done Latin A-level and couldn’t manage much more than her. "It was a while ago," he said in his defence.
 

"Last year I couldn’t imagine in a million years wanting to do Latin in the Sixth Form, but recently I’ve been wondering." She had to pick three subjects to focus on next year. Two would definitely be English and History and she had thought of French for the third, but now the idea of doing Latin had come to her.
 

Thinking about it reminded her of what a long road she had ahead of her still to get to university. Once she was there she would be more his equal, they wouldn’t have to hide. But it was a very long way off.

"I would encourage you to do German but I don’t suspect I’ll be there next year," he said.

She was horrified. "Why not?"

"Because of you. Because of us. It’s playing with fire, someone will find out eventually. And I’m not convinced I can trust myself to stop taking risks. I don’t want to leave you but for your sake I think it will be safer if I’m not right there."

"You don’t want us to see each other anymore? Ever?"

"God no!" he took her hands as they sat on a bench in the Museum. "No as in I definitely do want to see you, all the time in fact. But for the next couple of years it’s going to be hard. At least until we can tell your parents about us."

Her initial shock was replaced by a momentary thrill that he wanted to meet her parents. And then the stomach churning reality of how they would react. More in sorrow than anger, she thought. But they would still be furious with him and desperately worried about her.

She wondered if there ever would be a time when she could tell her parents exactly when they had met and when it started. Certainly not for many years. She started imagining the official story she would have to create for them, how she had "bumped into" an old school teacher at university and they had struck up a friendship. He would be well into his thirties then, they might still freak out.

"I was trying to think how I might break it to them. But it can’t be now, they wouldn’t understand."

"Nor would I in their shoes. If I was your father I would be getting a shotgun."

* * *

Knowing it would be their last night together for a while made them both want to draw it out as long as possible.
 

He had never made love to her with such tenderness. He moved in and out of her more slowly than usual, staring into her eyes in the semi-darkness.

Streetlights seeped past the edges of the curtain, illuminating the walls. It was impossible to find true darkness in the city.

Afterwards they lay together not wanting to sleep. He ran his finger over her lips, down her throat, over her breasts. "I am learning, studying the shape of your lovely breasts," he said.

"Don’t you know them by now?"

"It’s Goethe," he told her. "Probably not a text we’ll be doing in class."

They had talked in tentative terms about the future, or at least as far as the Christmas holidays. There was one more exeat that term which she could probably spend with him. He also thought they should stop seeing one another during the school week to lower the risk.

"I need to have more self-control when we go back. Otherwise we will get caught."

Probably by Mr Lanaway, Laura thought. It was only a matter of time before he appeared in the art room and the whole game would be up.
 

Except it wasn’t a game. It was the most serious thing she had ever done. It was a choice.

The thought of seeing him nearly every day at school and not being able to talk with him and touch him was agony.

"We’ll have to find other distractions. Seeing you in my classroom is not going to be easy."

"I’ll miss you if we can’t even speak."

"I’ll miss you even more but it will be worth the wait. It’s only a few weeks to exeat, then the holidays. Imagine just how much I am going to want you after having to wait," he said.

Given how much they craved one another already she could barely imagine it getting any more intense.

PART III

Flying

quare, dum licet, inter nos laetemur amantes:

non satis est ullo tempore longus amor

Let's enjoy being lovers while we can:

Love is never long enough

Sextus Propertius

Charlotte was bursting to tell them her news: she had managed to sneak out during half term and spend time with Julian. Even more, she had lost her virginity to him. In his car, on the hillside at night, but she was still thrilled about it.

"Three out of four of us now. We’ll have to put a harlot warning sign on the dorm door," Susie said.

Julian had even asked Charlotte to stay after Christmas. "Apparently his parents are cool with girlfriends visiting, though we’ll have to have separate rooms," she said.

Laura felt envious. It wouldn’t be that easy for Mr Rydell and her to stay with one another openly for ages, years even. "How will you get your father to let you go?" she asked.

"I was going to use one of you guys as an excuse. Julian’s older brother can pretend to be your dad if my dad rings. His voice is really deep."

"Fine with me," Susie said. "I’ll even forge you a letter from my parents if you like, confirming your stay. Don’t forget to give me your postal address."
 

Susie was an adept forger of handwriting though it was of limited use in a boarding school. In a day school you could bring in fake parental notes nearly every day to get out of PE and other disliked activities. At Francis Hall such notes came from Matron or Grace Grant, who would rapidly find out in the staffroom if their authority was being forged.

Margery felt even more lost with Charlotte now joining the ranks of the fallen. She had had a very quiet half term and mainly spent the time doing homework.
 

"It’s my birthday next weekend," Susie announced. "Let’s have a midnight feast."

"Just us or the rest of the House?"

"God it would be boring with just the four of us, I was thinking of something a bit less Enid Blyton and ginger beer after lights out. No, we’ll get some of the Dunks boys together and kick our heels up. Booze of course, I plan to celebrate in style."