For the avoidance of doubt any characters engaging in sexual activity are over 18. This is set in 1980, so no internet, no smartphones so a better chance of getting away with things. On the minus side bad luck being a woman known to be sexually active and not interested in a long-term relationship. Perhaps some things never change. I would be grateful for comments including on what category this falls into. My aim is not to humiliate my protagonist, but she may make mistakes which require her to improvise.
There is more backstory, but that will be for future chapters. This is a pre aids story so some risks are taken which would not be taken a few years afterwards.
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Rebecca pulled a face as she boarded the train back to Birmingham. She was worrying for the umpteenth time about her future. She was nineteen years old, bright, intelligent, and motivated. She also suspected that she had a high libido. Unfortunately, she was a woman living in Birmingham in 1980. It had been made quite clear to her that a woman who enjoyed herself was a slag unless she only enjoyed herself with one man with whom she was in a relationship. Even then you had to be careful. If you broke it off with him, then the details of what you had allowed him to do to you would be spread around the whole school.
In theory she should be on top of the world. She had just been accepted into one of the two most prestigious universities in the UK. She had applied to an all-girls college to do history and they had offered her a place. While technically it was conditional, she only needed to get two E grades next summer to be admitted. She would of course go for four As and the special level in history, but still it was a relief knowing that a bad set of questions could not ruin her brilliant career.
However, the system allowed other colleges at the university to trump this offer by offering a scholarship. In most cases this was only worth sixty ponds a year. Two other colleges had interviewed her and because she could not resist showing off she had done well enough to be awarded a scholarship. The two tutors had asked her to wait outside and then brought her in and told her the good news. They had even given her a couple of congratulatory glasses of sherry before directing her to the station. She grabbed a glass of wine at a winebar on the way to the station and thought about the implications.
Unfortunately, the scholarship was to a college which was 80% public school and seventy-five per cent male. It had only started accepting women three years ago. Even those women mostly came from Cheltenham Ladies College or similar institutions While she could now drop the Brummy accent at will, she knew that a few giveaways remained. For example, she had to avoid words ending in ging and grass would sometimes rhyme with ass rather than arse.
Anyway, the majority of her likely fellow undergraduates came from families who were well off and would give their children an allowance on top of meeting the shortfall in the maintenance grant. They would be used to eating out in restaurants and would know what wines to drink. She knew enough that Blue Nun was incurably naff, and that Mateus Rose made a better candle holder than a wine, but that was about it.
Crucially she lacked money. Her father had made it clear that he would not top up her maintenance grant and that she needed to earn the money for herself. He had suggested that her best bet was to earn it by walking round Balsall Heath at night in a short skirt and fishnet stockings offering to help motorists. He had repeatedly told her that he did not believe that she was his daughter and certainly she did not look like him. She did look like her mother and that did not help.
Fucking dad. When he had remarried he had taken his new wife's surname mainly in order to get dosh from Dawn's grandfather who was worried about the family name dying out but partly to spite Rebecca. Theresa Amanda Rebecca Adams was a bit of a mouthful but was still better than having the surname Travers at the end of the given names. As he had told her when she still lived with him and Dawn, Tart by name Tart by nature.
She reckoned that she needed to find at least £1,500 extra a year to even stand the remotest chance of fitting in at the posh college and that she would need to spend at least two hundred more to upgrade her wardrobe. She somehow felt that BHS knickers and polyester blouses would not be a good fashion choice. Even M&S merely got her a C in the fashion grade.
She started doing the calculations in her exercise book and tried to work out how she could earn the money. She could start working in pubs two or three evenings a week and take a Saturday job again. She had given her old one up when she had decided to apply to Oxford to concentrate on her studies. Still, she had now exhausted her savings and she doubted that she could clear £20 a week on top of simply living. Jobs were scarce as the recession had hit the West Midlands badly and she was not to most employers' tastes. Over educated and bolshy was the response of her last boss when she had indicated that she did not intend to go into the storeroom with him. She sighed. She may not be able to be so fussy in the future. What's the going rate here? Fifty pence an hour with a free grope of your tits thrown in. Time to head for the station.
The train was almost empty, and she had the end carriage to herself. It was an old-fashioned carriage with six individual compartments with four seats facing each other in each compartment and a corridor running alongside. There were blinds which could be drawn down to give privacy. She laughed to herself. She knew what she would think was happening if they were closed. There were not many of these carriages left and fewer every week as they got used for the football specials.
To amuse herself she gave thought to her father's suggestion. Of course, she could not go on in the game in Brum. Too much danger of being recognised or arrested and if she wanted to have a brilliant career a police record for prostitution or even her school mates knowing what a slag she was would be unlikely to be helpful.
She daydreamed about situations where the men she would deal with had as much fear of publicity as she did or where she would never have to fear meeting them again.
She was wearing her best white M&S blouse. She was wearing a knee length black skirt with stockings, not tights on. it had buttons up one side which could be undone. She had tried to dress the part of a confident young woman and it seemed to have worked with her interviewers. Unlike 90% of her contemporaries, she disliked the idea that for leisure clothing one wore jeans as a matter of course. It was too much like another uniform. She did not want to be like everyone else.
She pulled her blouse so that more of it was beneath her skirt and tightened the belt so as to emphasise her breasts. She also undid a couple of buttons so the view would be improved. She patted her blonde wig which she had put on for the interview. For some reason men found blondes sexier than brown haired girls and she liked to be thought attractive when it suited her. In this case she had half hoped that they would think she was a bimbo and pass on her. She hoped her tutors would not be too shocked next year when she turned up with her natural hair colour.
At Banbury a man aged around his mid thirties got on the train and opened the compartment door. "Is anyone sitting here, miss" he said with an American accent. She said no and invited him into the compartment.
He sat opposite her and introduced himself as Rick Pickering from New York. She decided to play with her fantasy and leant forward and replied that she was called Mandy. Amanda was one of her given names which she did not normally use after teasing at school. Too many semi-rhyming phrases and that bitch Joanna had nearly made one stick.
Rick was apparently on a business trip round Europe for the family firm and was next flying to Dublin before returning to the states to get married. She said that she was a student from London visiting friends in Wolverhampton. She put on her best Sue Lawley accent which he seemed to find delightful.
After five minutes chatting she took advantage of him making a joke to lie back in her seat as she pretended to laugh and crossed her legs so that her skirt rode up her thighs. She saw his eyes dart down and then a cunning look passed over his face. He asked if students in the UK needed to work at diners and restaurants to afford the fees. She decided against explaining the UK system to him and said yes, of course.
He asked what she did, and she pretended to blush.
He asked, "Go on, tell me what you do."
