I started as a gopher, sixteen years old with my entire life until that point spent within the, not too strict, confines of St. Barnabus' orphanage. It was Miss Fylde, who worked there as a drama and art teacher, that arranged the interview with the theatre manager. He told me years later that I got the job because of the expression on my face as he showed me around the place before the interview began. I was entranced by the magic, instantly addicted to the aura of the theatre.
This story begins at the end of the Easter term when Mrs. Weston, the orphanage secretary, drove me the thirty miles from the only place that I'd ever lived and moved me into an attic room at the hotel next door to the theatre. There were eight theatre staff living on the same floor with two bathrooms for us to share and three meals a day provided in the hotel canteen. Mr. Lawton, who was the stage manager at the Prince of Wales Theatre, explained that my wages would be docked the cost of my bed and board until I found my own lodgings, something that I couldn't do until I was eighteen and old enough to sign a tenancy agreement.
Each Friday afternoon I was given a little brown envelope that contained the remainder of my wages and a little white wage slip. More money even then than I knew what to do with, I saved the larger part of it because I didn't even know what I could spend it on. We received no pocket money at the orphanage and with it being twelve miles out over the moors from anyplace significant enough to warrant a shop, I'd only spent money twice or maybe three times in my life previously.
For the first year I seemed to be so tired at the end of each day as I learned to shift scenery, make props, deliver messages, fetch teas and drinks from the bar... that I would eat my dinner and retire to that tiny room, happy to read scripts from the huge cupboard outside the props room. In the orphanage there'd not been a real shortage of reading material, just a lack of anything even vaguely exciting. Plays about spies and murders and kings, vaudeville skits and dialogues - I thought that I'd landed in heaven.
I made a friend in my second year; Robert was the kitchen porter at the hotel, he lived in the attic over the other wing of the hotel where the hotel staff lived. He went home for his two days off each week and although I was five months older than him, he was the picture of cosmopolitan elegance next to me. It was he who showed me where to buy my first non-hand me down clothes and shoes. It was he who showed me the pie shop down at the bottom of Weald Street, whose wares were so filled to the brim with steak and kidney in a thick gravy that it was only possible to eat them, without covering yourself in their contents, by leaning forwards from the waist at an odd angle.
He showed me the parks where we could find ball games to join in on our afternoons off and the posh crescents lined with trees where the rich people lived.
I gradually lost my shyness, and the people who were teaching me realised that I was learning and that if they left me to get on with things they would get done. I was, I suppose, becoming an addition to the team rather than an extra task for its members. I learned all of the names of the thirty-six people employed either as full or part time staff and all of them seemed to know mine...
Gradually I became so immersed in the theatrical life that it was difficult for me to think of myself anywhere else. My second and third years passed in a blur of new experiences, I even took a four day holiday during my third winter. I thought that nothing could get better.
The adventure changed tack and pushed me in a new direction the day that Samantha-Jane, one of the young women from the ticket office walked into my room by accident as I was looking for the other one in a pair of socks. I was naked because I'd just had a bath and was about to get into my pyjamas when I realised that there was only one sock in the pile of clothes that I'd readied for the morning. I had my head under the metal bedstead as I heard the door swing open. I momentarily forgot that I was naked and stood to see who it was. There were a million questions coursing through my thoughts as I stared in bewilderment , a picture of not-understanding, then I realised that I wasn't the only one who was staring. That's when I remembered that I had no clothing on. Instantly I bent double trying to cover myself with one hand whilst reaching vainly towards the bed for something to hide behind.
"What are you doing in my room?"
My mouth only opened and shut, goldfish like - nothing like a reply came forth. She was about to speak again when she noticed the number on the still open door.
"Hold on... this isn't my room. Oops, sorry."
For some reason her apology made me straighten up and in confusion I reached towards the door as if to see her out. I took a step forward but she didn't turn away, once again her she was staring… down. I tried to think about what she might be looking so intently at when I remembered again that I was naked and became acutely aware of exactly what it was.
"Take your hand away, let me see it... how old are you? It's..." She looked back at my face, "Mickey isn't it?"
I found my voice, "Eighteen and yes that's my name... may I cover myself now?"
"Has anybody else here seen that," she waved her hand in the direction of my groin. When I shook my head her expression changed and she reached behind her back and pushed the door shut.
I couldn't think what she was doing as her hands remained out of sight behind her and it came as a complete surprise when her skirt fell to the floor and she started to lift her sweater over her head. Her voice was slightly muffled as she spoke again.
"Are you a virgin?"
I didn't answer because I didn't know what one was. In another second her sweater and top followed her skirt onto the carpeted floor and she was stepping out of the ring of her skirt, as she reached down for the laces on her ankle boots, she looked up at me. My face must have betrayed my confusion to her and she laughed.
"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"
Again I shook my head.
"Mmm... I've never had the opportunity to take someone's cherry before... yummy."
She was there naked in front of me, just a pair of pop socks and a smile.
"I'm going to teach you how to do it right young man; when we're done... you will be quite the town Don Juan."
I hadn't a clue over what she was talking about, but the sight of her there looking me up and down and rubbing her hands together was definitely the motivation behind the rush of blood to my groin. She noticed and clapped her hands together in glee.
"Ooh! So you like what you see then, do you?"
I couldn't answer; my throat was dryer than the Namib Desert, words and thoughts were rushing round in conflicting circles in my mind - I felt at the time that it was evidence of supreme effort when I nodded my head in response. I was eighteen and freshly fallen snow was never so virginal; my dick was taking control of all systems and between it and my brain ... well they hadn't really had time during the two minute power changeover to agree on any form of communication. So my penis was yelling orders in a language that my mind couldn't comprehend.
