At eighteen years old, in the early seventies, my first job took me to the power station at Calder Hall in Cumberland. Probably better known these days as the scene of Britains worst nuclear accident, due to the fire there in 1957.
I decided to try to find some digs in the nearby small village of Seascale, as it was too far from my home for a daily commute.
In the way that word was spread in those days, I located digs in The Old Rectory right on the edge of town. It was owned by the improbably named Mrs Goodbody, who was a young widow in her mid to late thirties, trying to make ends meet after the untimely death of Mr Goodbody.
The house itself was imposing, with high ceilings and spacious rooms, as you would expect from a Georgian rectory, but it had somewhat primitive plumbing. It worked fine, but the protesting noises from under the old oak floor boards as the pipes expanded, was certainly noisy if not actually alarming.
Mrs Goodbody herself I found surprisingly attractive for someone of her age. Remember at eighteen, someone in their thirties could be twice your age if not actually your mother. Anyway she was eye catchingly petite, with an enticing bosom, and trim waist. Her face was round, framed by rectangular glasses and she allowed her long red hair to flow free.
Mrs G's room was at the top of the stairs, and although the door was often ajar there was nothing to be seen, as she had a large Chinese silk screen obscuring any view of the interior. This was a shame as I freely admit to wondering what I might be able to see were it not for that screen, particularly after she emerged from the bathroom and was dressing.
My room was next door, large and airy with a wooden adjoining door, which I was relieved to see, had been permanently fixed closed.
Right at the far end of the corridor was the huge bathroom that had probably once been a bedroom. It housed all the usual fixings including the biggest shower I had ever seen.
Showers were not common in private houses at that time, and those that existed, were usually a small cabinet affair. This was way ahead of its time, capacious and fitted with enough pipes and taps to do justice to an early submarine. There were jets from the sides and a huge overhead drench that produced a downpour of almost tropical magnitude.
I was encouraged to use the shower rather than the voluminous bath, as that consumed vast quantities of hot water.
"I don't mind you having a bath," she told me with her faint Cumbrian accent, "but please let me know first so I can put the boiler on. We don't want to run out o' hot."
Inevitably, our paths crossed from time to time as one or other of us made our way along the corridor, and the thought of what secrets that white towelling robe concealed, combined with the odd flash of thigh, set my young imagination soaring.
My bed time reading, as I recall, was a slim paperback called 'You Always Remember The First Time.' I so wished this was true as I was still very much a virgin. There was yet to be a first time.
The book described how a young Scandinavian girl (weren't they always?) gave her virginity to her boyfriend on the lounge floor of her mother's house.
Of course she had long blond hair and even longer athletic legs and pert little breasts. She and her boyfriend were snogging passionately on the settee in front of the TV, while her mother was out, for whatever reason, it really didn't matter to me.
The description of how the boyfriend managed to get his hand inside her blouse and feel the soft warm pliable flesh of her young breasts always got me going. But this night it was different. This night his hand ventured onto her knee and slid gently up the silky smooth skin of her inner thigh, until it met the elastic leg of her knickers.
She put up no resistance as his hand found its way under the elastic, and into the already moist divide between her legs. By this stage my erection was totally rigid.
The description of how he removed her knickers, gently laid her on the rug, and and was poised between her virgin thighs, only added to the excitement. Then, as he placed the tip of his cock at her entrance, and slowly and gently entered her for the first time, her gasp as she felt that first penetration, and their subsequent passion always set me off. I usually filled my hanky fairly soon afterwards.
I remember the end of the story, when her mother found her knickers under a settee cushion the next day. Her admonishment about how there was only one ending once a girl parted with her knickers, stayed with me as did the phrase on the cover of the book, "Old enough to know better, young enough not to care."
This description was highly erotic and, in the fashion of the day, I returned to its well thumbed pages time and time again. The written word was about as far as my exposure to erotica went.
One very memorable evening I was lying in my bed, having opened the book at the turned down page. I was just getting to the good bit, where his hand is sliding up her thigh to the edge of her knickers, when I heard the unmistakable protestations of the plumbing coming to life. Not a loo, but that magnificent contraption that passed for a shower.
I was a bit turned on by the book, and I let my mind wander into the bathroom. There were only two of us in the house. It had to be her. Her of the intriguing bosom. Her of whom I had seen occasional flashes of thigh as she skipped down the corridor, clad only in an ill fitting towelling robe. Her, who in my imagination, had a forest of red curls hiding the object of my lust from view. Mrs Goodbody! And if it was the shower running she was about to get naked, if she wasn't naked already!
What did those breasts look like unfettered? What did that magical space between her thighs look like? Feel like to touch? Would she be wet like the Scandinavian girl in my story, who was just about to be penetrated for the very first time. Was it sexy washing those lovely breasts? That space between her thighs?
Needless to say, I didn't get to the end of the story, in fact I only just got my hanky out in time to catch a powerful release before I fell asleep contented.
Friday came round, and I set off for home after work as usual. I don't think it was a memorable weekend in any way, but the following week was. I arrived at The Rectory after work and went upstairs to change. When I entered my room I noticed immediately that the bed had been freshly made with crisp clean sheets, well before the days of duvets.
That, however, was not all I noticed. "You Always Remember The First Time" was sitting on my bedside table and it had been moved. I had been stupid, of course she would change the sheets sometime! Why, oh why, had I left the book out? How embarrassing. Now Mrs G knew I was reading smut, as it was called back then.
We had supper as usual. Mrs G and I sat down to watch the old telly and a slightly risqué French film came on. I must have let my prurient interest show because she said.
"You'll go blind you know. Or grow hairs on the palms of your hands."
Referring to the two fabled results of excessive masturbation! She knew! She knew I'd been flogging, as we used to call masturbation in the days before you could say masturbation out loud. I blushed deeply embarrassed, but noted that she had a slight smirk on her face, a slight hint of a smile.
Worse was to come. When I got to my room, trying to resist the temptation to read about my blond Scandinavian heroine, I turned down the bed and noticed, there on the pillow, was my handkerchief, washed and ironed! I must have left it under my pillow, and Mrs G had removed it along with the evidence of my nocturnal fantasies, washed it and ironed it! Mortifying!
I vowed to lay off the fantasies but, as you can imagine, like almost all resolutions, it failed. It failed almost immediately because I heard Mrs G's footsteps heading down the corridor for the bathroom swiftly followed by the sounds of the pipes juddering their protestations as they warmed with the hot water on its way to drench the naked body of Mrs G.
Erection.
I tried to drag my thoughts away from what I imagined the naked wet Mrs G looked like, as I read one of the less erotic passages. OK so the erection remained but the urgent need to ejaculate gradually faded.
