A Look From The Past

Marly. It was at a party that my parents and I went to that I met her for the second time. There was a mix of all generations, though it was primarily for the older people. I went because I knew some of their children would be there, now themselves settled with children, and the word was it might be a larger than usual reunion of what once had been my “crowd”: university days were long behind but there were a few people I would find pleasure in meeting again. So we drank wine and ate unsavoury cheese and salmon constructions for want of anything better, devoured the quiche and baked potatoes when they first arrived, and stationed ourselves near the tables holding the wine bottles in case there was any danger of other people wanting too much of them. And so it went, and eventually the friends whose company I had been enjoying were gone, and I wished I could go too, but my mother, no drinker, was our transport.

From that point I felt like the bored children who were still left. Most of the yowlers had fallen asleep or been carted home, and the rest were obedient but bored. They had not the option of muting their senses on bad chardonnay and worse riesling.

There was an older girl slumped all alone in the centre of a big black leather sofa, and when I first saw her I wondered where her parents had got to, having let her get into that state, for by her hand on an occasional table was half a glass of wine. Then I revised my opinion; although slight, she was clearly sixteen or more: perhaps more, perhaps adult, as I began watching her slow questing eye-motions through the room and the garden. She bore herself like an adult, and was dressed in a more revealing way than a child would be permitted; and the impression of being slumped was just her size amid the vastness of the sofa.

I was about to look away and hunt out more food to buffer my stomach for the alcohol I proposed abusing it with, when she turned her gaze directly at me, and smiled broadly, though tentatively. I smiled a little back, puzzled at her, and looked politely away, so I didn’t see her reaction. I went in search of food and found little, and of wine none: it was definitely time to go home, and after I’d scoured the kitchen finding nothing I resolved to buttonhole my mother and demand that she stop her gab. Everyone left was in the capacious garden, and my route took me back through the lounge.

The girl or young woman was still there, and on seeing me produced an almost full bottle from the floor beside her and hefted it toward me in solidarity, with that winsome smile again. Well, she was quite pretty, way too young for me, but they can be fun to talk to at least, and wine at such a time was a great lubricator. I hadn’t had so much that I was about to embarrass myself. So I said hi and congratulated her on the forethought of stocking up, and she said something that gave me pause: “I saw you’d been drinking it too”.

“Well. Of the choice. The other one was ghastly.”

“You’d have to get drunk on this just to bear the other one”, she said. I laughed because I’d thought the same to myself. I wanted to pour myself a glass and move on, but she shifted so that she was no longer in the middle of the sofa. It was a token only, as I could easily have sat by her before had I wanted, but again it was an offer. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to get into a conversation this late, or collar transport immediately.

“Last one. I’m about to look for my parents and tell them it’s time to go”, I said, sitting down as if just to make it easier to pour, and as a compromise between intentions.

“Mm, mine are still there. I think they’re with yours”, she said with a gesture through the glass doors, to where indeed I could see my mother not too far away in nodding conversation with people I thought I might have seen before. But this girl seemed to be saying of course she knew who my parents were. Then she said, quite warmly, “How are you?”.

“I’m fine”, I said with a smile and a furrowed brow, now trying to work out how drunk she was. Not very, by most indicators, but she was looking full at me with an intensity that wasn’t right.

“You don’t remember me”, she stated.

I searched my mind for where I might have seen her: working at a pub, or in a shop? Was she someone new in the office, on a different floor? Baby sister of a friend of a friend? I couldn’t remember meeting anyone her age through my parents’ connexions for years. No hurt or disappointment in her voice, none that I could detect, but still. Of course I made the ritual shows that it was on the tip of my tongue, as one does, fooling no-one, but had to retreat into looking apologetic.

She looked at me with that same intensity before speaking, so I had the chance to take her in properly too. Thin, straight dark hair touching her shoulders; a small mouth, a delicate nose, grey eyes; a dusting of freckles over her breasts, and pale arms. She could have had a rag-doll childishness to her except that something in her demeanour was active and observing.

“No reason you should. It was years ago.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not very good with--”

“No, really. I was twelve.”

Now I could not work out how to react to this. When was twelve? “When was that?”, I said, stalling for time.

“Far too long ago”, she laughed, throwing her head back and letting me get a good long look at a long, perfect throat, stretching down into what I could see of her breasts. She looked at me with a delicious smile, sipped her wine, and finally said, “It was your birthday party, we only met once, and I was a twelve-year-old girl”.

“Oh, I’m afraid I probably didn’t notice you then”, I said, my teeth clutching my lower lip in apology.

“Oh you did!” she hastily corrected. “You did! Oh yes.”

“When was this?”

“You had a DJ.”

“A what?”

“A disc jockey. Playing records. I’m afraid I thought you had terrible taste in music, sorry if you still like them.”

Now I shook my head in amazement as I tried to work out how to break it to this appealing elf that she had the wrong person, that never in my craziest nightmare would I throw that sort of party. I took a quick gulp of air, then one of wine for courage, as all the time she was looking at me following my every doubt, as if tracing my lips with a pencil in her eye -- when I remembered.

“Not me. But when I was twenty-five I had a friend who had a birthday near mine, and he did that, and I shared the party. I hated it too. That was twelve years ago! You can’t...”

“Mm”, she nodded gravely. “Twelve then and twelve more is twenty-four. I’m an old woman.”

At this I burst out laughing, and this brought back her smile. “But what were you doing there? And how could you remember me now?”

“My mum and dad were going somewhere and didn’t want me alone in the house so told Graham to take me along to this party where there’d be other ‘kids’ to play with. Turned out they were eight or nine years old and were going to go to bed an hour after it started. So I found some books and just read. I thought that’s what I’d do all evening.”

“I’m like that at parties.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s how you found me.”

“I remember the party. I hated that stupid thumping music and wanted to get away from it. I can’t remember the house.”

“Upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”

“Coats in the bedroom, first on the left, toilet and bathroom beyond that. What was on the other side?”

Light entered a grove of memory, very briefly, but enough to tell me she was genuine and not deluded. “Begins with M”, I said. She smiled at that as if she never had before, so broad and warm. “Maureen, Mattie, Mary...”

She gave me a few moments more but I shook my head and she told me: “Marly”.

“Marly. Of course. I told you then it was an unusual name.”

“You did. I thought you were rude to say so but I’m used it these days.”

“Graham. You’re Graham White’s sister. How is he?”

“Well, married, two kids Andrew and Megan, seven and four. She’s my favourite niece. Car showroom.”

“Oh hell, Graham White, that takes me back. I remember you, I do. I saw you reading and said you were the brains of the family.”

“In our family that wasn’t important. I was always poor-old-Marly, never-make-anything. But you talked to me for so long and we read together, and I felt so special. That’s why I remember you.”

“Are you married or anything, or --? Sorry, I’m being personal.”

“Almost. Engaged to a bastard who was sleeping round and thought I was too. Gone now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. When I heard about this party I thought it might be an excuse to see some people I was happy with before I moved into his crowd. Then I worked out you’d be here.”

“You can’t seriously have --”

“I did! I mean, I’d forgotten about you for years. Don’t think I’ve been obsessed. But when I was growing up I did think of that man who was nice to me, and wished I could have a boyfriend who liked intelligence.”

“You were lovely. I mean, you were lovely even then. I remember thinking wow, if she’s this sweet now, and with those brains, she’s going to make someone really happy.”

“Hmmm, haven’t yet. Not even me.”

“Marly.”

“Edward. I was in love with you for a while.”

“Oh gosh”, I said, flattered and flustered. I so longed to reach out and touch her at that, the sadness mingling in her warmth, but I was a bit startled when she did just that.

“I so wished you were closer friends with Graham. I wanted you to come to our house and we’d arranged to meet and kiss passionately in the shadows behind the house.”

“You were always romantic. I think I can even remember some of the stories you were reading.”

“I can’t really, because you supplanted them all. I wanted you so much. Do you mind my saying this?”

For answer I put my hand around the back of her head and drew her face to me. Marly could have resisted, recoiled, said no; she did none of these. I kissed her. On the lips: long and full, already it seemed so natural, as if I had watched her grow up in the years between and still cared for that lovely child I once met. Then we parted and did not allude to it, but rearranged the way we sat and continued to talk, now catching up on lives in between.

To have once kissed such a creature was a gesture of acknowledgement, and I had no right to presume any further; but within a few minutes I had moved my arm from crooked on the sofa cushions above her to gently lying on the thin material on her shoulder, to making one slow caress down her cheek, to resting my hand again on her shoulder, this time with two or three fingers on the bare hot flesh where shoulder and neck and breast met, to feel my fingers rise with her breathing. Sometimes we looked ahead, more often we were looking into each other’s eyes. She crooked one leg under her other, letting her diaphanous black lace-edged dress fall over her knees, and I moved to a near reflection of this position so I could hide my interested genitals.

It was beautiful conversation, so easy and so full of grace on her part, that we really did seem to be old friends, and I was torn between longing to kiss her again and an unwillingness to darken that incipient friendship. There was still no movement from outside, no annoying parents to disturb our solitude. Her attitude brought me closer and seemed to dissolve the years between us, to say that as adults we were equal at last. Consenting adults: the image began to haunt me. This was happening as in a dream, and with that sense of suspended wrongness I found I was no longer content with resting a hand on her but had been rubbing it in slow rings over her upper chest. When I noticed I stopped; and she told me not to. I resumed, and at the lower point descended down her, onto the slope of her breast. Her speech was disrupted by this, and she put her hand up and over mine as it moved, dragging it slightly down.

I kissed the side of her neck. Her head arched to receive me. I lay my hand across her upper breast, and let my fingers stray below the cloth, tracing the edges of her bra.

“I got interested in sex a little after I met you”, she murmured. “Naturally I always thought of you.”

“When did you first do it?” I asked.

“Eighteen. Late starter. I’m so wet now.”

“S-sorry?”

“Wet. I’m wet. I want you.”

There was still no-one else in the room. I unfolded my legs, took her hand, and placed it on my bulge. “What do you want?” I whispered.

With a furtive look across the room to the garden she quickly unzipped me, fumbled to release me from my underwear, and had almost done so when a movement, a false alarm, froze her. I undid her bra and put my hand back where it had been, this time with the freedom to slip over her nipple. Marly was continuing to watch for people, and did my zip up again, but made up for it by undoing the top buttons so her hand could move in. I shifted into an awkward posture close to her, began kissing her face and pulling her nipples, and she slid a hand in and rubbed my penis. Another false alarm made her swear in vexation, she withdrew, and did up her bra. The angry way she looked at me I thought it was all over.

But then her kiss! She squirmed into me, our tongues swam like fish, she boiled over, and her limbs melted into mine. I had to take whatever I could of her. “Come on, let’s go for a walk”, I said, and she made no objection, sculling the last of her wine and grabbing a handbag. There was another outside door in the kitchen, and I wanted to see whether what lay beyond that was less crowded than the exits we knew.

It was perfect: a path with a thin neglected herb patch between the house and a high wall, quite impenetrable even in the moonlight. There were sounds but no lights from the back garden, and we moved as far away from those as we could without exposing ourselves to the main street. Here I grabbed her, or she grabbed me, and we kissed violently and voluptuously, then relaxed and kissed at greater leisure. I touched each eye with my lips, each cheekbone, then left a slick all around her lips. With one hand I undid her bra again and pulled one shoulder-strap of the dress down, but to reach her nipples with my mouth might have left us too exposed. I sucked her breast and sank my teeth in and her breath came thick and fast as she pressed herself towards me.

With one hand I gathered up her skirt, enough to reach her but little enough that dropping it would restore her decency, and the other hand I ran over her silky thigh. I manoeuvred my fingers into her wetness and explored her until she began whimpering audibly, catching her breath, and faltering in her tongue-kissing. She leant back with closed eyes and rested on the house wall as I pleasured her. Once I withdrew my hand and tasted her sweet juices, and another time I drew my wet fingers over her own mouth, painting her lips and face with that taste, letting her smell it, letting it infuse her skin. I put my finger back in and delved as deep as I could, slid up and down her labia as expertly as I could, tried to find her clitoris and I think I eventually did. Then Marly came, not very noisily, though her mouth was clamped over my shoulder and wetting my shirt when she did. I held her reverently as she lost tension and came back to me. We could see so little but we could feel our pulse.

“I used to think about being a lesbian just because I liked the taste of juices so much”, she told me with a laugh and a shrug.

“Did you ever try it?” I asked, keenly interested.

“No way”, she said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Do you prefer what I’m going to do to you?”

“Yes, but you’re not tonight. No little babies wriggling about in me, thank you.”

“Swallow them instead.”

Marly needed no more coaxing, this creature I was rapidly becoming absurdly fond of. She was squatting below me, undoing my trousers, and had me in her mouth before I could think how to persuade her. It was a wonderful sensation, and in the dark I am ashamed to say I began visualizing that twelve-year-old girl in the book-lined playroom casting aside her books and taking me. As I came close to coming I urgently tried to shift my mental image back to the adult, and as it took me only about thirty seconds before I did, it was a close-run thing.

When I detumesced she licked the last from me and stood up to kiss me. We did, a gentle and romantic kiss, and she ejected my semen back into my mouth. We shared it, swirled it around and mixed it with our tongues, and both swallowed. Then I did myself up and kissed her on top of the head.

“We’d better see if anyone’s looking for us”, one of us said -- I forget which; we were both thinking the same nervous thoughts. We could not stay here indefinitely. So we went back into the light of the kitchen and checked we were respectable. The lovebite on her breast showed scarletly if she let her dress hang too far down, but could be hidden. She did up her bra and brushed her hair into shape. Having checked there was no search party out for us, we stood nearby in the kitchen without touching and continued to talk. I told her I desperately needed to screw her properly. She laughed and said oh yes, oh yes, I’m not letting you get away now.

“Bathroom”, I said. She raised her eyebrows. “Somewhere where I can see you.”

We found it and hesitated once we’d shut ourselves in. There was a too present danger of discovery if we undressed, but I dearly wanted to see her nakedness in a clear light. I made her hold her skirt right up and I pulled her pants down and began licking her. But we started at every sound, and had to pause to make sure we could continue. It was not conducive to this sort of intimacy. I stood up and apologized, but she kissed me intensely and drank herself from me. I could stand it no more and pulled her dress right over her head, so that she was only in underwear, which she instantly discarded, and twirled around for my delectation.

Slim, pale, angular, lovely breasts, silken thighs to make me weep. Too much to take in all at once. I needed to explore her. Talking, sharing kisses, over all those undiscovered countries. But I needed relief and possession too, she fired me up so much.

There was a jar of vaseline on the medicine shelf, and on seeing it I didn’t hesitate for a second but turned her around and bent her double. She stood there with her hair hanging over her arms balletically touching the vivid magenta rug. I freed my penis and greased myself, but as I pushed into her she yelped and stood to face me. Overcome with confusion, I tried to apologize and wipe away her tears, but she just snapped “gentler!” and resumed her pose. This time it was easier. My penis is not very big so it was only a short time before I was fully inside her anus and thrusting sharply further in.

Curiously, I felt embarrassed at asking sweet Marly whether this was her first time like this, and stayed silent, apart from the grunting we were both doing too much of. Because I had come not long before, it was longer arriving this time, and we would have enjoyed it more if we had not both been so scared, but it was a physical relief and no more when I ejaculated inside her bottom: this unseemly lust had cheapened the earlier beautiful and noble lust under the moon-ringed clouds. So we cleaned up and once dressed went downstairs again, and went through the social motions of exchanging telephone, address, and e-mail, but I wondered just how much she would want me in a few days’ time.

Our parents did come in then, and the slow process of arranging to go home occupied them and prolonged their goodbyes. It was awkward for Marly and me, not really wanting to explain how we had suddenly become kissing friends, so we vanished into the kitchen a couple of times for quick snogging sessions.

She seemed excited, vitalized by it, charged with active sexual passion. Her tongue roved urgently in me, and she broke off to whimper "Make me come, make me come". With one eye to the door and both ears to the conversation beyond, I slipped my fingers down inside her again. I had no room to manoeuvre but she had been so close to coming from burning up in my arms, that a few touches along her vulva brought her closer and closer, shuddering into me.