Emily
I met her when I was 14 and she was 15 on a school trip to France to see the chateaux of the Loire valley. I went to an all boys grammar school but school trips were shared with the all girl catholic school in the same town.
They used share them with the non domination girls school but our teachers decided that although it was important for our personal development for us to occasional meet members of the opposite sex it was probably safer under the beady eyes of catholic nuns.
One afternoon my friend Nick told me he had a plan and I was to follow him when he made his move. Nick had a crush on a girl called Fran but needed my help because she was always hanging around with her best friend Emily. During a tour of a chateau the 4 of us sneaked off the back and went and sat by a fountain glittering in the sunshine set in the beautiful gardens that led up to the chateau.
Emily wore a white linen dress that you could just about see through if she stood in front of the sun. Something she seemed to do a lot. She had short spiky blond hair, a big smile and an infectious giggle.
I was memorized. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her
The other 3 were all a year older than me and talked about things that sounded very grown up like smoking and drinking and drugs and parties and boyfriends and girlfriends.
But I was too spell bound to say anything. I was stuck dumb.
Our little escapade ended after an hour or so when we saw an angry nun walking towards us along a gravel and perfectly manicured hedge edged path.
On the way back to England Nick told me Emily really liked me which I found hard to understand because I only said about 3 things to her.
On the cross channel ferry she came over to me and started kissing me. We didn’t stop until we got to Dover. A steward came over and told that if we didn’t stop we would end up going back to France which seemed fine to me. She was only the third girl I had ever kissed.
I used to visit her in the big rambling farm house were she lived out in the country with her hippy mother and economist father.
Emily and I used to feed the few goats and ducks they kept. She had names for all of them.
We went for long walks in the rolling Wiltshire countryside where she picked flowers and told me made up stories about the goats and ducks.
She said when she grew up she wanted be an artist.
We used to find fields of long grass to sit in and kiss each other. We kissed a lot. We drunk cheap cider and kissed in the long grass.
When I came to stay her mother used to set up a bed for in me in their huge converted barn living room, kept warm by a raging fire.
Emily used to sneak down in the night and we engaged in, what my sex education teacher romantically described as, mutual masturbation, as firelight flicked across our young bodies.
We went out for about 18 months until her father got a job in the US.
Just before she left we lost our virginity together. It was in the spare room of a friend’s parent’s house in the new forest. He was having a party. We did it to the muffled sound of music and laughter below.
I hurt her. I made her bleed. I made her cry.
Afterwards she sat out of the window on the sill, smoking a cigarette watching the moon set over the trees, tears silently rolling down her cheek.
I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to make it better. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. So I just lay there and watched her moonlit silhouette.
We didn’t have sex again.
On the day she left I saved up and bought her a thin silver chain necklace - it made her cry. I seemed to do that a lot – make her cry… or laugh – sometimes both together.
She stayed at my house the night before she left. I watched her walk away from my front door. I wanted to cry. I wanted to call out. But I didn’t.
I met her again 4 years later at a party in London. We ended up going back to her place where she painted my face with a hundred small paw prints as if a tiny cat had walked all over my head.
“What shall I say happened to me?” I asked.
“Say it happened as you dreamt about it.”
We had sex for the second time. She was no longer the 16 year old virgin but a 20 year old rampant sex bomb woman.
I went to see her at her parent’s new place in South Wales for a long weekend over Guy Fawkes’ night. We sat up the hill slightly away from the bonfire, drinking mulled wine, talking and watching the fireworks crisscross the star studded night sky.
We got stoned and listened to Bob Dylan. She showed a piece of wood she found.
“Wow – it looks like a dragon’s head” I said
“It looks like a lot of things. It is my inspiration.”
She told me about the roller coaster she had been on over the last 4 years. She had come back from the states after a year, done too much acid to remain sane, dropped out of art school because of a mental break down, lived in a squat, gone out with a guitarist, had a phantom pregnancy and then broke up with him when he got run out of town after being accused of raping someone else.
“Shit!” I said.
“He was such a cunt he probably did but we were all doing so much acid - who knows what happened in reality.”
I saw her sporadically over the next couple of years; occasional meeting up after one of us had phoned the other. She moved to Bristol to give art college another go and lived with some other art students who talked about the genius of some 70s artist who filmed himself crapping on a coffee table. I thought it sounded un-hygienic
It was a struggle getting into her bed - scrambling over half painted canvases, piles of clothes and things she had found. But it was always worth it.
One night as we lay together in the dark’s warm embrace she said
“I never stopped loving you.”
Nick never even got a snog off Fran.
They used share them with the non domination girls school but our teachers decided that although it was important for our personal development for us to occasional meet members of the opposite sex it was probably safer under the beady eyes of catholic nuns.
One afternoon my friend Nick told me he had a plan and I was to follow him when he made his move. Nick had a crush on a girl called Fran but needed my help because she was always hanging around with her best friend Emily. During a tour of a chateau the 4 of us sneaked off the back and went and sat by a fountain glittering in the sunshine set in the beautiful gardens that led up to the chateau.
Emily wore a white linen dress that you could just about see through if she stood in front of the sun. Something she seemed to do a lot. She had short spiky blond hair, a big smile and an infectious giggle.
I was memorized. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her
The other 3 were all a year older than me and talked about things that sounded very grown up like smoking and drinking and drugs and parties and boyfriends and girlfriends.
But I was too spell bound to say anything. I was stuck dumb.
Our little escapade ended after an hour or so when we saw an angry nun walking towards us along a gravel and perfectly manicured hedge edged path.
On the way back to England Nick told me Emily really liked me which I found hard to understand because I only said about 3 things to her.
On the cross channel ferry she came over to me and started kissing me. We didn’t stop until we got to Dover. A steward came over and told that if we didn’t stop we would end up going back to France which seemed fine to me. She was only the third girl I had ever kissed.
I used to visit her in the big rambling farm house were she lived out in the country with her hippy mother and economist father.
Emily and I used to feed the few goats and ducks they kept. She had names for all of them.
We went for long walks in the rolling Wiltshire countryside where she picked flowers and told me made up stories about the goats and ducks.
She said when she grew up she wanted be an artist.
We used to find fields of long grass to sit in and kiss each other. We kissed a lot. We drunk cheap cider and kissed in the long grass.
When I came to stay her mother used to set up a bed for in me in their huge converted barn living room, kept warm by a raging fire.
Emily used to sneak down in the night and we engaged in, what my sex education teacher romantically described as, mutual masturbation, as firelight flicked across our young bodies.
We went out for about 18 months until her father got a job in the US.
Just before she left we lost our virginity together. It was in the spare room of a friend’s parent’s house in the new forest. He was having a party. We did it to the muffled sound of music and laughter below.
I hurt her. I made her bleed. I made her cry.
Afterwards she sat out of the window on the sill, smoking a cigarette watching the moon set over the trees, tears silently rolling down her cheek.
I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to make it better. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. So I just lay there and watched her moonlit silhouette.
We didn’t have sex again.
On the day she left I saved up and bought her a thin silver chain necklace - it made her cry. I seemed to do that a lot – make her cry… or laugh – sometimes both together.
She stayed at my house the night before she left. I watched her walk away from my front door. I wanted to cry. I wanted to call out. But I didn’t.
I met her again 4 years later at a party in London. We ended up going back to her place where she painted my face with a hundred small paw prints as if a tiny cat had walked all over my head.
“What shall I say happened to me?” I asked.
“Say it happened as you dreamt about it.”
We had sex for the second time. She was no longer the 16 year old virgin but a 20 year old rampant sex bomb woman.
I went to see her at her parent’s new place in South Wales for a long weekend over Guy Fawkes’ night. We sat up the hill slightly away from the bonfire, drinking mulled wine, talking and watching the fireworks crisscross the star studded night sky.
We got stoned and listened to Bob Dylan. She showed a piece of wood she found.
“Wow – it looks like a dragon’s head” I said
“It looks like a lot of things. It is my inspiration.”
She told me about the roller coaster she had been on over the last 4 years. She had come back from the states after a year, done too much acid to remain sane, dropped out of art school because of a mental break down, lived in a squat, gone out with a guitarist, had a phantom pregnancy and then broke up with him when he got run out of town after being accused of raping someone else.
“Shit!” I said.
“He was such a cunt he probably did but we were all doing so much acid - who knows what happened in reality.”
I saw her sporadically over the next couple of years; occasional meeting up after one of us had phoned the other. She moved to Bristol to give art college another go and lived with some other art students who talked about the genius of some 70s artist who filmed himself crapping on a coffee table. I thought it sounded un-hygienic
It was a struggle getting into her bed - scrambling over half painted canvases, piles of clothes and things she had found. But it was always worth it.
One night as we lay together in the dark’s warm embrace she said
“I never stopped loving you.”
Nick never even got a snog off Fran.
posted by h at
2:33 am
4 Comments:
What a beautifully written post.
That made me feel better for some reason. Thank you...
By
Léonie, at 11:31 am
heh heh heh, love the punch line, sounds like Emily needs you to look after her
By
bloggin the Question, at 1:41 pm
That's a lovely story, you had me sweetly spellbound.
By
zura, at 7:01 pm
happened upon your blog. this is a gorgeous post.
By
3rd daughter, at 6:22 am
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