Only so many times you can sample another of widow Woodmansey's home-made tarts and agree that they, too, are "the marvel of the age." And if I have to join the vicar in another chorus of "God Save the King," because there's a rumor that he's ill, I'll probably ... well, I don't know what I'll do.
I'm Rosie, I'm eighteen and I'm bored. And you would be too, if you were me. Ten miles in that direction, the town is full of life and people. Ten miles in the other direction, the railways can take you any place. And where am I? Ten miles from anywhere I might want to be, in a village that probably hasn't altered since the days of Mad King George, teaching at the local school because it was better than working on my father's farm, but knowing that everything I say to the children just floats in one ear and straight out the other.
And how do I know this? Because I was the same. Which means "teaching" is less a matter of telling them all I learned, and more a case of keeping them quiet so no-one comes over to find out what the noise is. They learned arithmetic this week, and that probably tells you all you need to hear. One week and they know all that I can teach them.
"Hey Rosie! Whatchadoin'?"
"Taming tigers. What does it look like?"
"Looks like you're not doin' nuthin'."
"Looks like you should be minding your own beeswax."
That's Lawrence. He's okay. I used to go round to his house to play with his sister before she moved away, and we were schooled together too. I walked over to where he was sitting, chewing grass in the shadow of an old hay cart.
"No really, whatchadoin'?"
"There's not much to do, is there?" I knew he hated the fete as much as I did, because we have much the same conversation at the same time every year. When we were small, we hated it because it devoured an entire Saturday, what with helping our mothers getting ready for the thing, or dutifully walking around and around, admiring the exact same things as we'd admired last year (and the year before and the year before...); and the only excitement there ever was came the year that Jones's goat broke out of his enclosure and chased the vicar back to the church. And even that was only exciting because it was the first time that any of us had seen the goat abroad by daylight. He usually only broke out at night.
"Do you remember the time..." Lawrence started, and I groaned. Because that was the other thing that happened every year. He remembered Jones's goat, and the story grew wilder with every annual retelling. Last year, he even claimed that the goat had caught the vicar, and bucked him from here to Timbuktu.
"Do you remember the time I smacked you round the head for cheeking me?" I interrupted, and when - as I knew he would - he answered "no, cos you wouldn't dare," I smacked him round the head. Which got his mind off the goat right away, and let's be honest. Wrestling boys is a lot more fun than helping my mother pack her pies and cakes up, and listen to her complaining about how many remained unsold. As if she didn't already know she'd made enough to feed the Kaiser's army. As usual.
I always lost that argument. But this was one I could win. Not only is Lawrence skinnier than me, he's also more ticklish than anyone I've ever known. You have to use it sparingly, though. Start too soon and he's reduced to helpless blubber before you've even got your heart rate up. Start too late, and he's already too tired to really pitch a fit.
And then, ducking out from beneath my first lunge; "hey, do you want some cider?"
"You ain't got no cider," I said, and I grabbed his forearm between two fists, twisting the flesh in opposing directions, just to hear him scream.
"I do too. Stop that." He pulled his arm away, surprising me that he'd finally gathered some strength. "I saw old Michaels stacking it over there."
He pointed to where an old sheet of canvas shrouded something from view by the hay cart.
"How do you know it's cider?"
"Cos I've been following him, ain't I?" Farmer Michaels owned the orchard at the far end of the village, and every time the fete rolled around, he'd be out selling the cider he brewed from his windfalls. "Every time he finishes a flagon, he brings it back here and stacks the empties over there." He pointed to a pile of empty earthenware pots. "Then he goes to the other pile, picks up a new one, and takes it back to his stall."
I looked around. "I suppose we could."
"Should we?" Now that I'd agreed, of course he got scared, but I didn't answer. Just grabbed him by the arm and pulled him, running, over to the canvas. Picked up one corner, reached in and pulled out a flagon. "Help me with it. It's too heavy."
Still hesitant, he joined me. "Where should we go?"
I pointed to the haycart. "Under there. If we're quiet, and pull that cloth down a bit, no-one'll see us." We dragged the flagon over to the cart, and Lawrence pulled out his pen knife to lever off the lid.
"What we gonna drink it with?"
"Hang on." I ducked out behind the cart and ran back over to the barn. Just as I thought I would, I found a few old cans collecting brackish water by the door. I picked up the smallest pair, ran back to the cart. As carefully as we could, we tilted the flagon and filled the two, then I scrubbed them out with my fingers, tipping the mess out onto the grass, and then we refilled them.
"Cheers."
"Cheers," I replied and raised the can to my lips.
The stuff was strong. Stronger than strong. And so pulpy it was hard to remember it was a drink. But I downed as much as I could in one draught, then laughed watching Lawrence struggle even to sip.
"I don't think I like it," he said carefully.
"Nobody does the first time they taste it," I answered, vaguely repeating something another girl had told me, about the first time she tried her dad's beer. "It takes a few tries."
"Won't we get drunk?"
"Naah. That takes a few tries as well." I was on less solid ground there, of that I was sure. But Lawrence seemed convinced, and his faith in my knowledge made me feel better, too. After all, I was the village school teacher.
It was warm beneath the hay cart, and Lawrence didn't help when he rolled himself against me. I pushed him away the first few times, but he did it so often that it was easier just to leave him be. The same when he asked if he could kiss me. The first couple of times, I said no. But he kept on asking, and I was feeling so... I don't know. Not sleepy but lazy. Like nothing in the world really mattered, so anything that happened wouldn't really count. So in the end I said yes, and he pecked me on the cheeks.
"That's not how you kiss," I murmured. "This is how you kiss." I leaned in and planted one smack on his lips. It was quick. No less of a peck than the one he'd delivered. But at least it was in the right place.
He pecked back. I pecked forward. And then, because I'd decided it felt rather nice, I pecked again and this time, I held it for a moment, until he broke away, exaggeratedly gasping, accusing me of trying to suffocate him.
"That's cos you had your eyes open," I told him. "Proper kisses, you're meant to close them. Else you suffocate."
"How do you know my eyes were open unless your's were too?" he fired back. "And how come you didn't suffocate?" He thought he had me, but somehow, I found the perfect response.
"Cos my eyes were closed, but you were the one who suffocated. So your eyes must have been open."
He was silent. Then, screwing his eyes up as tight as he could, he leaned in and kissed me again. And this time, neither of us broke away, at least until we both had to take a breath. "Next time," he said thoughtfully, "I'm going to breathe through my nose."
And he did.
Occasionally we'd break for a deeper breath, occasionally for another mouthful of cider. Which, he admitted, did start tasting better, the more of it you drank. But most of all we kissed and, as we did so, our hands began moving. Across his back, across my breasts. A voice at the back of my mind was asking whether I should really be allowing him to touch me there, but the cider stilled it, and besides, they wouldn't be there... they'd be hidden away somewhere, like your brains are, or your liver... if they weren't meant to be touched. Or - ouch. Squeezed. "Not so hard," I hissed, and he went back to gentle strokes.
"They're really big," he said.
"Do you want to see them?"
He nodded.
"Then you have to show me something as well."
"What?"
"Remember last summer when we were out riding, and your horse..."
He turned scarlet. "He couldn't help it. It's nature."
"I know." And I pointed to the tent that his shorts had become. "And so's that." Then I kissed him again before he could respond; and, while his eyes were closed and his attention was elsewhere, somehow managed to unbutton my dress and peel it down just enough.
"Okay, you can look now."
Big bosoms run in my family. More than they do in Lawrence's anyway. When I was younger, I seriously thought there was something wrong with his sisters, all of whom were older than me, and all of whom were smaller. I even asked my mum about it, and she assured me that all girls are different. "And so are all men," my grandmother cackled from the corner, only for my mum to hush her and leave me wondering ever since then what she meant.
Or maybe not wondering. You hear things from your other friends. You see things when you're out. Couples courting. Or a bunch of guys together, thinking nobody's watching them, playing a game whose rules seem kind of vague, but which involves sitting in a circle and....
Lawrence was still staring. I watched patiently. "It's okay, they don't bite."
He reached out a finger, gingerly touched me. Watched the tip sink into the warm, soft flesh, which sprang back as he removed it. His palm was next, cradling one, and a finger exploring the nipple. All of which I watched with a combination of quiet forbearance and mounting... what? Excitement?
I don't know. But suddenly it felt imperative that he uphold his side of the bargain.
"Your turn."
He pretended not to hear me. Either that, or he was still staring at my tits. So I reached for his belt and had it halfway undone before he sprang back, a look of horror on his face. "It's okay, I'll do it." Then rolled onto his side, his back towards me, and fumbled for a few moments.
"Alright, you can look."
"I can't see anything."
"You have to come here and look."
"No, you have to roll over."
"No."
"Right then." Remember I told you about the tickle? How you have to wait for the exact right moment? This was it. I lunged, he rolled, I dig in, he squirmed. I slapped a hand across his mouth to stifle his yells, he tried to bite me and started kicking the cart. Then I stopped and he suddenly threw himself at me, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," before realizing that I had muffled his face in my cleavage. At which point, he started to laugh, and when he rolled back... there it was.
It.
And now I was certain what grandma had been talking about.
I made fists of my hands, placed one atop the other; then pulled the bottom one out, and placed that atop the second. And even that didn't quite measure up.
I opened the fist, fingers to my thumb. Compared the hole I made with the thickness of his prick.
No. And if it wouldn't fit there, how on earth did it fit any place else?
Now it was Lawrence's turn to watch patiently, and his turn to assure me that it was safe to touch. So I touched and it quivered, and then I squeezed and it tensed, and I was seriously doing my damnedest not to squeak every time it gave another shudder. Then we kissed some more and I was holding him now, and his hands were caressing my breasts... until he broke and drank down what was left in his tin; refilled it and took another long sip.
"Can I kiss them?" he asked, and I nodded. Knowing that by the rules of the game, and our lifelong insistence on payback in play, it would be my turn to ask the same question in a moment. Which I wasn't quite certain I was ready to ask till I felt his lips close on one of my nipples, and my heart almost leaped down his throat.
He sucked and he didn't even stop when I moaned, as though he knew what it meant and it emboldened him, too. Because he moved from one breast to the other, and my hand wasn't simply holding his prick now, I was pumping it, amazed that a fist so small could control a rod so unimaginably huge. And when I whispered "my turn," he just fell upon his back and I didn't even need to think. I swooped.
I kissed. Then, when that started feeling inadequate, I nuzzled. I pressed him against my teeth, between my lips, and sucked. I licked.
He tasted of cider. No. Not cider. But something just as intoxicating. Something that made my mind whirl more than it was already doing; my head spin and my body feel greedy. And he was moaning, too, and his prick was bucking like a wild thing, which only made me want to tame it. I gripped him between both fists, holding him still but still he jerked, then I pushed down with my sealed mouth from the top and he twisted, so I parted my teeth and bit down and he thrust.
And then I parted my lips and took him into my mouth, his flavor so strong, his body heat blazing, and my jaw almost aching as it struggled to enclose him, but laughing, too, loving the pain that was pleasure-times-ten, as that thick bulb seemed to swell till my back teeth protested... and that precise moment, he exploded.
No warning, no fireworks, no sirens or klaxons. Just a sudden twitch and the impression that my entire head had been filled, and then a dam burst of fluid, thick, sweet and sticky. Which sent me reeling back coughing and gasping and spitting, as he slapped my back like he thought I was choking...
... and the flagon tipped over, and we were both soaked in cider, and he sat up too quickly and cracked his head on the cart, and there were noises close by, and a voice, "what you doing?" So we pulled our clothing together and ducked out through the end that was closest to the hedgerow, then clasped hands and ran laughing the long way round to the fete.
Where one of widow Woodmansey's tarts took the sting out of my throat, and a few minutes watching the steam engines put me in mind of a much more powerful piston (and I nudged Lawrence and told him that, too). Where I might even have joined in a chorus of "God Save the King" had my mother not come bearing down on us, a pair of bedraggled teenagers, festooned in hay and reeking of cider, and both looking guilty of something....
I'm sure that she knew what it was, as well. Because someone forgot to rebutton his fly.
If you've ever read Laurie Lee's novel Cider with Rosie (or watched the movie or television show), you'll know exactly where this story came from. But if you haven't, I should warn you - it's nothing like this.
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