Chapter 3
The months went by and there was little that had changed in the Hardisty household.Gina spent as much time away from home as she had done for nearly two years, found one or two more clients, and continued to keep up the story that money was being sent to her by her brother in Naples. John, pleased at the the fact that Gina demanded almost nothing from him for housekeeping, continued to spend most of his time at the "Anchor". Sex was as unimportant to him as something seen by looking through the wrong end of a telescope. He very rarely tried to make love to Gina, and Gina was careful not to tempt him by undressing in front of him, or leaving her underclothes about the bedroom, or using her favourite scent. She generally pretended to be tired when they went to bed and immediately turned away from him and appeared to be asleep. But, in fact, she had a guilty conscience and this often kept her awake until the small hours. She would think about her daughter, about her family back in Italy, about the lie she had told her husband, about the way she spent her days with her men friends and clients in the city.
Maria began to lead a life of her own so far as that is possible for a girl of her age. 5he would come home late from her school, sometimes stay in a listen to the radio, a,t others go out again and meet her girl friends. But she was always conscious of a mystery about her life, asking herself why she seemed to be different from other girls and feeling a longing for affection and love. She did not connect this longing with her curiosity about what men could do to little girls.
She never forgot the scene she had witnessed on the Common and often went there again in the hope of discovering what it was. all about. Unhappily it never seemed to happen to her again. The girls in her class were unable to tell her more than she knew already despite their talk and sniggering about sex. She knew that she would have to find out for herself.
One day shortly after her tenth birthday she came home from school to find that her mother was not there. Gina had got her a particularly prettyoutfit for her, and she went to her room and put it on. It was a black corduroy gym-slip and white blouse which she wore with short white stockings of knee length and black patent leather shoes. In the mirror she could see her oval face with her large, luminous brown eyes, her shoulderlength black hair, and her pouting lips. She thought she looked very pretty and, pleased with herself, she pirouetted around the floor catching sight of herself in the mirror as she did so. Her skirt swung away from her, to show off the upper part of her legs and her white knickers. She felt sure that the man she had watched with the girl on the Common would like her if he could see her. Perhaps she would see him if she went there, or someone else who would like the look of her.
She put on her dark-blue raincoat and went off to the Common. It was about half-past six on a September evening. There would still be workmen coming home from the factories in Kirkstall, children playing until it was dark, as well as couples courting on the grass. She walked with her head in the air across the main pathway until she found the turning off into the small wood that covered one part of the Common. Here it was quieter and she saw only the occasional couple walking arm in arm, perhaps looking for a place to lie down together.
It was then that she saw the man approaching her. He looked old, but he had a smiling, cheery face and when he came up to her he greeted her in a friendly way that she liked. "Hello, little girl, and where may you be going?" he asked her.
She was shy and hesitant about replying to him, but she managed to stutter that she was Just going for a walk. "Oh," he said, "walking out all alone, eh?"
She was silent, now beginning to feel afraid to be alone with the man in the lonely part of the Common.
"All alone. Well, well," he w.i¯ saying, "let me go for a walk with you." He came close to her and put a hand On her back, pushing her gently in the direction of the bushes. "There are lots of exciting things to see here on the Common, let's go this way."
She wanted to scream and run away from him, but somehow she felt she was in his power, that she had to do as he had suggested. It was as if she were hypnotized, and she found herself walking ahead of him, his hand still touching her lightly to guide her in the direction he wanted her to go.
"It's full of magic, this wood, full of magic. There are fairies here, you know," he went on as they entered a small coppice of trees. Come, let's sit here for a bit and see if we can see any." He sat down without touching her and she felt that she must do the same. There was no escaping from him now. He sat at her side, bending his knees as she did and then he put his left arm round her and began to talk about the little people that inhabited the Common. She sat listening to him dreamily, liking the cadence of his voice, slowly beginning to feel safer with him. She pushed into the back of her mind the stories her mother had told her about strange men. This man seemed nice and kind; she was sure that he would do her no harm.He had his arm round her waist now but he was continuing to talk about the fairies he had seen when he was a boy and seemed to be far away with his thoughts and recollections of his childhood.
Then he looked at her and said she was very pretty. "What a lovely little girl to be all on her own," he said. "I think you must be lonely. Come let me hold you near to me." He pulled her close to him and she could feel his hot breath against her face. She tried to push him away, but he gripped her tightly, hugged her to him and brought his lips close to her cheek. Then she felt his wet lips on her cheek and she knew that they were moving round to her lips. She closed her eyes and waited, unable to cry out, till she felt the thick lips on hers as he pressed her back onto the grass. She was shivering with fear, but when she tried to cry she could not. Her whole body seemed to be petrified and she knew that he could do what he liked with her.
He had her back on the grass and was half on top of her, feeling her legs and her bare thighs. His face came close to hers again and the lips pressed down on hers, this time his tongue pushing between them and going into her mouth. "Now, little girl," he whispered, "don't worry, I shan't hurt you."
Marin sensed that ho, too, was frightened for some reason she could not understand. He seemed to be shaking as he felt the top of her legs and began to touch her knickers between her legs. Then she recalled the couple she had watched months before and realized that he was going to do it to her,to do what the girls had told her a man could do to a girl.
His finger went under the crotch of her knicker and felt her private p^rts. It went along to the top and then down again, trying to part the lips on either side. She began to like the feel of his finger and lay back, letting her legs go apart, her eyes still closed. A moment later he began to pull her knickers down her legs. She put up no resistance though she knew that she ought to; she let him pull her white knickers down her legs and over her patent-leather shoes.
As soon as they were off he began to finger her greedily, pushing his finger hard into her private parts, and she knew that he was getting inside her. He was rubbing her now on her clitoris and she felt a strange new sensation that she had never had in her life before. She began to be aware that he was doing what the girls said a man could do: and she wanted him to go on.He continued to finger her, sometimes moving his hand down her leg and touching the white flesh in between them. It was more exciting than anything she had ever known in her life. Now he pushed his four fingers under her bottom and began to press with his thumb into the base of her private parts, into the place that her mother had told her was her treasure. As he did so one of his fingers went up the crack between her bottom cheeks and pressed against her little brown hole for which she had no name. The thumb was almost brutal now, pressing hard into the soft flesh and causing her to feel pain rather than pleasure. The man went on, screwing it round as he did so, but he did not manage to get it inside her. She moved her body to avoid the pain and began to cry out as he pushed it in even more brutally then before. As she cried out, they heard footsteps coming closer and at once the man covered up her slit and thighs with her coat.Cunningly he looked around and saw through the bushes a man approaching along the path that would bring him near to them. "Get up," he whispered, pulling her to her feet, "fasten your coat and walk along this way with me. I've got your knickers." They got up and began to saunter in the direction away from the intruder. "We have to be careful," he said to her quietly. "There are all sorts of funny people on the Common. Here, here are your knickers, put them in your pocket and wait till you get hometo put them on." He began to walk rapidly:ahead of the girl and, looking back where the other man could be Seen coming in their direction, he. suddenly burst into run and bolted down the path across the Common.
Maria, flabbergasted at what had happened, at first began to follow , the man', quickening her steps in an effort to catch up with him. But soon seeing that the attempt would be futile, she slowed down and walked slowly across the open part of the Common, finally +ll',~"ing into the road that led in the direction of her home. She still felt the tingling sensation made by the man s fingers on her treasure, as well as a burning feeling from the thumb he had tried to force into her. It was very thrilling, and yet in some ways it was very frightening. The man had wanted to do it to her., she was sure; but why had he suddenly run away. Because of the other man? As she thought about it she began to realize that it was because the man had been frightened when he saw the other man approaching that he had run away and left her. And he could only have been frightened because he had been doing something wrong. She remembered that her mother had told her about men who spoke to little girls and tried to get them to go with them; he must have been one or them. If only she could ask her mother about it; but somehow she know that she could not bring herself to do that.
It was later the same term that she was asked if she wanted to join the Girl Guides, and her mother, preferring that she should not be left too much to her own devices, encouraged her to do so. By the New Year she was attending the weekly meetings in the local church hall regularly, wearing her blue uniform proudly. She got to know a mumber of new friends in the troop, and two of them, Shaila and Carol, frequently came to her home.
Joining the Guides gave her a completely new interest and for the time being her preoccupation with what had happened on the Common gave way to passing tests in woodcraft, swimming and life-saving. But, of course, from time to time she raised in her mind questions about the couple in the trees and the man who had taken her into the bushes , recalling momentarily the tingling feeling he had given her when he first pulled off her knickers.
It was in the late spring of the year, when she was almost eleven, that she was told about sex by her Guide mistress. An attractive, but rather masculine looking girl of about twenty she outlined the physiological facts, using such words as union, fertilization, intercourse, and giving the sexual parts their quasi-medical names, such as vagina, penis, clitoris, and so on. But far from satisfying all Maria's doubts and fears, the talks given by the Guides. mistress only roursed new questions in her mind, and led her to an almost morbid preoccupation with sex. She now knew that the man who had tried to do it to her on the Common had run away because it was a serious thing far a man to have "union" with a young girl, that if he had succeeded she would have been a virgin no longer, and that he would really have been raping her.Yet she could not see why it was so important to wait until she was sixteen to have intercourse with a man. What difference did it make if she was only fourteen or fifteen? Or, for that matter, only eleven? There were many other questions in her mind, especially those concerned with the actual sexual act which the mistress had only described in the most sketchy way. She had not tried to tell them what it ft;lt like to have a man's penis inside you.
She was so interested and exciteed by what she had learned that she wanted: to know more, even to put her knowledge to the practical test. If only she could do it with out anyone finding out! Or without the risks of going alone on the Common that the Guides mistress had warned them about.
She began to look at boys of her own age with a new interest, but when they talked to her or walked along the road with. her, they seamed to take no notice of thefact that she was a girl, but spoke about their games, or the camp they were going to, or the bicycle they had been given. There was one boy, however, who looked at her in a different way and once tried to put his arm round her as they came home. She was shy of being seen in the street with a boy's arm round her but she hoped that another opportunity would come when they were out somewhere away from the street. A few weeks' later the boy told her that he and a friend were going to camp out for a few days at the beginning of the long holidays, and as they would not be going far way -only as far as Horsforth -he hoped she and one of her friends would come to see them. She said she would and looked forward eagerly to the end of the term.
August Bank Holiday arrived and her mother and father took her to Scarborough for the day, but on the Tuesday she was able to slip away, saying that she was going for a picnic with her friend 5heila. About eleven in the morning the two girls took the bus to Horsforth and made their way to Newlay woods where the boys were camping.
The boys seemed pleased to see them, boiled some water to make tea for them and then shared with them the sandwiches Gina had provided. After lunch the four of them lay back inside the tent, Maria near to the boy who had invited her, Sheila near his pal.
It was not long before Maria's friend began to show why he had asked her to come to the camp. He lay at her side and very slowly came closer to her so that she could feel his body against her skirt. He was a fair-haired boy, about fourteen, with blue eyes and thick lips. His name was Donald. Maria felt his hand on her skirt and gradually without moving his body at all his hand went down her skirt and touched her knee. She was not sure that she wanted him to touch her, and somehow she was sure that she did not want him to be the first to do it to her. A few months ago she might have thought differently, but now, although she was ready for petting and necking, she had some reservations about letting a boy have intercourse with her.At the time she could not have explained why.Nevertheless she was still excited at the idea of a boy touching her, perhaps kissing her, and even touching her legs. She sensed that with a boy not a lot older than herself she might take risks that she should not have taken with the old man on the Common. Anyway so far the boy was only rubbing his hand on her leg just above her knee and now pressing the side of his head against her hair. He could do that as much as he liked. His hand began to advance up her leg, then he withdrew it,lifted her skirt a little way up her legs and then, rising on his elbow, he looked down at her. Then suddenly, taking his hand away from her legs he grabbed hold of her and kissed her on her lips. She kept still and let him do it to her, smelling his breath and liking the pressure of his thick dry lips. Then he licked them and began to move them on hers, using his tongue at the same time. It was the first time she had been kissed on the lips, since the old man had done it to her on the Common. But it was somehow different, more exciting and she wanted it to go on for ever. In any case she hardly remembered the old man kissing her; at the time she had been terrified and he had only kissed her for a brief moment or two before he had turned his attention to her private parts.-Now she could lie back and enjoy a young boy's kisses.
He kept kissing her and she began to feel excited, just as she had done when the old man felt her legs. After a few minutes it seemed that she was tingling all down her spine and she wanted the boy to touch her all over. But he went on, his mouth and lips now wet with saliva, which he pushed into hers with his tongue. She swallowed as her mouth seamed to be filled with it. She waited now, eager to feel his hands, slowly moving her body to provoke him. He felt her sinuous movement and put his hand on the side of her left thigh and then caressed the inside, his knuckles accidentally brushing against her knickers between her legs.
The boy's lips and hands were now stimulating her in a way she had not experienced before; she began to make strange moaning sounds; she arched and wriggled her body; she reached "out to him to pull his body closer.
The boy's hands now pushed her skirt up her legs and he began to openly caress her inner thighs, from time to time touching her knickers with his forefinger. As her legs parted, wider he decided it would be all right for him to go ahead and he reached up to pull off her knickers. It was then that Maria put out her hand to stop him. Excited as she was she had a feeling that she should not let the boy have intercourse with her; somehow she wanted that to come later. He could pet her and neck with her as much as he wished, but that was all....
Donald sensed her unreadiness and he took his hand away from her knickers and resumed his caresses on her legs. But she pulled him close to her, put her arms round him, and made him kiss her again. The prudent side of Maria's nature had won the day; the carefree, irresponsible Italian part of it had been defeated.
It' was not so with the other two. Tom, Donald's friend, was unfastening Sheila's new frock, which buttoned down the front. He had managed to undo most of the buttons and when Maria looked across at them for a moment as she removed her boy friend's hand from her legs and pulled him close to her, she could see that Sheila's bra was uncovered and that the boy was fingering her breasts through the flimsy material. She kept her head half raised as she watched the boy push the bra up over the breasts and reveal the girl's nipples. Sheila was nearly thirteen and had just reached puberty; her breasts, though small were well formed, and her nipples jutted out conspicuously from the soft white flesh. Tom at once began to finger them and a moment later he bent over and began to kiss them in turn.
Maria would have liked Donald to play with her nipples but she felt ashamed to show her breasts to him as they were almost nonexistent. In recent months there had been signs that they were growing larger, but as she was some way from puberty they were nowhere near as large as Sheila's. She hoped that Donald would not try to unbutton her blouse and make her show him her breasts. But he was kissing her avidly now and seemed content to go on, his lips pressed to hers, his arms round her neck, his body half on top of hers, while his friend got nearer and nearer to making love properly to the older, mor experienced Sheila. By now he had managed to remove the girl's bra and he was fondling her small but lovely breasts with great eagerness Moreover, his hand was between her thighs and he was pushing his finger under Sheila's knickers and reeling for her slit. She moved to assist his efforts and he soon had a finger firmly placed in the soft, warm membranes of her vulva. Sheila sighed and she decided at that moment that the boy could put it into her, though the word she, used in her thoughts was "fuck". Yes, she wanted him to fuck her. She wanted him to put it in and craved for it.
Sheila had never dared to tell Maria that she was no longer a virgin, and she had never told her about the words she used with her other friends, such words as "fuck" and "cunt". She guessed that Maria had a great interest in sex, but she sensed that there was something fastidious about the dark-eyed girl, and this prevented her coming out with the "rude" words she had picked up from her brothers. She had, nevertheless, jumped at: the chance to come to see Donald and Tom for she had a pretty good idea what the two boys wanted, and she really wanted to see her girl friend fucked by a hoy. She would get a kind of sadistic delight to see her friend seduced.
She was letting Tom ease her out of her skirt and, when he succeded in pulling it down her legs, she lay there naked except for her blue: knickers. She didn't feel a bit ashamed; on the contrary, she got a kind of kick from it as she did when she purposely showed her naked body to her brothers. She lay back on the ground sheet, her fair hair splayed out, her small breasts jutting upwards, her hips and mount of Venus covered by her blue knickers, her legs, slender and shapely, half covered by knee-high stockings and shoes. She kicked off her shoes and began to peel the pair of knickers from her hips and buttocks and push them from her legs.
The boy had never seen a naked girl before, though he had fucked a few who had been content to take down their knickers on the Common. He could hardly believe his good fortune when he saw Sheila lying down naked in front of him, and he stole a surreptitious glance of triumph in the direction of Donald with whom he had shared quitea few adventures since they began to take an interest in girls. Donald caught his glance and nodded back, as if to say he admitted defeat. Indeed, he was more concerned at watching the others now, for he, too, had never seen a girl take off all her clothes for a boy. He rather wanted to be in Tom's position, but if he couldn't he would enjoy watching him. He was aware, too, that Maria was watching Tom and Sheila, and it suddenly occurred to him if she saw enough she might change her attitude and let him do it to her. So the two of them, keeping close together and necking perfunctorily now kept their eyes on their two friends. Tom was taking off his trousers, the first time he had done this with a girl, and
Maria watched eagerly as he pushed them down his legs and then began to take off his pants leaving only his shirt to cover his private parts. She had never seen a boy's penis and it came as something of a shock to her when suddenly Tom lifted up his shirt and they all caught sight of his erect member, jutting from him at an angle of twenty or thirty degrees, it was rather ugly, she thought,though she imagined that it would be nice to have, it inside her -if it would go in. She could not think how it could possibly go into her vagina without hurting her, and she shrugged her shoulders with something like relief as she remembered that it was Sheila who was going to have it inside, not herself.
Tom had scrambled about in bushes on the Common, finding himself taking his prick from his trousers and somehow getting it into a girl's cunt in the half light. But now he was confronted with a naked girl, lying back relaxedly on the ground, waiting for him to seduce her. He felt a certain embarrassment, a kind of awkwardness as to how to go about it. He knelt down near the girl and pulled her right leg to the side and then edged in between her thighs. Then, lifting his shirt so that it would not be in the way, he bent over Sheila and holding his prick in his hand he guided it towards her slit, not absolutely sure where her cunt would be. Luckily he managed to find the right spot and felt it slide into the girl. Maria saw him holding it in his hand and the next moment it had disappeared and the boy was on top of her friend, his bottom, only partly covered by his shirt,moving up and down vigorously, Sheila's arms round his neck.
At a later period of her life Maria came to consider that, from the point of view of an onlooker, the sexual act was,to say the least, indecorous, even ludicrous. But now she watched every movement of the boy as he fucked her friend, just as she tried to see the reactions of the girl underneath him. So this was what doing it to a girl meant. This was the act of union the Guides mistress had told them about! She felt Donald's penis now hard against her leg, and for the first time in her life she could see in her mind's eye what it looked like. It seemed to her to be even bigger than Tom's, and she wondered how he would have got it into her if she had let him try.
She saw that her friend was wriggling under Tom, crying out to him as she gripped him tightly by his buttocks and moved her body in unison with his. T^e boy had both his hands under the girl and his lips were glued to hers as he continued to move up and down on her, using more force than ever as he rammed himself down on her. Maria tried to imagine what it would feel like to have such a thing inside, but from the cries and moans that escaped Sheila's lips it must have been pleasureable. Very soon after she heard Tom cry out and he seemed to shudder all over and then slump forward on the girl. The girl held him close, her lips on his, as they slowly stopped their motions and then lay still, the boy on top of the naked girl.
Donald tried again to take off Maria's knickers but his efforts were unavailing. As much as she wanted to experience sexual inter course she had been impressed by some of the things the Guides mistress had told her about keeping her virginity for the right man, or at least waiting till a girl was old enough to understand what she was-doing. Maria knew that she was really too young, that it might be better to wait for a while before she let a boy do it to her. She would go on wanting to know more about sex, she would like to go out with lots of boys and she would soon let them touch her vagina, she decided, but she was not yet ready to let them possess her and take away her virginity.