"Scales and Arpeggios" Part 2 (ff 1st)


The next time we met, Minnie hustled me out of the house. "We must go
somewhere private," she said. "Is there anyone at your house?" Yes, my
mother was at home. So we went to a nearby park, which was usually
deserted.

"What's the matter?" I asked anxiously.

"I've got to go away. Tomorrow." Minnie muttered, downcast. "Mum says I
have to go and stay with my cousin for a week. And then she's going to
come back to stay here.' "So we won't be able to..."

"No."

"What will we do?"

"Come on, I'll show you."

In a corner of the park was an old wooden pavilion. It was all locked up,
but round the back was a toilet which was open. We went into the Ladies;
Minnie shut the door carefully behind us, then ushered me into one of the
stalls.

"I'm going to show you something we can do while we're apart. Every night,
when you go to bed, you have to do this and think of me. And I'll do it
and think of you. You've got to imagine it's me doing it, and I'll do the
same. Take your panties off." She was stepping out of hers as she spoke.
"I'll show you what to do. Feel my Þnger?"

"Oh Minnie, what's..."

"Just gently up and down, like this..."

"Ohhh... Oh Minnie oh Minnie..."

"Shh! Just enjoy it, darling..."

"Oh I can't, it's too much: I'm burning..."

"Yes you can, you must: it's what we must do. Come on, you try. Put your
Þnger there. Like that. That's right. Now you try. Come on."

"Oh Minnie, what's happening to me? It's going right through me!"

"You've got the idea. I'll do it now, and then you can do it to me, OK?
There... kiss me. Kiss me, Mary."

She kissed me like a lover, full on the mouth, and held me there as she
slowly, lovingly masturbated me. I screamed my pleasure into her gentle,
soft mouth, the searing orgasm terrible, cruel in its ferocity. She held
me in my swoon, kissing my lips, my face, my eyes.

"Now you've got to do me. Do it just the same. Here, put your Þnger here.
Now do it. God! Oh God! Oh Mary! Mary, I love you I love you I love you...
Aaah..." I hardly knew what to do, but I think it was just that it was my
doing it which made her come with a violence which I had never before
witnessed. She held me in a bear hug then, as I rubbed her through her
climax, and then she slumped against the wall, apparently drained. As soon
as her eyes could focus, they focused on mine. "I want you again, Mary.
Touch me again! Touch me! Aaah!" This time, my touch seemed to pain her,
but she would not let me stop, sometimes guiding my Þngers, until the
passion took her once more. Even in her passion, she was terrifying,
magniÞcent. And then, our eyes brimming with silent tears, we kissed and
kissed until my cunt burned with a Þerce hunger. But then she had to go
back, and we walked home in silence, overcome. Even as we parted, there
were no words--only her eyes blazing into mine.

And so I went back inside, where everything seemed so small, so trivial.

That night, in bed, I lay awake wondering about this new, tremendous thing
she had shown me. Just thinking about it made the heat grow in my loins,
and I knew I was cunt-hungry again. So I felt carefully for the place she
had shown me, and began to rub gently. At once the heat returned, and I
jerked my legs apart, relishing the fantastic new sensation. It burned and
tickled and thrilled me through and through as I found exactly what my
clitoris liked best; and then suddenly my Þngers would not stop, heaven
exploded inside me and those lovely muscles were squeezing and squeezing
as I twitched and shuddered in delighted exhilaration. I laughed and cried
for joy at the tremendous sense of relaxation and satisfaction which
þooded my being. I was still shivering when my mother came into the room
to see if I was all right. Apparently I had cried out. I told her I'd had
a bad dream, and she kissed me on the forehead.

Much as I had enjoyed my experiences with Minnie, the gentle, diffuse
stimulation never approached the buffeting, excoriating thrill of clitoral
stimulation. I was completely amazed by it.

The more I masturbated, the more I enjoyed it and craved it. And after the
climax was over, the shivers stopped, and my heart returned to normal, I'd
feel such tremendous relief, as if a great weight had been lifted from me,
almost like a different person--clear-headed, sensible, innocent like I'd
been before I started fooling around with Minnie. And in my new-found
clarity, I'd hear in my memory an echo of the involuntary cries and gasps
and bed-squeakings which had accompanied my recent solitary joy. It all
seemed so foolish; and it was all over so quickly! I began to feel cheap
and a little dirty. But however dirty my habit seemed, I couldn't stop
myself from doing it, it was just so enjoyable and the relief afterwards
so dramatic. I needed it more than food and drink.

After a few days, I had almost forgotten about Minnie. I tried religiously
to imagine that it was her Þnger touching me, but after a few strokes I
was drunk with pleasure, steeling myself for the glorious climax. My new
love was nestling conveniently between my thighs; and as I became more
skilful in pleasing her, so she became more urgent and imperious in her
demands. The more I slaved to please her, the richer she rewarded me; and
so insidiously consolidated my slavery, and her utter dominion.

By the time Minnie returned from her stay with her cousin, it seemed that
both of us had changed beyond recognition. For one thing, in the
constraining presence of her cousin, Minnie's lack of education and inane
conversation made her seem utterly dull. For another, her cousin was
really beautiful: by comparison, Minnie was overweight, ungainly and
spotty. If, for a brief moment that afternoon when she taught me the great
secret of womanhood, I fancied that I loved her, I now saw that I loved
her only for what she could give me--and that I could now give myself to a
far higher degree. I know I was grateful to Minnie for what she had taught
me; but now I was a child no longer, but a young grown-up. And so each
night I arched and grunted my ecstasy into a mouthful of bedclothes,
hoping and imagining that Minnie's pretty cousin was doing the same.

Soon after that, I went away to school. Perhaps because of her mother's
disapproval, or just because she found other friends, Minnie and I never
played together again. Although we remained friendly, we became more
distant and eventually lost touch.

But Þrst experiences take a very Þrm hold on the imagination. Years later
I learned that she was living with a pretty young schoolmistress--a
blonde, like her cousin.

--- II ---

When I arrived at the convent school, I was very anxious to keep my habit
a secret. The girls would talk about it, sometimes. They called it
"frigging", and the word was always accompanied by a derisive laugh or a
sneer. Frigging was for losers. Only the stupid, unattractive girls did
it.

Touching yourself was a grave sin: the nuns told us so. One of them said
it was a mortal sin, which was very frightening; but a nice younger sister
told us that God would grant forgiveness, but only if you went to
confession as soon as possible afterwards. Touching the private parts led
to selÞshness, weakness, lassitude and even illness. I was terriÞed, much
too terriÞed to confess it. I tried to give it up, and for a couple weeks
I was successful. The prefects, and sometimes the nuns, would patrol the
dormitories at night, making sure our hands were visible at all times.

Stella McCaffrey, a big, heavy girl with a slight moustache, was said to
have been caught by one of the prefects. She wasn't reported, but the
rumour was around the school in no time: "did you hear? Stella McCaffrey
was caught frigging the other night!" and girls would titter derisively.
"What's frigging?" Anne Pepper asked. "Oh come off it, Annie! You know!
Rubbing yourself!" "Oh, yuk!" Anne cried, wrinkling her nose in dainty
disdain. "I don't know how people can bring themselves to do it! It's
disgusting!"

I remember how, after my initial abstinence of about two weeks, the Þrst
orgasm was almost painful: only the relief afterwards made it worthwhile.
But the desire to repeat the experience had grown a hundredfold: my
clitoris couldn't get any rest.

It seemed that even if I wasn't the only one, I was in a small company of
very, very bad people who kept their shameful weakness extremely secret. I
tried and tried to resist, but sometimes the urge was too strong.
Sometimes I'd slip into the lavatory at break and rub myself madly. The
relief would be so tremendous that I'd be walking on air for the rest of
the day. Occasionally in the dormitory we had a prefect who would slip out
for Þve minutes every now and again. Once when she did, I heard some
creaking and a gasp. From somewhere else in the dormitory came an
answering titter. Some poor desperate girl had siezed her chance, but even
her comrades were listening out for illicit activities. I felt my clitoris
burning, begging for relief. I decided to try to do it very, very quietly.
I just rolled it slowly from side to side, trying to breathe deeply and
regularly. When the pleasure grew and grew, I gritted my teeth and
resisted the almighty urge to rub furiously. I felt my body tighten, and
strained to relax. The orgasm lasted for ages and ages. My eyes were
staring with the effort not to moan or pant or twitch or do anything to
give myself away. This was an art I soon perfected. I could do it almost
without moving. On the outside I was just like a corpse, stiff and still.
Inside my bowels were churning, my head was reeling, I would imagine
screaming myself hoarse.

Hitherto, I had masturbated like a child--as Minnie had taught me. I just
went for that rush of pleasure as fast as I could, and the faster it built
the more exhilarating it seemed. But this was an altogether new
experience. It was almost a torture to masturbate slowly like this, and
although the pleasure was so prolonged, I missed the exhilaration which I
could achieve in solitude. Night after night I would lie awake in
desperation, trying to suppress the urgency of my desire. I would
fantasize about the awful consequences of being caught, of being disowned
by all my friends, becoming a social outcast. And so it slowly developed
from a craving into an obsession.

During the holidays, particularly at the start, I would masturbate upon
waking, sometimes in the morning, always in the afternoon and always
before sleep. At home, I didn't feel quite so ashamed about it. At school,
particularly when I did it in the lavatory, I felt dreadful. I was
convinced I was going to go to hell. I said lots and lots of prayers and
went to extra services in the hope that I could somehow atone. But I could
never bring myself to confess, not to anyone. I kept trying to give it up,
but my resolve would crumble within a couple of days. Despite my growing
suspicion that masturbation was for me a matter of necessity, not choice,
I did it in wretched fear of exposure to public ridicule.

And then one day, I was out walking with Sally, a good friend of mine.

"You know, a friend of mine told me something very interesting that
happened in confession," she told me. "She confessed she'd been touching
herself, and the priest told her that it wasn't as serious a sin as the
nuns made out. It wasn't voluntary, it was a kind of compulsion, and it
was a less serious sin than refusing to share a bag of sweets."

My heart leaped in impossible gladness, which I struggled to hide.

"Who was it?" I couldn't help asking. I wanted to know: I thought I was
the only one in the whole school.

"I couldn't possibly tell you. It's a complete secret!" she replied. There
was silence for a while.

"I think my mummy does it, too," she said thoughtfully. Her father had
died a year ago.

"Golly! How did you Þnd out?"

But she wouldn't, or couldn't, tell me.

"And I think it's all rubbish about it making you ill or selÞsh or
stupid," she continued, a note of annoyance in her voice. "Why do they say
these things when they're just not true? My mummy is one of the nicest,
kindest, best people I know."

I nodded sagely, and we walked on in silence. I badly wanted to tell her
my secret, too, but I couldn't move my tongue. I was dying to ask a
thousand questions, but I didn't want to appear curious. For days
afterwards, my mind dwelt upon this new intelligence, this possibility of
reprieve. Not a very serious sin, eh? A kind of compulsion? Yes, it was.
Often and often I had tried to summon all my will-power, forced my mind
off the subject, but my body wouldn't stop its promptings until I had
given it what it craved.

It comforted me somewhat to think that Sally at least wouldn't disown me
if my shameful secret were to be revealed. My obsession and my guilt had
been nurtured so long that I could hardly accept that it was only a venial
sin; but now I dared to hope that God could indeed forgive even this. And
so I continued in secret, doing it as seldom as possible, trying not to
enjoy it too much, looking and praying for a sign from God that He would
forgive me; and though I tried not to enjoy it, the wonderful relief
afterwards at least was a blissful respite from my continual struggle.