The Amours & Alarums of Eliza MacLean. Annie Warwick

      Billy remembered with difficulty, and with a sudden twinge of conscience, that Eliza was only fourteen, and wondered if she had been here before, like a previous incarnation. Whatever the reason, her straight talking and complete lack of self-consciousness were part of the reason he adored her. Did he just think the word, adore? Yes, apparently, in fact he had said it out loud a few minutes ago. He tried it again, and again it fitted how he felt about her. Okay, so just the post-sex thing, then.

Billy was a bit of an intellectual; there was a thinker well hidden behind his testosterone-driven loutish persona. There don’t seem to be many words in the dictionary to describe a promiscuous man, except those which imply desirable rakish qualities, but let’s face it, once Billy became sexually active he did so with enthusiasm. He was, in fact, a tart, slut, slag or floozie. Even now, he was starting to feel a certain guilt and shame for having inveigled so many girls into bed, the back seats of cars, against large trees or indeed anywhere which promised reasonable traction and a bit of privacy. He was known, when desperate, to have broached the odd minger,3 who was ostensibly offering sex, actually looking for love, and vulnerable to self-deception. What he was doing was, essentially, masturbating in a vagina, and once he started thinking about that, it all seemed a bit less impressive.

3 Minger: an unattractive woman. (In the following I have borrowed, bleached, laundered, starched and ironed one of the many definitions from Urban Dictionary.) Not simply unattractive, “the phrase usually implies she is unkempt, over-weight and has hygiene problems”. “She is also sexually promiscuous – a person who spreads sexually transmitted diseases.” “A somewhat crude term [which] comes from Northern England and from Scotland.” “Example: [Larry] woke up hungover. Two-thirds of the bed contained a sweaty mound of stinky minger with unshaven armpits and huge bush. His genitals itched terribly.” Additional comment from author – I feel a certain satisfaction in the thought that “Larry” caught crabs, herpes, clap, pox and Dismal Itch.

      What he was doing with Eliza was absolutely nothing like that and it is just possible that Eliza made a man of him. At the time, though, he was her Prince, and despite her apparent maturity, she knew little of how young men treated young women, or she might have looked upon him with less reverence.

      There was still quite a bit of the day left, so they cuddled, talked, slept, ate lunch in bed and, of course, made love. Eliza was intensely interested in Billy’s body, particularly his penis. She examined him, felt him with her hands. She caressed him with her breasts, watching the effect as she ran her nipple along the length of him, to see where he was most sensitive. She tasted him with her tongue, but although she knew about blow jobs there was no way she was doing that. Geez, it looked huge! A girl could choke to death!

      She told him about her introduction to self-pleasuring, and asked him how he did it. There was a conspicuous pause from Billy’s direction, at being asked outright how he masturbated, but when he collected himself he was happy to have her help him in his demonstration. She watched, speechless with delight, and kissing any part of him she could reach, while the semen pumped out of him. You see, nobody had ever told her that she should feel guilty, or ashamed, or disgusted at all this. Obviously somebody wasn’t doing his job.

      By the time they had finished or, more accurately, were completely spent, Eliza felt she was thoroughly experienced, and Billy felt like he was the one who had made love for the first time. They were too totally buggered to even try it in the shower, so they washed each other fondly, dried off and dressed.

      “I’ll let you know when we’re leaving,” she told him. “I’ll come over or something.” She didn’t have to say: We can’t do this again. It was going to be painful enough to separate and absolutely unavoidable.

      “Don’t go without seeing me,” he said. “I want to give you a present, something of mine, so you don’t forget me.” His eyes looked as though they wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let them.

      “I will never, never forget you,” she said, also feeling tearful. “Even if we are both married to other people and have kids and live in different countries.”

      “Me too,” and he meant it. And for the next six years neither of them forgot, well maybe for short bursts when life was interesting, but they never put the memories away in storage boxes labelled “Billy and Eliza, Finished Business”.

      They took their leave of each other a few weeks later. She gave him a St Christopher medal because she said she had seen his future: he would go to Hollywood and work there as an actor, he would be well known, and would have to travel a bit so this was to keep him safe. She was bit fey, was Eliza, and she knew this because she had seen it all in a dream one night. It was a dream that made her very sad because it was the way to lose him forever. Billy gave her his genuine Phantom ring; she and Billy were always retro in their tastes, and she had read his father’s Phantom Comic Album, 1965. She knew well the ring was a prized relic of childhood, or of somebody’s childhood since he had found it in a second-hand shop, and she was touched by his sacrifice. It was made for larger fingers but it fitted on her thumb.

      * * *

      Richard thought it was excellent timing to be leaving England now. When he arrived home on the day of the Devirgination, Eliza had the place looking neat and the spare bedroom put back as it should be with the sheets in her washing basket. But she winced a little when she sat on the hard kitchen chair to join him in a cup of coffee. She had left the bedroom door open a little and, prompted by some fatherly ESP, he went in. It all looked fine, but the shower was still wet, the soap had been used, and, to his finely tuned olfactory sense, the room had an aroma somewhat reminiscent of a knocking shop.

      And, of course, the used condoms in the Murano glass bowl were a dead give-away.

      “Darling, I think this might be yours,” he said, showing her the evidence of her oversight.

      “Dang!” she replied, trying for a casual air of sophistication. “I knew I forgot something.”

      “Who?” he asked gently, “and in what manner?”

      “Will you call the police?” she asked, less sophisticated and definitely less casual now. “Because if you are planning to, I will never tell, even if you roast me over an open fire.”

      He took her face in his hands and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t have an open fire. They’ve been banned for years,” he told her, maintaining an air of gravitas with some difficulty.

      “I have no interest in the laws governing the age of consent, and I don’t want all the gory details,” he continued. “I just want to know who it was and whether you had a classy first sexual experience and not a sordid, painful fuck with some undeserving little ratbag. And I’m glad you used condoms, by the way.” Richard had hoped, rather than believed, he still had some time up his sleeve in which to talk to Eliza about the pragmatic considerations. As I have already implied, his parenting skills were somewhat uneven.

      Eliza looked up at him uncertainly. “It was Billy. We like each other a lot, and he was really gentle and gorgeous about it all. It hardly hurt at all, and it was heaps better than doing it myself. In fact it was amazing. I think he’s had some training, you know!” She stopped for breath. “Dad,” she said.

      He was smiling now, and trying not to laugh. “Yes, my little love?”

      “If you run into Billy between now and when we leave, could you act like you don’t know?”

      “Done!” said Richard. “By the way, if it hurts to sit down for more than a day or two, you should see the doctor,” he added, remembering the practicalities of the situation. Then, “I’m sorry … that I’m dragging you away from him. I know you’re going to feel sad for a while.” She nodded in agreement, her head down, but did not otherwise take the opportunity to put him on a guilt trip.

      Richard wasn’t really sorry. In fact he was possessed of a sudden,