First Love - Its Pains and Joy

Both of us knew, without ever speaking about it, that something had gone wrong beyond repair. Erna never asked me again to come to her room. I doubt whether I would have gone. Both of us were sad that this, not talked about happening had extinguished the flame that had promised to burn so brightly for us.

Over the following two months, we still saw each other at least once a week. As before, we went to the pictures, sat in our Café, talked at our ease, held hands. On parting at her door, we still kissed and briefly hugged, but both of us knew, I believe, that there never would be more.

One evening I told Erna that I was planning to go to Australia. She silently accepted that this signalled an ending. It came sooner. In mid-April, I argued with my boss, left his employ, and started work in a town 80 kilometres from home. On my first visit home, Erna and I decided to part. We did so gently; with no recriminations, and with a final hug and a kiss that only remembered what should, could have been.

A worn-out phrase keeps ringing in my ear. It stops me from finding a better way to speak of this parting. I was then a young man whose heart was not so much a lonely hunter but a blind one. It failed to see that what it had accidentally trapped was of much higher value than the prey it desired.

Unlike with Inge, between Erna and I there existed a natural and warm affinity. Our meeting, coming and being together rarely required words and explanations and never excuses. I still remember her, can hear her voice with its Tyrolian lilt and visualise her soft, calm face. Most of all, unforgotten, is the promise of her lithe body as she waited for me then in the semi-darkness of her cold room. She wanted me as her lover.

But then I did not allow it to become love. My heart and still virgin body ached for another.

III

I had been in Australia for eight-month and been living in St. Kilda for six. Being unattached and on the look-out for female company, I met one Saturday night, Elizabeth. She arrived at the Austrian Ski Club at the Upper Esplanade in the company of a younger woman that I had seen before. As in all these continental clubs, tables could not be booked. The staff took later arrivals to wherever seats were still vacant, or chairs could be squeezed in. It just happened that Elizabeth and her younger sister finished up on our table. A getting to know you quickly followed.

The younger sister was a nurse-in-training in one of the large hospitals. She had been, in the company of other nurses, in the club before. Elizabeth was, I guessed, in her late twenties, blonde, slim, quite tall and, in a British-rose way, attractive. She appeared to be detached and, initially, noticeably ill at ease with the surroundings. I thought this was funny, as her at least ten years younger sister was bubbling over with self-confidence.

Over the next hours, the ice-maiden thawed just a little. Elizabeth liked to dance, and except with her sister I danced with nobody else that night. I was beginning to like her, and she gave no sign of disliking my attention. I had a car that night and drove her sister first to her Hospital, and then Elizabeth home to an unfamiliar suburb.

When I turned as directed into her street, she asked me not to stop in front of her house. She had told me that she lived, for the time being, with her parents. When I pulled to the kerb, Elizabeth gave no sign of wanting to get out of the car with a hurried 'Thanks' and 'Good Bye'.

As she seemed in no hurry to take flight, I switched off the engine and lights and turned to her. She moved readily into a kiss and embrace. It was well past midnight. We spent more than an hour, only kissing at first, but then moving onto some tentative petting. Elizabeth, while not passionate, welcomed my attention. On parting, we agreed to meet again next week at the entrance of the club. She refused my offer to pick her up at home.

The mystery of her behaviour was at our second meeting cleared up. Elizabeth had been married, was now separated, and was in the throes of securing a divorce. I knew nothing then about her problems. She only told me that nobody from her family must know of our relationship, including her sister. I rather enjoyed the clandestine character of what, I hoped, would develop.

For the first time since arriving, I found that being an outsider in Australia had its rewards. With me, a stranger-nobody, an Australian woman like Elizabeth could be safely indiscrete. She saw no need to hide what she wanted. I had told her where and how I lived, about the easy-going relationship with my landlord. As a bachelor, he did not object to his tenants being visited by their girlfriends. At the end of our again prolonged and promisingly warming up petting in her street, in the dark between two streetlights, she calmly said to me: -

"If you want, I could ... visit you next week at home. You have to give me your address ..."

I happily agreed.

The day arrived on which, I was confident, I would finally lose my virginity. Elizabeth came and, as we had the whole night, we sat down in my cubicle in the kitchen I shared with my landlord for a coffee and brandy. He came in, passed by with a friendly 'Hello' and cast an approving eye over Elizabeth. Put at ease, she smiled back at him.

Back in my rather small and sparsely furnished room, we sat down on my bed. We kissed, and with us sitting awkwardly at the bed's edge, I began to undress Elizabeth. I was tense. I fumbled with the seemingly unending combinations of buttons that then adorned the dresses and blouses and the tiny hooks that secured the brassieres and girdles of women. Elizabeth just smiled. Her body helpfully turned and lifted, but her hands were idle. Finally, I had undressed her, and she lay back naked on my bed to wait for me.

From then on, I did everything wrong. I turned away to undress as quickly as I could. Then came a fumbling search for the condom in the drawer. I struggled to unwrap it. Becoming more and more flustered, with my bare bum turned on Elizabeth, I tried with clumsy fingers to roll the flimsy rubber on my half-erection. I had never done it before. It was difficult. By the time I managed to join Elizabeth on the bed, I had gone limp. And Elizabeth, when I tentatively began to kiss her breasts, barely responded. Her skin felt cold. I was no longer sure if my kisses and caresses could revive either her warmth or interest.

I mumbled some explanation, and we scrambled awkwardly off the bed to be able to slip-in and hide under the covers. I don't know whether I thought at that stage of the night with Erna; how our desire to make love was thwarted by cold and an unhandled embarrassment. Safe in my room, on this cool September evening, there was neither a numbing cold nor any threat of embarrassing exposure. Also absent was the hungry desire that had driven Erna and me. Elizabeth had simply decided that we might as well fuck. She was twenty-seven and sexually experienced. I, being a virgin, was merely literally deflated and, therefore, embarrassed. I did not realise that my blundering had left Elizabeth pretty much undisturbed, if not unsurprised.

Once under the doona, Elizabeth snuggled up. I was tense, but she seemed happy in just joining me in relaxed, companionable warming up. After a while, I found the courage to apologies for my clumsiness. She just gave a short laugh and told me not to worry, we had all night if we wanted to ... She said not what. We got warmer. More and more the slight movements of her body felt like a reaching out for mine in a shy caress.

We started to kiss again; at first, gently teasing with probing lips and tips of the tongue. I was still not sure that Elizabeth wanted more. Only when her hand moved caressingly behind my head and our tongues began to mill and thrust, did I dare to touch her body. I don't know what stopped me from throwing off the doona, but it seemed just right to stay with petting her blindly. And, although my hands knew her body and it knew my touch from our petting in the car, now, naked, stretched out and wide open to be explored was a new beginning.

It was quite different from our loving in the car. Now I could move my hands unrestricted over Elizabeth's body. I kissed and caressed her breasts until her nipples hardened. Then I slid my hand down her belly, brushing over her bush before seeking the velvety inside of her thighs. Tempted, they opened. Responding to Elizabeth's sudden drawing in of breath, followed by her invading, urging tongue, my hand closed over her sex. As in the car once before, parting her lush secret lips, a finger slid readily into her hot-slippery pussy.

Tonight, there would be more, and I could wait no longer. I withdrew my teasing finger. Gripping Elizabeth's buttocks, I pressed my now painfully hard erection against her groin. There was no countering response, but turning her face sideways, she said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact voice: - "I think you are ready". It sounded as if, knowing it was my first time, she had decided that fucking just had to be done and gotten over with. She turned onto her back. Her face calm, her body's language leaving me in no doubt that she wanted me on top of her. She raised and opened her legs, reached down for my cock, and guided it, centimetre by centimetre, into a from foreplay still hot and welcoming pussy.

For me, it was a partly disappointing first fuck. I was, while a virgin, not ignorant about sex. With the advanced sexual knowledge that I possessed, I suspected that I had disappointed Elizabeth as a lover. Her readiness to fuck and hot tightness after our foreplay undid me much too quickly. She gave no sign, however, of being displeased or bored with me.

On driving her home that night, Elizabeth still wanted to park. As I killed the engine, she pulled me immediately into a tongue-wrestling, hungry kiss that demanded more. I was too inexperienced to understand what drove her: that it was a delayed response of arousal that Elizabeth had suppressed while we fucked. Now she wanted it; wanted it all. Not breaking away in protest when my hand reached for her thighs, she pressed closer. As they opened, her tongue thrust and whirled deep into my mouth.

With a moaned "WAIT!", her hand reached down to push her panties aside to offer her cunt. My fingers parted her lush lips and, first one then two, began to slide in and out of her still or already, slippery-hot, pulsating, now so welcoming cunt. She responded to the fingers tantalising probing and in-and-outs, at first, with a hungrily excited tongue. But then it changed to a staccato of whimpering sobs of - "Yes! ... Yes! ... Yes!" which finished with a shriek of "God! ... No! ... No!" Her body shook and convulsed as she dug her face into my shoulder. Through my clothing, her teeth left their mark. It was Elizabeth's first orgasm; perhaps, as I learned later, not only with me.

Over the following four months, we saw each other surprisingly often, considering that for Elizabeth, our relationship had to be kept secret. Her regular going-out and late returns soon raised the suspicion of her policeman-father. He was already angry with her for wanting to divorce; he had liked his son-in-law and disapproved of their separation.

Elizabeth had trained as a hairdresser, had married at nineteen, and had worked since her separation eighteen months ago in sales for a medium-sized distributor of cosmetic and beauty products. She had one close friend: a divorcee, who provided her with an alibi when needed. About her Ex and her marriage, Elizabeth refused to talk. Although I was young and inexperienced, I often sensed his presence. Especially in bed; he was, sometimes, for Elizabeth, an intimidating third party that she found impossible to banish.

Because of the hidden nature of our relationship, we rarely went out. Only twice, I think, I took her to a different continental club than the one where we had met. We did not want to risk meeting her sister. Practically all the time was spent in my place, and Elizabeth was quite relaxed about being there. On a few occasions, she stayed overnight, telling her parents that she was on a sales trip to the country.

In being so much together, we talked a lot despite my, at this stage, rather elementary English. Two things we did not talk about. One, quite naturally, was the future. Both of us knew there wasn't one, for us two, together. Our silence on the second was rather strange. Elizabeth did not want to talk sex or about sex, even though ours was an intense, almost exclusively sexual relationship which she had sought. She wanted sex cloaked in silence. I learned to accept it - until her oral shyness eventually broke - as a part of the puzzling ambivalence that Elizabeth brought into our relationship.

My first impression on meeting Elizabeth was that she was an ice-maiden. I had danced with her and courted her for much of the night, and she had barely thawed. Then later, parked in the car surrounded by darkness, she sat and did not want to leave. She waited for me to find her quietly glowing centre of sensuousness. Over the next weeks and month, I learned much about the challenge of relating to someone whose sexual feelings swayed almost unpredictable between a simmering sensuality and then, suddenly, its sullen denial behind a mask of indifference.

It was, of course, as much my problem as hers. I was inexperienced and insecure. Foremost, I wanted to show Elizabeth that I was a better lover than my, I thought, disappointing first-time performance in bed had indicated. I really had no idea of what my capabilities as a 'proper' lover were or were supposed to be.

Two evenings later, Elizabeth revisited me. I was determined to make, this time, 'proper' love. With a heater glowing in my room and the light low, we started to pet. To avoid the difficulties I had on our first night together, I asked her eventually to undress for me. I half expected her reluctance. But Elizabeth just turned away from me. With a slight shrug, one that I felt more than saw, she began to undress. It was no teasing strip. Taking unhurriedly off one piece of clothing after the other, she folded each item to place it on a chair. All this she did in silence as if I wasn't in the room. Naked, she lay down on the bed; resting on her elbow, she looked at me and calmly watched me undress.

In my excitement and still virginal inexperience, I did not notice that there was something queer in Elizabeth's response. All I saw was her beauty as she lay there naked waiting for me and, God, I wanted her! When I lay down next to her, she stretched out on her back. I began to kiss her, but while she did not resist, neither her lips nor tongue respond with any signs of excitement. When I moved down to kiss her breasts, her body held still. There was no quickening of her breath and no hardening of her, as I knew from our petting, arousable nipples. Only when my lips began to wander south over her belly did Elizabeth respond. With a firm "No" she pushed my head aside.

Then, as if reluctantly giving in, she spread her legs and raised her knees. She was again prepared to be just fucked.

My cock was hard, and I was in my performance-anxiety insensitive. So, I mounted. I had not yet learned to take consent not for granted, and Elizabeth, ice-maiden-like, neither gave it nor resisted. But there was no helping hand to guide my blindly searching cock. I penetrated her painfully, opposed by her dryness all the way. It served to sober me up.

Still mounted I stopped, looked at her half-turned-away face. Its bland calmness and, what could only be, the show of indifference shamed me. It drained all arousal. I withdrew. Not in defensive anger but ashamed. I pulled the covers over us. Elizabeth had turned away, but I did not want to be left alone. Wordless, I drew close to her back without daring to embrace her. She was silent, and I could find no words. So, we fell asleep.

It was the feel of her body that woke me up. She had turned towards me, and her nakedness just touched my body almost along its length. I could feel her hardened pointy nipples that earlier no kissing could arouse caressing my chest. Our mouths found each other, and hers was unashamedly wanting. My hand slid down, searching to touch her lovely ass. Her hips pressed closer, and her groin searched for the feel of my hardening erection.

After a while, she turned her hips away from my hand on her buttocks. It slipped, as if guided, over her sex. With a slight, hesitantly gyrating movements her pussy was searching, for my fingers. And indeed, first one, then two slid in as if drawn. In our kissing now, Elizabeth's tongue thrust deep and deeper into my mouth. I read this as a signal that now she wanted more.

With a sigh of regret, Elizabeth reached down to guide my cock slowly into the warmth of her pussy. I tried to be as caressing as my clumsy, untrained hips allowed, with only now and then a deep probing thrust. It was good, and I wanted it to be good for her. I kissed her, but now, as we fucked, her kisses were no longer charged with desire. Elizabeth willingly offered herself to pleasure me: it was an offering in which she did not fully share. Realising this cooled my ardour. It also helped me, paradoxically, to overcome my performance anxiety.

This second time I fucked Elizabeth with feeling, lovingly and long. I did not, however, bring her anywhere near a climactic release. I knew it, and she did not pretend.

It was not only that I was too young and immature to understand Elizabeth's ambivalent sexual responses. Part of the reason was that she refused to talk about her marriage, her husband and why she wanted a divorce. She did not want to bring this into our, I supposed, purely hedonistic relationship.

In hindsight, it seems clear to me that in her marriage Elizabeth had learned that to fuck meant to be used. In reacting, she had learned to respond to getting fucked with non-caring indifference. She had married young and had been sexually non-awakened. She found herself, I suspect, married to an insensitive husband that demanded of her, as per right, sexual services that for her offered no erotic reward.

The developing love-story of Elizabeth and I eventually proved that her apparent sexual ambivalence rested not in her character. It was learned and, when shown to be no longer necessary, gradually and for both of us happily unlearned.

I did not want to lose Elizabeth, wanted to please and pleasure her, wanted her to want me. This made me for the time we were together into a careful lover. Ours was a sexual relationship, and we had sex, often prolonged and intensive, every time we met. I left Elizabeth, however, alone in my room to get undressed and into bed. I joined her later, slipping naked under our doona. We talked and joked, sometimes for an hour, with just an occasional casual touch and kiss to confirm our togetherness, and then just lying, as if waiting to go to sleep. It was beautiful how her body unfailingly responded to our nearness. She responded by soon wanting to be held and touched and caressed, in our early days, preferably under the covers.

I wanted very much to look at her and cover all of her with greedy kisses. I had learned that she would not protest if I left the light on and urged her to strip; she would do so without hesitation. She would let me throw off the covers and do with her naked body as I pleased. I knew now, however, that it was not something that she liked to happen. If so violated, she turned into a disengaged ice maiden.

Elizabeth did not like to be naked. Like all the women I have known, she found fault with her body and did not believe that I was blind to them and found her beautiful. It was a drawn-out, but also tantalisingly exciting task to convince Elizabeth that what I loved to touch, she could and should show with shameless pride. I loved her breasts, which she thought were too small and too flat to be reshaped by a bra into the then fashionable pointy prominence. She felt her midriff was not narrow enough. It did not bother me when I was finally allowed to kiss my way down, closer and closer to her light-coloured bush.