Freshers Ch. 02

Author's Note:

Well dear readers, here is the second chapter of my new Tommy, Beth & Terri story where we discover how and why Terri turned up cold, wet and dishevilled on Tommy and Beth's doorstep.

As always, any resemblances to any person(s) living or dead or to any company/organisation are unintended and entirely coincidental. All characters are over 18 years of age.

Enjoy!

Freshers - A Tommy, Beth & Terri story

Chapter Two - October 1985

An Unexpected Visitor (Tommy)

"Terri?!?" I gasped as I saw the bedraggled girl on our doorstep.

Suddenly, recognition hit my sister like a slap to the face.

"Terri!! What... what are you doing here?!?" She gasped, "Come on inside, you must be freezing!!"

"Ohhh Beth!" Terri groaned tearfully and immediately fell wetly into my sister's arms.

"Terri, has... has something happened?" I asked her, pretty sure that this was no social visit and that something dreadful had happened.

"I... I..." Terri sniffled, "I... left."

"You left??" Beth said.

"I left my mum." Terri replied tearfully, "I told her about... about how I... how I... had sex while on holiday with you two."

"Oh Terri..." Beth said and hugged her friend closely.

"I didn't tell her who I had sex with." Terri began to explain, "I just told her I met a boy and we hit it off and we... made love together."

"Come on inside Terri - God, look at the state of you! Tommy, put the kettle on." Beth said as she guided her soaking wet and wind-blown friend into the kitchen.

"Er, yes of course." I said and went over to fill the kettle.

Beth immediately begin to help he out of the thin jacket she was wearing.

"I did... ex-xactly... as you said I sh-should." Terri shivered tearfully to Beth as she took off the thoroughly drenched and inadequately thin and not very waterproof jacket, "I stood up to h-her like you said I should... and she... she..."

"She what, Terri?" Beth prompted as she sat down at the table.

"She w-went absol-l-lutely apeshit!" Terri shivered as she took a seat herself.

For a brief moment I considered taking off my bathrobe and draping it over her shoulders to help her warm up but then thought better of it once I realised I was naked underneath it. Instead I went and fetched my parka to drape over her instead.

"Well, I kind of expected that sort of reaction from her, I must admit." Beth said.

"Well, I expected it m-myself." Terri sniffed, "But I still wasn't quite p-prepared for the things she s-said to me."

"What did she say?" I asked her as I sat myself down at the table to join the two girls.

"She... she called me a slut!" Terri said, causing another burst of sobbing, "You're a s-slut Theresa Alice Sutton, she said to me, you're no better than a f-f-filthy, disease-ridden b-backstreet whore!"

"Oh my god..." Beth muttered.

"She said I had practically sold my virtue to a randy Neanderthal boy as though I were a common prostitute!" Terri continued tearfully, "She said I had sinned and brought shame upon the f-family - and upon myself."

"Ohh Terri, I'm so sorry." I said to her, taking her hand in mine.

"It's okay Tommy." She said between her tears and trying to reassure me, "I didn't tell her it was you I had sex with. Although she'll probably put two and two together eventually. I told her... I told her it was a French boy. She screamed at me for hours until she lost her voice. The last thing she said to me was to go to my room and that she'd 'sort me out in the morning'."

At least it seemed like she had stopped shivering now, even though she still looked as though she was very cold indeed.

"Did she... did she throw you out then?" Beth asked.

"No - I didn't want to give her the satisfaction." Terri replied bitterly, "So I waited until she was asleep, threw some clothes into my rucksack and just left in the early hours."

The kettle boiled and clicked itself off. I got up and made her a cup of instant coffee and then set it down before her.

"Thank you Tommy." She said as she picked up the mug in both hands and took a brief sip of the reviving beverage.

"So, what happened then?" I asked her.

"Well, I knew I had to get away - but I had nowhere to go." She continued, "I thought for a moment I might go to your mum and dad's place but it was three in the morning and it didn't seem fair to burden them with my problems in the wee small hours. So I found myself at the train station - I decided I would much rather be with you two."

She took another sip of coffee before continuing with her sorry tale.

"I had to wait for hours for a train to arrive - I was freezing cold and I put on everything I had in my rucksack just to keep warm. I even put a pair of socks on my hands as a pair of makeshift mittens." She continued, "When a train eventually came in I just got straight on it - the ticket office hadn't yet opened so I had to buy one on board from the guard. I bought a ticket as far as Brighton, intending to get a ticket from there up to York. Except... except I only had enough money on me to get me as far as Doncaster."

"Doncaster?!?" Beth gasped, "But that's 40 miles away!!"

"I arrived at Doncaster at about lunchtime - all I had left on me was enough to buy a sandwich." Terri explained, "I had no money to get me any further, so I... I hitchhiked here."

"You did what?!?" I gasped. Thumbing a lift by the side of the road was the last thing I would've expected her to do.

"I managed to flag down a lorry driver who took me as far as Pontefract and from there I managed to get another lift from a passing sales rep. He could only take me as far as York racecourse because he was heading for Scarborough and wasn't intending to actually stop in York itself so I had to walk the rest of the way here. And of course by then it was getting dark and it had begun to rain. I walked around for hours trying to find this place and the weather was getting worse and worse. I was beginning to lose hope until I came across your street almost by accident."

"Well thank God you did!" Beth said, "You're lucky you weren't taken advantage of out there, a girl out on your own hitchhiking and cadging lifts from passing truckers. And look at the state of you - you look like death warmed up!"

"Yeah, you're lucky you don't have hypothermia!" I added.

"I think we'd better get you into a nice hot bath." Beth said as she stood up and beckoned Terri to her feet, "We need to get you out of those wet clothes before you do get hypothermia!"

"I'll, er... see if I can warm up some soup or something." I said as Beth ushered Terri out of the kitchen.

"Good idea Tommy." Beth replied, "As soon as I get her out of these wet things I'll get them in the wash."

I left the two girls to head upstairs to the bathroom while I rooted around in the kitchen cupboards for a tin of soup, eventually settling on some Scotch Broth that I knew would be suitably warming and fortifying for her. Just as I was about the open the tin the phone rang in the living room. I set the tin down on the worktop and went to answer it.

"Hello?" I said as I picked up the receiver.

"Thomas?" Came the voice at the other end, "It's your father here."

Dad was the only person who ever called me by my full name, something that was a constant bugbear of mine.

"Dad, I wish you'd call me Tommy like everyone else does." I chided.

"Whatever." He replied dismissively, "Listen, have you heard from Terri at all?"

"Well, er... yes actually, we have." I replied, "In fact she arrived here a few minutes ago."

"Ah... I see." Dad replied.

Just then I heard him speak across the room to our mother.

"She's with the twins." He said, "Thomas says she arrived at their place a couple of minutes ago. Sorry, what? Oh, yes I'll ask him. Is she okay Thomas?"

"Well, she's fine." I replied, "Physically I mean. She's very upset and she was soaked to the skin and shivering cold when she turned up. Beth's taken her upstairs for a bath and I was about to put some soup on for her."

"Good, well as long as she's safe that's the main thing." Dad said with obvious relief in his voice.

"Do you know why she's here?" I asked him.

"Well, yes... but we're not sure of the exact details." He answered, "But we gathered from her mother's hysterical ranting that she ran away from home. Why would she do such a thing Tommy?"

"Well, Beth and I do know exactly why she ran away." I said as I sat down on the settee by the phone, "But... I don't think it's fair for me to tell you. It's a bit... personal you see."

"Look Thomas, you can tell me." Dad said on the other end of the line, "I promise it'll go no further than between us, but if your sister's friend has decided to run away from home and casually turned up on your doorstep expecting to be taken in then we have a right to know why. Especially since your mother and I are paying for half of the rent for that place."

I sighed.

"Look, okay - just promise me you won't tell anyone. Well, apart from Mum that is." I said.

"I promise Thomas - I only want to know what would cause her to run away like this - all we could get out of her mother was that she'd disgraced herself on holiday."

"Well, you know how... conservative her family is." I began.

"Yes I know." Dad replied, "I mean I know they are Methodists, but I'm pretty sure Methodists aren't that strict! But Terri's family takes it to the extreme - I mean, talk about Victorian... no, Puritan values!"

"Yes, well... she did something on holiday that her mother didn't approve of. She... well, if you really must know, she... had sex."

"Had sex?? You mean she..."

"She... lost her virginity." I said - I couldn't quite bring myself at that point to admit to him that I had been the one she had lost her virtue to.

"Oh!" Dad exclaimed, "I see."

"As you can imagine her mum was pretty pissed off about that." I said moving on.

"I can imagine." Dad replied, "Do you know how er... who umm... who it was? Or how it happened?"

This was a critical moment - did I tell him it was me or do what Terri had done and said it was just a boy she met. I took a deep breath...

"It was... well... it was me if you really have to know." I said flatly. I steeled myself for the ear-bashing I was sure I was about to receive.

"YOU?!?!" Dad gasped at the other end of the line, "You... had sex with Terri???"

"He did what?!?!" Came Mum's shocked voice in the background.

I sighed heavily - At the end of the day I simply couldn't lie to them.

"Helen please... just calm down a second okay." Dad said to Mum, "Just let me get to the bottom of this, please."

"Yes - it was me." I confirmed once I heard Mum in the background settle down a little, "It... well... I've had... well, I kind of felt attracted to her from the very first time I met her."

Okay, so that was a little bit of a lie.

"And if you must know... it was... it was my first time too."

Okay so that one was a very big lie! After all, how does one say to one's parents that the person you lost your virginity to is in actual fact your own twin sister? And besides, in my defence in some ways it was my first time - my first time with someone that I am not related to that is. But I was determined to leave the falsehoods there - from then on I resolved to tell the truth. After all, my being in a relationship with Terri was at least more plausible and more acceptable than telling my parents I was actually... well, more accurately also, having sex with Beth. Of course Terri's mum's feelings on the subject were another matter altogether!

"Oh Thomas!" Dad groaned.

"I'm sorry Dad, it just... sort of... happened." I said in my defence.

"Well, I hope you at least used protection!" Dad said.

What with the hysteria surrounding the AIDS virus in those days, with a high profile media campaign urging people to not take risks and always practice safe sex, I could understand the seriousness of his words.

"Of course we did." I assured him, "Terri insisted I wore a condom and I did the responsible thing and put one on - just like you always taught me to. I let her take control the whole time and we did things at her pace - I didn't force myself on her or anything like that. We just had sex, as simple as that."

I'll never forget the time when Mum and Dad took us into the living room at home and taught us about condoms and how to use them. I remember us looking on in horror and embarrassment as Dad used a banana to demonstrate to us how to put one on, making sure there was no trapped air in it that might cause it to split or accidentally slip off. Of course in time we both appreciated their concern for our safety and wellbeing, but it was pretty uncomfortable at the time talking about such things with them - especially for me since the banana was supposed to represent my... y'know. I felt my cheeks burning throughout the whole thing.

"Does her mother know it was you that had sex with her?" Dad asked. His voice sounded reasonably calm but I was unable to tell if there was an undercurrent of rage in his words.

"She told us that she told her mum it was just 'some boy she met on holiday', and left it at that." I replied.

"Well, I hope for your sake that she bought it!" Dad said gravely, "I wouldn't put it past her to come up there with a pair of garden shears to cut your balls off with!"

"We didn't do anything wrong!!" I insisted, "We're both over 18, we can do whatever we want. And we can have sex with whoever we want!"

Dad sighed loudly on the other end of the line.

"Of course I know that." He said after a moment's pause, "As long as you use protection and it's totally consensual, who you have sex with is no business of mine, or your mother's. In fact we both feel Terri's a really nice girl, it's just... well, her mother won't be quite so accepting as we are."

"Please promise me you won't tell her!" I pleaded.

"You really think I'd land you in it with a woman as clearly deranged as Terri's mum?" Dad scoffed, "Of course not son. But she'll have to know sooner or later - but it's for Terri to tell her. Just promise me one thing, whatever happens you stand by her okay. You do the decent thing by her - be a man and be by her side when she chooses to tell her."

"Of course I will Dad." I replied, "But I'm not going to force Terri to tell her mum about... us."

An uneasy silence ensued for several long moments.

"Was it just the one time?" Dad asked eventually.

Now it was my turn to sigh.

"No." I confessed, "We had sex... well, a few times to tell you the truth."

A few times was somewhat of an understatement - in fact over the course of that fortnight on the French Riviera I totally lost count of how many times I'd had sex with her. She had brought two boxes of condoms with her and I'm pretty sure there were only a few left once we went back home to England. Mind you, she didn't use all of them with me - during our last afternoon in our secret cove she had sex with Alex a couple of times as well as with me.

"Look, I appreciate your honesty in this Thomas." Dad said, "And so does your mother. What you get up to and who you have sex with is fine with us as long as you do the responsible thing. You might not like to hear this but when I was at university I slept with my fair share of girls before I met your mother - and I know that I wasn't your mother's first either."

"Oh for God's sake Dad!" I replied with distaste - I mean, who really wants to hear details about one's parent's sex lives?

"Sorry Thomas but it's true." Dad said a little defensively, "We were young once too you know!"

"I know, it's just..." I said.

"It's okay son, I won't give you any of the gory details!" Dad said with a chuckle, "Just promise me you'll get Terri to call her mother - to at the very least let her know that she's okay. Will you do that for me?"

"I will Dad, I promise." I pledged solemnly, "As soon as she's out of the bath I'll try and persuade her to call her mum."

"Good boy Thomas." Dad replied, "We'll leave it there okay. If you and Terri want to have a proper relationship... well, your mother and I will be happy to give it our blessing at least! As for Terri's mum, well... your mother and I will try and talk her around but we can't promise anything."

"I know Dad." I answered, "I appreciate that, thank you. Love you Dad."

"Love you too son." Dad replied, "Same goes for Beth too."

"Yes, thanks - I'll tell her." I said, "Well, goodnight then."

"Night Thomas - see you soon." Dad said, and then I heard a click as he hung up the phone at his end.

I sighed heavily, both in relief and in apprehension. I hoped I had done the right thing.

Explanations (Terri)

Words cannot express how relieved I was when I finally made it to Beth and Tommy's flat. I was cold, wet and shivering in a way I'd never felt before - I was miserable beyond belief. Finally resolving to stand up to my domineering and ultra-conservative mother had seemed so easy in theory, but every time I tried to follow Beth's advice and simply come out with the (very) naked facts about my holiday with the Twins, the words refused to come out. And it would probably have continued like that for years and years, but then of course fate has a nasty habit of making those decisions for you.

"Come on, let's get you out of those wet things." Beth said as she closed the bathroom door.

I began stripping off my thoroughly soaked clothes as Beth began to fill the bath. The room began to fill with a light steam as I struggled out of my wet things as they clung to my skin.

"I'll go and take these things downstairs and put them in the wash for you." Beth said as I was finally down to my underwear, about the only things on me that weren't completely saturated, "I'll give you some privacy - just come on down when you're ready."

"Beth, wait." I said to my friend reaching for her as she picked up my pile of wet clothes, "I... I don't want to be alone - not right now. Will you stay with me?"

"Are... are you sure?" Beth replied uncertainly, "I mean..."

Suddenly the phone rang downstairs.

"I'd best answer that, it'll probably be Mum and Dad." Beth said, sounding a little relieved as she made for the bathroom door, "I expect word has got to them about your running away by now."

"It's alright Beth, let Tommy answer it. I just need someone to talk to right now." I interrupted her calmly as I took her by the arm, "I mean I don't have anything you haven't seen before remember? I'm not embarrassed."

I unhooked my bra and slipped off my knickers to leave me completely naked in front of my friend. Before that life-changing holiday I would never in a million years have considered letting someone else see me naked like this.

"Well... if you're sure." Beth said, biting her lip as she looked me up and down momentarily.

"You've seen me naked before remember?" I said to her, "Remember Île Solharvre? And the cove and all the other times on holiday?"

Beth sighed.

"All right, if you insist." She said, raising her hands in submission as she took a seat on the toilet by the bath.

I stepped into the blissfully warm water, sighing contentedly as I lowered myself into its comforting and all-enveloping embrace. Within seconds I felt a thousand times better than I had just minutes earlier.

"So then..." Beth said, "I guess you're going to want to begin at the beginning."

"Ohh Beth, it was horrible!" I began, "It was so... I mean, I never intended to..."

"Never intended to what?" Beth prompted.

"I... well, if you must know... I never intended to tell Mum about... y'know, what happened in France. I was... Just too scared about what might happen if I did." I confessed, biting my bottom lip nervously, "I mean, I know all you said I should do was tell her I wasn't a virgin anymore and simply stand up to her and not let her dominate me, but it sort of... well, matters were taken out of my hand so to speak."