Lady Pixie's War Ch. 15: Renewal

The war became truly global in 1942. For the British Empire it was a bad year as the fall of Singapore made India vulnerable to a Japanese attack. For the Soviet Union it was a year to hold your breath. Had Stalingrad fallen, who knows what might have happened? Stalin's feverish demands for a "Second Front" are evidence enough about how desperate he was for some relief from the Germans. Our inability to deliver what he wanted is evidence enough of the extent to which Britain was dependant on America.

Winston, half-American himself, and an incurable romantic about America, concentrated on getting Roosevelt to follow a Mediterranean first strategy, which suited our imperial interests. He assumed that his success in promoting the landings in North Africa in late 1942 was a mark of his influence; it wasn't, it was simply a sign that until the Americans built up a significant military presence in England, Roosevelt was content to let Winston imagine he had great influence. America was the great arsenal of democracy. My old friend, Harold Macmillan (another half-American) assured me that we were "the Greeks in the New Roman Empire." I hadn't the heart to remind the dear boy that the Greeks had been slaves to the Romans. Anyway, I was still glad that I suggested him to Winston as my successor as liaison officer to the Free French after the North African landings; the rest was his own success story. I was glad for him. He was too nice a man to be cuckolded by that swine Bob Boothby.

Perversely, where the dark years of 1940 and 1941 had seen our commune at the Hall as an enclave of safety in a threatening world, the better circumstances of 1942 seemed to being its dissolution. The outside world began to encroach.

The first signs of it came when Lady Cecily suggested that now the blitz was over, she should return to Wilton Street, taking Jenny with her as company. There was no reason to stop it, but we missed them, although the decision to leave little Michael with us, pleased Beccy and little Hope, as the two children were inseparable. As Jenny, ever the realist, put it: "Easier to get a bloke with no kid in tow." And Jenny liked her "blokes."

As a Minister of the Crown, I had never been fully solipsistic. My June encouraged me in my work on what became known as the Beveridge Report. Getting Winston interested proved impossible. When the new Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, sought to interest him in the future shape of the post-war world order, Winston replied by quoting Mrs Glass's recipe for jugged hare: "first catch your hare."

But there was a plus in that for us. It meant when the Report was published late in the year, Winston, who would have opposed most of it had he read it, let it alone. We were free to try to build a National Health Service and attempt our "New Jerusalem." Of course, Winston was right to think that unless we won the war, no amount of planning would be of any use, but he was utterly wrong to imagine we could just arrive at the end of the war and improvise solutions to our many social problems. A great man; but a deeply flawed one.

It was, however, the arrival of the American troops in larger numbers which began to change our lives on the estate. On one level, with their demands for food, the Americans contributed to our growing prosperity. On the other, their appetite for female flesh contributed to other problems.

I still recall our first problem, when one of the senior Americans asked if he could see Archie one weekend just before the North Africa landings. Archie, who loathed the American presence, made up some feeble excuse and scooted off to London to see one of his young soldier boys, leaving me to deal with Colonel Kelsey.

It was evident from his manner when he was ushered in by Anna that he was embarrassed.

"I was hoping to discuss this with Lord Fortescue, Ma'am."

"He had to go up to town," I said, beckoning him to sit, and asking Anna to fetch some tea.

"It's just a bit delicate, Ma'am."

"My dear Colonel, I am quite happy to help, but you really need to tell me what the problem is."

"It's like this Ma'am. You guys have all made us very welcome, but some of my men have a problem with what is happening at your local bar."

"Oh," I said, hazarding a guess, "warm British beer not to their taste? They'll get used to it."

"No, Ma'am, though I doubt we will, it's the girls, Ma'am."

"The girls! Are they not pretty enough?"

"Oh they are Ma'am, it's just, well they fraternise with some of the coloured men, Ma'am, and we have a strict colour bar, coloureds should not associate with white women Ma'am."

I confess I was taken aback. What on earth was one to say to such nonsense?

"I am somewhat at a loss Colonel. There is no colour bar in this country."

"But you could, perhaps, Ma'am, put it out there that respectable white girls should keep their distance from coloured, Ma'am? The Negroes are no respecters of colour, and you wouldn't want half-breed kids cluttering up the place."

I put on my best Lady Bracknell impersonation:

"Colonel, if you cannot control your own men, I fail to see how I can be expected to control the women of the village. This is not the Middle Ages. But let me see what I can do."

He breathed a sigh of relief and had his tea. I had, in fact, no intention of doing anything, but talking with Eden about it back in London, I gathered that it was becoming quite a source of friction. I mentioned it to June, who, I knew, occasionally slipped down to the pub with Anna and some of the Polish girls. She smiled at me.

"Well, darling Pix, not your department, but Kasia, Anna's best friend, tells me that the coloured men are rather well-endowed, which may explain the attraction."

"Oh June!" I looked at her. "Isn't that a canard?"

"Let me get my dictionary Pix, but from what Kasia says, and she puts it about a bit, it's a fact."

"You don't?" I suddenly asked, wondering.

"Have experience? No, but I do have something I picked up from one of the women on the base - for later."

Now she had me intrigued, but I knew enough of my June to know that pressing her to disclose her surprise was not going to work.

It was only after supper that I found out.

It was a Saturday night, and the days when that meant dinner parties and socialising were long gone, replaced, as that night, by a small group of us dining and catching up with what we had all been doing. There was a lot of interest in the Beveridge stuff, and Beccy was full of the news that her Jack was finally coming back to England - for a short while. Anna smiled at her. I wondered, not for the first time, whether she and Beccy ever shared with Jack.

I mentioned that to June when we got to our room.

"Pix, what is this sudden fascination with men? It's not those big black cocks, is it?"

"June!" I said, beginning to protest.

"If it is," she giggled, "I have a solution!"

She pulled from one of the drawers a large phallic object, obsidian black and ribbed.

"This, madam, is for you!"

I gulped. I had not seen anything like that since my days in the decadence of pre-war Berlin.

"Me? It will split me in half."

"Not if you are good and ready for it."

She pulled me to her, and we kissed; the world faded.

"Lie on the bed darling, but first, let us get you out of these clothes."

June helped me off with my dress. I looked at her.

"I love you Pix, so don't be concerned, I want you, and I don't want you distracted by trying to please me. Understand?"

I shivered with pleasure.

"Yes, Miss," I said. That was followed by a quick squeal as she spanked me.

"I am June, not your Miss."

"Yes, M - June!" I added, correcting myself, but not before a second slap had connected with my bottom to make it sting.

"Panties off, my girl!"

I loved the way she watched me as I bent and stepped out of them, handing them to her.

"What's this?" She was grinning as she ran a finger into the gusset.

"You make me so wet, June."

"Good, cos you're going to need to be," she smiled. "Now lie back."

"And think of England?" I joked.

Grinning, June responded by putting the glass phallus to my lips.

"Think of this, in your tight little cunt, darling!"

Normally hating that word, in this context, as June knew only too well, it created a frisson. I felt myself get wetter. I licked the tip.

June looked deep into my eyes. She had me. She knew she had me. But I also knew that whatever she was going to do would stem from her love for me.

She pushed me back on the bed and lay on top of me, kissing me. I hungrily let her lips devour me. My nipples were aching. She knew it. Her lips kissed both of them. When she began to suck my left nipple in between her soft lips, I gasped. I groaned as I felt something cold and slippery against the entrance to my wetness. June knew I have trouble with penetration - could I really take this?

The slow, careful twisting as the ribbed glass phallus pressed my thin lips apart, answered my question. I knew I was soaking, but not that I was that elastic. I gasped and whimpered into her mouth as her phallus was pressed into me, my walls open, trying to clench it, but feeling it opening me.

As she pressed it in, I felt a knuckle brush my clit and my whole body convulsed.

"I am going to fuck you Pix, fuck you like you have never been fucked before."

For a woman who tended to shy clear of penetration, I could only vaguely wonder why that was, as I felt every rib of the phallus on my lips as she fucked me hard and deep; each thrust in I could feel a knuckle against my clit. Then she bit my nipple.

I was on the edge, perpetually about to orgasm, and then stopping when she did. My whole body felt as though every nerve ending that could be stimulated was. I forgot everything except how much I loved June and needed her. Then came the sounds of squelching. I felt her plunge in, the sawing effect as I tried to grip it and she pulled it back. In and out, in and out; the stop; and twist; then again in and out.

June looked deeply into my eyes.

"Now cum for me darling Pix, cum!"

That released the flood gates. I felt it deep in me as I came, hard, clenching the warmed glass, gripping it as I cried her name like a mantra.

She pulled me into her arms, smothering me with her breasts, the phallus still impaling me. I shook. I could not stop the spasms; I did not want them to stop.

Her eyes locked on mine.

"Don't you dare thank me or offer to please me, not this time. This is for you - because I love you."

For what I think must have been the first time in my life, I did not ask to reciprocate. Not just because she said not to, but because I knew that this was her gift to me - and for gifts and love, there is no repayment - except reciprocal love, which meant, for once, letting myself be taken and giving her that unalloyed pleasure that comes when the one you love orgasms because of you. I realised that June, too, knew that feeling.

We might have been at opposite ends of the social spectrum, but we were sisters under the skin and in spirit. Kipling was right - the Colonel's Lady and Judy O'Grady were indeed sisters under the skin.

I let her hold me. I gave myself to what she wanted, not what I supposed she must want; there would be time enough for that.

We woke as the light came through the curtains.

"Thank you, Pix."

"It is me who should be thanking you."

"You know what I mean. You let me please you as I needed to, I never felt you do that before."

"That's because I never have. Be careful, I shall become one of these selfish entitled aristocrats who expects their maid to service them."

"Try that one, my girl, and you won't sit down for a week."

That is my June. Always ready with her humour.

"You're not getting away with that," I giggled, "I know you, rather walk over broken glass than accept thanks - but not this time. Thank you!" I kissed her.

That night taught me a lesson, or rather June helped me to realise something. Being unselfish by nature, I had always wanted to please my lover. As I look back across this long manuscript, which may never see the light of day, I noticed the pattern. I wanted to please them. What I wanted was that. It never occurred to me that others were built that way. That was the way in which June and I were truly sisters under the skin. She loved to please me. Henceforth I would let her. Which, of course did not mean that I would become a selfish bitch, but it did mean that I would become, as I have remained, mindful of her need to please me. She already knew of my need to please her, and that made it easy to lie back - and think of June, when she needed it.

In retrospect it was a watershed, thenceforth our love flowed into new channels. It was not that the sex became less sexy, quite the opposite, but it was now infused with a love that trusted her, as she trusted me. What, I had sometimes wondered, was the difference between sex and love? The difference was not to be found in that question. Sex infused with love was, I had discovered, the best sex.

June's love transformed my life; even Archie noticed.

"I say, old girl, you know I don't usually comment on your ladies, but I have to say young June is a bit of a smasher! She seems to make you happy."

"Archie, I've said it before and will, no doubt, say it again, you're the best husband a lesbian could have. Yes, June does make me happy. I shall miss her when all this is over."

"Look, old thing, not my business and all that, but we could easily stretch to driver for us you know, it's not like you can drive."

"Archie, do you mean that?"

"Of course, I like seeing you happy. By the way, the chaps at the Carlton don't rate this Beveridge thing."

"Do they not, darling? Well as a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool Tories, I'd be horrified if they did."

I talked to June the next day about Archie's suggestion.

"But Pix, are you sure? You could have anyone, why me? I'm just me."

I smiled and kissed her.

"Precisely because you are just you."

The news of the North African landings in November brought huge tension in my part of Whitehall, and tested both myself and Jack to our limits.

To the public, the Anglo-American landings at Casablance, Algiers and Oran were presented as a great success - the first fruits of the new alliance with America, but the truth was that politically it was the sort of mess that only Winston could have produced.

De Gaulle was furious. As Jack told me, he'd screamed at him:

"So, you invade French territory and you do not tell the Free French? Your insults get more and more intolerable."

That anger turned to cold fury when it turned out that the Americans had come to a deal with Admiral Darlan, the Vichy leader in Algiers. I remonstrated with Eden, who, fortunately, was as angry as I was.

"The problem Lady Pixie is that the Yanks don't like de Gaulle and they are happy to do a deal with Darlan, not least if it sidelines him. Winston won't listen!"

Fortunately, the American commander, Eisenhower, who I later came to know quite well, knew he was out of his depth politically, and suggested that political advisors should be appointed. That was when I suggested Harold Macmillan and, as it happened, inadvertently kick-started his political rise. Jack was grateful, as Beccy told me on Christmas Eve:

"Oh Mama, you are such a darling. Jack says you've saved his life."

That might have been the case, literally as it turned out, because the following morning a cable came through that Darlan had been assassinated. No one complained too much, and by one of those "accidents" that seem to happen which Secret Services want to cover things up, the assassin himself was shot, so no one could quite pin down whether it was the Gaullists or us who had commissioned the assassination, though the gun used was one only issued to British agents. But as Darlan was expendable and his demise defused a dangerous political situation, no one seemed to mind terribly much.

For us, it lifted a threat to our work with de Gaulle, which given that his wife and youngest daughter lived with us, we a relief on the personal front. Yvonne, Mme. de Gaulle, kept herself to herself. Like her husband, she regarded herself as the representative of Free France. A devout Catholic, she seemed blissfully unaware of the relationships between myself and June and Beccy and Anna. All she cared about was that we all loved her vulnerable Anne, who, it turned out, was a wonderful nurse to young Hope and Michael.

It was a small, but significant sign of the changing mood that for the first time since 1938 we held a small New Year's Eve party. As I looked round, it seemed to me that here, as in the greater world, 1942 had indeed marked the end of the beginning. We cheered in the New Year of 1943, and June and I retired in time to celebrate by making passionate love with each other. I awoke early that morning, looked over at June and thanked God for bringing her into my life,