Losing Inhibitions Pt. 02

Daphne said, "We will get you a backless evening dress soon for the social occasions you will need to attend with Bernard. You need to get your back tanned the same way as the rest of you to get it to work properly. We must also protect you from sunburn."

She told Juliette to lie on her front and then ordered James to help Juliette with the suntan lotion. Juliette felt a little embarrassed, but not enough to say no. After all, James had been scrupulously polite to her, and his sisters and mother were watching. He also was the only one in the group without an ice cream in his hand who was in a position to rub the lotion in.

He started on her arms, then her shoulders and neck, before moving to her back. It was pleasant feeling his touch on her skin. He undid the strap across her back after Daphne explained that it was important that women tanned evenly and that while she was lying on her front, she did not need that strap to protect her modesty. He worked the lotion in and massaged her as well. She found herself relaxing. She hadn't properly appreciated how tense she was. The worries about having children with Bernard had gotten to her more than she had realised.

It was when he started on her legs that she registered that she was enjoying herself, but then Daphne distracted her by talking to them all about her memories of going down on the beach when she was a child and with the details of the tennis afternoon she had now arranged for the weekend.

Juliette closed her eyes and relaxed as James's hands got higher up her legs. When they reached her upper thighs, she found herself responding to the touch in a similar way to when Bernard had used her like a dog and when she had watched James with Samantha in the cinema. She half sensed James hesitating, and then Daphne said, "James, you can't leave the job half done. We don't want Juliette getting burned."

If the twins had sniggered or laughed, she would have stopped James, but the fact that they and Daphne treated what was happening as perfectly normal reassured her. Daphne was now talking to them about their new school next term, and she zoned out of this conversation.

She found herself purring like a cat and imagining that it was Bernard who was attending to her legs. Daphne then said, "Turn over."

Daphne dealt with her neck and cleavage while James did the front of her thighs. He had done both sides of her lower legs and arms while she had laid on her front. She shut her eyes against the sun and half dozed. She parted her legs to allow James to get at all her exposed skin and raised her knees. The purring got louder, and the feeling between her legs intensified. She clenched her teeth, not wanting the sensation to end but being frightened that she would betray her reaction. She wanted to place her fingers there or for Bernard to be there with her. Finally, Daphne said, "James, take your sisters swimming."

James obeyed and, after taking off his trousers, encouraged his sisters to race him towards the sea. He gave them a head start. Soon, all three were swimming happily. Daphne laughed as her children played in the sea. "You're learning. On Saturday, you would have been too embarrassed to have enjoyed that. I hope this weekend you can persuade Bernard to rub in the lotion himself. He needs to get used to touching your body in the same way that you needed to get comfortable with being touched."

Juliette said, "Well, it was just putting on the suntan lotion."

"Precisely, my dear. Totally innocent and yet rather fun."

Juliette nodded. Perhaps it was like the tennis skirt being fine when a mini skirt wasn't. She looked around and whispered, "I did enjoy myself."

"Good. I thought you did."

James vanished at 11.45, and Daphne said he was taking out the waitress again. Daphne lifted her sunglasses and said, "As Grampa would say if you can't be good, be careful. The twins cackled at this, and their brother laughed with them. While part of her did not approve of the joke, she envied Daphne's friendship with her children.

The remaining four returned to the family home at 12, when Mavis served them all sausages, mash, and peas for lunch. Daphne went to watch the girls practice tennis in advance of Saturday afternoon.

Grampa Arnold told her to join him in the cellar at 2 to see the photographs from last night. He gave her the key to the cellar, which fitted both the door from outside and the cellar door.

She came down through the door inside the house. She discovered that Arnold was getting more equipment out and helped him bring out a sofa with one end missing. He told her that it was called a chaise longue. He also showed her that one of the side rooms contained a bed.

He said, "You remember Samantha, the waitress at the Club?"

"Yes."

"I knew her mother twenty or so years ago." He reached over and showed a few photographs of a woman who plausibly could have been the waitress's mother in a variety of outfits and poses.

"Are you taking pictures of her?"

"She's lunching with James first. She and he will be here around three, and I'll photograph her. It'll be fun taking pictures of her. I'll try and persuade her to pose in all the way her mother did for me twenty years ago over the summer."

There was something about the tone of his voice which suggested that Bernard would not approve of some of the poses he intended.

He then showed her the photographs he had taken yesterday. "I developed them this morning. It's not all of them, but I've chosen the best ones."

Arnold watched her look at them. "I think the "Betty Grable" look worked well. You look amused and attractive."

She nodded. "If the weather's good, I'll get him to go to the beach with us on Saturday morning."

"Sounds like a good idea. It'll get him used to seeing your legs, and then he can watch you playing tennis in the afternoon. With luck, the young couple coming over with Daphne's friend will be suitably affectionate. None of us will complain if you find an excuse to take Arnold inside to strike while his iron is hot."

She almost laughed at this innuendo and was emboldened to ask him, "No one ever told me about the practicalities. Daphne suggested that you may have some books which would help me understand."

She left the sentence hanging, but her father-in-law understood the implied question. "Of course, my dear." He went inside one of the rooms and returned a moment later with two books. "One of these concentrates on the biological side. It's more about avoiding children, but it does explain why the precautions are suggested and needed. The second focuses on how to give pleasure to each other. I would suggest that you don't tell Bernard that you have them or have read them."

Arnold got on with preparing for the photo shoot while she started reading the books. She was relieved to find that her suspicions about what was needed for her to conceive had been basically correct. It also worried her. Bernard had rarely been able to (to use the word in the book) ejaculate inside her. She'd lost track of time when she heard a knock on the door leading from the main house.

Arnold said, "I suggest you leave through the entrance to the garden."

She went through the curtains and was halfway up the stairs when she stopped. She was curious about James and the waitress and about what poses Grampa would suggest the waitress pose in. She took off her shoes, crept down the stairs and watched through a gap in the curtains.

The girl and James had clearly had a good lunch, and the waitress was giggly. She was shocked at how willing the girl was to allow Grampa and James to look at her body.

Samantha even asked James to help her undress, and when they were in the changing room, she heard the girl giggle and say, "You can help me stiffen up my nipples. I know you know how to."

Juliette remembered the cinema and James playing with the girl's breasts. She wished she could ask Bernard a similar question. She was still disturbed from her reactions to James putting on the suntan lotion, and the thought of him also feeling her breasts gave her an illicit thrill. She found herself touching her breasts again and quickly snapped out of it.

The girl was dressed in stockings, black shorts, and a black waistcoat, which barely covered her breasts. She knew the effect she was having on the two men and revelled in it.

It was interesting that Grampa's patter was similar to that he had used with her and Daphne as he explained the different styles of photographs and the use his showgirl clients would make of each of them. Similar but not identical. He was rather more direct about some of the marketing uses and that one local editor had a fascination with feet and stockings. This meant that for some of the publicity photographs, the angles had to make certain they appealed to the editor without upsetting those who did not share his fetish (whatever that word meant) or outraging public decency. This accounted for a lot of his photographs being of girls in shorts rather than skirts. The waitress replied to that one with her trademark mucky laugh. She watched as James responded to it and, for some reason, crossed his legs.

Juliette had thought that Arnold had been daring with some of the poses he had suggested for her and Daphne, but, self-evidently, he had been holding back. Most of her was disgusted by it. A man old enough to be her grandfather or even great-grandfather was touching Samantha and posing her, and even if James and the girl didn't mind, Grampa was putting his hands all over the girl. Part of her wished she could be as relaxed about her own attractiveness as the girl. Obviously, she would stop long before the waitress would, but the look in the girl's eye meant she now understood what her sister-in-law had said about enjoying men finding you attractive. Her reaction to the Polaroid shot that Grampa took of her against the bar stool after he had adjusted her pose was one of profound satisfaction and delight.

Juliette had always been nervous about attracting attention, and ever since her breasts had started developing, she had tried to find ways to hide them. Maybe she had been wrong to do so. She kept coming back to the thought that the nearest she and Bernard had managed yet at producing children was after he had watched Grampa fondling Samantha, and the girl had flaunted her breasts when filling his wine glass. He had only let go with her when he was still angry about Samantha flaunting herself. The other two occasions when he had (what was that word again) ejaculated inside herself were after going to performances at the local Amateur Dramatic Society of The Seagull and As You Like It, where a young actress called Margaret Good had played Nina and Rosalind in a decidedly flamboyant manner. Bernard had harrumphed about the way she flaunted herself, but, thinking back, he had been decidedly more demonstrative in bed afterwards.

She had been shocked when Samantha had changed into the lingerie. Strictly, she supposed the corset showed little more skin than the waistcoat, other than the shoulders. The French Knickers weren't that much skimpier than the shorts. It was not that different from wearing the swimming costume. However, the whole vibe was more sexual because it was underwear. She was wearing it in front not only of James, whom she supposed counted as a boyfriend, but Arnold was an old man.

She gasped at that point, but luckily, the music hid the noise. James had glanced toward the curtains but had said and done nothing. She tried to commit to memory the poses which Samantha had adopted. They might help when she was wearing the new negligee for Bernard that weekend.

When James left the room, and it was agreed that he would be gone an hour, she should have left. Unfortunately, the track which had been playing had come to an end. Also, the door from the garden was in view of the tennis court. Daphne and, worse, the twins would wonder what she had been doing if she emerged now.

Arnold carried on taking photographs of Samantha for a few minutes. "I'm certain that I knew your mother back in 1953." He walked over to a drawer, took out an A4-sized envelope and produced a photograph.

The girl gasped, "That's the photograph I found when we cleared the attic."

"Yes, I took photos designed for autographs for her. She practised her signature and then signed one for me."

"She used the same signature on the one she gave to Daddy."

"You take after your mother."

"I suppose I do. She used a different name when she married Daddy."

"Lots of girls used stage names. Diana Dors was originally Diana Fluck."

The girl laughed. "You're kidding!"

"Cross my heart and hope to die. It's obvious why she changed her name, but others did it to avoid embarrassing their family or because they thought the new name sounded better for a star. It also helped if they got married to be able to say it was a case of mistaken identity if anyone claimed to recognise them."

"It's hard to imagine Mummy taking her clothes off in front of you."

"It was what women in show business did back then. Well, maybe not Margaret Rutherford or Joyce Grenfell, but they were character actresses. It was understood that if you were a young woman in show business, you took photographs showing your cleavage and your legs to the best effect. It's still the case. Only now, sexual liberation means that it's easier for men to persuade young women they need to get their tits out."

The girl thought about it and laughed. "You are a cynical man, Arnold."

"I'm right, though."

"What do you remember about my mother?"

"Beautiful woman. Had enough talent that if she got a break, she could have done well. Not tall enough to be a Tiller girl or in the other precision dance troupes, but had comic timing and a cheeky look, which worked well enough. Good voice and she had your laugh. A few years later, she could have had Barbara Windsor's career."

He paused, "Look, I had forty-five years of persuading young women to pose for me. I will need to refresh my memory. I'm certain what I've told you is correct as far as it goes, but the same goes for many of the women I photographed. There are stories which repeat themselves. What do you want to know?"

"I know nothing about Mummy's life before she married Daddy. I didn't know she had been on the stage until I found that photograph." She paused then.

Arnold said, "Did you suspect?"

"Some members of Daddy's family occasionally said things which were a little off."

He nodded, "And I suppose she felt the need to be very respectable?"

"Yes. Is that another story which repeats?"

"Yes."

"I know nothing about Mummy when she was my age. I know nothing about her family. She just says that her life before marrying Daddy seems like a dream best forgotten now."

Arnold crossed to the chaise longue. "Sit down beside me, Samantha."

The girl obeyed. "I want you to think about whether you really want to know about your mother's past and whether it is fair on her. Would you want your children to know about what you did before you met their father?"

"I would at least tell them a story they could believe."

"I'm happy to find the photographs I took of your mother and take pictures of you in the same poses and similar clothes on the same terms as she did."

"Any pose my mother did, I am happy to do."

"I may or may not hold you to that. I can certainly fit in at least one afternoon session a week this season."

"And the terms?"

"How will you know that I am telling you the truth?"

"The manageress at the Club said that you had asked her to warn me before she assigned me to wait on you."

"I'm not entirely certain that answers the question. I may be basically trustworthy, but a man confronted by an attractive woman will be tempted to lie."

"She said that you had the reputation of playing fair by your own lights."

Arnold laughed. "Would you believe me if I said that I was happy to take photographs for cash and I was happy to take photographs as part of a mutually enjoyable afternoon or evening?"

Even Juliette could work out what he meant by mutual enjoyment.

"Yes, I would."

"Because I relied on word of mouth from performers, it was vital that I had a reputation for being a man who could be trusted. Some of James's female friends have a phrase they use about men - not safe in taxis -- and warn each other to take precautions accordingly. I have photographs of performers from around 1921 to 1967, which suggests that I had a reputation for being either generous or reliable -- perhaps a mixture of both. Still, it has been some time since I have relied on word of mouth for more than the Club's manageress reassuring her charges that I know the rules for touching waitress's legs and caressing their bums. You would be sensible to bear in mind that I have no ongoing reputation to maintain amongst the performers nowadays."

"I understand."

"Today's session was gratis. We can discuss arrangements for future sessions at another time."

"And my mother?"

"I won't confirm how she encouraged me to photograph her until you have decided that you really want to know about your mother's past."

"And if I do, can you help me?"

"I always tried to ensure I never mixed up the women I knew. For that reason, I took copious notes of the facts about their lives they seemed to find important. After each visit, I would write them up in a journal, albeit using shorthand and my own codewords. I would also record their visits in a diary. I would refresh my memory before each visit."

"Go on."

"It is possible that I can locate my diary and my journals from 1953. It is possible that I could identify young women who performed in the same shows as her. I may even be able to recall which venues she performed in and locate programmes for them. There may be other details which will assist you in finding out about your mother's past."

"But you would require an incentive to locate them?"

"I am an old man who is more tired than he would like. My interest needs to be sparked, especially as I have no desire to harm your mother."

"How certain are you that you can find this information you refer to?"

"More likely than not."

Juliette looked at Arnold and said, "Can I ask James to give you my answer? In code, of course."

Arnold laughed, "I don't think code will be needed. Still, if you want, you can ask him to tell me that Dorcas is willing if you want to explore the possibilities with me next Monday afternoon at 2.30 here?"

"That will be fine. By the way, do be kind to James."

"Kind?"

"He's as close to a good man as we have in the family. I don't want him to be humiliated. A couple of women in the past tried to take advantage of him. Also, my guess is that he needs to be persuaded to really let himself go. It's a disadvantage of having a good relationship with his mother. My relationship with my mother never inhibited me, which perhaps says a lot about me."

"I take your message. I went out with him for my enjoyment before I knew that you knew Mummy. I intend to make love with him tonight after we go dancing."

"Why wait? Allow me to show you a few things."

Arnold took the girl by the hand, took a key out of his pocket, and opened a door. "The sheets were changed today. Check the drawers beneath the bed. There are dressing gowns there to keep you both warm."

The waitress laughed muckily. "You really are prepared. Not that I ever doubted that some women were persuaded to show mutual appreciation."

"I doubt how private your lodgings are, and James's room is next to his sisters. This room is underneath the kitchen, and the cellar ceiling and walls are sound."

She could see the expression on the waitress's face.

Arnold then led her to the darkroom. "There is a bottle of Chianti and a corkscrew. Also, some sandwiches which my housekeeper, Mrs Withers, made at lunchtime."