Memoirs of a Variety Artiste Pt. 02

When Franco and Roberto Guiglielmo called on us grandma, Janie and I were all in black. I am amazed that they didn't 'turn tail and hop it,' to use grandma's phrase. She had wanted us to change out of mourning but we thought it would be disrespectful to our husbands after less than three months.

The two men had put on a certain amount of weight in the years since we had last seen one another but they were still magnificent hunks of manhood. Grandma was clearly delighted by the two weightlifters and found out more about them in a matter of minutes than we had in our time working together on the same bill. As soon as they opened their mouths I had thought their accents had changed and wondered what to make of it.

Within minutes of their sitting down at the tea table grandma said, 'Frank Williams. You're Frank Williams's boys.'

'Bang to rights, Mrs Joyce, except that we're Frank's grandsons, not sons.'

'Of course you are, dear. How is your granddad?'

Janie and I looked on open-mouthed. Janie said, 'But you're from Italy, aren't you.'

Franco grinned and said, 'Stepney. The Italian idea was grandpa's. Italian contortionists, strong-men and acrobats were all the rage in those days so he changed our name to Guglielmo, but he couldn't spell it, and by the time he found out his mistake he, grandma and grandpa's brother, Joe, had made a big name for themselves as the Flying Guiglielmos.'

'Oh, they were a lovely act,' interjected grandma. 'I always envied your grandma her costume for the trapeze section. She had lovely legs and it showed them off a treat. So you two must be Robert's boys. When I last saw you your grandma brought you here as babies. Franco was eighteen months and Roberto was six or seven months old. Oh, you were lovely babies. You laughed all the time you were here.'

Janie and I might as well not have been there. Grandma talked and the two men seemed very pleased to listen to her. They laughed and cried over stories about people grandma thought they would remember but who died before they were born and incidents grandma recalled from the early life of their father and the careers of their grandparents, but which were news to them.

At last grandma pulled herself together and said, 'But you young people have come here to see my granddaughters and I'm wittering on and you're too polite to shut me up. I'll go and make the tea and you have a talk. Despite the black don't you think they're beautiful?'

'Grandma!' exclaimed Janie and I and we blushed. Franco and Roberto smiled and Franco said gravely, 'They're as lovely as when we first saw them, Mrs Joyce.'

Grandma nodded at us and winked and went out to the kitchen. We now became the hostesses and Janie said, 'It is very good of you to come to see us after all this time. We appreciate the kindness. How did you know where we were?'

Roberto said, 'We've always tried to know where you are.'

I blurted out, 'What on earth for,' but something inside me knew the answer already.

Franco said, 'We fell in love with you on that tour together and our love hasn't faded with the years. When you became your fathers' wives we nearly went mad and almost gave up the business in case we coincided on a bill again. Roberto married a nice enough girl but she wasn't you,' he nodded to Janie, 'And it didn't work. They got a divorce after two years. She's now married to a good bloke and is half a song and dance act. I've never married, but I won't pretend to you.' He looked straight into my eyes. 'When I couldn't have you, I played the field. I hope I was never unkind but I expect I was thoughtless. All I ever felt was that none of them was a patch on you. So we kept tabs on where you were and when we saw that your dads had died we waited for two months, then we gave in and wrote to you, because we couldn't keep our feelings secret from you any longer. I know it's early days and forgive us if it feels too soon but can we see you again.'

Janie and I looked at these two enormous men, six feet six inches tall, two hundred and seventy pounds apiece, at least, sitting in front of us, looking at us with puppy dog eyes and we couldn't help but smile. They smiled back and the four of us relaxed. At least the other three relaxed but I had a thought which prevented me from doing so immediately. I said to them, 'We must be equally honest with you. Janie and I are not quite like other women. Oh dear, I've never had to explain this before and I'm embarrassed.'

Franco took my hand in his and said, 'If it helps, when we had dressing rooms next to each other in Manchester we found that someone had made a spy hole between them and we used to watch you changing your costumes, as far as we could, which wasn't much, but it was enough for us to see that your pretty little clities are different from other girls'. And we like that.'

'Very much, 'said Roberto.

At that point grandma came in with the tea, followed by the housemaid with a tray of scones fresh from the oven to add to the cakes and sandwiches already on the table. Grandma immediately saw that Franco was holding my hand and she smiled sentimentally.

'I'm glad you're getting on together,' she said. 'Young women need young men's company or they get broody. And my granddaughters aren't getting any younger. They're thirty-four. How old are you two?'

'Grandma,' mouthed Janie and I at her, scandalised.

Franco grinned broadly at grandma. He clearly had taken to her and was amused by her directness. 'I'm thirty-six and Roberto's a year younger,' he said.

'Good,' said our outrageous grandparent, 'I like a man to be a little bit older than a girl, but not usually as much older as their dads were, but they were good men and good husbands to these girls. And these girls were good wives to them; much better wives than my daughters, the silly cows, ever were.'

Even grandma seemed to think she had taken the privileges of old age as far as she could at this point and she asked after Franco and Roberto's family until they decided it was time for them to go.

'Come to lunch a week on Monday,' she said. 'There aren't any guests booked in until the Thursday so we'll have the place to ourselves.'

When Monday came around the three of us had excelled ourselves working alongside the cook and maid in the kitchen. We had also decided to come out of mourning. I wore a dress of cream-coloured, heavy silk with a tightish skirt, which showed off my hips, Janie was in a very smart grey and white concoction and grandma was positively regal in plum-coloured silk with a skirt which almost cried out for a crinoline. The men had also made themselves extra spruce for the occasion and they were wearing tight trousers which showed us that the hose pipes hadn't shrunk. Grandma almost ogled their packages until I whispered to her, as we went to bring in the first course, to put her eyes back in their sockets and she whispered to me, 'You lucky, lucky girls.'

After that Monday it became a regular thing, when the men were in London, for them to call for a meal or to take us out to a show or for dinner, but apart from holding hands and giving us a kiss on parting they made no attempt to become more familiar with us, until we wondered if they had discovered that the thirty-four year-old us was so different from the eighteen -year- olds they had known that their ardour had shrunk to nothing.

Meanwhile Janie and I had not worked since our daddies died and money was running short. We had put away quite a bit during our careers but, being canny souls, we didn't like having to dip into our capital and we could see that point appearing on the horizon. Variety was still popular, particularly during the summer season at the seaside resorts, but there were younger acts doing our sort of repertory and we were too old to start out as a duo, when we were known simply as the eye candy (talented eye-candy, it's true) in a quartet.

We put our problems to grandma. On the stage work she said, 'Face it girls, you're over the hill to be the innocent maidens any more, and for the sophisticated older stuff you need men like your fathers to hold it together with you. You can always come in with me here and help run the house. I still get plenty of customers but I can't guarantee how long that will last. Music Hall is dying on its feet and I bet your young men are feeling the wind in their line. That may be holding them back from saying anything definite to you. Mind you it could be delicacy on their part; they're a very delicate pair of men.'

Janie and I dissolved into laughter at the idea of these two vast, tough men as delicate, but grandma went on 'You may laugh but they have, oh what's it called these days? Sensibility? No, that sounds like something in a poke bonnet. They are caring, thoughtful men, and it's less than a year since your husbands died. I'll ask them what the matter is.'

Janie and I set up a cry that she must do no such thing. We impressed on her that she must behave herself and we threatened her that if she so much as hinted a question to Franco and Roberto we should leave. Of course, she knew we were bluffing. We should never leave her unless we found work and then we should come back to her at every opportunity.

The very next time the boys came around we heard her say, 'Now then, you two. What's your intentions towards my granddaughters?'

Of course, grandma had been right. Franco said that work was drying up for them as an all-year-round phenomenon. They still got summer season at Blackpool or Southend or at one of the other main resorts and last Christmas they had, for the first time, been a speciality act as the removal men in a pantomime and they had been asked to repeat it next Christmas.

'But the business isn't the same as it was in your day, Ma.' (It was the first time he had called grandma anything other than Mrs Joyce and I felt a tingling in my clitie, at the intimacy implied.) 'It's not what it was before the war. The moving pictures are taking the audience away. We can struggle on and we shall for a while but we've decided to go in for management. We think there's a place in the market for a night club with decent dining, good singers and a chance for the punters to dance and enjoy themselves. Nothing sordid, but we can act as our own bouncers, at least at the start.' (I looked at the size of his muscular body and thought not many men would tangle with him. Then I became aware of a moistening in my panties and I knew that I wanted to tangle with him more than anything on earth.)

Franco looked directly at me and said, 'I love you, Dora, and I want to ask you to be my wife. I've been holding off because I've nothing to offer you.'

'Like bloody hell, you haven't,' I thought as I saw his trousers twitch.

'You silly, darling man. I love you too. I'll take that as a proposal and Yes, I shall be your wife.'

He took me in his massive arms, lifting me off my feet as he hugged me to him, and we kissed. It was a long and comprehensive kiss which set my juices flowing. By the time he let me go Roberto and Janie had also got engaged and grandma was sitting grinning at the four of us like the cat that got the cream.

'Now that's decided' she said. 'I'll make some enquiries among my old lot to see if they know of any premises suitable. I take it you girls intend to work with your husbands?'

We agreed that we did. The boys looked a bit taken aback but soon saw the sense of it.

Franco and Roberto had been living in lodgings and it also seemed sensible that we should start our married lives by their moving in with us; thus their rent would go to grandma and so be kept in the family. It would only mean one more bedroom being occupied since Roberto could move into the bedroom which Janie and I had occupied and grandma would let Franco and me have the front first floor bedroom.

Grandma suggested that, before we started to sleep together, we should have a wedding ceremony. We all agreed but said it must be very soon.

'How about the day after tomorrow?' asked grandma. 'That'll give us time to do the cooking for your wedding breakfast. You girls don't want to wait for new outfits to be made, do you?'

We agreed we didn't and the most cursory observation of the front of our prospective husbands' trousers told us that they didn't want to wait either. Grandma sent the boys away, saying they could come for tea the following day and then the following morning at 11.00 o'clock for the wedding. Then we got busy. We both already had long white evening dresses and grandma had some wonderful old lace which made a veil for each of us. We ordered flowers, including bouquets for us and button-holes for our men, from a friend of grandma's, who agreed to do a rush job so long as she was invited to the wedding. Franco and Roberto's parents were dead but their grandmother was still alive and she was to come with a cousin. (The reunion between their grandmother and ours would have quite put the rest of the wedding day in the shade had our burning desire for one another not been so flagrantly apparent). For obvious reasons we did not invite our mothers, who had never forgiven us for marrying their husbands. Many years later, when they died, they left their hotel to be sold and the money to go to a cat's home. Janie and I thought, 'Fair enough.'

Franco's cousin had trained for the priesthood but, finding that he liked being fucked by men, decided it might not be the best profession to enter. He had become an undertaker. However, he officiated at our wedding beautifully. Immediately after the meal we four retired to our bedrooms for our honeymoon and I began the most wonderful experience of my life and it hasn't stopped since.

Please do not think for a moment that I had not loved my daddy-husband. I did and I enjoyed our love making. There is something about the girly-man wife and daddy-husband relationship which is extra-special. As you lie beneath your daddy-husband you know that you came out of the balls which are striking your buttocks, along the cock which is now inside you, and that the cum your beloved man is spurting into your vagina, in other circumstances, would be your brothers and sisters. This love never dies and will be part of my life until I too die. But Franco's loving was something else. The size of his arms and legs and his chest meant that I could become lost in his physique; his hairiness added to his masculinity and I could browse in his pits and suckle on his nipples before descending past his belly-button into the thicket in which grew his cock and balls. I was a princess exploring his fairy-tale forests and finding new delights at every turn. He was my prince and he took me to heaven.

That first night, whilst our grandmothers explored the past downstairs and then, after the visitors had departed, and our grandma had made her way, happily tipsy, no doubt, to her bed, my husband and I explored each other. He removed my dress for me, then undid my stockings and rolled them down to slip them off my feet. He kissed his way back up each leg until he reached my panties then took them into his teeth and pulled them down before taking my clitie, entire, into his mouth and sucking on her till she gave up her milk to him. I unbuttoned his shirt and grazed through his chest hair, licking his nipples, then putting my tongue into his belly button, then unfastening his trousers, sliding them down his massive legs, then copying my husband's action by kissing and licking my way back up those tremendous thighs until I reached his pants. They were stretched in front of him by his growing cock. I tried to remove them with my teeth but couldn't, his fuck pole was so big and so stiff that I had to unroll the pants over it with my hands.

The sight which met my eyes was glorious. Twelve inches of iron-hard man meat, with a commanding helmet head, scarlet with desire and already with a drop of pre-cum for my waiting lips to savour. As I began to take his head into my mouth he pulled me upright to lean against his chest. He grasped me to him and said, 'I want you now, sweetheart; this minute I need to fuck you at last.' He lifted me up as though I were weightless, lay me gently on my back on our bed, raised my legs until he could lick my pussy, then circle her with his fingers until she opened and then he rammed the head of his cock into my hole.

My cunt went into spasm and he waited until she had calmed down before pushing further, then waiting, then pushing, until I felt his furry balls nestling against my taint, when he began to fuck me fully. In and out, raising and opening my legs to their furthest point and, indeed, further than I had thought possible, to plumb my depths as they had never been plumbed before. His hairy chest rasped against my smooth titties and his tongue invaded my mouth and he pounded into me until he came with a roar, over and over again.

Afterwards I lay exhausted under his great weight, loving the pressure of my man dominating me, his woman. Then he stirred and moved to one side so that his main weight was removed but he still held me down under his right arm and thigh and my little cocklet brushed against his great cock and knew her master.

The next day and the next we emerged from our bedroom simply to eat and to use the bathroom. In those days few bedrooms had an en-suite. We met Janie and Roberto at meal times and gathered that they were following the same pattern. Grandma pretended to be mad that we weren't helping with the house but she so clearly enjoyed vicariously our being fucked to distraction that we didn't take her seriously. On the fourth day after our wedding we emerged and had a family discussion about our future.

That same day we started looking in the newspapers and contacting estate agents for a suitable property for our nightclub. We knew that for us to make a success of the venture the first requirement was that it should be in the right place, by this I mean that to attract well-heeled, paying customers we needed to be within easy reach of the West End, but it had to be somewhere that would feel edgy, even slightly dangerous, to them whilst being, in fact, as safe as houses. Soho was the obvious answer.

We found the ideal place. It was in a cellar, which ran beneath five of the properties and could be converted into a bar-restaurant with a stage at one end and a miniscule dance floor. There were three floors to the building above the cellar entrance, where we could make an office and two apartments, one for Franco and me, one for Roberto and Janie. The cost of purchase and conversion we could just manage by pooling our resources and the two grandmas offered to help out, for which we were so thankful but we hoped it wouldn't be necessary.

In the event we didn't need to take their money, but there was a bonus for the two old ladies and for the ambience of our club, in that they took a real interest in the place and, in the early part of the evening, when it was mainly dining with some cabaret, they became a favourite fixture for the customers, one or other of them, and sometimes both, sitting comfortably near the kitchen door, like in a French restaurant, putting away the money after the clients had paid their bills. Either Janie or I took their place after eleven o'clock and the boys sent them home in a cab.

One husband and wife team is on duty each evening, husband as maitre d' and wife talking to the customers and checking that all is well. Once we were a success we had intended to employ a professional maitre d' but by that time the regulars had got used to seeing Franco or Roberto about the place, so they continued. Both boys readopted their Italian accents. We found a brilliant chef and he trained up his sous chefs. Janie and I would sing the odd number late in the evening but mainly we found and employed an excellent young singer and when she went on to greater things we found another girl and a young man, but he didn't go down as well with the men who were the paying ones, so we had to let him go.