October 1940

I knew it was foolish of me but I craved the company of my kind and so I went out to the club, hoping it wouldn't be raided by the police tonight and that the Germans wouldn't raid the city. Fat chance. I dressed in my best silk stockings, my prettiest panties, bra and suspender belt, my best skirt and blouse and my pre-war short coat. I applied my makeup, put on my wig and set off.

The club was already crowded when I got there. All we girly men must have felt the same need, as the bombs fell and buildings tottered, to be ourselves. The air raid sirens had gone but the club was in a basement and we were as safe or unsafe here as anywhere else. The noise from above was terrific, pandemonium, into which was inserted the scream of a bomb making a near hit at intervals.

I had noticed the nice-looking, blond-haired naval rating earlier in the evening. He appeared to be alone but seemed sure of himself, not in a cocky way, just untroubled in his own personality. I envied him that. He looked no more than nineteen or twenty but mature for his years. Then the lights went out. Someone said that the last stick of bombs had sounded as though it had dropped near the power station. The club didn't have its own generator but Muriel, the manager, produced candles in bottles. I settled down on a bench by the wall and prepared to wait for the all clear.

I felt a man sit down beside me. It was the navy arriving.

He said, 'I saw you over by the bar earlier but you seemed occupied and I didn't want to but in.'

'Occupied? Oh, that was my friend, Sonia. She wouldn't have minded.'

'I'm Simon.'

'Lena.'

'I live near here. I'm wondering whether to make a dash for it.'

'Why, is someone expecting you home who'll be worried?'

'No. It's just more comfortable.'

'I'd wait a bit if I were you. There'll be shrapnel flying about everywhere. It could take your head off.'

'I've been at sea. This is the first raid I've been in. It's quite different from combat. You feel so helpless.'

I looked at him more closely. It wasn't that he was afraid. It was simply that he was curious about his own reaction to enforced inaction, I decided. I had started to ask if I was right, when there was one hell of a swoosh and the floor of the cellar jumped and plaster cascaded down on our heads. Simon grabbed me in his arms and pushed my head into his chest, covering me with his body against the blast.

We were all coughing and the air was thick with swirling dust. I pulled a handkerchief from my bag and tried to get a piece of grit out of my eye. Simon took it from me, screwed it into a point, pulled my lower lid down and flicked out the mote, showing it to me on the tip of the hankie. In doing this he had put his hand on my head and my wig moved. He looked horrified and then grinned with relief.

'For a moment I thought I'd pulled your hair out,' he said.

'Sorry,' I said. 'I am not what I seem.'

'So I see,' he said. 'I didn't know until after I came in that it was this sort of club. I got talking to some other naval coves in the pub and they brought me along.'

'Do you mind?' I asked.

'Not at all,' he replied and then he seemed to surprise himself by saying, 'Particularly if many of the members are like you.'

We both realised at the same moment that we were holding hands but instead of drawing back Simon said, 'I like this. Please don't pull away. I like you very much. Do you like me?' and all of a sudden I could see that the assuredness was a façade and that he was a vulnerable young man and my heart melted towards him. I leant towards him and just touched his lips with mine. He responded by taking me into his arms and kissing me as though he meant it. For that moment the collapsing world about us was unimportant. All that mattered was his lips on mine.

We sat together, lost to the world. I fell asleep leaning into his chest, with his arm around my shoulders, until one of the regulars came up to us and said, 'The all clear has gone, Lena.'

We walked out into a yeasty dawn. A wall of flames was devouring the east of the city and other fires flickered to the south. The air smelt acrid and a building at the end of the street, which had suffered a direct hit, but whose outer wall had survived so far, suddenly collapsed, sending up a hail of debris. Simon covered my head again and got a cut from flying glass for his chivalric impulse.

'I've got some dressings in my flat,' he said.

'I'll come and dress it for you,' I said and his smile was better than any dawn.

His flat was in a block behind Oxford Street. We entered his road and found our way blocked by an enormous crater, with a police-tape barrier around it. As we tried to navigate the shattered pavement my heels were proving a problem and I clung to Simon's arm. An air- raid warden shouted, 'Bring the little lady this way, son. She'll find it easier.' I thrilled to be recognised as a woman by a stranger.

We reached Simon's block and went up in the lift, got out at the third floor, walked along a corridor and he opened the door. The blackout was still in place and we switched on the lights and left the blinds closed tight, whilst he brought a first-aid box from the bathroom cabinet. I bathed his cuts and dabbed on TCP, then put a couple of plasters on the abrasions and stood back to see my handiwork.

'I think you'll live,' I said.

He smiled at me and said, 'Thank you, Lena.'

We looked at each other for what felt like forever, then he reached out, took my arm and gently pulled me into an embrace. We stumbled into the bedroom and began to unbutton, pull off and discard clothing. It fell in heaps on the floor and I fell back naked on his bed. His look of lust and astonishment at his own actions was replaced by one of burning desire and he took me more passionately than any man had ever taken me before. I responded in kind and we all but ate each other in a frenzy of need, as wild as the night we had experienced.

We had the passion and vitality of the very young who may die tomorrow. Simon was clearly inexperienced and rather clumsy but that made me want to give him all of myself more than ever. I used my experience (slight as it was) to disguise his clumsiness from him. His basic idea seemed to be to fuck me as often as he could. No finesse, just raw energy and stamina. And I loved it.

During a pause we lay in each other's arms, my head resting on his chest.

Simon said, 'I love your arse-hole.'

I said, 'That's not an arse-hole that's my cunt, or my pussy, if you prefer the term.'

'Then what's this?' he asked, taking my flaccid three-inch cock in his hand.

'That's part of my clitie as are my balls, except when you want to drink my milk from it and then its my titty.'

'I've not done that yet. Shall I take my little girl's titty in my mouth and will she feed me with her milk.'

'Yes, and then you'll be my baby.'

'Do you want me to call you mummy whilst I do it?'

'I want whatever you want. A girl like me gets much of her pleasure from seeing her man gain pleasure from her.'

'Are you my girl?'

'If you want me.'

'Oh, Lena, I want you like I've never wanted anyone before.'

'Then I'm your girl. Does that mean you're my man?'

'Of course.'

After he had taken me in his mouth and had brought me to shoot my milk into him he savoured the taste and then kissed me to share it with me.

In turn I took his eight inches between my lips and stroked, sucked and pulled him until he filled my mouth with his sweet, salty sperm.

'How old are you?' I asked.

'Twenty, and you?'

'Twenty-two.'

'What is your real name and where do you live?'

'I was born Alan James Camoys but when I'm really me I'm Lena. I rent a room in a terrace house near Waterloo Station.'

'My full name is Simon Charles Erwin. This flat belongs to my uncle. In peace time he rents it out but he says I can use it on my leaves for the duration. What do you do?'

'I'm in the army. I'm on a forty -eight- hour leave. It began last night and I have today and tomorrow. I get the eight o'clock train back to camp tomorrow night.'

Simon said, 'I'm on a forty-eight-hourer as well so we have all today and most of tomorrow.' He was so excited. I think we both saw a new life extending before us and a wave of solemnity swept over us.

'Will you really and truly be my girl?' he asked.

'Do you mean for today?'

'For always.'

I thought of the bullets, bombs and torpedoes and of my own job in the bomb disposal squad and looked at the eager, serious face of my lover and said, 'Yes.'

We found some tins in the kitchen, prepared a scratch meal and made love again.

Simon said, 'Let's go and get your things. You can move in here. I'll give you a key. Whenever you're on leave come here. I'll let Uncle Jake know I'm sharing with a chum.'

'A chum?'

'Well I can't say with my wife, can I.'

'Are you asking me to be your wife?'

'Of course. I'm a very prim and proper bloke. I don't believe in a man living in sin with a beautiful woman.' He knelt and said, 'Darling Lena, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife.'

I looked down at the glowing face of my lover and whispered, 'Yes, my darling, of course I will.'

'I don't have a ring to give you but may I give my wife a kiss, Mrs Erwin?'

'You may, Mr Erwin.' And he did.

We fetched my things from my lodgings. I gave notice to my boorish landlord, who said, 'I can't give you back the extra day, you know.'

'No one can,' I replied but I don't think he understood.

Then we came home and made love again. The next day Simon wanted to come to the station with me but I asked that we should make our goodbyes in the flat where we could do it properly as a married man and woman should. Simon agreed. He stood at the window as I walked along the road, now wearing my uniform and carrying my kitbag and gasmask. Just before I reached the corner I turned and waved. He waved back and I thought, 'Shall I ever see you again?' I don't know, even now, how I managed to smile.