Paths Straight and Twisted Pt. 03

Ingeborg had, some month earlier, talked Gertrud into enrolling with her in a School of Deportment. With their graduation approaching, the girls had to prepare becoming outfits for the professional photoshoot and the concluding ball. Ingeborg was in her element. She wanted to make with her designs a fashion statement. She had bought herself a new Singer sewing machine, and the familiar table in their living room was now a workspace.

Ingeborg made me always most welcome while they went on with their work. The wheater was already summery and warm. Ingeborg's tailoring required a lot of fitting, measuring and trying on. It meant that both Gertrud and Ingeborg were often in advanced stages of undress.

Ingeborg was much less inhibited than Gertrud. On one occasion, when Gertrud did not want to remove her too bulky bra for a fitting, Ingeborg lost her patience: -

"Don't be a silly girl! He has seen all that and more before. Or hasn't he? If not, it's about time he does!"

Ingeborg, I believed, quite liked having my eyes on her perky little breasts and on her shapely ass wriggling under the briefest of panties. On fitting and adjusting the dress on Gertrud, her hands deliberately contoured Gertrud's curves under the thin material with suggestively caressing strokes, while her knowing eye sought mine.

When Ingeborg tried on her almost finished dress, I thought she looked stunning. I told her so, and that she ought to give modelling a try. She dismissed my suggestion with a laugh: -

"Look at these titties; nice enough shape but too small to give a proper décolletage."

Then she wriggled her backside: -

"Nice bum, admittedly. But those legs! Ten centimetres too short for modelling. You should have seen my mother's."

Her lack of inhibitions regarding her body was convincingly explained by her stories about her job and the fashion industry. These smaller fashion houses were an exclusively female domain, where physically nothing was hidden, and psychologically much was revealed.

Ingeborg told us about fitting one of Australia's top models for this year's Gown of the Year, and the adjustments they had to make to the finished gown. She told the tailoresses that it was the last year she would be asked to model: her boobs and backside were getting too womanly to show off gowns to advantage. Women, Ingeborg said, were unsentimental about their bodies, when they were among themselves. She grinned: -

"Female coyness is reserved for stupid males. It makes us precious."

And then, smiling more broadly came her afterthought: -

"Would you like Gertrud and me to be coy for you? Or are we still precious being slutty?"

So, Ingeborg was provocatively open and pert. Was I then too innocent to suspect Ingeborg of any ulterior motives in the relationship between us three? I saw her as a sometimes a bit naughty but well-meaning friend that simply enjoyed being the Go-Between and no more.

Like most ordinary people of my generation, I was still relatively ignorant of the actual range of sexual proclivities. Homosexuality, for instance, was in the early sixties still firmly in the closet. Together with anal intercourse, it was thought of as exclusively the domain of male degenerates. Oral sex was, for many adults, something only the depraved French did. They had, after all, had to invent the bidet! Group sex and partner sharing were whispered about, but it was not something 'normal' folks ever did.

The free inclusion of pornography in modern mass media, and that it can be accessed from childhood has changed all that. It is, of course, the aim of pornography to depict still unusual sexual behaviour as commonplace. If it is shown as the domain of weirdos and degenerates, it will find only limited acceptance.

People of the sexually sophisticated Pornhub generation will find it difficult to believe, that I never suspected Gertrud and Ingeborg of being sexually involved with each other. Yet, they not only shared the most intimate sexual details with each other, but they also shared them most often, I am sure, in the shared bed.

Furthermore, the thought that the close and, undoubtedly, sexually charged relationship between us three could become a copulatory one never entered my mind. I saw Ingeborg often almost naked, but I never touched any part of her shapely body. The conversations between Ingeborg and I were always lively, even flirtatious and playfully suggestive. But we never crossed the line to beyond.

In retrospect, however, I wonder whether Ingeborg was as innocent as I was then. The relationship between Gertrud and me was, after all, an illicit, purely sexual and temporary affair. Ingeborg had not only arranged it but, while it lasted, actively involved herself in every intimate detail. Why could we not fully include her? The attraction was there. So was, perhaps, a shared temptation?

Two weeks or so before Christmas, Gertrud and I ended our affair. Inge had finalised her emigration-arrangements. I expected her to arrive in late February.

For Gertrud, a pre-Christmas separation was also convenient. She did not mention Nils, but Ingeborg told me that they planned to spend their two-week Christmas Holiday together. Gertrud had already booked their holiday-accommodation in Lorne.

So, the three of us agreed that it would be best to stop seeing each other to avoid compromising complications. Ingeborg, however, promised to keep in touch with me.