Pram Wheels

Copyright Oggbashan August 2017

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

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All our troubles started when we found the old pram. It had been pushed down the steps leading to the basement area of a demolished house. It was the early 1930s and our town was dying. Almost all the men were out of work, not that it affected us four. We didn't have men in the household. We were all bastards at a time when it was a real social stigma. Our fathers had been soldiers in the local regiment. They might have meant their promises to marry our pregnant mothers but all four men died in the mud of the 1917 battle of Third Ypres, better known as Passchendaele.

When we were babies, being bastards didn't matter. Our fathers had died in The War. So had so many fathers. We became different when we started school. We were outcasts from the start. Other children were not allowed to play with us and we were never invited to a birthday party or even to a family's home. Apart from being bastards we were poor, the poorest of the poor, when there was no help. Our mothers worked. They had to. So we four were a group thrown together. Bastards against the world, we called ourselves "The Four Bees". To anyone else we said we were "The Four".

In 1931 when we were fourteen we found the old pram. We fell on it with joy. The girls, Evie and me Dottie, thought we could play with it. The boys, Jack and Fred, wanted a soapbox cart.

We sat down and discussed it. We talked about it for a couple of days. Eventually a close inspection of our treasure showed that the bodywork was completely rotten and fell apart leaving just the wheels and chassis. So it became a soapbox cart.

All four worked on the cart in that basement. It was the only thing we owned. The friendly greengrocer gave us broken fruit boxes for the structure. The nails came from the broken boxes. The hammer was a large stone. The rope for the steering we found washed up on the beach. We couldn't paint it because paint cost money we didn't have.

All four of us had jobs when we weren't in school. The money we made helped to keep us alive but that year the jobs ended. No one could afford the few pennies that we had earned running errands, delivering greengroceries, newspaper rounds. Everything went.

We had hoped the soapbox cart would help us to earn money because we could carry heavier loads but there were no loads. We were no longer the poorest of the poor. The whole town was poor. The shipbuilding yards were empty and rusting. The milkman stopped delivering because no one could pay him. The shops closed one by one. Grass started to grow between the cobbles even on the larger roads.

We finished the cart on a Saturday. The boys pulled Evie and I around on it. That was fun for a while but what we all wanted to do was to run the cart down a hill. We trudged to the top of Castle Street and looked down the winding road to the town centre. Even on a Saturday there was very little sign of life.

Who would go first? We discussed that, as we discussed everything. We tried various combinations of loading. At last I stood aside.

"OK." I said "You two boys and Evie will fit. You three go first. When you come back I'll go with one of the boys."

I have that speech engraved on my heart. I thought I was being generous to my friends. Fred sat in front, then Jack, and Evie was at the back. Fred was steering. Jack had the brake.

They set off, increasing speed as they went. Just as they turned the corner out of view I saw Jack pulling hard on the brake. I heard the distant rumble of a tram and then a faint sound of a crash followed by distant screams.

I ran down Castle Street as fast as I could. When I turned the corner I could see the tram. It had stopped just beyond the junction. In the middle of the road was a silent crowd of people. I hurried up to it but a woman who knew my mother grabbed me.

"Don't look, Dorothy. It is not a sight for children."

"But they are my friends!" I protested.

"Come on, lass. I'll walk you home."

She did. I was numb. What had happened that I couldn't see?

I found out in the days that followed. Fred had been killed. Jack's legs were mangled under the tram, and Evie's face had been smashed.

I went to Fred's funeral. So did most of the town. There was no work so a funeral was something to do. Jack was still in hospital. Evie came in a wheelchair with her head so bandaged that only her eyes could be seen.

The town had a collection for the funeral and for Jack and Evie. Despite the Depression the money just covered the funeral and hospital expenses. If the accident had happened a couple of years later the town could not have helped.

After the accident Jack, Evie and I remained friends but things had changed. Jack always needed crutches and Evie's face was a mess. Her nose was flattened, her cheekbones concave and deep scars marred the skin.

The town remained poor until re-armament started. We three got jobs. Jack and Evie were making parachutes. I was working in a factory making rockets. As a cripple, Jack was paid at the same rate as the women. The men were usually paid more.

+++

In April 1939 we were all twenty-one years old. We wanted a party to celebrate. It would be the first birthday party we had ever had. We had made birthday cards for each other, and our mothers had tried to make our birthdays special but we had never had a proper present.

We were still bastards and still shunned. Evie's face and Jack's legs set them apart from other people. I felt responsible for Fred's death and their injuries. If only I had gone first. Many nights my sleep was disturbed by remorse. I woke up in a cold sweat with my last words to Fred echoing in my brain.

We returned to the demolished house again and again. We had found a way into the cellar from the back and made it our den. Since the Munich crisis we had equipped it as best we could as an air raid shelter. The rubble from the demolition was mounded over the cellar. Inside it was solidly vaulted with brick arches. It was much more solid than the surface communal shelter being built by the flats where we lived.

When he was eighteen Jack had persuaded a friendly Council officer to let the derelict site to him. Jack had said he wanted to use it as an allotment but the agreement (backed by his mother until he was twenty-one) gave Jack the site for three pence a week without limiting it to use as an allotment. We planted vegetables in what had been the back garden. Evie and I had to do the digging and heavy work. Jack scooted around on a trolley weeding and planting out the seedlings. The crop in 1938 had been a great help to all of us and we had bigger plans for 1939.

In the cellar, apart from the stock of preserved fruit and vegetables, we had a table of fruit crates, a couple of rickety chairs and a large hay filled mattress. We would sit there in the dark or with a candle end and talk for hours. The cellar was where we would have the party.

We saved a few pennies to buy the food we couldn't grow. Jack made a table from driftwood. Evie and I made a tablecloth from scraps of parachute material. Then I had some luck. On the way back from an evening shift I saw a sailor being arrested for being drunk and disorderly. He had a whole bottle of rum that he was trying to open. The police told him to pour it away but he objected to the waste and was fighting to protect it.

"It is real Navy Rum, you know!" he kept shouting.

As I passed he saw me.

"I'd rather give it to the young lady." He said. "I'll go quietly if she'll take it. It is too good to be wasted."

The policemen were getting tired of fighting him.

"Would you?" one asked.

"Yes, of course," I replied.

The sailor handed the rum to me. I thanked him politely and then kissed him on the cheek.

"That was worth a bottle of rum." He said. "Lead on, my hearties, take me to jail."

He went off quietly between two large policemen. I wrapped the bottle of rum in my overall and took it to the cellar before going home. A whole bottle of rum would make the party.

The party was set for the first Saturday evening after Evie, the youngest of us three by a few days, was twenty-one. We wanted us all to be adults. Evie and I had made two shirts for Jack. I knew he had something for each of us but we didn't know what.

We met outside the evergreen bushes that hid the entrance to the cellar. All three of us were carrying brown paper parcels wrapped with string. Jack kissed Evie then me. He had never kissed either of us before. We kissed him back with more enthusiasm than skill.

Once inside the cellar Jack produced his first contribution to the party. He had four beer bottles and eight brand new candles. He lit four candles giving more light to the cellar than we had ever had. Then he solemnly gave Evie and I our parcels. He blushed bright red as he did.

"I hope you can accept them from me," he said.

That aroused our interest. We raced to be the first to open our parcel. Evie beat me by a few seconds. She pulled out a full length night-dress made of parachute silk. It was beautifully made with embroidery and tucking and a scalloped hem. It must have taken hours of work. I had another in a larger size. They were wonderful. I had never seen such a night-dress. He had worked on these night-dresses for days. Jack was swamped in hugs. Never mind the proprieties that said that a man should never give underwear to a woman unless they were engaged.

Much later when Evie and I were alone we found the slight drawbacks. The night-dress skirts were more than a full circle and the bodices were very loose. When we walked the skirts tangled around our legs. Evie made sashes to hold the waistline.

We gave him the shirts. He loved them. We too had worked hard to produce shirts he would be proud of and could wear a long time. He hugged us for them.

We sat down at the cloth covered table to eat the few things we had. Even then food was in short supply. It would get worse when the war started but we didn't know that then. I produced the bottle of rum to gasps from Jack and Evie. We poured a little into our handle less cups. We drank a toast to ourselves, to the King, and to our sailors, soldiers and airmen. Evie and I choked on every mouthful. The rum was so strong, thick and like treacle.

Jack didn't seem so bothered by the rum so we girls poured more for him. Even the little we had drunk made us light-headed. We moved from the chairs to the mattress. I don't know whether it was the rum or not, but I wanted to kiss Jack, so I did. He kissed me back and I liked it.

Evie tapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't forget me."

Jack turned and kissed her. Her scarred face lit up with the best smile I had seen since the accident. I kissed Jack. Evie kissed Jack. We snuggled close to him, running our hands over his torso. We kissed and cuddled until the candles burned low.

Evie winked at me when Jack was facing my way and mimed falling backwards. I winked back. She and I pulled Jack with us down on to the mattress. We wound ourselves around him, holding his arms and twining our legs around his. As my leg crossed his body I felt that he was erect inside his trousers. I shouldn't have, but I pressed my body over the lump and wriggled. Jack moaned until Evie's lips covered his.

After a while Evie nudged me. We swapped places. Evie ground herself against him and I pushed my tongue deep into Jack's mouth. Suddenly his body shuddered and went limp. Evie and I pulled back in alarm.

Jack was nearly asleep, fuddled with rum and sex. We held him gingerly until he started to snore quietly.

"Dottie! We did it!" Evie whispered at me. "We made him come in his pants."

"Is that what it was?" I asked.

"Of course it was. Now we'll have to wait until he is ready again."

"How long?"

I didn't know how Evie knew things like that. I didn't.

"Not long," she said "about half an hour, if the rum wasn't too much for him."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Some of the other girls in my factory talk to me. They think I'm a safe confidant because with my face I'm not a rival for their boyfriends."

"I'm sorry about your face, and Jack's legs. If only ..."

"Stop apologising. You have been apologising for years as if the accident was your fault. It wasn't. If you had been on the cart as well probably all four of us would have died, not just Fred. We three are alive. We are friends and it seems we might be lovers as well. I wish ..."

"What do you wish, Evie?"

"What I really wanted for my twenty-first was to make love to a man. Men don't look twice at me. I want to fuck someone."

"Evie!" I protested. "You said 'fuck'. You can't say that. You can't do it. Men do it to women, not women to men."

"I don't care who does the fucking as long as I'm involved as the fucker or fuckee. I want to feel a man inside me, not my finger or a candle. I want a prick. I want one now. Jack's got one and I want it. Will you help me, Dottie?"

"What about the risk? You could have a baby. Another bastard."

"Not with these I won't."

Evie pulled a packet of condoms from her overall pocket. I was shocked. I had heard of condoms but I had never seen any. Yet Evie had come to the party with some ready for use.

"Will you help, Dottie, please? You can as well if you want to."

Evie sounded desperate. How could I refuse? She was my friend. The idea of doing "it" myself made funny feelings spread between my legs. I was getting excited by the idea. If we could do "it" without becoming pregnant then I wanted to.

Evie was looking closely at me, waiting for my decision. I had one last reservation.

"But Jack is our friend," I protested faintly, "should we do it to him?"

"Jack is a man. A normal man with normal urges which we have just seen. He won't get fucked unless we do it because he is a cripple. No other woman looks at him. If we don't fuck him he won't get fucked."

I was still confused. Men did it to women. How could we do it to Jack?

Evie changed the candles as I wrestled with the problem.

"We are going to fuck him," she said. "Instead of being underneath, we are going to be on top. We will ride him, not be ridden. Come on. While he's asleep we will get him and us ready."

Evie stood up. She took the belt off her voluminous wrap round overall and unbuttoned it. Underneath she had a cotton dress. She pulled that up over her head. She was wearing a parachute silk full slip. She lifted that off to show her cotton bra and panties. I gasped. I had never seen Evie's body before. It was wonderfully curved and smooth. Whatever the imperfections of her scarred face her body was unblemished. Before I realised what I was doing I reached out a hand and my fingers caressed her curves.

Evie held my hand against her waist.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked.

"Yes," I gulped, "your body is beautiful."

"I've shown you mine. Now you show me yours."

The old childhood taunt worked. I stripped to my bra and panties. Evie stood back and appraised what she saw. She motioned for me to turn round. I spun slowly. She gestured again. I started to turn. Her hands stopped me. She stood behind me pressing her bra covered breasts against my back. Her hands covered my bra and caressed gently. I reached back and kneaded her buttocks. She dropped her head and kissed my shoulder.

Her hands unfastened my bra and let it fall. Her bra slid to the floor. Our hands sought the other's breasts and stroked. We kissed gently at first, then urgently. Her skin was so smooth against mine. The feeling between my legs became a pounding insistence. I pulled back from Evie.

"This is fantastic but I want Jack as well," I said.

"So do I. Shall we?"

We dropped to our knees either side of Jack and started to strip him. He began to wake up and his legs thrashed. I grabbed an overall's belt and tied his ankles. Evie took the other overall belt and strapped his arms to his sides. Jack was now naked and awake.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Let me go."

Evie eased her panties down her legs. Her golden bush glimmered in the candlelight. Jack's protests died away as his eyes were drawn to the blonde hair surrounding Evie's sex.

I whipped my panties off while he was distracted. The last movement caught his eye but my brunette curls couldn't compete with Evie. She tore open a condom packet with her teeth. That drew his eyes to her face and the spell was broken.

"No." Jack said. "No. You can't. You mustn't."

He might have said more but Evie grabbed her panties and stuffed Jack's mouth with them. She covered his mouth with her hand.

"My bra," she grunted at me, still gripping the condom packet in her teeth. I passed the bra to her. She tied it around Jack's lower face holding the panties tight in his mouth. Jack's head waggled from side to side. Evie looked at me. I got the message. I scrambled behind him, put my knees either side of his head and squeezed. His eyes rolled up my body. Evie straddled his legs and rolled the condom over his erection. He looked at her as she poised herself above him.

"Last chance to say, no, Jack," Evie said. "I want to ride you. Do you want me, no, us?"

I relaxed the pressure around his head. Jack slowly nodded. Evie untied the bra and removed her panties from Jack's mouth.

"You're sure, Jack?" I asked.

"Yes. I don't deserve you two but if that's what you want, so do I." Jack replied.

Evie dropped, impaling herself on his prick.

"Turn round, Dottie," she ordered. I goggled at her. What did she mean?

"Turn round. Back to me." She said.

I turned. My backside was now across Jack's chest. His head was clamped between my thighs.

"Slide forward, Dottie,"

I slid forward. Jack's mouth was hidden by my brunette bush. Evie leant forward. Her hair brushed my back. Her hands cupped my breasts. Then she began to move in a rocking motion. Pushed and pulled by her I rocked forward, then back. Jack's mouth was covered by my bush as I rolled forward, uncovered as I rolled back. He panted noisily through his nose.

Slowly his tongue began to explore my cleft. I spread my legs wider to give him more of me.

I could feel a warm flush spreading across my body, across Evie's and across Jack's. We rocked steadily, gradually increasing the tempo. Evie's body shuddered behind me again and again. I was glowing all over and my mind was overwhelmed by the sensations rushing through my body. On each forward rock I pushed Jack's face deeper inside me. Then I too started shuddering as my body did things to me that I had never imagined possible.

Jack convulsed underneath us. Evie slowed down and stopped. She climbed off and I followed. We lay either side of Jack, panting from the exertion. Evie covered Jack's mouth again with her bra tied around his head. His hands fumbled to remove it. I pushed his hands away, unknotted the bra and let him breathe freely. I expected protests, recriminations, or anger from Jack. All he said was:

"Wow!"

For that he got hugged. We lay side by side recovering. Then Jack's hands stroked as far as he could reach. I turned so he could reach a breast. His hands were rougher than Evie's but the sensation made me want more. Evie reared up from the other side of Jack.

"Ready for your turn, Evie?"

"Yes!"

"OK." She said. "Jack. You lie back and think of England. We'll do all the work."

Jack smiled.

Evie stripped off the condom and fitted another. I straddled Jack and rubbed myself over his prick which grew. Evie took her place on his chest.

"I'm not going to gag Jack this time," she announced. "At least only with my body. You, Jack, have to use your tongue."