Working Class

I explained my dilemma and we had a giggle at the fact that we were both still virgins. I said, "You can probably understand why I am still like that, but with a face like mine and a gammy leg, I'm not exactly the catch of the season. You must be very strong willed not to have surrendered your virginity by now?" I realised that I had put my big foot in it again and hastily tried to cover up by saying, "What I mean is, you must have plenty of opportunities by now!" and immediately realised that I had just made an even bigger balls of it.

Holly laughed at me and said, "I would stop digging, if I were you. I know what you're trying to say, and yes I have had a few opportunities to have sex with my boyfriends, but once or twice their timing was off and either my period had started or there was no privacy at the Halls of Residence. There always seemed to be some obstacle in the way. I'm glad that there was now, I want to my first time with someone I have always liked and who I know will be caring and gentle."

With that she said, "It should be OK if you make sure to pull out before you come. I want this and I want it to be you who makes me a woman."

We kissed again and she allowed me to undress her. That she had to help me with her bra, showed how ignorant and clumsy I was. I undressed and we kissed some more and our passion grew. With some guidance from her, I was soon caressing her sex and teasing the hard nub of her clit, making her shudder and moan. As I did this she was gripping my hard erection as if she wanted to choke the life out of it. Without being told, I started to kiss her full firm breasts and spent time teasing her elongated nipples to full erection, then I moved down between her legs and replaced my fingers with my searching tongue. I felt her shudder to a climax and she pulled me on top of her and told me to take her. She said, "Just put it inside me, but gently and for Christ's sake don't come inside me!"

I did as she asked and inserted my throbbing erection slowly into her vagina. I was scared of hurting her and when I came up against the resistance of what I knew was her hymen, I stopped. She asked what was wrong and giggled when I told her I couldn't go any further. She told me to push harder and then let out a little scream as I broke through. I stopped instantly, but she started to move her body and I guess nature took over. Within a few seconds, I felt myself start to ejaculate and pulled out quickly and blasted her pubes with what seemed like gallons of semen. I had covered her pubic hair with my sticky cum and I noticed that some was leaking into her swollen sex so I told her what had happened and she ran to the bathroom to clean her self up.

When she returned, we resumed kissing and with her encouragement, we tried again. This time, I had much more control and slowly pumped in and out, gradually increasing my pace and she responded by pulling me into her and whispering in my ear for more. I felt my orgasm approaching and tried to pull out but she trapped me with her ankles locked around behind my back and I screamed out a warning to her, and she released her grip just in time as pulled off her just as my cock erupted. For a second time that night, her pubes were coated with my semen and she hurried away to clean herself.

We lay back down on my bed and kissed and cuddled. It was nearly midnight when she jumped up and said, let's go down to the Square and see the Year in there.

Later on as I walked her home through the park, we talked about whether we had a future together or not. She said, "I still need to finish University and don't want to be tied down just yet. Please, I like you a lot, but I want to live a little before I settle down."

I was hurt and decided on an all or nothing strategy, so I stopped and took her into my arms and taking a deep breath said, "I think I fell in love with you way back when you first sat beside me in that school room. You were the only girl who would simply ignore my disfigurement and talk to me without condescension or pity. I fell for you then and when I saw you in come into the Queen's Head a few weeks ago, I realised that my feelings had not changed, I love you and want to be with you always."

She broke away from me and sat down on the park bench, She was silent for several minutes then said, "Charlie, you the sweetest, honest and most dependable man I have ever met, but I'm just not ready for that sort of commitment! There's a lot more to life that I want to experience before I settle down. I want to go dates with other men and yes, if the right opportunity and person comes along, go to bed with them. I like you more than anyone I have ever met before, that's why I gave myself to you tonight. Perhaps, sometime in the future we can get together again, but not right now. I'm sorry but I'm just not ready yet."

There seemed to be little point in pressing her into a commitment to each other, she clearly was not ready for that type of relationship so, I just settled for what I could get. We dated another couple of times before she had to return to University and out of my life, or so I thought.

After work, one cold February Friday night, I found Holly waiting for me outside my mother's house. She was shivering with cold and I asked her why she hadn't just knocked and asked my mother if she could wait inside. "I was too scared, she would know straight away why I'm here!"

I quickly took her inside with me and my mother gave us one look and ushered us into the front room. Holly waited until she had left us alone and said quite simply, "I'm six weeks late and I've never been this late before! I think I'm pregnant and you're it's daddy!" and then she burst into tears.

I tried to comfort her and eventually she calmed down enough to listen to me. My first instinct was to ask if it was mine, but in my heart I knew it was and I quickly snuffed out any thought that maybe it was someone else's. I tried to sound confident. "Well, first thing is to get it confirmed and then decide what we want to do about it. I will marry you, you know how I feel about you? I love you and I will love our baby. I don't want my kid born a bastard! Have you thought about what you want?"

"Not to be pregnant, that's what! Why didn't you pull out quicker? Look at the trouble I'm in now!" The she burst into more tears just at the point when my mum came back with a pot of tea for us.

She took the situation in at a single glance and asked Holly, "How far gone are you?"

That brought another flood of tears from Holly and my mother went to her and took her into the kitchen to talk. I made to follow them, when she rounded on me and said, "Son, you've done enough damage for now, I warned you to be careful, now leave us alone and we'll see what can be done about this mess the pair of you have got yourselves in."

They were in their for over two hours before emerging. Holly looked much better and Mum looked at me and said, "I take it that you will stand by her?" It was not really a question, more a command so I confirmed that I would.

Mum was a wise old bird and then said, "Holly has come back scared and without the knowledge of her parents, we'll keep that way for now. She will spend the night here and tomorrow we will go to the city to see a doctor." I started to say something, but she cut me off, "Before you ask, she will share with Mary tonight, so no hanky panky tonight! You understand what I'm telling you Charles?"

I just nodded confirmation. When Mum calls me Charles I know I have made her very angry with me. The next day, they went off together and came back with confirmation that Holly was pregnant.

Events happened quickly after that, we faced up to her parents and told them we wanted to get married and why. You can probably guess they were less than happy and called me for everything. We had no money for renting a house, so they offered to provide us a room in their home. This was not ideal, but my mum's house was not large enough, so we were grateful to accept their kind offer. The wedding was quickly arranged and the local priest conducted the service, Andy was our best man and Mary was our bridesmaid. After the short ceremony, we left for a weekend long honeymoon in the Yorkshire Dales.

We were both very inexperienced sexually, hell we did not even know each other that well, a couple of dates and bingo we were thrust together as man and wife. My mother had given Holly a book on sex called The Good Sex Guide as a present. I said she was psychic! We put it to good use that weekend and many nights since. Holly was more adventurous than me and loved to hold my cock in her hand and feel it grow and harden. Since the damage was done and she was already pregnant, we went at it like bunny rabbits. Holly loved it when I went down on her to lick and suck her nectar. All too soon we had to return to normality and life with her parents.

Our honeymoon allowed us two days to get to know each other. I tried very hard to prove my love for her during the next weeks and months. I realised that she missed the freedom that University life had given her. Socially, she was an outcast, her friends refused to speak to her and openly snubbed her in the street. Her only real friends turned out to be my sister Mary and Andy. When she was going through the morning sickness phase, I felt at times, that she despised me for getting her pregnant and causing her this distress. At first, the relationship between her parents and me was one of toleration of each other, but over the next few months as Holly began to show, her mother in particular started to make snide remarks about my being responsible for ruining her daughter's education, then it was my lack of manners and moans about my coming home in muddy overalls and boots. I made an effort to change clothes before leaving work, but I still had to bring the dirty clothing home to be washed. That caused another bout of moaning until I lost it one night and told her I would wash my own clothes in future. That just gave her more reason to find something else to berate me about.

I was working twelve hour days, six days a week. Now that may not sound like much, but this was hard physical labour and I would get home at night utterly exhausted. Life with her parents had descended into open hostility, I hated living under their roof and our sex life was suffering as Holly was quite vocal when aroused and would not let me make love to her while her parents were in the house. They rarely went out!

Somehow, we got through that pregnancy, and Holly presented me with a son. We named him Roy after her father. Having a grandson to drool over seemed to ease the tensions with her parents. They were no longer openly hostile or trying to demean me in Holly's eyes, well not in front of me anyway.

Chapter 2 -- New Life Begins

During the wait at the hospital, the father's had to stay in the waiting area outside the delivery room. Husbands were not encouraged to be at the delivery of their child back then. To pass the time, I had used my sketch pad to doodle some of the nurses and visitors to the ward. I was not really concentrating on the subject, more of doodle really, when one of the doctor's stopped and looked at what I had drawn and said that the likeness was remarkable. I looked closely at what I had drawn and it was one of the nurses working on paperwork behind her screen and it was a fairly good likeness. She came over when the doctor summoned her and was surprised at the sketch. She asked if she could have it and the doctor said jokingly, just as I was about to hand it over, "Best get him to sign it first, you never know, it may be worth a fortune in a couple of years!" I looked at her for some guidance and she nodded at me so I signed simply 'Gimpy' followed by the date 1967.

She looked at it and realised straight away why I had signed it that way. She asked me when I had sustained the injury to my leg and burn scar on my face. I told her and she advised me that I should see my doctor as there were new procedures available now that could address my foreshortened leg. She also suggested that I ask him to refer me to a plastic surgeon as she believed that something could now be done about my facial scar. I promised her that I would look into it and she left to return to her duties. I thought about what she had advised quite a lot over the next couple of hours and decided it was worth a try.

I did see my doctor and he referred my case to an Orthopaedic Consultant, but he also advised me that it would be several months before I would be contacted. The waiting lists for National Health Patients back then was no better than today.

I had managed to scrape together enough cash to enable Holly and I to rent our own place. It was two bed roomed flat in a rundown part of town, but close to my present job site. We moved in, straight from the hospital. Andy helped us move as he had a little van he called his passion wagon. Holly used to tease him about the use he put the mattress he had in the back to. He told her she would need to come out with him one night if she wanted to find out. The flirting was good natured and I knew he would never do anything to hurt me or damage my marriage. He was godfather to little Roy and Mary was godmother.

Life settled into a routine, it wasn't easy for either of us. Holly was permanently tired from caring for a demanding baby, I was knackered working as many hours as I could get to try and keep up with our bills. Within two months, Holly had recovered her former figure, albeit with enhanced breasts from feeding our son. That had to stop when the little bugger grew his top and bottom teeth as he was biting her and even drew blood on a couple of occasions.

Our sex life resumed, this time with condoms. Holly had a long discussion with our parish priest and he made it quite clear what the Church's view was on contraception. Basically he advised that good Catholic's would only use the rhythm method, but Holly told him that she wanted to return to University and another child was not on the agenda. That discussion put a damper on her faith in a Church run by priest who had no experience of marriage and she stopped attending regularly. Christmas and Easter, we both made an attempt to attend, but was as far as she went. No confession or communion, we got along fine without it.

So condoms were the order of the day and I used them religiously, but I didn't particularly like them. I asked her about perhaps taking the contraceptive pill as this had been available in the UK since the early sixties. Holly was concerned about possible side effects and didn't want to take them. I think her main worry was that they could lead to weight gain. She had worked hard to get her figure back and was in no mood to compromise on that topic.

In due course, I saw the Orthopaedic Consultant and he scheduled me for surgery within the next twelve months. After fifteen years, I was finally going to walk without a limp. The downside was, I would be in plaster for two months, two months with no earnings, only Sick Pay. I was worried and wanted to cancel the operation, but Holly insisted I get it done.

Holly had made friends with a couple of other mothers to be at the Pre Natal Clinic and they started to go out every Wednesday night to the local Bingo Hall. I had no problem with her going out, she needed to get out the house and the Bingo allowed her get away from me and Roy even if it was only for a few hours. Between them, the girls were quite lucky and if any of them had a 'shout' they would pop in to the pub for a drink before coming home. I didn't begrudge her that either, but she did start smoking again. I had never smoked, it cost too much even then and she had stopped during her pregnancy and I thought she was off them for good, but she came in one night reeking of cigarette smoke. Usually, it was only on her clothes as smoking was permitted in all places of entertainment in those days, but when she kissed me, I tasted the nicotine and complained about the taste, After that, she always had some spearmint gum and her breath was much better.

Shortly before I was due to have my operation, Holly came in from Bingo full of it. She had won the jackpot, over three hundred pounds. That was a fortune, it was roughly four month's wages for me and would tide us over during my incapacity. I had the operation and it was a success. It took me the full three month's before I was able to get back in harness. Fortunately, my boss held my job for me, so I was able to slot back in.

During my recuperation in hospital, I kept sketching and even did some oil paintings to pass the time. One of the Doctor's told me about a new Cancer Wing they were opening soon and said there was a competition to select some original artwork for the Reception Area and that I should submit an entry. The problem was I didn't have a clue what to paint. Holly came up with the idea of painting a portrait of the original house that once stood on the grounds that the Hospital was built on. The house had been so badly damaged in a fire during the Second World War that it had to be demolished. The Hospital itself was named after the original owner of the house and his family were one of the major benefactors of the present facility. She went to the local library and found an old pre First World War photograph of the house and from that picture I painted my submission. Some weeks later I was told that my entry had won the competition and with the victory came a cheque for £500!

Holly and I attended the opening ceremony and watched as the descendant of the original benefactor, Lord Stevens officially opened the new wing. He made a point of talking to me later and asked me to come and see him tomorrow at his home, he had a proposal for me to consider.

I duly went and saw him and he asked me to paint a portrait of himself and Lady Stevens. He told me he would pay me £50 if he liked it. That was a good sum but not overly generous, but never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted and four weeks later presented him with the result. He was delighted and intrigued by the signature at the bottom. I told him the 'Gimpy' tale and he was quite amused.

Following that I had several more commissions for portraits and I tried my best to meet the demand. I did some quick calculations and realised that I could never make a living at being an artist, the £500 was a rare bonus, so as soon as I was fit again, it was back to the grindstone.

While I was off work, Holly and I had ample opportunity to make love and we took full advantage, always using a condom of course, but something went wrong one time as I realised when I removed a used condom from my penis. Instead of a pool of semen inside the thing, there was just the residue. I told Holly straight away and she rushed to the toilet to try and douche, but a month later, she informed me she was pregnant again. She was not happy about it, Roy was just coming up for two and she was hoping to continue her studies at night school with the intention of getting back into University, but that was now just a pipedream. I was secretly pleased, but worried about how we would manage financially.

Our daughter Sarah was born eight months later and life resumed. We struggled on and managed to keep our heads above water as I was now earning more money as a gaffer on the building site. I also bought a small van and picked up other workers on the way to work. This helped cover the running costs.We worked anywhere within a fifty mile radius of home and I was getting paid for running the taxi service. My sex life continued sporadically, Holly was always tired out and lacked the enthusiasm she once had for sex. She also distrusted condoms and went on the pill. During this period I often wondered why she bothered, intercourse once or twice a month, usually immediately after her period, meant that there was little chance of her getting caught again.