Choosing

Choosing

Ian was her first real sexual encounter, if you didn't count fumblings
and believed that virginity ended, only at full penetration. At twenty
years of age in the "swinging sixties," she was embarrassed to be
unbroken.

There had been a previous attempt with a graduate. She had been
fascinated by his academic achievements and his intellectual belief in
bi-sexuality because she was not used to controversy.

She agreed to sleep with him and hoped to enjoy a closeness, keeping
her clothes on because she didn't know you did differently. He
professed a concern that her dress would crease. She thought him
thoughtful so she explained it was a bri-nylon, so his worries were
unfounded. She loved him for his understanding New clothes were
expensive.

He did not insist on the removal of outer garments. They continued
explorations and massages of various sorts which she found exciting but
acceptable because she was not naked. Nudity equated with
immorality.

He seemed to enjoy the experience so she felt at least, a little
liberated but not totally exposed.

Maybe she believed, this was the kind of excitement that was similar to
the one she had experienced as a child when finding a wrapped Christmas
present with her name on it. Guessing what was inside was often more
exhilarating than the reality. It was innocent.

She hoped it would prove to be true.

She remembered that he had seemed to become uncomfortable, wriggling
onto his left side, away from her. He left rather abruptly with no
explanation but later, explained the intricacies of the language of the
Theatre of the Absurd and Rhinoceroses. She was impressed by his
knowledge but only in the academic sense. He seemed to lack
something.

The evening was humid; he left temporarily, for a shower. She presumed
he wanted to be more appealing in terms of smell.

David was an Oxford graduate and knew she was beneath him but had felt
the need to at least pretend to give her a semblance of culture in case
she was accidentally introduced to one of his Cambridge friends.

Even when she undertook a three month study of the first chapters of
Ulysses, with a dictionary, thesaurus and a variety of religious
reference books and could partially understand Joyce's references, he
was unimpressed. He felt her to be his inferior, although he did enjoy
teaching her. She was beneath him both physically and
metaphorically.

She understood his reservations. She was not clever in the sense of
academia but she knew him, had tasted his prejudice and arrogance, his
need to dominate intellectually because he lacked the social skills to
"pull," on the regularity expected for a post graduate.

He missed his fianc?e, her academic acumen, class and ability to debate
literature on "a deeper level." But sex, he reasoned was necessary for
creativity. His fianc?e was not readily available, he being in
Birmingham and she completing her Doctorate in Oxford.

He could lower himself, maybe helping a less experienced person from a
less privileged background at least reach her potential, however
limited that might be. She, he decided would do, at least as a
temporary measure but would probably be ineffective. It would be
difficult for him. He was sensitive.

He had determined to confront her apparent naivety. It would be
unlikely but he hoped she would be grateful for his input.

She had turned to the wall expecting to resume their previous kind of
intimacy. His hand placed on her shoulder pressing gently. She turned
towards him. He was naked and smiling. She leant slightly forward for
another deep kiss in the way he had taught her, glancing down saw a
livid red appendage with predominant blue-green veins. It looked angry
and large.

She left.

The first time she saw Ian, he totally ignored her. She could not see
his face because it was disguised by shoulder length hair, heavy
glasses and concentration on his guitar was a fascination. Being
ignored was intriguing. She was not used to that in her small town
upbringing.

He was sitting on the edge of a metal framed student bed; changing
easily from flamenco renditions of Driscoll and Dylan. He was obviously
popular. She was interested, maybe because he wasn't.

Later she had pretended to believe him when he said the last bus had
left at eleven and that his flat was an eight mile walk. He would have
to stay.

She believed in the new sexual freedom she had read about in the media
and Cosmopolitan. Her parents' disapproval added to her determination
to conform to being non-conformist.

It was not a success.

Previously they had practiced foreplay, kissing, licking, looking for
possibilities and positions. Tonight she hoped to join her generation,
be as she was expected to be. She would become free.

The first part was as she expected, exciting, warm and urgent. The
condom was slimier than she had imagined. (She had never actually seen
one before or certainty never touched one.)

At penetration, the Durex slid, inexplicably downwards, lying uselessly
jellied on wetted sheets. They tried again but were only marginally
successful. He reassured her that she was not at fault. She felt he was
telling lies to protect her lack of experience. She was probably
correct.

It had not really been the experience she thought she had saved herself
for but she feigned enjoyment because she cared about him and it seemed
polite. She had been taught manners by her mother.

She believed her parents tried to pre-empt sexual maturity, in-spite of
the fact that she knew her twin brother and elder sister had been
active with numerous partners and didn't seem to be suspected.

Her father explained that her tactile nature could give off the wrong
signals, friendly touching was usually misinterpreted by boys. Her
father had placed his palms together pointing the fingers into the
shape of a spire. She was the youngest and needed guidance. Her mother
told her that people would know if you had, "Done it." It would show in
your eyes. The girl would be exposed.

Their lack of accomplishment and disappointment at what she had hoped
would be her initiation into the era, upset her.

She left for the reassurance of the college refectory. The fatter one
of the two ladies who served breakfast smiled and asked what she had
been up to; smiling said she could guess easily.

Her mother had predicted it. People could tell. She did not order
breakfast. They knew and judged her.

She tried to adhere to an ideal, and not accepting the sexual
relationship for what it was. She hoped his affection was only an
idling engine and would eventually move towards her.

The pregnancy was a trap, he decided although he did go with her to the
doctor's, partly to try to believe her. He didn't.

She drove home, partly in the hope of confessing. She couldn't. She had
wanted him to believe her, but her parents not to know. It was a
dichotomy

He wasn't convinced or refused to acknowledge the possibility of her
pregnancy, or wouldn't.
He did however offer a portion of any fee for the abortion which he
had insisted on, it would be fair. He, with his mother had planned an
academic future, they had ambitions. He didn't want her to be aware of
a hint of his carelessness, his immaturity or that he might use his
student grant to pay for his mistake.

It was a dichotomy he argued. She did not really understand the
meaning. (She was not as educated as he was. It was a problem for him.
He was used to graduated girl friends. )

At first Ruth thought the idea of a termination, seemed a light revenge
for their relationship and her parent's subsequent disappointment,
knowing she was active, in a sexual sense.

He told her that she could still borrow the aging tape-recorder for her
teaching practice and that their relationship would remain that of
friends, she rejected the promised electronic aid, an elderly
tape-recorder, hurling it down the stairs in the direction of his head.
It missed.

He had no idea of a future but was certain, it was not with her. Her
problems were clearly not mutual.

He did look up the number of The Brooks Centre, and was helpful in that
sense, He was organised and arranged an appointment before going home,
giving her a list of bus times and the relevant probable, return times.
He even equipped her with a local taxi firm number, in case of an
emergency.

He knew he had acted correctly, in terms of the morality of the times,
but worried about the ethical understanding of his parents, (They did
not readily accept promiscuity but knew the girl was usually the
instigator, as regards their son.) His mother's religious proclivities
and her expectations of him.

He would not be there for the supposed abortion. He preferred to
believe that she had made the prospective pregnancy as a way of
controlling. If he offered to be with her, at the time, her deceit
would further push her to the edges of insanity that he had convinced
himself she was probably suffering from. She was certainly delusional,
or he hoped she was. She was strange in a way which could possibly be
explained in terms of "Black Russian or Speed or an addiction to
Shakespearian love sonnets."

It was an early sixties trap and she was besotted. She would do
anything to keep him but he knew acted correctly. He was a new man,
sensitive and intellectual.

He was aware of possible obligations, if he believed her. The money
would mitigate his lack of intentions; abortion was the clearest
option, if in fact she could prove her pregnancy and its link to him.
He was however, not prepared to share his dilemma with his family. They
would not understand and didn't need to know.

The subsequent telephone calls he either refused to answer or cut short
with mumbled, thin responses, he was placatory but distant. His mother
noted the frequency of these calls and intercepted the final one. She
protected her first born.

The northern girl had become a nuisance.

The thirty pounds deposit for the clinic had taken her beyond her
student overdraft facility, she did not feel able to discuss her
difficulty with her bank manager but had explained to an old friend;
the reason the cheque she had written had bounced.

She could not afford the luxury of a sixties, a private termination.
Her friend took out a loan for her. Manchester was a modern university.
Her friend was there, lived with medics who were liberated and believed
in equality and experimentation. Two Spanish bottles of wine, three
joints of Russian Black and a belief in women's right's gave rise to a
promise of a possible cure. They discussed the options and costs. She
agreed at three in the morning. It seemed the easiest way out.

The tablets taken the next morning could have been the cause. She rang
for a taxi, from the telephone box. She knew her parents would wonder
if she was more than a day late back.

A blood dot appeared as she dialled. There was a stickiness which she
had previously not experienced, a thickness in the blood, warmth that
was unusual even at the onset of a period. The buttons on the telephone
seemed to move. The metallic letters no longer had a meaning. She
needed to talk to him, explain the horror.

His mother answered the phone, cupping her hand unsuccessfully over the
phone to disguise her dislike, summoned her son, "It's that stupid girl
again. Why don't you just get rid of her ?"

Ian did not disagree. He said nothing or at least not in time for it to
be useful.

Conversation, she decided was pointless. The need for medical attention
was more immediate.

The matter was resolved in Manchester's accident and emergency
ward.

She was, her father believed and hoped, prone to exaggeration. The
abortion would be an analogy for a broken relationship. Her father
arranged a post operative examination in the knowledge that she had
been deluded.

It proved not to be the case but ant-bio tics were necessary. It had
been at least useful. He did not tell his wife. It was a father and
daughter's temporary secret. He never forgave her for losing his last
hope for her childhood innocence, although he tried to.

Northerners, Ian's mother explained, were like that, prone to laxness.
She would accept her but only reluctantly. There was time to change.
She hoped he would.

Ian became her eventual husband, although, she remained a spider to him
and his family. He had been caught, enmeshed.

On occasions, he flew free.

She understood.

She loved him. She hoped he loved her in his own way.