Falling for Jenny

I was in my last year at school and the rest of my life was stretching out before me, a featureless landscape and me without a map. The boarding school I attended was all boys so interaction with the opposite sex was restricted and girls remained a mystery to most of us. Not that this stopped us from endlessly discussing girls and their anatomy. Like most teenage boys, my pals and I were obsessed with the subject.

My own experience was limited although, in my view at that time, glorious. A couple of weeks on student educational cruise had provided me with several opportunities for some serious groping and I had even scored once with a skinny blonde girl behind a lifeboat on a windless night off the coast of Turkey. This hadn't been my first experience; that had been after a school drama production performed jointly with the local girl's school the summer before. My introduction to sex hadn't been entirely satisfactory as I had come within about thirty seconds and the female participant had been less than impressed - it was far from her first time!

So it was that this rampant bunch of perambulating hormones that I called friends met together every Wednesday after Rugby Training to nurse our bruises and talk about girls. As members of the school First XV we enjoyed certain privileges such as being allowed to 'walk out' on Wednesday evenings as well as Saturdays. This meant we could leave the wooded cloisters of the school and head into the local town, which wasn't much to write home about but at least had a semblance of civilisation.

We all used to gather in the town's single coffee bar, picturesquely named the Cresta Run and it was here, over endless cups of cappuccino, that we discussed that subject closest to our hearts and gonads. Sometimes we were fortunate enough to be vouchsafed a glimpse of a real girl or two as the coffee bar was open to all but most of the town girls avoided the place, probably because of our presence - they deemed us 'school boys' and preferred the company of the more liberated local swains. With what was then the typical English Boarding School mentality, the older pupils of the Girls' School were not allowed into town on the same days as us. They could 'walk out' on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays so there was little contact between us all that was not heavily controlled and tightly chaperoned.

This particular Wednesday I had had to miss Rugby Training owing to a slight injury picked up in a match the previous week-end and thus it was, more out of boredom than anything else, that I went into town early, intending to buy a few things I needed in the local shops before joining the rest of the lads in the Cresta Run. It was a typical November evening, not yet 5:30 but dark already and rain falling from a grim and troubled English sky. I shouldered my way into the shop out of the weather and promptly collided with someone. The someone gave a small "Oooffff!!!" and I looked down into the bluest eyes I have ever seen. They were a really dark blue, almost navy blue and from that moment I was lost. "Sorry" I mumbled but the connection between my brain and my tongue seemed to have gone missing. I just stood there, holding eye contact and staring for what seemed like an age. The owner of the eyes stared back. "Well aren't you going to move then?" she said. She was gorgeous! I could tell straight away that she was a senior from the Girls'' School. She was wearing their horribly unflattering grey raincoat that always appeared several sizes too big but on her it looked like a Chanel gown. She had shoulder length dark brown hair that had a touch of curl and pale, pale skin with a hint of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. I felt myself blush scarlet. I have reddish brown hair and colour up a bright red when embarrassed, a source of much ribbing by my friends.

I couldn't find my voice. I dumbly moved to one side and held the door open for her. I swear to God my mouth was open like a frog catching flies. I was desperately willing myself to say something, anything at all to prolong this contact. My brain had gone AWOL. Fortunately for me, she was not similarly afflicted.

"You look like you've never seen a girl before" she said but there was no hint of malice, almost the reverse.

"Not one like you" I managed to stammer and then muttered " Oh shit, that was so corny!" She chuckled. Not a silly giggle but a sound of genuine amusement. "I mean, Oh God I don't know what I mean just not what that sounded like". I was genuinely miserable, here was this delight and I was blowing it all away.

"I thought it sounded quite nice, actually... of course, if you didn't really mean it..." She had a playful look in those beautiful navy eyes and I was a complete goner.

"Would you like a coffee?" I stammered; the Cresta was just across the street.

"OK" she replied brightly, "but I can't be long, the 'witching hour approaches' when we've got to be back."

I nodded understanding. They were due back in school by 6.30 and it was a good twenty minute walk from the town. We had the same problem, due back by 10:00 with a similar walk in the opposite direction.

"I'm Paul, by the way, Paul MacDonald."

"I'm Jenny Anderson" she smiled "Spinster of this Parish and, as you can guess, inmate of the Bloody Tower".

This latter was a reference to the Victorian architecture of her school, which resembled a medieval castle. It had been built by some 19th Century Industrialist with more money than taste and taken over by the School in the 1920's. We entered the Cresta Run and found a table. I fetched coffee from the bored-looking drone behind the counter and sat down to gaze in wonder at this fabulous girl. Again I was tongue-tied but Shakespeare came to my rescue:

"Oh brave new world that has such creatures in it" I said with a grin. Her chin came up sharply, eyes narrowing. "No I meant it" I hurriedly reassured her, "You are the prettiest girl I've ever seen".

"And you are the captain of the First XV, have some semblance of brain as well as having the muscles and feature in the fantasies of most of the fourteen year-olds in our school."

I was taken aback. "You know who I am?"

She positively smirked. "We know who you all are. Paul Macdonald, Andy Wilmot, Dave Simmonds, Mark Heath, Pete Marsden, Will Hayward, need I go on? Of course, it does help that your names are in the local paper every other week and if ever there is a photograph, the hormone count in the Junior Common Room goes through the roof!"

I was flabbergasted.

She saw the look on my face.

"Oh come on, don't tell me you didn't know. There is not much to grab our attention in this Godforsaken place. The 'heroes' from the Boy's School are little enough to fixate on, God alone knows, but you're better than nothing!" A smile took the sting out of this.

"No" I said "No kidding, I didn't have a clue. I mean, we are all 'fixated' on you girls, I know, but we don't know who any of you are. Goddesses glimpsed through the bars of our cage, you know how we're deliberately kept apart. I just didn't think that girls were the same way."

"You don't know much about girls, do you?"

I nodded assent.

She grinned. "I suppose you think of us as all pure and virginal when in truth we're rabidly randy and mad for it! Actually, most of us are pure and virginal as well - but not from choice! I swear they keep us apart in an attempt to breed the next generation of lesbians or whatever."

Her blue, blue eyes were twinkling and I was convinced she was laughing at me.

"Am I making you feel uncomfortable?"

"Uh, no well not really. It's just you're not what I expected."

"Oh? I disappoint you?"

I stammered "No, no not at all. I'm just, well, confused, I guess."

"Let me guess, you don't know what to say to a girl"

"Uh, I, uh" I was starting to sound like a real Neanderthal.

"That's the problem!"

She emphasised this with a smack of her hand on the table that made the coffee cups jump.

"You think girls are a different species. They keep us apart and suddenly you can't think of a thing to say to 50% of the human race. They call that education! If our Schools were co-ed, I bet you would spend a lot less time thinking about sex that you all do now!"

I grinned. "I'm not sure about that! If you were in my classes I don't think I could think of anything else! Oh God," I groaned, " I meant think about anything else but you!"

"I'll take that as a compliment either way. Oh Christ, look at the time. I've got to run."

"Are you coming in on Sunday?" I asked desperately. She nodded quickly. "I'll meet you here at 2.30, OK?" I could hear the pleading in my voice. She looked at me uncertainly.

"You're not allowed out on Sundays".

"I'll think of something. Meet me?"

She looked at me strangely.

"Please?"

"Ok" she sighed "But don't get into trouble on my account". I shrugged. "Must go" she said and fled the coffee bar, taking my heart with her.

Andy, Dave and the others arrived shortly after she left. I was sitting there in a dream. Oh brave new world... The lads soon noticed my reverie.

"What's up with you?" Mark asked.

"Nothing, I just met the most incredible girl. Jenny - from the Bloody Tower. She just left."

"Has she got big tits?" It was Dave this time. Dave was absolutely obsessed with big tits. He wasn't alone in this, as you might guess, but Dave had refined it to an art form.

"Uh, I don't know" I replied, "I don't think so"

There was an incredulous silence. I looked around at the assembled faces and said "What?" Much head shaking was going on.

"Our Boy has got it bad"

“Didn't notice!"

"Men, this is serious"

"I do believe our Gallant Captain is in love!!!"

They were all grinning and working themselves up to a real session of taking the piss out of me when I said "I arranged to meet her on Sunday so I need a Plan!" There was a thoughtful pause.

"You need a psychiatrist not a plan" said Andy "You'll be gated for sure if you go over the wall".

"Only if they catch me," I replied for a germ of a plan was twitching softly in the back of my mind.

Thursday and Friday dragged by. Saturday we had a home match against some other school. I don't remember who. We won, but little thanks to me, I was awful, dropping passes and missing tackles that I would normally have eaten up. If substitutes had been allowed back then, the coach would have taken me off at half time. Instead I got a real roasting and even the team looked at me with veiled anger in their eyes. Everyone can have a off-day but they could see I wasn't focussed - wasn't really trying. Truth to tell for the first time in my life I wasn't interested. My whole consciousness was consumed by Jenny. Her face seemed to hang before me wherever I looked. Strong words were exchanged after the game. Only Andy took my side asking the others if they'd never had a bad game and could they remember me ever having had one before.

Saturday evening came and it was time to put my plan into action. I went to the School Chaplain and told him I was having a 'crisis of faith.' Like quite a few of Scottish ancestry, I'm a Catholic and the School was stalwartly Church Of England so it was not difficult to persuade the Chaplain that I needed to see Father Carol in the town. I got my pass as easy as pie. The Chaplain was a nice old boy and he probably saw through me - I'd never displayed any religious bent before - but he gave me a pass and that was that. It was only a small forgery to alter the return time from 3.00 to 5.00 and I was ready to go.

She was waiting for me outside the Cresta Run. Being Sunday, it was closed, of course. I hadn't thought about that. Some of Jenny's friends were across the road, conspicuously not looking at us but giggling together like, well, a bunch of schoolgirls. I felt unbelievably self-conscious. Jenny, apparently felt the same as she smiled at me shyly and said, "What are we going to do now, then?" "I, erm, mmmh, we could go for a walk?" "Ok" she said "Why not". Fortunately it was dry and though the sky was leaden, it wasn't too cold. We wandered off in the vague direction of the river where there was a tarmac walkway by some sorry-looking weeping willows. Our shyness eased as we walked and talked. I learned she lived in the same town as Andy. She had two older sisters and a younger brother. Her sisters had also been to the Bloody Tower and had gone on to earn good degrees. She felt familial pressure to emulate them. I told her I was an only child but my father was a doctor and harboured hopes of me following in his footsteps but that was not for me.

We must have walked and talked for a couple of hours. All too soon it was time for me to go back. We agreed that I couldn't swing the crisis of faith stunt too often but arranged to write to one another until the end of term, only four weeks away. I had already decided to invite myself to Andy's house for at least part of the Christmas vac and finally, as it was time for me to go, I took her hand. I looked into those amazing eyes and everything I was going to say went straight out of my head.

She placed her fingertips lightly to my lips and said "Don't say anything, you don't need to. I'll see you at Christmas."

I caught the hand that touched me and kissed her lightly on the forehead. She angled her face upwards and kissed me full on the lips, her tongue flicking out into my mouth. I must have moaned out loud as I hugged her to me. She wasn't much above 5'4" in her flat school shoes and I'm around six feet two. She felt like a little doll in my arms. We kissed another couple of times and then I had to go. I turned back as I hurried away up the lane towards the school and was madly pleased to catch her looking back at the same time. She raised a hand briefly in parting then spun away and broke into a run towards her waiting friends.

The rest of the term finally went by on feet of lead and then it was out of the drab confines of school into that bright technicolour world outside of parties and girls and real people. Fixing up to visit Andy was easy and I had arranged to stay for a few days over New Year. I wrote to Jenny nearly every day and she replied with the same frequency so by the time Christmas was over and it was time to go to Andy's I was beside myself with excitement. It seemed to me that I had known her forever although we had only met twice. Our correspondence was long and varied. We had poured out all our hopes and fears to each other but, surprisingly I suppose, had never got into any intimate sexual stuff. Not that my past was anything to get excited about. I was just coming up to eighteen and a half and Jenny had just turned eighteen. No time for too much of a past for two middle-class kids locked up in boarding schools for three quarters of the year.

Andy was just the kind of friend anyone could wish for. His parents had arranged a ski-ing trip to Klosters for New Year. Andy had declined, even though he loved to ski and had arranged a New Year's party.

"We're short of a few girls,” he told me over the phone (we always were) "D'you think your Jenny could help?"

I phoned her right away and she agreed to invite some of her friends whom, she was convinced, would love to come a party even at such short notice.

"I can't believe I'll actually see you tomorrow" I told her and she laughed.

"In the flesh."

'God I do hope so', I thought and was off in fantasyland for the rest of the evening.

I phoned her as soon as I arrived at Andy's place and fixed up to meet her in a couple of hours.

"You'll have to come here, I'm afraid. I've been going on about you so much that my sisters will kill me if they don't get to meet you."

I reluctantly agreed and presented myself for inspection some two hours later. I'd manage to avoid the attentions of the school barber for the last bit of term so my hair was approaching what was to me a 'respectable' length, just covering my ears and curling on my collar and, of course, I was not dressed in anything resembling school clothing. Neither was Jenny. She was in a ribbed sweater and mini-skirt, her lustrous hair curling about her face. It was the first time I had really been able to appreciate her figure; I'd known she was slim but that old school raincoat had hidden the truth. She was perfect. Her legs were slim and tapered to trim ankles. He waist was tiny and her breasts - well they weren't Dave's Big Tits but they were perfectly in proportion to the rest of her. I did my frog-catching-flies impersonation again. I was wearing cord Levi's, that were a lot tighter than my school-inspired flannels, topped off with a crew-neck sweater that the emphasised the width of my shoulders. From Jenny's reaction, she liked what she was seeing too.

Somehow I stumbled through meeting her family. Her sisters were also stunning-looking though they didn't compare with Jenny in my eyes. Her little brother was thirteen and gazed at me with huge eyes - he's seen me play for England Schoolboys against Wales, a match we'd won against bitter rivals - so I could do no wrong. Her father turned out to be a mild man who appeared slightly bemused to have sired three such beautiful daughters but one look at Jenny's mother should have told him the odds were quite high. Jenny was so like her mother it was uncanny. The same navy blue eyes and trim figure. For a woman in her late forties she was a knockout but I didn’t' care. I had Jenny. I think I must have been a permanent shade of scarlet throughout the ordeal - I even heard one of Jenny's sisters ask "Do you think he's always that colour?" which made me blush even more so I was really glad when Jenny rescued me with some made-up excuse about meeting friend in town.

Out in the crisp December air we walked, hand in hand, into the town.

"I've missed you so much" I told her.

"Silly," she replied. "We've hardly just met."

But I could see she was pleased.

We spent the afternoon wandering around town. I persuaded her to have her photograph taken in a portrait studio in the town. She was reluctant at first but I talked her round. I have that photo still. Reluctantly I walked her home even though it was only two or three hours before I would see her again at Andy's party.

If I'm truthful I didn't really have any idea what to expect from my first proper date with Jenny. I drove my battered old Mini over to her house to pick her up; we were to collect some of her friends as well. I only knew that as long as I was with her the world was a really OK place to be. I was inordinately proud of my car. I'd earned the money to pay for it from a labouring job during the previous summer holiday and had passed my test a couple of days before my eighteenth birthday. Tonight, however, I really wished it were an MG or a Jaguar, anything more impressive than an eight -year old mini with the rust beginning to show. Jenny didn't seem to care. She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the Lounge to meet her school friends. They suddenly didn't look like schoolgirls at all. Make up, mini-skirts, tight sweaters. The Boys were in for a treat! I managed to squeeze all this pulchritude into the car and we took off for Andy's. We dropped those three and then Jenny and I went off somewhere else to pick up another three. We weren't going to be short of girls at this party! Most of my friends had been able to make it over for the party. Andy and Jenny lived near London as did quite a few of the others including Dave. Mark couldn't make it as he lived in Scotland and Dave was already crowing wildly about what Mark was missing.

The party was in full swing and Jenny and I danced and laughed and talked and danced some more. Couples were starting to pair off and the music was turning slow and smoochy. I was sitting in a big deep armchair with Jenny in my lap, cuddling her and nuzzling the back of her neck. Some of the guys were slightly drunk - the ones who hadn't managed to pair off - but there was an air of suppressed sexuality in the place as tentative groping escalated to passionate fumbling. "Let's go to my room,” I whispered to Jenny and we eased out of the main living room and up the stairs, anxious not to attract the attention of the drunks. I opened the door of my room, kicked out the couple groping each other on my bed and lay back, beckoning to Jenny. She put her finger to her lips and locked the door. She switched off the lamp and moved to open the curtains, letting in the pale moonlight. I lay there in silence, waiting. Jenny began to dance. Whatever music she was following was entirely in her head but she swayed and moved and spun to its subtle rhythm. I was entranced. Her clothes seem to dissolve as she danced. I cannot recall actually seeing the moment when she took anything off but there she was, suddenly nude and clad only in the silver of the moon.