13. THE COUNTRY KISSES

Taylor is discovering that he really likes Rouella

The end of the summer term of his first year at college was in sight and Taylor made a monumental decision.

He’d got to know Louella quite well. After that first accidental meeting it seemed she was never far from him when neither of them were in the lecture theatre. If she didn't find him and turn up close enough to whisper and he hear her, then he found her. He liked her, for her conversation, the frankness with which she happily discussed subjects that had verged on the taboo when he had been at home, and even the praise she piled onto the photo of Angela when she saw it for the first time when she popped into his room for coffee.

“She’s pretty,” she said, she who he supposed wasn’t particularly pretty, which confused him because he was finding her increasingly attractive.

“She’s just a girl,” he said, mentally apologising to Angela for dismissing her looks so casually. But his problem was he really liked Louella.

And that liking her had grown into an idea.

And the idea grew until they were out walking the country lane into the village near college. She needed something from the small village store, and he wanted to be with her. He might have driven them there, his old car still worked when it felt like it, but walking under the sun seemed the best thing to do. After all, it was a quiet part of the world, the sky was blue and the sun beat down, alleviated by a gentle breeze.

She was dressed in a small mini-dress - almost fashionable in those days, and that in itself was odd for her, and he had put on his only pair of shorts, a remnant from his schooldays and PE, and a short-sleeved shirt with an open collar completed his concession to the summer.

As they walked along she let him hold her hand, and he had a feeling that if he hadn’t tried to hold it she would have grabbed hold of his. But he enjoyed physical closeness with her. It was as if the mere holding of hands said more than words could convey, especially his own clumsy words.

He had something he wanted to say, but somehow lacked the courage to put it into words. In the end he forced himself.

“I’m going to be best man at my mate’s wedding in a few weeks, during August,” he told her finally as they sauntered along, “and I wondered … I can take somebody if I like. Would you like to come?”

“Oooh,” was all she said, and she smiled her teeth at him.

“You see, I rather like you,” he grinned.

“I can tell that by the way you kiss me,” she said, “and yet you don't try it on. Though sometimes...”

“Sometimes?” he asked.

“I wonder why you don’t… try stuff with me.” She was clearly shy and reluctant to define what she meant by stuff.

He thought for a moment, then, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“I think you’re the nicest person I’ve ever met and I don't half get an urge to … find out more about you,” he said, “but if I go for a penny’s worth of you I know me, and that I’ll try and take a pound of you! And I know that would be offensive to you.”

“Would it?”

“You know it would. You told me about Samantha and the trouble she’s in...”

“She’s going to keep it,” interrupted Louella, “she told me she thought of an abortion, but decided it isn’t right, taking a life while it’s forming inside her. She says it’s her fault, not the baby’s, and that’s that.”

“I didn’t want either of us to get into the position where we had to accept that we’d done something foolish and make that kind of decision, and then have to live with it for the rest of our lives,” he said soberly. “I guess what Samantha did is the sort of thing that shouldn’t even be thought about unless you’re perfectly happy to marry the other person there and then.”

Then she stopped his heart with words as she smiled at him, those teeth again, those perfect teeth in what he once had thought of as an imperfect face, and said, “I love you, Taylor.”

Three little words and then his name, making the three little words significant to only him of all the people in the world. He felt like weeping at the thought.

So he said the only thing he could say. “I love you too, Louella.”

And then she did the only thing she could or should have done. She pulled him to a standstill on that country lane, safely off the road and near a weathered gate,and with a couple of cars driving sedately past them she pulled him towards her and kissed him so thoroughly he thought it would never end.

Someone in one of the cars shouted encouragement as she held him so close and pushed her tongue so far into his mouth it crossed his mind for a moment that he might be in danger of swallowing it. But she, and he, ignored the passing strangers. They didn’t need any encouragement.

Time stood still, or at least that’s what it seemed to do. Neither of them wanted to pause the kiss, neither of them wanted to do any more than hold the other, feel the pleasure and the pain of a passion that was growing inside them both, and make that kiss, that moist joining of their mouths in an ecstasy of wonderment, go on for time without end. And the odd car motored past, and one person even hooted his approval at their emotions, but they were seemingly out of the world in a place of their own.

Then they had to pull slightly apart and with her mouth still close enough to his for him to feel her breath on his face she whispered “of course I will.”

The conversation had been interrupted, and he was suddenly out of its loop as he struggled not to let her see the effect their closeness had on his own flesh.

“Will what?” he asked, almost stammering.

“Come with you to the wedding you mentioned, silly,” she said, “it will be fun! I can show you that I don’t always wear boring stuff and you can wear a suit!”

“Oh, I’m the happiest, most blessed man in the world,” he said, meaning every syllable of it.

And that could only possibly have led to one thing.

Louella, smiling and happier than he thought he’d ever seen her, kissed him again.

“Why are you crying?” she whispered.

© Peter Rogerson 17.08.19