difference is in the tools.’
She produced a chocking sound, coughed and burst out laughing.
Heads turned. We ran out.
In the end, Eleanor String herself came to the rescue. Her daughter, actually. She’d stayed over in her mother’s top floor flat and left the water on in the bathroom. Five bedrooms on the floor below had to be evacuated because the ceilings nearly fell in. As a result, Asha and Rosie had to bunk with me for a night.
‘There’s no way that I’m going to miss out on this,’ Ela cast her eye around to assess possibilities. ‘If them two are sharing the sofa bed, I’ll just have to hop in with you, Nat. It’s a double bed and I’m only little.’ She moved a couple of pillows to the bottom end of the bed to get us in a head-to-toe position. ‘Go on, Asha, tell us. We’re dying to know.’
Rosie and I giggled.
‘Better out than in,’ I declared in my position of a hostess.
‘I’ve always spent the best part of the summer holidays back home, out in the country. It’s a beautiful place, you must come to visit one day, you’ll love it...’
‘Cut to the chase, child,’ Rosie interrupted, deadly serious.
‘All right, all right,’ Asha laughed. She didn’t seem embarrassed or uncomfortable. ‘My siblings are much older than me. In such cases, it’s traditional for parents to hire a companion of appropriate age...’
‘I think I know what’s coming,’ said Rosie.
Asha nodded. ‘You probably do. My parents hired Havva, the daughter of a family of tenants on the estate. I was twelve, she was fourteen, in other words, she was putting her dowry together.’
‘She needed money for the dowry?’ I asked.
‘That too, I imagine, but mostly she was sewing and embroidering new bedding, towels, tablecloths, her own nightwear, that kind of thing. The idea was that she would teach me embroidery, sewing, lace making, all those skills that I hope I’ll never need, and that I would help her improve on her education. She was to be married to a primary school teacher and she wanted to get closer to his level. Anyway,’ Asha reached for an orange and started to peel it, ‘I’d only just started my periods and she was telling me about that, and how that meant that I’d become fertile, and about marriage, that side of marriage I mean. Frankly, she didn’t tell me much that I hadn’t already heard elsewhere, and a lot of what she was saying was mixed with religion and local folklore and superstitions. Until she moved to the subject of sexual desire...’
‘Lust,’ Rosie added.
We all giggled.
‘Precisely. Havva taught me how to feel myself and brought me a mirror so I that could see what’s in between my legs,’ Asha shuddered comically there, ‘and that gave me a great idea. There was only a limited range of websites that I could reach from my own computer, but my parents were away at the time so I powered up my Dad’s laptop and typed ‘penis’ into the browser. Have you ever done that?’
We all nodded.
‘Then you know what I found,’ she continued. ‘Some of those porn videos are really good quality and very detailed, you can see exactly what’s going on. The acted groans were repulsive but when people made authentic recordings of themselves and their partners you can tell just how excited they were and how much they were enjoying themselves. That was the bit that I was mostly interested in. After three days, watching people bonk each other in different positions can become repetitive, to be honest, but the urge itself, the power of the orgasm, that fascinated me.’
I can’t tell you how impressed I was by her. She was made to talk about what’s often a sordid subject, certainly among young adults torn between curiosity, guilt, and the fear of being found out, and she made it anything but sordid.
‘I didn’t like feeling myself. Made me shudder. Then one afternoon Havva was helping me shower in the garden after a swim. I knew something was going to happen by
She produced a chocking sound, coughed and burst out laughing.
Heads turned. We ran out.
In the end, Eleanor String herself came to the rescue. Her daughter, actually. She’d stayed over in her mother’s top floor flat and left the water on in the bathroom. Five bedrooms on the floor below had to be evacuated because the ceilings nearly fell in. As a result, Asha and Rosie had to bunk with me for a night.
‘There’s no way that I’m going to miss out on this,’ Ela cast her eye around to assess possibilities. ‘If them two are sharing the sofa bed, I’ll just have to hop in with you, Nat. It’s a double bed and I’m only little.’ She moved a couple of pillows to the bottom end of the bed to get us in a head-to-toe position. ‘Go on, Asha, tell us. We’re dying to know.’
Rosie and I giggled.
‘Better out than in,’ I declared in my position of a hostess.
‘I’ve always spent the best part of the summer holidays back home, out in the country. It’s a beautiful place, you must come to visit one day, you’ll love it...’
‘Cut to the chase, child,’ Rosie interrupted, deadly serious.
‘All right, all right,’ Asha laughed. She didn’t seem embarrassed or uncomfortable. ‘My siblings are much older than me. In such cases, it’s traditional for parents to hire a companion of appropriate age...’
‘I think I know what’s coming,’ said Rosie.
Asha nodded. ‘You probably do. My parents hired Havva, the daughter of a family of tenants on the estate. I was twelve, she was fourteen, in other words, she was putting her dowry together.’
‘She needed money for the dowry?’ I asked.
‘That too, I imagine, but mostly she was sewing and embroidering new bedding, towels, tablecloths, her own nightwear, that kind of thing. The idea was that she would teach me embroidery, sewing, lace making, all those skills that I hope I’ll never need, and that I would help her improve on her education. She was to be married to a primary school teacher and she wanted to get closer to his level. Anyway,’ Asha reached for an orange and started to peel it, ‘I’d only just started my periods and she was telling me about that, and how that meant that I’d become fertile, and about marriage, that side of marriage I mean. Frankly, she didn’t tell me much that I hadn’t already heard elsewhere, and a lot of what she was saying was mixed with religion and local folklore and superstitions. Until she moved to the subject of sexual desire...’
‘Lust,’ Rosie added.
We all giggled.
‘Precisely. Havva taught me how to feel myself and brought me a mirror so I that could see what’s in between my legs,’ Asha shuddered comically there, ‘and that gave me a great idea. There was only a limited range of websites that I could reach from my own computer, but my parents were away at the time so I powered up my Dad’s laptop and typed ‘penis’ into the browser. Have you ever done that?’
We all nodded.
‘Then you know what I found,’ she continued. ‘Some of those porn videos are really good quality and very detailed, you can see exactly what’s going on. The acted groans were repulsive but when people made authentic recordings of themselves and their partners you can tell just how excited they were and how much they were enjoying themselves. That was the bit that I was mostly interested in. After three days, watching people bonk each other in different positions can become repetitive, to be honest, but the urge itself, the power of the orgasm, that fascinated me.’
I can’t tell you how impressed I was by her. She was made to talk about what’s often a sordid subject, certainly among young adults torn between curiosity, guilt, and the fear of being found out, and she made it anything but sordid.
‘I didn’t like feeling myself. Made me shudder. Then one afternoon Havva was helping me shower in the garden after a swim. I knew something was going to happen by
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