As a teenager, I was very shy around girls. I wasn't that interested, more interested in football and other sports.

At a school disco, I spotted a girl I fancied and we danced in the frenetic styles of the time. And then, the DJ played a slow song, too slow to continue to dance as we had been doing. I noticed that other couples were holding each other close, slowly shuffling their feet and going round in circles. An older schoolmate made a gesture to me to take my partner by the hand, I think, but I didn't really understand his hand motions and so we continued to dance to the slow song in a slow-motion action replay style of the frenzied movements that we had danced for most of the evening. Then, thankfully, the slow song ended and it was back to the up tempo tunes from before. Phew, that was a close shave!

Fast forward to a few years later ...

My father was in the army and was stationed abroad. I had made friends through my first job and from mixing with young soldiers. A crowd of us were in a bar on an evening out and one of the squaddies said, "Let's go into town!" And so we did, hitting the bars in the busy city centre, me being careful not to drink too much as I hadn't yet discovered my alcohol tolerance! Last stop was a night club. I'd never been to a NIGHT club before, school discos and youth clubs, yes, but not a proper nightclub.

We got inside, got some beers and settled down on a few plush seats. In another corner of the room, there was a crowd of young people who seemed like they were being supervised by an older woman. As we all danced around to the music, somehow we mingled together and I found myself dancing in front of a beautiful blonde girl.

After a while, we sat out some tunes and got talking. Her name was Inge and she was on a student trip from Scandinavia, part of the supervised group, all staying in a nearby hostel. As the evening progressed to early morning, we sat closer, eventually side by side with my arm around her shoulders. In a classic teenage move, I reached all the way round and managed to cup her breast and lean in for a kiss. All was going well. She was receptive to my moves and we spent most of the time with our lips and tongues locked together and me holding her breast through her T-shirt.

Closing time came and, as we were leaving, she needed to go to the ladies' room. I stood outside waiting and thought to myself, "I'm in love!" We left the club and waited for the night bus to take her back to her hostel. We had arranged to meet again at the nightclub and boy, was I looking forward to that!

Over the next few nights, we danced, we hugged and we fumbled but we never progressed any further than that. We did exchange addresses, though, and that developed into a long-running holiday romance ...

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Before leaving that city to my father's next posting, I started going to another nightclub, nearer to where I lived. Here, I met a girl named Helka who was at college as an art student. She didn't really like the early 70s disco music but liked to get out to meet people. And she met me! I was still in touch by post with Inge but they say absence makes the heart grow fonder ... for somebody else! So I developed a little romance with Helka before I had to leave to go back to the UK. Nothing major happened between us, just dancing, drinking and kissing and cuddling. But, on our last night together, we were sitting in a booth at the nightclub, quite privately, kissing and cuddling and I ventured my hand inside her top. It was heaven! She wasn't as big breasted as Inge but she was braless, she was firm and she had applied a beautiful-smelling talc. My first fondle of a girl's breast! Beautiful!

The next day, my family left for the UK but I had been careful NOT to wash my hands. I spent at least two days afterwards, sniffing in the aroma of Helka's breast ...

We had, of course, exchanged addresses and so I had another foreign girlfriend with whom I would correspond.

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My father's new posting was to a small unit in a rural area, with not much going on. So I would travel up to London to see school friends. On one occasion, we went back to our old school for a school disco! This time around, I danced with a girl and she told me her name was Sarah. We chatted about what we'd be doing now that we had left school and she said she would probably be helping her mum's business as a hairdresser. She lived at home in a flat above her mum's salon. We exchanged addresses ... another girl to whom I would write letters. This romance stuff would be a bit tiring on my hand, in more ways than one!

A few weeks later, I got a letter from Helka. She was visiting an English seaside town for artistic inspiration and could we meet? Brilliant news! I was so looking forward to seeing her again. On the weekend, I travelled to London but missed my connecting train and would have wait five hours for the next one! I knew that Sarah lived not far from the train station so, to pass the time, I went to say hello.

She was pleased to see me and persuaded me to miss my train and stay over. Her mum and dad were very welcoming and made me feel at home. After dinner, we all sat and watched TV until mum and dad went up to bed. "Don't be too late, Sarah," mum said. After only a few minutes, we snuggled up to each other and began to kiss quite passionately in that awkward teenage style. Buttons were undone and hands were everywhere. Once again, I had my hand on a girl's breast but, this time, the girl had her hand inside my fly, rubbing my cock. I'd never experienced that with Helka or Inge - our fumblings had been in a public place - and it took a bit of concentration to keep myself under control. Suddenly, Sarah withdrew her hand and said that had to stop, that we couldn't make lots of noise and she couldn't be too late going to bed. And so, we stopped. Sarah gave me blankets to make up a bed on the sofa and she went off to bed.

The next morning, the flat woke up, breakfast was cooked and conversation flowed quite naturally. Sunday was the day to visit elderly relatives so we travelled to a small village out of town to see Sarah's old uncle and we teenagers sat in another room, listening to the radio as the parents chatted with uncle. We were sitting together on the sofa but we couldn't continue what had started the night before as her parents would constantly interrupt us with cups of tea and biscuits! An enjoyable afternoon, nonetheless. Back at the flat, we again watched TV and again we were left alone as Sarah's parents went to bed. We snuggled up and kissed but without the intensity of the night before. She went to bed, I stayed on the sofa.

The next morning, I had to catch the train home and that was the last I saw of Sarah. I wrote a letter to Helka to apologise for not seeing her last weekend and put the blame on the trains!

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Back home to the dreary small village, still nothing to do, nowhere to go. The trouble is, it can very difficult to be a new face in a small village and so it proved. Visits to the village youth club were often curtailed by threatening behaviour from the local kids, even the girls!

Eventually, I felt able to go to a youth club disco and I got talking to a small mixed crowd. After a while, the crowd dispersed but a couple of girls stayed behind to chat. As the club was closing, we stepped outside into the cooler air. The girls said that they felt a chill and, of course, I offered to warm them up! What a smooth operator! One of the girls left and then, it was just me and Michelle. As we walked along the street towards her home, she pulled at my sleeve to link our arms together and we continued along our way. Suddenly, she directed me off the road and behind a row of garages. Then we stopped.

She asked, "Do you like me?"

"Well, yes", I replied, "but we've only met this evening."

"I know" she said, "but ..."

And then she stood on her tip-toes to reach up and kiss me. That was all I needed, the signal to go. We lay on the grass behind the garages and hugged and kissed like no tomorrow. And there was some major fondling too! Michelle rubbed the front of my jeans as I was getting hard, I, in turn, rubbed her breasts. The buttons on her shirt were undone at the top in the heat of the summer evening and it didn't take much work to undo a few more. My hand went inside her shirt and I felt her full breast, kneading it and playing with her nipple. My hand then down to the front of her jeans and I undid the button, pulled down her zipper and I was able to put my hand inside her panties to feel her pubic hair. I felt around and found her slit, very wet. I put my finger inside her and pumped away a few strokes.

Suddenly, Michelle squirmed away, breathlessly saying, "No, stop, we can't do this!" So we stopped but I was confused and concerned. What had I done wrong? But, I realised that we couldn't continue and we got ourselves tidied up, got back to the road and we walked towards her house.

We did speak but it was mostly Michelle saying why we couldn't carry on. She said that she was only sixteen and a virgin and not on the pill. I told her that I, too, was a virgin (I was seventeen) and that it was OK that she wanted to stop. I thought to myself that I wouldn't have known what to do anyway, so it was just as well she wanted to stop. But, it was a beautiful experience for us to enjoy each other in that way, even if it was frustrating.

I saw Michelle a couple of times after that at the village youth club but nothing replicated that summer evening behind the garages.

Soon afterwards, I made the decision to leave home and move to London. I never saw Michelle again.