I had fancied her for a lifetime.

When I was a girl my dad always rattled on about Lauren Bacall, the actress who was married to Humphrey Bogart. I am nearly an expert on her since he spent so much time telling me about her. It was not until I was a developing 16 year old that I began to see what he saw and then I would often, I mean very often, jill my way to sleep imagining her. I am not saying my dad, or Ms Bacall come to that, made me a lesbian but, well, they sort of set me on the road.

I was brought up in a very ordinary middle class home. Lesbianism was something one knew about but it was NOT something that occurred in our sort of household. The fact that I knew I was that way inclined was unsettling of course and so I pretended not to be. My pretence did not go as far as ‘going’ with boys as my mother would have put it. Oh, naturally, I pretended that I had otherwise all the other girls at my all girl school would have made my life a misery. I invented holiday romances with Italian boys and French boys or boys from wherever we’d been on holiday.

The problem was the more I pretended, the more I knew I wanted to touch, feel and kiss a woman. My schoolgirl crushes were focused on a narrow range of people, limited by a strict upbringing and life in a boarding school. My thoughts centred for a while, when I was probably 16 or 17, on the head girl. Her name was Sonia and she was Lebanese. She had dramatic black eyes and black hair that was long, almost to her arse. She played hockey amazingly well and I would watch her as she wove her way through the opposition, her hair tied back but still flying. Her long, firm athlete’s legs captivated me as did her firm breasts, trussed in her sports bra.

Occasionally I’d find an excuse to go into the changing room so I could watch her undress, which she did with a total lack of self-consciousness. I learned to cum quietly in the dormitory and less quietly when I had my own room when I reached the sixth form, by which time, of course, Sonia had left the school.

There was only one person who knew, my oldest school friend, Ros. We did the gap year thing and travelled all over the world. It was a magical nine months and, in Thailand one evening, we arrived hot, tired and sweaty. We could only get a room with a double bed but neither of us cared. We showered and dropped into deep slumber in the beach hut that cost next to nothing. That was the first time I kissed a girl properly. Or, to be more accurate, that I was kissed by another girl.

It happened as dawn broke. Something must have woken us and we lay on the cool sheets and looked into each other’s eyes and something passed, unspoken, between us. Ros kissed me. It started as a light touch on the lips and grew, slowly and to my mind deliciously into a deep exchange of tongues. Her hand went to my naked breast and she held it, caressed it and stroked my nipple. Then what had started as a kiss became a much more significant thing as the first finger other than my own entered me. It was also the first time my finger had entered anyone but me. Watching each other intently we fingered and stroked deep inside each other then resumed our kiss. There was no inept fumbling. It was if each knew what the other needed. My orgasm came a little while after hers. By this time we were hungry for more and soon we were head to pussy, both eating the other in a soft, tantalizing way, hands going where they wanted as they wanted. Two more orgasms, hers and mine before we lay sweating and sated.

‘Jesus, Hils,’ said Ros eventually, ‘I’ve always known, you know.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, because.’

The remainder of the trip we shared a bed every night and sometimes all day and we enjoyed and explored each other. Ros went off to a University in Scotland and I to Oxford after we’d declared undying love which, quite naturally and without acrimony, died on campus. Ros subsequently married the rugby captain and I was her bridesmaid and on the eve of her marriage she asked me if I minded and I said of course not, which was true.

Everything changed completely for me when I went to University. The liberty was, for someone like me, incredible and I went a bit crazy. In my second week I found the lesbian club and joined. It was, however, so fucking dull that I gave up on it. One evening while I was supposed to be working there was a knock on my door in the hall of residence. There stood the chair of the society, Glenys, asking why I had not attended. So I told her and to my surprise she laughed.

‘You’re not wrong,’ she said, smiling. ‘They are a bit up themselves.’

Glenys was a small woman of about 35. She had short, mousey hair and pale blue eyes. Nobody could have been less like my idea of a lover.

‘The problem,’ I said, ‘was that it seems to be more about feminism than about sexuality.’ I invited her in for a coffee.

She was great company and we laughed a lot. She listened as I told her about my repressed upbringing, my ghastly, stiff mother. In a different story we’d probably have ended up in bed together but in fact we merely became firm friends.

The great benefits that accrued to me through Glenys were a wider group of friends and a consequent loss of anxiety about being and admitting to being a lesbian. By no means all her friends were lesbians but a good few were and the others didn’t give a toss about it. Glenys and I remained friends through my time at Uni and after.

I got laid a few times at college but never fell in love. The first was a woman of about 40 who, apparently, liked freshers. She seduced me like a huntress going after a deer. She was stealthy, cautious and wily. I ended up in her bed one Friday night and she taught me more in that one night than I had ever known or imagined about sex. Over the next few weeks she taught me to enjoy my body and hers.

The night her finger found my rear entrance was the night I felt I had grown of age. The taboo of anal sex was laid to rest as her fingers filled me and her tongue explored my pussy and brought me to a screaming climax that beat any other I had ever known.

She showed me that that and other things people like me thought were taboo were, in fact, joyous. There was almost nothing that she would not do to arouse me and she taught me, gently but firmly to do the same for her.

She ditched me after three weeks and I didn’t care. I’d hatched. Ros had been a revelation, this was discovery.

It was two years after I left University that I was with Glenys at a party. It was a fairly civilized affair, a celebration of a mutual friend’s birthday. We’d all assembled at one of the City’s best hotels and there was a sit-down meal followed by a bit of dancing and general jollity.

There she was. Lauren Bacall. Obviously not THE Lauren Bacall but she so resembled her that I was smitten. She had those eyes, that hair and those legs, clearly on show under a knee length dress that had risen up her thigh as she had sat on the arm of a chair. She wore black stockings and black heels and the dark blue dress was tight across sensible sized tits. She looked incredibly like the actress.

I had fancied her for a lifetime.

I walked across to where Glenys was making doe eyes at a tall, well-dressed woman with hair drawn tightly back in a bun and thick glasses. She introduced me to her companion, Sylvia, a librarian who actually looked like one. I joined their conversation, dying for a moment alone with Glenys. After an eternity Sylvia went to get drinks for us and I squeezed Glenys’s arm.

‘Who,’ I hissed, ‘is the woman in the blue dress?’

Glenys looked behind me and smiled.

‘That,’ she said, ‘is Constance Beecham. Nice, huh?’

‘You know her?’

‘Of course. She used to live with Stella Grange,’ here she indicated a svelte, rich-looking blonde who was in the group Constance was sitting with. ‘They ditched each other amicably about four months ago. I’ve known Stella forever.’ She looked at me with new comprehension. ‘Oh, babe, you’re way out of your class. Constance is a big hitter in the local hospital, something to do with management I think. Rumour is that she and Stella did a lot of nurse training if you get my drift.’

‘Introduce me.’

At that moment, Constance turned her head and seemed to be surveying the room. I looked away and suspected that I had blushed. Sylvia returned with drinks and I swallowed almost all of mine in the first gulp. My mouth had dried and I felt hot. I made excuses to Glenys and Sylvia and went, via the bar, out onto the terrace to take some air.

I heard heels clicking on the flagstones and turned.

‘I’m Stella Grange,’ said the tall blonde. ‘Who are you?’

I extended my hand and she took it. ‘I’m Hilary Tenant, nice to meet you.’

‘You too. You’ll forgive me saying but I couldn’t help noticing how you reacted when you saw my ex in there.’ She did a sort of backward nod to indicate the room inside. ‘You noticed the resemblance didn’t you?’

‘I did, yes.’

‘Lots of people do but they are usually a lot older than you.’

Up close Stella’s age was much more apparent and, I guessed, about 55.

She studied me. ’45?’

’43.’ I smiled at her accuracy and explained my dad’s obsession with Bacall.

‘Ah, well, that explains it then. Legacy lust.’ She grinned. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I first saw her. I assumed she made an effort to look like her but she doesn’t, it’s entirely natural. You have a partner?’

‘We split.’

Stella moved closer and in a strangely intimate gesture, brushed my hair behind my ear.

‘Constance and I parted too. We decided we wanted different things in life. Was it like that for you?’

‘No.’ I could not bring myself to say more. She was close, very close and I felt like my space had been invaded.

‘Tell me.’

Then, for some reason, it all came tumbling out of me. How Linda had been with me for six years. She spent a lot of time at her company’s head office in New York and I discovered she had a woman there too. They shared an apartment, a car and a bed.

‘How did you find out?’

The awful day came back to me in vivid reality.

I’d decided to pay a surprise visit to New York to celebrate our anniversary, six years to the day since I had moved into her flat and arranged to let my own. I arrived at her apartment carrying a large bunch of yellow roses, her favourite. I’d dressed to arouse under a simple black dress. I rang the doorbell at 8pm. The woman who opened the door looked at me quizzically but coldly, then, without a word to me, said over her shoulder, ‘Lin, babe, I suspect this is for you.’

Behind her I saw Linda, my beautiful Linda, poke her head out from a doorway and the look on her face told me everything. I dropped the flowers and turned away, my vision blurred with tears and the next I knew I was back at the hotel where I had slept briefly after my flight, where I had put on her favourite underwear and stockings and perfume, where I had felt the excitement growing in me. My mobile rang a couple of times I think but I didn’t answer it.

Back in England I had stayed for a few days with Glenys and made arrangements for my tenant to leave my flat, removed all my stuff from Linda’s flat and found myself somewhere temporary until I could move back alone and dispirited into my own.

I apologised for unburdening myself as I had. I was surprised at myself but she was kind, gentle and didn’t seem to mind at all.

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Six months.’

‘Let’s get a drink?’

Stella led me back into the room, her hand on my elbow. She poured me a glass of Champagne and we drifted to the group she had been in before she’d joined me on the terrace. Constance was now sitting properly in the armchair, her long legs crossed and she looked with a questioning eye at Stella.

‘Meet Hilary.’

She smiled at me and went on talking to her neighbor and I sat quietly, exchanging words with Stella and others. Occasionally Constance would look at me but not once did she speak to me directly until I had said something about the film, Titanic and how I thought it was such a dreadful waste of wonderful technology to create the amazing ship by computer and then set such a naff story in it.

‘You’re right.’

Those were the only words she said but she held me with a gaze that made my heart race. I returned to Glenys and her librarian. It was clear, however, that their minds were on other matters and when the librarian went to the toilet Glenys squeezed my arm conspiratorially.

‘Will you be okay going home alone, Hils? Glenys is about to get laid. Isn’t she something else?’

She most certainly was. She had thick-lensed glasses, mousey hair cut tight to her scalp and wore a man’s watch. She was manly and right up Glen’s street but not mine at all. Each to her own, I thought. I said, of course, that she was lovely and I was quite happy to make my own way home. The City of Bath is genteel and a woman alone seldom feels unsafe. I cadged a cigarette from the birthday celebrant, Sandra, and went out onto the terrace to smoke it. The night was balmy and I felt no chill until I heard heels clacking on the flags for a second time that evening. I turned and saw Constance Beecham approaching.

She too was smoking and she said, ‘Don’t you know smoking is bad for you?’

God, I thought, she even has the voice.

‘I don’t think one a week will kill me.’

She stood close by and inhaled deeply and I watched the smoke curling from her nose and mouth in the light from the terrace walls. Her blonde hair shone as did her lovely eyes. We stood silently, enjoying the late evening air.

‘You are Glenys’s friend, Hilary?’

‘And you are Constance.’

‘Well, at least we have reminded each other of our names.’ She smiled at me. ‘Stella says you recognised the resemblance. I don’t exaggerate it, nor do I hide it. Truth is, I like it.’

‘I can’t say I blame you.’

‘What did Glenys say about me?’

‘She told me your name.’

‘Because you asked?’

I smiled. ‘Do you blame me for asking?’

“What else did she say?’

‘She said you were out of my class.’

This seemed to amuse her. She slipped her arm through mine casually and held my wrist gently.

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think she may well be right.’

I was amazed when she pulled a pen out of her bag, took my hand and wrote a number on the back of it. ‘Call me on Wednesday and we’ll see.’

With that she stubbed out her cigarette, kissed me lightly on the cheek and clicked her way back into the hotel. I stayed out there, thinking but not thinking if you can understand me. I found my hand pressing on my mound, not rubbing, just pressing as if I were reassuring it. When I went back inside she had gone. Stella smiled at me as I passed and I went to the cloakroom, grabbed my coat and went home.

At home and in bed I was in a seedy hotel room in ‘To Have and Have Not’ with her. I pulled my nightdress up and my fingers were her fingers as they explored me, entered me, stroked me and, ultimately, brought me to a noisy climax.

Wednesday

I called the number as soon as I got home from work. It went straight to her voicemail and I left a message including my number. I popped a bottle of Prosecco and poured a glass, switched on the tv and watched something anodyne without watching it. I was waiting for the call that never came. At least, it never came that evening, unlike me. I came as I had every night since the party, her eyes locked on mine.

Thursday



It was about 11 and I was standing, dripping in the bathroom, my hair wrapped in a towel as I dried myself off. The bloody phone rang and I wonderd who the hell that would be at that time of night. I made no effort to get to it quickly but managed to before she rang off.

‘I’m sorry. I was just drying myself after a shower.’

‘I’m sorry too. It’s a hideous time to call.’ That voice! ‘I couldn’t take your call yesterday, I was busy and then it got too late to call you.’

‘Well, Constance, thanks for getting back to me.’

‘Fancy a drink tomorrow night, Hilary?’ It is sometimes so hard to keep enthusiasm from my voice but I hoped I managed to make it less than blindingly obvious.

Friday



I watched heads turn, male and female, as Constance walked imperiously into the bar. The bar at the hotel where the party had been held was sophisticated and expensive, and I had nursed a glass of Merlot for the thirty minutes I had to wait for her. She was wearing a gunmetal grey dress which emphasised the shape of her body. A flunky took the black coat which she proffered with barely a glance at the fawning waiter. I’d selected a black number from my extensive collection of black numbers. It had little straps and a tight waist and fell loosely to mid calf level. It was my ‘intellectual frock’ as Glenys called it.

She came to my table and sat, ordered a bottle of the wine I was drinking and smiled.

‘I won’t keep saying I am sorry to keep you waiting. Please, take it as said. I had a meeting with a group of lawyers, I wonder what the collective noun is for that?’

‘A grasp, perhaps?’

She smiled at the small, feeble joke and placed her hand on mine. ‘Very probably. Now, tell me all about yourself, Hilary.’

‘My friends call me Hils.’

‘I prefer Hilary.’ So, that was that!

And I told her. I told her about my job in the advertising agency, writing copy for products most people never needed. I told her about my flat, my break up with Linda and, well, everything. She listened as we talked. It wasn’t a monologue about me. She interspersed my account with snippets about herself and her separation from Stella. It was easy, comfortable and she revealed a sense of humour that reminded me so much of Bacall.

Her hand tightened on mine. ‘I’m not her, you know.’

Now of course, I knew that but I could understand that a lot of people might have wanted her to be. I didn’t and said so which made her smile. She leaned close to me and I noticed, without lingering, that her left breast was almost exposed.

‘That’s good, then. You know a lot of people thought Stella and I enjoyed certain perks, working in the hospital?’ I nodded. ‘Well, there is a little truth in it. The reason we split is that Stella fell head over heels for a Sister and I wasn’t prepared to come between her and real love. Ours was pure sex and damned good it was too.’

I nodded again and wondered if she would take this as mute stupidity or genuine listening.

‘Are you good in bed?’

Now, there’s a question to put a girl on the spot. I thought about it. ‘Not good enough to keep Linda, not bad enough for anyone to complain.’

‘Let’s find out?’

‘Are you good in bed?’ I thought I’d turn the table.

‘Very.’ That was all she said and her eyes sparkled mischievously.

We walked through the late night bustle, past the theatre which was spewing customers onto the pavement. We turned into a mews and she led me to a black, glossy door with a lion’s head in brass as a knocker. We went into the small but welcoming entrance hall and she closed the door behind us. I stood, not knowing where to go and she came to me, taller than me by at least five inches. Her coat was open and she leant to kiss my mouth. I tasted wine and her hand slid between the folds of my own coat and went to my waist. The kiss endured then was broken as she led me into a warm, cosy sitting room. She removed her coat and threw it over the back of a chair and I copied her.

‘I love the dress. You have lovely little tits.’ She came close and her hand went to my breast and her nail traced its line under the material of my dress. It ran from the tip of my nipple, up the strap of my left shoulder and to my cheek. I put my hand on her hip and she leant again, her mouth hovering close to mine, her fingertip touching my skin below my ear.

Her free hand covered my breast and she rubbed her palm over my stiffened nipple. As her tongue entered me so her hand drifted tantalizingly down over my belly to press gently against my mound and she pushed her finger against me. The fingertip that had touched my cheek moved behind my head and under my hair and she held me against her so I could feel her nipple through the soft fabric of her dress.

‘The bedroom is upstairs.’

To be continued.