Josephine

Josephine took hold of my hand and placed my finger against a small nub of skin. Her reaction to the pressure I applied to the spot was alarming and at first I thought I'd hurt her.

'More,' she whispered, 'touch me there more, please.'

I fumbled a little in this unknown territory, but I was guided by the sounds that Josephine made as my fingers moved over her slippery flesh. Josephine's pants and groans became more urgent and she pulled my face down to hers to kiss me heavily again. Josephine was sighing and mewling right into my mouth. She didn't seem to care what noises she was making and I must admit that the sounds of her arousal stirred my lust again.

My John Thomas was big and stiff again and as I manipulated Josephine's sex, I felt her fingers close around the shaft once again. In a confused few moments, Josephine pushed my fingers away from her body and replaced them with her own. She appeared to me to be rubbing at herself and then grunted hugely for several seconds in apparent pain. Still groaning, Josephine pulled me roughly so that I was lying along her front and between her spread thighs. I felt her hand on my stalk and then the head of my cock butted up against some sort of resistance. With a jolt I realised that she was trying to get my cock inside her body and I called out her name.

'Just push, Robert, please,' Josephine urged me and moved her hips back and forwards in a frantic kind of movement.

I did as she said and felt my cock push beyond the obstruction somehow before it was enveloped by my lover's molten heat. I paused, caught in the enormity of what I was doing. The unexpectedness of the situation... Just that afternoon I was full of dread of going of to war and now... Here I was, lying between the widespread thighs of the prettiest girl in the town.

'Do it to me, Robert,' Josephine's voice brought me back to the present. 'Do it to me, I want you.'

It didn't last long. I moved instinctively, moving my hips and thrusting into Josephine. I could feel that I was close and thought to pull out. I knew about the birds and the bees and the consequences of shooting into a woman, but when I tried to pull back, Josephine hooked her legs around my back and held me in place. She was groaning again and I realised that this noise signalled her release, just as I shuddered and poured my second burst into Josephine.

'I've wanted to do that for ages,' Josephine whispered a short time later as we lay together. She had rolled from under me after I'd done it to her and we were now lying face to face on our sides. I could see her face quite clearly now that the three quarter moon had showed its face and I was quite taken by how beautiful she looked.

'I'm sorry,' I said eventually. 'I didn't know, I thought you thought I was an idiot.'

'Why would I think that?' Josephine laughed.

'I could never talk to you, I was always mumbling and bumbling about...'

'Well,' Josephine whispered and snuggled closer, 'now you can talk to me, after what we've just done...'

'Aye,' I whispered, 'I... I've never done owt with a lass before...'

'Shall we do it again?' Josephine's face was mischievous when she spoke. 'I'd like to do it again,' she continued. 'And we've got tomorrow night too, haven't we?'

'Aye,' I replied, my heart suddenly heavy with her reminder. 'My last night home, tomorrow...'

I felt the tears sting, but instead of fighting them back as I'd be expected to, I let them roll unchecked. I'd just found her, I'd just found her and now I had to go. God, please let me come back...

Then, after the brief moment of self pity I looked at Josephine lying next to me. I pushed the thoughts of leaving away and instead I made a vow to enjoy every last moment I had at home. I'd just broken my duck, I was a man, and no matter what happened I'd known a woman.

I took control and rolled a giggling Josephine onto her back. She soon became serious however when she realised that I meant to have her again and with a shout of delight she eagerly accepted me between her thighs once again.

*** ***

I saw Josephine to her door and then went reluctantly to my own bed. We'd arranged to meet at a ridiculously early hour in the morning and the excitement I felt at seeing her again meant that sleep didn't come to me that night. I lay in my bed and ran the scenario over and over in my mind. I recalled every subtle nuance of Josephine's love making, I replayed the sounds she made; I recalled the scent of her and relived those couple of hours again and again.

By the time the dawn came I was probably in love. It surely felt like it to me and I was grateful for the light of day since it meant I could be up and about with no cause for anyone to question. I was impatient to be with Josephine again, and found I'd wished the hours of our separation away in spite of the fact that my remaining hours were becoming few.

I met her at the back door of the pub and we spent the entire day together. We held hands and talked as we roamed the hills around the town. In the late morning we visited our spinney for some fun. My shyness had evaporated and I became quite the master during our daylight trysts. As we explored each other we became more adventurous and Josephine was riddled by a fit of giggling when I moved my head between her thighs and tasted her. Her face was scarlet with embarrassment when I popped back into view, but I could tell that she had enjoyed herself and had that fact confirmed when she pushed my face back down to her now not-so-secret place.

We ate nothing during that idyllic day together, the only sustenance we seemed to need was each other as is typical with everyone in that first, heady bloom of love. Each time the spectre of my departure showed its unwelcome face I banished it with bolstering thoughts of Josephine and what we'd done together in the woods.

We separated again in the afternoon so that Josephine could show her face at the pub and I could spend some time with my father. I had no memory of my mother, she'd succumbed to TB when I was a dot and my father had brought me up alone. The old fella was proud to have me going off to the war and he told me so almost shyly in the interval that followed our evening meal.

'Thah'll be reet, Lad,' he said to me gruffly, but with affection after we'd eaten. He held out his hand to me and I shook it firmly. As far as I was concerned it was another rite of passage of becoming a man, another to add to my rapidly expanding horizons. My father knew I was impatient to get away, however he didn't quite know the reason why but all the same we said our goodbyes then, I was away early in the morning and the old man was wise enough to know that I would be better off if I just up and went with no fuss.

I met Josephine and off we went again. We made our way to the now familiar wood and stayed until the new dawn was just beginning to light the sky towards the Pennines. We'd talked and made love all through the night, but now the time was upon us and with the leaden feeling fully returned I turned away from the pub door after we'd both professed our love for each other a thousand times. My face was stained with my tears as I changed into the cussed khaki and pulled on those damned boots. I picked up my kit and left the familiar town behind.

Isaac Johnson dropped me in time to meet the train. He didn't say much on the ride out; realising my mood he spoke in a soft murmur to Clara the horse as she worked between the stays. I watched Isaac and Clara as they made their return journey and as their shape dwindled into the distance it felt as though my boyhood was moving away from me in that cart.

*** ***

December 1918

The man stood on the track, immobile in spite of the cold, let's face it he was used to it and he drank in the sight of home. He'd been gone over two years and the things he'd seen and experienced in that interval were too horrific to recall. However, despite that, his spirits couldn't be dampened, he'd survived by God; there'd been some close calls; a spell in hospital in France, but he'd bloody well come through and now he was home.

He took a final look at the town and set off down the path towards home. He paused for a moment at the stile; he recalled what had happened to him there and he felt his guts swirl with nervousness, would she still want him? He had the letters, every one and he knew that in every one she'd said so, but... now that he was back?

Just as he was approaching the pub a woman left it. She was well wrapped against the cold and she was carrying a young child in her arms who was equally well protected against the biting December wind. The man almost ignored the woman until, with a jolt of recognition he realised it was her, it was his Josephine.

'Robert!' she called in that voice he'd longed to hear for so long. 'It's you... really you.'

Robert stared at Josephine and then looked at the child in her arms.

'I...I couldn't tell you in the letters,' she faltered, her voice breaking. 'Just in case...' Josephine moved slowly toward Robert and kissed him on the mouth. 'But you're back... I love you, don't you ever leave me again.' She looked into the changed face of the boy she'd loved in the spinney, 'Here's your son,' she whispered, 'say hello.'

The unsaid reference to his mortality on the battlefield made perfect sense to Robert and he couldn't hold Josephine's silence over his son against her. He was home and she loved him, he had a son.

It was over.