Under Siege

Sniffling and with puffy eyes I accompanied her to a local café where she ordered a pot of tea and a plate of cakes. As we sipped our tea Ros quietly asked me the details of what Roger had done. Once I'd told her, she said, "Christ, the dirty bastard deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered." After a moment's hesitation she said, awkwardly, "Look...you're going to need to decide what you want to do about it. If you decide to get rid of it I, er, well, I know someone who can help you. For a price of course."

I was surprised that this nice English lady with the cut glass accent had such a contact, and wondered again about her history with Roger, but she didn't volunteer any details and I was too embarrassed to ask. She told me what the cost would be – it was manageable from my savings – and I said I would think about it and contact her.

I did think about it, but decided against such a drastic option. The truth was that, whatever the consequences for me, I felt it would be morally wrong. I wasn't religious, and I believe in a woman's freedom of choice in such issues, but I simply couldn't bring myself to make that choice. It would have felt as if I was punishing the innocent life growing inside me for Roger's betrayal of my trust. Ros said she understood, and that she felt I was being very brave. She phoned me a couple of weeks later to ask how I was, genuinely concerned for me, which was very nice of her. I was starting to really worry though. I could tell from the way Carmela looked at me that she had guessed my condition; and as I entered my third month my father made a snide comment that if I took more exercise perhaps I would stop looking so unwell all the time and lose a few pounds into the bargain. Whatever else he was, he certainly wasn't stupid, and I knew it would be only a matter of time before he realised the position. I was genuinely terrified that he may imprison me in the house, rather than face the shame of his ruined slut daughter being seen in public.

A beacon of hope briefly flared with the reappearance of my fiancé, George. His brigade were based on the other side of Malta, and were busily engaged in the island's preparations for war; I had last seen him in January, and then only for two hours. But in March he was granted 24 hours' leave and travelled the breadth of the island to see me. I developed a mad plan that once I explained my plight to him we could at least pass the baby off as ours, and however angry my father was he would have to agree to a quick marriage to stave off humiliation.

We met in a café in Valletta, and it was a disaster. George refused to believe the truth of my situation. He accused me of being loose with my favours in his absence and trying to con him into taking on some other bloke's bastard. He called me some vile names and stormed out, leaving me sobbing as the other customers stared at me with a mixture of pity and contempt.

After my confrontation with George I wandered aimlessly for several hours, with no idea where I was, and not a thought in my head. Eventually I found myself, late into the evening, leaning on a wall staring down into the dark, oily waters of the Grand Harbour. They looked so inviting, and it would seem so simple to...I snapped out of it with a jerk. No, that would be too easy; I was buggered if I was going to driven to that by the men who had betrayed me, my bloody father, and bloody George, and bloody, bloody, fucking Roger!

The following day I received a very formally worded letter from George requesting the return of his ring. I was so furious that I stormed down to a local jewellers and sold the damned thing for a few lira. Then I wrote back to my ex-fiancé telling him he was a filthy swine, and where he could buy back his nasty cheap little bauble if it meant that much to him. After that I felt a little better, and telephoned Ros to ask if we could meet for lunch. She seemed to have been the only person who had been kind to me in months, and I was completely out of other ideas.

At the café I told her how scared I was of my father's reaction to the news I couldn't keep from him much longer, and that I had to get away, somewhere, somehow. Ros was silent for fully a minute, staring into the middle distance and absently tapping her thumbnail against her teeth. Then, with a decisive nod she turned to me. "Right, I have a friend, a lady, who I think might be able to offer you a billet. Leave it with me, I'll call her this afternoon and let you know how I get on."

I was on tenterhooks for the rest of the day. At home I sat on the edge of my seat, praying for the phone to ring. It finally did at about nine o'clock. Ros spoke quickly and briefly, almost as if she was afraid somebody might be listening in on the call. "Okay, it's fixed, be at the Sliema ferry slip at oh-nine-hundred tomorrow, ready to go", and with that she rang off. In my bedroom I packed as many of my belongings as I could into a small cardboard suitcase and spent a restless night tossing and turning in my bed. The next morning I left a brief note on my father's chair, saying I was moving in with a girl friend and would not be returning. Then, without so much as a backward glance I left his house. I never spoke to him again, and the next time I saw him was in 1952, in his coffin at Portsmouth, prior to his burial at sea.

I arrived at the Sliema ferry terminus ten minutes early and sat on a low wall to await Ros. I jumped in surprise when, a few minutes later, a man's cockney voice said, "'Scuse me, are you Miss Bullamore?" I turned and saw a small man in his 40s in army uniform. When I nodded nervously he said "Mrs Rogers sent me to collect you; said Wren Collier had made the arrangements." I realised he must mean Ros, though I hadn't known her surname. Feeling slightly bewildered I allowed him to take my suitcase and direct me towards a military staff car parked by the kerb. The driver, who introduced himself as Corporal Palmer – "but you can call me Sid" – tried to make small-talk, but I'm afraid I was too distracted, staring out of the window as we drove north towards our mystery destination. In fact, the journey took probably no more than ten minutes, then we turned between an impressive set of stone gate pillars past a sentry who peered curiously into the vehicle.

I realised I was in St Andrew's Barracks, a military facility where the wives and families of the Devonshires – George's regiment – had been ensconced while their men were away across the island. Before I had time to think any further the car halted and Sid opened the door. We were parked by a terrace of apartments, and at the nearest door stood a woman in her mid-30s, slim apart from an impressive bust, perhaps five-six tall, with shoulder length jet black hair, eyes that glinted with intelligence, a long slightly shrewish nose and a conspiratorial grin. As I emerged dopily from the car she held out a hand and said, "Hello, you must be Sandra, I'm Midge Rogers."

Clearly a brisk no-nonsense lady she ushered me in, sat me at a kitchen table and shoved a mug of tea into my limp hands. Then she explained that her husband was a Warrant Officer with the Devons, that she lived there with her two sons, aged seven and nine, and that I could have the box room with a single divan in return for a share of the housework and a few other chores. Then, giving me an appraising look, she said, "Now, what about you? You don't know anyone here at the barracks do you?" I explained briefly about George but, with a dismissive wave of her hand she said, "If he's got no family here he's not likely to turn up here. Now, you obviously can't be Bullamore, far too well known on the island. How about this? You're Sandra Taylor, cousin Fred's wife, preggers and all alone in the world now he's been called up to the Desert Rats in North Africa. Yes, that should work." And so Miss Bullamore became Mrs Taylor. Midge sent her friend Sid off to buy me a cheap second hand wedding ring, I phoned my office to explain that I'd been called away to care for a sick relative, and that was that.

I soon got into the routine of my new life. I helped Midge not only with her housework, but also with arranging a food rota for the families of 'other ranks', i.e. non-officers. I also became a civilian volunteer at the barracks medical surgery, helping with basic first aid, applying dressings and so forth. Midge's boys were delightful, I liked her husband as well when I met him, and she and I quickly became firm friends. We shared an interest in cinema, and she had a wicked sense of humour, and an endless supply of scurrilous gossip about other women at the barracks. I felt happier than I had in months, if not years.

It was all too good to last, of course, and it came crashing down in flames on the evening of 10th June 1940. I strolled into the kitchen from washing my hair one evening to find Midge sitting at the table, staring in horror at the wireless set, from which a bombastic Italian voice rang. Though I didn't speak the language I recognised the voice as that of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, and from the way the blood was draining from Midge's face I had a fair guess at what he was saying. As the speech finished she confirmed my worst fears. "The fucker's gone and declared war on Malta, from midnight." Musso had been laying claims to the island ever since his troops had invaded Abyssinia several years earlier, but even though the war had now started in earnest on the European mainland, and even though Malta had been preparing its defences for months, the announcement still came as a dreadful shock.

After Britain had declared war on Germany in September 1939 there had been months of inactivity. We in Malta had considerably less time to wait for Italy to launch its war on us. On the day after Musso's announcement I was getting out of bed at 7 a.m., after my best sleep in ages, when I heard the wail of the air raid siren. I thought it was probably another of the drills we had been getting used to but, still in our dressing gowns, Midge and I got the boys together and we stumbled to the shelter which had been dug out of the ground across the road from our billet. We heard nothing until the all-clear was sounded, but when we emerged we could see a pillar of smoke in the distance, and we learnt that this had been the real thing, an attack by Italian bombers on the Grand Harbour.

Over the next few weeks the raids came thick and fast. We found ourselves in the shelter so often that we moved a few home comforts in there – deck chairs, blankets, flasks of water, tins of biscuits, and insect repellent as a defence against the swarms of sand flies which seemed to love the taste of human flesh. An anti-aircraft gun was posted very close to our billet, and the sound of it firing was deafening and terrifying. We used to sing jolly songs as loudly as we could to try and drown it out. Fortunately no bombs fell on St Andrew's Barracks, but the area around Grand Harbour, especially the historic communities known as the Three Cities, took a dreadful pounding.

I really hadn't been looking forward to summer. The searing, dry Maltese heat was bad enough anyway, without being six months' pregnant, waddling round like a barrage balloon on legs, and the constant rushes to the shelter began to take a toll on my morale. One evening, after we'd taken cover five times in a single day, I was feeling hot, grimy and thoroughly miserable, and decided to treat myself to a long soak in the bath. Night raids were almost unheard of, so it seemed pretty safe. As I lay back in the warm water, I suddenly felt a draught, and my eyes flickered open to see Midge standing there – I'd forgotten to lock the door.

Her eyes flickered over my bare breasts then, with a sympathetic smile she sat on the side of the bath and said, "How are you bearing up, old thing? I know this isn't easy for you." I shrugged and said it wasn't easy for any of us. Midge nodded then, to my surprise, picked up a sponge and dipped it in the water. Wordlessly, she then proceeded to wash my back with long, gentle strokes. It felt wonderfully relaxing, but my body began to react in a strange way. After all, this was another woman, just being sisterly towards me, yet my nipples quickly stiffened and my cunnie started to tingle. Without at first realising it, I actually slipped a hand between my legs and began to stroke one finger softly across it.

As Midge continued to sponge me a glorious warmth began to spread right through my body. She slipped the sponge down my side then inched forward. Completely lost in the moment, I placed my elbows on the sides of the bath, giving her free access to my front, silently willing her to push on to my breasts. She did reach the first swell of my right breast – I actually felt her warm fingertips, wrapped around the sponge, press lightly into the meat of my boobie. But then she stood and, bending down to kiss me lightly on the forehead, said, "I'm off to bed now darling, goodnight." I felt a deep pang of disappointment as she closed the door behind her, and she had left me feeling so aroused that I fingered myself to a small orgasm, splashing bath water onto the floor.

I lay awake until the early morning, thinking about what had happened in the bathroom, and trying to decide whether it had been an entirely innocent gesture on Midge's part, or whether she had been giving me a message. I knew, of course, that women did sexual stuff together – two of the teachers at my school had been rumoured to be at it like knives – but I had never experienced it, and the concept seemed strange to me: not bad, or wrong, just odd. The next morning Midge seemed completely her normal self, and I began to feel I'd read far too much into what had happened. I found, though, that I was noticing her in a quite different way: her long, graceful neck; her cleavage as she bent over in front of me to pick something up from the table; the fullness of her red lips when she smiled at me. Before long I felt sexual tension building up in me like flood waters about to burst a dam.

Two evenings after the bathroom incident, I'd taken another bath – just a quick one – and was sitting on a sofa in the small lounge area off the kitchen. To conserve resources it was the only room in the apartment that we heated. I was dressed quite immodestly, in only a towel knotted above my boobies and ending at mid-thigh, but the boys had gone to bed some time before. I was half-drowsing when I felt the sofa give and looked up to see Midge sitting next to me, very close. She smiled and began to stroke my hair off my forehead. At the touch of her fingers my body instantly started to tingle. Leaning even closer towards me, she whispered, "You know Sandra, you really are very desirable", and then we were kissing. I honestly don't know who took the lead, but out lips pressed together and I took her cheeks in my hands, pulling her on to me. Her tongue flickered against my lips and I opened them to admit her. Her tongue felt much smaller and far less aggressive than Roger's, and tasted very sweet in my mouth.

I felt Midge's hands tugging at my towel, then I emitted a gasp of surprise as it fell from me. She broke away from our kiss, and I watched in amazement as she cupped both hands under one of my breasts and, dropping her head, took my nipple in her mouth. Immediately a trail of fire raced from my chest into my belly, and from there to my quim. All thought driven from my head, I groaned with lust and cradled her head in my hands, massaging her scalp with my fingers. One of her hands finger-walked across my chest to the other breast and I pushed my body at her, revelling in the sensations caused by her lips and tongue on one nip and her fingers on the other.

After a few minutes – I think I'd cum once just from what she was doing to my boobies – Midge licked her way down my ribcage, and across my big belly, tickling my navel with her tongue. My breath was roaring in my ears, fast and deep as my arousal intensified. Midge slipped to her knees on the floor and, as she kissed her way across my dense pubic bush, placed her hands on my bottom and urged me forward. Without a moment's hesitation I shuffled to the very edge of the sofa.

She moved between my legs and murmured, "God you're pussy's as beautiful as you are." I actually whimpered as she licked my inner thighs then, a moment later, a tidal wave of pleasure washed through my entire frame as her tongue stroked the length of my quim. I came almost instantly, with a shudder that wracked my whole body, before slumping back on the sofa as my lover fed on me.

She stroked my clitoris with a thumb, licked deep inside me and, behind her tongue, fucked me with the fingers of her other hand. I wouldn't have believed anything could feel so good and, tweaking my own nipples to increase the pleasure, I lost track of how many times I orgasmed. I had to clamp a cushion between my teeth to muffle my groans and screams of ecstasy to avoid waking the boys. Eventually I felt my drained body could take no more, and I actually begged her to stop. She rose to sit on the sofa again, her face glistening with my love juices, and throwing my arms around her I kissed her deeply, sucking the taste of myself off her divine tongue.

Naturally we spent that night together in the bed Midge would usually have shared with her husband. It had been my intention to pleasure her as she had pleasured me, and I sucked lovingly on her plump boobies as she purred with joy. But before long my exhaustion got the better of me and I fell asleep, my lips still attached to her nipple. I awoke at first light with my back to Midge, her body curled around mine, her breasts pressing against my back, one arm draped across me. I turned over and slipped a hand between her legs. I was surprised to find that her pussy was completely shaved of hair. Her eyes didn't open as I slid a finger inside her, but she smiled and attached her own hand to my quim. She felt on fire around my finger, and I quickly found I could fit three fingers into her, with my thumb on her clitty. We both began to moan and Midge pressed her lips to mine, stretching across my big belly, allowing us to voice our passion into each other's mouths as we exploded together. Just as we flopped onto our backs, fully spent, the air raid siren sounded. For the first time the two of us rushed to the shelter giggling like schoolgirls, silently giving thanks that the bombers hadn't arrived ten minutes earlier!

After that first time I was on fire for Midge. We spent nearly every night together (I always returned to my room in the early hours, to avoid the boys seeing me emerging from their mother's room), and there were times during the day when I could barely keep my hands off her. Her wicked sense of humour didn't help: sometimes in the shelter she would surreptitiously tickle my hand and forearm, sending tremors straight to my quim; and once, as we sat in deckchairs and the boys played snakes and ladders a few yards away, she threw a blanket over our laps and slipped her hand down the waist of my skirt and into my knickers. It took a supreme effort of self-control on my part not to give the game away as she frigged me to orgasm!

On our third night together, after Midge had again feasted on my pussy, I whispered, "Darling, I want to lick you too." I knew it wasn't straightforward, with my swollen belly, but after a second's thought Midge rose and straddled me, her bottom gently resting on my chest, bringing her cunnie to within inches of my mouth. With a degree of nervousness I gripped her bum cheeks and pulled her forwards. I couldn't see my target in the dark but the aroma of her arousal filled my head, inflaming me, and I stretched out my tongue, until it touched her burning flesh. Midge squeaked at that first touch and, pulling her even more firmly onto me, I ran my tongue the full length of her slit then wormed it between the lips. She tasted wonderful, salty and spicy, and I quickly warmed to my task, moaning even as I licked at her. She gripped the iron headboard of the bed and squirmed on my face, muttering "Oh fuck, yes, of Christ". I don't know how long it lasted, but several times I felt her vaginal muscles clench around my tongue as she bucked and growled before settling back onto me for more. Finally she dismounted me and pulled me into her arms as we shared a long, sweet kiss.