The joys of self denial 3

“Not long now, darling,” Sophie’s huge eyes looked beseechingly up at him. “I want to, too, you know. I’m having to be to be just as patient as you.”

James looked down at her as the moonlight danced on her golden ringlets. In his present mood, his fiancée bore a passing resemblance to an amnesiac sheep.

“Damn it, Sophie,” he muttered, “Nobody goes in for this chastity before marriage nonsense. Not in this day and age.”

The huge eyes brimmed with tears, “You don’t really mind, do you?” she wailed, “Oh I can’t bear it.”

James brightened up a little at this anguish. Perhaps she was coming round after all. He slid an exploratory hand down towards her hemline. She stepped back with a disconsolate sob.

James clenched his fists in exasperation. She was his first real girlfriend. An adventurous girl, he had thought, with certainly a daring dress sense. Yet with a surprising reticence in sexual matters. They’d known each other for just over a week and he’d proposed after three days, hoping to encourage her to greater intimacy. But all he’d had so far was a kiss in the Pictures and a series of promissory notes of carnal paradise. Still, he’d come this far. He had to keep going now.

“I’m going to make you so happy, darling” she promised him smiling through tears. Then she pecked him on the cheek and dodged nimbly inside her front door.

James walked off home gruffly to yet another late night session of porn and self pity. Sophie waved to him from her bedroom window. And then busied herself with the unguents, pessaries and antibiotics, cursing that drunken evening with the Russian trawlermen. She really should have shown more control.