Rosie Dixon - Confessions of a Physical Wrac

‘Over here,’ I say. ‘Behind the roller.’

‘Oh yes,’ says Tharge. ‘Cosy. Would you like the rest of your – oh damn! I’ve spilled it all. Down my blazer too. Still these wristlets will soon soak it up. They’re terribly useful. You ought to try them. I know a chap who makes them. I could get you something off.’

I am beginning to wonder if Derek Tharge could get anything off, though I suppose it would be refreshing to find that not all men are only interested in shoving their hands up your – ‘Oh!’

‘Sorry. Is my hand cold?’ Derek withdraws it from my skirt and starts to flap it up and down fast as if waving goodbye to a baby carriage. ‘I’ve got a slow pulse rate, you know. Damn good for anything athletic but it does mean that the old blood doesn’t exactly rocket round your body. Would you like to feel my pulse? No, probably not a good idea. My watch hasn’t got a luminous second hand. Still, I suppose if you held it, I could count slowly. I wouldn’t be far out – not over half a minute, anyway. I mean, that I wouldn’t be far out over the space of half a minute, of course. Not that my margin of error would be –’

‘I know what you mean,’ I say, beginning to wonder if fate has been over-generous in her choice of an instrument of liberation and revenge.

‘It’s funny about you not being a tennis player,’ says Derek, leaning back and resting his weight on his elbow. ‘Glancing at you, which of course I did, I would have thought that you would have been. You’ve got that sort of development. Take your – er chest for example.’

‘Yes?’ I say, leaning forward so that he can take it if he wants to – I mean, at this rate I could be here all night and it is getting a little parky. I am all for revenge being swift.

Derek continues to wave his hand in the air and turns away from my breasts as if there is something not quite nice about them. ‘Well, it’s – I mean, they’re sort of, you know, kind of well-developed, aren’t they? Like you’ve been working at your forehand drive and all that.’

‘I haven’t been working at anything,’ I say, trying, much as it goes against the grain, to inject some huskiness into my voice. ‘It’s just the way nature made me. How’s your hand?’

I think Derek has forgotten about his hand because he glances at it like it is a bird that has alighted on a tree trunk and is flapping its wings at him. ‘Oh yes. It’s probably all right now,’ he says. ‘It seems quite warm. Feel.’

I close my eyes and brace myself for the sensation of his furtive fingers creeping under the tightly strung fabric of my stretch panties. Nothing happens. I open my eyes and see a hand dangling in front of my face. ‘Feels fine,’ I say. I release the hand and reclose my eyes. Still, nothing happens. All I can hear is heavy breathing.

‘What’s the matter now?’ I say, trying to sound calm and sympathetic.

‘Did you hear that?’ says a worried Derek. ‘That sounded like a wheeze.’

‘It sounds perfectly normal to me,’ I say. ‘Now why don’t you forget about it and –’

‘I hope I’m not going to get my old trouble back again. Not now. Mother would never forgive me. Not just before the semi-final of the North –’

‘Please!’ I say. ‘Don’t go through that again. Just relax and stop worrying about it.’ I place my hand on the spot where the legs of the man’s trousers meet and start to massage what feels like a bag of over-ripe gooseberries – or I suppose you might say goosed berries. (I know it’s not the place for a joke but I think that if you can laugh at things sometimes, it makes them easier to bear.)

‘Hold on a minute,’ says Derek. ‘It’s jolly nice of you but I wonder if it’s altogether a good idea. My father had a lot of trouble with his heart and if I’m starting this damn chest condition again I’d better not take any risks. Let’s go back to the pav and have a Horlicks. It’s a bit lumpy but Mrs Smart won’t mind opening a new tin if we ask her nicely. I might be able to find the name of that chap who let me have the sweat bands – OOH!’

I think it must be the first time in my life that I have ever taken the initiative with a man but I cannot allow myself to be robbed of my revenge. I slide my hand up the inside of Derek Tharge’s thigh and continue underneath his shorts until I have made contact with his hot cluster.

‘Uum!’ I say. ‘Nice!’

‘They’re Fred Perry’s,’ says Derek, rising two inches off the ground.

‘Really?’ I say. ‘What’s he going to do?’

‘I mean the shorts,’ says my twitching friend. ‘Oh, I say. Gosh! Jimminy Crickets! Wow!’

‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ I say. It always amazes me – whilst at the same time disgusting me, of course – how quickly a man’s thing can change from being all squidgy and rather pathetic to a deadly love cosh. Derek Tharge’s breaks all records as it races into the ascendant. ‘You don’t want to take it back to the clubhouse in that condition, do you?’ I say.

‘Crumbs!’ says my escort. ‘Well, I suppose I can always whip up an egg in a glass of milk when I get home. It’s difficult to know what to do for the best, isn’t it? None of the tennis books tell you what to do in this sort of situation.’

I tune out his voice and quickly peel off my panties. If I wait for Derek Tharge to take the initiative I could be here until the next Englishman wins Wimbledon. ‘Lie back,’ I say. Tharge’s shoulders meet the ground and I loosen his shorts and pull them down to his knees. His pussy pummeller is swaying like a sapling caught in a cross wind and I steady it with my hand and shuffle forward to put the unpleasantness behind me – I mean in front of me but, at the same time, behind me.

‘Christ!’ says Tharge. ‘I’ve just remembered. I haven’t put my racket in its press. I’d better – Eek !’

With a feeling of relief I tuck Tharge’s bird scarer into my honey pot and proceed to take those measures which unwanted experience has indicated will bring the matter to its speediest conclusion. It is strange, but as I jiggle, joggle up and down, the sensation is not altogether unpleasant. It is as if fate is congratulating me on the stand I have taken and giving me a much appreciated foretaste of the pleasure I can expect when I tie the nuptial knot with my one-day Mr Right and proceed to indulge in those intimate aspects of married life so far denied me.

‘Oh gosh!’ says Derek. ‘Giddy up a ding dong! This is far too nice to be doing me any good. Can we stop before I – eeeeeeh!’

Possibly, I am too intent on taking my revenge but I do not hear the footsteps approaching behind me. ‘Rosie, are you –? Good heavens!!’ I turn round fast – possibly too fast if Derek Tharge’s yelp of agony is anything to go by – and find Geoffrey towering behind me. It is not so dark that I cannot see the horror-struck expression on his face – also the strip of sticking plaster running along the bridge of his nose. Have I, I ask myself, fallen victim of a terrible misunderstanding?