This is the story of the first time I had sex. It happened after a family lunch to celebrate my brother Adam’s birthday. He wasn’t there because he was out at sea, away on his Royal Navy ship. He was turning nineteen, and I guess my parents were missing him. They had prepared a big roast dinner, a joint of beef from our farm.

They’d invited their surviving parents. My dad’s mother Pat was a widow, slowed by arthritis but alert and sharp. On my mum’s side were Betty, who used to laugh when we called her Fat Gran, and Grandad Ron, who was quite deaf and geriatric by then. My aunts were at the lunch too, my dad’s sister and her friend. I’d realised by then that they were lesbians, but I’d not thought there was anything unusual about that when I was growing up. They simply came as a package together, my slightly sour real Auntie Grace and her bubbly friend, Auntie Ginny.

As well as their family, my parents had invited my brother’s girlfriend Ashleigh and her parents, Naomi and Tom. This was no surprise as they were all old friends, going back to before they were married. But perhaps my mum also thought it would be nice for Ash, if she were missing my brother too. In a way, I found out that she was, but no one else could ever know how she showed that to me.

I’d made some effort to dress up for the meal, in my new loose shirt and chinos. However, Ash had tried harder and achieved infinitely more, becoming a vision of elegant and sexy glamour to me. She’d applied glossy red lipstick to her thin lips, and used eyeliner with silver-blue eyeshadow to make her grey eyes seem larger. She’d also crimped her blonde-brown hair, then put some into a high ponytail so that it cascaded down over her shoulders. These were covered by the pleated cotton of a short-sleeved Laura Ashley dress. I thought its flowery print seemed fitting for the season, as the warm June heralded the summer. But perhaps she’d chosen it to flatter my mum too, as of course the white flowers matched her name, Daisy. Despite the dress’s elegant politeness, its modest V-neck left her collarbones bare, where I could see the chain of her gold pendant. This was half a heart, and I imagined the other half around my brother Adam’s neck even at that moment.

I’d been allowed a small glass of shandy, and we toasted my brother before we started eating. But once that was gone, I had to make do with water. Meanwhile the adults kept refilling their own drinks - homebrew bitter for the men and white wine for the women, including Ash. I found their chatter dull and stilted, so I remained quiet, but Ash seemed to make conversation easily. Just as with her care for her appearance, this was clearly another area in which she performed infinitely better than me.

Already well into her vocational training as a veterinary nurse, she had lots of news and mild gossip from the farms and families that the older folks knew. Perhaps they were making an effort to cheer her up too, by keeping her in the spotlight, and by keeping her glass topped-up. In any case, she seemed full of stories about our neighbours’ animals. She didn’t avoid those that were sad, disgusting or painful, but she was clearly keenest on her anecdotes about the antics of baby animals. Throughout lunch, she inevitably drew all my admiring attention, and I found her genuinely witty and fascinating. I was awestruck by her dazzling mature confidence, which I knew I so lacked.

Perhaps my mum had noticed I’d been quiet and interpreted it as boredom, or perhaps she was tired of playing court to Ash herself. Either way, as soon as we’d emptied our pudding bowls, she suggested I take Ash out to see our own new kittens. Living on a farm, the cats were almost feral. They had the run of the sheds and outbuildings, keeping the mice down. We knew one had given birth in a barn, but none of us had really inspected the litter. My dad immediately echoed my mum’s suggestion, asking if Ash would also be able to sex the kittens for us. Mum was cross with him for asking Ash to work when she wasn’t on a job, but Ash said that she didn’t mind at all. With her bright personality, perhaps enhanced by the wine, she seemed genuinely enthusiastic for me to show her the litter. She said she even had her call-out bag in the car, which she always carried just in case. She explained her disinfectant and gloves would keep the kittens safe from her germs, if their mum let her handle them. My dad thought that sounded great, and suggested I take some milk and Go-Cat with us to keep the queen happy and busy while we checked her brood.

He even got up to walk with us from the dining room through to the kitchen. I got the things for the cat, while he showed Ash to the back porch, where he fussed about finding wellingtons to fit her. In a flash of insight, I realised that he too might be a little under the spell of Ash’s feminine charm. She didn’t seem to mind though as she accepted the loaned boots, even though I said it was dry outside and we wouldn’t be walking through the cowsheds.

Once we both had boots on, she led me out to her parents’ car to get her professional-looking bag, then she asked me to lead her in turn to the kittens. I pointed out the old brick-built stables, filled with equipment downstairs, but still used as a hayloft upstairs. She surprised me by saying she knew it, then explained that Adam had shown her around.

The dusty building was dark and smelt strongly of the fresh hay, but enough sunlight spilt through gaps in the empty windows’ wooden shutters to see by. We inched around the things like mowers, rakes and balers, avoiding their greasy tractor hook-ups especially. Then we stopped at the foot of the old ladder into the loft where I knew the litter was. “Will you be okay to climb this?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said, seemingly so unfazed by the prospect that she almost scoffed. Then her attitude softened. “I’m not a tender flower, you know. I won’t break like glass if there’s a bit of rough and tumble.”

“I’m sorry. You just seem too beautiful to be here,” I said, the words escaping my mouth before I realised they were coming.

She smiled indulgently, then stepped forward to lay a hand on my arm, rooting me to the spot. “You remind me of Adam, you know. You look a bit like him, of course, but he’s kind to me too,” she said thoughtfully, so near that I could smell the wine on her breath.

I felt my pulse racing at the close contact, but I didn’t know how to respond. “Do want to climb up top now, then?” I asked, falling back on practicalities.

“Aye,” she said, smiling and slipping her bag off her shoulder to hand to me, “But you can carry this and go first. I don’t want you looking up my skirts,” she added with a giggle as she lowered her eyelids.

“I understand,” I replied with a pretence of maturity, but I felt myself blush. The way that she’d spoken to me seemed somehow teasing, and I realise now that she was flirting. But at that moment I just felt as if she’d suddenly shown me a different side of her personality. It was as if I wasn’t just someone’s irritating younger brother now, a schoolboy to ignore or just boss about. Instead I felt she’d started treating me as one of peers, perhaps as an equal. I felt very grateful for her kindness, which I realised she’d shared only once we were alone together.

It was a bit awkward climbing with her bag over one shoulder, gripping the bottle of milk and box of cat biscuits in one hand too, but the rungs were broad and closely spaced. I set the things down once I’d reached the top, then I turned around, ready to give her a hand through the open trap door. I remember feeling proud, grown up and responsible. But somehow that feeling, as well what she’d said about looking up her dress, made me acutely aware of her cleavage. I could see only a hint of the gap between her breasts as I watched her climb towards me, but it was more than I’d noticed earlier. I was both fascinated by and compelled to look away from this view down her dress’s V-neck. I imagined, perhaps naively, that mature eighteen year old men wouldn’t stare at that kind of thing on their friends.

Her warm hand gripped mine firmly as I pulled her up and she took the last rungs. “We should take our wellies off. We don’t want to walk poo over your cows’ dinner,” she said.

I thought of saying that they didn’t seem too bothered about that themselves, but didn’t. Instead I just followed her suggestion, taking my socks off too. I felt the scratchy carpet of loose hay on my bare feet, smiling as she scrunched her bare toes on the old boards too, giggling again. Then I put my fingers to my lips, looking into her wide eyes. In the silence, after a pause, we heard a quiet rustle and a tiny mewing.

Her face seemed to light up in the shadowy mock-twilight of the hayloft. With her smile beaming, she turned toward the sound. She crept silently between the stacks of warm hay to find the litter’s nest in a niche between the rectangular bales, and I followed with everything we’d brought.

The mother hadn’t moved the kittens from where my dad had first found them a week ago. She looked at us suspiciously as she lounged there, her tiny offspring sprawling around her helplessly. I saw that the nearby dishes, which I’d filled that morning, were empty. As I rattled the box of Go-Cat, her head perked up in interest.

“I think she’s hungry,” I said in a low voice.

“Wouldn’t you be, with all those little mouths sucking your nipples dry?” Ash replied, making me blush again, I’m sure.

“How do you want to do this? Shall I tip out some biscuits and milk then try to grab her so that you can pick up the kittens?” I asked, avoiding her rhetorical question.

“No, we can keep it calm, without anyone grabbing anything,” she said sternly. “Let me get some gloves on before I handle them. Then let’s go in quickly together. You distract mum by rattling the box and just giving her tiny teasing morsels. Meanwhile I’ll try and check them before she even notices.”

I watched with impressed admiration as Ash got some disposable gloves out of her bag and put them on. She seemed to have suddenly become so professional, revealing yet another aspect of her personality. Her glamorous dress and makeup already contrasted dramatically with the dusty old barn, and now her surgical gloves made her seem even more fascinating. She confirmed I was ready, then I followed her lead as she got onto her knees and calmly made inviting “puss-puss-puss” noises.

I started to rattle the box again, getting the mother cat’s attention, then dropped two tiny biscuits onto a dish. She approached, and Ash already had her hands amongst the kittens. Their mewling ramped up and their mum turned, so I made the puss noises and splashed a little milk down. The rangy queen stepped forward and took a few laps, but turned to her babies again, so I distracted her with more biscuits. But Ash was already leaning back on her haunches with a smug expression. “Four toms, two queens,” she stated confidently. “Let me get my notebook and I’ll jot down which is which by their markings. Fill the dishes up now and let her feed while we back off a bit.”

We retreated a little way and sat down next to each other on a nearby bale, watching the mother cat eat quickly as she guarded her writhing litter. Ash lifted her bag onto her knee, pulled her gloves off, and stuffed them into one of its side pockets. Then she pulled out a notebook and pen to start making her neat notes on the kittens. I was glad everything had gone so smoothly, and I was impressed at Ash’s skills, but I wasn’t sure what we’d do now that the job was over. I certainly didn’t want to go back to the house yet. The old folks would still be talking about nothing of consequence, over coffee now. Meanwhile I was deeply content to just be spending time alone with Ash. So I meekly sat close beside her, soaking up her enchanting presence. She pointed out the features she’d written down with remarks like “left front sock” and “white tail tip” to make sure I’d seen what she had. Then she tried pointing out the kittens’ genitals as they tumbled about, explaining how she’d sexed them, as if I’d not realised.

Suddenly she twisted around as if challenging me, managing to look down her nose at me even though she was considerably shorter. “So you know what a cat’s vulva looks like, and other animals’ bits too I’ll bet, farmer-boy. But what about girls? Have you ever seen a real woman’s private parts?” she asked matter-of-factly.

I thought of saying, “Of course,” as I would to one of my peers, half bluffing as I thought of sex education books and secretly shared porno mags, or even memories of playing in the water with others as a small child. But instead I was honest, even as I felt myself blush again. “No, not really. Not a real woman,” I admitted.

“Let’s move down the barn a bit, where there’s more light, and I’ll show you mine, if you like,” she said quietly and confidently, setting her notebook aside and putting her hand on my knee, “But the deal is that you’ve got to show me your private bits too, and we keep it an absolute secret, cross our hearts and hope to die, right?”

“Right, I understand,” I eagerly agreed, in wild hopeful surprise. I’d impulsively grasped her hand, my heart truly racing now, hooked by her mature feminine sexuality. The thought of this heavenly vision sharing so much with me was like something from a dream.

“Okay, let’s do this then,” she said, as if steeling herself too. She squeezed my hand, then dropped it to pack her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Meanwhile she got me to check the things we’d brought for the cat were tucked safely away. Then she rose to her bare feet and took my hand again. “Is there a bit of space down there?” she asked, gesturing to the far end of the hayloft. I knew where she meant, where a pattern of gaps in the bricks of the gable wall let light as well as air in.

I led the way down a clear path between the stacks of bales, feeling the fresh hay scratch and tickle my feet. I helped Ash to scramble over stray bales that blocked our way, even though I remembered her saying she could cope with the rough and tumble. As we came to the far end, we found a bare spot against the wall, where she dropped her bag. Under Ash’s instruction, I pulled some bales from the stack, and she helped to arrange these into a kind of level platform. I noticed she was getting hay on her lovely dress and apologised for it. She said she didn’t mind, but then asked if there wasn’t a tarpaulin or something nearby to cover the bales.

I was sceptical, but as my eyes scanned around, I saw something stashed behind a roof spar. I pulled it out and saw that it was indeed a folded sheet of heavy canvas, its dark green faded with age. I wondered how on earth Ash knew it would be there, but then remembered that she’d said Adam had already shown her around this barn. With a slightly queasy spark of intuition, I realised that I may be playing my brother’s part in a scene that Ash had already performed up here. But even as I thought it, I knew I’d still like to go through with it. I was very keen to have any role in an intimate drama with her, even if I was just as an opportunistic substitute, an understudy to its original author and star.

We spread the tarpaulin out on the springy platform we’d made. As we did so, Ash playfully bossed me about, shoving my shoulder and bumping my hip with hers to get me to move where she wanted. I was hot by the time we finished. The warm air beneath the sun-soaked roof tiles was heavy with the fug of drying hay, but I’d exerted myself lugging the bales and tarp about too. But I’m sure my temperature was also a side effect of my fluttery heart and eager anticipation. I still felt unsure of what Ash may share with me as I stood before her.

She was above me, tall on our platform, while my bare feet were on the hayloft’s bare boards. I saw her silhouetted against the shafts of light piercing the wall behind her. She seemed a vision of statuesque elegance, whilst her artful makeup and graceful dress refined her feminine beauty, which seemed so out of place in the tatty old barn. Yet I saw her cheeks were glowing with warmth too, and strands of her crinkled fair hair were sticking to sweat on her forehead as she breathed heavily.

“So are you going first?” she asked, adding, “I want to see what’s under all those fashionably baggy clothes.”

“I’ll go,” I said eagerly. But then as I self-consciously unbuttoned my shirt and slipped it off, I became painfully aware of my narrow chest and skinny arms.

“That’s great. You’re doing very well,” she said reassuringly, taking my shirt from me and laying it on the corner of the tarpaulin. Encouraged, I undid my belt and slipped my chinos down, handing them to her again once I’d stepped out of them. “Come up here,” she ordered in a quiet and kind voice once she’d laid them out too.

I took her hand to step up, but held onto it as I stood close before her, towering over her a little. With her free hand, she trailed her fingertips over my shoulder and down my bare arm. The sensation made me shiver with pleasure, and I became acutely aware that the arousal which had started in my penis was rising quickly.

“Hmm, you’re as tall as Adam already, aren’t you? Taller maybe. But you’ve still got to bulk out a bit, I think,” she said, almost as if she were speaking to herself as her fingertips lingered on my chest. I let a slightly awkward silence open up, which she broke. “Are we still going through with this then? Are you going to take those undies off and let me see your cock?” she asked seductively.

“Aye,” I confirmed, then honestly admitted, “I’m just a bit embarrassed.”

“Why?” she asked sympathetically, “Is it still not quite man-sized yet? Have your pubes not grown through? It’s okay. I’d still like to see it.”

“No, it’s not that,” I explained, “I started getting hairy years ago. It’s just that I’ve already got a hard-on. You’re so beautiful and sexy, I couldn’t help it.”

“Well, that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?” She said patiently, smiling kindly up at me with her wide eyes as she took both my hands. “I want to see how big it can get. That’s much more interesting than just seeing a little waterspout.”

“Okay then,” I said with relief as I dropped her hands and swiftly pushed my boxer shorts down. My long and swollen penis swung out towards her as they fell to my feet. I felt rude to expose myself like this to Ashleigh, especially as she was still so smartly dressed, but I also felt excited and perhaps in some way proud.

She stepped back as if to get a better look at me as I timidly stepped out of my shorts. “Well that’s a fine sight,” she said gently, “A vigorous stem and healthy bag of nuts. There’s no doubting you’re a tomcat, a troublesome stallion, a grown man now and not a boy. And uncircumcised I see, like your brother. May I touch it?”

It felt a little odd to be compared to Adam, but that didn’t cloud the warm glow I felt at her appreciation. “Of course,” I said, in answer to her question.

She didn’t hesitate, reaching out to grasp my shaft, then gripping it and pulling down firmly, making my red glans pop out immediately. I gasped at the rough but exciting stimulation, feeling myself surge to a hard and upright erection in her hand. I looked down, feeling a little dizzy at the unreality of the situation. My penis was growing thickly to its full length, bending upwards slightly, its veins bulging, yet her small square hand was right there too, wrapped around it. “Are you making semen yet? Do you have wet dreams?” she asked bluntly.

“Aye. That started a while ago,” I admitted, struggling to concentrate with my eager pressure of profound excitement. “I come when I masturbate.”

“Thank you for sharing that,” she said, looking back up to meet my eyes with a prim smile. “I guess you want to see my bits now too, to give you something to think about while you’re about that, right?”

“Erm, I guess, if that’s okay, please,” I said weakly.

“Just remember this is our secret, okay?” she reminded me, unnecessarily, as she released my penis and reached her hands behind the back. “And I just hope that you like what you see, that it turns you on and doesn’t make you realise you’re a poofter after all. Oh, do you want to do this for me actually? Can you see the zip?”

She’d turned her back to me as she asked her practical question, pointing to the seam that ran down the back of her dress. “Is that okay? May I pull it down?” I asked respectfully, even as my wooden erection strained upwards towards the pleated fabric over her buttocks.

“Go ahead,” she said, giving me a reassuring smile over her shoulder. Reverentially, I gripped zip’s tab and braced my other hand against the fabric. Then I carefully pulled it down, aware of my hammering heart again.

“So once I’ve shown everything to you,” Ash went on, “I can’t really stop you having wet dreams later, or stop you daydreaming about me while you play with yourself, can I? Perhaps I could just ask you to be polite now, and treat me with respect in your memory.”

“Aye, of course,” I murmured. I had undone the zip, exposing the bare skin of her back and the thick cream strap of her bra that crossed it. She was shrugging the dress off her shoulders now, twisting her neck to look seductively back up at me. I returned her smile, but my eyes almost immediately fell down to her body. I admired the way that her sandy hair fell over the bumps of her spine and her shoulder blades. Then she started turning around.

She’d bunched up her dress above her elbows as I saw her chest first in profile, then face-on. I could see thinner bra straps running over her shoulders and clavicles now, but she was only slowly revealing their triangular lacy cups. I think I gasped as she finally let her loose dress fall forwards. Her breasts seemed to make neat round cones beneath the creamy lace, and through the fabric I could clearly see the caramel pink circles of her skin around her nipples. My hands were hanging limply by my sides, as I fought the urge to grab either her body or my own upright erection.

But my eyes were still falling, along with her dress. Its sleeves were around her wrists now, and her hands were on her hips. She was wriggling it down deliberately slowly, I was sure. I was entranced by the soft skin of her abdomen, which seemed to make a smooth round bulge around her bellybutton. I could already see the edges of her knickers, reaching high over her hips to her narrow waist. I realised their cream material matched her bra, and wondered if this meant her underwear was expensive. Then I saw more as she revealed the V-shaped lace panel over her pubic mound. She paused with her hands gripping the bundled fabric of her dress around her thighs. She must have known I was staring at the neat triangle between her wide hips and thick thighs, gazing towards her vulva. Her dark pubic hair was clearly visible through the gauzy fabric, and I was transfixed by the slightly plump bulge beneath the creases that disappeared between her legs.

“I’ll take them off in a moment, after my bra,” she promised in a low voice. Then she sprung into motion, disentangling her hands and stepping swiftly out of the dress, before folding it up practically and laying it on top of my clothes. “Do you like them, by the way, my lacey set? They’re a favourite of your brother’s too. I put them on today especially.”

“They’re sexy,” I said lamely, “You’re sexy, amazing. You look amazingly sexy and beautiful in them.”

“But you’d still like to see me without them on, now that you’ve shown me what you look like naked, right?” she confirmed. Then without further hesitation, she reached up behind her back and unhooked her bra. I managed to briefly look up into her wide eyes as she shucked the straps over her shoulders. She flashed a big smile at me, but I sensed she was a little worried. I remembered her instruction to be polite, as if she might be anxious of my judgement about her body. But she was already carefully lowering the creamy lace of her bra’s cups, and I was powerless to do anything but marvel at what she revealed.

I saw that her breasts did indeed make modest cones, with subtle curving creases below them. Her smooth pale skin contrasted strongly with her swarthy areolae, which I could see were slightly raised around the distinct buds of her nipples. I was transfixed by the textured details of their tiny bumps and wrinkles, as she must have noticed.

“You can touch them, if you want,” she said.

“They’re beautiful. You’re perfect,” I managed to say as I raised my hand. But I wasn’t sure what to do, and I ended up just prodding her nipple, pressing it with my index finger almost as if it were a doorbell.

“You don’t need to do it like that,” she said with a light laugh. It was a kindly chuckle, but I still felt myself blushing in embarrassment.

“Let me show you,” she said patiently, perhaps noticing my discomfort. She raised both her hands to my own chest and began dragging her fingertips and nails very gently across my own small flat nipples. I followed her example, and found my own arousal surging back strongly. It was viscerally exciting to feel her breasts, her nipples and her slightly springy areolae under my sensitive fingertips, and to see them moving subtly back and forth under my own big hands. She’d put her hands flat to my chest now, pushing her palms up over my ribcage and pectoral muscles in rhythmic strokes. Again, I imitated her, feeling the smooth skin and modest volume of her breasts cupped in my palms, and again the sensations powerfully and profoundly aroused me.

“That’s it, not too hard,” she said encouragingly in a quiet and low voice, “I can tell you’re enjoying this. You’re panting like a dog and practically drooling. Now, if I’m really excited, like I’m aroused and close to my orgasm, you can gently pinch them too, like this.” She tweaked my own vestigial nipples with a few swift plucks. I tentatively tried to do the same for her, gently pinching each of her nipples, then tugging them with a little force, so they slipped between my forefinger and thumb. I noticed her body respond almost immediately as her areolae puckered up and her nipples rose to proud peaks.

“Ooh, you’re good at this,” she crooned, “That’s a bit much right now, but you’ll make the girls very happy if you keep practising like that. But I’ve still not shown you what I promised - my true private parts, my fanny, the other pussy that’s hiding up here.”

I laughed lightly with her, but I was very eager to see her take her knickers off too. “I’d like to see it,” I reaffirmed, aware that I was still exposing my firm erection with its shiny red head to her in a very rude and selfish way.

“Come around here then, and kneel down,” she said gently, putting her hand on my bare shoulder, “You’ll see it better then.” In this way, we moved around until she had me with my back to the light. She’d gently pushed me onto my knees on the springy tarpaulin, so that I sat on my heels, my erection standing up in my lap. She stood above me with both her hands on my shoulders now, smiling down over the peaks of her naked breasts. I felt like I was in church before a divine angel, but this was a far more earthy and exciting church than any I’d been in.

As I dropped my gaze to her knickers, she put her hands to her hips and, without ceremony, pushed them down. She slipped her feet out of them, then stood before me with her legs slightly apart. I saw the triangular bush of her pubic hair revealed, her rich hazel-brown curls sparkling in the rays of sunlight. The dark groove of her vulva was also clear, and within that I saw the tan lips of her wrinkled inner labia, hiding like shy petals in the shadows.

“There’s actually nothing much to see, is there?” she said quietly as I stared, “It’s just a crease with some rubbery lips, more like an absence of anything between my legs, in contrast to your dangling sausage and baubles. But we know there’s a snug little channel up there, right? My vagina, my cunt, the perfect place for your penis to slip into, or for a baby to squeeze out of I guess, eventually. And beyond, deep inside, my bloody uterus. No, don’t pull a face. I mean that in a good way. It’s all part of nature’s cycles, like this hot start to summer and your cat’s kittens. But don’t worry, I’m not bleeding right now.”

“It’s amazing,” I said, struggling to speak at all in my rapturous attention, staring again at her vulva after glancing up anxiously at her hint about menstrual blood, “It’s beautiful. Every part of you is beautiful.”

“Don’t overdo it,” she gently admonished, “Our private parts are a bit funny looking - strange fleshy bobbly things. But I guess they’re fun to have, and to share.”

I knew she was right. I knew that her eyes, and her proper hair and lips, were more beautiful than her hair and lips down here. Yet I was still fascinated by her vulva, so close before me. I recognised its general features from those sex education diagrams and porn mags. But seeing her real and unique private parts, as she’d called them, was a very different thing. I was aware of them being in a sense the focal point of her warm living body. It was the point where her life could bring new life into being. Yet it seemed so small and vulnerable too.

“It’s like a kitten,” I found myself saying.

“Yes, it’s my pussy!” she said with a polite laugh, “That’s what they call it. But it’s not a kitten. That would mean I’d have to lick it clean, like a mother cat, and I don’t think my tongue can reach! I think you’re struggling with words right now though, aren’t you? All the blood’s gone from your brain to your swollen willy. Still, you can try stroking the pussy if you want.”

I’d not been sure what to make of her reference to licking her vulva. At that age I only had a vague idea that oral sex happened, yet the thought that I could lick it for her had immediately popped into my mind. The idea of putting my mouth there initially seemed disgustingly inappropriate, but the possibility also intrigued me. As Ash had noted, I was struggling to put my thoughts into words right then though, so nothing came of that unformed impulse at the time, yet a part of me now wishes I’d been braver. I know I would have enjoyed kissing and tasting her intimate lips. And if I had, she might have guided me, so that she would have wound up getting more out of that hot afternoon too.

As it was, I was glad to just lift my hand to touch her, only brushing her hair initially. It felt springy under my fingertips, which I also found fascinating. Then I tried gently running the backs of my fingers up the thinner hair over the plump skin beside her vulva’s crease.

“That’s it,” she encouraged, “Start slowly, massage around my lips. Don’t go straight for my clit, and don’t start by trying to put your finger, or anything else, up my cunt yet. Your brother was slow to learn that lesson. I guess you’ll find out with your own girlfriends too, we really need that foreplay. There’s no kissing or necking today, sorry. Smeared lipstick and love-bites would be a dead give-away. But stroking my skin, my breasts, my pussy, that all helps, building it up slowly. By the time you try to stroke my inner lips, tickle my clit, slip a finger inside, I should already be wet. And when you do, be patient and keep the rhythm steady, once you’ve found the place that’s working for me. Is this all making sense, or am I going fast? Do you know even know which bits I’m talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” I confessed. I’d kept brushing my hand up and down over her fur, confused about what she wanted me to do next, but I was intrigued by the mental image of finding her vagina with my finger.

“Oh, it’s no good like this,” she said in frustration, “I need to spread my legs so you can see what’s going on. Let’s try this. You sit down. Stretch your legs out here.”

She’d come down onto one knee, her other foot flat on the tarp, making space beneath her. She’d also got me under her, one hip by her knee but my legs wide apart, so her foot was under my opposite knee. In this position her belly and chest were close to my face, whilst her vulva was hovering almost over my penis. This had been softening a little, but now as I looked up at her and she smiled smugly down, I felt it stiffen and grow again. She was quite literally almost on top of me, and my body instinctively knew that we’d arrived in almost a perfect situation to begin sexual intercourse.

I had one hand resting on her hip, my other braced behind me, but both her hands were spread flat beside her vulva now, framing it. With one thigh now stuck out at right angles to the other, her lips were widely parted. I could see a confusion of crinkled and folded skin which I recognised vaguely as her inner labia, just as fleshy as she’d hinted, in a surprising variety of pink and tan skin tones. And only now, towards the bottom of all that, did I properly see, for the first time, the small parted cleft of her vagina.

“Is that better?” she asked, but perhaps she was speaking almost to herself, as she went on without waiting for my answer, “You were massaging the side bits, like this, weren’t you? That’s nice, but now I’m a bit wet, you could try the same on the slippery inner lips, up and down, just beside my clit for now. Maybe you could stroke your fingers over my open cunt, like this, just to get a bit more lubrication on them, then slide one up like this, along the crease. Then there’s my clit, at the top, this little bump here, almost ready to be tickled, just like this.”

Her hands had been moving confidently around her vulva as she’d been speaking, taking ever longer pauses between each statement. I saw how she used the fingers of one hand to part and raise her outer labia a little more. Then she’d started using her other hand to rub herself, making smooth and swift strokes with just a fingertip or a firm pair of fingers together. I wasn’t sure if she was just trying to show me all her private parts, or if she wanted me to join in, or even if she’d just spontaneously started masturbating herself. I knew in theory that girls could do such a thing, but I’d never imagined I’d see it happening in front of me like this. I was feeling a kind of desperate pressure from my own arousal now, and wondered what Ash would think if I started masturbating too. I knew I’d ejaculate quickly if I did, which I thought might be shamefully embarrassing, so I deliberately avoided touching myself.

As Ash had started those frequent pauses to demonstrate her words with the play of her fingers, I’d noticed her breathing more heavily too. After especially one long pause, she gave a kind of panting noise and broke my wavering uncertainty by saying, “You can touch me too, if you want.”

Not sure of what to do, and trying to keep out of the way of her own jittery hands, I moved my hand around her thigh to bring my middle finger to the lowest point between her legs. Once again I felt an awestruck reverence and profound gratitude as I sensed the silky warmth of her most intimate place under my fingertip. I realised it was indeed slippery around the edge of her vagina, so almost without thinking, I eased my finger up into her. I felt the warmth of her smooth muscles under the thin skin within her as I wiggled it about. Then I impulsively pushed further in, hooking my finger deeper into her, exploring the hidden space that seemed to writhe and flex against it.

“That’s good,” Ash said as she panted for breath, her small breasts rising and falling on her heaving chest before me. We both continued our rubbing, itching strokes in silence for a little longer, then she asked, “Can you stroke my lips now, massage them just where they meet, around my clit?”

“I’m not sure where you mean,” I admitted, withdrawing my finger to rest my hand on her inner thigh.

“I’m sorry, I’m going too fast aren’t I? It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it, for the first time? But squatting like this, over your stiff cock, I feel so naughty! I shouldn’t be doing this with a fifteen year old. Fourteen!” she exclaimed when I corrected her, “That’s even worse, and my boyfriend’s little brother too! But that makes it really exciting for me, like there’s an extra spice, a glittery sparkle in our cheeky game, making it even sexier, even juicier. I’m getting carried away, getting really wet, and I’m enjoying it,” she said, grinning broadly, still rubbing herself rapidly. But now her brow furrowed in concern, her hands momentarily still on her vulva as she asked anxiously, “But I’m not bullying or coercing you, am I? You do still want to be here, doing this, right? You can say if you feel scared or upset, if you’ve had enough. You would say if you wanted to stop, wouldn’t you?”

“No! I mean yes!” I said in confusion, “This is the best moment of my life! I don’t want it to ever end. You’re so sexy and beautiful. I’m so grateful. Thank you for showing me, well, everything.”

“No, thank you. You’re sweet,” she said, smiling kindly down at me again, even as her hands started itching at her vulva again. “But it can’t last forever,” she said breathlessly, after making a kind of groaning sigh, “One of us has got to burst soon. So what do you think? Do you want to try putting your cock inside me, just to try it out? It doesn’t matter if you can’t come. You could just pop it in, to see how it feels.”

“Would you really let me?” I asked, almost pleading. Then I thought of all those public information adverts from a few years earlier, “But would it be safe? Aren’t you worried about AIDS?”

She laughed lightly at my anxiety though. “I can’t catch anything from you if you’re as innocent as you seem. You’re like those kittens. You should be worried about catching an infection from me. But I do have protection for all that in my bag too, if you don’t mind popping a condom on.”

“You’re so kind,” I said, dizzy again with the thought that she was genuinely thinking of going through with this.

“Let me just get it,” she said, dropping her hands and rising a little stiffly, pushing herself up with one hand in mine and one my shoulder. I felt a greasy wetness on her grip, and that triggered a strange wave of affection. It had suddenly struck home that this was the tangible reality of her intimate arousal, which she’d just smeared on my skin.

Still sitting upright on the tarpaulin with my legs stretched out, I watched her naked body as she almost danced across our improvised bed, then stepped off it to reach her bag. I could see her figure in profile as she crouched over it and urgently fiddled inside. Relishing the sight, I took in her sandy hair falling over her shoulders, down the curve of her back. I also eagerly spied her caramel-tipped breast, her creased abdomen and her thick thighs, hiding her wet vulva. I now risked touching myself too, just to cup one hand under my scrotum. I held my thick and heavy erection upright, allying my fear that it was beginning to sag with weary fatigue after so long.

Ashleigh seemed to me then almost like a wild animal, a flighty deer or a stealthy fox. It was extraordinary that I’d caught sight of her like this in our musty old barn. Yet now that we had found ourselves together here, nude and hot on the crude comfort of the canvas-covered bales, it seemed we both knew instinctively what to do, just like a pair of savage beasts. I was aware of my heart hammering again in my desperate anticipation of what I felt sure was about to happen.

“Here we are,” she said breezily as she turned back toward me. She took a few bounding steps, bringing herself close, planting her feet on either side of my hips. I’d noticed her breasts bounce a little as she’d sprung up onto our platform, and now the bushy hazel fur of her vulva was almost in my face, close enough to see the individual curls of hair, some wet and stuck together. I remember she’d said I’d been drooling over her body earlier, and now I felt I surely was again. She was already squatting down though, getting me to put my legs together so that she could sit on my thighs, her knees up by my chest.

“Have you tried putting these on before?” she asked brightly, raising the little silver packet to my eyelevel, but immediately went on before I could answer, “There’s a knack to it. Look, it goes this way up, then we slip it out like this. Oh, yes, if you keep holding yourself up like that, I can pop it over. See how I’m pinching the end so there’s space for your semen? Then we need to roll it down carefully like this, making sure it’s even all the way around, or else it gets tangled. That’s it, if you could just hold your head up, then that’s the last bit unrolled.”

I was impressed at the skilful and efficient way that she’d got the condom onto me. I was glad that she’d not hesitated, as I eagerly held my penis upright for her to roll the rubber down over it. The initial delicate touch of the thin membrane against my head, then her firm strokes down my shaft, felt sensational. I’d gasped and my erection twitched uncontrollably while she’d been busily at work on me, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Are you okay this way around? It’s nice for me to ride on top. You can just lie back and see how it feels, like I say. So this is it, I guess. Are you sure you’re ready, that you want to do this, with me, right now?”

She’d encouraged me to lie back with a delicate prod to my shoulder, and I’d let myself drop backwards onto the rough but springy tarpaulin. Now she was straddling me on her knees, rising above me, once more like a statuesque and erotic angel, even though her face was flushed and beaded with sweat. She held my woodenly firm penis casually in one hand, her fingers around its shaft, its sheathed head resting on the pad of her thumb. Her other hand was pressed flat over her pubic mound, her fingers splayed wide, spreading her blushing pink labia so that I could see the small mouth of her vagina gaping open, glistening wet.

“Aye, yes please. I’m ready. I swear it. You’re so kind,” I said with heartfelt sincerity, panting in my arousal.

“Good,” she said simply, looking straight into my eyes with a strangely serious expression, rising on her knees a little as she guided my penis to her oozing vulva.

I gasped as I felt the first warm contact of her supremely soft lips against my turgid head. Then she looked down at her hands, as if to confirm what was happening, before pushing down, grunting a little as she did. I groaned aloud as I felt the warmth of her vaginal walls close around me. The sensation of slipping my rigid erection inside her was like nothing I’d known before. I realised the pleasures of masturbation were a pathetically weak imitation of this ecstasy. Meanwhile, Ash had moved her hands to my waist and was starting to rock very slowly back and forth. She was grunting again even as she was easing me deeper into her. Then she paused, breathing heavily with me, and I felt myself twitch involuntarily inside her, dizzy with the pleasure of the sensations.

“Is that comfortable? Do you want to carry on?” she asked.

“Yes! Flip. Fuck, yes, aye!” I laughed in the joy of the moment, spreading my hands over her thighs, anxiously covering my initial boyish exclamation with the dangerously strong swear.

She smiled smugly down at me, perhaps amused by my expletives, drawing her nails sensuously down my chest, making me shiver inside her. “That’s the idea. This is us fucking, for real. You’ve flipping done it now.”

She’d already started rocking back and forth again. I was once more transfixed, staring at the round circles around her proud nipples on the mounds of her breasts, which quivered with her movement. Then I raised my eyes higher, seeing the gold pendant around her elegant neck, and feeling careless of its significance. I raised my gaze further to her pointed chin, her parted glossy lips and her shimmering eyelids. She’d tilted her head back and closed her eyes now, breathing heavily through her clenched teeth, as if seeking her own private ecstasy. Her hips kept flexing hard against mine, pushing our pubic bones together, keeping me deep inside her. Yet she also seemed to be balancing on her fingertips, her fingers arched and splayed against my belly. Impulsively I tried grinding myself against her in response, struggling to find her rhythm, but she pushed her palms down firmly, saying, “Sush, be still. Just try not to let it go.”

But she’d tipped forwards now, planting her hands down firmly by my shoulders. Her long crinkled hair was hanging down, brushing my face and chest. I could actually feel the gusts of her heavy breath too, smelling the wine on it again as she kept grunting, quietly and rhythmically. Once more, her eyes were closed, and her tempo was increasing, but I wanted to soak up as much as could as I stared down her body. Her breasts were hanging down, almost perfectly conical, crowned by her seemingly swollen areolae, her firm nipples pointing straight down towards me. I saw how they shook, jerking in reaction to her swift and forceful thrusts. And further down between them I could see the wide shadowy triangle of her bush, creased under her belly. I watched her rise and fall in fast jerks as her bouncing motion drove through her hips. As I did so, I caught glimpses of my own thick shaft disappearing up inside her vulva. I found this sight, of how she was coupled to me at her most secret and intimate point, extremely exciting. I realised then that small wet noises were coming from down there too, and their rhythmic organic slurps only added another layer of earthy vividness to what was happening.

I felt a delicious tingle rising from my testicles, spreading through my body, from my toes to my scalp. I reached up to touch her mesmerising nipples as the divine sensation flooded all the way through me. I knew that she’d only just told me to not let myself go this far, but it was unstoppable now. It almost felt as if I was losing all thought, my mundane awareness eclipsed by the overwhelming sensual bliss that was filling my body. Yet my hands and fingers still moved, taking those quivering nipples and tweaking them, just as she’d shown me to. Then I groaned again as I felt a gushing surge released from the root of my penis, pumping deep into her body.

She gasped, then cried out, “Oh Adam, fuck! Yes Adam, yes! Come now, fucking come for me, Adam, for our love!”

“Ashleigh, I’m sorry,” I exclaimed in a confused swirl of ecstasy, almost wailing in my empathy for her potential disappointment. Yet I felt my whole body judder as the irrepressible pulses of my ejaculation began in earnest. My world seemed filled with the sweaty heat of her body, her fine hair brushing my face, and her magical vagina enclosing my manhood so perfectly.

“Ben! Fuck, yes!” she panted urgently, looking down at me with her eyes wide, even as she kept her rhythm, bumping hard against me, “You’re so like your brother, that’s all I meant! Let me go a little longer, if you can.”

I felt dizzy and elated as my orgasm drained out through me. I became aware of my sweaty back rubbing against the rough canvas, of my racing heart beating forcefully in my chest, and the close fusty heat of the barn, as well as those sounds of our slapping genitals and Ash’s urgent grunts. My heaving breaths were slowing as I got them under control, but my fingers were still playing with Ash’s nipples. They seemed a little strange and rubbery to me now, as if their direct connection to my own sexual pressure was broken, yet it still felt nice to be helping Ash enjoy the moment.

She seemed to be working herself almost into a fury, pressing her pubic mound hard against mine as I felt our coarse hairs rubbing together. She’d screwed her eyes closed again, as she drew her head back, arching her spine. She was also gasping with a kind of frustrated impatience as she rocked backwards and forwards, rolling her pelvis against mine, as sharp and repetitive as a metronome. I couldn’t keep my fingers in contact with her nipples as she jolted about, so I dropped my hands to her rest on her pumping hips. I knew I was softening within her though, and before long the inevitable happened. In a sudden instant, I felt myself slip out of her in a smooth wet squirt, almost as if she’d squeezed me out.

She gasped, still as if in frustration, and pushed herself upright, rising onto her knees above me again. “Fuck!” she exclaimed again, lifting her hands to her face and sighing heavily as her panting breaths slowed.

I looked anxiously up into her eyes, now open again, framed by her hands. I noticed too how much more deeply flushed her red cheeks had become as her wide mouth gulped air down. I realised that she’d been striving for her own orgasm, and I felt I’d let her down by coming so soon myself, or letting myself come at all. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

“No, don’t be daft!” she scoffed, then she smiled, looking down as dropped her hands to my belly, “That actually worked for you, didn’t it? I’m glad. But I’m the one who’s sorry really.” She was suddenly gravely serious, looking straight into my eyes again as she went on, “I’ve taken this way too far. I should never have encouraged you. This shouldn’t have ever happened. It felt fun in the heat of the moment, each step of the way - teasing you, seeing your cock, then showing you everything, stroking myself, and then doing it for real, fucking you, making you fuck me. I just couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to stop. But we really shouldn’t have done this.”

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling confused as I lay naked below her, my body still in a blissful cloud of physical contentment, my mind thinking how natural and right it had all seemed. I tried to reassure her, “We said it would be our secret.”

“Yes, it must be, until our dying days,” she said dramatically. She’d lifted her arms, stretching as she put her hands behind her head. This let me see the glistening wet skin in the shadows of her armpits, droplets running down over the bumps of her ribs. She tilted her head back, drew a big lungful of air, squeezed her eyes closed, paused as if in confusion, then opened them wide again, blowing her breath out noisily. She stared into the space, eyes gazing beyond the light that pierced the barn’s bricks. She was still breathing heavily, still panting really, and I don’t know to this day if she was actually at that moment in her own post-orgasmic haze. But after just a moment she seemed to have reached a decision, and was obviously ready to put her plan into action, just saying, “Right.” Moving with decisive confidence once more, she then rose up onto her knees and stiffly swung one leg across my thighs.

“Let me help you take this off,” she then said practically as her breath slowed further, putting both her hands to my groin. I propped myself up on my elbows to see what she was doing. I didn’t argue as she put one hand right around my penis and scrotum, then carefully twisted and pulled the condom off my limp shaft with her other. She held the grotty trophy up for me to see, then said, “I’m going to use this to make a guarantee that you won’t spill the beans.”

“You don’t need to,” I said, confused as to what she had in mind, “I’ve promised.”

“You might change your mind, unless I do something like this,” she said, a little grimly I thought.

Then she rose unsteadily onto her feet and stepped across me, before stooping down to find her discarded knickers. I enjoyed the sight of her beautiful body moving like a graceful and exotic animal once again, but I had an uneasy feeling about what she might have in mind. I watched, still baffled, as she gathered the lacy fabric of her underwear into her palm and then put the open end of the condom to it. She lifted the limp rubber tube up, as if tipping my captured semen out, before scrunching it into the cloth and rubbing it in. Then she pulled the drained condom away, dropped it, and held her knickers out to me. I could see the slimy smear of my semen, spread like mucus across their lace and narrow gusset.

“Look, do you see? There’s a different story now. You came inside me without a condom, and it leaked out of my cunt afterwards, into these knickers.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling uncomfortably like a little boy again.

Once again, moving without hesitation, Ash raised her knickers to the rafter where I saw there was an old bent nail sticking out. She deliberately snagged the elastic hem of her knickers on this, then tugged hard. Though I’d been looking at her stretching body - her legs, her bush, her breasts, her armpit and her raised chin - I heard a ripping pop and felt somehow alarmed. Then she stood facing me, her feet boldly placed apart, her chest raised as she drew her breath in. She held up the soiled and damaged lace in both hands, gripping it firmly, and pulled. There was another much longer ripping sound as she tore their front panel in two.

“No, not your special knickers!” I wailed.

“Yes,” she said firmly, “You see I’m serious now? You’ve crossed a line. You’re not an innocent anymore. There’s no going back, and this seals the secret for both of us.”

“I don’t understand,” I repeated feebly.

“If it turns out that you’ve spragged - that you’ve told your friends, your parents, your teachers, your brother, anyone at all about us, about what just happened here - then I’ll drop you right in it. I’ll say you forced me, that I tried to stop you, but you wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Once we were alone up here, you pushed me down onto the hay and lifted my dress. Then you ripped my knickers as I struggled, leaving them torn like this. You got your rigid cock out and you rammed it up inside me. Maybe you didn’t understand what you were doing, but you fucked me anyway, and you came. Then I pulled up my ruined knickers, and your cum leaked back out into them. They could do tests, so they’d know it was yours. It would be like you’d raped me. You’d go to a young offenders’ institute, then to prison when you were old enough, and rapists don’t get treated well in prison.”

I felt my blood run cold as I lay naked and prone on the tarpaulin below her. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?” I asked in a small, scared voice.

“No,” she reassured me, her mood suddenly shifting again as she set her spoilt knickers aside, “I won’t, just as long as you keep this a secret. You are a sweet and kind young man, genuinely. I have had fun, and I think you have too, even if we did maybe go too far. You were picking things up quickly, I think you tried your best to be patient before you shot your load, and you seemed to listen when I said what felt good for me, paying attention to what I wanted too. You’ll make your girlfriends very happy I think, when they’re ready for you. Also, genuinely, I still respect and trust you Ben, and despite my warning, I hope you do me too. I want this afternoon to be a fond memory for you, and I hope that you’ll think of me at my best when it comes back to you. But I am deadly serious when I say this must be kept secret. You understand that now, don’t you?”

“Aye, I understand,” I said meekly, sitting up now and pulling my knees in, wrapping my arms around them as I took in what she’d said.

“Please don’t be sad,” she said, squatting on her haunches before me, but the smile that she gave me was the picture of thinly covered sadness itself.

“It’s okay, I know you’re right,” I said, feeling myself once again swelling into that maturity that I’d felt earlier. It seemed to rise in response to Ash’s mood, as she moved beyond her stern threat to reveal a vulnerable tenderness towards me once again. “I guess it’s maybe hard for you, with my brother being away. I guess I wasn’t much of a substitute, but I’m truly glad that you tried me out. You really have been kind to me, and I meant what I said. This has been the best moment of my life. I understand how serious it is that we keep it a secret though, so I understand why you want a guarantee too. I promise you, hand on heart, you won’t ever need to use it.”

“That’s just what I’m hoping,” she said, smiling warmly now as she gripped my knee. I took a lingering look down at her crouching body. I saw her pointed breast once more, just one visible around her own smooth knee, its caramel pink nipple still proud. And looking down I saw her vulva too, all its detail very clear from this point of view, rising between her squatting thighs into her wet pubes. I noticed how her hair wandered along her outer labia too, and how these cushioned mounds were stretched long by her position. Between them, I saw that her full pink inner lips were still glistening with her smeared fluids, whilst her vagina seemed loose and open between them.

I must have sighed heavily as she rose to her feet. “Come on,” she said in a kindly voice, “I’ve got some wipes in my bag. We can freshen up just enough to stop the olds from getting suspicious. Then we’d better get dressed, straighten things up and show our faces.” She cleared her throat as if preparing for a speech, then said, “Four toms, two queens. I’ve got their markings noted down. We lingered longer than we thought, but don’t you just love watching kittens’ antics?”

I laughed gently at her rehearsal of yet another new story, now also rising to my feet. Then she seemed to put on her practical persona once more. She fished a packet of medical wipes from her bag, pulled several out, then offered the packet to me. I followed her example as she wiped her face, though I noticed she carefully avoided disturbing her makeup as she worked around her forehead, cheeks and jawline. Then she cleaned around her neck and under her armpits, moving swiftly, before also dabbing around her vulva and just brushing lightly over other points on her chest, belly and thighs. My eyes barely left her as I mimicked her, being thorough but careful around my penis; the wipes’ chemicals stung a bit as I pulled my foreskin up. Then she reached out to take the used wipes from my hand to bundled them with hers. She recovered the discarded condom and its packet too, along with her torn knickers, I noticed. Then everything got stuffed into the same pocket of her bag that the used rubber gloves had gone into.

Stooping over our piled clothes, she picked up her bra and tossed my boxer shorts towards me. I kept watching her as I stepped into them, still fascinated by all she was sharing with me. She seemed unconcerned by my gaze as she wrapped her bra around her chest, hooking it up and twisting it around, then lifted the straps over her arms, bringing the triangular lace cups over her breasts. She smiled at me, seemingly with genuine contentment, as she picked up her dress and passed my chinos to me. I felt a little sad for her as she raised the dress over her head, pushed her arms through its short sleeves, then let it fall down over her body. I’d realised she’d have to go home without any knickers underneath it now, and I felt myself to blame for that. But even then I knew that some of my sadness was self-pity, as it dawned on me that it was unlikely I’d see her naked again.

“Would you mind zipping me up again?” she asked in a kindly voice, to my mild surprise. As I eagerly agreed, she turned are back to me and gave a coy look over her shoulder. I concentrated just as hard as I had when I’d unzipped her earlier, but I felt genuinely like a new man now. I’d had no idea what was coming then, but I’d been blown away by what I’d experienced in her tender care. She’d taken me through a key milestone in my life, and I felt profoundly grateful for that. Yet her performance after we’d done the precious deed had also scared me. Taken in the round, I felt grateful and happy, yet also wiser and a little less naive about the high stakes in this intense and primal game.

Ash had recovered a hairbrush from her bag now, and was vigorously at work on her long sandy hair, watching me as I put my shirt on, and then as I began folding the tarpaulin. “Thank you Ben, for everything,” she said thoughtfully as I worked, “I know I came on heavy, before and after. But you did good. You’re not just a substitute for Adam, you know. I meant what I said. I respect you, and it was fun being with you. If things were different, I’d love us to do it all again. But you know we can’t ever let that happen, don’t you?”

“Aye, I know,” I said sadly, but I found it easy to reach for the positive, “Don’t thank me though. You’ve been so kind. I should be thanking you, a hundred times more. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced! You’re right about the seriousness of keeping it secret, I understand. And I will always honour and respect you too, truly. You can count on it. But meanwhile, we’ve just been watching the kittens, even if we did get a bit hot under the stuffy hayloft’s tiles. Then you’re going to drive home with your mum and dad, and it will all just be a memory.”

“Aye, something to keep us both warm and bring us sweet dreams in our single beds!” she joked, shouldering her bag now that she’d finished with her hair and stuffed the brush inside it.

We checked in on the kittens on our way out. The bowls were empty again, and the mother was eyeing us suspiciously. I recovered the milk and cat biscuits, suggesting we feed her again, but Ash suggested I just pour another saucer of milk for now. I did, then thought that I should have checked it hadn’t spoilt in the heat. Ash watched me - showing a feline suspicion of her own now - as I took a sip from the bottle, but I declared it was good. She asked if she could have some too, so I passed it to her, then watched as she tipped it up against her lips.

“Ugh, it’s so warm!” she said with a giggle, but then went ahead and lifted the bottle up again to take several long gulps anyway. I saw the movements under the smooth skin of her long neck as the liquid went down, then noticed that her eyes were looking slyly past the raised bottle into mine. She tipped it back down quickly, making drops of milk splash up. She laughed at this, dabbing her cheeks and neck. “We don’t want to spill anything now, do we? To smear my lipstick or get a milky mess down my dress, after we’ve been so careful. Here, did you want to finish it?”

I smiled, enjoying her playfulness, as I took the bottle and drained it. The warm rich milk slipping down my own neck seemed deliciously sensuous, yet also somehow innocent. “It’s like we’re back at primary school, isn’t it?” I said, “Drinking our morning milk like good little children.”

“Don’t start regressing now,” she cautioned me, even as she laughed, “Some would say I made a man of you up here, by what we did.”

“Aye, it feels that way. You’ve done that for me. I’ve stepped through a doorway. I’ll be forever grateful,” I said pompously, though I was grinning broadly along with her.

“Come on, let’s get a move on,” she said sensibly, “Before you get stuck in self-satisfied navel gazing, or whatever it is you’re gazing at.”

Once we’d got our boots back on, she seemed content to descend the ladder with her bag now. A suspicious part of me wondered if she just wanted to keep a close hold on her guarantee of my silence, in case I tried to steal her spoilt knickers away while she wasn’t looking. I said nothing though as I followed her down safely, and we both blinked in the bright sunlight when we got back out into the farmyard.

Our parents were all together in the kitchen when we went back inside, along with Granny Pat, sitting at the kitchen table. They’d obviously been chattering away as they washed and dried the dishes, with mugs of tea or coffee still on the table. We said hi, and I put the cat biscuits away, setting the empty milk bottle to be washed up.

“We were wondering where you two had got to,” my mum said casually.

“I’m sorry, that’s my fault,” Ash said with an innocent smile, “I let myself get distracted. Little kittens are just so cute, aren’t they? The way they tumble about, fumbling blindly, not knowing which way’s up. But they’re all doing well, and mum too. You’ve got four toms and two queens,” she went on, putting on her serious professional act once again as she fixed her eyes on my dad, “I’ve noted done which are which by their markings. I’ll tear the page out of my notebook for you to keep, but Ben should know too now.”

“Thank you very much,” my dad said, smiling warmly at her, “I’m glad you could get in close. And no scratches?”

“No, we’re good,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable in case we were interrogated further. Trying to find a way to change the subject, I asked, “Are the others in the front room?”

“Aye, your aunts are looking after Gran and Grandad,” my dad said, and I volunteered to go and keep them company, feeling glad when Ash said she’d go with me.

“You were gone a while,” Auntie Grace remarked cynically as she saw us come into the room. I noticed she was still holding a glass of wine rather than a cup of coffee. I was already wondering if she might be a bit worse for wear.

“Aye, we stopped to watch the kittens playing,” I said as Ash and I found seats.

“No fault there then. Just so long as you weren’t playing with another pussy,” she replied with a sly chuckle.

“Grace!” Ginny exclaimed with shocked censure, as I felt myself blush hotly, “There was no need for that. I’m sorry Ben, Ashleigh. I rather think she’s been celebrating a bit too hard today. We’re just happy you two had some time outside, away from all us boring old fogies.”

“What’s that?” Ron asked, perhaps roused from his slumber by Ginny’s sharp word to her friend.

“Ginny was just saying she’s glad the two young ones got outside,” Betty said loudly in his ear.

“Quite right,” he gruffly responded, “‘Make hay while the sun shines,’ that’s the way! I must say, I was very happy when Adam started courting young Ashleigh.”

“It’s just me here today Grandad, Ben,” I said loudly, “Adam is away at sea.”

“Yes, you’re right young man,” he said, clearly troubled by his confusion, “Well, things move fast when you’re young, don’t they? I’m very happy for both of you too.”

“Nothing’s changed. Ashleigh’s still Adam’s girlfriend,” I said a little desperately. I was beginning to see how a rumour might start right here. My own family might realise that something had happened between Ash and me this afternoon. And if that idea got established, Ash might feel she needed to demonstrate her innocence, that she was the victim of something which had got out of hand. The possible consequences of that were horrifying.

“Ignore the daft old duffer, dears,” Betty said with a calm and kind tone, quietly enough that my grandad would miss it, “It’s hard for you at your age, Benjamin dear, I know. But you and your friends are growing up fast. You’ll have a beautiful young woman like Ashleigh on own your arm soon. And Ashleigh, my love, I do feel for you, with Adam away for such a long time. You must lean on us, as much as you need. We’re all here to help, just as if you were one of the family too. We’ve known your mum and dad simply forever, you know that, and watched you grow and blossom almost as if you were one of ours already. Oh dear, listen to me, I’m getting as daft as this other old fool now. Ignore me, my dear, just know we’re here for you.”

“Thank you,” Ash said, a little humbly I thought, “You’ve all been so kind.”

“Nonsense,” Ginny said brightly, “We’ve been a bunch of boring old farts, some of us very rude ones,” she added with a cross look towards Grace, “You’ve been a ray of sunshine for us. Thank you for coming, for bringing a glittery sparkle to the party.”

I was surprised to hear Ginny echo the very same words that Ash had used herself earlier, in private. I shot an anxious look towards her, meeting her eyes for a split second, then she smiled warmly towards Ginny, saying, “I guess we find the sparkle where we can.”

“Quite right, girl,” Grace said gruffly, “Enjoy it while you can. Carpe diem, and all that. Before it all sags and withers.”

“I’m sorry,” Ginny said with strained patience, smiling with resignation towards Ash, “Maybe we’d better be getting home. I’ll go and see where Pat’s got to.”

She left, and Ash bravely tried striking up a conversation with Betty, asking if ‘carpe diem’ didn’t just mean exactly the same as ‘make hay while the sun shines.’ My gran seemed at a bit of a loss, but got around to small talk about what schools taught these days by asking how Ash knew so many clever words.

Ginny returned a few moments later with both Ash’s parents and mine. “Come on, love. It’s probably time we were going too,” Naomi said to Ash as she came up beside her to hug her shoulders. I felt another wave of sympathy towards her at that moment, realising suddenly that she wasn’t much more than a child herself either.

“Thank you for looking after her, Ben,” Naomi added, smiling towards me, “I appreciate you being patient with her, with those kittens. She can get so caught up in what she’s doing, in whatever’s snagged her fancy, that she doesn’t notice others’ needs.”

“No problem, really,” I said, cautious of gushing out the deep gratitude that I actually felt toward Ash, “It’s like Auntie Ginny and Gran said, I’m glad you could come, and help make this a nice day.”

As I looked towards Ash to say those last words, I thought I saw a little rosy blush reach her own cheeks as she lowered her eyes. But the chatter was already moving on as the crowd of grown-ups began to say their goodbyes, with help being given to Grandad Ron and Auntie Grace to get them out of their chairs.

We all ended up trooping out into the driveway together, while Ron took himself off the downstairs loo one last time. My parents were hugging and kissing everyone as they parted, sending Ginny off with Grace and Pat first, and of course I pecked their cheeks too. So when it was Ash’s turn to be driven away by her parents, it was natural that I shook Tom’s hand, pecked Naomi’s cheek, then put my hand on Ash’s bare elbow to lean in and kiss her cheek too.

I thought we’d step apart immediately, but she surprised me once more by suddenly gripping both my arms and planting another kiss firmly on my lips, right in front of our parents. I had a sudden flashback to the sight of her naked, rising over me with glistening armpits. I remembered that she still had no knickers on under her dress, and perhaps she could even feel the air on her slippery vulva right now. I felt a hot surge to my cheeks as I stood speechless before her, but she was already stepping back and turning towards their car. As she walked away, she turned once more to give me a little wave and a huge grin. Then she was in the car and her mum was pulling away.

As we all waved, my mum said, “Oh, she’s a bit of a tease, that Ashleigh. I hope she doesn’t turn your head too, young Benjamin.”

“I think she’s nice,” I admitted meekly.

My dad laughed. “A man may dream, isn’t that right, Son?” he said, “Maybe that smacker was half meant for Adam. But don’t you worry. You’ll get your turn soon enough. Find a kind one who’s your own age, and treat her nice. Be patient, pay attention to what she wants, and you’ll be smearing her lipstick too before you know it.”

I wondered at my dad’s words, if he thought ‘my turn’ meant having sex specifically. I was aware of just how close he’d come to echoing Ash’s own words too. His last comment also made me raise my fingers to my lips, aware that Ash may have finally let me disturb her makeup after all, in that parting moment. Yet as I did so, I caught a surprising and intriguing scent on my hand. In a flash I realised that this was the unfamiliar fragrance of Ash’s most intimate place, still on the finger that I’d slipped up into her vagina.

I had thought my dizzy arousal at the time was partly brought on by her perspiring body, by some subliminal perception of her close animal presence. Now I realised that what I’d almost unconsciously identified as the natural odour of her hot skin in the musty barn might actually have been the far more personal scent of her vulva, of her sexual arousal specifically. It must have been filling the air around us while we’d been playing together, intoxicating me almost as much as the sight of her naked body and the sensations that we shared as we touched. I felt an immediate response within my own body at that moment too, the scent triggering some deeply programmed reaction, as I felt my penis begin to stretch in direct response to Ashleigh’s lingering presence. I dropped my hand quickly, postponing a longer nostalgic recollection until I was on my own. With that scent as a reminder, I was sure I’d be ready to masturbate and come again easily, perhaps several times before it faded.

I was therefore a little distracted as we finally waved off my mum’s parents too and went back inside to finish putting the special crockery away. I seized the chance later that afternoon to shut myself away on my own. I tried to recall all the magical details of my afternoon with Ash, letting myself come once more in my unscented hand. I knew it was a very poor substitute for the excitement and stimulation of the real event, but it brought some relief. I did the same again sometime in the dark hours that night, then during my morning shower, and again the following evening too. My penis was tender and a little bit raw from all my rubbing, whilst my testicles ached. Yet as long as I still caught that lingering scent of her precious vagina, her cunt as she’d called it in a boldly earthy way, I kept finding the pressure of my arousal returning.

As the days passed into weeks, my mind would still go back to Ashleigh’s naked body in that stuffy hayloft, along with all that we’d done together. But gradually my daydreams moved on, folding my genuine experiences into my fantasies about what we might have done. My mental image of Ash also blurred and blended into those of glamorous women from magazines and television, as well as real girls from my own peer group. By the time Adam finally got back home, my memory of that sticky afternoon was almost unreal, and I felt no awkwardness with him. He also stopped bringing Ashleigh home to the farm regularly, so I rarely saw her. When our paths did cross, in the company of Adam and our parents, I think we both worked to carefully ignore each other, trying to avoid eye contact or any other sign that might give our secret away.

I had some anxious thoughts too, and even bad dreams. I would hear my brother come home after seeing Ash and start banging around boisterously. I’d wonder then if he’d found out the truth and was about to burst into my room to confront me in a rage. I could also very easily imagine Ash suddenly revealing her nightmarish story to him or her parents, telling them I’d forced myself on her. In my recurring nightmare, I’d picture her standing before a shocked crowd, holding up the precious feminine underwear that she’d secretly shown me, stained and torn. I’d feel sick as I tried to cry out that it wasn’t true, but my throat would be paralysed, or no one would listen. In one especially vivid dream, I remember she was standing as a witness in a courtroom, but she was naked below the waist, so everyone could see her vulva, revealed as a great gash of wrinkled pink and tan skin surrounded by bushy hair. I felt so sorry for her that I was weeping, for the humiliation and pitiable shame that she was enduring, even as everyone there angrily scolded me for bringing her into this degraded state.

That specific dream was perhaps linked to worse thoughts, as a part of me believed that her fiction might actually be partly true. Perhaps Ash had never wanted things to go so far, so perhaps in some sense I had indeed forced her to go through with it. In my moments of doubt, I thought I had some sick perversion, which had driven me to entice a grown woman into doing things that were not only illegal but morally depraved in one so young. Those fleeting worries passed in time too though, perhaps as I became more confident that our secret was safe, or perhaps just as the vividness of my memories of that fateful afternoon faded.

A few months later I kissed the dark-haired friend of one of my schoolmates at a birthday party. The next day I called her on the number that she’d written down for me, and we made a date. When that went well, we got into a habit of seeing each other, meeting up to go for walks, and learning how to kiss. It only lasted a few months, and it didn’t go any further, but it was a start. I remember asking her if she’d let me stroke her breasts, perhaps hoping that she’d let me do even more than that, but her firm red lights never turned to green for me.

Maybe I was too hasty with her, or maybe she just came to realise that she didn’t fancy me that much after all. But there were others, including Jamie, who lived nearby and was the same age as me. I spent time with her, paid attention to the things she talked to me about, helped out in her stables, and tried to find nice things to share with her. We kept seeing each other through the winter and on into spring, celebrating our sixteenth birthdays together in turn. And as time passed, she helped me to explore the deeper joys of sensual love once more, playing in her pastel bedroom, surrounded by posters of horses.

Jamie and those who followed over the years gave me confidence and, I hope, some skill in those intimate games that couples play. So that meant when I eventually found my one true love, my life partner, I was ready to give her all that she deserved. And now that I have finally fused my future path to the genuine light of my life, I am supremely glad to be able to offer all the attention and pleasure that a man could hope to bestow upon his lover.

Yet in some ways I am still a naive beginner in this art, still blindly groping my way along those shadowy woodland trails of shared sexual expression. Therefore as my true love and I now explore those paths together, I am still looking forwards to learning ever more. On our intimate journey, I eagerly anticipate new shared discoveries of delicious secret glades, penetrating the precious mysteries of our deeper bliss together. Yet I will never forget that it was Ashleigh Wright who first showed me how to take my initial confused steps on that exciting path.