RELUCTANT PRESS

Page 52

JOYCE'S GIRLS BY JOYCE

"At my place next Friday when Mummy goes to her bridge party. We'll do it on the lounge floor on cushions, both of us stark naked. But see that you have something."

I was just about swooning in ecstasy and expectation at Sue's promise. By 'something', of course, she meant a condom. Condom buying, when one is Adrian Mole's age, is fraught with more 'problems' than Jason had in snatching the Golden Fleece from its serpent-guarded bough; my 'serpent' was a sad-eyed middle-aged chemist but I was determined not to be balked by his (imagined) censoring look, or worse, words. "And what are you going to get up to, you randy young bugger; for two pins I'd phone your father to thrash the living daylights out of you!"

Oh dear, they say a coward dies a thousand times, the brave man only once.

"Come, we had better hurry," said Sue, "or they'll be wondering what the hell we are up to in here; if Mom smells a rat, she'll put me into boarding school. Here, put my petticoat on while I slip your Mom's gorgeous one on. There, doesn't that look super," Sue said, preening.

Hurriedly, I slipped on the new blue and white stripe while Sue got back into her dusty pink knee length.

We made our way back into the showroom. "My, you two have been a long time in there. What have you been up to?" said Joan but without any edge of severity in her tone. I know she approved of me and neither of us were looking particularly disheveled. She didn't appear to expect an answer so we let it slide.

"Walk over there," said Mom, "I want to get a good look at you. Doreen, I think he looks terribly sweet in that frock, don't you?"

"SHE'LL need black nylons," replied Doreen, emphasising the 'she' "It will set the frock off perfectly. You can keep it on while Sue and I rush down to the hosiery bar for a pair of sheer blacks. He must take a nine, same as you," she said to Mavis, forgetting my adopted sex for a Moment.

"That's right," said Mom with a grin.

Page 53