Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for being my beta.
Taking lessons
Shelagh breached the topic two weeks before they were to be legally married.
They were sitting in his living room. The clock on the mantelpiece told her she had about half an hour more before Patrick would have to take her to her lodgings. Perhaps it was this timeframe of roughly thirty minutes that allowed her to be bold. Maybe it was his proximity on the couch next to her, close enough for her to feel the warmth that radiated off of him and smell his cologne. It didn't hurt that Timothy, still on the mend from his bout of polio, was upstairs and asleep.
It's most likely this cigarette, though, she thought, loosely putting her lips around it and inhaling shallowly before passing it back to him. There were many areas in their lives that they were yet to figure out, but the sharing of a fag, at least, was familiar.
Patrick took the cigarette from her, his rough palm brushing the back of her hand. The filter was shiny from her saliva, and pink from her lipstick.
They had been sitting in silence for a quarter of an hour now, sharing cigarettes. That was part of why she had fallen in love with him: with Patrick, there was no need to talk, to fill the silence. She could sit next to him, his right hand clasping her left one, their free hands passing cigs back and forth, and never did the quietude feel awkward or strained.
Well, until she'd thought of breaching this particular topic, of course.
A nervous energy coiled inside of her, and made her almost drop the cigarette when Patrick gave it to her. She inhaled deeply, almost coughed, and squashed the remaining stub in the ashtray balanced on the armrest of the sofa.
"Do you want another one?" Patrick asked.
"Maybe smoking three cigarettes in one evening is rather… indulgent, Patrick," she said, not looking at him.
"You're sharing them with me, though, so technically you'd only be smoking one and a half," he quipped.
She gave him a weak smile, then sighed. "Go ahead." She needed something to concentrate on.
Whilst he took a fresh Henley out of his cigarette case, clamped his lips around it, and tried to light it, Shelagh took the opportunity to say what had been troubling her. "Patrick, is there any way I can prepare for the… physical intimacy of our wedding night?" She spoke softly but swiftly, growing beet red as the words left her mouth.
Patrick's head swivelled around so fast she could almost hear his vertebrae groan. "What did you say?" he asked, the words muffled because the cigarette was still between his lips.
"Is there any way I can prepare… Oh, forget that I asked," she said, eyes trained on her lap. She had the sudden desire to cry, and chewed the inside of her cheek so she had a different bodily discomfort to focus on rather than her burning eyes.
"No, Shelagh," he said. He took the cigarette from his mouth and threw it on the coffee table, then twisted on the couch so that he was facing her. He enveloped her hands with his. "Shelagh, did I hear correctly that you asked me what you can do to prepare for our lovemaking?"
She still didn't look at him, but nodded slowly.
Patrick cleared his throat, left index finger absent-mindedly tapping the soft skin between her knuckles. "How much do you know?" he asked.
"I know the mechanics. I'm a midwife, after all, Patrick. I've heard the women in clinic talk about it at times, too. Some of the things they've said have made me think that there must be more to it than just… the movements I know of." She spoke slowly, choosing each word with care.
She had never discussed sex with anyone before. Not like this, at any rate, not with her as a possible participant. As a teenager, she'd always thought that it was pleasurable for men to make love, and that women found pleasure in pleasing. An aunt had once told her that the best thing was to lie back and think of something else, which hadn't inspired much desire in Shelagh to go and find a beau. Had she already wanted to become a nun then? She thought so, yes. Hadn't her aunt told her that she wouldn't miss out on anything much if she decided to deny herself the pleasures of the flesh?
"The thing is that you have been married before. I'm sure you have expectations of our… marital relations." She wondered why she couldn't just say sex. She wet her lips with her tongue. "You are used to a certain standard, and I'm terribly inexperienced. I want to please you."
"Why do you think you won't? We can discover things together, Shelagh," Patrick said gently.
She blushed again. "I'd rather have a bit of… well, not experience, not exactly, at any rate, but I'd like to know more about what goes on behind closed bedroom doors than what the midwifery textbooks say."
"So what you want is some kind of lessons in lovemaking," Patrick said. He said it with a little frown on his face. She loved him though for not laughing at her, for not being condescending. She could kiss him.
Instead, she extracted her hands and leaned forward so she could pick up the cigarette from the table. Her hands trembled a little as she brought it to her mouth. They were both silent as Patrick lit it for her and she took the first few puffs before giving it to him.
Patrick blew out a puff of smoke through his nostrils. He took her hand in his again, lacing their fingers together. His dry, warm touch brought her some comfort. "Shelagh, please don't take offence at my next question," he said. He spoke slowly, too, bringing the cigarette to her mouth, then using his free hand to loosen his tie. There were red splotches of colour in his neck.
He's very nervous, maybe even more than I am, she realised. The thought was a calming one. She was never one to panic easily, and knowing that the man she loved had some anxiety caused by the topic as well once again confirmed his deep care for her.
"How can I take offence?" she murmured after she'd taken a puff.
He didn't answer, but took a few deep drags from the cigarette, reducing it to its filter. She took the butt from him, stroking his hairy knuckles with her thumb, then put it in the ashtray.
"Have you ever touched yourself?" he asked.
She raised her brows. "Patrick, that's sinful," she said, a little edge to her voice. She'd thought he was serious about this, but now…
"Is it?"
"It's not for procreation."
"Shelagh, what do you think lovemaking is?" Patrick sat up straight, locking gazes with her.
"Well, it's meant to be for producing children first and foremost," she said, but she didn't sound so sure. Was she really about to lecture Patrick on what lovemaking was supposed to be when she didn't have the first clue as to how it worked in practice?
"If that's first and foremost in your mind, then let me make sure that having fun and experiencing something beautiful and intimate with someone you love takes a very close second place," he said.
She touched his face, trying to smooth the wrinkle next to his mouth with her thumb. "I'm sure that giving you pleasure will be very satisfying to me," she said.
He didn't smile at her, as she'd expected he would. Instead, he wore a puzzled, slightly worried expression. "Shelagh, you do know that lovemaking when done right also brings intense pleasure to women, don't you?"
She blinked. Did she know that? That didn't sound much like her aunt's lie-back-and-think-of-England advice.
But the things the women in the clinic said…
She could tell him that, yes, of course she knew that. But it wouldn't be entirely honest of her, and now that she had come this far, it would be plain silly to keep things from him. Besides, she wanted to be honest with him, even though this topic bewildered her. "No, I don't think I know that very well," she said.
They both jumped when the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the whole hour.
"Hell's bells," Patrick muttered, standing and stretching his arms over his head. "Come, darling. We must hurry, or your landlady will think we're up to the very thing we've been discussing."
Shelagh had some time to gather her thoughts and analyse her feelings as she gathered her few belongings and let Patrick help her into her coat. The evening air was crisp and sharp as a knife, clearing her head. She was glad for the car's heater, though. And the car also allowed her to look at the road, and not at Patrick, as she chattered about other things. She thought he must've forgotten all about her request for 'lessons' as he called it, but was proven wrong when he parked the car in front of her lodgings and killed the engine.
"Shelagh, I'm serious," he said, turning to her, his gloved hands on the steering wheel.
"About what?" she asked, a smile on her face.
"About you touching yourself. Now hear me out," – she had started to open her mouth in protest – "I don't think it's sinful at all. Think of it as an experiment, as preparation for married life. You want to be a good wife, and you think that pleasing me in bed is part of that, am I right?"
She blushed fiercely, but didn't break eye contact. She nodded.
"Then please try it for me. There's two more weeks till the wedding. That's plenty of time to find out what you like. If you know what you enjoy, then our lovemaking will be easier, and more pleasurable."
"And how am I supposed to find that out?" she whispered, the words almost inaudible because of the noise the car's heater made.
"You can do it when you're in bed, or when you're having a bath. Just… just think of me, and the things you'd like to do with me. Physical things. When you feel you're ready to try touching yourself, you can start by stroking your breasts, or your belly, or your thighs." He cleared his throat. His voice had slipped into his professional doctor's tone. Perhaps she hadn't realised just how awkward it would be for him to talk of this.
"Alright," she said. "And then?"
"There's a little bundle of nerves between your legs, slightly to the top of where your folds begin. It's extremely sensitive to touch. Try and rub it with a fingertip, or around it, if you find it too intense to touch. See what happens."
She nodded.
Patrick gave her a goofy grin, then got out of the car and went around to hold the door open for her. It was too cold to linger long on the steps outside of her lodgings, so she gave him a chaste kiss on the lips. When she leaned away from him, he bent forward, and swiftly pecked her cheek. As he did so, he whispered to her, "there's no pressure, Shelagh. Just give it a try if you feel like it. And if you do, please tell me how it felt. This is lesson number one."
She blushed scarlet. "How many are there?" she managed to ask as she fumbled with the lock of the door.
"As many as you want, darling," Patrick said.
As she stumbled inside and shut the door behind her, her breathing was rapid and shallow. Her belly clenched and coiled almost painfully.
The first of my lessons in lovemaking, she thought.
It was embarrassing.
It was sinful.
And it was also darkly, wickedly exciting.
