Chapter - 1

The Model Wife

My arrival in Germany did not start well.

I am a nervous flyer at the best of times and the flight had been a strain with sudden plunging drops and the engines howling up and down in pitch. The aircraft was huge, a Cathy Pacific Jumbo heading all points East, I got off at the first stop: Frankfurt. Looking back at the huge metal bird I thought I must have dreamt it all, that monstrous thing could not possibly fly!

Mark met me at arrivals, he was clearly ill at ease, his only previous visit to the airport, when he arrived three months ago, had involved his being arrested at gun point and grilled in German for hours, Mike’s German was better than mine, which was zero, but only because he watched lots of war films, his limited vocabulary had not helped him explain that the package he carried labelled ‘LSD’ was not a really sucky attempt at smuggling, but the name of the branch of the company he was now working for ‘Logistics Service Division.’

In the event neither of us were detained this time and we caught the train south to Darmstadt; the move was costing us huge, and we had no money to waste on a taxi.

Mark looked fit; in his post military depression he had let himself go and drank too much. But after arriving in Germany, he had bought a bike, the pedal kind, and enthused to me on the phone how bike friendly the country was, he was doing miles every day to and from work, and just for fun. He kept promising me one. Hum.

My view from the train window was of flatness, grass, trees and houses that looked odd in a way I could not put my finger on.

‘No mountains?’ I asked Mark. I had browsed some travel brochures and gained the impression Germany was a land of snow-capped mountains and great rivers.

‘Not here,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘This is Hessen, the route the Soviets will storm through when they come, tank country.’

‘Great,’ I noted sourly. I was trying to be positive, but this was an appalling gamble for us, there was precious little work back in the UK, and none in Plymouth for yet another out of work sailor, no matter how highly qualified. I had kept us going on my secretarial pay, but it was not enough, we faced losing the house. Most of Mark’s ex-shipmates had gone out to Saudi Arabia, and the like, to find work, but Mark had been forbidden to do so, due to his security clearance. God bless the Royal Navy; they sacked him and hamstrung his future career opportunities in one blow! Germany had seemed an attractive proposition, but it soured rapidly as I made the preparations to come out to join him.

Mark nudged me a little later and pointed to a shadow in the distance. ‘That is the start of the high ground, that first hill is close to where we will be living, Berg Frankenstein.’

I glared at him, in no mood for jokes.

Darmstadt was a shock, like stepping back in time, there were trams everywhere, charging at us from all points of the compass as we left the train station, wildly ringing bells and shaking the ground with their iron wheels.

The town itself was pristine, open plan, incredibly clean. I commented on it and Mark nodded as he tugged at the wheeled suitcases I had brought. ‘It was totally flattened by the RAF, during the war, they built V2 rockets here.’

‘Oh wow,’ I said weakly. I guessed as Brits we would not be very welcome here. ‘Now they build space rockets?’

‘Not here,’ he seemed amused at my ignorance. ‘The rockets are built in France, and they fly from Kourou.’

‘Never heard of it,’ I added to my ignorance tally.

‘It is near Devil’s Island, you know, Papillon.’

‘Sure,’ I lied. ‘Great.’

We halted at a bus stop, an orderly queue waited patiently until a bus turned up, then the queue became a mad stampede that jammed the bus door. Mark used my cases to barge through, I hung onto him, terrified of being left behind, lost in this foreign land.

An old man tried to get between us, shoving at my arm, I elbowed him, and he made a sound like a barking dog at me, grabbed my shoulder. I hit him again and told him to get lost. His eyes bugged and he pointed at me and screamed ‘Auslander! Auslander!’

I tripped over the bus step and was in, Mark swung me into a seat. The old man stamped past, pausing to glare at me, looking mad enough to kill. ‘Auslander!’ He hissed, before shambling deeper into the bus.

‘What did he call me?’ I asked Mark, who seemed not in the least bothered.

‘Foreigner,’ he supplied helpfully.

‘Great.’

The bus found the hills and climbed up them, the woods deepened to a dark dense forest which Mark told me was the Odenwald, pronounced OdenVald, the Germans reverse the sound of W and V.

We skirted the edge of a town and a gaudily lit building showed up in the gathering gloom, floodlit with a horrible purple and with ‘Crazy Sexy’ stencilled on the roof. ‘What on earth is that?’ I asked.

Mark glanced and then looked away, coughed. ‘Brothel.’ He replied sheepishly.

‘Great,’ I sighed.

The road started to weave as it climbed higher, I dozed but each time the bus swung around a bend I clutched the rail on the seat in front and jerked awake.

It was full dark when the bus stopped and Mark urged me to get off.

I stared around in misery as the bus pulled away, at any other time I would have admired the place, it looked like the scene for a Christmas card, just waiting for snow, a little village with steep roofed houses surrounded by forested hills.

‘Welcome to Traisa,’ Mark told me cheerfully.

‘I want to go home,’ I replied miserably, feeling very much the Auslander, trying very hard not to burst into tears.

‘What’s up?’ Mark asked, sounding concerned.

‘I left my handbag on the bus,’ I was at the lowest ebb of my life. ‘My passport, purse, everything.’

Mark put down the cases and actual hugged me. ‘I will phone the bus company, it is not the end of the world, even if it has gone for good.’

But it sure felt that way to me.

I trudged after him, there was not far to go, the place was probably smaller even than the Yorkshire mining village I had lived in most of my life. Mark paused for effect and indicated a three-story house that looked new, no garden, just a hard surround made up of bricks with holes in them through which grass grew. It was studded with balconies, six of them. There was a door at ground level with six bell pushes next to it, but bizarrely above head height was another door, with no apparent way to reach it.

‘What is that door for?’ I asked in bemusement.

Mark glanced at it and bit his lip, replied with some reluctance. ‘It is the winter door; the snow gets to about that height.’

‘Great,’ I sighed.

We were on the First Floor, I wondered if they called it the second like the Americans. Mark produced a key to open the summer door and the same key opened up the door on the first landing, into the little apartment that was now home. Rented of course, property in Germany is so expensive a mortgage typically lasts a hundred years. I glanced around, tried to be positive, it was new, with concrete floors, Mark had bought some cheap rugs and second-hand furniture that looked very solid, all wood, not the plastic and metal we had back in our home in England.

I could not visualize myself living here. I stepped out onto the little balcony, a crane stood a little way beyond it, taller than this house, no cab, just a control box at the base, I presumed it had been used to build this place and not yet removed. All the windows in the flat had external roller blinds, apparently of the same material they made replacement window frames with, it seemed so did the other properties, except the older houses which had wooden hinged blinds. The only fully lit house was close to where we had disembarked from the bus, a pub come restaurant, busy with people and spilling out into a beer garden, the music that drifted up was strange to my ears.

Even the air smelt alien, I could not place it, almost spicy, from all those trees I guessed. Night was pressed close about the village, beyond it there was nothing, not even road lights, I had the sensation I was in a snow globe village, all it took now was for someone to shake it.

I leaned on the rail, trying to find a new centre. When I left home to marry Mark and move in with him it had felt like a new country then also, from the wilds of Yorkshire and the ancient, backward village I had been born into the city of Portsmouth and the vast sprawl of the Royal Navy married quarters. It had been disorientating, but not as bad as this, I seemed to feel the seas and mountains between my house in Cornwall to this - this place as a vast pathless shadow, out there in the dark.

From Portsmouth, and later Plymouth, I could drive home to my parents in a few hours, or whistle for them to come get me. But from here? I could not fly home even if I wanted to, we did not have the air fare, we had jumped and invested everything, strangers were renting our home, even if I could afford to run back, I had no place to stay.

I left the balcony, aware that Mark was watching me, keeping quiet, it had been my decision to come, he had been willing to move into shared digs, as he had in Scotland when the Navy sent him there, right after we bought our house, bastards.

The bathroom I dreaded, my sister had done time in Germany when her RAF husband was posted out here, she had made me feel sick with the tales of the obscene toilets the Germans preferred, I barely dared look, I actually heaved a sigh of relief, it was a normal one, no revolting ledge to catch and hold the shit for inspection. But next to the toilet was a washing machine, at first, I assumed it was just stored here for now, then saw it was plugged in and plumbed in. Mains electric, in the bathroom?? There were no other surprises, the bath and electric shower over it were normal enough.

Electric hob in the tiny kitchen, no gas in Germany, I had been warned, everything was electric, no natural fire either, I would miss that, I had always known a coal fire in all my homes.

Two small bedrooms, no beds, for now we would sleep on the dining set which turned into a bed, German homes were typically much smaller than English ones, multipurpose furniture was normal. Both bedrooms had boxes in them, essentials shipped by rented van from England, most marked ‘Do not Open’ by me, Mark could not be trusted to set up a home, bad enough he had had to choose this place without my input.

In the living room were the essentials, a TV balanced on a couple of beer crates, above it on a purpose-built shelf a satellite box, a strange item to me in those days; Germans used satellite dishes to get their TV, or cable, in theory we should not be able to tune into the English channels that were apparently available for the American servicemen out here, something to do with copy-write, but he had written we could get a couple of free English channels.

There was also our VHS video player and boxes of films and TV recordings ready to keep us amused.

I sat at the dining set, Mark called it an Eck-Bank, it was not the sort of thing you would find in a home in England, but were common enough in pubs and such, instead of individual chairs it had two bench seats, one of which had a right angle. To turn it into a bed you moved the table and fitted the benches together to form a double bed.

Mark was pleased with himself, pointing out he had gotten a bed and a dining set to put us on for a pittance, second hand.

I loathed it; it was exactly why I did not trust Mark to unpack. I swore to be rid of it the first pay day.

‘Have you moved out of the hotel?’ I asked, hoping not, the company had provided hotel accommodation for the crew until they sorted themselves accommodation, bizarrely offering no help with finding any. The security deposit and advance rent on this place had swallowed the last of our money, an astronomical six months advance of rent.

‘Yah, had to, they were going to start charging us after the first month.’

I should have paid the extra and got a return flight, I had two sisters, one would surely put me up, I had taken them in enough times!

I guessed from his expression he had a good idea what I was thinking. Hesitantly he told me he would need to go to the bar and use their phone to call the bus company, he was thumbing through a well-worn German phrase book and jotting notes. He looked up, a determined expression on his face. ‘They do take-outs, what would you like?’

‘Can we afford it?’ I returned sourly.

‘Actually, it tends to work out cheaper than the shops,’ he laughed uneasily. ‘They sell bread by the slice out here.’

‘What do they offer?’ I sighed.

‘Italian, I have yet to find a German restaurant, they are all Italian, or Greek, kind of like trying to find a British restaurant in England.’

‘Not pasta, ‘I told him. Italians smother everything hot in melted cheese. ‘A salad of some kind.’

He nodded and crept out.

I tried the TV, flicked through channels, the only English ones I could find was something called the Cartoon Network and one that was showing a black and white film, Spencer Tracy in Tortilla Flats, I was ready to toss the TV off the balcony after watching just five minutes of it.

I poked through some of the packing boxes, I had been brutal about what I shipped out, we had rented a transit van and Mark’s Dad had taken it over as soon as Mark got the key to this flat. The cost of setting the house up for rent, of paying the mortgage on my salary alone, had been a constant drain on what little savings we had. I had had to sell the car to make the deposit on this place.

I fished out a handful of photograph albums, leafed through them, even though they only added to my deep depression. Most of the shots of me were with family or girlfriends, my father terrorized 3any boy that paid me attention, he had only tolerated Mark because with his west country drawl and faultless manners my father had assumed he was gay.

In the last album, still with spaces free, there were a number of loose photos, waiting to be stuck in. Me on a Royal Navy warship, hair blown wild, trying not to look as seasick as I had felt, most of the rest had been taken on our honeymoon, cruising on the Norfolk Broads, talk about a busman’s holiday! I nearly drowned us both the first day out.

One photo was not anything like the others, it should not be here, I would never risk it going into an album my parents might decide to browse during a visit, they had died only recently. I picked it out. That awful chair, we had rented a furnished married quarter as we had none of our own, and it had been just junk.

I was in the deep armchair, leaning with my back against one padded arm, my legs hooked over the other, a very Mona Lisa type smile on my face, the smile and a pair of high heels was all I was wearing.

I sat back at the Eck-Bank and studied the photo, letting my thoughts drift back to the events that led to it being taken.

I was newly married, still really under the control of my domineering parents, Mark and I had just had our first row, if you can call my bursting into tears and locking myself in the bathroom a row. Mark was sulking at me, he had wanted me to wear stockings to a night out with his friends, the thought of what my father would do to me if he caught me ‘dressed like a whore’ had terrified me, even though we had moved hundreds of miles away from him.

Things limped along after that day, but the harm had been done, I was being largely ignored, I changed my hair, Mark did not notice, I bought a new dress that actually stopped above the knee, he was indifferent. In bed I was getting used to his back to me.

I began to suspect he was having an affair and like any wife I hunted and found what seemed to confirm it. I knew about contact magazines, people used them to find sexual partners, but I had never actually seen one up until then. I found a stash of them, some of the ads had been circled and there were letters tucked between the pages, replies to Mark. They were addressed to his base to avoid my finding them in our post, he was shore based then, some sort of training.

The mags held a strange fascination for me, I read them all, cover to cover, and not just the ads, the letters boasting of successful meets, fantasy stories and such. At first, I was shocked at the blatant language in the ads, but then realized they were totally anonymous, just code numbers that people replied to and were re-addressed. Many of the photographs had blanked out eyes or faces. Anyone could write whatever they wanted in safety and keep the replies totally secret. Provided they hid them better than Mark!

I was somewhat mollified that it was apparent he was not trying to arrange meets with anyone, rather he was exchanging fantasies, I thought him foolishly naïve, it was blazingly obvious to me reading the letters that these were men replying, pretending to be women, a silly sting to get some indiscrete photos, perhaps even leading up to blackmail.

But one letter got my attention, thanking Mark for his interest it was openly from another man, looking to exchange photos of his wife for Mark’s

Me in other words.

Sensibly it suggested they first exchange holiday type snaps, which had apparently already taken place as a second letter contained very nice compliments about me, from the comments it was clear they were some of those taken of me when we had gone sailing on our honeymoon and I had daringly posed in a swimsuit on the boat.

I had never had a good body image of myself and I found the comments not only flattering, but a turn on, to read a total stranger describing the swell of my breasts and my legs as long and shapely made me feel giddy, particularly when he described fantasizing about having wrapped around him.

I was shaking by then, and much more was to come from that letter, a set of pages detailing 36 poses the stranger wanted Mike to take of me. The number was significant to me, rolls of film came in 12, 24 or 36 for big camera like Mark’s beloved Minolta. Each pose took about half a page to describe they were in such detail and were highly specific about what I should be wearing. The first one for instance read:

‘Sitting down, facing the camera, wearing a white negligee, brushing her hair and smiling at the camera as if it were a mirror. Wearing white shoes, those gorgeous long legs crossed, her soft thighs clearly on show.’

There was more detail, but you get the gist. Gradually though the poses went from coy to pornographic, with phrases such as ‘... Legs up in the air and holding her cunt open for me to see all of her juicy twat...’

I played with myself as I read them and came violently, clutching the instructions, kneeling on the floor, my face burning feverishly.

I hid the papers back where I found them, but the words kept playing through my mind and I practiced the poses when alone in the house, but it was not enough, I wanted the outfits described, I wanted to dress up as instructed and pose and look at myself in the mirror. And much more, I wanted the writer to see me like that and write I was everything he had imagined.

Shortly after I found the mags Make asked me a question, making it sound casual, but setting my heart thumping. He asked if I owned a quarter cup bra. Several of the poses had required I wear one, displaying my breasts.

‘What on earth would I want something like that for?’ I replied automatically.

He stammered a bit then came up with an obviously rehearsed story that we had been invited to a formal dinner dance which required a cocktail dress and he had been advised I would need a quarter cup bra to make the best of it. I let myself be persuaded and that weekend we went shopping in the top end stores. If I was going to play along I might as well get some decent stuff for my wardrobe! I had no intention of actually letting Mark photograph me though, despite my fantasy. I would let him actually ask me to pose and then drop my bombshell, that I knew what he was up to. A cold revenge for his offhand treatment of me and discussing me with a complete stranger!

It was a laugh, letting him pick stuff out for me, sneaking looks at the letter he had brought with him. Literally a laugh when it came to buying fishnet white stockings, I pretended to dig my heels in and accused him of having a fetish about stockings, he blushed and there were lots of secret grins at his expense from others in the shop, but that was okay, he deserved it for planning to peddle me naked to a stranger! I let him buy them in the end only if he got me a gorgeous white Basque, hugely expensive, to go with them.

After the shopping he took me to a lovely restaurant then home to share a bottle of wine that tasted like silk. It was hard not to giggle when he produced his camera and said we should get some photos of me in all this wonderful new clothing we had bought.

I changed into the negligee and shoes, crossed my legs and brushed my hair and let him take the photo, after all, that was not so bad, I was not showing anything, and I was enjoying the game so much.

But maybe the wine was taking effect because I slipped into each pose, changing as needed, not really listening to Mark telling me what to do, I already knew. I was imagining my unknown admirer slowly looking through the photos of me, seeing me showing more and more. Would he enjoy them? Would he touch himself as I had while reading the instructions? A musk scent filled the room, me, I wantonly displayed myself for the camera lens and I forgot Mark was taking them, it was my distant, remote lover, I could hear his voice, telling me to open my legs, to touch myself, I moaned and brought myself to slow, blissful orgasms.

The last pose had me on hands and knees, wearing only high heeled shoes, looking back at the camera, one hand between my legs, holding myself open, inviting him in.

‘Oh, you look so damned hot!’ My watcher breathed, but it was Mark, not the fantasy admirer, and his voice shook.

‘Put the camera down and get in me!’ I whispered hoarsely.

As we lay later, drenched in sweat, breathing hard, recovering, Mark promised me he would get the film developed by sending it away, not risk it at the local chemist. I glanced at the camera, wondering if I should strip the film out and ruin it, but then I would never get to read what my admirer thought of my performance.

‘Make sure you get a new film,’ I told Mark. ‘We should do that again some time!’

Mark returned with a handful of containers, my salad was in a clear plastic dish, he had some sort of lasagne, there were sides of crusty bread and chocolate gateau.

‘Bus is not back at the depot yet,’ he told me, arranging the containers and plastic forks that came with them, I got up and produced metal ones from the kitchen to replace them. ‘They will check it when it gets back, I will call again in the morning.’

I had set out plates and cutlery, he shrugged at the unnecessary complication to eating, put his container on a plate and made a point of using the supplied plastic fork. He scowled at the TV.

‘This shit again? It was on last night!’ He grabbed the remote and switched to the cartoon network, Jerry was running from Tom, Mark had found his intellectual level.

Chapter - 2

Ex-Pats

For a wonder Mark returned with my handbag intact, nothing had been taken, even the cash in my purse was still there.

The heat of the afternoon would not quit, even with all the windows open and the balcony door wide there was no breath of a breeze in the flat. Mark suggested we head off to the restaurant come pub and got no argument from me. The same heat pounded the place, but it felt cooler sitting on the terrace with a tall beer. The local beer was Darmstädter, and Mark swore it was brewed next to the brothel we had passed, but he bought us each a Warsteiner, served throat searing cold with a slice of lemon in it. I watched the bar, amazed at how they pulled the draft beer. As a former barmaid it shocked me to see them rack glasses under the taps and let the taps run, shutting them off when the foam rolled over the side, scooping away the boiling heads with wooden things like tongue depressors then setting the taps off again and again until the glass was eventually full, with only a trace of foam.

I was very aware I was also the subject of scrutiny; it was a small town and Mark was the only Englishman, now there was an English Women to gawp at too. There were other foreigners though, Mark told me, mainly Turkish and Italian, apparently Germany was being overrun with Turks, much as we were with Asians back in Blighty and it was causing a lot of tension. I was amused to note he referred to other foreign nationals as emigrants, but he called himself and his English pals Ex-Pats.

Most of the patrons were male, but that was not unusual for me, in my home village wives rarely accompanied men to the pub, and I had never set foot in a pub on a Sunday unless I worked there, any woman daring to enter a pub on a Sunday would be jeered at: ‘Dinner ready then, lass?’ ‘Is tha lost?’

‘Are they all ex-pats?’ I queried. ‘Where you work, I mean?’ If he had ever told me the actual name of the place where he now worked, I had forgotten it.

‘No, they come from all over Europe, the staff that is, many have worked here for years, gone native, as it were.’

‘You are not staff?’ I was puzzled.

‘’Fraid not, we cannot be, Britain pulled out of ESA over a row about the next generation of spacecraft, only people from contributing nations can be Staff, we are contractors. Even the Jerries,’ he added after a long pull at the beer.

‘You have lost me,’ I confessed, a little nervous about his using the term ‘Jerry’ in a crowded German bar.

‘Oh, we have two of them on our team,’ Mark sounded indulgent. ‘Locals.’

‘So, they are staff?’ I contributed.

He paused in the act of lifting the glass. ‘Eh? No, of course not!’

‘But the Germans are still in ESA?’ I fiddled with my beer mat, he put a hand over mine.

‘Don’t do that,’ he admonished. ‘They mark them to keep track of how many drinks we have, they get annoyed if they are messed with.’

I flattened it back out and sat my glass firmly on it. Mark addressed my query. ‘Germany is in ESA, but not all Germans working at ESA are staff, some work for private companies, like us, they are contractors.’

‘Those that clean the toilets?’ I suggested. The look I got was black and angry.

‘We do not clean toilets!’ He snapped.

‘Your company does in London, I saw the signs in the train stations on the way to Heathrow.’ I was being cruel but could not help myself. Like all the sailors I had met Mark identified himself by uniform he used to wear, it was an attitude that rubbed off on their wives and made me so determined not to become like them, for instance the way they would form groups based on their husband’s ranks and cold shoulder anyone who did not fit that criterion.

‘So, apart from two Germans you are all ex armed forces?’ I found I was scratching at the beer mat with a nail and stopped myself.

‘They have national service out here,’ he corrected me. ‘Both the Jerries are ex-army, there is only one civilian in the contract, and he is a Brit ex-pat, like us.’

I doubted he realised he sneered the word ‘civilian’.

‘What is he like?’ I just could not stop gnawing at the bone!

Mark shrugged. ‘Okay I guess, a bit wet of course, not very proactive, but a nice enough guy.’

‘You just would not want your sister marrying him?’ I gave him by best innocent look as he stared at me, suspecting I was needling him.

‘He already has the ex-pat blues,’ Mark decided I was just being my usual thick self.

‘It’s catching?’ I raised my eyebrows in alarm.

‘Apparently everyone gets them,’ Mark retorted seriously. ‘Usually takes a few months though. Always starts the same way, you start to get a craving for something you cannot buy out here, I mean really bad, they nag people going back to the UK for a visit to fetch them some back.’

‘And he craves what?’

‘Roses Lime Juice,’ Mark shook his head in wonder. ‘Apparently, he has never tasted it in his life, now he is like an addict coming off crack!’

I digested this. ‘Are you missing anything?’ I asked, seriously.

Mark snorted. ‘What kind of Matelot would I be if I went to pieces every time the ship sailed, and the NAAFI ran out of Toffee Crisps?’

‘You cannot buy Toffee Crisps out here?’ I feigned horror.

‘There is a specialist shop in Frankfurt that sells nutty shipped from England,’ Mark assured me. ‘Expensive though.’

‘That is a relief.’

Mark fell into a contemplative silence, then after a couple of minutes said. ‘I have noticed you cannot buy pies out here.’

‘What kind of pies?’

‘Any!’ His eyes met mine. ‘I mean absolutely none, no pork pies, no meat pies, not even sausage rolls!’

‘Oh my God, we are truly strangers in a strange land!’ I breathed. ‘And this ex-pat blues, does it do anything else besides induce cravings?’

He suddenly looked very serious. ‘Yeah, the old hands reckon if you cannot get past it, you go nuts, it gets to you, it wears you down, oh you can smile, but the bosses take it seriously, they reckon to lose fifty percent of us within six months!’

‘Shit, that long?’ I thought silently.

The heat did not dissipate with the coming of night, I lay on the lumpy cushions with the sheet thrown down, the T shirt I wear as a nightie discarded also and lay sheened in sweat breathing oven hot air. Mark, damn him, slept blissfully, breathing out beer fumes to add to my discomfort.

In hot, dark Germany I stroked my hands down my sweat lubricated body, I sent one hand over to Mark, trailed my fingers down his breastbone. He muttered something and turned over, his back to me, I hissed in frustration and brought my hand back to slide down between my legs, the sailor’s wife’s usual lover.

Sunday morning exploded over the Odenwald with a searing blue cloudless sky and the promise of another hot day to come.

Breakfast was toast, sort of. The toaster had been unpacked and plugged in via an adapter, but when I finally managed to hack two slices out of the breeze block the locals called bread and jammed it down into the toaster it refused to actually toast but instead turned so brittle it shattered when trying to butter it.

Mark, clearly amused, suggested we go for a walk before the sun made such an exercise a torment.

I doubted I would ever get used to all the shops being shut as they were, even on a Sunday in England the majority are open, not here, the village of Traisa was like something out of a Stephen King novel.

There was some life though, as we followed the road out of the village to join the main road there was light traffic, and small groups of walkers plodding along. I goggled at them. ‘Is there a fancy-dress party going on?’

Mark hid a grin. ‘The good German likes the appropriate uniform, Lycra on a bike, and for walking...’ He let the locals hammer home the point.

Almost to a man or woman they were in heavy tweed or canvas shorts with strong looking walking sticks and Alpine hats with broad brims and jaunty feathers. Watson might have worn one in a Sherlock Holmes novel, some even had leather lederhosen, reminding me of old-fashioned walking harnesses for infants. Thick knee-high socks under boots that looked able to trample an elephant completed the ensembles.

‘Wow,’ I commented weakly.

Cars were parking up in spacious lay-bys and parties were mustering and striding out into the surrounding woods, following well beaten tracks with clear little signposts indicating where each path led.

It was apparent the crossroad to the village was some sort of nexus point for walkers to set off from. Mark ignored the many opportunities to ramble off under the shady trees and led us on up the road, selecting a path higher up that seemed to be ignored by the many squads fanning out. He pointed to the sign; it was goulash to me.

‘Friends of the Birds,’ he translated. ‘The landlord offered to enrol me in the local chapter, I refused, I thought he meant it literally.’

‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ I complained.

‘You’ll see!’

Despite the light trainers I was wearing it was easy walking, the path was beaten down earth but well trained, with no loose stones to turn an ankle, and it had the appearance of actually being swept. The high canopy of the trees made it almost cold beneath, but daggers of early sunlight were already slashing through.

The path dipped down to cross a tiny stream, large, flat rocks formed a sturdy set of steppingstones over it, the path climbed back up at a non-taxing rate, apart from the gurgle of the stream it was incredibly quiet, or so I thought. I paused and cocked my head. ‘Is that singing?’

‘It is,’ Mark said solemnly. ‘Come meet the friends of the birds!’

The singing became louder, it was males, boisterous, and utterly foreign; I got the thread of something like a brass band tripping along. The path suddenly widened into a clearing, beaten earth like the path but dotted with shrubbery and patches of ferns. Slap in the centre was a log cabin, a hut built from rough sawn tree trunks, but there were no windows or door, one entire wall was hinged and had been opened up, a broad shelf had been secured to the inside section, the music was coming from a boom box on one end, and a half dozen men in hiking gear, but also binoculars and cameras, they were red faced, lounging on camping chairs and bawling along to the music with more gusto than skill.

The inside of the hut glittered with glass bottles, various spirits, and piles of beer crates; each man nursed a huge stein of amber beer which they waved to-and-fro along with the music. I glanced at my watch, it had just gone 8am and yet these men were obviously glassy eyed drunk.

‘Behold the Traisa Bird Watching Society in all its drunken glory!’ Mark hailed in my ear, almost shouting to be heard, then pitched his voice to the drunks. ‘Guten Morgen Herr Gutenberg!’

The biggest of the men, and likely the oldest, spotted us and heaved out of his chair with a huge effort, almost spilling beer, his face was red, and he had a classic alcoholic nose, bulbous and shot with veins.

‘Mister Mark!’ He boomed, he reminded me of Sergeant Schultz of Hogan’s Heroes, he beckoned us closer and frowned at me with visible effort. ‘Ah, and Misses Mark? Yah? YAH!’ He bellowed laughter; his companions tried to focus on us.’

‘Willcomenn, Willcommen!’ The man clapped a meaty hand on Mark’s shoulder and leered at me.

‘Herr Gutenberg,’ Mark introduced him. ‘Our esteemed Landlord and a great friend of the birds. Sir, my wife, Frau Angela.’

Nothing would suffice but our landlord paraded me around the bird watching club, shouting introductions above the blasting beer Keller music, I had to refuse beer or any of several dozen spirits each time. We extricated ourselves from their overwhelming hospitality with difficulty and carried on the path with enthusiastic orders to enjoy the day and the glorious woods.

‘Is he really our landlord?’ I demanded, out of earshot.

‘Oh yes, you will see a lot of him, usually passed out on the stairs, he lives down the street, but his wife is trying to control his drinking, so he keeps a stash in the cellar at our place.’

I glanced back; the hut could not be seen but the singing could be heard. ‘Are they not worried someone will discover their secret bar and strip it of booze?’

Mark laughed. ‘The only thing they are afraid of is their wives finding out! This is Germany, miner Frau and here ve haf rules, no one would dream of robbing a man of his beer, it is just not done! Conversely a German would die of shame if he failed to offer a beer to a passing stranger!

We passed several crossing paths, Mark glancing at the signs and choosing a way without bothering to consult me. But at one point we came to a large tree standing alone on a rocky little hill, he paused, and pointed into it.

I made out little swatches of cloth, hanging via string from the branches. Curious I reached up and pulled one down, the cloth had been formed into a pocket, tied shut with the string, opening it a pungent smell snatched at my nose.

‘Tobacco,’ Mark explained. ‘The local kids make a wish as they make the parcels, then hang them on the tree so the fairies will grant them, you had better put it back, it is bad luck to steal them, the fairies will take revenge.’

I carefully re-tied the parcel and hung it up, wondering what precious wish it contained.

Another path took us close to an old quarry, flooded now and crowded with swimmers of all ages. ‘They prefer this to the indoor pool,’ Mark told me. ‘But the indoor pool goes nudist on a night.’

‘Forget it,’ I told him primly.

We ended up in a roadside pub close to the village at a place called Bollenfalltor. It was obviously popular with the walkers, the pub extended into the forest with natural wood tables and benches, lots of kids were present, generally running riot around a little park of slides and swings. I sipped apple juice, but Mark had a beer, the sun was high and the day turning into another furnace, but this was pleasant.

There was a new factor to the traffic, gangs of people on pedal bikes, many stopping for a swift drink, as Mark had said they almost all wore gaudy bike racing spandex. One crowd rolled up to our table and surrounded us, looking like tramps in casual clothing compared to the Germans. They greeted Mark and stared at me with interest until he introduced me as his wife, at which point I was safely compartmentalised.

It was pleasant to hear English voices, I at once marked them as military, or recently retired, men who serve in uniform lose their local accents and take on a blend of the language, it is easy to spot. So, these were his ex-pat colleagues, Army, Air-force, and Navy, most about the rank of sergeant or equivalent, cast aside by the ungrateful country they had been ready to give their lives for; all for the sake of economy.

They seemed a cheerful bunch though and hung around for a bit, I was bombarded with personal questions, I commented on them after they left.

‘They are curious to know how you are settling in,’ Mark shrugged. ‘You are the first wife out here; they will be under orders to report back to theirs in England.’ A thought struck him. ‘Hey! You will be the boss of the wives’ club! OW! What was that for?’

It was a slower walk back to the village, skirting the road, the sun was high and the heat right up there with it, I could feel it blasting back off the pavement up at me. I was turning over the questions in my mind, ‘Was I settling in?’ After two days?

‘How was I coping with the language?’ Do not understand a word, well, one... Auslander.

‘Did I think I would stay?’

That was a common one from before here. Navy wives asked it of each other, struggling to cope as a sort of semi-widow with husbands gallivanting off around the world having a whale of time and banging foreign tarts while the wife back home was driven mad by kids and mounting bills.

Will you stay?

‘Where is this hotel they are staying at; where you were?’ I asked.

‘Griesheim,’ Mark supplied.

‘Is it far from here?’

He frowned off into the distance. ‘About an hour by bike, I suppose, less if you keep to the main roads.’

‘And they just happened to meet up with us here?’ I demanded.

He glanced at me, wondering where I was going. ‘We ride out here every weekend, it was how I found Traisa and the flat for rent, we would always stop at Bollenfalltor, it is at the top of the long hill up to the Odenwald.’

‘So, you knew we would meet them!’ I challenged.

‘It was a possibility,’ he admitted. Strangely he slipped his arm in mine, Mark is not normally a touchy-feely person. ‘Do you mind that I wanted to show you off?’

I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself answering that one!

The heat made the night another restless one, we were both tired and irritable in the morning, summoned by his wristwatch alarm. It was Monday and he had to go and...

‘What the hell do you do, anyway?’ I demanded, sitting over a vile cup of instant coffee.

From the kitchen area where he was making up scrambled eggs and toast, for himself, I never ate anything more than toast for breakfast, and that rarely. He called back: ‘As little as possible!’

‘You are not in the fucking Navy anymore!’ I shouted, cruelly. ‘Cut the need-to-know shit!’

He came out of the kitchen with the excuse for toast and soggy looking scrambled eggs that turned my stomach. Setting them away from me on the Eck-bank table he poked at the toast with his fork, it exploded.

‘Computer hardware mainly, Network Engineering stuff, our contract is to strip out the old Mission Control and fit the latest computer gear, but like any job some of the old stuff cannot be replaced, it has to be integrated, that is my bit.’

‘Clear as mud!’ I complained.

He thought for a minute. ‘Okay, right now half the gang are in this false area under the floor, about three foot high, stripping out all the cables, when that is done, we will install CAT5 and video cable, kind of like doing the foundations on a house, but ours will be a virtual house.’

‘So that is your job now, stripping out cables?’ I challenged.

‘No,’ he tasted his eggs, grimaced. ‘I think these are duck eggs!’

‘Stop it!’ I warned.

‘I have been given a bunch of old computers, I mean old, they are in various rooms, they sit there, doing something, but no one is sure exactly what, a lot of the gear in this place is bespoke, built for specific missions, but no one ever stripped them out afterward, and they were not properly documented, I have to find out what they do and then move that job onto a modern computer, or just shut them down and scrap them.’

I thought about that. ‘Why not just switch them all off and see who screams something is not working now?’

‘And kill a couple of astronauts? Or cause a satellite to crash on Moscow and start WW3? Nope, not an option.’

‘Do you know what I think?’ I demanded. ‘I think the lot of you miss it when you were facing down some Russian cruiser, or manning checkpoint Charlie or whatever, and now you are civilians, and you cannot face it that you no longer matter that much in the great scheme of world affairs!’

Mark picked his plate up and scraped it into the bin, washed it and set it to dry, then he collected his backpack. ‘I had better go,’ he told me. ‘Take my part in the great scheme of has-been fuck ups.’

I waited until he got his bike from the hall and left. Walking out onto the balcony I watched him peddle away, not looking back. It was already warm, set to be another damn scorcher, did it never rain in this damned country?

I prepared for my morning mission carefully, I had purloined Mark’s phrase book, I had the recovered cash from my lost purse, £100 in Deutsch Marks, strange, alien notes that felt like plastic and were smaller than English notes. I had my passport, Mark had an ID card, I did not, I would have to apply for one apparently, this was a regulated country, in Germany Ve Haf Rules.

With my courage screwed up I walked to what I had mentally badged the fruit and veg shop, except it also sold tins and household cleaning supplies, a corner shop perhaps, I would not know, we had had them all closed down and the owners shot, long ago, back in England.

I hung back, watching the other customers, no self-service, even from the ranked baskets of vegetables, you told the woman what you wanted and she put the stuff in bags, and the shelves of tins and stuff were behind her.

No one stared at me, but I felt they wanted to, I queued and when it was my turn, I looked at the phrase book I had open at the right page, but the words had turned into Japanese or something. I looked left at the vegetables, the woman behind the counter said something, I had no idea what. I pointed to a basket of potatoes, looking like they had been dug up and dumped, not washed and bagged.

‘Some of those, please.’

The shop woman looked at them, then at me. ‘We feel?’ she said.

I could only conjure up one word. ‘Danka.’

The woman smiled. ‘Danka ouch, Kartoffel? We Feel?’ At least that is what it sounded like.

I stared at her, she stared back. ‘Yah,’ I croaked weakly, tried again. ‘Ja.’

The woman looked past me at the small queue behind me, perhaps seeking inspiration, someone laughed unkindly. I bolted, did not actually run, but walked fast, out of the shop, and they all laughed, or it sounded like it.

Face burning and trying very hard not to cry in public I walked, and walked and ended up in a children’s playground, floored with sand, the slide, swings and roundabout somehow comforting and familiar. I was alone, I sat on one of the swings, put my face in my hands and cried.

I cried for my cottage in Cornwall, the impossible ambition and dream of a miner’s brat from Barnsley, for the beautiful walks with the North Sea on one side and the moors on the other. I still owned it, on paper, but there had been no way we could keep up the mortgage with Mark working abroad and half his wages going on living in this expensive country. The only way I could make the math work was to rent out my cottage and abandon it. Even working full time, a secretary’s pay could not make up for the loss of Mark’s contribution, the stark choice for me was to run home, or join Mark out here.

I cried because I was as much a victim as Mark, and I had been just as loyal to the cruel Royal Navy.

It was the terror of being seen that forced me to dry my eyes and get up off the swing. There was no way I was going to tell Mark we needed to get a takeout again because I was too much of a coward to get the groceries in!

I had already experienced a local bus and had a good idea how to negotiate it, I walked to the road and stood on side where the traffic was travelling down the hill. The bus numbers meant nothing to me but the very first one that showed up was clearly marked DARMSTADT and I joined the small scramble to get on. I presented the driver with the smallest denomination note I had, he clucked his tongue anyway bur change rattled into a little tray along with a paper ticket and I scooped them up.

The bus set off before I got to a seat, sending me reeling, no one laughed.

Figuring out where to get off was easy enough, the bus pulled into the broad square with the milling trams and everyone still on the bus charged off.

I walked about the town, looking for something like a Tesco, but was disappointed. Eventually found what I could only call a pocket supermarket, the isles were narrow and there seemed no logical order to where stuff was located but armed with a basket, I managed to get the basics of survival. Meat defeated me, there was a separate butchers counter where patrons told the man what they wanted, I avoided it like the gallows and selected a couple of tins that might contain something like luncheon meat and a large sausage thing wrapped in red.

The girl at the till worked like lightning with my basket, surprising me by entering the prices by hand, no scanning. She told me the cost, which meant nothing, but the till showed me it clearly enough and I counted out enough to cover it, not touching my change which I figured I would hold onto for the return bus.

Feeling more relaxed I carried my bag of swag and explored the town in a calmer frame of mind. Most of the shops around the square were high end places, selling kitchenware, clothing and furniture, lots of furniture shops. Walking off the square I found neat, straight streets with cafes and little shops specializing in coffee grounds, chocolates and electrical goods.

The heat though defeated my exploring, it was building fast again and I went back to the stop where I had disembarked, I had noted the bus number and boarded one when it arrived, the destination meant nothing to me, but logic said if this was the terminus then the same number bus would go past Traisa.

Given my first experience with a bus I kept shopping and handbag clutched tight until I recognized the hill we had walked, rang the bell and staggered to the exit door, I barely got off before the impatient driver lurched the bus off again.

I was breathing hard and sweating profusely by the time I reached our flat, I nearly dropped the groceries trying to juggle two bags and the keys, but I dropped all three when I got through the door. Our landlord, Herr..., whatever his name was, Sergeant Schultz, was dead on the stone stairs, clearly having tumbled down.

I popped the back of a hand to my mouth to stop screaming, and the Landlord let out a contented snore and an empty bottle of Darmstädter beer rolled down a couple of steps with loud clinks.

Collecting myself and my burdens I stepped gingerly past the drunken wretch and bolted to our flat door, shut and bolted it behind me, then added the chain for good measure.

I was born to a culture of drinking; the miners of my home village spent a good proportion of their time out of the pit drinking hard and fast. My father was no exception, he would return home expecting his supper on the table, and if it was not to his expectation it would end up on the back of the fire, or over my mother, if she had the nerve to try and defend her efforts.

My eldest sister fell into the same trap, tied to a man who drank most of their money and beat her routinely. Oddly my younger sister went the other way, became a violent, abusive drunk herself; one good thing about leaving England was to escape her almost nightly phone calls, alternating between whining self-pity and threatening me for ‘Running out on her.’ Her interpretation of my doing the same as she did: marrying out of the village!

In the kitchen I assembled my goods, both tins of meat were a flop, they looked like they contained soggy dog food and smelt rank, I put them into the fridge, I would make them into a pie tomorrow. The sausage tasted like carboard laced with garlic, I cut a section of it off and divided it into roughly rectangular patties, we would have them tonight, doused in batter and fried, anything became palatable wrapped in pastry or batter. The potatoes I picked four of the largest, peeled, cut into large chips and put them into clean water to keep them fresh, I had wanted baked beans to go with them, but had not been able to find any, just some pale sort of butterbean in brine, not even sauce, they would have to do, it was dinner, I had done my duty.

At the height of the afternoon heat I could bear it no longer and took a cool shower, I stepped out without a towel or robe, dripping onto the stone floor and the rugs, stepped out onto the balcony, hoping for a breeze that would feel cold against my wet skin. I leaned on the rail, not giving a damn if anyone noticed me or not, but as usual the blistering afternoon sun appeared to have cleared the village of human life.

The sun burnt off the beading moisture and felt like a branding iron on my naked skin, I retreated back into the flat, lay nude on the Eck-bank and watched TV, today it was our favourite actor, yep, Spencer Tracy. What would it be tomorrow? Pick of the week?

The phone rang, I eyed it like a dangerous snake, it was wall mounted, by the apartment door, and it was not supposed to be working, Mark had had to go to the restaurant to make a call.

I stood up and answered it. ‘Hello?’

‘Angela? Oh great, they connected it! Listen honey, I am going back to the hotel with the lads, bit of a celebration, I will get something to eat there so do not worry about me. See you later!’

There were a few seconds of background noise after he finished speaking, maybe he had not put it onto the cradle properly, from the general melee of voices an English one hailed. ‘Come on, Mark, the girls are waiting!’

Mark did not come home, I got another call later, it was getting too late to ride home, he was going to bunk down with one of the lads, go straight to work in the morning, see me tomorrow night.

I just made acknowledging noises. On the bus I had seen several passengers wheeling bikes on and off, where was the point in arguing?

Evening did not bring a relief from the heat, if anything it seemed to grow heavier, hotter. Too lethargic to dress I wandered about like a nude ghost, to the balcony, the kitchen, the bathroom, the phone.

On the Eck-bank table was my battered old address book, strange what odd items we cannot bear to be separated from! It was open to the page listing useful travel contacts, flights, trains, ferries, hire cars. I was calculating the route in my head. Bus to Darmstadt, train to Frankfurt am Main, there would be sure to be a link to the new channel tunnel from there, perhaps via Paris. Where was the English terminus for the tunnel? No, Chunnel they were calling it. Kent, I think, but there was a link to London, not the one designed, not yet, but there had to be some means, and London was easy to get around.

But where then? My house was rented out, I had to give them notice, I had no job, I had given that up, no savings. I could not even live off the rental of the house, which was needed to cover the mortgage.

I recognized in myself the creeping death of despair.

The explosion was the end of the world. No warning, nothing, just a huge bang and a scalding blue light that I swear lit me up like an x-ray, displaying my bones. I screamed but was too deafened to hear it.

I was on the balcony, part deafened and virtually blinded by the aftershock of the crash. Crunching bangs rolled around, fading, echoes of the explosion rattling around the hills, other women screaming, men shouting, doors banging, blinds going up, window lights appearing all around the village.

As my site calmed, I saw the crane was literally glowing, and at the base there was an angry spray of electric sparks accompanied by a firework crackle. My dazed mind registered a stuttering blue flash and I looked up to see a great, spreading tree of lightning tearing overhead, the explosion a second later, terrifyingly beyond loud.

Some corner of sanity scolded me, told me lightning had struck the crane, I was not dead, stop being a wuss! I backed off the balcony, and at that moment a torrent struck it, and bounced back up, a hammering of huge water drops that tore across the village, drumming on roofs, pattering on blinds, turning the road to a river at once.

I covered my ears with my hands. Blue slashed the night and more explosions followed, mercifully marching away, menacing the Odenwald, but the rain, if you could call it rain, only intensified, bouncing into the room, but I was too terrified to approach the door and swing it shut, pools formed on the stone floor, little rivers walked on in, disappearing into rugs.

Some strange racket was sounding above the thunder and the rain, coming from beyond the balcony, I wondered if the crane was set to collapse, perhaps crash into my flat.

Impelled past the fear I paddled through the cold water to lean out over the balcony, the sound was coming from below.

In spilling light from windows the Landlord was capering around the crane, clothes and hair plastered to him, he was waving a bottle and shouting insanely, laughter in his tone. As he went about the crane he looked up and grinned hugely, saluted me with his bottle and took a long drink. Recalling I was naked I pulled the door shut and part closed the blind, too afraid to shut off all view beyond.

I sat back down, the appalling lightning seemed to have cauterized my panic, I was thinking clearly. I would not crawl back to beg help from my relatives, I might never be able to escape again. In the morning I would call the rental agent, tell him to put the house on the market and give the tenants notice. There was a lot of equity in that big house, a lot. I would also file for divorce, I would have to surrender half the equity I suppose, but it would leave enough to allow me to set myself up somewhere in the UK, I had always been able to get work. There would be no panicked rush back to England, I would stay here until it was all settled, then go calmly and with dignity, a single woman again.

Mark had had his affairs, and part in tit-for-tat so had I, but there had always been, so I thought, an unspoken rule, they only occurred when he was away. But now this? To be humiliated in front of his friends, held up to ridicule? That Mark, what a player, his wife is fresh in country and still he goes whoring with the rest of the boys!

It could not be borne.

As I sat, working out details, almost exactly an hour later there were cannon blasts in the air, growing increasingly closer, another storm approaching, the blinds showed flash pop blue lights through the little gaps and with a mind cringing blast the storm passed over, bellowing like a God of explosions, the rain, which had slackened a little, renewed its force.

And so it went on all night, unbelievably each storm almost exactly an hour apart, advancing, catastrophically passing overhead, and fading slowly, the rain waxing and waning with the thunder and lightning.

Exhausted I opened the blind and patio door as the last storm grumbled away into the distance, I was sure it was the last because the rain went with it, thinning out to nothing, dim light leaked into the sky. Who would choose to live in this mad place, who?

Putting aside my weariness I did what I did best: I organized. I split our belongings between the two bedrooms, left the living room as a communal area, likewise the kitchen. It did not take long; we had not brought much.

I then started to make calls, left messages. I called British Nuclear Fuels in case my job was still open, if so, I would arrange my own way back, find a modest B&B, all the things I used to do for others. I registered with several employment agencies I had sold myself through in the past, promised an updated CV soon.

My rental agent could be visibly heard pricking up his ears, he would make a lot more from me as my realtor than as my letting agent.

I did not know how one went starting a divorce so I called the solicitor who handled the original purchase of my house, he promised a colleague would call me back later in the day.

I wrote out a check list after I had done and checked it twice, felt a satisfied glow, things were in motion and they felt right, felt good.

Now there was just Mark to update. I pondered calling him at work but realized that was my desire to hurt him back, to blame him. No, we could be civil about this.

The thirsty land soon gobbled up the rain that had fallen, and what was left in hollows and gutters was burned away as the sun rose to another day of searing heat.

Dressed in jeans, trainers and a loose T shirt I marched back down to the grocers and waited in line, the woman recognized me at once and raised her eyebrows. ‘Kartoffel?’ She suggested, an insulting hint of a smile on her lips.

‘Nein, danka,’ I retorted., I had been practicing for an hour in front of the bathroom mirror. ‘Zweibel, bitte.’

‘We feel?’

‘Drei.’ She counted three large onions into a paper bag, weighed them and jotted down the price.

‘Anderen?’

That foxed me, so I made a guess. ‘Mohren, bitte, Eine Kilo.’

She packaged up a kilo of carrots, oddly with fluffy greens still attached. Oh well, when in Germany. After that it got smooth, I bought milk, eggs, bread, sugar and butter. I could see that instead of playing dumb the woman was actually helping me, shed held up two bottles of milk and when I looked blank, she raised one and sucked in her cheeks, ‘Dunn,’ then the other, she blew out her cheeks. ‘Dick!’

I laughed in delight. ‘Dick!’ I pointed, full fat, I got it!

Carrying a hessian bag of groceries, I dared the butcher next, Fleisch, meat. Although the butcher subscribed to the English method of dealing with stupid foreigners who did not understand: by repeating himself loudly, we got there and I bought Bratwurst sausage, a small leg of lamb, and a chicken, though I got the impression I had done something not quite right in the chicken, maybe it was not eaten on certain days?

That left beer and water, Mark could get them on his bike, he did not have a trailer, but his luggage rack could mount a folding crate that would hold enough for us.

But before Mark came home the first of the night’s storms approached in a spectacular display of heavenly artillery, I hastily shut up the patio before the Biblical Rain hit, I put out towels and a change of clothes for him, he was going to get very wet on that bike!

I ditched the minging tins of meat, prepared an onion to go with the Bratwurst and cooked and mashed potato and carrot ready to be fried as frittatas next to the onions and sausage.

The second storm was approaching when Mark hauled himself in, as predicted utterly soaked, and looking a bit shocked, I imagined being outside in one of those events could startle even a battle-hardened veteran like Mark. I gestured him to the bathroom and put the frying pan on the heat.

Only after I served up did I realize there was no HP sauce to go with it, oh well. Mark did not complain, he ate with gusto, I waited until he had cleaned his plate before announcing. ‘I want a divorce.’

He looked at me long and hard, perhaps wondering what the punch line was, I looked back, eye to eye. He broke first, got up and cleared the table. ‘I thought, getting away, a new start, would make it okay,’ he said, sounding rather miserable.

‘The place makes no matter,’ I told him. ‘Whatever made us a good married couple in the Navy is working against us now, as civilians. It is over Mark, we both know it, we do not need to make each other miserable for years before we accept it.’

He sat back down, his hair was sticking up everywhere, I handed him a comb. ‘I am sorry,’ he said simply.

Part of me was dismayed he had accepted it so easily, but of course, we had both known, we just had not faced it.

Mark flinched as lightning crashed close by. ‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘We cannot afford to live separately, you know that. I will go back to England once the house is sold, you can stay in this place, or get something smaller, entirely up to you.’

He looked vaguely about. ‘A Flat Mate I suppose, to share the rent.’

One of the girls mentioned on the phone? I wondered. Held my tongue, this was going to be hard enough as it was without us making it acrimonious, I wanted a smooth transition of the house into money, and not gift most of it to lawyers.

‘You have it all planned,’ he stated bitterly.

‘Let’s not do that,’ I chided. ‘This is no one’s fault except the MOD, rewarding service with the dole.’

He nodded, got up, opened up the blind and the door and stepped out onto the balcony, watching the lightning flicker away over the forested hills. Mastering my fear I got up and stood at his back, put a hand to his shoulder. ‘Will you stay?’

He shrugged. ‘What option have I? You know there is nothing for me back in England, shit, not even you now!’

There was nothing I could really say, I suspected that deep down, like me, he felt only relief. I dropped my hand.

‘There is one thing I would ask,’ he said, his chin on his chest.

‘Go on.’

He looked at me. ‘Don’t tell the others, I could not cope with all the fucking sympathy and advice, I will tell them when you have gone.’

‘Alright,’ it was not what I expected, but hardly difficult, it was not as though I was in their social circle.

I went to my make-shift bed early, taking a couple of the cushions as a mattress, I was tired from the lack of sleep last night and tonight was likely to be just as disturbed.

It was no surprise to get a call back from Nuclear Fuels to tell me my job was gone, some HR flunky told me the news, but did brighten it up by saying Mister Black would be happy to supply a reference for me, and he was keeping me on file in case something came up.

I pocketed the floppy with my CV on it and headed back to Darmstadt, hoping to find a library with computer access, we had sold our computer back in England, at a pinch I could just type it up if I could get to a typewriter, I knew Mark’s place was festooned with computers, fax machines, telexes and everything, but I did not want him to deal with it, besides, I needed to update it to cover my work at BNF.

The library did, and it seemed all the staff spoke English and were happy to help, in no time I had updated it and paid to print out a dozen copies, then shown where I could buy wallets to set them in, all ready to post. I had thought to bring the address list so from there went to the post office to buy A4 envelopes, and postage to the UK for each. Job done.

Feeling pleased with myself and gaining confidence I stopped at an outside cafe and ordered coffee, here in town the heat was not nearly so oppressive as it was up in the hills, I lingered over my drink, watching the people go by.

I had nothing to rush back for, so dawdled about, this time following the back streets away from the square, window shopping through arcades and such. I found myself reading notices in a shop called Stellenvermittlung, surely these were job ads? I recognized key words such as Word Perfect and Excel and salary offers. Well, I was wasting my time, I knew English was valued, but it had to go with German of course. As I pulled reluctantly back a mature woman was walking past, heading for the entrance and we almost collided. I stammered profuse apologies and she did to, in German, then suddenly switched.

‘You are English?’

‘Yes, and I am sorry, I was careless.’

The woman stared at me, she was a power dresser and had not spared the Deutsch Marks on clothes or bag.

‘You speak very well,’ she told me. ‘Are you teacher?’

I laughed. ‘No!’

She did not laugh. ‘Do you want to be?’ She asked and gestured to the shop. ‘Come in, please, we can talk in private!’

I rode the bus back to Traisa in a daze, I had two extra copies of my CV I had not posted, there had been three, the other was now on the files at the employment agency in Darmstadt I had just been to. In its place was a neat file that contained my first paying job as a teacher of English to student engineers at a research facility near a place called Pfungstadt, included in the file were instructions how to get there by bus and a summary of what I was to teach.

‘All your students already speak English,’ the power dresser woman had assured me. ‘But some are not good at writing, they need to be taught to write...’ She hunted for the word. ‘Reports.’

‘I am on probation,’ I told Mark as he leafed through the file. ‘Twice a week, I get more if I get good feedback.’

Mark was frowning. I pressed home. ‘I can be your flat mate, help with the rent, this has to be good!’

He handed me the file back. ‘I do not get it, you hate it here, you cannot wait to get back!’

‘Not so!’ I snapped. ‘I am still here am I not? I could have just bolted. It will take months to sell the house and move out the tenants, their lease period just started, at least now I have a chance of contributing, instead of playing house!’

‘Is that it?’ Mark demanded. ‘Is that why you are leaving, because I have work out here and you do not?’

‘Not anymore, sailor!’ I tapped the file to my free hand, outside the thunder boomed, nice touch!

Chapter - 3

Dogging

After a week my hours were extended, but so were my locations, travel was becoming a real issue, apart from the chemical works at Pfungstadt I had two-day time gigs at a teaching hospital near Darmstadt and another night class at a technical college at Ober-Ramstadt.

Mark blinked when I handed over my first week’s earnings, with a promise to double it next week. He handed the money back to me. ‘You keep it, you will need as much as you can get to move back.’

‘It is not up for discussion,’ I told him firmly. ‘We share a place, we share the expenses, as best I can.’

I went to my bedroom, my retreat now. I had already started to re-pack, luckily, I had not thrown away the boxes, mainly as I was using them as shelves. But I had thrown away the bubble wrap, legally, Germany was strict on recycling, or at least the pretence of it, there were one thousand DM fines being handed out based on snap bin inspections. Each household had a set of coloured bins, and community bins were set at the end of every street for stuff like batteries, clothes and what have you.

Mark had sacked me as breakfast maker, since I did not eat it, he declined my offer to make his, not that he ate in the flat, he now rode his bike to the Griesheim hotel and joined his comrades for breakfast there, choice of filled omelettes and a modest continental selection. He was usually gone before I stirred. I spent the mornings preparing my lessons, not easy as I did not have a computer, but all the course work was done on one, each student sat at a desk equipped with an Olivetti or IBM machine and printed out their efforts for me to mark.

Weekends were awkward for us, Mark made it easier by resuming joining his mates on their power pedal through the Odenwald and no longer bringing them all back, I had no idea how he explained that, maybe the subject never came up. Saturday night he bunked with them at the hotel again, but on Sunday even the hotel closed its bar and he pedalled back to the flat late afternoon with a crate of beer strapped to the back of his bike, presumably bought with forethought the previous day.

He was usually gone when I roused. Work or drinks with the lads kept him out most nights until dark.

But that evening Mike was at the flat already when I got home, watching cartoons and drinking beer from the bottle. ‘You are home early!’ I greeted him. ‘No rockets blasting off?’

He tipped the bottle at me in a sort of salute. ‘I had a lift,’ he told me, stood up and sat the bottle down. ‘Come see!’

Each flat had an allocated parking spot, around the back near the crane, a white, a Mitsubishi Colt, left-hand drive, a sort of mini-Cortina Estate, bed on wheels, hah, okay, single bed on wheels. Mark was holding something up, something that dangled and spun. ‘Your keys.’ When I did not react, he took my wrist held my hand up and dropped the car keys into my palm.

‘What?’ I gasped. ‘What the hell?’ The car looked old, but well cared for. ‘How can we afford a car?’

‘I got my signing on bonus,’ he replied. All the guys were out here as temporary contractors, but the company wanted commitment, anyone agreeing to a two-year term had been offered a 2,000 DM bonus, Mark had explained they had all initially decided to hold off, see how they settled in.

‘I do not know what to say,’ I told him humbly.

‘Say nothing,’ he suggested. ‘The car will get you to your lessons, but it will also make it easier to go shopping, you are now in charge of beer and water by the way.’

‘But what about you?’ I demanded. ‘You could use this to commute to work!’

‘Don’t want it,’ he shrugged. ‘The bike is getting me fit again, no, this is for you.’

I prowled around the car, manual, popped the bonnet, petrol, well maintained, nice clean paintwork, probably about 1600cc, no tax disc but there were odd looking badges on the number plate, I guessed the equivalent. ‘What is its history?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Long, some British guy bought it about ten years ago, got a dose of ex-pat Blues and sold it to another Brit, since then it has changing hands about fifteen times, always for cash, quick sale, I thought it too cheap but apparently it has gained a reputation for being cursed as the owner’s bail back to Blighty, of course with you...’ he shrugged again.

Yah, I was already on my way.

‘I will accept it as a loan,’ I told him. ‘You get it back when I leave.’

‘Whatever.’

I hesitated, then interjected. ‘I will need to insure it, and pay for petrol and stuff, I will have to hold onto some of my wage.’

He pulled the envelope I had given him last week with my cash wages in it, slapped them onto the top of the car. ‘Sorted.’ He started to walk back to the flat, then hesitated, turned back. ‘I want to help you out; I should never have dragged you out here.’

I ran a hand over the car. ‘You never dragged me anywhere Mark, not Portsmouth, not Plymouth, not here, I chose to follow you, I am just sorry it did not work out.’

He looked at me, rather bitterly. ‘You ended up a sailor’s wife without a sailor, not your fault.’

I got into the car, it started sweetly, but changing gear with my right hand felt just plain weird. I slipped the car out of the slot and pulled up next to Mark as he walked away, wound the window down.

‘Going my way, sailor?’

He hesitated, grinned, and climbed in. ‘Sure, just don’t tell my wife!’

An unexpected bonus to my teaching English was my pupils started to teach me German.

It was not intentional, just a fact, most would struggle with a phrase, they would know the words, but not how to put them together, not surprising, sentence construction between the two languages was at best a nodding acquaintance. In resolving these issues, I learned some German, and I found I could ask my students to explain things I was struggling with, they seemed happy to help, perhaps as some sort of payback.

I found an unexpected additional ally in the grocer in the village, I learned to go when things were quiet, then she would teach me, holding up items and naming them, then going back over them in random order, testing me, and starting to construct phrases around them. ‘Potatoes for frying’... ‘Potatoes for mashing.’

The blistering days eased a little, and mercifully the nightly storms faded to grumbling downpours, I was told not to worry, they would be back next year.

When Mark asked me to attend a social I realised I was too much in his debt to refuse. In the Navy a Social is a get together for a part of the crew, say the Petty Officers, attendance is mandatory, I had been swept up into the day I moved into married quarters after our honeymoon.

‘Got two wives coming out,’ he explained. ‘They are keen to meet you, get the low down.’ He hesitated. ‘It would be a favour to me.’

Damn it.

‘Where and when?’

‘Friday, we have a venue booked, it will go on late, but I will make an excuse, you and I will not have to stay long.’

‘No one knows?’ I asked softly.

‘I swear it.’ He was looking at me closely. ‘Just tell them how it is out here from a wife point of view, the language, the... Well, you know, you do not have to persuade them, all they are asking for is some perspective.’

‘I can do that,’ I sighed. ‘But they might not like it, they are Navy wives?’

Mark coughed. ‘Er, no, the other side of the tracks.’

‘Great,’ I sighed.

I made the executive decision to drive us both there by car, giving me a valid excuse not to drink, I was worried I might drown my nerves too much and talk too much.

The place was close to Griesheim, and similar to the working men’s clubs back home, open plan but with a distinctive separated section for private functions, fully catered. It was busy, but we were not the only English people there, I heard a lot of American and Irish accents, the Americans would be army or air force based locally, the Irish I was learning were here in force, but well disguised in the local community, some had apparently been living here for generations. There was some obvious tension between the ex-military and the Irish, but nothing like the open hostility we were used to at home in an Irish Bar.

I was ushered up to the bar and a soda reluctantly pressed into my hands at my insistence, and I found myself face to face with the first of the new wives, Sandra.

My first impression was she was Japanese, she was very short, and her face was pancaked bone white like a Geisha girl, and her hair was gathered up and pinned in place with what looked like chop sticks. She was painfully shy, taking my offered hand timidly and blinking at me whenever I tried to engage her in conversation. I do not recall she spoke at all to me, just to her husband, Brand, a former sergeant in the Signal Corps, a technician, I gathered he and Mark worked closely together.

It was a relief when the second wife joined the gathering, she was about my height, but dressed to impress, with a flowing cocktail dress which I thought was way over the top for the occasion, she had obviously done a full session with the various beauty technicians, hair, nails and makeup. It was hard to judge her age, her husband though was a grey-haired Warrant Officer, a product of the RAF, he was the most senior guy recruited and was acting as the squad manager, the person supposed to be doing the job was back in England sill, laid up by a skiing accident.

‘Janet,’ she announced, grabbing my hand when I was slow to respond to her proffered one, the dress showed broad shoulders and her handshake was painfully tight. Had she not been a service wife I would have guessed she was a masquerading ‘he’, but that just did not happen in the social circles of the armed forces of the United Kingdom. ‘So, you are the one going native, eh?’

It seemed a rude comment and I noticed her voice was a touch deep, steroids? In the Navy some wives became addicted to a fitness regime, anxious to keep the attention of their husbands when they wandered back into port. Yes, I could see her as a swimmer, churning out miles in the marked off lanes of a barracks pool.

Before releasing my hand, she encompassed me with the other arm and firmly steered me out of the epicentre of the gathering to a relatively quiet spot. She sort of lowered her stentorian tone to a loud stage whisper. ‘Is it true you are learning German?’

‘Trying,’ I agreed mournfully.

‘Utter crap!’ She snorted her contempt. ‘They all speak English, even though they pretend they don’t, it is compulsory in school, remember who won the bloody war!’

I was set to laugh, assuming she was joking, but caught the fanatic gleam in her eye, oh good god, she was one of those! I bet she had been a riot on foreign stations. ‘Damn wogs, need a good flogging, the lot of them!’ She delivered a smack to my back which would have ejected my dentures, if I had any.

‘Do you play squash? Of course you do! We will have to get together and work up a sweat, right?’ She smacked me again, on the bum this time, and it stung. ‘Catch you later, Navy!’

I stood stunned, my back and bum smarting. ‘Jolly freaking hockey sticks!’ I whispered fervently.

Okay; on the whole they were a bizarre crowd, Germany was welcome to them.

I was driving down the A5, I had got used to left hand drive fairly quickly, though I did tend to open the driver door instead of putting on the hand brake.

‘That girl, Sandra, I do not think she said a word to anyone all night!’ I commented.

Mark did not reply.

‘And as for that Janet...’

‘I liked her,’ Mark interjected. ‘Very outgoing, Bunny mentioned she is a real organizer.’

‘Yah,’ I dropped it. ‘Look, do you mind if I pull over?’

‘Are you okay?’ He asked anxiously. ‘I could take over.’

I ignored the offer and pulled into a lay-by, more like a rest stop, it was set back from the main road and looped back to it, a parking area the shape of a crescent provided refuge for cars, it was not paved, just layered with pressed down gravel. There were no facilities other than a low toilet block, the only lights leaked through the screening line of trees from the Autobahn.

I parked parallel to the loose line of cars already there, I had wanted to break this news on neutral territory. ‘The house agent called me this morning; the tenants are refusing to pack up.’

‘Get them evicted,’ Mark suggested.

‘Apparently we can’t, they have kids.’

‘We stipulated no kids!’ Mark was outraged. ‘We do not want the place trashed!’

‘It seems our agent has not had his eye on the ball,’ l admitted, it was delicate grounds, he was Mark’s friend, but I had hired him. ‘It will have to go to court, probably about six months.’

‘Ah,’ Mark was just a shadow in the gloom, I could not see the expression on his face. ‘So you are stuck here longer than expected, I wish I could help.’

‘I will live,’ I assured him. ‘The problem I see is us living in the same flat for that long.’

‘I am sure we could be civilised about it,’ he said in the dark.

I was distracted, there seemed to be a lot of people wandering over to the toilet and back, but the cars were not leaving, they all sat silent. A man, I assumed it was a man, it was dark out and he was bundled up, paused, and I am sure he was looking in our car, but then he moved on slowly.

‘We have to formalise things,’ I told him. ‘I think we should agree to formally separate, as a couple, we just become two people who share a flat. All I ask is, don’t rub my nose in it, if you bring someone back, call me so I can get out of the way.’

I could feel his eyes on me. ‘And did you have someone in mind to bring back?’ He demanded.

‘No, I do not!’ I retorted. ‘Look, we need to do the place up, I cannot live in a junk room for months, and when we have it nice you are going to want to bring some of your work pals back again, and - whatever. I just want you to know I am okay with it.

Another man was bending, peering in, I was getting alarmed, this was creepy, were they contemplating robbing us?

‘Okay,’ Mark sighed. ‘It seems reasonable, sensible almost.’

‘Practical,’ I corrected. ‘And with the place furnished you will have no problem renting it out to a flat mate. What the hell?’ A man had placed his hand against the rear window to form a light shield her could peer under.

‘Just doggers.’ Mark seemed amused at my alarm.

‘Dog what-ers?’ I demanded.

‘You know, people out walking their dogs.’

I breathed to calm myself. ‘Yeah, there are a lot of dogs out there, the barking is deafening!’

‘C’mon,’ Mark said. ‘I will show you!’ To my horror he opened his door, the courtesy light washed away the dark inside of the car and I felt incredibly exposed. Mark shut the door and darkness came back, but now I was night-blind, I did not see him until he opened my door and exposed me double, and insisted I get out.

The ground was rough, lucky my heels were not that high. It was cold and I had not brought a coat, but not freezing. Mark offered his arm, I took it, wary of stepping into a hole in the gloom. We walked slowly along the loop of road with the line of cars on our left, several men were walking toward us, and I squeezed Mark’s arm in alarm but he was not concerned, there were muted ‘Guten Abends’ as we passed them and I caught some odd looks my way in the poor light.

We reached the end of the line of cars and turned around, I was alarmed to see the men who had passed us gathered about our car, appearing to be examining it. Mark waited as I fidgeted, then led the way slowly back, but as we reached the first car in the park he guided me off the road up toward it. The car was dark with no sign of life, Mark took us up to the back window on the driver’s side and stopped.

I waited, nothing happened. ‘What?’

He bent to put his mouth to my ear and whispered, ‘listen!’

I did, I heard the dull roar of the Autobahn, near midnight but still busy, a chirping from some sort of insects in the gothic forest, my breathing. No, not my breathing. I strained my eyes but could see nothing inside the car, the windows were like black glass. The breathing was coming from in there, and it was heavy, fast. Concentrating I caught little squeaks, from the suspension perhaps, of the seat springs. I felt myself blushing. If the car is a rocking…

‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘Come away before they see us!’

Mark did not move and held me in place. ‘They know we are here,’ he told me calmly, but in a low tone. ‘That is why they are here, there are other rest areas, well lit, these dark ones attract those who want to be watched, and the watchers,’ he added.

That made no sense. ‘But it is too dark to see anything!’ I pointed out.

He was amused. ‘These are shy, first time maybe.’ He nodded over to the next car, a few yards away, by comparison it was a Christmas tree of illumination, the side lights were on, the taillights throwing out a fan of red light, and the inside was bright with a cluster of burning courtesy lights. One of the little crowds I had noted was circled about the car, but now I could see they were crouching slightly, peering into the car.

‘That is sick!’ I exclaimed.

Mark started walking, leading me, at first I thought he would try to get me to join the circle, well not without a fight! But he veered back onto the road, skirting the cars, now I knew what to look for I noted the differences, some cars had light on the outside, but not in, but many had courtesy lights on and these all had an audience.

‘What is with the side lights?’ I whispered.

‘A signal to come watch,’ he explained. ‘Sometimes they tap on the brakes on the brake lights, so they flash, same thing.’

‘But if they want to be watched why leave the courtesy light off?’ I was baffled.

‘Don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But if you look some are parked so that the lights of the road shine in through the windscreen, others pick shady spots, I suppose it is down to the degree they are comfortable showing.’

‘How do you know this stuff?’ I demanded

‘How do you not?’ He countered. ‘You think this is unique to Germany?’

I digested this as we walked slowly, then suddenly I stopped and twisted to face him. ‘Back when we were first going out, when we parked up in your car, I thought you did not realise we were sometimes watched, but you did, didn’t you? You even picked the spots you knew these…. These voyeurs hung out in!’

‘Guilty,’ he admitted.

I tried to get furious about it, but could not. Although I did not get this prowling around cars peeking in, I had known we were often watched, and it had been a dark thrill for me, so much I never pointed out to him we had an audience.

We walked on, our car had lost interest, no one around it. I got in and keyed the ignition without starting the engine, set the heaters going, out of habit I touched the pedals, something my dad had drilled into me, clutch should go down, brake does not, accelerator is not jammed with something dropped.

In the safe dark I tried to sort out the confusion of my feelings, part of it was remembering those nights with Mark, when he drove me home from his dad’s pub, leaving early so we could stop over and not make my dad suspicious that we were late.

I took the wheel and flicked on the headlights, literally jumped in shock, the lights glared on men around the bonnet, peering in through the windscreen, instinctively killing the lights I looked around, the car was surrounded with faces, my heart pounded with terror. ‘What do they want?’

Mark’s tone was amused. ‘A show, of course. You flashed your brake lights.’

‘What now?’ I exclaimed in panic. I could not move the car without mowing people down.

‘Turn the ignition off, avoid hitting the brake pedal again and they will go away.’

‘Suppose they don’t?’

He took on that maddening lecturing tone of his. ‘They are not in the business of scaring or hurting you, the police ignore these places because there is never any trouble. These guys know if they start spooking people they will stop coming and the police will.’

Trying to control my breathing I did as he said and we sat in near total darkness, sure enough the disappointed crowd began to disperse, my heart rate returned to near normal, belatedly I hit the central locking. My hands were shaking though when I rested them on the wheel. I breathed again. I started the car and was moving before I put the headlights back on. On the Autobahn we were heading south, the signs were for Kaiser Lautern, Heidelberg and the Rhine. I was back in control, I had had a shock, seeing all those faces like that, perhaps if there had not been so many?

It was like someone had thrown a switch while we parked, the road was virtually empty, I noted a rest area we passed, brightly lit, close to the road, HGVs crouched on it, a cheerful café clearly open. The next one was not visible from the road, just the sign pointing it out, I pulled in, driving carefully, my hands were shaking again, I had not felt this heady mix of fear and excitement for a terribly long time.

Just a half dozen cars, I parked close to the toilet block, it had an exterior light that threw a little light into the car. I killed the engine and lights, then cranked the headlight switch up once, a pale halo of light showed around us, white fading to red behind, the sidelights. I double checked the central locking was still on. then ratchetted my chair back and pulled up the tilt handle until the headrest hit the back seat. Glancing at Mark I was delighted to see I had totally gob smacked him, he was staring at me in confusion. I toed off my shoes and put my feet up on the dash, over the steering wheel.

‘We go when I say,’ I told him.

‘You are in charge,’ he agreed and leaned over, my arms went around his neck and our mouths met, my eyes widened in surprise as he kissed with insistent passion, result!

I turned my head to break the kiss when I needed air, I was breathing heavy. My eyes met those of a face looking in through the driver’s window. I twitched, but did not freak out like before. Mark was kissing at my neck, I pulled his hair to make him ease up, I had observant pupils to teach and did not need the Hickeys he delighted in inflicting. ‘Take my jumper off,’ I whispered.

His hand was cool on my belly as he slipped up the hem of the light sweater, I raised my arms and it was eased over my head with a vicious crackle of static from my hair. I eased up and un-hooked my own bra, ten years we had been married and he still could not handle a bra catch. As it flopped loose, he grabbed it and tossed it into the back, bent down to clamp on one willing nipple and suck it hard into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue.

I turned my head, each of the four side windows framed a watching face, I reached up over Mark and hit the courtesy light switch, the dim light seemed blinding to me but if Mark noticed he made no sign, just concentrated on sending delicious waves through me via the captured nipple. One of his hands slid up between my legs, my skirt was already reduced to a belt at my waist, I lifted my bum as he tugged down my panties.

Mum had taught me to wear two pairs of panties, one under tights, one over them. The first time I let Mark get to first base that arrangement confused him, then amused him. Embarrassed I only wore one pair since, over the tights to keep them from working down.

He got my panties down to my calves, I heel and toed them the rest of the way and they ended up a darker patch on the dark grey dash. I pushed Mark away from me and he pulled back to his seat, looking a bit hurt, I suppose he thought I was about to run for it, but I relaxed on my reclined seat, only fair the patient watchers got a good eyeful, I noted I could not see my own legs, due to the dark tights, I slipped them off with a bit of an effort when they tangled with the wheel, but then lay nude and very pale, with the courtesy light on I could not see out of the car very well, but I caught signs of movement, I had not scared them off with my fat legs. I stroked my breasts and performed the move that had so far blown away every lover I had ever had, I lifted one breast and kinked my head to suck on my own nipples. If I could manage that with my pussy, I would not need a man at all!

I used my other hand to comb through my bush and part the vagina lips, I looked out the windows, I could not see but I knew it would appear that I was looking at my watchers, welcoming them. ‘Get undressed, quickly!’ I told Mark. He did not need to be told twice, after a scramble and the car rocking a bit he sat naked and aroused, I sat up, reached over him to grab the seat handle and sent his seat back slumping down, as he went back with a ‘Whoof’ my mouth enclosed his prick and I gave it the same treatment he had given my nipple: Sucking hard at the head and flicking with my tongue. As soon as I had dampened it I scrambled over onto him, sitting astride, the gear stick poking into one thigh and the manual window crank in the other. Beyond caring I positioned myself, held myself open again and lowered myself down onto his very eager prick.