Confessions of a part-time girl

Better than...
6:47 a.m. -- 2008-07-04

After meeting her on a business trip, it was a while before I got to see Victoria again. It was a very delicate situation, building up from the occasional exchange of email banter, to a daily exchange of emails, through occasional use of AOL Instant Messenger, into letters and telephone calls (sporadic, then regular) and finally "how about I come back up to Scotland and see you?"

Getting to know Victoria was good fun. She's very clever, and her letters and e-mails were always entertaining. I tried to reciprocate, without accidentally saying "I love you and I want to be with you forever!" and scaring her off.

So I started going to Scotland a lot. At first, I'd stay in a guest house, and we met up for meals or outings. Later, I was invited to stay at her place. She really was worth every effort, including the long train journey, or even longer drive. Sometimes she came down to my house, too, but the geography of our relationship meant that we only spent about twenty percent of our time together.

"A long distance relationship? Yeah, I reckon a part-time girlfriend suits you best," a friend told me... but if Vicky had been a girl from my town, I'm sure we'd have spent more time together. What my friend was probably thinking was that it suited him - he stood to lose his drinking buddy and mechanic. Although initially, the arrangement suited me as well, to be honest. I was living alone most of the time, so I was free to cross-dress if I wanted to. And (perhaps more importantly) to mail-order anything I wanted. Although of course, Murphy's Law dictates that a package you've been expecting for ten days will eventually arrive when your girlfriend is visiting. (That called for some quick thinking. Oh yes.) Still, I got some nice lingerie.

Isn't that a wonderful word? Lingerie. Rowr.

If I was serious about this girl, what was I going to do about my cross-dressing? Tell her early on, and find out if she's going to be okay with it before we've both invested a lot of emotion in the relationship? Wait until later, in the hope that she'll have learned enough about my positive qualities, so she's prepared to overlook that particular flaw in my nature? Wait indefinitely, maybe never tell her?

I really didn't know, so I decided on a strategy of not telling her yet. I remembered how damned hard Lucy had tried to accommodate the 'other woman' in our relationship, and how it hadn't worked. I was enjoying the weekends I was able to spend with Victoria, so why spoil it?

Meanwhile, the relationship got better and better. And the more I got to know about Victoria, the more I liked her. Sporty but gentle. Well-read, but able to enjoy something daft as well. Equally at home in a posh restaurant, or getting a take-away. Well-off, but not obsessed with money. Alternately silly and sensible. By anybody's standards... quite a catch.

We didn't leap into bed as soon as I returned to Scotland, but when our relationship did take that route, our sex life was good. Nothing unusual; just a very pretty girl with a nice body, who must have been dropped on the head when she was a baby, because for some reason... she wanted to be with me!

This was to become my first lengthy relationship since the five years or so that I'd spent with Lucy, and it was a revelation to experience sex with a girl who genuinely liked sex. She didn't ration it, bargain with it, use it as a reward for good behaviour, or feel guilty about it... she just enjoyed the sensations. I'm sure this isn't uncommon, really, but it was largely outside my experience. I pity Isabel, and her obsession with remaining (technically) a virgin until marriage. I pity Lucy for her view of sex as something that must be used to apply influence within the home.

Passion. Intense mutual attraction; there's nothing else like it.

In fact, I'll tell you how good it was. It was better than knickers.

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