She Stoops to Conquer

by Priscilla

  

I've found it difficult to pin-point when it started. Our relationship had been good for five years, starting at University where we met, and continuing when we found good jobs in the City. Our employers gave us 'soft' loans, and so we found, and jointly bought, a pleasant little old cottage in the country. Although it needed a lot of work doing, we enjoyed converting it to our style in between the long hours consumed by work and commuting.

Jennie had always been an 'achiever'. She had got a First in business studies, and was soon recognised by the directors of her Merchant Bank as a candidate for high office. While I read the sports pages on our commuter train, she would usually be studying, and every her every spare moment was filled with reading or preparing for another exam. Within two years, she was managing a small team, and revelling in her work.

And me? Well, my degree was fine, considering the amount of work I did. I played rugby twice a week at Uni, and enjoyed the social life. I have a natural aptitude for figures and a logical mind, so my Maths degree came quite easy considering. I did remember having twinges of guilt and compassion for Jennie, as her achievements were the result of hard work and dedication rather than innate ability. Apart from our dating, her only relaxation was playing badminton. Like everything else she did, she was determined to be the best at it, and in the time she gave herself to playing maintained a standard that would have got her into any county team if she had been prepared to give up the study time.

So what had brought us together? Well, she is stunningly attractive, petite, slim, with almost child-like features, pale blue eyes and natural straight blonde hair. She looks Scandinavian, although her parents were very English. She has a matching personality, warm and relaxing, and is quite disarming with newly met people. Unlike many very attractive girls. She has never been a flirt or a 'prick-teaser', using her looks as a weapon.

I remember noticing her on the first day at Uni, when all the 'Freshers' still feeling our way on our first freedom from school, milled around looking shy and embarrassed. Jennie stood out for a number of reasons apart from her looks. She had that confident look of the older students. It all seemed so normal to her.

But what was most striking to me was her dress style. Most students, especially first years, go over the top in casualness (or more accurately scruffiness) and tend to choose clothes that are drab in style and colours. Blue denim or black predominates, and the girls seem determined to hide their gender in what looks like older brother's cast-offs.

Not Jennie. Although she often wears jeans, they are always designer labels that show off her figure to its best. But by choice she wore dresses or skirts, blouses, pretty tops, even occasionally suits. She always had her hair brushed tidily, and her only concession would be occasionally to tie it back in a ponytail, but even then it would be tied with a ribbon. She always wore heels. In warm weather strappy sandals, and in the winter boots. She always looked more like a young office worker than a student.

But on this first day, she was stunning. It was a cold wet late September day, I remember, and the corridors and halls were full of dark coloured shapeless anoraks. I came out of the room occupied by the recruiting officers for the sports societies, having joined the rugby club, when I saw this vision in pale blue. Jennie was wearing a loose jersey dress, gathered at the waist by a wide white belt, with the skirt stopping well above her knees. on her feet were kitten heeled sandals and her finger and toe nails were painted to match the blue dress. She had a deep tan - I later learnt that she had spent the summer working at a summer camp for disabled children - which was so striking with her long blond hair.

If that wasn't enough to make every male drool, the crowning glory was her coat.

Now here I must make my first confession. Ever since I can remember I have had a 'thing' about shiny raincoats, especially plastic and pvc. When I was a kid, 'jelly' jackets and coats were popular, and my mum and sister both had one. I can remember furtively fumbling the coats, loving the feel and smell. All my sister's friends wore them rather as a fashion item than as raincoats, so our home was often full of them. By the time I got to Uni, large loose polyurethane or pvc coats were popular particularly shiny black trenchcoats.

So imagine my joy when I saw that Jennie was wearing a long hooded shiny blue coat, loose and open over her dress. She had obviously just come in from outside as the shoulders glistened with rain droplets.

At that moment I fell in love with her.

I was not very experienced with girls, having spent my teens to then at a boys boarding school. I was rather shy around girls, although I had had a rather platonic fling with a friend of my sisters, who had been one of the jelly jacket crowd. I felt sure that such a doll as Jennie would have lots of older students after her, but in my naivete I felt I could have a chance. Indeed as I stared at her, I was rewarded with a little smile.

Things got better. Next morning, when I was in the bathroom at my digs, I noticed Jennie going past on her way to Uni with the hood of her raincoat up against the rain. She obviously was in digs close by, so I could take the opportunity to meet her again on the way to and from Uni. I was too late that day, but after that I took to getting up early, and waiting for her to go past and then dashing out after her. For a long time, I was too shy to speak to her, but I suspected that she was aware of my interest. I noticed that she seemed to have a lot of friends, mainly boys, and I kept promising myself that I would buck up the courage to ask her out for a date.

Now, I mentioned that I played rugby. From that you may imagine that I am a big muscular macho man. Not. I had always been a fast runner, and so played scrum-half, in those days a position for us smaller in stature. I was just over 10 stone, and 5'8". My dad occasionally teased me about my slight frame; calling me "famine in China". Jennie's circle did seem to have a lot of well built men, full of self confidence.

After a term of my shy dithering, I began to assume I had missed the boat. I saw Jennie very infrequently, as we were on different faculties, and she spent a lot of time studying in the library. She had smiled at me a couple of times when I had held a door open for her, but I hadn't the self-confidence or experience to create an opportunity to talk to her.

At the end of each rugby season, it was the club's practice to have a charity match against the local town side. Players of both sides played in fancy dress, and our captain decided that year we would all dress as 'St. Trinians' schoolgirls. We were all provided with bras, suspender belts, wigs, fishnet stockings short skirts and blouses, and the captain's girlfriend made us up with dark red lipstick and rouge. We looked a parody of schoolgirls, with grossly padded bras and hair in pigtails.

The game was well advertised around town and Uni, and so there was a good crowd on the touchline. The town side were dressed as fisherman, and the game certainly was played for laughs. I spent most of it shivering on the wing, but in the second half the opposition kicked a high ball towards me, while four burly forwards bore down on me shouting war cries. I leapt to catch the ball just as I was clattered by the brutes, fell badly on my shoulder and head, and lost consciousness. When I came round, I was lying on my back surrounded by faces, with my head being held firmly by two hands. I heard a voice say "Peter, don't try to move your head until you are checked over." From the side of my eye I could see the hem of that lovely blue raincoat, and soon I was staring up at her lovely face surrounded by her hood..

Later I learnt that Jennie was on the touchline close to where I was hit, and as she had done First Aid training for her summer camp job, she rushed on to tend me. She knew about serious neck injuries, and so took charge of all the players keen to lift me up.

Fortunately, the damage was not serious; I had only been winded and bruised. I sat on the sideline for a few minutes to get my breath back, and Jennie stayed with me asking searching questions about where I felt pain. When I felt recovered enough, despite her anxieties, I went back on the pitch, and had the pleasure of finishing off the final try of the game.

After showering and changing, both teams headed for the bar, and as I stood getting my order, Jennie stepped into the gap alongside me, and asked me how I felt now. She chatted as if we were old friends, one of her wonderful social skills. She called me Peter, and seemed to know quite a lot about me. I offered her a drink, and we spent the rest of the evening in each others company. We found a common interest in jazz, and before the evening was out, strengthened by the beer I drank, I asked her if she wanted to go to a jazz club with me in the town, and was delighted when she accepted.

She took off her raincoat when we sat down, and draped it over the chair back between us. As we moved about, I got opportunities to feel the blue material without (I assumed) her noticing my interest. When we finally left the bar, I held the mac for her to put on, and as we walked back to our digs together, she seemed to nestle close to me so that the mac rustled against me.

After that, we became best of friends and 'an item'. I was slow at advancing my desires, and I have to admit that Jennie tended to be the leader, although she had a wonderful knack of making it seem like I was the instigator. The Uni did not encourage mixed lodgings then, so sleeping together wsas hardly an option, but we did get into heavy petting sessions in cinemas in winter, and parks and the country in the summer. We never tired of each other, and gradually other men gave up trying to hit on her. We found many common interests, and discovered others together, such as ice skating, classical music and opera.

In our last year at Uni, we started to discuss what we would do when we graduated, and we both liked the idea of working in the City of London where the markets were booming. We both got good placements, Jennie in investment management, and me in a small rival company helping with the administration. Jennie lodged with her aunt, and I shared a bed-sit with a rugby friend. I continued to play for a friendly London club, while Jennie joined a badminton club and played once a week. We met when we could over lunch and made plans to find a place together. After a year, we had both progressed and were being well paid, and so decided to look for a place in the country together. After weekends of driving frantically round the countryside we finally found a derelict old house in its own garden at a price we could not quite afford. A timely inheritance from Jennie's aunt just topped us up enough, and although I didn't like the idea of our contributions being different, we could get the house.

The next year was spent in the joy of DIY, when we repaired, decorated, landscaped, and furnished. Jennie had wonderful flair for design, and although decisions were always agreed between us, I was aware and accepted that most of the ideas were hers.

Our love life was wonderful, and it was as if we were both discovering the pleasures of sex together, neither being the expert. Jennie was naturally more tactile than I, and I learnt the pleasure of stroking and fondling at any time.

Jennie's fashion style changed a bit taking on a rather more formal office look, but still displaying lots of soft colours. She always looked smart to work, using more makeup now, but her inherent taste always dressed and looked perfect, whether formal or casual. I suppose her appearance was more important for her job, as she regularly had meetings with clients. I however never feel comfortable in a suit and tie, and as my work was in 'back office', I took far less interest and care about my appearance. Jennie often tried to encourage me to dress more smartly, but it fell on deaf ears.

Jennie still had her lovely blue raincoat, but had bought another for office work, a ankle length shiny black coat. When she wore it over a dark mini-suit and boots, she got me too excited. I had never admitted my interest, but had encouraged her gently to buy the black mac. I admit to trying them both on occasionally while she was out of the house, and loved their soft feel.

There were two matters of argument between us, neither of them I thought really serious. I am (or was) very untidy, and tended to drop my clothes where I took them off. I also tended to leave tools and papers lying about, to Jennie's mild annoyance.

The other was my hair. At boarding school we had to have our hair cut short, and when I got to Uni I rebelled and grew it long. I mistakenly thought that women were attracted by men with long manes. I had it tidied up (at Jennie's insistence) before my interview, but once I was established in the back office, I let it grow again. I would only have it cut when Jennie teased me into it.

Now if you can see any hint in what I have told you so far of what was to come, then you are better than me. I can say that Jennie's career was going forward much faster than mine, and she clearly had more energy and drive in all aspects of our relationship, although I must stress that this was not an issue between us.

What I am clear of is what was the trigger of what has transpired since. I have had plenty of time to go over every element of our relationship since and I feel sure that Jennie's actions on the fateful day were not spontaneous, but had been planned, or at least contemplated, well before.

So let me set the scene. It was mid February, possibly the lowest time of the year. The days are short, cold and gray, it was Friday morning, we had been working on a task in the house which was not going right. To make matters worse, I was being harassed at work over the annual accounts, the stock market had taken a serious dip, and Jennie had had an unpleasant meeting the day before with a client who blamed her personally and volubly for the drop in his portfolio. We were both tetchy, and for once late for work.

When I came from the shower, I found that I had no underpants. "Darling, where are my clean underpants?" I called to her.

"Where you left them, on the floor."

"Haven't any been washed?"

"If you were tidy like me, then they would have reached the laundry basket."

"You know that untidiness is the lot of the male of the species." Oooops

I reluctantly put on the pair from the day before, and we set off for the station. As we travelled up to town, Jennie seemed rather quiet, with her head deep in a text book. I tried to make conversation, but she was unusually curt. Eventually, I gave up, and read the rugby news.

When we parted, with a token kiss, she said "Darling, please get a haircut during lunch, it is getting really long now".

"Yes, darling" I promised, really meaning to comply.

Friday was the worst day of a rotten week at work. Everyone wanted figures immediately, and at 1.30 I asked one of the secretaries to bring me back a sandwich when she returned from her lunch. I finally got the most urgent off my desk by 6, and headed for the train. I phoned Jennie to tell her I'd be late, and asked her to pick me up at the station.

The evening was cold but dry, so I was surprised that Jennie was in her long black coat. As she stepped out of the car, the coat fell open nearly to her waist and I could see she had on her shortest dress and a new pair of knee boots with very high slender heels.

  

  

  

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