Gabriella quickly bound the hockey stick and took it into the bathroom with her. The younger girl was breathtakingly beautiful. Her smooth skin was without blemish and her young body already showing the gentle curves of womanhood. Amber stood washing her hair, eyes closed with her arms above her head, Gabriella was hard pressed not to reach out and caress those beautiful young breasts.
“I’ve finished. Good as new!” she said, showing the stick to Amber.
Amber feigned surprise, but was well aware of the woman’s desire. Aroused herself, she allowed the woman to step close.
“Do you want to shower as well?” she asked.
Gabriella could hardly believe her luck.
“If you don’t mind, it will save water,” she said, as nonchalantly as possible.
“I don’t mind,” Amber said.
Gabriella tried to undress slowly, but knew she was rushing it. She stepped into the bath next to the younger girl, knowing that she was breaching trust, confidence and probably the law. She couldn’t help herself.
She took the soap and started rubbing the youngster’s back.
Amber responded to her touch and allowed the woman to soap her back. She then turned and looked at Gabriella, as if daring her to wash the front.
They stood for a moment, Gabriella feeling her heart thumping.
“Shall I do you?” Amber said.
Gabriella smiled and handed over the soap.
She was a striking woman, not voluptuous, as she was too athletic for that, but her firm body was none the less very feminine.
“Women’s bodies are so much more interesting than men’s, don’t you think so, Miss?”
Gabriella could take no more, so she turned and took Amber in her arms, allowing their wet and soapy torsos to meet. They were of a similar height, so their soapy breasts touched, both now aroused and their nipples firm and tingling.
It was like an electrical charge, as Gabriella experienced an orgasm. Never before had she come so quickly. She took Amber’s hand and guided it between her legs, as she gently stroked the younger girl’s golden cleft. Rubbing each other, the two women kissed, the shower forgotten.
Gabriella led Amber out of the bath and laid two towels onto the bed.
“I know this is wrong, but please forgive me,” she said to the girl.
Amber smiled and pulled her on top of her.
Amber was late for her piano lesson.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The affair lasted a year, despite Amber finding out the truth of Matthew’s absence the next time he collected her. She felt silly and rather guilty, but nevertheless, she also relished the control she had over her games mistress.
Amber enjoyed every moment of her lover’s company. There was never any mention of becoming a couple or even the word love.
It was sex, pure and simple from Amber’s perspective, yet she knew that Gabriella had other ideas.
Gabriella, knowing that every taboo in the book was being broken, managed to hide the relationship very well. They met two or three times a week, each time for no longer than half an hour, but always indulging in passionate lovemaking.
Amber learned about both giving pleasure and receiving it. She knew she couldn’t get pregnant, and so would smile as she watched her friends put up with the base and crass fumblings of spotty teenage boys. Charlie was the only one who suspected, but it was so unmentionable that nothing was ever spoken.
In the summer of 1968, just after a particularly passionate half hour, Amber told Gabriella that the relationship should stop.
Gabriella was aghast, as she was hoping things would develop into a long-term relationship. She loved Amber, but had always resisted to urge to actually say so.
“Why?” she asked the girl.
“We both know why. You have your life and I have mine. You want things to become more serious and I am too young for that to happen. Besides, I may want to see more of life than you are prepared to offer.”
The girl was brutally frank, which caused Gabriella to become angry.
“Are you telling me you’ve got a boyfriend?” she said, more bitterly than she intended.
Amber stared at her, her innocent and beautiful face betraying no emotion.
“No, I would never betray someone like that. It’s just I want to be free to choose, as you did.”
Guilt hit Gabriella between the eyes. She burst into tears and hugged the younger girl.
Amber extricated herself from the embrace.
“You’re a teacher. I have exams soon and then, who knows? This can’t go on, we both know it!”
Gabriella nodded, sobbing. She was trying to work out whether to use emotion to blackmail the girl into continuing the relationship. A feeling of despair hit her. This was the end, as things could never return to the way they used to be.
Unaware that Amber was manipulating her, Gabriella kissed her and then watched as the young girl got dressed.
“I do love you, you know?” she told Amber.
“I know.”
“Do you love me?”
Amber paused, looking at her.
“No, Gabriella, I don’t. I respect you and like you, and I am grateful for the time we’ve had together, but I don’t think I love you. The sex was great, and I can never take that away, but love? No, I don’t think so.” She then continued to get dressed.
“What have I done wrong?” Gabriella whined.
Amber smiled a particularly adult smile.
“You mean apart from seducing an underage girl who is supposed to be in your care? Nothing. It’s simply time for me to move on. You should too, as this is no future for you. You’ll only end up making a mistake, getting caught and then sacked in disgrace.”
“My God! How can you be so clinical? Doesn’t what we had mean anything to you?” Gabriella was angry now.
“Yes, it means a lot, but what do you want me to say? I won’t lie, I loved the sex, it was fantastic, but there’s more to life than sex. We have nothing else in common, so there’s no future for us. What do you want from me?”
Put like that, there was nothing Gabriella could say.
“Just like that, then?”
Amber was dressed now, looking so demure and attractive that Gabriella felt a familiar pang of desire for the girl.
“Just like that. You’ll find someone else, but I need to find myself. I’m no one’s property, Gabriella, so allow me the freedom to find my destiny, please?”
Amber walked over to the bed, in which they had experienced so much pleasure over the last year.
“I know this will be hard for you, as we’ll see each other about, so all I can say is thanks and goodbye.” Amber kissed Gabriella for the last time. As she left Gabriella realised that the tables had been turned. Amber was the driving force now, and the woman smiled bitterly as it dawned on her that perhaps this had always been the case. She thought back to that first day. Who seduced whom? She now realised that Amber had been firmly in control throughout.
Term ended without mishap. Amber had taken and passed ten O levels the previous year and had completed her lower sixth year successfully, despite being the youngest in the year.
Charlie and Mike Weedon were now ‘an item’, so as a result Amber felt slightly distant. Most of her friends had encumbered themselves with boys and she felt apart from them as well. When Matthew collected her for her two weeks at Malmsbury Hall, he found a very different Amber.
Gone was the gauche teenager, for in her place was a more confident and worldly young woman who exuded control and competence in her every move and word.
“Hello Matthew, how are you?” she asked, as she opened the door just as he was about to knock.