Copyright 2023

Chapter 2

I awoke with a splitting headache and realized I was lying on my bed in Agnes’s flat although I had no recollection of how I got there. The pale dawn light was coming through the window, and I suddenly realised that I was not alone. The man lying beside me, seemed to stir at the same time because he took one look at the dawn light, started and exclaimed:

“Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, what time is it?”

Not waiting for an answer, he scrambled out of bed, stark naked and began to rummage around on the floor for his clothes, all the while muttering to himself what sounded suspiciously like “What am I going to tell the missus?”

I was equally concerned. At first I was relieved to see that although my dress was missing, I was still wearing my underwear, but then a thought occurred to me and reaching down I discovered that my knickers were missing. Further exploration revealed a slight soreness. My heart sank. What had I done, or more to the point, what had he done to me?

I had only fragmentary recollections of the end of the previous night. I recalled being helped into a car or maybe a taxicab, and a man, this man, kissing me, but nothing else.

At this point the young man being now fully clothed, turned to the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea you was a virgin.”

The word ‘was’ struck home to me. Once you stop being a virgin, you can never be one again. I was so shocked that I couldn’t utter a word.

The young man reached in his pocket and put something down on the bedside table.

“Where’s Tom? He should have woken me,” he blurted out.

At this I found my voice. “What’s your name?” I asked as though it was important.

“I’m … Seamus,” he said, and then, “I’ve got to go.” And with that he left the bedroom. I heard him open Agnes’s door and her outraged scream for him to ‘get out!’. Then the front door of the flat slammed and he was gone.

A few minutes later, Agnes knocked softly on the door and came in.

“I’m so sorry, Marie. After all that warning I gave you. I think they must have spiked our drinks because I didn’t have that much. Did he use a rubber?”

“A rubber?” I said, puzzled.

“You know, a Frenchie, a condom. Something on his member?”

“I don’t know!” I wailed. “I don’t know what happened, except I’m sore down there.”

“Oh Jaysus,” murmured Agnes. “If it’s any consolation, not many women become pregnant the first time.”

“Pregnant?” I started to cry. “What will Mammy say? What will my Daddy say?”

“Well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk,” said Agnes. “You’d better just pray that nothing happens.” That sounded a bit heartless, but I suppose she was just being practical.

That event rather spoilt the rest of my holiday. We never did find a condom, although Agnes found one in her bedroom, so we had to assume ‘Seamus’ didn’t use one. I found a small pile of loose change amounting to about five shillings on my bedside table, but that was small compensation for what had been done to me.

It was now Sunday and I thought I should go to Mass, but I wouldn’t dare have Communion because what I had done was almost certainly a mortal sin even though it was without my permission. Agnes said that she didn’t go to Mass anymore, but she’d go along to keep me company. We both had a quick bath, dressed and went to St Patrick’s cathedral. At least as a big church there were plenty of people there and nobody was likely to spot us as visitors. This was the time when the priest had his back to the congregation and it was all said in Latin. I prayed and prayed that I would be forgiven for my stupidity and that nothing bad would come of it. There was nothing else I could do.

Anyone reading this might wonder why I didn’t report it to the Garda*. There were several reasons against it. For a start I only knew the man’s name, if it fact it was his real name which seemed doubtful. The more important reason was that I was afraid that as a young unmarried woman, the Garda might inform my parents, and that was the last thing I wanted. I knew not to expect any sympathy from Daddy, in fact most likely he would say I was entirely to blame, just by going to the public house. No, my best option was to pray and hope for the best.

The rest of the day we spent quietly. I was taking the return omnibus back to Kilcarnie on Monday. I washed and dried my new underwear apart from the silk stockings I’d worn on Saturday night and which were irreparably laddered, and packed both sets away in the little suitcase that Agnes loaned me. I left my beautiful dresses hanging in her wardrobe and wondered when I might get a chance to wear any of my new clothes again. Then I put on my nightdress and laid out my old clothes which I would be wearing to return home on Monday.

During the return trip, my mind was whirling with all that had happened during my week in Dublin. Most of it had been wonderful, apart from Saturday night. I had made sure I was taking back two shillings which would make it look as if I had been very careful with the money that Daddy had given me. I couldn’t disguise my new haircut of course but apart from that I looked exactly as I had done when I left Kilcarnie a week earlier.

When I arrived home, Daddy was out in the fields working and Mammy greeted me by telling me I was looking well, asked if I had a good time, and what had I done with my hair?

“I got it cut, Mammy. It’s the latest fashion. I looked so out of place with long hair and anyway it will be easier to manage.”

When Daddy came home from work, he asked the same question about my hair and when I explained that it would be easier to manage, all he did was grunt. I felt very relieved.

“What did you do with the rest of the money I gave you?” he asked.

“I had to give some to Agnes for the cost of me staying with her, and there was some for the collection plate. I did come back with two shillings. Would you like it back?”

“No. you keep it. I’m glad you didn’t fritter away the rest,” he said. If only he knew, but I was very glad he didn’t.

Life returned to dull, boring normal, at least I thought it did. My first inclination that something was wrong was when I missed my ‘monthlies’. Normally I was regular as clockwork. I prayed that it was just a hiccup as had happened once before, but when I missed the second time, I realized that the worst must have happened and that sooner or later I would have to face Mammy and worse still, Daddy and confess. I couldn’t possibly hope for Daddy to be understanding.

As it turned out, my body made the decision for me. One morning when I was helping Mammy in the kitchen, I started to bleed, and it wasn’t like a monthly bleed, blood seemed to be gushing out of me.

“Oh Mammy!” I gasped and started to cry. She of course immediately knew what was happening. She got me to lay down on the stone flags of the kitchen and to hold a towel between my legs in an effort to staunch the flow. Then she scribbled a note to the village doctor, and sent one of the children to run down and deliver it. while all the other children were sent outside to play after being told that I had had an accident and hurt myself. Fortunately, the doctor was at home conducting his surgery, but he immediately realised that it was an emergency, and drove up to the farm in his car, the only one in the village, with young Padraic sitting in the front seat beside him, enjoying the thrill of a car ride and having no idea of what was happening back at the farm.

The doctor examined me and what had left my body. Thank goodness, the bleeding was now easing. I heard him tell Mammy that I had lost the baby. It did not seem to occur to him that I wasn’t married, or maybe he preferred not to get involved. Many of the poorer villagers couldn’t afford the price of a gold ring, so the absence of one on my finger did not indicate my status. Now that I would not soak the mattress with blood, he helped Mammy take me up to my bedroom, and put me to bed on a waterproof sheet. I was very pale with all the blood I had lost and Dr Rose told Mammy that I must stay in bed for some days, and to give me some broth when I was up to sipping it.

I lay in the bed for four days, gradually improving. I was in a constant state of anxiety that Daddy would come to see me. I knew that Mammy could not keep what had happened as a secret from him. Whatever his reaction would be I knew it would not be a pleasant experience for me.

On the fifth day, there was a peremptory knock on the door. I knew who it was and I began to tremble. Daddy entered the room and stood there looking at me for several minutes. Finally, he said “Well?”

I began to cry. “Oh Daddy, I am so sorry; it wasn’t my fault, well not totally, he got me drunk and drugged and I didn’t know what happened.”

I don’t think he even heard me. “Well it seems you are a whore and have brought disgrace to the family. You are no longer my daughter. The omnibus goes to Dublin on Monday. Buy a one-way ticket and don’t ever come back. I will give you five shillings and after that you will have to fend for yourself. As a whore I’m sure you will manage.”

I begged and pleaded but it seemed that he had shut his ears to me because he turned on his heel and left the bedroom without another word. I cautiously eased my way out of bed, but when I stood, my legs were like jelly and I had to sit down again. Lying back on the bed I had time to think. Agnes was my only hope. I decided to write a letter to her and ask Mammy to get one of the children to take it to the post office. I wrote as follows:

Dear Agnes,

The worst has happened. There was a baby but I lost it and nearly bled to death. Daddy calls me a whore and is throwing me out. I have nobody else to turn to so can you PLEASE give me shelter for a few days until I get a job and can find myself a room? I will telephone you on Friday but please be careful what you say as Mrs O’Flaherty at the Post Office sometimes listens in.

Your cousin, Marie.

On Friday, I walked to the Post Office since it contained the only telephone in the village apart from Dr Rose’s. Usually the walk took me around half an hour, but I was still very weak and it took over an hour with several pauses to regain my strength. I paid for the phone call and spoke to the exchange giving them Agnes’s work number. Thank goodness the response from Agnes was positive. Perhaps she felt partly responsible for what had happened?

“I’m so glad you can visit with me again,” she said. “I will be at work but Mr Bates will give me an hour off to meet the bus when you arrive. I hope you can stay longer this time.”

Mrs O’Flaherty wouldn’t make anything of that if she was listening. Walking back, which is largely uphill took me nearly two hours, and I was totally exhausted by the time I reached the farm. I told Mammy what I was going to do. I felt so sorry for her; I helped her so much with the house and younger children and now she would have to manage on her own, but she did not speak unkindly to me. It was I who felt so guilty. I explained to her what had happened and at least she knew that it was not entirely my fault. I’m sure she had tried to get Daddy to change his mind, but rural Ireland was, and to an extent is a patriarchal society and his word was law. In his eyes, public houses were dens of iniquity and the fault was mine by entering one. We agreed that the children would be told that I was going to visit Aunty Agnes again, but not that I would not be coming back. In due course they would realise that for themselves.

I did not dare go to church on Sunday for fear of what Daddy might say. As far as he was concerned I was a ‘fallen woman’ and ‘damaged goods’ and had no right to enter God’s house. On Monday morning, Daddy having already gone out to the fields without saying goodbye, Mammy gave me the five shillings Daddy had promised, plus another three shillings she had saved. That meant I had about ten shillings, or more like nine after paying the onmnibus fare. We had a final hug and both shed many tears, I promised to send her money back as soon as I was able, although I had no idea what I would do for a job.

“I don’t care about the money, Marie,” she said. “Despite what Daddy says, you are still my daughter and a good girl, and I will always love you. Please write to me and tell me how you are faring.”

“I will Mammy, every week, I promise,” I replied. We hugged again and more tears were shed on both sides. Then I took the little battered suitcase containing all my worldly goods, left the farmhouse for what I expected was the last time, and walked down to the village. As the omnibus lurched into gear and started to roll down the main street, I gazed out at the village where I was born for what I thought must be the last time ever, and more tears filled my eyes. What was I to do? I had no training for a career like Agnes; my only means of employment would be as a cleaner or some other menial work, not much different to what I had been doing at home for eighteen years.

As the bus travelled through the hedge-lined fields and the small villages, I dozed, since I was still rather weak, and then a thought came to me, and surprisingly it was Daddy’s remarks that make me think of it. He had called me a whore. Well, I was said to be pretty and I knew I had a good figure. No man would be interested in marrying ‘damaged goods’, and I no longer had anything to lose, so why not become a whore? Not a street walker of course. I had seen them on street corners in Dublin and asked Agnes what they were doing and she told me.

“Isn’t that dangerous work, Agnes?” I asked and she agreed that it was but said they saved money by not working in a ‘bawdy house’ as they were called. Agnes mentioned that she had heard somewhere that there was a superior form of woman who provided company for rich men who wanted it while they were in a strange town and away from their wives. Why could I not do that? But first, I needed to know exactly what these men expected for their money, and I suddenly realized that I knew exactly where to find out. As for it being a mortal sin, well the Church and religion had turned their backs on an innocent girl’s prayers and supplications, so I would turn my back on them. I smiled to myself – the omnibus was taking me away from my old life and into a new life and a better life.

To be continued.

*Garda is the Irish police force.

Copyright 2023

Chapter 3

I was smart enough to know that becoming a high-class whore was not something I could go straight into. I needed money to buy good clothes to present well, and I needed to know how to pleasure men. A thought came to me. While I was in the dressing room with the girls at the film studio, I overheard two of them talking. It seemed that in addition to the ‘glamour’ films for gentlemen’s clubs, one evening a week, the studio shot far more explicit films to sell, for which they paid the girls a lot more money. Now that I had no virginity to preserve, why shouldn’t I see if I could get work making these films? I would learn how to please men and even get paid for it. I decided not to say anything to Agnes in case it came to nothing, but it was certainly worth trying.

As promised, Agnes met me at the bus stop. “I have to go back to work,” she said. “Would you mind if I give you the key to the flat and you can go there and settle in?” I readily agreed since this suited me perfectly.

Once at the flat, I ran a bath and cast my ‘country clothes’ aside, dressing in my city clothes, and attending to my hair and makeup. I’d had no idea I would be back in Dublin so soon. Fortunately, I remembered how to get to Ace Film studios, so I walked there, hesitated for a second and then knocked three times on the door, hoping against hope that someone would answer it.

The shutter opened and the same face I saw on the previous occasion appeared.

“Good afternoon, would Mr Matthews be in?” I enquired politely.

“Who wants to know?” was the abrupt response.

“My name is Marie Maguire. Mr Matthews may remember that I stepped in when he was short of a girl for one of the films a few months ago,” I replied.

“Wait here,” he said abruptly, and the shutter was closed. I waited for about five minutes, feeling increasingly nervous. I was on the point of walking away when the door opened and he motioned me in.

I stepped inside and followed him down a corridor until he stopped at a door and knocked. Responding to the invitation, I opened the door and went inside. Mr Matthews was sitting at a desk. There were some film cans on it and a lot of paperwork.

“Miss Maguire? Yes, I remember, you stepping in when Gloria was unavailable. Please take a seat. How can I help you?”

There was a chair facing the desk, and I sat on it, letting my skirt ride up slightly, crossing my legs and letting him have a good view at my stockinged lower leg. Looking back, my actions were more than a little obvious.

“I’m back in Dublin and looking for work, Mr Matthews. My family and I had a disagreement and as a result, I have left home.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said politely.

“To be honest, I’m not,” I replied. “I had no future there and I feel I have a future here. If there are any vacancies available, I would like to make some more films with your company. I also heard that there are more intimate films made one night a week, and I would like to be considered for those too.”

Mr Matthews put down his pen and looked at me. “I expect that you’ve heard that we pay more to the cast for those films?” he said.

“That would indeed be useful in my present position,” I replied.

“I hope you understand that in most of those films the cast are naked and that genuine sex takes place. Are you happy with that?”

“So long as the man wears a condom, I am fine with it,” I replied.

“It requires some acting skills too. The women are always expected to have an orgasm, whether they really do or not. Of course the films are still silent, but there is talk of sound films – ‘talkies’ – and I want to be the first outside Hollywood to make them.”

“That would be a great step forward,” I replied. “The films would be even more entertaining then.”

“I like the sound of you, Miss Maguire. You sound genuinely interested in the film-making progress."

“Perhaps one day when I’m too old to act, I can direct films,” I said.

He smiled. I don’t know if he thought it was possible.

“As it happens, I do have a vacancy for a cast member this week. Are you experienced in having sex with a woman?”

“Oh yes!” I replied. It wasn’t true of course but after what I proposed doing, what was a little lie? I’m sure the other woman could tell me what do to.

Very well,” he said. “Be here at six o’clock on Thursday. We’ll provide the costume but most of the action takes place naked.”

“I hate to be mercenary, but might I enquire what the pay will be?” I asked.

“Ten pounds per film,” he replied.

Now I was greatly daring, but what the heck? He could only say no.

“Mr Matthews, as I explained, I am in a somewhat precarious position financially although I will be staying with my cousin Agnes. Would there be any chance of advancing me one pound, and the balance on the night we make the film?”

He laughed. “Well you have self-confidence. I like that in a woman.” He opened a desk drawer and produced a pound which I took and thanked him.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Just be sure to turn up on the night. After all, I know where Agnes lives.” He said it with a smile but I decided I would not want to get on the wrong side of him.

“You can count on me,” I replied, picked up my bag and left the office.

When Agnes arrived home from the office, I was busy cooking a simple tea, wearing my old dress to avoid getting any marks on my new one.

‘That smells good,” said Agnes, and I could see that she was pleased. “What have you been doing today?”

“I’ve been getting myself a job,” I replied, and went on to tell her what I had done.

“My goodness, you do surprise me,” she said.

‘This is the new Marie,” I said. “I’ve left the old one behind and she will never return. No more worrying about sins and what the Church might think. I am mistress of my own future and I will do whatever I like.”

“This film you are going to make. I presume you have no actual experience of what sex with another girl is like?”

“None at all, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I would never have got the job. I’m sure the other girl will let me know what needs to be done.” Agnes nodded.

We spent a quiet evening. Agnes had some books, something I had never seen at the farm. I had learned to read and write at school, so I took the opportunity to get some reading practice.

After a long day, and still not feeling one hundred percent, I retired early. As I lay there in the darkness, mulling over the day’s events, there was a light tap on the door. Agnes came in and stood at the foot of the bed. She seemed a little nervous, and I could see that she was breathing fast.

“I don’t suppose you would like a little company?” she said. Up to that moment I had no idea about her preferences, but I smiled as I pulled aside the coverlet as an invitation. Agnes smiled too and reaching down pulled the night dress over her head. She stood there naked for a moment in a shaft of moonlight, her skin alabaster white. Only her hair and the crisp triangle at her groin were dark. Then she stepped forward and got into bed next to me. I turned to her with what I’m sure was an inquiring look on my face, and suddenly we were kissing, the first time I had ever kissed a woman in this way. It felt exciting.

“I feel a little over-dressed,” I said, and pulling my nightdress over my head, cast it aside before turning to her again, and we started to kiss with greater intensity.

A woman’s body is very different from that of a man, it is so soft and yielding. A man’s body gives a clear signal when he is aroused, but a woman’s body also sends out its signals; in fact it has three areas of arousal. As we kissed, I felt Agnes’s tongue against my lips and opened my mouth to admit her. Our tongues started to curl about each other’s as our bodies pressed together. I lay on my back as I felt Agnes’s hand on my breast and realized that my nipples had enlarged, and when she started to stroke and gently pinch one, it had become so sensitive that I moaned with pleasure. Soon she had exchanged her hand for her mouth and tongue and the sensations increased. Both my nipples were now hard and Agnes moved her mouth between one and the other as her hand slowly slipped down over my stomach and realizing where it was going, I spread my legs for her. Her fingers began to explore me, and after a few minutes, she whispered “May I kiss you down there?”

My body was already responding to her touch, and I murmured. “Oh yes, please.”

It’s often said that we never forget the first time we do anything important. If it were not so, how can I still remember that night so many years ago?

Agnes was amazing. As she worked her magic, her lips and tongue exploring my most intimate places, my body quivered in response and soon my sighs turned to moans and eventually to cries; this was so new to me and yet so wonderful. The pleasure increased more and more. Every nerve in my body seemed to be on fire, and I gave myself over to the most incredible sensations I had ever experienced. Eventually my body convulsed in a climax and I cried out as the pleasure became so intense it almost felt painful.

Slowly, very slowly, it seemed that I returned to earth from some distant place, and I lay there on the bed for several minutes, panting and my heart racing. When I finally regained the power of speech I whispered to Agnes, who now lay beside me, “What was that?”

Agnes smiled at me, and gently kissed me on the lips. “You’ve just experienced your first orgasm,” she said , “And it’s the most intense feeling a woman can ever have. I am so glad that I was the first one to help you achieve it.”

She encircled me with her arms as I did her, and we kissed again. I realized that I could taste myself on her lips.

“Darling Agnes, that was so wonderful, you were wonderful” I whispered.

“You were wonderful too,” she replied. “Now you know that you don’t need a man to have the most amazing sensations. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sex with men too, but sex with a woman is so special;”

“Very special,” I said.

Agnes smiled. “It also has two advantages; you can’t get pregnant and it’s not illegal, supposedly because when the government made sex between men illegal, they couldn’t find the words to explain female with female sex to Queen Victoria, so it never became part of the Act.”

Shortly afterwards I drifted off to sleep and happy dreams, and when I awoke, the bed was empty. A few moments later, Agnes appeared, fully dressed.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said, smiling.

“Oh goodness, I must have been tired,” I said, and blushed as she gave me a knowing smile.

“You need to rest, today. You’ve had a couple of busy days,” she said. “Well, I’m off to work. I’ll see you this evening. There’s some food in the cupboard.”

After she had left, I slid out of bed and walked into her bedroom to examine my naked body in her full-length mirror. What a night it had been. I didn’t really expect anything so good when I met the young woman with whom I was to act for the film, but at least I was experienced now, and what I had told Mr Matthews was no longer a lie.

I had mentioned to Agnes that I should write to Mammy to tell her I had arrived safely. She pointed to a writing desk in the corner of the room and told me to use the paper and pens any time I like, so I sat down and composed a short note which went something like this:

Dear Mammy,
I have arrived safely in Dublin. Agnes is very kind and says that I can stay as long as I like. I am taking a couple of days to rest and then I will be looking for a job. I will write again soon. Give my love to everyone,
Love,
Marie

There is no postal delivery in Kilcarnie, so I knew that Mammy would check at the post office each time she went into the village, and hoped she would receive my letter soon. This may be unfair, but I did not trust Mrs O’Flaherty not to steam letters open, so I was careful what I wrote.
I dressed in my new ‘day dress’ to walk down to the post office to send my letter, but once I returned to the flat, I put on my old dress and set about cleaning and dusting the flat – the least I could do for Agnes. Then I checked out the food in the cupboard. This was a time before refrigeration in houses, the best that could be done was to have an ice box, or better still, cook such things as meat on the day that they were bought.

Vegetables are much longer lasting than meat, so I was pleased to find the makings for Colcannon, a traditional Irish dish which means 'white-headed cabbage'. Late in the afternoon I started to boil and mash the potatoes and then mix them with butter, milk, and boiled cabbage. It was a dish that we had had many times back in Kilcarnie, so I hoped that Agnes would not consider it too rural. To my great relief, when she arrived home, she noticed immediately the work I had done on the flat and also exclaimed ‘Colcannon! My favourite!”

We enjoyed a great meal together and then after washing the dishes, had a quiet evening reading some of the books that Agnes had acquired. She had several by Miss Jane Austen, a famous author from the nineteenth century whom I had heard of but had never had access to. I started on what is apparently her most famous novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and was soon engrossed in the story.
When it came time for bed, I felt nervous. I was hoping that perhaps Agnes might join me in bed again but it wasn’t something I could ask of her. When she said nothing, I reluctantly went to bed, but imagine my surprise and delight when she entered my room again.

The great thing about sex is the more often you do it the better you become at it. This time it was my turn to give her pleasure and I was so pleased that her responses made it clear that I was a good student and had remembered what I should do from her example. It is such a delight to bring another woman to orgasm that I had one myself, not as intense as the previous night, but still very enjoyable.

Now that I was developing a genuine relationship with Agnes, I wondered how she would feel about me making explicit films, so I decided to broach the subject with her.

“I don’t mind at all, so long as you don’t fall in love with your fellow actors! After all you need to get a job and with your pretty face and gorgeous body, which I can vouch for, (this made me blush) you are definitely suited for the film business.”

I was greatly relieved at her response. There was certainly no risk of me falling in love with another woman, or a man for that matter, especially after my experiences with Agnes.

To be continued

Copyright 2023

Chapter 4

Thursday arrived and I presented myself at the studio ten minutes early, hoping to make a good impression. I was let in without hesitation and walked down the corridor to the wardrobe mistress’s room. There I saw a very pretty young woman who smiled at me and said: “Hello, I’m Fiona. I’ll be your partner in tonight’s shoot.”

“Hello Fiona,” I replied. “I’m Marie; It’s nice to meet you.” It almost sounded as if we were going on a shopping trip together, not writhing around naked on a bed while our every move was captured on celluloid.

Mary, the wardrobe mistress handed us our clothing, underwear, stockings and shoes. She didn’t ask my sizes – I think she had a great memory. We walked to the dressing room and began to strip off. Fiona said to me, “Have you had sex with a woman before?”

“Yes, but only twice with the woman I share a flat with,” I replied, thinking I might as well be honest.

“It’s great with a woman, isn’t it?” she said and I had to agree with her.

“What about sex with a man?” I asked.

“Ugh!. I only did it once – it’s nothing like as good as with a woman. What about you?”

I wished I hadn’t brought up that line of conversation but I replied: “Yes, once for me too. It didn’t end well.”

“You poor darling,” said Fiona. She didn’t ask in what way it had ended badly, and I didn’t go into details.

We had been chatting as we undressed and now we were completely naked. Strangely, I didn’t feel at all embarrassed.

Fiona looked over my body admiringly. “You have such a hot body, I just know we are going to have fun,” she said. “The last girl I was with had said she was experienced but she wasn’t and I had to keep whispering instructions to her. It didn’t make for a good shoot and Mr Matthews was furious. We won’t be seeing her again.”

I said nothing but I was so relieved that Agnes had come to my bed when she did.

As we started to dress in our pretty lacy underwear, Fiona said “Make sure your knickers are over your suspenders so I can remove them easily. I might just use my teeth!” We both laughed. Fiona had been given black underwear and I had pink; I didn’t know whether there was any significance in that.

“It looks like I am going to be the dominant one and you the novice,” she said with a laugh. At least I was not a total novice, I just had to pretend I was.

We finished dressing, each in an elegant frock and Fiona in five-inch heels and me in three inches. As we walked to the studio, Fiona said “Remember not to look at the camera – in fact ignore them. They’ve got a job to do and they’ve seen it all before. They just have to capture the action and especially get closeups, so be aware they may move the cameras around on their dollies to get a better angle. This isn’t the sort of shoot where you can start and stop the action. O’Brien is basically there to make sure nothing goes wrong, but I’m sure it won’t.

When we arrived in the studio, Mr O’Brien was waiting for us. He gave a wolf-whistle.

“Very nice, ladies,” he said, and we acknowledged his compliment with a mocking curtsey.. “Here is today’s story outline: you, Fiona are the experienced one and you Marie will be the inexperienced girl, at least at the start. You walk into the first studio and sit on the chaise-longue. You look a little nervous, Marie as Fiona edges up to you and when she first attempts to kiss you, you back off, but she persuades you and finally you start to kiss, cautiously at first and then with increasing passion. Fiona caresses your breasts through your dress, and then persuades you to lie back and she runs her hand up under your skirt as you respond with increasing passion. Then she takes your hand and you both stand up. She leads you into the second room where the bed is. We cut as you go through the door and move the cameras to start up again in the next room, so you have to stand still for a few minutes so we don’t get a continuity error.” I was taking in all this technical information.

He continued: “After you enter the room which has a bed, Fiona begins to undress you, but leaves your knickers, suspender belt and stockings on. You sit on the bed watching her undress, except she takes her knickers off too. Then she lies on the bed with you and you start to kiss and make love. I’m sure you know how to take it from there.”

We both chorused “Yes Mr O’Brien.” I couldn’t help thinking that we sounded like a pair of schoolgirls speaking to the Headmaster.

The first scene began, when we sat on the chaise-longue and Fiona advanced her lips towards me, I backed away, but she ‘persuaded ‘ me and soon we were kissing. She was an extremely good kisser. She fondled my breasts through my dress, and I felt my nipples harden and become sensitive. Then as I lay back, I felt her hand under my skirt as we kissed. She reached as far as Agnes had. It felt delicious and I arched my thighs to give her more access. She smiled at me and I knew we were going to have a really good time. Fiona then took my hand and we both rose to our feet and walked towards the doorway to the bedroom.

As directed, we froze going through the doorway when Mr O’Brian called ‘Cut!”and carried on walking when the cameras were in their new position and Mr O’Brien called “Action!” Fiona undressed me down to my knickers and stockings and then I sat on the bed watching her undress. She was a great actress and very sensual. I could imagine the ‘gentlemen ‘ in the audience getting ‘stirrings’ as they watched the film.

We lay together on the bed. kissing and caressing, and finally Fiona slipped her hand inside my knickers and started stroking me. I felt myself getting aroused even though it was acting. When, as she said, she moved down to between my legs and removed my knickers with her teeth, I was more than ready for what was to follow. I started moaning, I couldn’t help it, and raising my thighs and spreading my legs to give her more access. When I finally orgasmed, it was quite genuine.

Fiona smiled at me, and said “Now it’s your turn.” The ‘novice’ had now shed her inhibitions and although I was aware of the cameras around me moving into position, I ignored them and set about using all the knowledge I had learned from Agnes. Fiona was soon moaning in response to me exploring her with my lips and tongue, and I felt sure she was really enjoying what I was doing. She was panting as her arousal grew and when she finally achieved an orgasm I was quite sure that hers was genuine too.

When we lay on the bed, breathing hard, and Mr O’Brien called ‘Cut’, I felt thoroughly satisfied. And to think that I was getting paid for enjoying myself! When we slipped off the bed, Fiona kissed me. “That was so hot, darling, I hope we can do it again. If you didn’t already have a girlfriend, I’d be inviting you to my flat for a second round.”

We picked up our dressing gowns and went back to the dressing room where we dressed. Fiona was heading off home, but I had not finished for the night. I had asked Mr Matthews if I could watch some of the man and woman films being shot to get an idea of what was required. The truth of course was that my only experience of sex with a man was when I was unconscious, so I had no idea what Seamus had done, apart from the obvious. I could almost feel sorry for him having the need to render his partner unconscious, since obviously two people enjoying themselves would be much better. When I say ‘almost’, of course I really couldn’t forgive him for what had happened to me.

After I had dressed, I went back to the studio, where a young, handsome and very virile-looking man, and a woman with the largest breasts I had ever seen, were both naked and ready to start their shoot. I took a seat at the back of the studio, out of everyone’s way.

There was no story and no foreplay for this video, it was just plain vigorous sex. When the cameras were rolling, Mr O’Brien called ‘Action’. The woman, I didn’t know her name, sat on the bed and beckoned the man towards her. He was already rampant and seemed to me very large, although I had no experience with other men to compare him against. She took him in hand and fondled him before taking him in her mouth. I must say I sat there transfixed. Was this what men and women normally did, or just in films? When she seemed to swallow the whole of his member, I suddenly felt nervous. Was this expected of every woman? I wasn’t at all sure I could do it.

After she released him, she lay back on the bed and spread her legs, and the man set to work. He soon had his head buried between her legs and while from where I was sitting, I couldn’t see, I imagined he was doing what I had been doing to Fiona and Agnes. Eventually he finished what he was doing, and taking a condom and lubricant, his partner expertly slipped it over his manhood. Then she lay back on the bed, spreading her legs and they came together. She arched her back to receive every inch of him and as his thrusts increased in speed and intensity, her large breasts were bouncing in response. Whether their ‘orgasms’ were genuine or not, I have no idea, but they looked genuine and I suppose that is all that mattered.

I thought to myself, that wouldn’t be too hard to do, apart from swallowing the man, and perhaps it would be quite enjoyable. After ‘Cut’ was called, I thanked Mr O’Brien and left the studio to go back to the flat and Agnes. I confess I was feeling quite aroused after all I had done and seen and could hardly wait to get into bed with her.

After I had finished exciting her and left her gasping, her breasts heaving after her orgasm, she gasped “My! You are quite amazing tonight!”

“I’ve discovered that I really enjoy sex,” I replied, laughing. “By the way, you are still by far the best I’ve ever had.”

She pulled a face. “You’ve only had three and the first one doesn’t count,” she said.

I laughed. “If I ever see Seamus in the street with his wife, I will say hello to him and keep walking. I’d love to be a fly on the wall to hear him try and explain how a strange woman had addressed him by a name that isn’t his, and how he knew me. I’m sure his wife wouldn’t believe whatever story he came up with and it would serve him right.”

Agnes smiled, ‘My, the little country girl is becoming more of a city girl every day.”

Most Saturdays, if we were not working, we would go to the centre of Dublin. In O’Connell Street is the Nelson Pillar, a tall circular stone monument with a statue of him on the top, which I’m told is similar to one in London. For a fee, it was possible to walk up numerous stone steps to an exterior walkway at the top which gave magnificent views of Dublin. Our more frequent destination in O’Connell Street was Clery’s Department Store, a magnificent building which Agnes told me had only recently been built as the original building has been totally destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising. It made me realise that growing up in a country village had the advantage that the troubles which had taken place mainly in Dublin were barely a ripple on the calm pond of our lives.

Now that I was earning a reasonable income, I was gradually building up a wardrobe of pretty clothes. I still acted in the films for the gentlemen’s clubs, sometimes the same ones as Agnes. By wearing a variety of wigs and variations in my makeup, I was able to appear to be quite different in the various films, although I think the gentlemen liked to recognize the same actresses in various productions. We were almost becoming film stars!

It wasn’t long before I had an offer from Mr Matthews to take part in a film with a man. This one had a bit more of a story line, in that the man and I would have been on a date when we returned to his flat and the inevitable happened. Once again I was dressed in sexy lingerie – this time it was black, and so were my stockings – implying that I was very sexy. To my surprise, the man who I was to perform with was the same one I had seen in the movie I had watched being made. His name was Matt, and I already knew that he was very virile and well endowed. This would be very interesting. I did take the precaution of explaining to Mr O’Brien that I had no experience of swallowing a man whole, so it was agreed that this would not be part of the story line. Everything else was fine.

We commenced by walking fully clothed onto the set which basically consisted of a bed, with our arms around each other. Then we turned to each other and started to kiss as our thighs ground against each other. Matt started to unfasten my dress and it slid to the ground, He revealed my breasts and began to kiss and suck on them as I explored his groin where his erection was already growing. From there it wasn’t long before we were undressed – he was completely naked and I kept on my suspender belt and stockings. The action followed the same path as the film I had seen him making, apart from the agreed modification.

A condom was lying on the bedside table, together with a tub of lubricant. Having watched how it was done, I installed it and then lay back on the bed. What a feeling it was when he entered me – he was so big! I gripped him tightly and just let myself enjoy the sensations.

The climax must not come too fast in a film, so we stretched it out as long as we could until finally it ws obvious that neither of us could wait any longer and our orgasms were simultaneous. It seemed very different to my experiences with women but still extremely enjoyable.

We lay there for a moment; in real life it would have been longer, but there was more to come and viewers would want action.. When he slipped off me, I sat up, rolled the condom off him and began to clean him with my tongue which was an equally pleasurable experience for us both. When he finally started to become limp, Mr O’Brien called ‘Cut’

Mike said to me “Thank you Marie, that was fun.” I smiled and replied ‘Thank you Matt, I enjoyed it too.” Then we both took our dressing gowns and returned to our dressing rooms to wash and dress in our own clothes.

When I returned to the flat, Agnes asked how I found it. “It was different but very enjoyable,” I said.

“So now you’ve experienced the best of both worlds,” she said.

I was different to all the other ‘talent’ as the actors are described. As far as they were concerned, the actual process of shooting the films they appeared in was of no interest at all, but I found myself increasingly interested in how the films were made. It started with the cameras. As I was performing, I was sometimes aware out of the corner of my eye of a camera coming in for a close shot, and I had to force myself to keep my attention on the job in hand.

One day, at the conclusion of a shoot, I decided to see if I could learn more about how films are made. There are many advantages in being a pretty girl, as I was assured I was in those days. Men tend to react more positively to the requests of a good-looking female. After I had donned my dressing gown, I asked Mr O’Brien if I could learn how a camera worked and he was happy to accede to my request. It might seem strange that even though the cameramen had recently been viewing my most intimate parts, I felt no embarrassment in going up to see how they operated their cameras.

Paul was just about to change the reel of film which he had been shooting, so he opened the camera, removed the film, taped up the end and place it in a light-tight can, then showed me the interior of the camera and how the film was fed through a pathway including a ‘gate’, situated behind the lens, where it was momentarily stopped, a shutter opened and a picture taken, then it was moved on and another picture taken, actually sixteen times in a second. (This was the camera speed in the days of silent films).

“The film now goes to be developed,” he said and in my ignorance I asked if it was then shown through the projector.

Paul smiled. “The film is developed as a negative, and then a positive print is made from it, just like in still photographs. You will have seen that we use two cameras, so the two positive prints are given to Luke, the film editor, and he cuts out various shots and sticks them together, just like they do in Hollywood.”

“And that’s shown to the audience?” I asked.

“Not quite; the work print as it’s called is shown to Mr Matthews and if he approves, then the camera negatives are cut to match the work print, and spiced together. From the cut negative is made the prints which are shown to an audience.”

“It’s quite a complex process,” I remarked. “But very interesting.”

“We think so,” said Peter.

“Do you think Luke would let me watch him work at the editing?” I asked.

“We can ask him, but he’s always very busy. There’s just hm and he has to edit all the films that we shoot,” said Paul.

They did persuade Luke to give me ten minutes of his time, and when I went to see him, he was quite a young man. He was sitting at a bench with reels of film and a couple of strange instruments in front of him.

“Did Peter and Paul tell you what I do?” he asked.

“Briefly,” I replied. I gave him my hundred watt smile but it didn’t seem to impress him.

“This is a machine called a Moviola; it enables me to run film through it by hand and to see the images actually moving, so I can choose where to cut the film. This one is a splicer which I use to stick shots together. Here, let me show you.”

He took up a piece of film and put it into the Moviola. “Have a look here,” he said, pointing to a little lit up screen. I peered at it and to my surprise it was a still picture of me fellating one of the male actors. I’ve no idea if that was pure chance or if he had chosen it deliberately – I suspect the later.

“Now, pull the film through the machine and you will see the image move.

I did as he said, and he was right – there I was working on the man’s erection. As I sat upright, I knew I was blushing which seemed absurd.

Luke looked at me. “Now if the shot runs for too long, the viewers can get bored, but I have a solution to that. You know that there are two cameras working, and while that guy was being serviced, a shot was taken of his face, showing how much he was enjoying it. So now, I cut the original shot, then join the second shot to it with the splicer, so.” At this point he showed me how he operated the splicer.

“Now I attach the rest of the first shot at the end of the face shot.” He said, and after doing that he gave me the strip of film to view. I was amazed. The addition of the face shot actually made the sequence of fellating, the actor’s face and then more fellating, look more interesting. It also made the sequence seem to run longer than it did.

“So that’s the sort of thing I do, over and over again,” and for the first time he smiled.

“Thank you so much Luke, that was really interesting, but I won’t take up more of your time,” I said, and left him to it.

The next time I saw Peter and Paul, I told them about my visit to Luke.

“He’s brilliant,” I said ”I don’t know why he’s not working for a big studio.”

“Well he did, but he got the sack,” said Peter. “He was caught in a compromising position with a relative of one of the producers.

“And what happened to her?” I asked, and they both laughed.

“Actually, it was the producer’s son he was caught with,” said Paul. “They were in the editing room but doing something very different, when the boy’s father came in and caught them. I’m guessing the son got a slap on the wrist and told to be more careful in future, but Luke wasn’t treated so kindly; he was booted out of the door.”

As they both laughed I realized that they were a queer couple, and maybe that was why they were not working for a major studio. I even wondered if something similar had happened to them? In fact I began to wonder if just about everyone working in the studio had a skeleton or two in their closets. I was certainly no exception.

I haven’t mentioned it, but since I started to earn a reasonable amount of money, besides giving some money to Agnes for my keep, and buying more clothes, I had started to send small amounts of money to Mammy by enclosing a postal order with the letters I sent her every week. I didn’t send too much in case Daddy got to hear about it and suspected that his description of me as a whore was true. Mammy knew I was working but I never mentioned what I did and she probably assumed it was a menial job like cleaning, and that I was too ashamed to tell her. I certainly couldn’t tell her how I really earned my money.

To be continued

Copyright 2023

Chapter 5

Since all the films were shot in the evening, I had time on my hands during the day, and decided that I should do something to fill in the time and also to qualify for another job and earn money in case the film acting came to an abrupt end. I had my plan for the future, but supposing it didn’t work out?

One day, I had cause to visit Agnes at the solicitors’ office where she worked as a typist, and it struck me that I could do worse than become a typist. It was clean work in congenial surroundings and there were around half a dozen young women there, so it was a safe place to work. Of course, I couldn’t type, so the next thing I did was enroll in a typing school. I learned about ‘touch-typing’, which involves using four fingers of each hand to type letters without looking at the keys, while the thumbs press the spacebar.

To my surprise and delight I seemed to have an aptitude for typing. Agnes had an old typewriter at home which she had bought when she did her lessons, so any evening when I was not otherwise engaged, I practiced typing for an hour or more. It did not take too long before I was typing around twenty words a minute, and I gradually worked my way upwards. Agnes had told me that a professional typist needs to have a speed of at least fifty words a minute with more than 90% accuracy, and that despite having a certificate from the typing school, any business where I applied for a job would expect me to pass a test so that they could confirm my speed.

After about four months, I had reached fifty words a minute, and this was on the old manual typewriters which were much slower than the later electric ones since the keys had to be depressed further. As it happened, there was a part-time vacancy at the solicitors’ where Agnes worked and she encouraged me to apply. It would indeed be useful to work at the same place, so I agreed, and I passed my test at a speed of sixty words a minute. I started work the following week and found it every interesting. The salary was not huge but it was a regular income. I could even truthfully tell Mammy what I was doing to earn money, well at least part of it!

I should mention that I had kept up my weekly correspondence with Mammy, together with the postal order, and she occasionally wrote back keeping me up to date with the family's doings. I wondered if Daddy would ever soften his stance and allow me to visit, but it seems he was adamant that I was 'persona non grata', although I doubted if he had ever heard the expression.

Life continued in this way for nearly a year. By now I had saved quite a lot of money and I was buying myself some expensive and pretty lingerie and dresses, all with my future career in mind. I was also studying to make up for my lack of schooling, improving my vocabulary and general knowledge, which was also helped by my ‘day job’. Indeed it was this quest for knowledge that led me to the next stage of my career.

One day, while in the dressing room preparing for another erotic film, I heard two of the other girls chatting and one said to the other "I’m fed up with this, I’d like to join the Agency and make some real money”. She said it in a way which made it sound like ‘Agency’ with a capital ‘A’.

The other girl laughed and said “You’re pretty, Sinead, but I couldn’t see you making it. They only take the very best girls. I’ll tell you someone who could make it,” and she leaned over and whispered in the other girl’s ear. They both giggled and I saw them glance at me. I pretended not to notice.

I realized that this ‘Agency’ was what I was looking for. I still remembered from time to time what my Daddy had called me that terrible time when I was forced from home; namely a 'whore'. He was wrong then, but from that time I was thinking that it would be a great income for a few years – not a streetwalking whore of course, but a high-class companion who only saw the richest of men and was paid accordingly. Yes, I would like that; I had the face and figure and I enjoyed sex. I couldn’t set up on my own, I needed something like this ‘Agency’ where I could be paired up with rich clients. The problem was how did I get in touch with the ‘Agency’? Undoubtedly it would be a very discrete organization, and not listed anywhere, so how was I to find it? I needed to find somebody who knew about it, but who? I thought that Mr Matthews might know, but I could hardly approach him and say that I was thinking of leaving Ace Films. I worried about it but couldn’t find an answer. The suddenly I had the most amazing stroke of luck.

One of the things I did to improve my general knowledge and make me more interesting as a companion, was to attend lectures, and one Friday evening, there was an illustrated talk in the Dublin Library about Impressionist painters. As usual, I dressed up to attend it. I always like to look ‘a million dollars’ as the saying goes. While I was listening to the lecture, I happened to notice out of the corner of my eye, a very handsome man in his early forties sitting some seats along in the same row who was glancing at me. I pretended not to notice. I had taken to wearing a wedding ring to discourage unwanted male attention, but something made me slip it off and put it in my handbag.

There were two speakers and a break for tea and biscuits in between. As I was pouring my cup of tea I was not surprised when the handsome stranger appeared alongside me.

“Are you enjoying the lecture?” he asked. “By the way, my name is Max, and you are?”

“Marie, and yes I’m enjoying it very much,” I replied, and I was. “I find the Impressionists incredibly interesting.”

“I’m staying in Dublin for a couple of days and I have a very interesting book about the Impressionists in my hotel room. I don’t suppose you’d care to see it?” he asked.

‘My, you are a fast worker,’ I thought.

“I’d be very interested to see it,” I replied.

Then the bell rang, and we returned for the second part of the lecture, this time sitting side by side, but Max was smart enough not to make any further moves. After the presentation concluded, we left the library and walked the short distance to Max’s hotel, which turned out to be one of the most expensive in Dublin. He had already told me that he was a businessman and visiting Dublin for a couple of days to attend a business meeting.

I stood back while he obtained his room key from the desk. Most hotels, and especially the more exclusive ones take the attitude that who visits their guests in their rooms is their own business. When we arrived in his room on the fourth floor, I walked over to the window to view the lights of the city. It did not surprise me in the least when Max came up behind me and put his arms around my waist and began to nuzzle my neck. It felt good. I turned around and we began to kiss, our mouths opening and tongues curling around each other’s. Our bodies were pressed together, and I could feel his excitement growing. I pressed my thighs against his to let him know I was enjoying the sensation. He groaned softly.

“Do you have a condom and lubricant?” I asked and was pleased when he nodded. I had my own supply in my handbag of course, but it looks better if a man supplies the necessary items. He took my hand and led me into the bedroom which was lit by a soft bedside lamp. By its light we slowly undressed each other. His eyes widened when he saw my silk lingerie.

“My! You are beautiful,” he said. He was now fully naked, completely erect and big. I sat on the bed in my knickers and stockings and beckoned for him to come closer. He had a condom and a pot of lubricant in his hand and put them on the bedside table as I took him in my hand and began to massage him. Then I leaned forward and kissed the tip of his penis. He closed his eyes and moaned with pleasure. I was too practiced to permit him reach a climax, but at the right moment, I took the condom and expertly rolled it down over his erection, and followed it by some lubricant, although it was hardly needed since I was so ready to receive him.

I lay back on the bed and as he knelt between my legs, I raised my thighs off the bed so that he could remove my knickers. Then he was sliding inside me and it was now my turn to moan with pleasure at the feeling of him filling me. He was as experienced as I was and we enjoyed our mutual sensations as our excitement gradually rose. Eventually, his body shook as he reached a climax with me following almost immediately.

As we lay together on the bed, our breathing and heart beats gradually returning to normal, Max said “You are amazing. Are you sure you don’t do this for a living?”

I smiled. “I knew you would be good from the moment I saw you and I was not disappointed. As for doing this for a living, I will be frank with you. I would be if I could contact a business called ‘The Agency’ which I’m sure would put me in touch with other gentlemen who would appreciate my talents.”

Max started to laugh. “I can scarcely believe this. I normally book a young lady companion from The Agency when I come to Dublin for business trips, but this visit was at short notice, and when I rang them, there were no young ladies available. I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw you, not that I expected to necessarily find myself in the current situation. If you would like to contact them, I can put you in touch with the organizer, Mrs O’Toole, and what is more, give you a very good recommendation.”

“I would appreciate that very much, Max.” I replied, and turning on my side I began to fondle his member, encouraging it to come to life again. He reached across and fondled one of my breasts and the nipple immediately responded to his touch. It became so hard and tender that I gasped at his touch. It was not long before we were locked together once more and enjoying long slow love-making this time.

Eventually, I slipped out of bed and began to dress.

“That was wonderful, Max,” I said. “I hope all the gentlemen who use The Agency are as good.”

“That reminds me,” he said, and slipping out of bed, he went to his wallet and produced fifty pounds.

“No Max, I really can’t take it,” I said. “There was no financial arrangement made before we went to bed.”

“I know that,” he said. “But if I had booked you through the Agency it would have cost me much more. Please take it.”

A girl can’t afford to be too sanctimonious, so I took the money. After all, my intention was to be a high class whore wasn’t it? By the way, I never did get to see that book on the Impressionists that he claimed to have in his room!

I waited until Tuesday before ringing the number Max had given me to get in touch with The Agency. I wanted to give him time to contact them and give me a good reference.

I rang the number on Tuesday afternoon and a voice which suggested a middle-aged woman said “Can I help you?”

“My name is Marie Maguire and I would like to make an appointment to see Mrs O’Toole,” I said.

The response was not what I expected. “Who gave you this number?” was the rather abrupt reaction.

“It was a gentleman called Max, I don’t know his last name. He said he would ring and give me a good reference,” I said, rather put out.

“One moment.” I waited for about two minutes, but it seemed ages until she came back on the line. “Come to see Mrs O’Toole eleven o’clock Thursday morning. Don’t be late.” She gave me the address, and with that I heard the click of the call being disconnected.

I suspected that it was Mrs O’Toole herself who answered the phone, but why was she so abrupt? Was she annoyed that Max had given me the Agency’s number? Was she worried that I was from the Garda trying to catch her out? Well, I would have to wait until Thursday, and I would not be late in case they refused to open the door to me.

Thursday seemed to take forever to come. I had arranged to have the morning off from work, claiming I had a doctor’s appointment. I hated lying but I could hardly say what I was really doing. I told Agnes that I had an appointment to attend but not what it was. The previous day I had selected what to wear, white silk underwear, not that I expected it to be seen but it made me feel good, and my prettiest day dress. I rose early, bathed in mildly scented water, then set about dressing. I paid great attention to my makeup and hair and when I was ready, I checked how I looked in the full-length mirror. “Not bad for a farm girl from Kilcarnie’, I said to myself. ‘If that isn’t good enough for Mrs O’Toole, I don’t know what would be.’

I took a Taximeter cab to the address that I had been given, arriving ten minutes early. I paid to wait in the cab until five minutes to the hour and then walked up to the steps of what appeared more like a mansion than a house, and rang the doorbell. The door was opened by a maid in a black skirt and crisp white apron. I gave my name and was ushered into the house, down a long wide corridor and into a beautifully furnished drawing room.

A woman in her fifties and dressed in an elegant but somewhat old-fashioned way, rose from a chair, her glance sweeping me from head to toe, and said “Miss Maguire I presume, and on time too.”

I smiled. “I heard a saying ‘punctuality is the politeness of princes’, Well, I’m not a prince, nor a princess for that matter, but I do agree with the sentiment.” That raised a smile on Mrs O’Toole’s face. We were off to a good start.

“Please take a seat Miss Maguire. Now how can I help you?”

“I am interested in joining an organization known as ‘The Agency’, and last Friday I met a man called Max who gave me your number and said you might be able to help me,” I said. “He also promised to call you and give me a good reference.”

“Perhaps you would like to tell me a little about yourself?” she said.

“Certainly,” I replied, and gave her a brief resume of how I came to be living in Dublin with my cousin Agnes and also working at Ace Studios making ‘exotic films’. I then described how I had heard of ‘The Agency’ and thought that I might be qualified to join it but did not know how to contact the organization until I met Max at the lecture and he was able to give me the contact details.

“Max seems to have been very impressed with you,” said Mrs O’Toole. “I take it that you have ample experience of intimacy with men during your time at the film studios?”

“And with women too,” I said and Mrs O’Toole raised her eyebrows slightly.

“That could be of value,” she said. “We do not have much call for our young ladies to have intimate contact with women clients, but there is the occasional enquiry and I have not been able to provide such a service to date. I am prepared to give you a three-month trial and if I obtain positive feedback from our clients, then the position can become permanent. Are there any questions you would like to ask?”

I drew a deep breath. “Owing to my past experience, it is non-negotiable for me that men who require intimate contact wear a protective prophylactic.”

“And what would you say if I told you that we do not have that rule?” asked Mrs O’Toole.

“Then I would thank you for seeing me and apologise for wasting your time,” I replied as my heart thudded uncomfortably.

Mrs O’Toole smiled. “I like a young woman who has the courage of her convictions,” she said. “We do in fact have that regulation, and it is non-negotiable.”

I had to stop myself from sighing with relief.

“With us you can expect at least one booking per week, sometimes more. No doubt you would like to know what sort of remuneration you can expect. Every booking has a fee of £30 to cover administration costs, but the minimum charge is £80 for four hours and £20 per hour thereafter, so you can always expect to earn a minimum of £50. The charge is paid to me and then I pay you. In addition, some of our clients will give you a gratuity if they are particularly pleased with your company, and this money is yours to keep.”

I tried my best to not let my feelings show as she outlined these amounts. I had guessed that the income might be quite high, but this was beyond my wildest dreams.

“There is one important condition I must point out; our clients are all wealthy businessmen, or leaders in such fields as politics, the Garda, armed forces or even the Church. They demand absolute confidentiality and that is what we guarantee. Any failure to provide this would lead to instant dismissal. It might also be bad for your health.”

“I understand,” I replied, suppressing a shiver.

“Very well,” she said. “Well I can see you are well dressed; do you mind just taking off your dress for a moment?”

I was a little surprised at her request but I did as she asked. When I stood there in my silk slip with the French lace trim, sheer stockings and high heels, she said “Very nice, I can see you dress well. Would you mind slowly turning around?”

Again I complied; after all, working in Ace Studios I was quite used to being undressed in the company of others, both men and women.

“Yes, my dear, if you dress like that for our clients, I’m sure they will be very pleased.”

I put on my dress again. “I will contact you with your first booking in the next few days. Do you have a telephone or will you phone here on a daily basis to see if there is a booking for you?”

“Yes, we now have a telephone at the flat, or my cousin can relay a message for me, unless you think it is better not to involve anyone else?”

“I think we will telephone you, but if you don’t hear from me in the next few days, then by all means telephone me,” she said, and stood up. The interview was at an end.

That evening at home, Agnes said “You look very pleased with yourself.”

“I have a new job,” I replied “But it is so discrete that I can’t tell you anything about it.”

The fact was that although Agnes was a sweet girl and I loved her dearly, I also knew that she was a terrible gossip and just couldn’t keep a secret.

She pulled a face. “Can’t you give me a hint?”

“I’m sorry, not even a hint,” I replied.

To be continued

Copyright 2023

Chapter 6

Two days later, I was home and received a telephone call from Mrs O’Toole to say that she had a booking for me. She named the client, the hotel and the time I should attend. “I forgot to mention that since you will finish your business late at night, I will send a driver called Jimmy to pick you up from the hotel and take you home,” she said. That seemed like a very good idea.

I told Agnes that I would be out late Friday evening and not to wait up for me. I could see that she was itching to ask again what I was doing, but she managed to restrain herself.

Friday came and I spend most of the afternoon getting ready, with a scented bath, dressing in a set of pretty lingerie, attending to my hair and makeup, and putting on the evening dress I had selected. Agnes came home before I went out.

“I think I can guess what you are going to do,” she said. I smiled mysteriously and said nothing.

A cab took me to the hotel and as instructed, I walked to the hotel desk and gave my name.

“Yes, miss,” said the clerk, “You are requested to go to room -----”, and he explained how to get to it.

I knocked on the door and it was opened by a short man with a moustache and balding head, in his early fifties at a guess. He was wearing a dressing gown and I guessed that he had nothing on underneath it.

I was a little disappointed as I had hoped for some conversation or maybe a light meal at the hotel restaurant, but it seemed that all he required was sex. Oh well, I could oblige him there.

I stepped into the room and he locked the door behind me, so as not to be disturbed. “Undress please” he said.

“How much do you want me to remove?” I asked.

“Everything,” was the reply. He watched me as I took off my clothes and it seemed to me that he was fondling himself under his dressing gown.

When I was naked, he said “Get on the bed please.” Then he slipped off his dressing gown, he was naked as I suspected, and half erect, but there was no sign of a condom.

“Do you have a prophylactic?” I asked him.

“Oh! I forgot it,” he replied, an obvious lie.

“No matter, I have some with me, also lubricant,” I replied and I could see that he was disappointed. If he expected sex without a condom, he was sadly mistaken. I went to my handbag and took out a couple of condoms and a pot of lubricant. Then I sat on the bed and asked him to come closer. I worked on his member until it was stiff and then rolled on a condom and spread on some lubricant.

“How do you want me, on my back?” I asked, and he nodded. I did as he asked, spread my legs and he knelt on the bed between them, found my passage and roughly thrust in. I was not at all impressed, but I thought of the fifty pounds I was to earn, and just let him get on with it.

He thrust away for several minutes and I closed my eyes not wanting to look at him. Then he slowed up and I opened my eyes to see a strange look on his face. His eyes were bulging out of his head and he started gasping. Then to my horror, he just collapsed on me, knocking the breath out of my body. Perhaps there had been some advantage in being brought up on a farm with all the hard physical work, since I was quite strong. I pushed hard at his body and managed to roll him off. He lay on the bed beside me, not moving, his eyes staring unblinking at the ceiling.

For a moment I thought he must have fainted but then I began to realise that it was far more serious. I put my hand on his chest – no movement. I felt for his heart and then the pulse on his wrist – nothing! There was no doubt about it, my first client was dead! Fortunately, I am not an hysterical sort of girl. Mrs O’Toole had given me her private number – ‘in case of emergencies only’, and there was no doubt about it, this was an emergency. There was a problem in that I could not ring her directly even though there was a telephone beside the bed. It only connected with the reception desk and I would have to ask them to connect me. There as nothing else for it, so I picked up the phone.

When Mrs O’Toole answered the telephone, I hoped to goodness that the hotel reception were not listening in but I couldn’t help it if they were.

“Mrs O’Toole, my client’s time has expired,” I said. ”Could you advise me what to do please?” There was a pause of a few seconds before she replied.

“Marie, you must stay calm. The important thing is to remove everything from the room which indicates that there was another person present. If you haven’t done so already, I suggest you dress first. If the client is still wearing a prophylactic, I’m afraid you must remove it, wrap it in paper and put it in your handbag, together with any wrappings and lubricant. Look around for anything else that indicates two people, maybe a bottle of drink and two glasses. Look in his wallet for a paper with the Agency telephone number. It shouldn’t be there but some people are careless. Don’t remove anything else, especially money. I will pay you your fee when I see you. Come in and see me tomorrow around ten o’clock. Now I am going to ring Jimmy to pick you up in ten minutes, outside the front door of the hotel. When you walk down to the foyer, do not hurry. If the clerk is at reception, smile at him but say nothing, and walk straight out of the door. Is that all clear? Come and see me in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, judging it was better not to use her name.

I did everything she asked, although removing the client’s prophylactic was the hardest part, trying not to look at his eyes staring at the ceiling. There was a bottle of whiskey on the table with two glasses. I removed one and returned it to the cupboard. There WAS the Agency’s phone number in his wallet so I removed that too; Mrs O’Toole had thought of everything. I wondered how often clients died.

After a final look around to make sure I had all my belongings, I listened at the apartment door for sounds but there were none, so I left the room, being sure to lock it behind me, walked down the stairs to the ground floor, smiled at the clerk as directed and then left by the front door. There was a large dark motor car waiting outside. I opened the rear door and said “Jimmy?”

“Sure, and I’m here to pick you up,” he said, and I sat down and closed the door. Jimmy seemed to know where to take me, and for some minutes I said nothing. I think I was still in shock.

“Did Mrs O’Toole tell you what happened?” I asked, and he told me she hadn’t, so obviously I shouldn’t either.

“I was there for a shorter time that I expected,” I said.

“Well I expected to pick you up at ten o’clock, but these things happen,” he said.

Soon, the car drew to a halt outside Agnes’s flat and I got out.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” I said. “I look forward to seeing you again."

I closed the car door and he drove off.

Agnes was quite surprised to see me. “What’s happened?” she said “You look terrible,”

It was at that moment that having held it together so long, I broke down in tears. Agnes put her arms around me and led me to the couch to sit down.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” she asked and through my tears I shook my head.

“Listen girl, I’m not stupid. You went out dressed up to the nines and return earlier than you should and very upset. It doesn’t take a genius to know that you met a man. Was he cruel to you, did he beat you?”

I was still sobbing but I managed to pull myself together. I knew I was breaking the first rule of the Agency, but I couldn’t help it.

“Agnes, if I tell you what happened, will you swear never to tell another living soul? Not only will I lose a very lucrative job, but it might even put my life in danger, I really don’t know.”

Agnes looked at me very seriously and said, “I swear”.

‘Very well. I went to see a man in a hotel, but he wasn’t a boyfriend. I’m working for an association which teams young women with rich and powerful men who are in Dublin for the night, want female company and are willing to pay well for it. Tonight was my first booking. We were in the middle of sex when he suddenly died on me!”

“Died? What did you do?” asked Agnes, looking shocked.

“I rang an emergency number to a person who organizes the bookings and she gave me instructions to get out of there and leave no evidence behind; that way it would be thought that he just had a heart attack while alone. I was picked up by a car sent for me and he brought me back to the flat.”

“Well, at least you will not be connected with his death,” said Agnes.

“I know that, but it was such a shock when he just ... died!”

“I think the best thing you can do now is get a good night’s sleep,” said Agnes. She led me to my bedroom, helped me undress and put on my night dress, then tucked me up in bed. Later she slipped into bed beside me and we cuddled up together.

In the morning I felt much better. Agnes asked if she should stay home with me, but I assured her I was alright but agreed that I should stay home for the day. She agreed to convey my apology at work, and after breakfast, I dressed, attended to my makeup and hair, and when I looked in the mirror I could see no signs of last night’s trauma. As Mrs O’Toole had requested, I took a cab and visited her arriving at about ten o’clock
.
When I was shown into the drawing room, she stood and came towards me to give me a hug.

“How are you feeling, my dear? Are you better?”

“Yes thank you, Mrs O’Toole, and thank you so much for your help last night. I really couldn’t have managed without you.”

She smiled at me. “I’m sure you are stronger than you think, but I was happy to help. It was so unfortunate that this should happen on your very first booking; it’s such a rare event - only once before in the history of the Agency from memory. Would you like a little time off to recover from it?”

“Mrs O’Toole, when I was a young farm girl, which seems so long ago now, if I fell off a horse, my Daddy told me to get straight back on. I feel the same thing applies now, so I would appreciate getting another booking as soon as possible,” I replied.

“I will see what I can do,” said Mrs O’Toole, and she was as good as her word.

I did scan the Dublin newspapers for the next few days and eventually found what I was seeking – a report of a Belfast councillor who was found dead in a hotel room in Dublin, apparently of a heart attack. There was mention of his grieving widow and what a fine man he was. Most importantly for me, there was no mention of the Garda investigating his death as suspicious.

I received my next booking the following Friday. He was a man in his late forties with a good physique. Importantly for me, he was an experienced lover who knew that by pleasing a woman, he would benefit himself. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of his manhood, and how he used first his fingers and then his tongue to arouse me before he entered me. There was no hurry, we both enjoyed the experience. I had at least three orgasms while he had two. Most importantly for me, he wiped away the previous unpleasant experience. While he kindly gave me a £20 gratuity, I felt that I should really have paid him!

Not all of the clients wished to have sex. I remember a charming old gentleman whom I will call Lord M. What he wanted was to have a well-dressed and pretty girl on his arm when he took her into the hotel restaurant, enjoying the envious glances of almost every married man present, something which did not escape the notice of their wives. I’m sure there were more than a few ankles kicked on those occasions. I inherited him when his previous regular escort left the Agency to get married. Apparently, I was the prettiest girl on the Agency’s books.

Lord M was a creature of habit. I always ate and drank sparingly when invited to dine, and he always gave the same order of a steak medium rare with vegetables in season but plenty of potatoes, and a good bottle of red wine. I drank one glass and he had the rest. After dinner, we went to his suite and enjoyed an interesting conversation, and it was there that I discovered that he enjoyed looking at my legs. The first time I sat on an armchair facing him similarly seated, my dress had ridden up by accident, exposing my legs to the knee in the silk stockings I always wore. After he commented on me ‘having the best pins he had ever seen’, I made sure on future occasions to expose my legs for his viewing pleasure.

That first time I saw him, he gave me a £100 gratuity, and I was so surprised that I questioned whether he had accidently given me more than he intended.

“No, no, my dear. You have given an old man great pleasure, something I look forward to every time I come to Dublin, and I can well afford it.”

None-the-less, I reported his generosity to Mrs O’Toole, saying I would hate to think that he might say I had taken advantage of him and more of his money than he intended.

“No, he always gives a generous gratuity,” said Mrs O’Toole,, “But thank you for telling me – I appreciate your honesty.”

There is a strange coda to this story. I and my legs entertained him for about a year, and then one Friday when I was expecting to see him, Mrs O’Toole told me, with a tear in her eye that Lord M had passed away suddenly. I was really shocked as I had developed a great deal of affection for him and that had nothing to do with his generosity. I shed a tear too.

A couple of years later when I had a little car of my own, I drove to the village churchyard near his country seat, knowing that he was likely to be buried there. I found his grave without difficulty, next to those of other family members. It had a headstone of white marble, topped with the statue of an angel. If I squinted I might have thought that the angel looked like me! I had brought a bouquet of fresh flowers and was glad that I had because the grave looked rather neglected, with the remains of a very old bunch of flowers and some dead leaves lying on it. I brushed all this away with my hands and put my flowers in place. If anyone saw them and wondered about the donor, well that would be a mystery which they would never solve. There was nobody around, so I said out loud “I’ve brought you some fresh flowers Lord M. I hope you like them.” I paused and then added, “I still miss our times together.”

Just as I was about to turn away from the grave something strange happened. It was a calm day, not a breath of wind, but now suddenly a stiff breeze sprang up. I was wearing a light summer dress, and it caught my skirts and whipped them up well above my knees, exposing my legs as far as my stocking welts and suspenders. I’m sure I squealed with surprise but before I had a chance to pull my dress down, the breeze disappeared as quickly as it had arrived and my dress fell of its own accord. I’m not a superstitious person, but I can’t help thinking that Lord M had called up that breeze to get one last look at my legs! Of course it was probably all a coincidence, and people might say that I have an over-active imagination, but I have never visited his grave again. He was a lovely man, but a repeat of that incident would have had me running in terror from the graveyard!

I only ever had one woman as a client, although I did see her a number of times. The reason for this holds true to this day – very few women reach a position in a company so senior that they have to attend important meetings and stay in superior hotels. The lady in question gave her name as a Mrs Gwynne, and asked to be referred to as Nell! I rather suspect that her name was not genuine and she was being discreet.

When Mrs O’Toole told me of the booking I confess to feeling a little nervous. I was quite used to men and how to handle them but thought a woman might be different. I had experience of course with Agnes and Fiona, but in neither case were they paying me money. The day came and I prepared as I always did, with great care. All my lingerie sets were exquisite now and I chose a pink set which I thought might be suitable for a woman, and also my dress was the latest fashion.

Nell was staying at the most expensive hotel in Dublin and I had been there many times before, so when I approached the reception desk where they knew me and asked for Mrs Gwynne’s room, I think maybe some eyebrows were raised after I had left, but I was always treated in the most professional manner as if I had never been there before. My heart was beating a little faster than usual when I knocked on the door. The lady who opened it was about ten years older than me, very handsome and beautifully dressed, again, in the latest fashion, and she welcomed me in with a smile. I introduced myself as Marie and she told me to call her Nell.

“I’ve ordered some tea and biscuits, so that we can get to know each other,” she said, and that was quite different from many men who wasted no time in getting what they had paid for..

Over tea, she asked me about my life and I gave her an abbreviated version, but telling her how I had been seduced, and that my father had found out (but not mentioning the pregnancy), and how he had called me a whore and thrown me out, so I had decided that if I was a whore, I would be the best one I could be. Nell laughed at that.

We had been told never to ask inquisitive questions of a client, but Nell was happy to talk. She told me that she had always felt attracted to women from her early teens and had been seduced by an older girl at her boarding school.

“A lot of girls had their first sexual experience with other girls because there was no danger of getting pregnant, which can cause a great deal of problems for young women in Ireland. I might have been happy to stay with Sapphic pleasures, but I was ambitious and as you know, men hold the purse strings everywhere, so I decided to find myself a husband, which I did. He’s a good man and sex with him is enjoyable, but I decided to take the opportunity to see if going to bed with a woman still has the same pleasures for me.”

At that point she asked if I had finished my tea and led me into the bedroom. Then she turned to me and we kissed. It was a nice gentle kiss to start with, but as her body pressed against me, the kissing became more intense.

“Let’s help each other get undressed,” she said and I could hear the desire in her voice.

We started to undress each other and I was pleased to see that our choice in lingerie was the same, but then Nell seemed to become very nervous and she stayed my hands as I was about to lift her slip over her head.

“I hope you will excuse my body,” she said. “I’m thirty-seven and have borne four children, so you cannot expect it to be like yours.”

I smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure it will be fine,” I said, and indeed it was. Her body was a little thicker than mine but her breasts were still well-formed, and without thinking I said “You have beautiful breasts”. She smiled gratefully and said "Thank you.”

Once we were both naked I could see by her breathing that she was getting excited, and we lay on the bed together and began to explore each other. I started with her breasts, caressing them, and then gently sucking on her hard nipples, which caused her to gasp with pleasure. I couldn’t help wondering if her husband ever did that to her. She started to fondle my breasts too, and suck on them, something I found very erotic, and I wondered what it would be like to have a baby suck on them. From there we began to explore each other’s body further and it was most enjoyable for both of us.

At one point she gasped “Oh you are so pretty and so talented!”. That was just before she had her first orgasm and there were several more to come. I cannot deny that I achieved the heights of pleasure myself more than once. Finally, we lay on the bed side by side, our breasts heaving as we gasped for air, our hearts pounding.

“Well my dear, you have answered my question – I still DO have an attraction to women. This has been the most enjoyable evening I’ve had in a very long time.”

As if to prove it, she started to stroke my body again and it was obvious that she wanted more. Eventually it was over and I slid off the bed and dressed, while Nell put on a dressing gown. She didn’t pay me a gratuity on that occasion, but she did say that she expected to come to Dublin from time to time and hoped that I would be available to meet with her again, and in fact that did happen on a number of occasions. One time I even stayed the night. Eventually she stopped coming to Dublin. I never did find out why. I didn’t think her husband suspected what she had been doing. Women hide such things much better than men.

I carried on working and earning substantial amounts of money which I largely saved, although I did not stint myself if I saw a particularly pretty dress, and I did buy myself a small motor car. The only thing that saddened me was that it was so many years since I had seen Mammy and my brothers and sisters. Mammy and I wrote to each other every week, but it was not the same. Then everything changed.

To be continued

Copyright 2023

Chapter 7

One Monday morning I was resting at home after a particularly strenuous but lucrative evening. The telephone rang; it was Agnes.

“Marie, are you sitting down?” she asked. I was and informed her so.

“I have some bad news for you,” she said. My heart sank – was it Mammy or one of my siblings?

“I’ve had a phone call from your Mammy. I’m sorry to tell you that your Daddy has died. She said he didn’t come home from working on Saturday and they found him out in the fields. It seems he had a heart attack. She decided not to ring you first, and asked me ot break the news to you.”

I was silent for so long that she said, “Marie, are you there?”

“Er, yes, Agnes. It’s a bit of a shock.” In truth I felt nothing. I no longer hated Daddy for throwing me out. In fact he might have done me a favour. If I had stayed in Kilcarnie, by now I might have been forced to marry to some oaf of a farmhand, selected by Daddy to help him on the farm, and already have several snivelling brats clinging to my skirts. No, I was much better off where I was in Dublin.

“I told your Mammy to give you a few minutes to get used to the news after I broke it to you,’ said Agnes. I thanked her and she rang off so that Mammy could contact me, which she did a few minutes later.

“Marie, is that you? Did Agnes break the news to you? I thought it was better for a friend to do it.”

“Yes, Mammy, I’m sorry to hear it,” I said. That was a lie but a necessary one. as in fact I felt nothing,

It had already occurred to me that Mammy couldn’t possibly afford a proper funeral and that Daddy would be put in a pauper’s grave and serve him right for how he had treated me. Then I had chided myself. I was better than that, and anyway it would not hurt Daddy whatever happened to his body, but it would hurt Mammy deeply to have the neighbours whispering about how Daddy had had the cheapest funeral possible.

“Mammy, as the eldest child I would like to pay for a proper funeral for Daddy including a Requiem Mass,” I said. I could hear over the telephone that Mammy was crying.

“Darling, that is sweet of you, but it would cost you too much,” she said.

“Have you enquired how much it would cost?” I asked.

“At least twenty pounds, I could never afford to pay you back,” she replied.

“I don’t need paying back, Mammy, I have a good job with the government and I can afford it,” I replied. Another lie but I couldn’t possibly tell her how I really earned most of my money. “I am going to send you an express postal order for £40. You will need extra money to buy suitable mourning clothes for you and the children, and also for the wake.”

“Clothes? The wake?” she murmured, seemingly in a daze. Afraid she might faint, I asked if she was sitting down. “Ask Mrs O’Flaherty to get you a chair,” I said.

“Oh darling, I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’ve been so worried about what I should do to bury Daddy. This is like a dream.”

“Mammy, do you mind if I come to the funeral? I would like to.”

“Of course you can, darling. You are his daughter after all, and I think he came to regret how he treated you and realised it was not your fault, but he was a proud man and couldn’t admit it.”

“That’s all in the past now, Mammy. We must let bygones be bygones,” I said.

Having established that the funeral was to be on Wednesday in the late morning. I left Mammy to approach the funeral director to tell him that she would have the money to pay the bill tomorrow, and that he should address any queries to me.

As soon as I hung up the telephone, I dressed and hurried down to the post office to arrange an express delivery of the postal order for £40 to Mammy, care of the Kilcarnie Post Office, and then I went to a ladies dress shop to select a suitably conservative black dress and hat for the funeral, not wanting to upstage Mammy whom I knew would not be able to bring herself to spend too much on her own attire or that of the children.

There is very little entertainment in a village like Kilcarnie and I knew that most of the women would be attending the funeral if only to comment later on how the bereaved family looked. My next job was to contact Mrs O’Toole and explain why I needed a few days off. She was very kind and offered her condolences, which I accepted without demur not wishing to go into details about my relationship with Daddy.

I was up very early on Wednesday morning to bathe and dress. I wore no jewelry apart from my stud earrings. I didn’t want to appear well off.

I drove to Kilcarnie and drew up outside the farm about nine o’clock. When I knocked on the farmhouse door, Mammy opened it, dressed in black, and for a moment her expression was blank as she said, “I’m sorry ma’am, I think you’ve come to the wrong….” Then suddenly her vision cleared.

“Marie! Is it really you?”

“Yes Mammy,” I replied and we fell into each other’s arms and I confess that Mammy was not the only one to shed tears.

When we had recovered from our initial emotion, Mammy said “What am I thinking? Come inside.”

I followed her down the familiar hallway and into the kitchen which didn’t seem to have changed in the five years since I last saw it, apart from the children sitting around the kitchen table, now suitably dressed in black dresses or grey trousers and shirts with black ties, and looking quite grown up.

“Here is your older sister, Marie,” said Mammy, “Don’t you remember her?”

They didn’t of course and who could blame them? I had left as a farm girl, tears streaming down my cheeks, and now I had returned as a woman and a sophisticated resident of Dublin. I remembered them though, and I named them all as I looked around the table. “Hello Padraigh, Seamus, Eibhlin, Roisin, Saoirse. It was as I named the final girl that my heart gave a lurch. She was holding a tiny baby in her arms!

Mammy saw the look of shock on my face and hastily said, “Saoirse, show Marie her smallest sister.

“Sister?” I stared at Mammy and she actually blushed. “I’ll tell you more later. She’s three months old and I named her Mary Anna.” I moved closer. She was the sweetest little baby I had ever seen, awake and alert, she actually smiled at me and my heart melted!

Later, when we were alone Mammy explained how Mary Anna came to be. “I thought I was at the change of life,” she said. “My monthly flow was not regular anymore and what with my age, I suppose we thought it safe not to take precautions with calculating which days of the month were ‘safe’. When I had no flow for two months I thought nothing of it but then I had that feeling that a woman does when she is expecting, and sure enough the doctor said there was another little one on the way.

“When she arrived, I told Daddy that I wanted to name her Mary Anna. It was in memory of the daughter I thought I might never see again. Daddy was not happy about it but I wore him down, and although she was unexpected, now I couldn’t be happier with her.” I think there were more mutual tears shed.

It was time to leave for the church which was about twenty minutes walk away, but even a small baby can prove heavy, so I suggested that Mammy and Saoirse with baby Mary Anna ride in my car, and we timed our arrival to match with the walking party. Father O’Malley was at the porch to greet us and Mammy introduced me to him. He was there when I had left the village, but like the others, he did not recognize me. As I expected, most of the village women turned up and there was much whispering behind hands as someone realized who I was and spread the word around. I was the focus of much attention – the ‘prodigal daughter’ I suppose.

The Mass started and I confess I didn’t remember any of it, after all it was five years since I had been to church. When the part came where we all stood up to take communion, I felt that I should too to please Mammy. Father O’Malley hesitated when he came to me and whispered ‘Are you in a ‘state of grace’ my child?’ I nearly laughed out loud. Me, a woman who had sex with men for money? Remembering Mammy, I kept a straight face and whispered humbly back ‘Yes, father.” He put the wafer of bread on my tongue and I swallowed it. The earth did not open up and swallow me. After all, it was only a piece of bread wasn’t it? A symbol and nothing more.

At the conclusion of the Mass, Daddy’s coffin was carried out into the churchyard and the grave that had been dug for him. There were final prayers and I held Mammy’s arm as she wept again as the coffin was lowered into the earth. Then after casting a handful of earth onto the coffin, we all turned away as the grave diggers began to shovel earth into the hole. It was all over, but not quite. Now we had to repair to the church hall where a tea with sandwiches and cake were laid out for the mourners and congregation, and this too I had paid for, but I didn’t mind. I’m sure a lot of the women present had come for a free meal, and they didn’t stint themselves. By the time it was all over, all the plates had been cleared.

There was going to be a wake at the local pub in the evening, so I couldn’t drive back to Dublin until the next day. I was going to look for a room to rent, but Mammy insisted that I could have my old room back, and that Roisin could share with Saoirse for one night and they seemed genuinely happy for me to do so, so I agreed.

This wasn’t a wake in the traditional sense since Daddy was already buried – in fact I think it was more an excuse for the men of the village and a few women, to get drunk. It was held at Fitzgerald’s Pub, and since I never drank much at any pub visit, and Mammy and I were the only members of the family old enough to attend, after Mary Anna was fed and the older girls given strict instructions to get one of the boys to run to the pub to get us, if need be I drove us down to the pub.

I was paying for this event too, and I sought out the publican and covertly gave him fifty pounds, telling him that the guests could have one drink of spirits and after that only beer, and that I would call by the following day and settle up with him if there was any extra cost. He seemed happy enough with that, and I didn’t expect any change from my fifty pounds.

By the time we arrived at about seven o’clock, the party was in full swing and I think everyone had collected their shot of spirits. The noise of chatter was overpowering as everyone strove to make themselves heard above the general hubbub. Mammy and I found ourselves seats in an inglenook. She drank beer and I sipped on a glass of wine. A fiddler appeared and entertained us with Irish reels, although he could scarcely be heard above the general hubbub, and people coming up to offer their condolences and tell us what a good man Daddy was. Naturally we both smiled and nodded

At one point a ruddy faced young man, about my age came up to address me. He already seemed slightly drunk as he slurred his words.

“Hello Marie, it’s good to see you again.” As I looked at him blankly, he continued “You don’t remember me do you. I’m Padraigh (so many Padraighs in Ireland!). I tried to French kiss you once and you nearly bit my tongue off!”

I felt my face glowing with embarrassment. “I hope I didn’t permanently injure you,” I said.

“Nah, I’m tougher than that,” he said. “Anyway, I’m married to Niamh now, do you remember her?” Before I could answer, he continued, “We’ve three weans now and another on the way.”

Remembering now how I once considered him as possible marriage material, I decided that I’d had a lucky escape.

“I was going to say my condolences on the death of your Daddy, but I seem to remember you two had a row and you left Kilcarnie?”

“Yes we did,” I said, determined I wasn’t going into details.

“Well it’s nice to see you again. Next time you’re here, come and see us. Niamh would like that.”

I only vaguely remembered Niamh, and decided that a visit would be the last thing I did, as arriving in my smart city clothes would only embarrass her. In fact, the more I looked around the more I realised that I could never be part of village life again, I was now an urban woman.

Mammy and I left as soon as it was decently possible, droving back to the farm, and settling down beside the kitchen hearth for a nice cup of tea.

“Mammy, we need to talk,” I said. “You can’t run the farm, and I’m sure the farmer will want you to leave.”

Mammy’s eyes filled with tears. “Sure and I’ve been worried sick about it ever since your Daddy died,” she said.

“Could I make a suggestion?” I said. “I know you will want to stay in the village. I’ve noticed there’s a few houses for sale. How would you feel if I bought one and you and the children could move into it?”

She gasped. “I think I’m hearing things. Are you saying that you could afford to buy a house for me to live in?”

“Yes Mammy, I am. It would be my house of course, but you would live there rent free for as long as you like. It would be a good investment for me and would solve your accommodation problems.”

“Oh Marie!” she cried and putting her arms around me hugged me. “After all that happened to you here, I can scarcely believe it.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mammy, in fact it really wasn’t mine either. Why don’t I stay another day or two, and we can go around together and see if any of the houses appeal to you?”

I confess that I did not have the most restful night’s sleep in my old room. I know Mammy meant well, but there were too many memories. It was dawn before I finally fell into a deep dreamless sleep, and she left me there until about nine o’clock before waking me with a big farm breakfast of bacon and eggs. I found it hard to eat but did my best. I had become too used to eating sparingly and making sure that I kept my figure. I don’t imagine that the men I met would like a fat woman.

After breakfast, we drove down to the village and arranged to see the available cottages. I left Mammy to choose which one she liked the best, after all she would be the one living in it. I was more concerned about its condition, and fortunately, the one she chose also seemed to be in the best condition. It needed a few things doing of course, but I could pay for those, and I was able to drive the price down on the basis that it had been on the market for some time, being the most expensive of the three, and that some repairs and renovations were required.

Mammy and the family could not move in right away of course, there was the paperwork to be completed, but since I now worked for a solicitor, that was not a problem. I was pleased with my purchase, and I had enough money saved to pay the full cost of it and still have money left over. I knew that Mammy would look after the house and my investment would increase in value over time.

My next visit was to the owner of the farm to negotiate the date at which my family would move out. I had now dressed up and I think this was a good move as he recognized me as a sophisticated young woman and was prepared to accommodate me, especially when he realized that I was taking over responsibility for the farm rent which was slightly in arears and would be paying him up to the time when the family left in about a month.

Before leaving to travel back to Dublin, I informed Mammy that I would be giving her a regular income, and we decided upon five pounds a week initially, but if she needed more then it would be increased.

“I don’t understand how you can afford all this,” said Mammy.

“Since I left Kilcarnie, I have educated myself, and I have a very responsible job with the government, but I can’t tell you what it is,” I said. If you believe that providing sex to politicians is ‘working for the government’, then I feel it was not wholly a lie.

The following day I returned to Dublin, but I promised that the family would see a lot more of me, and this time I knew that I could keep my promise. Agnes was very happy to see me, and I her. I didn’t realise how much I had missed her, and we had a kiss and a hug.

“How did it all go?” she asked.

“As funerals go, I think it went very well, although I’ve never been to another one to compare it. It might have cost me a bit, but it was worth it to know that those old harpies in the village would not be saying that Mammy couldn’t afford a proper funeral for Daddy. Oh, and I bought a house.”

“A house?” gasped Agnes. “Don’t tell me you’re going to live back in Kilcarnie?”

“Not in a thousand years; Kilcarnie and I parted company a long time ago,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t know but Daddy was a tenant farmer, and now he’s gone, the owner will want someone else to take over the farm? Mammy was worried sick about where they would go, so when I suggested I buy a house that she and the rest of the family could live in rent-free as long as they like, she was overwhelmed. It is an investment for me to sell some time in the future, but meanwhile she is settled in a place that she knows.”

“Marie – you’re a good woman,” said Agnes.

I laughed. “If Father O’Malley heard how I earn my money, he would probably say that I’m a very bad woman!” Agnes couldn’t help but laugh too when I told her about me taking communion.

I returned to my work with the Agency. By now I was quite popular and had a number of ‘regulars’ who asked if I was available. Buying the house in Kilcarnie had caused a dent in my savings, but now I was building it up again.

One of my interesting experiences was to introduce an eighteen year old boy to the joys of manhood, in other words take his virginity. I’m sure I was chosen as being the youngest looking of all the women who worked for The Agency, although I was a few years older than him. I think that time with me was a birthday gift from his father who thought it was about time that his son had a practical demonstration of the ‘birds and the bees’.

On the appointed day, I reached his hotel room and knocked on the door and the boy, who I will call Dan opened it. He looked quite a handsome lad, but also terrified and I knew that my first job was to calm him down.

“Dan! I’m Marie, may I come in please?” I said. He suddenly realised that he was blocking the doorway and stood aside to allow me to enter. Once in the room I looked around and commented how nice it looked. I deliberately refrained from commenting on the large bed which dominated it. There was a couch and I sat down and patted the place beside me, inviting him to sit there.
“Dan, we don’t have to do anything that you are uncomfortable with,” I said as he sat nervous and rigid beside me. I could feel he was trembling because it was transmitting through the couch. I turned and smiled at him.

“This is nice,” I said. “Tell me Dan, have you ever kissed a girl?”

“Not really,” he replied. “I’ve kissed my cousin on the cheek, oh and aunties of course, but that doesn’t really count does it?”

“Not really,” I agreed. “When a man and woman are enjoying each other’s company they sometimes kiss on the lips. Would you like me to show you how?”

“Y-Yes please,” he replied, so I moved closer to him and kissed him very gently on the lips. I could feel his trembling starting to subside, which was a good sign. When our lips parted, I said “How was that?”

“That was nice,” he replied. “I could taste your lipstick.”

“Yes, it’s nice,” I replied. “How about we try again, but this time you kiss me?”

Dan leaned towards me and began to gently kiss me. Inevitably his body started to press against my breasts and I knew he could feel that. This kiss lasted quite a long time. When our lips parted and Dan leaned back, his face was flushed. “I never knew a kiss could be like that,” he said.

‘There’s another type of kiss which is even better, it’s called a French kiss,” I said. “Would you like to try it?”

“Oh yes,” he said, so I instructed him that this time when I kissed him he should open his lips a little. When my tongue first touched his he almost started, he was so surprised, but then he really got into the swing of it, and when my tongue retreated into my mouth, he took the hint and his tongue entered my mouth seeking mine. We kissed like this for some minutes and I had no doubt that he would be getting aroused.

When our mouths finally separated, I said to him, “That’s the first stage of making love and it makes us get excited in anticipation of what comes next.” Dan was panting, his face flushed and it was obvious that he was very ready for the next stage.

“Now, I know that you understand what happens when your body gets excited; you must have felt the organ between your legs get hard?”

Dan blushed, and I said ‘There is no need to get embarrassed, it’s something that comes naturally, and when a man and woman get excited, it’s nice for the woman to feel what is happening to the man, like this.”

I reached down and began to fondle his erection through the material of his trousers. He moaned softly at my touch.

“It would be even nicer if I could feel you, rather than through your trousers,” I said. “Do you mind if I unfasten them?”

Dan shook his head, I think he was lost for words. When I had freed his erection from his trousers and underpants, I stroked it gently, but not too much as I knew from experience that young men have a hair trigger. Judging that the time was right, I said to Dan “Why don’t we take our clothes off? We’ll be much more comfortable then.”

He nodded, and as he took off his shoes and socks, trousers and shirt, I stood before him and slowly removed my own clothes. He stared open-mouthed at the first mature woman he had ever seen naked.

“Oh, you are so beautiful,” he said. I smiled, and taking his hand I led him to the bed where I sat him beside me.

“A woman’s body is very soft, so you must be gentle with me,” I said. “And yet we are strong enough to grow a baby within us and then give birth which is often very painful.”

“Have you had a baby?” Dan asked.

I confess that question made my heart miss a beat.

“Not yet, but I hope to one day,” I said.

“You are very brave,” he said.

“If women weren’t brave, there would be no more babies,” I said. “Now I will explain how a baby starts. You will have seen that a woman’s body is different from a man’s but they are made to fit together.” I took his hand and placed it between my legs, showing him where the passage was where his own organ would go.

“When a man puts his organ there and releases his seed, then sometimes a baby is started. It is a very pleasant experience for both the man and woman,” I said. “But sometimes a man and woman want to experience the pleasure without having a baby, so then a man puts a very thin rubber cover over his organ to catch his seed.”

So saying I produced a condom and showed him how to roll it over his organ. He gasped at the feel of my hands. Then I smeared some lubricant over it and I said, “Now we are ready.”

With that I lay back on the bed indicating him to come between my legs and gently enter me. It was very pleasant for me to initiate him, and when his body shook as he reached orgasm, I knew that he would always remember me and his first time.

Before I dressed and left the room, I asked him to promise me that he would always use a condom until he was married. “Remember that a few minutes of pleasure for you can result in a girl having to bear a baby and bring it up.” He promised that he would take my advice to heart and I hope that he did.

A few days later, Mrs O’Toole congratulated me on how I had introduced the young man to the joys of sex. “His father came to settle the account, and tells me that his son has hardly stopped talking about the pretty lady who taught him, and that he hopes to find a girl like her to marry some day.

I smiled. “It is not often that a woman helps to turn a boy into a man,” I said.

“He left an envelope for you,” said Mrs O’Toole and I opened it in front of her.

There was a note which read:

‘Dear Miss Marie,

Thank you so much for the way in which you helped my son become a ‘man’. I am sure he will never forget it. Thank you also for giving him such good advice. Please accept the enclosed as a token of my appreciation.

Sincerely AFM’

Enclosed with the note was one hundred pounds, a very generous gift.

Mrs O’Toole smiled. “Knowing you I’m sure you did a very fine job of his initiation.

To be continued

Copyright 2023

Chapter 8

I was now able to visit Mammy more frequently and I was pleased to see that she had settled into her new home very well. I knew that in the past she had enjoyed spinning wool, but with all her duties at home and looking after the children, she never seemed to have time. Now however, with the older girls growing up and being able to help her, she was able to resume spinning and earn some money from the wool she spun. She suggested that soon, she wouldn’t need the money I gave her, but I demurred and said she should still take it and maybe she could afford an occasional luxury which she richly deserved.

Unlike my childhood, where I had to leave school early to look after the children, I asked Mammy to let the children stay at school until they had completed all the primary education that was available in a village school, and I was pleased that she agreed with me that a good education was important. I made sure that there was sufficient funds for this to occur. I did offer to pay for any of them who wished to attend secondary school, but they seemed content with the education they had received.

In due course the boys secured apprenticeships and the girls enjoyed living at home until they married. I like to think that my appearance at each marriage made sure that their spouses, particularly the men, did not misbehave. I remembered that when I was young I occasionally notice unexplained bruises on Mammy’s face and I suspect that Daddy was not always as kind to her as he should have been. Now, in her later years I think her enjoyment of life had greatly improved, and I was very happy that I had been the means by which she had achieved that. Mammy lived to a great age, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, and when the time came she was laid to rest next to Daddy as was her request. I think despite everything, she really loved him.

Time passed and when things are going well, we want them to stay the same forever, but it rarely happens. I began to have a feeling that Agnes had something on her mind and one evening when we were in the flat together, she told me what it was.

“Marie, I hope this will not come as a shock to you but I’m going to get married.”

I confess that after all the times of intimacy we had shared, it was rather a shock, but I hope I covered my surprise well as I stood up and hugged her, saying, “Who is the lucky man?”

“His name is John and he works in a nearby office,” she said. “We started off as friends but then we became lovers, and now he has asked me to marry him and I said ’Yes’.”.

“Congratulations to you both,” I said, trying to put on a brave face. “I’m very happy for you.”

“I’ll be sorry to leave our little flat together.” said Agnes. “Do you know what you will do?

“Well, I can take over the lease myself at least for now and think about what I want to do. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll miss our nights together. John doesn’t know about them of course.”

“Of course,” I replied, ”Your secret is safe with me.”

Later that night as we lay side by side in bed, I said to Agnes, “Won’t you miss this?”

“Of course,” she said, “But on the other hand John is a big man in every way, so that’s some compensation!”

“I know what you mean,” I replied. “Some of my regulars are well endowed and I must say it makes a difference.”

Agnes had invited me to be the chief bridesmaid with John’s two younger sisters as the junior bridesmaids. If anyone tells you that the only job of the chief bridesmaid is to make sure the bride gets to the church or wherever, on time, to look pretty but not to upstage the bride, don’t believe them. There is another commonly held belief, but I will mention that later. In fact, there is so much for the chief bridesmaid to do that I think we should be paid for it!

The first thing was to help Agnes select her wedding dress. It is a fact universally acknowledged that every bride has a vague vision in her head of what she wants to wear on her wedding day. The problem is finding it, especially if she cannot afford to have some designer make it for her, and has to go out to the ‘wedding boutiques’ to find it for herself. This is where I as chief bridesmaid came in or course. We started off at boutique number one, and after excluding some excruciating examples, the possible dresses were narrowed down to about six, each of which she changed into in turn and came out to discuss them with me. There was one there that I thought was perfect for her, and to a degree she agreed, but of course there was always the possibility that there was a better dress elsewhere, so we asked the manageress if she would kindly put it aside for Agnes and we would let her know by the end of the day if she wished to buy it, or more accurately if I wished to buy it since it was a gift from me.

I fell sorry for the manageresses of wedding boutiques – so much work and maybe at the end of it no sale, but when there is a sale, well it’s hard to believe that a dress which is only to be worn once is so expensive.

So we trawled our way around every other wedding boutique in Dublin, and it will be no surprise for you to learn that in the end we arrived back with sore feet at boutique number one and bought the dress which they were holding for us. After that, shoes had to be found to match, but we’d both had quite enough for one day, so that was left for another one. Thank goodness Agnes did not require my advice on her wedding lingerie. “So long as it’s skimpy and lacy, that will be fine,” I said, and Agnes agreed with me.

Really, men have it so easy. All the groom had to do was buy a dinner suit. One visit to a men’s tailors – job done, and patent leather black shoes are so easy to buy.

One evening, Agnes said to me, “It will be the wedding rehearsal next week and you will meet the Best Man who will be your partner at the wedding. I think you’ll like him. He’s an old friend of John’s, they went to school together. He’s tall, handsome athletic, single, a lawyer and his name is Ross.”

In the middle of prattling on she suddenly stopped and said “What’s the matter, Marie, you’ve gone white as a sheet.”

“Oh Agnes, I think I know him. You just described a man that I see regularly via the Agency. Surely there can’t be two lawyers in Dublin who look like that and are named Ross?”

Agnes was surprisingly phlegmatic. “Well there’s only one solution; John certainly won’t change his Best Man without a very good reason which I can’t give him, and I want you as Chief Bridesmaid, so if it is the same man, and I will find out for sure, without involving John of course, you will just have to pretend that you are meeting each other for the first time. I’m sure you can do that; you’ve had experience as an actress and he is a lawyer so he has to act too sometimes.”

“I hope you are right,” I said. The fact was that Ross was an amazing lover and each time I met with him, the sex got better and better. My orgasms were now on a par with those I experienced with Max.

It WAS the Ross I knew of course (including in the Biblical sense). Agnes took advantage of a short time alone with him to establish this fact. She reported the conversation to me which went roughly as follows:
“I said to him ‘Ross, there is a rather delicate matter which I must discuss with you in confidence. My cousin Marie, who also shares a flat with me, thinks she may already know you. She works for a very discreet organization which provides female companionship to gentlemen visiting Dublin.’ I then went on to describe you, and it was obvious from the look on his face that he is the Ross you have met.

‘Will this cause a problem?’ he asked, and I said there was no reason why it should, but it would be necessary for you both to act as though this was the first time you had met. He smiled at that and asked me to tell you that he looked forward to meeting you again. I reminded him that nobody else must know about this, not even John, it was to be a secret between the three of us.”

The day of the rehearsal arrived and all of the girls were waiting for the men at the church. When I saw Ross walking up the aisle with John, I confess my heart jumped at the sight of him – he was so incredibly handsome. The irony of meeting in church was not lost on either of us; however, we played our parts very well with our “How do you do’s” and fortunately the priest then appeared to take the wedding party through the ritual.

I was hoping that after it was over, we could go home but John had kindly booked a table for eight at a local cafe for supper and I had no option but to attend. It will come as no surprise to say that I found myself sitting next to Ross, and this is where the strangest thing happened. When we met via the Agency, it was effectively business; he was paying for sex and I was there to provide it, but now we were a man and woman who had apparently just met each other, but I’m sure it seemed to everyone watching that we were instantly attracted to each other . We chatted away and I was really disappointed when the supper was over and we went our separate ways. Instead of being worried, I now looked forward to the wedding day which couldn’t come soon enough for me.

“What happened there?” asked Agnes, “You and Ross got on like a house on fire.”

“Well, we know each other quite well,” I said.

“Yes, but not like tonight,” she said, “And incidentally, you are blushing and that’s not something I see you do very often.”

The wedding day arrived. Agnes and I were to leave from the flat and meet up with the other bridesmaids at the church. I was up very early to have a relaxing bath, so that Agnes could have hers after sleeping in a bit longer. She had laid out her bridal lingerie on her bed, slip, knickers, bra and corset and I said to her “John won’t be able to take his hands off you when he sees what you are wearing.”

“I certainly hope not!” she replied.

A professional hairdresser arrived to style our hair, but Agnes had decided to do her own makeup which I thought was a good idea. I have seen some brides after a professional makeup artist has finished with them and I would walk past them on the street and not recognize them.

Agnes’s wedding dress was a white slip style with intricate beading, and ankle-length hem and cap sleeves. She was also wearing a Juliet cap and a floor length veil down her back. Her white shoes had low heels and she wore white stockings.

Once she was dressed, it was my turn. I dressed in a similar fashion but with my hair in a bob and no veil of course. My slip dress was in pale pink, the same colour as the other bridesmaid’s dresses, although their styles were not as adult and sophisticated as mine.

A photographer arrived with his big camera on a tripod to take a picture of the two of us when we were ready, and then set off to record events at the church. In those days, photographs were not allowed in the church itself, but he would be taking some when the wedding party exited the church, and also of the families.

The wedding ceremony really hasn’t changed much over the years. When we stepped out of the motor car which had been hired for the occasion and were ready to walk down the aisle, Agnes on the arm of her father, the organ played the traditional wedding march. After the service was concluded, Ross and I were witnesses to the wedding, and we followed the newly married couple as they walked down the aisle, stopping to receive the congratulations of their parents and other family members.

Once the wedding party and guests had left the church, we all posed before the photographer to have a recording of the day. In those days most people did not own a camera, so the official record was to be the only one we had.. Afterwards we were driven to the hotel a few miles out into the country where the reception would be held, and the couple would spend their wedding night before leaving for their honeymoon.

The wedding reception was excellent. Ross and I were originally at opposite ends of the bridal table while the first courses were served, speeches were made and the toasts proposed. As the Best Man and a lawyer, used to public speaking, you can imagine that Ross gave a wonderful speech. He complimented the beautiful Chief Bridesmaid and her pretty bridesmaid assistants (cue a blush from me and cheers from the guests). He then had some gentle digs at the groom, with stories from their days together at school and university, but nothing too embarrassing. After he concluded, John rose for an unscheduled addenda to his own speech, mentioning that since Ross was a lawyer, he was concerned that he might receive a rather large bill for the speech when Agnes and he returned from their honeymoon. That generated huge laughter and applause.

That was followed by the cutting of the cake and the bridal waltz. After Agnes and John had taken a turn or two around the room, everyone was invited to dance, so it was only natural that I should dance with Ross. Oh goodness! This was the first time I ever danced with him, and I confess being held in his arms in this way made me feel like I was floating on air. I wondered to myself if this is what love felt like? During the dance, Ross looked down at me and said, “I’ve never seen you look as beautiful as you do tonight”. He sounded totally genuine, and what can a girl say in reply to that? I smiled my thanks as I gazed up into his handsome face.

After the dance was over, I felt so excited that I needed to go to the ‘Ladies’ to freshen up my makeup and have a chance to cool down. When I came back into the main room, I was thankful that Ross was nowhere to be seen. I needed some minutes without him to restore my heartbeat to a normal rate. It was a mild night and the French windows at the end of the room were open, so I stepped out onto the balcony and enjoyed the cool night air. There were several couples standing there, engrossed in each other, so I descended the steps and walked along a path through flowering bushes which gave off their scent to the night air. The night felt magical and I had the queerest feeling that something wonderful was going to happen.

At the end of the path, I reached the stone wall surrounding the garden and paused there for a moment. There was a footfall behind me and turning I saw Ross. “I thought I would find you here,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. My heart began to pound as he stepped closer, and then I was in his arms and we were kissing deeply, our bodies hard against each other, our desire growing by the second. I had heard people say that they couldn’t help themselves and never believed it, but now I realized it was true. In no time Ross was pulling up my skirts and I was unbuttoning his trousers and then we were locked together. There was no condom but at that moment I couldn’t care less, we both had to have each other and there was no possibility of waiting. When we both reached a shattering climax, and Ross filled me with his seed, we still clung to each other and when he finally slipped out of me, and we had recovered our breath enough to speak, I said to Ross in a half-joking manner, “You realise what we just did? If I get pregnant, you’ll just have to marry me.”

To my surprise Ross looked quite serious when he replied, “Would that be such a bad thing?”

I managed a laugh. “I’ll put that remark down to post-coital euphoria, and I won’t hold you to it.”

Nevertheless, his reply had shaken me, and I needed some time to process it.

“We had better not go back inside together,” I said. “people will talk.”

“I suppose you are right,” he said, so it was arranged that after I retrieved my handbag from where it had fallen on the ground, and given him my handkerchief to wipe my lipstick from his lips, he straightened up his suit and walked back along the path to the reception room. As he left me I gazed after him, hardly believing what had just happened. There was very little chance of me becoming pregnant since I was only a few days from the end of my monthly cycle, but I thought about what he had said to me which was almost a marriage proposal.

I set about straightening my dress and then applied some fresh powder and lipstick, hoping that evidence of what I had just been doing would not be evident. When I slipped back into the room, nobody seemed to notice me as I sat down at an empty table and poured myself a glass of cooling water. My relief was shattered when Agnes sat down beside me.

“What were you two up to?” she asked. “Don’t tell me, your blushes speak volumes.”

“Oh Agnes, it could never be, him a lawyer and soon to have fame and fortune, and me … well, you know what I am.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, girl,” she said. “Stranger things have happened.” I didn’t believe her.

At the end of the night when Agnes and John had gone upstairs to see what effect her sexy lingerie would have on him, I shared a taxi back to be dropped off at what was now my flat. It seemed very lonely as I undressed and put on my nightdress. I could still smell Ross’s semen, and should really have had a bath, but somehow I wanted to keep the evidence of him and what we had done for a little longer. I got into bed and was instantly asleep.

The following day seemed quite an anticlimax. I had no booking which I was rather happy about, since nothing could equal the events of the previous evening. That evening after cooking myself a simple meal, I was nestled on my favouite armchair reading a book when the telephone rang. To my surprise, it was Ross.

“I have to see you, Marie, it’s urgent,” he said.

“Well, I’m free this evening,” I replied. “Would you like to come around now?”

Ross arrived in about ten minutes. I made him a cup of tea and then we started to talk.

“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he started. “I know we’ve been together a number of times and every time was great, but last night was different, spontaneous. Marie, I’ve never felt this way about any woman before. When I hinted about us getting married, I really meant it.”

“Oh Ross, you know so little about me,” I said “An up and coming lawyer could never marry a woman like me. Of course you know about the Agency, but you don’t know what I did before and you need to know or sometime in the future you may find out and you will never forgive me for deceiving you.”

“What you did before doesn’t matter to me,” he said.

“But it does to me,” I replied. “I want you to hear all about my past, and if you then decide to quietly leave, I would not blame you in the least.”

“Very well,” he said, and with that I started to tell him my story, much as I have written it down here, leaving nothing out. Ross didn’t say a word, he just listened, and as I continued my story, I realized that in all likelihood I was talking him out of my life. At the end, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and as I finished talking, I buried my head in my hands and waited to hear the front door quietly click shut behind him. I waited over a minute and still there was no sound in the room.

Very cautiously I raised my head, rubbed the tears from my eyes and looked around. Ross was still sitting there.

“You’re still here,” I said rather stupidly.

“Where else should I be?” he said quietly. “That is the bravest speech I have ever heard.”

“But surely now you can see why we could never be together?

“Well, I’m not convinced,” he replied.

“Ross, any sensible girl would jump at the chance to marry you, but what concerns me that we have never really got to know each other in the normal way that men and women do; instead we had sex first.” I paused as an idea formed in my head. “I have a proposal to make to you; tomorrow morning I am prepared to ring Mrs O’Toole and tell her that I need two months leave of absence. In that way you will know that I am not working in that time. Then I would like us to spend time together as a normal courting couple would with no sex, and if after that time we still feel the same way about each other, then I warn you that if you ask me to marry you, I will very likely say yes.”

“That sounds very reasonable to me, but will you be short of money?” Ross asked.

“No, I have savings and I will be fine,” I said, and so he agreed to my proposal.

During the next two months, we spent time together, walking in the countryside holding hands, sometimes even kissing, but no sex. I spent time in Ross’s flat just sitting there enjoying his company while he worked on a case. I was a reasonable touch-typist by now, and offered to type up any documents he needed. Sometimes I cooked us tea and it was lovely just being with him. Sometimes we went out to dinner, and I enjoyed dressing up for him. We even danced sometimes and being in his arms was very tempting, but we stuck to our resolve. We also drove to Kilcarnie so that Ross could meet Mammy and the rest of my family, and of course he charmed them. When I later spoke to Mammy on the phone, she was positively gushing about the ‘fine young man’ I had met, and hinting that he would make a great catch for me.

One evening, Ross said “I have something to discuss with you. I’ve been offered a really good job at a top practice, but there is a problem, it’s not here, it’s in Belfast. How would you feel about moving there when it would take you further away from your family?”

It amazed me that this up-and-coming lawyer would in a way ask my permission, to follow his dream. If I had seen it as a problem, would he have given up on his great opportunity? I think he might have, but of course there was no way that I would demand that he stay in Dublin, just for me.

“Ross, if we marry, then I will follow you wherever you want to go. It is not that much further from Belfast to Kilcarnie anyway, and so long as I keep my little car, I can still drive to visit them.”
“Of course you can keep it,” he smiled, “Since you won’t have your own income anymore, I will make sure you are well provided for, as befits the wife of an ‘up-and-coming lawyer’.”

It did later occur to me that there might be another reason for Ross to leave Dublin and move to Belfast – this was the time of ‘The Troubles’ and Ross being a Protestant probably felt more secure in Northern Ireland.

Time passed, and soon the two months were up. It happened to be my birthday on the two-month anniversary of our agreement, although Ross had made no reference to it. He invited me to have dinner to celebrate my birthday in one of the best restaurants in one of the best hotels in Dublin.

As you can imagine I took great care to dress in my very best gown for the occasion. It was an excellent meal. I thought that at some stage he might give me a birthday present, but nothing seemed to be happening. We had reached the coffee and liquors, when Ross reached into his pocket and produced a very small cubic box. He opened the lid and slid it towards me. Inside was the most beautiful gold ring with five quite large diamonds, an engagement ring!

“Marie, I love you very much and I am now asking you to do me the honour of becoming my wife,” he said.

“Oh Ross! Yes, yes, yes, I will be your wife and love you forever!” I replied, and with that he removed the ring from the box and slipped it on my finger, where it fitted perfectly.

We had been so engrosed in each other that we had not noticed that the restaurant was suddenly silent as everyone took an intense interest in the little drama playing out at our table. When they heard my reply, there was an outburst of cheering, clapping, and cries of ‘Congratulations!’

Beaming, Ross called over the Maitre’d and asked for a bottle of champagne, and to ‘please offer a glass of champagne to any of the other diners who would like to drink to our health. Many took up the offer, and the evening ended in a very jolly fashion.

At the conclusion of proceedings, Ross whispered to me that he had booked a room in the hotel and if I wished, but only if I wished, then I might like to spent a bit of time with him there. Of course I agreed. Two months celibacy was the longest I had endured for a very long time, and as a result of this of course we had a wonderful time together. Ross dropped me off at my flat in the wee small hours of the morning, and after a few hours sleep, I went to see Mrs O’Toole.

I’m sure the moment she saw the diamonds sparking on my hand, she knew the reason for my visit.

“Congratulations, my dear, you have a wonderful man,” she said. I asked how she knew who the man was, and she laughed.

“It’s very easy,” she said. “You asked for two months off and Ross, who normally books time with you at least every month, hasn’t called me once. I will be sorry to see you go as you have been a wonderful employee but now you are entering the next stage of your life and I wish you every success. There’s just one bit of advice I’d like to give you – tell Ross everything about your past life before he marries you.”

“I have told him everything,” I said, “And despite everything, he still wants to marry me.”

“I am so glad, my dear,” she said.

She had nearly brought me to tears. I picked up a bag and handed it to her. I knew that she was a fan of the best Irish whiskeys, and this was a bottle of Jamieson Bow Street one of the very best.

“Mrs O’Toole, I want to thank you for your kindness toward me during my time with the Agency, and I would like you to accept this bottle of whiskey as a mark of my appreciation and respect.”

I saw her eyebrows rise when she saw what the bottle was, and she thanked me profusely, which ended in a hug. Then I walked out of her office and out of another stage of my life. This really brings to an end my confession, since thereafter, my sins such as they were, would be considered very mild compared to what I had been doing in the past.

To be concluded

Copyright 2023

Chapter 9

At this time I was only in my mid-twenties, so there is a lot more to my story. Ross and I chose a three-bedroom house for us to live in after we were married. Fortunately it was already vacant, so my first move was to give up my flat in Dublin and move all my possessions and furniture to Belfast. Ross kept his flat for the time being, since, as a lawyer at the start of his career, he could not risk scandal, but of course he visited me frequently. Now I was no longer earning money, I had to rely on my savings, which fortunately were quite substantial, and when they were exhausted, from the generous allowance which Ross gave me. Such was the arrangement for a married woman in those days.

We were married in Belfast six months later, in the presence of Ross’s family. Mammy and all my brothers and sisters attended the wedding and we paid for them to stay in a hotel overnight before returning to Dublin by train and then back to Kilcarnie. I was so pleased that Mammy was prepared to attend a service in a Presbyterian church at a time when the Catholic Church frowned upon its members attending other church services. Thank goodness things have changed for the better. Ross took a week off so that we could honeymoon by touring around Northern Ireland in his motor car. He would have taken longer but I knew that the development of his career was at a critical stage, so he needed to be in Belfast. Now we were able to live in the house we had bought, and I took up the next stage of my life, this time as a housewife. I thoroughly enjoyed it, looking after Ross,

We had deliberately cast aside the prophylactics and as a result I once again proved my fertility by becoming pregnant within four months. This news I greeted with a mixture of joy and terror, being reminded of what had happened to my first pregnancy. Ross was very kind and booked me an appointment with the best obstetrician in Belfast. He was a kindly man, and after examining me, when he asked, as I knew he would, if this was my first pregnancy, I had no qualms about telling him of that unhappy time.

“No doctor can guarantee the success of every pregnancy, my dear, but I see no physical reason why you should not carry this baby through to a successful birth,” he said. It was a great relief to me. Then he asked if I had any questions for him. I did of course but was too shy to voice my thoughts.

However Dr O’Reilly was very experienced, and he said: “Many married women ask me if it is safe to continue with marital relations while pregnant, and I tell them that provided it is not too vigorous there is no problem. Later in pregnancy, the size of the baby makes relations difficult, so at that stage most couples voluntarily stop until some time after the birth. I am able to offer you advice when relations can recommence.”

“Thank you doctor,” I said. Ross was also relieved to get the doctor’s advice, and we found great pleasure in uniting in a gentle way for some months.

Everything developed the way I hoped it would, and in the fullness of time, I was delivered of a fine young boy, whom we named Ross after his father. It might surprise you to learn that our second boy was named Joseph after my father. Two girls, Marie (named after my mother and aunt), and Niamh followed before two more sons Padraic and Sean. At this point, we decided that enough was enough and took steps to avoid any more children, though not our intimate relations of course.

As the children arrived, so we moved to a larger house and again to one even bigger one in Malone Road, one of the nicest areas of the beautiful city of Belfast. Those were wonderful times, with the house full of the happy laughter of children and sometimes their uncles and aunts too. Ross and I were very happy.

You may wonder if I ever saw any of the clients I met while at the Agency? The truth is that I saw a total of three over the years. One, I am sure did not recognize me, a second one I think did but hurriedly looked the other way since he was with his wife. Finally, there was one stupid man who insisted on coming up to me and asking if he knew me from somewhere? “Have you ever been to Kilcarnie?” I enquired and when he admitted that he had not, I said that it seemed very unlikely that we had ever met. He seemed to accept that, or maybe he was just sensible enough to realise that he was getting into an area of his life best left alone.

Ross’s career blossomed. In time he became a King’s Counsel and later still he was knighted, which meant I now had the courtesy title of Lady O’Connor, I could hardly believe that of a girl who started life as the daughter of a tenant farmer. Mammy was very proud.

The final stage of Ross’s career was to be appointed a judge, a position he filled with distinction for five years. I was so proud of him, but alas it was not destined to last. For some time I had been worried that the stress and responsibility was taking its toll on him. He was only sixty-five when one morning after a particularly stressful case which he to adjudicate, he failed to awaken from sleep.

I was bereft. During my period of mourning, I decided that his early death might have been due to my former life and was a well-deserved penance for all I had done. I started going to the Catholic Church again like so many ‘lapsed Catholics’ and praying for Ross’s soul as well as my own. Whether it will have any effect I do not know.

As time passed by, the children grew up, found their own loves and married. Most of them moved to the four corners of the world and my contact with them suffered accordingly, with only occasional letters, mostly on my birthday and Christmas. This was before the internet and overseas phone calls were terribly expensive. Finally, I was left on my own, and it was then that Orla, cousin Agnes’s youngest child came to stay with me and be my companion. Originally it was on a temporary basis but as the years rolled by, it became obvious that she was content to stay. Why she did not marry I will never know; she was so pretty when she was young, and the image of her mother, perhaps she too has a secret she cannot share? She cooks and does the washing, and this leaves her plenty of time to pursue her hobbies of music and art. She is a fine harpist and has a sweet singing voice. She is much in demand as an entertainer. A woman comes in twice a week to clean the house for us and we are very content.

Some people leave a house because they cannot bear the memories it holds; I stay here because I cannot bear to lose them. After I am gone, Orla may stay or leave as she wishes. I have made sure she is well provided for.

Why have I written this document? I cannot bring myself to confess to a priest my past wickedness, and so I have decided to confess to the pages of this little book, hoping that through it I will be absolved of my many sins.

I leave it to be found by some relative in the future and for them to decide what to do with it, perhaps even show it to an understanding priest, something I cannot bring myself to do.

When I am gone, I have made arrangement that I will lie beside Ross for all eternity.

And now - Into Thy hands oh Lord I commend my spirit, counting on Thy Great Mercy to forgive a sinner as you did the Magdalene.

Marie O’Connor

Epilogue

After I finished reading this amazing document, I sat back for a while, staring at the fire deep in thought. Isn’t it strange how we think we know someone and yet we really don’t know them at all, and when we find out it is often too late. Certainly her revelations didn’t make me feel any less affectionate towards Aunt Marie. If I had known of her experiences with women, I might have shared with her the fact that I too have taken women as well as men to my bed, so I perfectly understood how she had felt about Agnes.

As for the way she had chosen to make her last confession, I understood that too. Her story was far too long and complicated to relate to a priest in five or ten minutes, sitting in one of those claustrophobic little confession boxes in her church. How could he, a celibate man, possibly understand her story? I knew that priests are sworn never to reveal what they learn during a confession, but the fact remained that despite the illusion of anonymity, the priest would know who she was and would inevitably look upon her differently afterwards. There is no way he could help it. How could she bear that humiliation? No, in writing her story down she had made her confession to a Higher Being and I have little doubt that He forgave her long ago.

So now it came down to a decision. Should I just destroy the little notebook? No, the story was too interesting to do that, so the conclusion I have come to is to tell Aunt Marie’s story but change all the names including hers and mine. While Belfast and Dublin exist, you will not find a village called Kilcarnie in Ireland, and while ‘The Agency’ and ‘Ace Films’ existed, they were under totally different names. Even the name under which I publish it is a ‘nom-de-plume’.

That of course leaves a problem – with no means of verifying the story you may chose to think it is total fiction, and I don’t propose to leave you any clues to prove that is not the case. Nevertheless, I hope you find it interesting to read.

Oh, one final thing, having now copied and completed my revision of the story, one evening, after kissing its cover, I placed the little notebook carefully on the flames in my fireplace, and watched until they had entirely consumed it.

Acknowledgments: My sincere thanks to an Irish reader who goes by the name of BelfastCity for providing me with so much information and also answering any questions I had about the Ireland of the early twentieth century. Without that assistance I’m sure the story would not have been nearly so accurate. Any errors are entirely my own responsibility.

Many thanks to all those readers who gave kudos and even more to those who took the trouble to write comments – they are gold to a writer.

I will take this opportunity to mention a wonderful book called ‘Charlotte and Arthur by Pauline Clooney, which I think inspired me to write a story about Ireland, as perhaps did my two Irish grandparents about whom I know so little. While it is a fictional record of the honeymoon of Charlotte Bronte and her husband and father’s curate Arthur Bell Nichols in his native Ireland and to which he returned in his final years, it relies heavily on the real correspondence of Charlotte for its factual base, and is brilliantly written. Alas Charlotte succumbed to a prenatal disorder, probably hyperemesis gravidarum, and died about nine months after her marriage, without writing any more stories and never visited Ireland again.