The Dentist and a Boy Page 3

  William shook his head and whispered, “No,” but his face had paled when Gardner asked him that question.

  “Surely you must have realized what she was after when she dropped that dressing gown to the floor,” said Gardner with a look of dismay in his eye as William lowered his head and looked towards the floor.

  “No,“ he replied, “I c... c ...could only see that she was …b ... b ... beautiful and I was more concerned that I had nearly throttled her on her …b ... b ... bike ... where ... I ... I ... I held on to her so tightly around the waist on the way home.”

  “And when you were holding on so tightly, didn’t you feel her boobs or anything? Surely you must have realized that the driver of that bike that evening was a woman?”

  “Boobs ... b ... b ... b ... boobs ... No never that ... No, she was wearing leathers. You ... you ... you … c ... c ... can’t feel anything through leather.”

  “Oh can’t you now?” Reggie sighed, “Well thanks for telling me that. I’ll jot that down in my note- book, right now … Alright ... so we’ll accept that, but surely you just didn’t sit and drink hot coffee when you discovered she was a woman. What was her name by the way?”

  “Maya ... she called herself Maya and I … t ... t ... t ...told her I was William.”

  Reggie Gardner could contain himself no longer as he burst into a fit of laughing.

  “And all this time, you didn‘t know she was a woman until she came in to the room naked? Well now this is very cozy, wasn’t it … This Maya girl sits drinking hot coffee in the nude and you just keep drying your hair. Is that it? Didn‘t you think it best to bugger off ... or is it more correct to say that you got the horn, eh? You had the ‘hots’ for her, hadn’t you, boy?”

  William sat very still for a few moments before he spoke again.

  “Don’t call me boy …” he snapped, ”I … di ... di ... didn’t realize she was a… w ... w ... woman straight away. Her hair was blonde, but very … sh ... sh ... short. Cut like a boy’s I thought and I ,,,th ... th ... thought she might have been about twe ... twe ... twenty-five or so and it was only when she…”

  “Yeah,” snapped Gardner, feeling exasperated by this time “We know that bit, don’t we … now what happened after that …“

  “I became …v ... v ... v ... very excited and I tried to hide my ... my ... emb ... emb ... embarrassment, but she was very understanding. She asked me ... asked me how old I was and if I was… ma ... ma ... married or anything. She also told me …n ... n ... not to be afraid and she would put her dressing gown back on again if that was… w ... wh ... wh ... what I wanted.”

  “And of course, you told her you weren’t afraid, not one little bit and that you were just fine with that situation ...no wife ... no girlfriend. I’m yours for the taking Honey. Just leave your dressing gown where it is on the floor. I like to see it there ... Is that it?”

  “No,” William shouted. “No ... no, it wasn‘t at all like … th ... th ... like that. Maya suggested I could have a … sh ... sh ... sh ... shower if I wanted so that she could dry my … cl ... cl ... clothes off.”

  “Ah! and now were getting somewhere and you gladly dropped your pants and walked into the shower with a horn up to your bloody eyes, YES or did you break into a gallop?” William lowered his head again and nodded before he shook his head. He was confused with the questions he was being asked. “I suppose she didn‘t offer to wash your back, did she?” Gardner went on as William shook his head.

  “You don‘t understand. I had … n ... n ... n ... n ... never been so close to a w ... w ... woman in my life before that,” he said very slowly and obviously trying to control his stutter, but without success. “There was one girl at … s ... s ... school and I thought she had …fee ... fee ... feelings for me.”

  “And did you fancy her?” asked Reggie suddenly finding a new curiosity, but William hesitated before he answered.

  “I …th ... th ... th ... thought I did,” he said and bit his lower lip.

  “So you knew this girl at school and you thought she fancied you and you thought you fancied her. Well, how far did it get with this new found love? Did you kiss her? I mean, I know it would have been too soon for you to have done anything more than that, but how far did you get with this girl. What was her name, by the way?”

  “Her name ... her ... her ... her name was ... Iris . . . Iris …Summers, I think it was.”

  “Oh nice name is Iris and I bet she was a nice girl too, so tell me more.”

  “I went out with her twice ... and on the ... the ... second ... time ... time, I held her hand and ...”

  “Well, go on. You held her hand and what happened after that?”

  Reggie could feel himself getting excited as he asked his questions and wondered if he should stop, just as William shook his head as if he had just come out of a trance.

  “This is nothing to do with ... with ... M ... M ... Maya Broomfield ... So why do y ... y ... you w ... w ... w ... want to know about this g ... g ... g ...girl, Iris?”

  “Well, you did say that no girl had shown any interest in you before you met Maya Broomfield and that this Maya woman made you feel different to any other girl you knew ... so what happened next with Iris?”

  William hesitated for quite some time, looking around the room before he answered.

  “It was on our second time out …t ... t ... to ... together and I thought I should let her know … s ... s ... something of my …fee ... fee ... feelings for her, although they weren’t strong … f ... feelings, not like I had for Maya,”

  “But strong enough for you to want to show this Iris girl how you felt, yes?”

  “Yes ... Yes, I … s ... s ... s…suppose that was …how it was.”

  “For a young man going out with a girl for the first time, you don’t sound very enthusiastic. What the hell did you say to her? What did you do?”

  William swallowed hard and looked very sad.

  “I wanted to write to her to …t ... t ... try to tell her what …I … f ... f ... felt in my heart, as I knew I was … st ... st ... stuttering and I didn’t like her to know that, b ... b ... b ...but nothing came to …m ... m ... mind and it was then that… sh ... sh ... she told me that she was not a v ... v ... virgin and ... and ... and she asked me ... if I ... I ... wanted to have … in …in …intercourse with her, saying ... that …that she wouldn’t get …p ... p ... pregnant as she h ... h ... had been with a …b ... b ... boy before.”

  Gardner looked surprised for a moment before he asked his next question.

  “When she asked you if you wanted to have intercourse with her ... Is that exactly how she said it … this dame who tells you that she ain‘t no virgin?” William lowered his head and Gardner went on. “She asked you to fuck her, didn’t she? Isn’t that more like what she said? Don’t be so bloody coy. This girl was making a pass at you. She was telling you that you could fuck her and that she would take the responsibility, wasn‘t she?”

  “Y ... Y ... Y ... Yes,” William blurted as he closed his eyes, “That may have been so, but I don’t like …th. ... th ... that term of lovemaking that she used. It isn’t right. It has … so much …c ... c ... coarseness to it and when you … lu ... lu... lu ...love someone, it means nothing … Nothing at all, other than… s ... s ... self satisfaction.”

  Gardner looked at William when he explained his philosophy of life and he was surprised at the morals of such a young man in this day and age, but he wondered if there ever was anything in the boy’s mind in the first place when he was walking out with this girl as he didn’t seem to be madly enthusiastic about her suggestion which Gardner thought rather strange for a young man in love ... and it seemed, for the first time in his life. If it was LOVE ... which he was beginning to doubt . . .

  “I tried to kiss her,” William murmured swiftly, trying to avoid his stutt
er … and almost as though he was ashamed for the very thought of what he tried to do, “only just a little …k ... k ... kiss, you understand,” he went on.

  “Yes, yes ... on the cheek,” snapped Reggie, “I know all that. Go on and what then?”

  “She… p ... p ... pulled away from me and ran away down the… s ... s ... street laughing her head off.”

  Gardner did not know what to say next when William said that and in that instant he felt very sorry for the young man and was beginning to understand more clearly how he must have been totally overpowered by Maya Broomfield. He knew then that however he wanted to describe this love affair between William Bright and Maya Broomfield, this was really love for William ... and he was sure it was the first time he had ever really loved anyone, even with the exception of his own mother. This really was the first love of his life ... that was for sure, but he was still worried about Maya’s interest in the boy. Was it love… was it lust?... and if it was the latter, as Gardner strongly suspected it was, then young William Bright was nothing special to her and any young buck could have served her purpose that night when the weather was so inclement and it was cold outside that warm and cozy flat in Muswell Hill.

  “I’m sorry William ... Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you about Iris. She wasn’t worth bothering about, was that one”

  “It doesn’t… ma ... m ... m ... matter now,” said William. “That was in the… p ... p ... past and I don’t think about it any more, but as for …M ... M ... Maya ... I had never felt this way in my life …b ... b ... before. It was just like a …d ... d ... dream. This lady was …ac ... ac ... ac ... accepting of me as I was. She didn’t think ... didn’t think I was the idiot that my …s ... s ... s ... school friends thought I was. She looked on me as …a …ma ... ma ... man and in that moment, I was… p ... p ... proud… I WAS man and I knew it.”

  “I bet you did …in more ways than one, I’d say,” suggested Gardner with a grin on his face. “So you had a shower ... and I’m asking you again, did she offer to wash your back or anything?”

  William looked away for a moment and shook his head.

  “When I came out from the …sh ... sh ... sh ...shower she told me that I could wait at her flat for as long as I ... I ... I needed, before my ... my ... my clothes were dry.”

  Gardner grinned again and shrugged his broad shoulders, feeling a certain pride that he had experienced so few times in his life.

  “And of course … with your mother being away with one of her ‘friends’ for the night … you agreed, yes …”

  “Yes, I drank the co ... c ... coffee with one of her b ... b ... bath towels around me. I hated my ... my ...myself ... Hated myself for the way I … w ... w ... was. I was … em ... em ...embarrassed and she could see that.”

  “You mean you had a horn on, yes? I’ll bet she was bloody embarrassed too. Hardly a pretty sight for a lady to see, I should think. Did she do anything then?” asked Gardner, feeling almost apologetic for his sarcasm, but nevertheless enjoying the moment.

  “I apologised to ... to ... her and I told her that I … w ... w ... would leave her as soon as my clothes were …d ... d ... dry, but she said that I could …st ... st ... stay as long as I wanted as she had no other visitor coming to the …f ... f ... flat that evening.”

  “Nice one Cyril” said Gardner with another wicked grin on his face.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Oh, nothing ... nothing at all . . . Just an expression I picked up somewhere, now go on with what you were saying . . . “

  “By this time ... I wish ... I wish ... I wished I could touch her but I was afraid she might … s ... s ... s ... scream and … I …I … I didn’t want that to happen.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t Boyo … How very considerate of you and what happened then?”

  “She asked me ... me ... again if I was … ma ... ma ... married or anything and when ... when ... when I told her I wasn’t, she asked me again h ... h ... how old I was and if I had ever been with a …g ... g ... girl before as she …p ... p ... put her hand on my thigh.”

  “Strange thing for a woman to ask a man, don’t you think“ asked Gardner, “I’ll bet that didn’t help your horn now, did it lad, but now were getting somewhere. Go on Romeo, tell me more.”

  By this time William seemed compelled to tell Reggie Gardner all he wanted to know as he settled into his chair and looked totally relaxed, apologizing again to Reggie for his stutter which seemed to be getting better the more relaxed he became.

  “I asked her if I could do the same … to …to …to her and she agreed so I …p ... p ... put my hand on her knee before I … tu ... tu ... t ... touched her thigh.”

  Reggie opened his eyes wide at this juncture. “And then?” he went on as he swallowed hard.

  “She put the lights off and pulled the bath towel away from me,” said William without the slightest trace of a stutter.

  “But I thought you said she didn’t seduce you that evening.”

  “Maya didn’t seduce me,” he snapped angrily. “I wanted to do what I did. It was …m ... m ... my doing; not hers,” he answered in small sentences and again, the stuttering seemed insignificant.

  “But she didn’t stop you and she knew how young you were and that you weren’t married.”

  “That didn’t matter. She made me feel like …a … m ... m ... man and no other woman had done that before. No other person in all my life had… m ... m ... m ... made me feel the way she did. She was my mother, my lover, my life ... I could do things for her and with her, that I couldn‘t or …woo ... woo ... woo ... wouldn‘t do for anyone else. I wrote her letters too, which is something I have always found difficult to do. My English is not the best … as …as …as …as … I am sure you have …ga ... ga ... g ... gathered by now”

  “Oh! I wouldn’t say that …“said Gardner, purposely avoiding young William’s stutter. “And you were nineteen when all this happened, did you say?” Gardner went on, wondering what on earth had escaped him when he was nineteen as nothing like this had ever happened to him ... Worse luck, he thought quietly to himself … and William seemed to have recomposed himself by this time before he spoke again

  “Yes, I was nineteen and still a …v ... v ... v ... virgin. Well I was … b... be … before I met Maya. Does that …m ... m ... m ... make you laugh? I could laugh when I think of it now, but Maya gave me… s ... s ... s ... something in my life that nobody else could. She told me later that she was a… d ... d ... d ... dental surgeon and … h…h…had studied to become a …sol…sol…solicitor or something …and that she had been ... had ... had ... had been on some conference or other at Southend when she saw me standing in the rain in that lay by.”

  “And then?”

  “She also told me that she had been ma ... ma ... m ... married but was now divorced …”

  Gardner would have continued to question William for the rest of the evening but the policeman standing near them called a halt on the proceedings and he was compelled to come back the following day, however that evening when he got home, Reggie Gardner made a list of all that he wanted to ask and hoped that William Bright was still as anxious to oblige as he had recently been, but the more Reggie thought about that young man in custody, the more he felt that there was more to his story than he had been told… Much more, in fact and he also felt that if there was love between William Bright and this Maya dentist woman ... the love was only flowing one way ... and yet, within a few weeks after that, Billy-Boy, the very inexperienced youngster who wished he could have written a love letter to his first girl friend, Iris, was obviously writing strong and passionate letters to Maya Broomfield, which may not have meant much to her as she was a sophisticated lady, but they meant a lot to Billy-Boy who regarded her as the love of his life.

  There was a strange contradiction to all that Garner had f
ound about his client and he could not fathom it ... Indeed William’s very life itself didn’t seem to add up and Gardner wished he could have seen just one of those letters. The one’s that Maya Broomfield boasted about when she was approached by the police, but wouldn’t show anyone and Reggie wondered if William had used a condom when he had f . . . . Er, made love to this lady... before he dismissed the thought as stupid. William Bright wouldn’t know what a condom was ... silly bugger.

  Chapter Five

  IT WAS VERY NEARLY TEN 0’CLOCK in the morning and William Bright had not appeared in the room where Reggie Gardner had interviewed him the previous day. Reggie had been waiting since 9.30 that morning and wondered if there was something wrong as the time dragged by, keeping him waiting impatiently, when suddenly a door at the end of the room was thrown open and two policemen came in with Bright between them.

  “Have you been giving some trouble, Boy?” Gardner asked as William sat down, but he did not answer. “Some trouble?” Gardener asked again and William raised his head.

  “None that I know of, BOY,” he answered very slowly, taking precautions not to stutter.

  “You’re later than usual. D’you, realize that?”

  William shook his head and looked at Gardner as if he should have understood the reason for the delay.

  “Bath day, SIR,” William explained, “I thought you would have… re ... re ... realized that ... that ... that we do have a bath in here … S ... S ... SOMETIMES.”

  Gardner coughed. That was the only form of apology he knew...

  “O.K. are we ready for some more questions today then, William?” he asked and William shook his head again very slowly.

  “I am a little tired ... this ... this morning, so if I ... I ... I speak slowly you … w …w … will understand, I hope,” he muttered and Gardner nodded.