You never know when it will happen and you certainly don't know what to expect or how you will feel when it does. At the tender age of sixteen and one month, it's impossible to gauge how a person will behave when faced with affection from another, especially when they are shy, reticent and immature.

It's true what they say, that women develop emotionally, far earlier than men, or a teenager in my case.

I must have experienced so many emotions in those five months of love, each one causing my heart to flutter in some uncontrolled way, many causing butterflies in my stomach and one or two leaving me in a state of panic and nausea.

I don't know how it came about, but three male friends of mine met up with about four girls at the local park one afternoon in February. They lived about a mile away from us but it was not unusual for people to travel some distance away from their local area, even in our small community. I think it was accidental, to begin with, and I remember that we played coyly with each other. Every now and then someone would shout out that so-and-so fancied so-and-so; associated with a lot of giggling. My name was never mentioned but I never expected it to be.

Before we all split up and went our separate ways, one of my mates suggested we meet again the following day at the same time and they all agreed. When the time came around, we were reduced to just the four of us; two guys and two gals. We just chatted, giggled and generally messed around; playing on the children’s roundabouts, slides or swings. We were just very big kids when it came down to it.

I was teased. My mate and a girl named Angela tried to get me to kiss the other girl that was there. Instead of just going for it, I just shook my head and pretended that she wouldn’t want to kiss me. But secretly I wanted to try it, and apparently, so did she. On the way home that evening I was told that Aronwen Davies, that was her name, the short one with the black hair, all of four foot and two inches, fancied me. To be honest, I was gobsmacked. I was tall for my age reaching nearly six foot, skinny and shy. What on Earth would a girl like Aronwen want with someone like me?

Yet, it brought warmth to my heart as I snuggled down that night under the duvet while listening, covertly, to Radio Luxembourg on my personal radio. The words fancied echoed in my head. I got very little sleep as I was far too excited.

We hardly saw each other at school or on the bus for the whole week that followed. It was on the Saturday of the following weekend that my mate and I cycled all the way to where they lived in the hope of seeing them out and about. We more or less lurked around the parks and streets hoping to bump into them. We didn't see them and so we had to wait until the following week, at school, to try and arrange a meeting for the next weekend.

We did arrange that meeting and we eventually started courting, as they called it. I remember us sitting on some concrete slab, side by side, looking into the shimmering water of the brook below us. I glanced sideways at her and she returned a wry smile in my direction. We had grown so quiet I could hear her breathing. I think we both realised that we had to do something when we both ran out of words.

“Do you want to kiss?” I asked her.

She just nodded and smiled and our heads came together rather awkwardly, as I remember. We kissed and parted almost as fast; like it was naughty to do so. It was after we kissed that I really noticed her deep brown eyes, the way her hair formed a curvaceous fringe across her forehead, her aroma and her heaving breasts; indicating, to me, that she must have been just as excited as I was. I put my arm around her and that’s when the butterflies in my stomach started to flutter. I wondered whether hers were doing the same. We ended up kissing for most of our time on that concrete slab, with my arm around Aronwen’s shoulder.  Stu and Angela eventually returned from wherever they disappeared off to and interrupted us; putting a stop to our tingling lips but not the butterflies.

I was teased some more until we announced that we were an item.

From then on we always arranged to meet on weekends and one or two evenings during the week. Though having to be indoors by nine in the evening didn’t leave much time, but since I played football a lot, I didn’t have to make too many excuses to my parents. We had no way of contacting each other; this was the time of home phones only, heavy use of which was scrutinised by overzealous parents. Mobile phones and even the internet were not even thought of and so all our meetings were clandestine and pre-arranged.

We made arrangements by passing notes during class and talking when we could. Our togetherness was innocent, to say the least, but it was the happiest time of my life. We walked out together, we held hands, we cuddled and we laughed a lot. We kissed too, but not in a passionate or lusty way. Not at first.

We played silly games together, she used to pull a daisy from the ground and we would start pulling the petals off one by one, we would recite, she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me –

One time, Aronwen got to the end of her daisy and the words, he loves me not, was on her lips as she pulled the last petal from it. She hesitated and told me to quickly pick another one, telling me that this one hadn’t grown properly.

One evening, I felt severe pain in my heart when we arranged to meet at the corner of my street. Aronwen didn't turn up at the arranged time. I waited and waited. It wasn't like her to be late. But I waited for ages. All sorts of things crossed my mind, but the one thing that was the most persistent was the one that caused me to doubt myself. After four hours in the cold, I had come to the conclusion that she no longer wanted to see me anymore. That we had finished. My heart sunk. I felt contractions in my stomach and the feeling of nausea threatened me. The butterflies had flown away; possibly for good, scared off by this feeling of rejection.

I wanted to ride all the way to her house and see whether she was there, but I was so scared of what I might find, so I went home, sulked and worried myself to death; as you do. I met Aronwen on the bus the following day. I hesitated about looking in her direction; pretending I didn’t see her. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and soon after, the explanation of why her father had not allowed her out that evening.

An intense relief flooded through me and we couldn’t stop chatting all the way to school. I never told her how it made me feel, it would have been too embarrassing.

It wasn’t long before we arranged to try and catch the same bus to school. We had so many to choose from that it was a case of her sitting in the same place every morning, top deck near the back, and me looking for her as the bus pulled up. On a few occasions, I missed all the buses because I hadn’t seen her. Those were the days I would get into trouble because I was late.

The days turned into weeks and eventually, our parents found out about us. I think they knew for some time, to be fair, as everyone knows everyone else’s business in the valleys. But I didn’t expect to be sat down on the edge of my bed one evening and told the facts of life by my dad.  That was worse than embarrassing, even if I wasn’t totally aware of what he was going on about. I came out of that conversation more scared than when I went in.

My mother would periodically take a shot across my bow and tell me never to come home and say that I had got that girl into trouble. In my defence, I thought that kind of stuff was in the far future and had no chance of happening right now.

But, with our relationship out in the open, it did mean that we could sit in the parlour, listening to records and kiss in private, and in the warm; our senses acute and listening out for any sounds that indicated that parents were approaching so that we could make ourselves tidy.

Every kiss caused a tension in me that I had never felt before; a sense of wonderment. It always caused those damn butterflies to jostle inside me, but it also caused my willy to extend and grow within the confines of my trousers. I just hoped that Aronwen didn’t notice my predicament. Every time I was near her I became excited. It had nothing to do with the sexual urges from within me, though they didn’t help, it was simply because she wanted to be near me. I felt I belonged.

We did have one unplanned meeting on a rather rainy Saturday afternoon. We hadn’t arranged to meet and I was at home. Aronwen was waiting at the corner of my street, waiting for me to appear, which I didn’t do. It started to rain, heavily, and as luck would have it, my grandmother was walking back from the shops and saw this waif of a young woman, soaked to the skin and shivering, huddled against the stone wall, in a vain attempt at trying to avoid the rather large raindrops. Fortunately, my grandmother recognised her.

I was actually doing homework when Aronwen appeared out of nowhere – soaked to the skin. My grandmother immediately ushered me out of the room and into the parlour. I didn’t know why but I next saw Aronwen with some makeshift clothes on her. My grandmother had stripped her and was in the process of drying her clothes by the open fire. I distinctly remember listening to my mother and grandmother talking through the thin walls of the house, about how big she was for a girl so young. I guessed she was talking about her bosom. After all, they weren’t something that you could miss.

I never did find out why she came to visit me that day, she never said. I liked to think it was because she missed me because I know that I felt the same. Every time we kissed I felt love and happiness. Yet, every time I wanted to tell her what I thought, my nerves got the better of me and I would clam up. If you want to know what love feels like, then for me, it was that feeling of being euphoric when Aronwen was with me and physically sick when she was not.

By Springtime, we spent more time in each other’s company. The nights were lighter and our time after school was spent in each other’s company. All thoughts of my friend Stu and Angela were far gone. In fact, they never did make it to couple status, not like Aronwen and I.

As the weeks and months drew on, I just couldn’t imagine being without Aronwen. My relationship with my own friends waned slightly. The weekends were one hundred per cent reserved for my girlfriend. The label, girlfriend, sounded good.

On one afternoon in April, Aronwen and I found ourselves walking up one of the many mountain paths into the forestry. It was her that suggested we find somewhere where we could kiss. I don’t know why, but I became scared of the consequences; of being caught outdoors by some dog walker. We wandered into the thick forestry of pine trees for all of five yards; yes, I thought, five yards would be enough. We found enough free space on the ground to lie down together comfortably and without the pine cones and needles sticking into us or staining our clothes. We started kissing.

By this time in our relationship, the kissing had become a little more passionate and tongues often started to fight with each other. I felt those butterflies again. Not because we were kissing, but because I wanted to move my hand to touch her. Her breasts had indeed got the better of me and I wanted to know what they felt like. I hesitated far too much. I wanted to place my hand on one of those large bosoms my grandmother had commented on, yet I was scared of the repercussions or whether she would complain or just didn’t want that to happen. The last thing I wanted was for her to run away screaming that I had touched her somewhere that was not proper.

Yet I did.

We kissed and kissed and my hand slowly cupped her breast; on the outside of all her clothes.  I couldn’t believe it. I had touched Aronwen’s breast. I was over the moon with excitement. My mind was swirling around, hormones were being treated to an early birthday present and I was on cloud nine. It didn’t stop either. My hands reached up her jumper and struggled when it reached her tight bra. She had to lift herself up to release the clips at her back before my hand could slide up onto her bare flesh.

I noticed the glint in her eye and saw that she was waiting for my touch. She swooned when my hand glided over her smooth flesh and onto her nipple. I let the palm of my hand rub against her stiff nipples as we kissed. I was slow on the uptake and didn’t, for one moment, think that she so desperately wanted me to touch her. How naïve was that?

I slowly came to realise, that with our passion swelling, Aronwen wanted more. Much more. Her body was swelling with lust, and she pushed herself into me with every opportunity. I, once more, let my hand wander downwards until I felt her thigh under her skirt; just above her knee. I started to lift my hand upwards; unsure of what I would do when I reached the top. 

I realised that her thighs were wonderful and smooth and hot as I got closer and closer, but all I could hear in my head was my mother’s voice.

Don’t you dare make that girl pregnant?

I needn’t have worried. Aronwen arrested my progress with a wry and hesitant smile.

I totally understood. I was also not sure myself, simply because I didn’t know where we would have gone after that. I just nodded, relieved that I had gone as far as I had ever been with a girl and not too far to embarrass myself. We kissed one more time and I felt emboldened to come out with those fateful words.

“I love you,” I said, with my right hand massaging her breast.

She pulled me to her and kissed me hard, but I don’t think either of us knew the relevance of what I had said.

Those words didn’t change our relationship one iota. We just carried on as normal, but I said them more and more when the time felt right. She also used them once or twice, but not as often as I did. But then, I suppose I was besotted with Aronwen Mary Davies. She even had a middle name that I loved; something I was not blessed with.

In early May the circus came to our village. I asked my parents for some money and bought two tickets for us. It was a great night out, entertaining and thrilling. We both dressed up for the event and Aronwen wore a superb dress that looked simply stunning on her. On the walk home I suggested that we sidestep into the alleyways; the darkened passageways that played host to the back entrances of the terraced houses.

My idea was to find an out of the way and darkened place that we could cavort without being seen. I found just the place between two garages but got stung by the nettles and brambles that frequented it. It never stopped me and we ended up kissing there for a while. I was conscious of my willy hardening once more and I was also conscious of Aronwen’s thigh pressing in on it.

I was of two minds that night: one suggested I should back away and the other suggested I should press forward to let her feel it some more. I was more than a little shocked when Aronwen’s hand came upon the bulge and pressed against it. My hands immediately grasped the cheeks of her bottom and I started to pull her dress upwards; never once taking my lips from hers. I pressed my hands into her bottom and circled one around to the front.

That voice appeared once more.

Don’t you dare –

I gasped as Aronwen undid my belt and I felt my trousers loosen. The next I knew her hand was inside and circling her fingers around my hot cock. I had the feeling she was waiting for something but I didn’t know what it was. I felt her pull at it and then I felt her push my pants downwards.  I was so taken aback with her brazenness that I remember swearing and pulling back from her just as she pulled it free of my trousers.

In just two jerks of her hand, I became aware of soiling her dress as she pulled my cock free. I couldn’t hold it back. I couldn’t stop the sudden release for one minute; it was volcanic. I twisted and turned so that my sudden outburst splashed against the wall of the garage. I could see confusion and amusement on Aronwen’s face and I apologised profusely for what had happened. Fortunately, I had a handkerchief in my pocket and after cleaning up the mess, we started to pull ourselves together to leave and make our way home. I had a lot of walking to do, firstly to take her home and then back to where I lived, and time was getting on. I must have apologised for my actions every hundred yards and I have always wondered what Aronwen thought of me because we never discussed it afterwards. I wondered whether I had blown it one more time – made a fool of myself.

With the summer approaching in early June, we spent most of our time by the open-air swimming pool. It was a twenty-five-metre pool with diving boards for us lads to show off. They were twelve foot high with a two-foot extension and we were fearless.

I had, however, noticed a subtle change in our relationship. It had become more casual; a little less intense, perhaps. We started seeing each other less often during the week, but always on weekends. We spent more time in the company of our friends, as a group, at the pool or just out and about; hanging around on street corners and being scrutinised by the eyes of other kid’s grandmothers and mothers from behind their twitching curtains. Our lives would certainly never be our own, not with the nosy, gossipy Mrs Jones that lived on the corner of my street. Her sole purpose in life: to report us and our actions to our parents.

Aronwen started to spend a little more time with her own friends, especially at the poolside. We used to arrange to meet at the swimming pool but on occasions, I would turn up to find that she had not. It saddened me and I didn’t know what was happening to us.

Indecision started to take hold of me and the more we didn’t see each other the more I wanted to ask her why? Again, I was afraid of the answer to even ask the question. With the summer holidays upon us, we didn’t even have the excuse for meeting up on the bus to school, in school, or on the way home.  My life became uneventful and all I could do was wish that she was with me every moment of the day. When she was, I was happy, but when she wasn’t my heart grew very heavy indeed.

We did cavort in the swimming pool on a few occasions. I used to pull at her bikini top in an attempt to make her reveal some flesh to my friends. She used to pull my shorts down while I was in the pool. We giggled at our attempts at flashing. But while I was enjoying the attention of her closeness, so were my friends.

In time, I found it more and more difficult to be with her when my friends were present and it wasn’t long before they seemed to take more and more of her attention, leaving less for me. They were the ones that now seemed to spark off her laughter like I had done not four months earlier. I often noticed that she would lie on her towel and relish in the thought of the other guys looking at her bottom, or down between her cleavage. She would thrust a wry smile in their direction when they were caught looking.

It would be fair to say that during those poolside afternoons we drifted apart and I felt under much duress. I became anxious, hurt and envious of my so-called friends. In short, I became jealous and afraid. Scared I would lose her.

To think, that two months ago I had told her I loved her and meant it with all my heart. Two months ago she had said the same to me, and yet the sudden attention of my friends over the summer season had seemed to erase all those wonderful emotions.

Yet it wasn’t over was it. Neither of us had told the other that we didn’t want to see each other again and so I hung on to the belief that we were still an item.

I walked into my mother’s shoe shop one afternoon and was immediately faced with questions as to why I was not with Aronwen or at the swimming pool. In fact, I had left the swimming pool early and told everyone I was going home and that I was tired. The truth was that I couldn’t face the way she cavorted with my friends in front of me; especially when they started to pull at her bikini strap themselves to try and release her wobbling breasts or chased her around the benches or through the changing rooms; causing her to laugh at their attempts. I walked to the back of my mother’s shop and stared out of the window.

I don't know how much love a person can hold within them. I think, that each time that you love someone, you lose a percentage of your ability to love one hundred per cent ever again. I think, when love is used, the intensity of any future love, diminishes, to a certain degree.

I must have lost twenty per cent of my ability to love as I looked out of the window of my mother's shop on that Saturday in July.

It overlooks the park where the swimming pool is located. Aronwen Mary Davies was walking playfully with one of my friends as they crossed the park, not thirty minutes after I had kissed her on the cheek and told her I was leaving. They weaved between the trees and bushes; playing games of pretend hide and seek as they went along; touching each other, briefly, giggling and laughing. I wished I could have heard what they were saying.

The shop radio played the rather bouncy Mary Hopkin song of the late sixties, but instead of feeling the words, I just felt sorry for myself.

I zoned out. The music became a far off drone. Those days were ending; right here and now, right in front of my eyes.  The trees were glistening brightly, the birds were singing and I was crying as I watched him catch her by the wrist, pull her to him, and kiss her full on the lips.

She pushed him back playfully and ran away until she was caught once more; another kiss followed.

Another tear left my eye and headed for the boxes of shoes that cluttered the floor.

I saw no resistance from her. In fact she more or less attacked him back; finally dropping her bag on the ground as her arms wrapped around his neck; lifting herself up on tiptoes, like she used to do with me.

My mother entered the back room and told me that I couldn’t stay here for long as she had customers. She never saw my face or heard my voice. I just nodded and told her that I would be leaving soon.

It was over. I wasn’t told it was over – not by her – not to my face. Neither did one of her friends or one of mine tell me that we had split up. But I saw that it was over in the worst possible way. It was three weeks later that I found out that she was seeing Rob Jones. That wasn’t the guy I saw her with from the window of the shop, no, this was someone else entirely.

In five months I had progressed from meeting my first girlfriend, to being in love with her, to losing her. What did I do wrong?

It took me a while to figure it all out. Twenty years in fact, but I came to the conclusion, in hindsight, that in the forestry, Aronwen definitely wanted my hands all over her body; she wanted my hands on her breasts and between her thighs. She would have been more than happy to have my finger caress her wet lips and thrust them inside her. In her mind, I think she would have wanted it all. She was just playing hard to get. Any normal hot-blooded male would have pushed further and she would have relented; taking her virginity, or maybe not, in the pine fragrant forestry. Any normal teenager would have had sex and she would feel like a woman; like she wanted to feel like. I was too afraid of my mother’s words or indeed my own deeds that would end up putting shame on my family.

On the walk home from the circus, she would have happily taken my hardened cock inside her and relieved me of the tension that was released up against that wall. And once more in the parlour of her house, when her parents were out, she would have happily allowed herself to lay back, open her legs and let me climb between them and push my cock inside her; though, events of that night were unfortunate as her parents did come home a little too early. If I had been between her legs they would have seen my bare buttocks pound my buried cock into their little daughter. But for how long I don’t know.

I truly think that Aronwen wanted to experience sex in all its glory and that I was holding her back. She wanted to feel like a woman and I – I was just too naïve to realise. I sometimes still wonder what would have happened if I had had the attitude of any of my friends at that time of my life.  Had I not listened to those words –

Don’t you dare –

After Aronwen, I became withdrawn towards women; shy, unable to ask them out for fear of rejection, despite fancying many girls while doing my advanced level schoolwork.

I found myself going to University at the age of nineteen, one year later than I would normally have done. This time with my second girlfriend, who would later become my wife.

Like I said, I was already twenty per cent down on love at my second attempt –

I really didn’t hold out much hope!