CHAPTER ONE

Though forty, there was still something very girlish about my step-mother Adalind. It was said that she had married my aged and ailing father during the war, more for the promise of inheriting the bungalow at his death than for any romantic reason. He died when I was eleven. The bungalow passed to my step-mother freehold. She had a widow's pension, and so we got through those difficult years on a somewhat frugal diet of fish and potatoes.

The bungalow was beautifully situated at Viking Moos on a 100-foot high headland looking out over the Estuary. It was claimed by local historians that Vikings from Denmark and Schleswig had come ashore here 1200 years ago. Below the headland was a strip of beach so narrow as never to be frequented by holiday makers. Here one could take peaceful walks along the shore even in summer. The crescent of forest to the rear of the bungalow protected us against the worst of the winter winds. There I spent my happy childhood, for my step-mother Adalind saw to my every need. Her pet name for me was Wulf.

So as to deter me from any idea of going to University at eighteen, when I was sixteen Adalind had explained that she wanted me to obtain work with a finance office in the local town and study internal auditing at home. Wulf had little alternative but to comply.

Adalind's secret plans for herself and me, as confided to her contemporary diary, were that, "...In a few years, Wulf will be the best man of all for Adalind. His face is clear cut and sensitive, his figure spare, held upright with shoulders braced military fashion. But there is something taut about his whole bearing, like a rope stretched too tightly. I feel that Wulf needs Adalind permanently by his side to balance his mind and nerves." Well, that was one way of stating what she had in mind for Wulf.

I noticed a definite change in the relationship with my step-mother after my seventeenth birthday. I saw that she was putting pressure on me to begin thinking of her as a sexual partner if not as a potential wife. For example, she wore thin cotton dresses about the house, and her hugs in greeting and goodbye were now full frontal, her nipples like pebbles against my chest. Often if these cuddles and giggles went on too long they would give me an erection, my upright penis pressing against her pubis, but she never seemed to mind, nor angle her body away from me to avoid it.

She also introduced the tradition of kissing me on the mouth which had never been the custom before. "Come on," she insisted, "What harm can a mere kiss do?"

So we had our first proper "mere" kiss. It was hard to disengage from it. The softness of her lips and the passion which went into it were very beguiling. It lasted about thirty seconds. "Mmmm! My, you're a naughty boy, kissing your step-mum like that!" she grinned.

In one of my favourite photos of her it can be seen that she had quite broad shoulders but an otherwise trim figure. She wore her auburn hair centre-parted and in a straggly style to her shoulders, her eyes, almond shaped, were aquamarine-blue in colour and she had a lovely smile. Being quite tall and slender she found it easy to dress attractively and I never once saw her wearing jeans or trousers. She was a very pretty woman and young at heart.

I told her once, "What a coincidence that you should be living at Viking Moos, where your forebears first set foot in England 1200 years ago!"

She laughed and replied, "So we meet again!"

At age age eighteen I was called up for two years' National Service. Since I was partially qualified in accountancy I could have had it deferred but I was anxious for military experience and so went into the Army Pay Corps.

Adalind wrote to me every week on every subject under the sun including her own passions. "You know, darling Wulf, I seem to be a walking hoard of sexual emotions and I'm just fed up with behaving myself.

If only the right young man would come in through the front door one day and sweep this forty-two year old off her feet!"

I showed this letter and a photo of Adalind to one of my close barrack-hut companions. "Blimey, you could do a lot worse!", Rob exclaimed, staring at the photo, "What a cracker for forty-two! And all pent up sexually. Listen here, you nut, you're living alone with your step-mother in her house, when the winter comes and the winds howl across Viking Moos she would probably welcome you in her bed, and you couldn't wish for a better sex teacher than a woman of her age who fancies you. Strewth! Forget about the local floozies and let yourself be hooked by your step-mother!"

In my letter of reply to Adalind, I suggested in a roundabout way that I was not averse to sharing the matrimonial bed with her in the depths of winter. I said I would hate to think of her shivering in bed when we could be quite cosy together.

Because I had a spot of leave coming up the following week, she did not respond, but on the first evening back home sitting watching TV my step-mother confessed that in her teens before she married she had been an avid nudist, and even allowed herself to be featured nude in The Worldwide Naturist magazine.

"I'll let you into a secret not even your father knew about," she told me. From a drawer she produced a pre-war edition of the pictorial magazine and pointed to a centre page spread. She was posing with a happy grin as a twenty-year old. My step-mother-to-be had her hands on top of her head, was inclining backwards slightly to show off to their best advantage her breasts with their large areolas and big erect nipples; her waist was trim and her abdomen firm, and she had a generous bush of pubic hair.

"Gosh, what a beautiful body, Adalind!" In a second photo it was possible to see a long scar on her outer right thigh. I had never seen her either naked or in a swimsuit before and so I did not know about this scar and its origins.

"Oh, that was a stupid accident in my teens", she told me, "I don't like to talk about it. Anyway, about your mysterious last letter - if you want to sleep with me just ask. I'm a nudist when the chance offers itself and so I've got no objection to us sleeping in the nude. I think it would be quite fun." She gave me a knowing smile, and I gave her one back.

That same night there was a storm. The thunderclaps were louder than I had ever heard before. It sounded like the Twilight of the Gods. The wind shrieked and howled. I couldn't possibly sleep with that racket going on and so I just lay there listening to it. Adalind came into my room naked at about two o'clock and slipped into bed beside me.

I was stupefied as she launched conversationally into how she saw herself as my step-mother/wife. I felt her relax her weight on top of me, her rather bristly pubic bush resting on my penis. "Oh darling Wulf, I could easily get used to this every night," she whispered. Some time later, knowing that my penis was totally stiff for her, she capped the head with her palm and just playing her fingers up and down the shaft. It gave me the most a delighful feeling but was not masturbation. It kept me erect for at least two hours and I could not really protest for I had no means of knowing whether or not this might be something which nudists did amongst themselves and did not actually count as sex.

So the happy couple, Adalind and Wulf, not actually having sex but something fairly close to it, rode out the storm. There was something very thrilling in possessing in my arms the woman whom I had loved and treasured for so long as my step-mother. But that was the point. I saw her as my step-mother. She ran the house and gave me orders which I had to obey. This created a psychological blockage which prevented me seeing Adalind as a possible lover and wife, and I did not see how I could remove it.