Last time I met John van Dorn, he told me the following love story:

After two months of grueling boot camp, I was on two weeks’ leave at my grandmother’s house. Late in the morning, still suffering from yesterday’s long drill march, I was sound asleep in my attic room, my coverlet pushed aside.

Vaguely I heard knocking on my door. It opened before I had a chance to call out that I was still in bed. Only half awake, I lay with a firm morning erection appearing through my pajamas. Tisja, the beautiful young help in the house, just about my age, who’d been with us for a few years, innocently stepped in to clean up my room. She broke into laughter when she saw my fierce masculine weapon pointing in her direction.

“Well, look at that!” she sputtered, laughing. “That’s all I need!”

I felt awkward. I’d always been told to be gallant to the help in the house while keeping my distance. Tisja was sort of family and a good friend, but I’d never thought of approaching her sexually because getting close to a servant was “not done” according to the family code. But the rules in the book didn’t prescribe what to do when an attractive servant catches you with your physical pride protruding upfront.

I smiled back at her clumsily, pulling up my bed sheet. Suddenly, her sparkling eyes turned dark and took on a velvety glossy look.

“Johnny,” she hushed, “if you want, why not come to my room one night?”

She darted away, perhaps shocked by her own words, and left me in confusion, which grew into a thick ball of desire.

It took a day before I found the courage to act on her suggestion. My body wanted it and at eighteen, fresh from boarding school, after my sad farewell from Lucy, I was still a virgin. Her room was next to mine; we were the only ones sleeping in the attic. But would my matriarchal management not hear the wooden floors squeaking when I sneaked to her room in the middle of the night? Wouldn’t they hear the thumping of the bed?

I found her alone in the kitchen and helped her with the dishwashing, standing close to her.

“I think it would be better on a Sunday morning when everyone’s gone to church,” I whispered to her. ”I’ll pretend I’m sick. What do you think? Will you be here this weekend? It’s still my furlough.”

“Yes, good idea,” she said, smiling. “This weekend I’ve duty. Jane’s off. And they don’t have breakfast before church so I can sleep in.”

When Sunday morning came, I acted as if I had belated stomach pains from the army food, and my mother allowed me to stay in bed. Matriarchal management went to church. As soon as I heard the taxi drive away, I scooted to Tisja’s room, opened her door and peeped in.

She was lying in bed, a sheet simulating the enticing sculpture of her body. “Hi,” she said, smiling. “Come in.”

I entered her room on my toes, still scared someone might hear me. The windows were open and looked out, like mine, on the majestic oak tree, slowly waving in the warm late summer breeze, blowing in scents of jasmine and lavender. The doves were cooing. I stood beside her bed, not sure what to do.

“Come, lie with me,” she said, calmly sliding the sheet from her body. Boy… she was almost completely naked. “Take off your pajamas.”

She looked like the mermaid statue I’d seen in the Efteling Theme Park, so delightful and pure. I dropped my pajamas and joined her, timid. But when her slender body touched mine, everything changed in my life.

I gazed at her lively eyes, soft dark hair and nice round shoulders, touched her breasts, nipples, drawing in whiffs of her peachy perfume. I wanted to make love to her, but wasn’t sure how. To help me on the way, Tisja caressed my sex, which got stiff as a broom.

“Is this your first time?” she asked, stroking my hair.

“Yes,” I admitted, feeling silly.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said.” I have something in me to stop babies.”

She kissed me, fondled me, held me, and made me gently enter her. It was such a warm feeling. She begged me to get deeper and deeper, shifted my hand from her shoulder to her breast, made me rub her nipple and I felt it hardening. I kept pushing, urged by the instincts of nature and the increasing delight of the warm fluids that surrounded my sex while she was arching up to me. After some time, she yelped, sighed and I felt her heart pounding. As I hadn’t come yet, she fondled me, and I erupted in her with a flush of splashing sparks shooting right to the top of my brain, leaving me breathless.

“How did you like it?” she whispered in my ear.

I didn’t know what to say. “Nice feeling,” I said, “and you?”

She laughed but didn’t answer. We chatted a while about me and her boyfriend Tommy as we were both drafted in the army.

“When are you going to marry him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not ready yet to make that decision, but my parents want me to. There are so many things I can do with my life before getting babies. It’s nice at grandma’s house, but I’d like to do something more. Go to a school for secretaries as your mother said.”

“I’m sure my mother will help you and talk to your parents. She knows them so well.”

I kissed her on her lips and stroked her hair. I hoped that the dogs outside would bark to warn us that the church goers were back.

“Want to do it again?” she asked.

“Right now?”

“Yes, why not, I’m sure you can.”

She fondled me and we kissed. More confident, I stroked her breasts, her tummy, and inner legs, and we made love again. It took a bit longer, but Tisja wanted it badly. She moved her pelvis up and down, holding me tight by my buttocks and I moved with her rhythm. She came again before me and then again, till it was finally my turn.

She puffed, mumbling she was dead, and so was I. We slept for a few minutes in each other’s arms. I woke up worried about the time, but counted on the dogs barking when the churchgoers got home.

I pushed the sheet away and looked at her body. She had a nice flat tummy with a silky patch of black pubic hair.

“You’re so beautiful,” I said.

“You too,” she said, her hand cupping my penis that had shrunk to a harmless little tube. “I looked at you walking naked to the bathroom and when you were sunbathing on the balcony below with your pants off, naughty boy. I wanted you all the time.”

Footsteps on the stairs. Blast!

What was happening? The dogs hadn’t barked. Who could that be? My mother coming to see how her sick sonny was doing? I jumped out of Tisja’s bed and hid in her closet amidst her dresses, closing the door behind me, holding it tight. Then I realized that I’d left my pajamas on the floor. I heard knocking. Oh hell….

“Tisja, good morning, it’s Jane. Can I come in?”

Damn Jane, you were supposed to be off!

“Sure,” Tisja answered, making the sound of a yawn.

I heard Jane coming in.

“You’re still in bed?” Jane sounded surprised. “Tommy called he wanted to see you this afternoon.”

Geez, Tommy, her boyfriend. If he knew…

“I said okay,” she continued. “I’ll cover for you. Whose pajamas are those?”

“Pajamas?”

“Yes, those pajamas.”

“Oh, Johnny’s, he threw them out of his room to wash, you know, the slob, and I picked them up this morning on my way back from the bathroom.”

Good excuse, I mumbled, keeping the closet door tight, though I felt hurt about the “slob” part.

“But I heard he was sick,” Jane said

“Was he?”

“Is he still in bed?” Jane kept asking.

“Would I know? We don’t do cleaning on Sundays.”

“Tisja, you’d better get up and get the coffee ready. The ladies will soon be home. I’ll do the service. Go and see Tommy.”

“Thank you, Jane, very nice of you.”

I heard Jane leaving, but didn’t hear her going down the stairs. She was probably taking a peep in my bedroom. I heard her coming back, knocking on the door again. I kept holding on to Tisja’s closet door for life, fearing the worst.

“Tisja?”

“I’m not ready yet, Jane,” Tisja answered, splashing at the sink.

“You know where Johnny is?”

“Not a clue, why would I know what that silly lad’s doing?”

Don’t overdo it now, Tisja….

“He’s not in his bed.”

“Maybe he’s in the toilet doing you know what or he went to play tennis.”

“If he’s sick?”

“I don’t follow his footsteps, Jane. I’ll be right down, just a minute.”

I heard Jane going downstairs and shortly after that Tisja rapped on the closet.

“Jane’s gone,” she whispered, and left her room.

I waited a minute to be sure no one was in the attic anymore and slid out of Tisja’s closet, but didn’t see my pajamas. Of course, Tisja must’ve taken them down as proof she’d picked them up to be washed.

My heart stopped when there was more stumbling on the stairs. Stark naked, I could only cover myself with Tisja’s bed sheet. Better than nothing. Wrapping it quickly around my waist, I skedaddled like a bat out of hell to my bedroom. The attic door opened just as I dove into my bed. I pushed Tisja’s sheet underneath mine and tried to keep a suffering face. But I knew I was playing a losing game.

My dear mother came in.

“Johnny, why did you come flying out of Tisja’s room?”

“Out of Tisja’s room? I didn’t, I knocked to see if she had aspirin, but she wasn’t in.”

“Jane said she was there just a minute ago.”

“Really? Not when I knocked on her door.”

“And she’d seen your pajamas on the floor in her room. What’s been going on? I want to talk to you downstairs. Get dressed. You aren’t sick at all.”

“But I am!”

She left, slamming the door, clearly suspicious about my alternative use of Sunday church time.

I shaved, bathed and got dressed, put Tisja’s sheet back on her bed and drooped down the stairs, aware I’d have to face the music. But I was determined to stick to my story.

The matriarchal management had grouped on the veranda for coffee, as usual after Sunday church, enjoying the late summer weather and the view of grandmother’s colorful roses. Jane brought out the coffee, dispensing its addictive aroma. I avoided her eyes. Tisja’d gone off to her Tommy.

“Jane, what’s been going on with Tisja this morning?” my grandmother blurted out.

“I don’t know, madam,” Jane stammered.

“Jane?” she pressed.

“Well, she wasn’t up yet when I went to her room.”

“When was that?”

“About eleven…”

Grandmother squinted at me. “Johnny, were you still in bed at that time?”

“Yes,” I said, which was true, although it was not mine but Tisja’s bed.

“What’s this story about Johnny’s pajamas, Jane?” Oma was about to uncover my white lie.

“Tisja said she’d picked them up outside his bedroom, where he’d left them to be washed,” she said, embarrassed.

“That’s true, Oma,” I butted in. “I’d sweated all night from the stomach flu. I was soaking wet, so I dropped them outside my bedroom, as I always do with my laundry. I don’t understand why you all are making such a big fuss about my pajamas.”

“We wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen you spurting from Tisja’s room naked with a sheet around your bottom,” my mother said coolly.

“What would I do naked in Tisja’s room? I told you, I wanted aspirin and because I’d thrown out my pajamas, I had nothing else but my bed sheet for cover….”

“It all sounds like a twisted story, soldier,” grandmother intoned like my commander-in-chief. “All right, Jane, you can go now, thanks for filling in for Tisja.”

“You sleep down in the guest room from now on,” my mother ordained, puncturing any hopes of a repeat. “We don’t want people talking in the village.”

“But what about, Mother?”

They had no solid proof, just vague unsubstantiated hunches. I knew Tisja was smart enough to talk herself out of trouble. Grinning, I got up, went to the grand piano, lifted the flap, sat down and imitated Errol Garner’s jazz tune Avalon.

It sounded like a victory lap. Thanks to Tisja, I’d learned how it was to make love to a woman.

Read more of this in “Some Women I Have Known.”

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and about Frank in “A Naughty Romance.”

http://amzn.to/1ThC35d