Marietta, Part Two

Now I really had the advantage, so I pressed home horridly: "You can give that a rest for a start, smelly girl! And you'd better let me touch your petticoat-hem right now, or I'll slap you hard. Because you're right, I'm not a nice boy!"

She sniffled, looking really frightened, but when she began to obediently lift the heavy hemline of her dress I melted with self-reproach and shame. How could I have been so beastly? All my life I'd longed to touch the lace on a girl's underskirt-hem, but I'd dreamed of it being a tender moment shared between us. Above all, it would have been special because she'd have granted me her permission to do it, not because she was forced.

In other words, my career as a rough boy was short and undistinguished! Marietta's social inferior I might have been, but a grubby little grammar-school non-delinquent like me was about as familiar with the wrong side of the tracks as she was.

"There, there, I didn't mean it," I told her gently at once, and apologised in full. She giggled through her tears, and I was apparently forgiven.

"So you're rather into petticoats, then?" concluded the girl. Since she was right about that, I shyly confessed my secret dream.

"Well, you're not going about it the right way," she declared reasonably, and proceeded to invite me to high tea that afternoon. Then after telling me her address she curtsied again and left.

Even clean and de-smellified and wearing spotless socks, I was holding up my own skirts as I timidly broached the great gates to Marietta's house. Surely there'd been some mistake, a boy like me being allowed into a place like this! Yet there she was waiting for me, amid the splendour of a palatial wooded garden.

"You didn't have to get clean, I'm in the same old dress I wore yesterday," she said. "Same socks too, so sorry about the smell," she added and giggled. Once again I wanted to melt.

"You're the first boy from your lot I've ever had round. Do you get teased for still being on skirts?" Marietta went on, going round-eyed.

I blushed, but there was no point being untruthful. "Yes, all the time," I confessed with a sigh.

"I've told all my friends I've met a boy who just loves petticoats but they don't believe me," she tittered.

"Well, I guess not," I returned. "They probably think that where I go to school, no-one even knows what petticoats are."

"Boys from mine aren't as nice as you think," Marietta affirmed. "One slapped me silly at lawn-tennis once. It was my fault though, because I was teasing."

Suddenly she took both my hands and giggled up at me. "Is he ever going to see?" she sang softly. "On the day he comes to tea? Or is she only going to tease? Petticoat or just her knees? Which one will it be?"

"Erm, petticoat please," I somehow managed to stammer out. Only then did I realise it rhymed with her cheesy song! This so delighted my little hostess that she was all giggles.

"I think that boy at tennis was right - not that he should have slapped you, but you are a tease," I then pointed out fairly.

"Well, boys shouldn't be petticoat-mad like you," she scoffed in reply.

As if to punctuate she flicked her eyes haughtily away from me again, and just as before, posed with a hand on her hip.

"Don't be horrid," I begged her. "You're always doing that!"

"You're the one who's being horrid," Marietta pouted, so I had to apologise and curtsey again.

"If you show me you're sorry, I may still let you touch the lace on my petticoat-hem," she then condescended. "But you shall have to escort me to the beach tomorrow after school to prove it."

Even when she was wearing her blue gingham school dress and round hat, Marietta's make-up and golden hair still made her look like a princess. So much so that I curtsied again, and when she curtsied back she did so like a princess too. I mentioned this and she explained that strictly speaking she was one - or at any rate, I guessed, she thought she was!

All the way to the beach Marietta made me feel like a grubby little boy, with my own dingy school skirt and blazer on. When I saw her changed into her swimsuit, however, I couldn't believe it. Her eye-shadow and lipstick were still impeccably applied, and her swishy golden locks very elegant. Along with little high heels she was wearing a gauzy light wrapper for the beach. Underneath was a swimsuit version of her blue gingham school uniform, even with the same short puffed sleeves! Instead of a skirt though it finished in knickers of the same chequered blue and white, sumptuously.

I guessed she was a real princess after all, then! Every boy her age turned to gawp at her, and secretly I felt just the same as they did. We had a fun time, paddling in the sea and guzzling ice-creams until it was nearly dark. As it turned out I didn't get to touch the lace on Marietta's petticoat-hem, but while saying goodnight at her mansion-gates she teased me with the possibility of next time!

END OF PART TWO