Making Her Wait - 1940's Style

Every detail of this story is completely true. When WW2 ended sixty years ago, my father was still in the RAF and my mother and I lived alone in a small flat at the top of a large Victorian town house in central London. We continued to live there until my father left the RAF some years after the war (he was a ‘regular’ rather than an enlisted man) and we moved to other accommodation. The property was in a fashionable part of town, but had been ‘requisitioned’ by the Government, that is ‘borrowed’ from the rightful owners and divided up to give a roof over the heads of families made homeless by the war.
Every floor, of which there were five, had been converted into a self–contained unit, with cooking and sleeping accommodation. Each unit was reached by a common staircase, which began rather grandly on the ground floor and became progressively plainer and narrower as it rose, terminating on the top floor in what had been the servants’ accommodation. It was on this highest floor that my mother and I lived in three rooms, a bedroom, a sitting room and a kitchen that was just big enough to contain a table and chairs at which we ate. There were no bathroom or toilet facilities – the lavatory was shared with the tenants of the floor below where it was located at the end of a rather dingy side corridor accessed from the staircase. Bathing meant an old enamel basin and a flannel! (Even sponges were impossible to find).
Boys – before they enter their teens (the word hadn’t been invented then) – are more precocious than is often thought to be the case, and I was no exception. The lady of the fourth floor (I’ll call her Mrs X as I can’t remember her name) was attractive by any standards – auburn hair pulled into a bun at the back and held in a net bag called a ‘snoop’ as was the fashion in those years. She was possessed of the sort of figure that most men love, whatever fashion dictates, swelling voluptuously in all the right places. All ladies in those days wore girdles under their skirts, equipped with four or more suspenders to keep up their ‘fully fashioned’ nylon stockings – a new luxury imported from the United States, and still difficult to come by. It was usually possible to trace the outline of these garments through the fabric of their dresses, especially if the skirt was of the ‘pencil’ variety and the whispering rustle of silk and nylon when a woman so attired moved is still for my money the most erotic sound in the world.
On the day in question, I felt the urge to answer a call of nature and taking a comic to read whilst answering it, made my way downstairs to the floor below and along the corridor to the lavatory. I had all but finished my business there when I heard the unmistakable sound of a woman’s footfall hurrying along the linoleum–floored passage towards the room where I sat enthroned. The doorknob rattled as she tried to open the door, but I had locked it by turning the large old–fashioned key in the lock. I knew it was not my mother as she had gone to her part–time job some time earlier; therefore it could only be Mrs X.
My heart was pounding as I quickly removed the key from the lock and peered through, just in time to see the voluptuous behind of Mrs X retreating back up the corridor, a whisper of nylon just audible as her stocking–clad thighs brushed together. My mind raced – she obviously needed to use the lavatory and would be back when it became vacant. What if it was still engaged? With a lump in my throat, I completed my business and waited with my eye to the keyhole. Sure enough, two or three minutes later Mrs X re–appeared coming towards me, her heels clattering on the lino as she hurried along. Arriving at the door her hand reached out and seized the knob on the other side of the door. I could hear the sharp intake of breath as she found it still locked, followed by a whispered “Blast!” My mouth was dry as I watched her lean against the wall, legs tightly crossed, jiggling up and down as she waited for the lavatory to become unoccupied. After a few moments, she gave up and I heard her tut–tutting as she made her way back to the door of her flat.
Not only did Mrs X need to use the lavatory, she was obviously bursting to go. My pulse was thudding in my ears – dare I wait even longer and keep her from gaining access to the relief she desperately needed? I threw caution to the winds and waited, almost unable to breathe with excitement. Sure enough, a few minutes later, she re–appeared, almost running towards me. Again the doorknob rattled, but this time she could not contain her frustration. “For God’s sake hurry up in there!” she shouted through the door and my heart nearly stopped as I watched her hand fly between her legs and squeeze her crotch through her tight skirt as she danced around, her girdle–clad hips inches from my young face, before disappearing back up the passage with an oath.
Thinking that I had pushed my luck far enough, I quickly vacated the lavatory and ran back upstairs before Mrs X could see who it was that had kept her from her desperately needed relief for so long. However, she either guessed correctly or spotted me hurrying away, for the next day my mother castigated me for taking too long in the lavatory. “You really mustn’t stay in there for so long” she said, “Mrs X has complained that she very nearly had an accident yesterday because you were in there for ages.” My legs turned to jelly at the delicious thought of Mrs X dancing desperately from one foot to the other before wetting her knickers and soaking her nylon–stockinged legs. My mind raced with the possibility of a repeat performance.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Soon after that, we moved away and I never saw Mrs X desperate again. However, it was by no means the last time that the opportunity would arise to make a desperate lady wait, but those are stories for another day.
By: Geoff