Diamonds by Brian Ritchie Read online

‘DIAMONDS’

  By Brian Ritchie

  Copyright 2013 by Brian Ritchie

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  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and enjoy this story.

  Brian Ritchie

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  Preface.

  In my formative years, between 1977 to 1989, when I was aged 17 to 29, I had several friends and seemed to be out every night with one or all of them. The thing that didn’t occur to me then was that, despite the fact that they were all female, I didn’t have anything sexual to do with any of them and preferred platonic relationships at that time.

  Today, more than 20 years later, I cannot understand why.

  Every Sunday I would meet 3 girls at a café across the street from the church we attended and we would spend time deciding what adventures we would go on. If it was hot and sunny we could go to the seaside if not – which was more likely coming from Glasgow – we would visit places of local interest or just ‘hang out’ together.

  Being with them brought me into contact with several of their ‘other’ female friends and I found myself getting emotionally involved with them as well - but I had ‘fairly steady’ lovers most of this time so never thought of any of these girls as anything other than platonic acquaintances.

  Each ‘Diamond’ in this adventure is based on several aspects of these girls and others I met around that time.

  Each of these Diamonds was very different;

  One girl I called my ‘best’ friend.

  I met her in 1975 at a theatre group we both attended and I surprised myself by asking her out.

  I discovered that her greatest achievement was while at high school she was an accomplished swimmer and narrowly missed being selected for the Olympics (or Commonwealth games) and gave up swimming soon after her mother died the week before mine in November 1974.

  One Sunday, while sunning ourselves in her garden, she told me that she suffered from painful muscle cramps in her shoulders so I persuaded her to allow me to massage ‘baby oil’ into her upper back, neck and shoulders and, as she was wearing a bikini, I became quite proficient in relieving her discomfort that day and many times thereafter.

  Over the next 10 years I progressed to massaging her all over whenever her father went away on holiday and although we were very close we never contemplated intercourse and enjoyed many adventures together.

  One girl was Jewish.

  She fascinated me as I watched her rebel against everything, her father, her family, her religion and the world in general when it suited her.

  She was very opinionated and regarded the holocaust as a personal insult - although she didn’t know why as she freely admitted she knew nobody involved.

  Another girl was a lesbian.

  She was very funny and entertaining although most of her humour involved sexual innuendo, most of which I didn’t understand at the time.

  I discovered during a meal, alone with her in a local Indian restaurant, that her only encounter with a male was a boy from school, who ‘stole’ her virginity and treated her very roughly, which, she claimed, turned her against all men.

  She was enchantingly beautiful in mind, body and spirit whenever we met and I speculated if she had been ‘loved’ by this boy her life (and love life) could have been much more fulfilled.

  The other girls tolerated her as long as she kept her sexual preferences at a distance from them and I spent many hours, unsuccessfully, trying to ‘straighten’ her out and ease her tortured soul.

  One girl was a nymphomaniac.

  We met on her first day at high school in August 1972 (I was in the year above her) and she remained my dearest friend for almost 20 years.

  She would often tell me it wasn’t her fault she hated to sleep alone - and seldom did.

  I once had a quiet conversation with her father wherein I stated that I adored her unconditionally. Her father looked shocked and informed me that it was HIS duty to adore her unconditionally. I replied that I wasn’t bound by ‘duty’ and I adored her unconditionally by ‘choice’ - this pleased her father and confused him in equal measure.

  This girl was a lot less complicated than the others. I suppose people with one thing constantly on their mind have comparatively few needs and I adored her unconditionally for almost 20 years.

  One girl became a Nun.

  Another girl I met when she was 5 years old (and I was 11), then later when she was 11, and the last time when she was 17 and on her way to join a convent.

  I was very flattered to hear her confess she had a massive crush on me when we first met, re-kindled when my friends and I had helped her out when she was 11 and, apparently, I was the only person she had ever loved.

  At our tearful parting, in 1982, she promised to remember us all in her prayers.

  The girls were all ages.

  One girl was in her 50s and twice the age of the others and me.

  She often told us stories of how life used to be in the dim and distant past when she was a lot younger, very much prettier, and a great deal fitter.

  She would often reminisce about how much simpler life was back when she was a younger woman whilst giving the other girls the benefit of her experiences in the hope they could avoid the same heartaches.

  By her own admission she was a ‘bit of a girl’ in her past and tried to convince all who came into contact with her that she ‘still had it.’ Several of the girls doubted she ever had ‘it’ and no matter how hard she tried she was never likely to find ‘it’ again.