window on the past

On Google Maps today I happened to see the bedroom window of Denny's childhood. Actually her brother's bedroom. Possibly where the incest used to happen. I've cropped and processed the Google view to make it as Dickensian and wintry as I remember it.

It was also the room where she sexually assaulted me. It was on a visit to meet her parents, and they billeted me in the incest room. Denny and a lesbian woman from work were given the double bed across the hall.

In the pub on the first night, Denny and her lesbian chaperone wanted to stay till closing time, and I wanted to get them home and split them up. I left the pub early in a huff and walked back on my own. (I walked that road again today on Google street view). I said goodnight to the parents, and went to bed.

I was woken after closing time by Denny stumbling into my room, blootered. In the street light from the window, I saw the confident way she took her top off. She dropped the rest of her clothes on the floor, and came into bed. It was the first time I had ever seen her fully naked. So gorgeous it was scary. She climbed on top of me. It was all happening very fast: a drunk was treating me like a sex object and I didn't like it. No conversation or foreplay. No connection, no flowers or chocolates. You'd think she'd never seen a Milk Tray ad.

Well, when I didn't respond she slurred something like "this is hopeless". She picked up her clothes and staggered out. Into bed with the lesbian. The whole incident must have lasted about a minute and a half.

In all the time I knew her, I didn't know about the incest, and she never knew about the Teutonic toilet training. Amazingly, we did eventually come together over a couple of druggy boozy years. Exciting but going nowhere.

I believe the incest contributed to her ultimate insanity and demise. Sometimes I wonder if I had a positive or negative effect on her life. I phoned her old dear with my condolences. She said "she still used to talk about you a lot". These days I think about her a lot. It balances out.