Room 2D

Story from Janus 49 by R.P. Forrester The past is another country . L.P. Hartley? Yes. And certainly that idyllic spot, that little village set in the sparkling mountains that I wandered into as a young man is another country. A country which then had not known the ravages of war and post-war; a country now only of my mind. It was just before the war, 1938 I think, but as yet in that remote mountain-ringed region of Central Europe there was no hint of what was shortly to come. I was walking, with a rucksack, occasionally taking a lift on one of the rare vehicles, studying the language (or telling myself I was) which was a dialect of German (I suppose now it is Russian they have to speak). At any rate English travellers, indeed any travellers, seemed to be very rare birds and perhaps that is why I was treated with such friendliness. And allowed such intimate insights in that household. I simply wandered in along the dusty road one sunlit autumn afternoon. I stayed for fou...

Story from Janus 53 by Christopher James It all started for me half a century ago. This is a tale of two girls; Nina, aged 18, and Rose, 16. They were my cousins. Nina, who worked in an office, was quite attractive but not a beauty, and rather broad around the hips. Rose, on the other hand, was a very pretty girl, possessing lovely chestnut hair with auburn tints, and a good well-rounded figure. As a young man back in the thirties, I used to spend two weeks summer holiday with my widowed aunt and the two daughters, in a north-east seaside town. I became moderately intimate with Nina and we indulged in some petting, but it was frustrating for me because, despite some passionate sessions, she always kept her head and her modesty, and would never permit so much as a touch below the waist. She was certainly no prude, but in those days a girl could be ‘ruined’ by an unwed pregnancy without an urgent marriage — and such a contingency fo...