This meant a new programme of building social housingspecifically for people like me. It had created a home for me, Phoebe and Lily,three single nurses, for which we paid the very reasonable sum of £325 a montheach in rent.
The downside was that the flat came with the job – so I wasstuck with nursing for life now, unless I won the lottery. That didn’t botherme for now as I enjoyed my job, but I didn’t like the prospect of being tied toit permanently. What if I wanted a change of career later on?
The flat we lived in was one of several in a new ultra-hightech building. It had been built on the site of an old tower block which hadbeen condemned and demolished over fire safety concerns after a catastrophicfire in a similar London structure a few years previously.
Our state-of-the-art new home was just about as eco-friendlyas you could get. From solar panels on the roof to a rain-harvesting system,every resource was maximised. The government had dubbed them the homes of thefuture and dozens of them were now going up in cities all over Britain.
Phoebe and Lily were younger than me, in their mid-twenties,but the age gap hadn’t been a problem. I had taken on a new lease of life sinceI had split with Rob and it was as if those nine years wasted on him had neverhappened.
Far from finding my energetic, young flatmates annoying, Ifound their various antics amusing and, despite all being strangers when wemoved in, we soon became firm friends. They were outsiders in Oxford, just as Ihad once been, and we gelled almost straight away.
There was certainly a lively mix of accents in the house.Although I had lived in Oxford for many years, my Scouse accent stillprevailed, and along with Lily – a Geordie, and Phoebe, from Cornwall, we hadat least three corners of England covered.
Being younger they hadn’t got themselves tied up in anyemotional baggage yet, so were still carefree, fit and up for fun.
Lily was the elder of the two, a small pixie-like girl withelfish features and black hair that curled down in small tangles around herface. She loved to wear old-fashioned, hippyish clothes, with flowers in herhair and plenty of necklaces and bracelets. She was also adorned all over withtattoos, which I had to admit were tastefully done, even though tattoos hadnever been my thing.
Despite being only twenty-seven she had a taste for theolder, indie music that her parents had brought her up on. The tunes of TheCure, New Order and The Mission could often be heard blaring out from her room.
“I’m a girl out of time,” she once said to me. “My mother sawall of these bands at Glastonbury in the late-80s. If I had a time machine andcould go back in time, that’s where I’d go. People knew how to enjoy themselvesin those days.”
Lily loved her festivals and had tried to persuade me anumber of times to go to Glastonbury or Reading with her. I had resisted, beinga little too fond of my creature comforts and adequate toilet facilities towant to rough it there. She assured me that it wasn’t like that anymore and Icould have all mod cons if I wanted them. I had never been to a festival, so inthe end, I agreed and all three of us had begun making plans to go thefollowing year.
Phoebe, at twenty-five, was a couple of years younger thanLily and had been newly qualified as a nurse when we had moved into the flat.Her look was a complete contrast to Lily’s. She was blonde and carrying a fewextra pounds, but in a way that complemented her figure, rather than making herlook overweight. She had a youthful chubbiness that gave her curves in all theright places and boobs to die for, as well as having a rounded, welcoming face.
She had a much more relaxed attitude to clothing incomparison to Lily’s elaborate outfits. For Phoebe it was T-shirts and joggersmost of the time when she was just slobbing around the flat. She rarely wore abra at home and it wasn’t unknown for her to wander around the flat half-nakedin the summertime. I wasn’t bothered about that at all, but it irked Lily whowas relatively flat-chested by comparison.
Although I didn’t have any leanings towards women, Icouldn’t help admiring Phoebe’s confidence in her body, and those tits – well,they were pretty awesome and I didn’t mind seeing them on display. I had adecent pair myself, so I had been told, but Phoebe’s put mine to shame. They seemedto defy gravity, unlike mine which were definitely starting to sag with age.
Phoebe’s exhibitionism didn’t do any harm as far as I wasconcerned. We were all confirmed heterosexuals and all single – which made fora lot of fun. We would go out together on the nights when we were all off workand it wasn’t unusual for one of us to bring someone back.
More often than not it was Phoebe, which meant that Lily andI would need to put our earphones in for the night. Phoebe’s uninhibited naturealso meant she didn’t hold back on the noise when she was enjoying theattentions of a man.
It was rare for me to pull these days, but I didn’t mind asthe three of us were having a lot of fun. It was without doubt the best timeI’d had for years but it came with a price. At the back of my mind, was theendless tick-tock, tick-tock of the biological clock. It went hand in hand witha feeling that perhaps I ought not to be doing this sort of thing at my age.
It was alright for Lily and Phoebe – they had time on theirside – but I was a late thirty-something playing at being their age and I knewI couldn’t keep it up forever.
The age gap didn’t manifest itself in our day-to-dayinteractions
