My plan had been to take my time

Anyway, the point is, I'd had a few one-nighters shortly after getting to the Cottages. I hadn't planned it that way. My plan had been to take my time, maybe become part of a couple with someone I chose carefully. I'd never been in a couple before, and especially after watching Ruth and Tommy for a while, I was quite curious to give it a try for myself. As I say, that had been my plan, and when the one-nighters kept happening, it unsettled me a bit. That was why I'd decided to confide in Ruth that night. It was in many ways a typical evening session for us. We'd brought up our mugs of tea, and we were sitting in my room, side by side on the mattress, our heads slightly stooped because of the rafters. We talked about the different boys at the Cottages, and whether any of them might be right for me. And Ruth had been at her best: encouraging, funny, tactful, wise. That's why I decided to tell her about the one-nighters. I told her how they'd happened without my really wanting them to; and how, even though we couldn't have babies from doing it, the sex had done funny things to my feelings, just as Miss Emily had warned. Then I said to her: "Ruth, I wanted to ask you. Do you ever get so you just really have to do it? With anybody almost?" Ruth shrugged, then said: "I'm in a couple. So if I want to do it, I just do it with Tommy." "I suppose so. Maybe it's just me anyway. There might be something not quite right with me, down there. Because sometimes I just really, really need to do it." "That's strange, Kathy." She fixed me with a concerned look, which made me feel all the more worried. "So you don't ever get like that." She shrugged again. "Not so as I'd do it with just anybody. What you're saying does sound a bit weird, Kathy. But maybe it'll calm down after a while." "Sometimes it won't be there for ages. Then it suddenly comes on. It was like that, the first time it happened. He started snogging me and I just wanted him to get off. Then suddenly it just came on, out of nowhere. I just really had to do it."