Journey Into Chastity, Book Two The Ecstasy of Denial

Chapter Two-2

Laura looked up at me now. There was a slight smile playing around the edges of her mouth.

“Smooth,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“The wine,” she said, raising the glass to her lips again and looking me right in the eyes. “Very smooth as was the change of subject by the way. Are you too warm in here? You seem to be sweating a bit.”

Fortunately our lunches arrived at that point and we tucked in. Just as we were finishing I noticed Amy’s group getting ready to leave.

To my horror Amy herself walked over to the bar.

“Hello John, how are you?” she said brightly. She was settling up their tab.

“Hi Amy, I’m fine thanks. How about you?”

“Fine. Just been doing some library work.”

“Amy, this is my fiancée, Laura. Laura, this is Amy.”

At that point I knew my entire tissue of lies could fall apart. I hadn’t agreed any kind of story with Amy, so it all hung on exactly what either of the girls said next. I just prayed it wouldn’t end in violence.

“Pleased to meet you, Amy,” Laura held out her hand. “John’s told me so much about you!”

Fuck!

Amy looked puzzled, and then smiled uncertainly. “Oh? I’m not sure there’s that much to tell is there, John?”

“Well I did tell Laura about you coming to the Chem building to do that study on lab usability. How’s that going by the way?” I said, trying to keep my voice casual.

Amy nodded. “Oh, yes that! I’m supposed to be getting my marks back for that next week. Wish me luck!”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” I said.

“I love those jeans!” Amy said to Laura. “You look fantastic. Your legs are gorgeous.”

Laura actually blushed. “That’s nice of you to say Amy, thank you. They’re John’s favourites actually, aren’t they, darling?”

“Yes, I have to admit they are!” I said enthusiastically.

The barmaid came back with Amy’s receipt.

“OK, see you around, John. Nice to meet you, Laura.”

“It was nice to meet you too, Amy. Hope you get the marks you need.”

Amy rejoined her group and they left the bar.

“She seems really nice. Is she in her first year too?” Laura asked. I tried to gauge if this was a loaded question.

I reached out and took her hand. “Yes, she is really nice,” I said. “And yes, I think she said she was first year. She’s still in halls, so that would suggest she is. Would you like another glass of wine?”

Laura squeezed my hand gently. “I’d like that, John; it really is lovely, thank you.”

At that moment I could swear I felt my arse begin to un-pucker. There was a point where I’d felt sure the whole thing would go south, but Amy was amazing. Her total lack of guile helped, of course. But she could obviously think on her feet. I knew that Laura was still suspicious. But she would have been suspicious if I’d spoken to any woman. On the whole I felt I’d gotten off lightly on that encounter.

I didn’t know how wrong I was.

That evening we were going to the Chemistry Society Annual Dinner, which was being hosted on the campus. The guest speaker was to be Sir Alec Jeffreys, who had recently been awarded the Lasker Prize for Medicine and was known as the Father of Genetic Fingerprinting. The Lasker Prize is generally regarded in the same league as a Nobel Prize – but it’s awarded for practical work, rather than for fundamental research.

First year Chemistry students normally didn’t go to the Annual Dinner – we were much too low down the pecking order for that. But I’d been asked to give the vote of thanks to Professor Jeffreys. A first year student was always chosen for this dubious pleasure, and it was generally accepted that by being chosen the candidate was being told “you seem to be quite clever, but you’re not working hard enough, so perhaps this will encourage you”. That would be about right for me! Laura came back from the shower room and she proceeded to get dressed and made up while I made last minute changes to my speech.

A vote of thanks is tricky. It has to be short – after all it’s quite likely the guest speaker has bored them to tears already. Ideally it should be funny, which is even trickier; especially in a stuffy, after dinner setting. And it needs to be relevant to the subject of the speech. Except the problem was that I didn’t know in advance what Sir Alec was going to say. So “thankers” usually had a busy time during the guest speech, frantically making notes and re-writing their comments. These were then read out from the scribbled notes in a halting and monotonic drawl. Cue the sound of snoring from the audience.

But it occurred to me that Lasker Prize winners probably have better things to do than write after dinner speeches, so they probably reuse a lot of material from previous events, and just adapt it for the occasion. Courtesy of Google I’d tracked down three speeches that Sir Alec had given in the past year, and read through each of them. There were several common themes, and in conjunction with his Wikipedia entry information I managed to piece together my speech. I’d learned it by heart so that I could deliver it without notes.

“Ready!” Laura called. I put the laptop to sleep and stood up to put on my jacket. And I froze.

Laura was gone. In her place was a Hollywood movie star fresh from a red carpet event. She looked absolutely stunning.

She wore a simple black sheath dress that consisted of symmetric strips of stretchy material wrapped around her body. They met in a V-shape at the front of the dress. She seemed to have a perfect, hourglass shape in the dress, with a generous amount of cleavage, accentuated by a single small strand of pearls. Her blonde hair was up, and tucked into some neat style at the back of her head. On her feet she had her three-inch heeled, black court shoes – the ones she’d allowed me to worship earlier that day.

“My God, I-I don’t know what to say,” I gasped. “I could tell you that you look beautiful, but that doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m sorry, I just can’t think of the words.”

I walked over to her and kissed her carefully on the tip of her nose so as not to disturb her lipstick. Her eyes were shining as she pulled away.

“Hey, don’t cry!” I said smiling. “Your makeup’s perfect!”

She laughed. “Well I think that was a very nice speech you just made. I hope your other one’s half as good.”

She reached up and stroked a lock of my hair into place. As she did it I couldn’t help feeling like a tramp next to her. My shirt and suit were clean, but they were a few years old, and the suit tended to hang on me since I’d lost weight. I could have done with a haircut too, I thought. s**t, now I wished I’d taken more care about this evening.

We took a couple of pictures of us together using the timer on Laura’s camera; then I helped my beautiful fiancée on with her coat and we headed off on the short walk to the Edward Herbert Building, where the dinner would be held.

The meal itself went well enough. It was a very limited menu that we’d had to select ahead of time. We’d both chosen the fish, which turned out to be surprisingly good for a mass-catered event. The wine was awful – a French Muscadet that was one pH number away from battery acid. But it meant that neither of us had more than one glass. My head stayed clear for my speech, and I avoided the risk of Laura getting carried away because of drinking too much.

I took my own camera along and snapped dozens of shots of Laura chatting at the table. She also insisted on a few shots of us as a couple, but I could always airbrush my scruffy image out of them! Talk about chalk and cheese! What did she see in me? After dessert the coffees were served, and Sir Alec began his speech. It was excellent, and to my great relief he did use three or four of the points that I’d seen in previous speeches, and to which I’d referred in my vote of thanks. Thank goodness I didn’t need to do any re-writes on the fly.

I’d been sitting opposite Professor Spencer – a bluff Scot who frowned at me throughout Sir Alec’s speech. At the end he leaned over and whispered, “I see you couldn’t even be bothered to take any notes young Bradshaw! Don’t f**k this up!”

With that hearty encouragement, I stood up to give the vote of thanks.

My speech lasted for four minutes and thirty five seconds. I began by thanking the speaker, and then Chemistry Department for the honor of giving the response to such an illustrious contributor to scientific knowledge. A stroke of impromptu genius was that I also thanked Laura for her support and presence tonight. I gestured to where she was sitting, looking like a young Princess Grace, and there was an approving murmur from the audience. Laura blushed, and glowed with pride. Next was a one-liner joke to introduce my theme, it was an inside joke and if you don’t understand the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle then it’ll be lost on you. Next I covered two of my prepared references, followed by another joke, a reference to the Lasker Prize and my call for thanks from the audience.

I’d delivered all of my remarks without referring to my notes, and while casting my gaze around the room to “draw the audience in”. I’d made sure to gesture occasionally to the guest speaker, and to the Head of Department as I spoke. To my surprise as I finished the whole room stood to applaud. Of course they were actually applauding Sir Alec, but I must say it was a gratifying feeling. By this time Laura really was crying, but she had the biggest grin on her face and she was clapping furiously.

I looked at Professor Spencer. It was a few seconds before I realized that the expression on his face was a smile. I’d never seen him smile before and it was really quite unnerving. We locked eyes and he gave me a small bow as he continued to applaud.

After the dinner Professor Patel, the head of the Chemistry Department, invited us back to his house for “nibbles and drinkies” along with most of the other dinner guests. Laura and I shared a car there with Professor Spencer and his wife.

Spencer and I sat in the front, and Laura shared the back seat with Spencer’s wife, who I seemed to remember was also a lecturer at the university. In fact I had a feeling she taught Ergonomics. Maybe she even knew Amy?

Almost as soon as we arrived at Professor Patel’s house, Sir Alec made his way over to me.

“That was an outstanding vote of thanks, young man. One of the best deliveries I’ve ever heard in fact. I sense you have a talent for public speaking,” he said graciously.

“Thank you, Sir Alec,” I said, feeling a bit embarrassed by the attention from a Lasker winner.

“I noticed as I was speaking you weren’t making any notes. And you appeared to deliver your speech from memory. How did you know I’d refer to the ethical issues of genetic fingerprinting?”

“Well to be quite honest, sir, I downloaded the text of some of your previous speeches from the Net – as well as your testimony to the House Select Committee last year. And it was pretty clear you’d talk about the ethical challenges, especially to a UK crowd what with the current DNA database controversy.”

“It sounds like you’ve done your homework, my boy. Very commendable.”

“Thank you, sir. It really was an honour to be chosen, believe me.”

“Indeed. And did you not think of asking me for a copy of my speech beforehand? It would have saved you a lot of work.”

I felt as though he’d pulled the rug from under me. One minute a Lasker Prize winner seems to be telling me how clever I am, the next he’s telling me I’m a t**t! I smiled and nodded my acknowledgement.

“That’s a good point, Professor. This really is the first time I’ve done something like this. And to be quite honest nobody told me I could ask you for your speech. I should have realized though. I feel a bit of a plonker now!”