Blushing at Both Ends (10 page)

7

Academic Discipline

IT WAS A
perfect June afternoon in Oxford. The sun, for once, was shining. From the Chapel Quad came the austere click of croquet balls, interspersed with occasional muttered donnish imprecations. Among the college's ancient stone turrets and spires, pigeons strutted self-importantly or pursued their absurd mating rituals; closer to ground level, undergraduates did likewise. A faint but unmistakable herbal aroma drifted down from the rooms of the Senior Reader in Theology. Altogether, an idyllic scene. Yet as he gazed out through the mullioned panes, Dr Abel Kendrick, Junior Lecturer in Medieval History at Gloucester College, was frowning. It was ten past three, and Louise Gray was late for her tutorial. Again.

As he watched, Abel saw her come dashing wildly through the college gateway and across the quad towards his staircase, books crammed anyhow under her arm, her tousled chestnut hair flying. For all her haste she ran with a lithe unconscious grace, her breasts bouncing merrily beneath her Glastonbury '04 T-shirt. Repressing an impulse to smile, Abel retreated to his leather armchair and composed his face into an expression of severe reproof as her hurried knock sounded on the stout oaken door.

‘In,' he commanded sternly.

Louise irrupted breathlessly into the room in a flurry of excuses and apologies. Abel hushed her with a gesture and pointed to an adjacent chair. She turned to deposit her untidy mass of books on the desk, offering him a fleeting view of tight-fitting and pleasingly upholstered faded-blue denim, then sank into the chair, sitting respectably upright with her knees together.

‘Dr Kendrick,' she began, hesitantly.

This was something serious – more serious than ten minutes' lateness. Usually she called him ‘Abel' and curled coquettishly up in her chair like a cat, her long legs coiled beneath her. Abel raised one eyebrow and waited.

‘I'm – I'm afraid I haven't finished my essay. Not quite.'

‘Ah,' said Abel. He let the ‘Ah' hang in the air between them for a moment like a small thundercloud, then continued, ‘In that case, read me what you've written so far.'

‘Well, there's – that is, it's not really . . .'

Abel smiled grimly. ‘You haven't started it yet, have you?'

Louise blushed, gazing at the carpet. ‘No,' she said in a small voice. It was absurd, she told herself firmly, to blush like this. But somehow Abel Kendrick had that effect on her.

Abel sighed, a little theatrically. (Academia, he liked to remind his students, was essentially a branch of showbiz.) ‘Louise, this isn't good enough. You didn't present an essay last week, either. In fact, this is the third you've missed this term. I used to think you were one of my best first-year students. Your essays were excellent and on time. They were well researched, and you have a quick original mind. You seemed to be in line for a brilliant First. But this term – well?'

Louise looked wretched, shifting unhappily in her chair. ‘I don't know, Abel. I am trying, honestly. I was working on this all yesterday, really hard.'

‘
Were
you now?' A vivid image leapt into Abel's mind – a memory barely 24 hours old.

The previous day, after lunch in college, he had chosen to walk to his flat in Banbury Road the longer way round: through the flowery, long-grassed meadows beside the Cherwell, a small tributary of the Thames much favoured for punting in the summer months. It was a glorious afternoon, and the gentle Oxfordshire countryside was at its best. As he paused to drink in the scents and sounds of the riverbank he heard, not far away, a melodious and oddly familiar female laugh, warm and sensuous.

Slightly ashamed at his own curiosity, Abel left the path and quietly parted the bushes that fringed the river. Moored immediately below him in a narrow secluded backwater was a punt with two people in it. The one lying on his back was male. Abel recognised him as Jake Manning, a second-year law student so low on intelligence that even the other law students noticed; though rumour had it he made up in other attributes for what he lacked in brains.

Straddling Jake was a young woman, naked to the waist. She had her back to Abel, but the luxuriant chestnut hair and the sexy laugh were unmistakable. As he watched, Louise Gray lifted her hips to allow her companion to slide down her jeans, and her panties with them, revealing a delectably rounded bare bottom. At the sight of it, Abel felt himself gripped by a pang of mingled lust and jealousy.

With a gasp of pleasure, Louise lowered herself on to Jake's rampant penis and began to writhe her hips lasciviously. He grunted, eyes closed in ecstasy, while his broad hands reached round to knead and squeeze her superb rear end. Abel, furious at himself, slipped quietly away.

Now, gazing at the lovely girl's convincing display of penitence, he smiled wryly. ‘Were you, indeed?' he
repeated
. ‘Well, of course it's up to you how you do your research. But I wouldn't have thought you'd learn much about – what was it? – ‘‘The Role of Abelard and the Scholastics in the French Medieval Church'' in a punt on the Cherwell.'

She gasped, gazing at him wide-eyed. ‘Nor,' he pursued remorselessly, ‘does Jake Manning seem the most likely source of enlightenment. At least, not on your essay subject.'

The slow hot blush suffused Louise's face and neck. Oh,
God
, she thought, what a damn stupid thing that was to do. What
was
I thinking of? ‘You saw us when we . . .?' Her voice tailed off.

‘You weren't exactly being discreet about it. Don't get me wrong: open-air sex, especially in punts, is a fine old Oxford tradition, and I'm in no position to be censorious even if I wanted to. But I can't help wondering if what I saw yesterday has any connection with the decline in your work this term. Still, that's beside the point. Whether because of Jake Manning or not, your work's falling well below standard, and at this rate I'll have to give you a very poor end-of-year report. You know that, don't you?'

His tone was severe, but more reproachful than angry. It caused Louise an unaccustomed fluttering in her stomach. Of all her tutors, Abel Kendrick was the one she most liked and respected – and, she had to admit, secretly fancied. And now she had let him down. She saw the disappointment in his eyes. He deserved better of her; and she was beginning to realise what she deserved of him. If, that is, she had the nerve to suggest it.

His next remark gave her the opening she needed. ‘The term's not over yet, Louise; you've still time to make good. And you know I'm ready to help you in any way I can. Extra tutorials or whatever. Any ideas as to what might work for you?'

Did she dare? She shot him a sidelong look. ‘Well . . . you know what Peter Abelard would have done.'

Abel Kendrick's dark eyebrows arched up. ‘Just what are you suggesting, Louise?'

She plunged on recklessly. ‘Well, Héloise was Abelard's best pupil, wasn't she? Brighter than all the rest. But, when she was lazy, he didn't hesitate to – to chastise her.'

Abel laughed. ‘True, so he did. But you're overlooking a couple of things. First, what was quite OK in twelfth-century Paris would get me sacked, and probably jailed, these days. Then, as you've obviously read Abelard's letters, you know those beatings were just a pretext. “Sometimes I went so far as to strike her,”' he quoted, ‘“not in anger but in love, not from hate but from affection, and the blows were sweeter than any balm. Under pretext of discipline, we abandoned ourselves entirely to love.'' Is that what you're angling for, Louise – an erotic spanking? If so, I'm sure Jake would be happy to oblige.'