The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2810 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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In the wind down before Christmas, the place was full of students swapping cards and presents. Then, by mid afternoon, the same are staggering around carrying bunches of mistletoe wanting to give drunken kisses to all and sundry. I try to avoid it all because I find it all embarrassing. If they put the same amount of effort into learning that they do for partying, we’d have all of them getting firsts or top end seconds.

Okay, I’m not Scrooge, but it’s my job to try and make the department as effective and efficient as it can be. Diane had sourced most of the slides I wanted and it was looking quite useful. My talk would be the final academic event of this current calendar year, after which there was a carol service and dinner dance in the evening. I normally avoid both if I can, assuming that Daddy’s presence is enough from our house, apparently it isn’t this year and as a professor and member of the college council, I have to attend. At thirty five quid a ticket, I consider it a rip off for a roast turkey dinner, especially as I’m expected to be accompanied by a partner—as George Clooney was busy, I suppose Simon will have to do.

He was arranging to have an early finish to get home and change for the dinner dance, however the trade off was that I attended the bank’s dinner dance at the Dorchester the following week. Henry and Monica were going and expecting me to attend as a director and consort to the heir to the throne, so to speak. At the weekend, Stella and were going out to find a dress for me to wear. When I suggested wearing the same dress to both events she was mortified, “You can’t wear that old rag to the bank’s dinner dance.”

“Why not?”

“To start with, it looks like you bought it in Oxfam. No, the bank dinner is very much, if you have it flaunt it. Simon has given me a budget of two thousand for your dress with any extras on top, like shoes and knickers, assuming you plan on wearing any.”

“What, become knickerless?”

“Do concentrate, girl; you’re Cathy, not Nicholas, saint or otherwise. In the event of being sans underwear of a bottom covering variety, in the interests of not having something show under your dress...”

“It’s precisely why I shall be wearing knickers, so I don’t have anything showing.”

“It would prove categorically you were female.”

“I wasn’t aware it was in doubt.”

“It isn’t.”

“So why do I have to prove anything, then?”

“You don’t.”

“Good, because I’d have thought that shagging your brother for the last few years would have proved that beyond doubt. I’m sure he’d have noticed if something wasn’t there.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Stella, Simon isn’t stupid, he’s just a bloke they operate on different wavelengths to women.”

“You mean they’re stupid?”

“Uh different.”

“Stupid.”

“Oh all right then. But if he was so stupid how come he married me?”

“We told him to.”

“But wouldn’t that make me stupid as well?”

“He’s worth millions.”

“Okay, I was just checking out the criteria.” I had another thought. “If he was that dumb, he wouldn’t be able to follow instructions, would he?”

“Course he can if you make them simple enough.”

“Well I don’t think he’s stupid,” I said bridling over her dismissal of him.

“What about the table cloth?”

“My grandmother’s one?”

“The same.”

“He was unlucky, he knows nothing about washing machines and fabrics.”

“Perhaps you’re as dumb as he is,” she muttered.

“It’s probably why I’m a professor labouring to teach the uneducable when I could be home doing something useful like getting my legs waxed.”

“Reality at last.” She said triumphantly. “Oh by the way, I’ve booked you a manicure at the girls’ salon.”

“Why?”

“You’re an aristocrat’s wife.”

“So? Most of them would mucking out stables, strangling foxes or plucking peasants.”

“Most of our peasants are definitely unplucked, but if they get rowdy tell them to pluck off.”

“I deal with spotty, smelly undergraduates for a living.”

“You were one once.”

“I might have been an undergrad but was neither spotty nor smelly.”

“Little Miss Perfect.”

“You guessed?”

“It wasn’t exactly difficult, was it?”

“It was for some as I was supposed to be a boy at the time.”

“Anyway, about this ’ere dress...” It looked like we were going to have to go to London and visit one or two of the top dress shops—you know, the kind of place where if you need to ask the price you can’t afford it. I mean serious dress shops with names like Versace or Armani. She’s looking forward to it, I’m dreading it. I hate being measured and poked just for a wretched dress I’ll only wear once, plus the silly shoes I’ll have to wear with it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being girly now and again, but that doing so in this context is just to prove we’re richer than somebody else, so the shoes will be equally expensive and uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing if I fall and break my neck, I’ll still be a corpse. So even in the most expensive of gowns or frocks, I’ll still be a pig’s ear—glad it’s not my money, if it was I’d have gone to Debenham’s and grumbled about the prices there.

Goodness it was Thursday already, or more precisely, Thursday evening. Is it a whole week since my birthday? I must be getting old, tempus is fugiting far too quickly.

According to Trish, Danni and Cindy were talking civilly to each other so maybe the romance with the boy they both fancied is over. Trish was giggling about something but wouldn’t say what. Then the other youngsters were giggling so obviously they all found it funny. So the chances are it was either about willies or defecation; both seem to be objects of amusement to young women.

After button holing Hannah, I discovered the giggles were about Cindy’s boyfriend having rather a small willie. How she would know and what difference it would make as you’re not supposed to have sex at her age anyway, I couldn’t say. I’d have thought from Danni’s viewpoint it could be an advantage especially if they had some form of penetrative sex, as a well endowed male might tear her.

Why am I worrying about this, I’ve told her that if I catch her having sex I’ll kill the pair of them. She told me I was being paranoid and she wouldn’t anyway. I caught part of a programme on Radio four the other day and some young woman was saying about how she was abused by her partner and it took her years to escape him because she’d been brought up to believe she could only have validity by having sex with him, by existing through her relationship with him. It had taken her years to realise that she was someone in her own right and didn’t need to be an appendage of some abusive male. I found the whole interview very poignant, especially as I suspected we had dozens like her attending the university.

On a bad day I accept I sometimes question my validity as a female, they seemed to be questioning their right to be seen as a person. Compared to them, I was doing all right.