Easy As Falling Off A Step
by Tripwire Bonzi
part: 315 (which is 21 x 15 for 15 or 21 fetishists)

I went to lunch with Tom, after Simon's rant against Des, I needed to be away from the office for an hour. Pippa came with us, so we went in my car to the usual place. Just to be different, Tom had a beef curry. He felt it showed his adaptability, Pippa had a chicken salad and I had my tuna favourite, thereby demonstrating, my consistency!

Tom offered to pay, and we let him thereby showing our shallowness and lack of adherence to feminist principles. I could almost hear Germaine Greer, telling me, 'That people died so I could pay for my own meal,' and me replying with two words, as she is not renowned for her support of the integration of transsexuals as women. I wondered if she was one of the immigrants to this country who got the illegal ones a bad name. At the same time I suspected we were stuck with her because I couldn't see Australia taking her back, or her front for that matter.

"A penny for them," said Pippa.

"What me? Nah, they're not worth even that."

"C'mon Cathy, what were you thinking about?" urged Tom.

"Okay, I was thinking about Germaine Greer," I blushed.

"What for?" said Tom, crossing himself.

"Who?" asked Pippa.

"An old bat who wrote, The Female Eunuch, a classic of feminist literature in its day." Tom beat me to the answer.

"She's an Australian academic, but lives over here now," I added.

"Why were you thinking about her?" asked Pippa.

"Dunno, I think she must have been on the telly or radio, recently." I was getting better at lying.

"She had a thing in The Guardian recently," informed Tom.

"Maybe it was that, I can't remember. Let's talk about something more pleasant."

Just then my nerves were shredded as a shrill squeal followed by 'Caffy' blasted my auditory and other nerves. It could only mean one thing.

I turned around and this thing sprang at me wrapping arms around my waist like a two armed octopus (a bipus?) capturing its prey.

"Hello Jemima," I said, though it was barely discernible above the giggles and squeals. "My goodness, haven't you grown?" I said rhetorically, but she answered me anyway.

"Mima gwowed wots an' wots. You still pwetty, Caffy."

"Thank you Jemima." I waved to her mother, who came over to rescue us from the mini-tornado. I reached into my pocket and pulled a pound coin and handed it to her, "Here, Jemima, take this and put it in your piggy bank."

"Mima no got piggy bank, me got bankicount."

"Okay, Jemima, put it in your bankicount."

"'kay, Caffy."

"Is this person bothering you?" said her mother as she approached us.

"Mummmmmmmeeeeeeeeeee," squealed Jemima, " 'sCaffy." My ears twitched as the noise destroyed my eardrums and large portions of my brain. Tom flinched and he's losing some of his hearing, even Pippa winced a little.

"I can see that, come on madam, let's be havin' you, leave these nice people in peace." Her mother took her hand and started to lead her away. Jemima showed her the coin. "Did you say thank you?"

She shook her head no, "Pudit in bankicount."

"Yes we'll put it in your bank account, now you say thank you to Cathy."

Jemima once again hugged my waist and bottom, "Fanks Caffy for der munny."

"You're welcome sweetheart."

We waited until she'd gone before readying ourselves to go back to work.

"She has quite a squeal on her," commented Pippa.

"That squeal caused Spike to somehow end up in the air conditioning," I told her.

"How do you reckon on that?" she replied.

"She fell out of the thing on top of me. Thank goodness we don't breed pigs."

Tom chuckled and added, "Wouldn't they have to be the flying variety."

I smiled as I recalled an advert from a few years ago with CG pigs flying to the music of '633 Squadron' of Ron Goodwin's most memorable tunes. I couldn't remember what it was advertising, but it was very funny.

We drove back to the university and I began the first of four scheduled tutorials with first year students. Next week, apart from Des complicating the issue, I also had to do some teaching. Thankfully, it was on field biology, where I was reasonably competent and when I was a student was informed along with the rest of my class, that field biology was not, 'having sex in the open air'. My then teacher thought he had a sense of humour, the remarks I got on my essays showed he thought the same about me.

When we got home I felt exhausted and after making a meal, slipped off to have a bath and an early night, however, on entering the bathroom all I could see was Stella lying semiconscious in pool of reddening water. I felt violently sick and threw up in the toilet. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to take a bath again.

I went to bed thinking about her and how close she had come to succeeding in doing away with herself. I wondered how she was settling at the clinic and resolved to call her the next day, if my ears had recovered from the mini-banshee we encountered at lunch.