Lecture Notes (25 page)

“Beth, you’re so young…”

“I know my own mind. I didn’t really, before I met you, but I do now. You hurt me, it’s true, but you also did me a lot of good. When I think now about how you worked so hard to overcome the horrors of your childhood…and here’s me, slacking away, thinking I’m entitled to a good degree without putting anything into it….I’m just ashamed of myself. I was such a brat.”

“Hmm, you were,” he smiles, tweaking my ear a little between thumb and forefinger.

“Please don’t leave me again,” I whisper.

“I won’t,” he whispers back and then our lips are together, touching softly, and even the stale whiskey-breath is not enough to keep me away from the all-consuming, all-forgiving kiss we share.

At first a languid tenderness, a whispering tickle of beard, a tentative refamiliarisation with old ground. Has it changed? Must we re-map it? It seems not; it seems that we know where we are and where to go next for we are soon darting tongues and pressing our skin harder so that the tickle turns to prickle. I can feel his teeth, I can feel his hands at my neck, a thumb pushed up into my hair, holding my head tight so that I cannot move back from him, and he has pulled me over to sit on his lap now, one arm twined around me like a steel tendril. The tongue plunges deeper, taking its time, marking every part of my mouth as its own; the tingle of my lips is becoming a burn but there is no way I would ever pull back now.

He nips at my bottom lip and slowly disengages, leaving me panting into his face, my whole body singing for more.

“Would you say it was inappropriate, Beth,” he whispers, “to be sitting here with my life in ruins, my career in jeopardy, my head tortured with hangover, thinking of nothing else but how much I want to take you to bed?”

“I can be inappropriate if you can,” I reply hazily, the only signals getting t
hrough to my brain being More! Now! 

He reply is to haul himself to his feet, pulling me up along with him until suddenly I am sailing through the air with my arms clasped around his neck.
‘Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong’ runs cheesily through my head as he staggers through to the bedroom with me, lacking only the bright white uniform, though I guess I can live without that.

The door is kicked open and I am flung, giggling,
on to the plush, plump duvet. He creeps up stealthily from the foot of the bed, like a predator stalking its evening meal, until his shadow falls across me and I am looking up into rapacious eyes, then squealing indignantly at the unceremonious ripping off of my shirt. Buttons ping around the room but for once Sinclair does not seem averse to having a mess on the floor; he is considerably more interested in what the parting of my garment reveals to him. Before he sinks his teeth in, I put a hand up to his face, stroking the hair, then up along the cheekbone, so that his eyes are drawn back to mine.

“I want to kiss you,” I say, even though my lips are worn out from our earlier encount
er. “I want to make love to you.”

He says “Beth,” then he lowers his head to mine and we roll around rapturously, ebbing and flowing, giving and receiving, seeking a true fusion of selves.
Clothes come off at regular intervals, there is touching and squeezing, mouthing and lapping and nipping. We move across each other’s bodies encountering different signs along the way, some hard, some wet, some both hard and wet, tending to them with our hands and mouths until the urgency overtakes us. Then he is inside me and I am around him, our limbs are intwined and we are one, working together, slipping and sliding, generating heat and sweat and steam between us. We take it slowly yet intensely, both of us trembling with the immensity of it, and I come first, tearfully, saying his name, and then his is a heartrending cry, as if his body is wrenched apart and we fall back together on to the damp sheets, keeping as close as we can for as long as we can.

From head to toe I am wringing wet, but the stickiness between my thighs comforts me more than
I can say; part of him in me. Oh. That’s a thought.

“Sinclair,” I say
, my voice coming out thickly. “We weren’t….protected.”

“Hm?”  He does not seem
to understand what I’m saying. “You’re protected. I’ll protect you.” He sounds as if he is half-asleep already.

“No! I mean…y’know.
Contraception.”

“
You aren’t taking your pills?” A note of the Sinclair sharpness creeps back in.

“I have
to wait until after my period. You can’t just leave them off and take them back up again. They don’t work like that. I’ll have to get a morning after pill.”

“Right.”
His fingers shred through my hair. “You know, if you don’t….I won’t mind.”

I sit up. “Sinclair!”

He pulls me back down.

“Are you serious?”

“Very. Totally.”

“I…don’t think I’m ready for
that yet,” I say tentatively. “Could I get my degree first?”

“Of course.
Up to you.”

I kiss him.
“I love you so much.”

“Somebody has to,” he says lacon
ically.We lie there like that for a while, thinking about how weird it is to have a future together.

“So…objectively speaking…how bad is it, then?” I say eventually.

“Come again?”

“Mmm, is that an offer?
No, I mean….the shocking exposé. Is it really that shocking?”

Sinclair sits up and reaches blindly for the gla
ss of water on the nightstand. “To be honest with you, Beth, I haven’t actually read it. Beyond my perception that the truth was finally out there, so to speak, I haven’t considered any of the rest. The sex scandal stuff is minimally damaging, I’d imagine, if not possibly even an image-enhancer.”

“That’s what I was goi
ng to say, as a comfort thing. It’s not like you’re a prime-time family-friendly type of figure, is it? You’re on a marginal-interest programme on the ‘intellectual’ channel. I’m sure your paymasters at BBC4 will probably think it’s quite cool. They hired you in the first place, so they obviously wanted to sex the thing up. Well, they can’t accuse you of not fulfilling your brief.”

He drains the water and bangs the glass
back down with a rueful smile. “I don’t think the media image will suffer too much, no. And publishers will love it. I could have a Christmas bestseller if I play it right.”

I laugh. “You’re unbelievable.
Was your thesis on Machiavelli?”

“ ‘Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage’,” he quotes.

My heart jumps. This is going to be all right. God bless old Niccolo Machiavelli; between him and a shag, Sinclair seems to have perked up no end.

“The Chancellor, on the other hand…” he
intones, his voice doom-laden. “He will want to know about my, er, extracurricular activities with students. If he can be convinced that you are the only one, I may not be in too deep waters. If, however, the perception lingers that I am a predatory old lecher, stalking my undergraduates, there may well be a knock-on effect on applications.”

“You mean they’ll go up,” I say cheekily.

“Beth,” he admonishes. “I can’t regret what I’ve done with you, but it isn’t what I’d want for my daughter.”

Chri
st, that’s a sobering thought. “You feel guilty? You wish it had never happened?”

He takes m
y hand, “No, Beth, never that. I suspect I’ll never regret seducing you. But I can understand how people might consider it morally dubious.”

“I suppose you’re right.
God, I hope the Chancellor is on your side. What if he isn’t?”

Sinclair shrugs. “Somebody else will want me. Possibly overseas.
My academic reputation is such that I would probably be in demand.”

“Oh
. But then…”

“B
eth, it will all be all right. As for the revelations of my past…” He shrugs. “They are neither here nor there. As you say, they are more likely to work in my favour – the underprivileged child who beat the odds – than otherwise. I’m happy to print an apology to that childcare worker whose tooth I knocked out. We corresponded privately many years ago, and he bears me no grudge; indeed, he was very supportive of my new endeavours. It’s just the sex tape…things like that tend to linger in the collective memory.”

“You could never
go on
Have I Got News For You
,” I point out. “And wherever you go you’ll always have people whispering behind you about canes and suchlike.”

“Ah, but they will never dare do it to my face,” says Sinclair with an
evil glint. “So in that sense, it’s much more satisfactory than being caught in the opposite scenario, with a dominatrix.”

“You should h
ave called yourself Pollyanna. You’re definitely winning the Glad Game today.”

“You seem to be having this effect on me, Beth,” he says, pulling me in
to his side with a strong arm. “Ordinarily I’m infinitely more pessimistic than this. Having you here has diminished the impact of all this by a considerable factor.”

“Whatever happens, Sinclair, you know I’m in your corn
er, don’t you? Even if your entire career goes up in smoke and we have to live in a burger van at the side of the road?”

He laughs, loud and long.
“I’m quite tempted to do just that,” he says. “But first things first. We need to get you to the Student Health Centre. Get this pill you need.”

“What…now?”
I straighten my spine, running a hand through my hair. “It can wait till tomorrow. Perhaps those creeps outside might have gone by then.”

“My understanding is that time is of the essence in these situ
ations. I don’t care about them. I’ll run them over if I have to.”

"Are you sure you're sober?"

"I didn't have that much. I don't have much of a head for booze, if I'm honest. Two measures…two hours ago. That's all right, isn't it?"

“But Sinclair….with me….they know I’m a student…isn’t that a bit….brazen?”

He stands up and pulls me up with him. “I have nothing to hide,” he says with a flourish. “I’ve never been ashamed of my liaison with you and I’m not about to start. Come on, get dressed. We’re going out.”

*

It is like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman, but without having to step into a phone booth and swirl around so much.

One minute he is naked, tousled and still slighty alco-scented, the next he is coiffed, cologned, suited and booted, all creases ironed out
by the Sinclair steamroller.  My glimpse of the tattered and torn boy that was Kevin Wronksworth will be just that – a glimpse. Sinclair is back. And this time, it’s personal.

“Are you sure about this?” I jitter, watching him perform a final preen before the hall mirror, flicking unruly strands of hair into submission with his deft fingers.

He straightens his tie and gives me a look that shoots straight to my solar plexus. A ‘nothing can stop me’ look; the Sinclair alpha-male force-field never looked so unbreachable.

“They’ll be after your blood,” I remind him, trotting behind him after he grabs my hand and makes for the door.

“They won’t get it,” he says, then he smiles. “I am sanguine.” I am supposed to laugh at this, I’m guessing, though I’ve no idea why.

He sighs faintly.
“You have so much to learn,” he says, for possibly the eight millionth time in our relationship. 

“Just as well you’re a
teacher then.” We are taking the stairs at a gallop when my stock response comes out. Speeding across the vestibule, nearly at the door, opening the door.

Flash!
Flash! Catcalls, roaring, skittering feet running back from the coffee stand that’s set up shop on the other side of the road. Flash! Flash!

Sinclair pulls me over to his car; not the one they were expecting, for they are all pointing their lenses at the sporty silver number on the other side of the drive.
Ha ha. Sinclair drives a decidedly run-of-the-mill hatchback, highly polished as it is.

“
Professor Sinclair! Beth!”

I hear snippets of questions threaded through the jumble of shouts,
but never the full sentences. “Do you think…BBC…are you…bondage…will there…student…”

I jump into the car
as quickly as I can. “I didn’t even know you had a car,” I tell him.

“No, well, I d
on’t use it much. I walk to work and get cabs if I’m going out. It’s for emergencies.”

“I think this definitely qualifies.”

“Yes. Come on, Beth, belt up,” he says impatiently, revving the engine like a boy racer to intimidate any hack that might be considering standing in our way. I’m tempted for a second to do a bit of brat-flirtation, you know, “What if I don’t?” style, but the battery of white lights and jeering over by the gate soon brings me back to earth.

“You wouldn’t seriously run them over?” I ask, as he reverses quite sharply out of the parking space with a harsh crunch of gravel.