Chapter 5
FIVE
Professor Scott Princeton hated being late. Especially as he drilled it into his students that lateness was the epitome of rudeness.
He scurried across the university campus, swearing to himself. His floppy fair locks caught in the late-March wind and blew about like mad sheaves of corn in a field. He knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to shave it off. He was receding badly and long hair coming from the middle of his head wouldn’t be a good look.
At forty-five he still looked all right and the fact he could pull someone as hot as Maya surely meant he still had it. Although, he thought she was more turned on by the fact that he was a professor, more than double her age, with an exceptionally large cock, than by his personality and wit. Some of his students were her age. Was it wrong? No. It was a relief to have someone so fit and nubile to keep him from being tempted by the many students who made it their business to flirt outrageously with him on a daily basis.
Sex with Maya was what it was.
No holds barred, non-committed, pure unadulterated filth between two consenting adults. And he was certain she was aware of that, too. For stupid was something Maya Bakova definitely wasn’t. He had never mentioned that he was married and she had never asked.
Lecture over, Scott nodded to one of his colleagues in the corridor, and unlocked the door to his office, sitting down at his desk with a huge sigh, to go quickly over tomorrow’s course notes. That desk. The one he had fucked Maya over the day he had met her cleaning his office a year ago. He had been working late. She had stretched up to dust a cobweb from the ceiling, ruching her T-shirt up with her. He noticed her smooth, tattooed back – and that had been it. He loved a girl with tattoos. It didn’t take much. Just her noticing the slight bulge in his trousers, and him asking her if she had ever considered sleeping with an older man. That was enough. Before he had even had a chance to ask her on a date, his zip was down and she was giving him the best blow job he had ever had in his life. Thirty minutes later, they were both buck naked fucking like rabbits over his leather-topped desk.
Just thinking about it now gave him a slight swelling. Right, he must concentrate, he had a job to do. He checked the diary on his phone. ‘Oh crap!’ He had forgotten he had a therapy session at six. Gracie Davies. He racked his brain. Oh yes – pleasant girl, lost twins, struggling to get over it. Relationship now struggling. Straightforward stuff really.
He grabbed his papers and threw them into his worn brown leather briefcase. He swore as he tried to do it up. The catch had broken. He was fiddling around trying to fix it so as not to waste money on a new one when his phone rang.
‘Scott, darling?’
‘I’m in a rush, Cynthia, what is it?’
‘You couldn’t pick up Emma from Georgia’s later, could you, around six? It’s my Ashtanga yoga night with Pearl.’
‘No, I’ve got two therapy sessions – in fact, I won’t be home until ten. She’s eighteen, Cyn. Leave some money in the emergency pot and she can get a taxi, surely?’
‘OK, OK. I just thought for once you might be home at a reasonable hour. Especially as it’s our wedding anniversary. God forbid!’ She hung up.
Scott sighed again. His second therapy session had been an invention. He had planned to go back to Maya and now for the semblance of peace, he had no option other than to give that up.
Checking his watch, the Professor swore loudly as he rushed around making his office look half-reasonable. Sweeping his arm across his desk, he turned his nose up as he spotted a mouldy supermarket sandwich in its plastic wrapping, which had been sitting there for two days. He realised he hadn’t put on a bet in the 5.30 at Plumpton. Lesson Learnt was the mare’s name. It would be a bloody lesson learnt to try and get a bit more organised when he had after-lecture commitments.
‘Bugger!’
He squirted some Jo Malone room spray that one of his students had given him for Christmas. Then, taking a pillow from the cupboard behind the door, plumped it up and threw it absent-mindedly on the chaise longue in the corner. One of the many pieces of furniture he had inherited when his father had died, just months after his mother, two years ago.
Despite being highly intelligent – his mother an English teacher, his dad a GP – both had smoked. And both had died of lung cancer in their early seventies. There was little effort required for the grave digger when Scott’s father was buried, as the soil on his mother’s grave was still loose. Scott had only to re-instruct the stonemason regarding the headstone and that was that. Rest in Peace – Rose and Benedict Princeton. Much loved parents of only son Scott.
Scott had been born more academic than organised. He also had never acquired much regard for money. With his PhD in Psychology and Behavioural Studies he wanted to make a difference: write as many papers as he could that would benefit society; help students achieve the best grades with the least amount of stress possible; and then, of course, give something back in his guise as a therapist.
He had enjoyed the therapy he administered, learning a lot about himself – not all of it good – along the way. And the fifty quid an hour came in handy too. Insisting on cash payment, it covered the odd gift for Maya, plus funded his horse-racing addiction.
Perhaps his disinterest in money had arisen because he had never lacked it. His wife earned well as a barrister. And now that his parents were gone, he had inherited a townhouse in Battersea, as well as a magnificent holiday home overlooking the sea at Looe in Cornwall.
Cynthia, his wife, and his daughter, Emma, had visited Cornwall a lot more than he had. He preferred work to relaxation. In fact, he loved it when they went away, as it meant he could fuck Maya without worrying about the time.
He loved Emma, the result of a honeymoon period of perpetual sex in the first year of his relationship with Cynthia. But the passionate attraction to his wife had faded years ago and, if he was really honest, he wouldn’t have chosen to have children: having discovered that even one child brought too many demands on his time. Despite this, he didn’t like being on his own, and was too lazy to find someone to replace Cynthia. The pair of them led fairly separate lives, but the bond of all those years in common – a certain comfortableness and, of course, Emma – kept them together. Now that Emma was eighteen, she didn’t really need them. Soon she would be at Oxford and then definitely wouldn’t need them – well, apart from financially, of course.
Scott opened the door to his office and looked down the corridor. Good, it seemed quiet. He had not told anyone that he conducted therapy sessions in his college room. He didn’t know if he needed some sort of special insurance, or permission from the university, or even if it was legal. He didn’t really care. If anyone asked, he was just giving extra study.
The childless one was always punctual. He liked that.
Gracie knocked gently on the door as previously instructed, smiled at the professor and laid her coat at the end of the chaise longue, her home for the next hour.
This was her fourth session and they both acknowledged now that not a word was spoken when she arrived. She lay back, nestled her head into the middle of the really quite vile flowery peach pillowcase, and shut her eyes.
‘There are tissues and water as usual underneath,’ Scott instructed.
Gracie, soothed by the professor’s low, throaty voice, took a deep breath and felt instantly at ease.
Scott noticed she had a lower-cut top on than usual; he could see the soft curve of her breasts spilling over the top. He had never seen her cleavage before.
‘So, how’s your week been?’
The professor watched Gracie as she replied. Her habit was to keep her eyes closed for the whole hour, unless she had a full sob going on, when she had to sit up and blow her nose for fear of choking.
She faltered, before saying quietly, ‘Lewis doesn’t find me attractive anymore.’
‘Was that exactly what he said to you?’
‘Hmm, he said he was finding it difficult to love me as I was.’
‘OK.’ Scott nodded wisely. ‘So your interpretation immediately went to your body image?’
‘Well… yes.’
‘And how does that make you feel?’
‘I’m not surprised, to be honest,’ Gracie confessed. ‘I know I’m not very pretty naked at the moment. And I’m certainly not the woman he first met. And… well… well, it’s almost like I don’t want him – Lewis, I mean – to find me attractive.’ She let out a huge sigh. ‘And well, it can’t be easy to live me with me at the moment. I’m a mess.’
The professor took a sip of water from a bottle on his desk. He was looking at Gracie in a different way today. Her round face was half-hidden by her wavy, dark brown, shoulder-length hair. He had noticed how beautiful her big green eyes were before she had shut them tight: full of expression and feeling, despite being drowned with sadness. He hadn’t taken in her long, mascaraed eyelashes before today. Her cheeks were flushed and she just had a smudge of gloss on her full lips. She was a naturally attractive woman and, despite all that she had been through, looked younger than her thirty-eight years. Probably because she doesn’t have children , he thought to himself. No constant worry or sleepless nights.
She was missing a little bit of soul at the moment, but it was his intention to help her get it back.
He looked down her body. He could see the line of her leg through her black leggings. He could never say it to her, but she had the figure of a mother who had just given birth. Curvy and desirable.
‘And why do you think you don’t want him to find you attractive now?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. No, actually, I do know. I don’t want sex. No, it’s not that. It’s the association with sex and Lewis and loss.’
‘That must be so difficult for you,’ Scott said gently as a tear rolled down Gracie’s cheek.
‘Yes, it is. And being honest I don’t know if I love him anymore or not. I feel a bit devoid of emotion at the moment, to be honest. It’s as if I need to get strong myself before I can give any love back. And I know it’s been six months since, you know… since what happened.’
‘Losing the twins, you mean, Gracie?’
‘Yes.’ She took a massive breath; even saying the word ‘twins’ still made her feel a bit sick.
It seemed, since she’d lost them, that she had never seen so many twins in her whole life. Or met so many people who were one of a twin, or saw so many women who were pregnant and kept harping on about it. But that had been her not so long ago. Pregnant and proud.
‘What do you think would happen if you did instigate intimacy, Gracie?’
‘He’d probably run a mile.’ Gracie sighed.
‘Like rules, walls are put in place to protect us,’ Scott replied gently. ‘Sometimes, we just need to break them down.’
Gracie almost had a skip in her step as she walked back to her car outside the university campus. She felt slightly better than when she had arrived and knew exactly what she was going to do. Professor Princeton had really helped today.
Lewis was at football practice for his local pub team so she had time to prepare.
She luxuriated in a deep bubble bath. Shutting her eyes, she thought back to a particularly romantic weekend they had spent in the South of France. They’d stayed in an amazing hotel in the hills, where they ate, drank, laughed, danced and made love all weekend. The memory itself made her feel a little bit horny. Yes! Professor Princeton’s words were ringing true. Maybe she wouldn’t be a barren old bag who would never have sex again. She was a sensual, sexual woman who deserved to be loved. It wasn’t that Lewis didn’t find her attractive physically, it was just the grief had been all-consuming and she had lost herself along the way. Had lost the person he had fallen in love with. She wanted to feel better, to feel attractive again, and it was only her thoughts and attitude that could change this.
After applying copious amounts of her favourite shower gel, she shaved herself smooth. Then, opening her wardrobe, rifled around for the best matching underwear she could find – stockings, suspenders, the lot. Her highest heels were donned. And to complete this outfit of seduction, a short black mac she hadn’t worn for years.
The minute he walked through that bedroom door, Lewis Blair was going to get what she hoped was a very happy surprise.