Chapter 8

There are many hangover remedies that people swear by. Having the sweet slender thighs of Helena Innes slam against his head followed by a very spirited fuck was one of Andrew’s personal favourites. They were both dehydrated, hungover and not especially sweet smelling but none of it mattered. Afterwards Helena lay on him as they caught their breath, looking bedraggled but with an epic just fucked look.

“Stop looking at me like that. How you can find me attractive at the moment I don’t know. My breath is ghastly, I smell something awful and my hair must look like a hedgerow.”

Andrew smacked her arse sharply.

“That’s what you get for fishing for compliments so blatantly. None of that matters, as you very well know. You look great, and I always have loved your just fucked look.”

Her guilty smile made him laugh.

“Exactly. Oh Andrew, tell me I am pretty. Oh Andrew, are you sure, I look so bad.”

His faux ladies home county accent just got him a whack. But as Andrew had Helena Innes’ arse in his hands and was trying to kiss her it seemed like a fair trade.

“Stop, seriously my breath is grim.”

Andrew flung her face down on the bed, and put his weight on his knees and elbows so that he was hovering over her but not crushing her.

“Well then, I guess you need to bite the pillow then.”

There was not one moment of hesitation, it was straight to head down, arse up, coupled with an impatient arse wiggle just to get him to hurry up. Andrew slid under her hips so that his back was on the bed but his legs were dangling off the end. Her pussy was puffy from all the activity already so he firmly grasped her hips and pulled Helena down onto his tongue as he went in search of nectar. Helena was clearly a young lady on a mission that morning. Andrew laid his head on the bed, stuck his tongue out and kept still. The only way to describe it was that Helena humped his face. She once confessed that she wished he had a tongue like a cat. That spongy raspy tongue that they use to clean themselves. Andrew was sure that if he had something like that she would still be there today. He heard a muffled ‘fingers’, the only word spoken, and between his probing fingers and his not very raspy tongue, Helena orgasmed nicely. Some orgasms were thigh-slammers, big orgasms that overwhelmed her. This was an extended ‘thin’ orgasm. Lots of ‘oohs’ and ‘yeses’ and just when he thought it was over it broke gently again.

But then his slick index finger circled her tight little rosebud and Helena’s intensity skyrocketed. She really did love getting her arsehole played with. Andrew wasn’t aware of what Helena was doing at first but then realised she was shoving a condom at him. Once wrapped he fucked her in the pussy a couple of times to lube the condom then pushed through her arsehole in one thrust. Helena was self-medicating on her clit and so Andrew grabbed her hips and focused on getting off. She was babbling away and Andrew gorged on the visual splayed out in front of him. Helena was moaning and mumbling into his pillow, one hand of the headboard and the other between her legs. But looking down was his undoing. He had described anal sex as a naughty taboo to Helena the previous year but this was so far beyond that. When he came he had slammed into Helena and her knees were off the bed as he held her in place as he pulsed into the bulb. It was an epic way to end the term.

Eventually he lowered her gently back down onto the bed and dealt with the condom. Andrew lay panting on his back with Helena beside him. They lay side by side, squished together on the narrow bed.

“I am glad you asked me to the wedding. Five weeks is a long time to go without that kind of release.”

They giggled before Helena turned and propped herself up on her right arm.

“I will call you on the 27^th, the day before I travel just to confirm all the details.”

“Sure. I have no idea of what I am up to so leave a message if I am not there. But unless there is a change of plan I will be at the station at 4.00 on Thursday afternoon and you will stay with me until the Monday morning. You should be home for dinner with your parents on the Monday night.”

Helena kissed him on my cheek.

“We haven’t really talked about the wedding much. Do you know the plans?”

“I really don’t. The wedding itself is at the City Chambers, that is where the Registry Office is. There are only going to be eight of us there, including Leslie and Julian. The big event is the reception in the evening. That is when I have to give the speech.”

“Oh yes, the best man’s speech. Have you written it already?”

“No, I haven’t even started. I know, I know, but I have to talk to Julian and figure out what I am going to say, and most importantly, what I am not going to talk about.”

Helena looked confused.

“The money.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, exactly. Most of the guests will know but not all of them. It is the genesis of how Leslie and Julian met, how she joined us and everything that followed. Julian and I are very quiet, geeky people. There were days when we were coding that we must have said 17 words all day. If we didn’t have to get up to change the record we wouldn’t have moved. That is not the basis for a legendary best man speech.”

Helena laughed, almost sympathetically.

“I can see how a couple of geeks playing with computers is not sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

“Oh we had lots of rock and roll, I went to my first gig with Julian, Black Sabbath way back in 1980, I think. We both dated the same girl, not at the same time I might add. But no, other than some gigs we didn’t really go crazy. You will see their house when we are up there, it is a big old place but flash it is not. I am the flash one when it comes to stuff like that. Leslie has my old car because she didn’t want to go car shopping.”

“You will take me round to their house?”

Helena sounded surprised.

“Of course, it is a 15 minute walk from the flat. We will probably go there on Thursday. I don’t know who will be there but Julian will want to meet you and they will both want to chat to you. Friday night is more formal, although I don’t know where the rehearsal dinner is. When I stop and think about it, I know very little about this whole wedding.”

He chuckled.

“It will be a fun weekend.”

Helena looked at him intently.

“Can I ask an awkward question?”

“Of course.”

“Is there going to be any mention of Faith?”

Andrew pursed his lips.

“I think that will be handled in advance of the day. I have no idea, I am not in charge but I think she will be talked about and acknowledged in advance of the wedding day so that it is Leslie and Julian’s day, and a happy one at that. I don’t think how she can be referenced in a meaningful way without it being a dampener on the proceedings. So my guess is that will have been dealt with in advance.

“The other thing to realise is that I probably keep Faith’s memory alive more than anyone else, including Leslie and her parents. It was me that she asked to live two lives, it is me that is the insanely driven person. One of things that Leslie mentioned at Christmas when we were in London was that for her and definitely for her parents, Faith is a bruise that never fades. But she called Faith a slash on my arm that never closes, a different kind of injury. I think of her every week at the hospital when I am on the ward and she still drives a lot of my behaviour, although not as much as before.”

Helena was lying beside him listening to his reminiscences.

“How do you mean?”

“The goal when Faith died was to make a difference. Ultimately that came to mean making sufficient money to fund cancer research. We achieved that goal in less than five years, before I ever came up to Cambridge. It has been one of my challenges since then to try and define what making a difference means.”

Helena leaned over, bad breath and all, and kissed him sweetly.

“You make it sound like a failure. You talk so casually about all this but it is still hard to comprehend that one of my best friends made millions of pounds and then just gave it all away. And now he is worried about what he should do next, all the while excelling here at Cambridge. You make the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers.”

The conversation was starting to veer round to praising Andrew, which Helena knew he hated, and so it was time to face the day. They crammed into a shower together and spent more time teasing and frustrating themselves than getting clean, but eventually they washed the stink of their carnal excesses off and Andrew discovered that Helena had some clothes in one of his drawers so that she didn’t even have to do the walk of shame. Who knew?

Although he was hungry Andrew dismantled the computer and boxed it up before carrying it across the Court and up Abi’s stair. She was dressed and ready when he knocked on the door.

“Great timing Andrew, Mum and Dad should be here soon.”

Andrew put the box down beside the rest of her stuff and Abi gave him a big hug just as there was a knock on the frame of the door. Dan and Pam Wilson were there to take Abi home for the break.

“Andrew, every time we see you Abi is in your arms.”

Well it is nice to see you too Pam.

“I don’t know whether you sounded concerned or jealous Pam?”

Mother and daughter whacked him and when Dan laughed he was abused as well.

“Clearly being whacked is something I can expect for many years.”

Which nearly got him another whack. Abi was ready and had packed lighter that year so her mother only had one small bag.

“What is that Andrew?”

“It is my computer. Abi is going to use it over the break.”

They must have asked ‘are you sure’ ten times before finally accepting that it was not a big deal.

“Come with us for brunch Andrew.”

They waited for a while at the Gate but finally Dan got the car close and they quickly loaded up and headed away from the insanity of the Colleges on moving out day. They ended up at a hotel dining room out by the station, not Andrew’s first choice, but the food was hot, tasty and plentiful. He couldn’t complain.

“Part of my surprise at seeing you with Abi was after everything that happened this term Andrew. I wondered whether you might have been more standoffish with Abigail.”

Pam was clearly still some way from completing the entrance requirements for the Diplomatic Service. And still being scolded by her daughter.

“Abi is my friend. That has not changed regardless of other considerations.”

Elegantly worded. Dan just laughed and nudged Pam’s arm.

“Abi told you that two weeks ago, and again last week.”

Andrew thought Pam was more upset with Abi than he had been. Andrew being the big old slut that he was had just swapped Abi for Helena and carried on. Now was probably not the time for that confession. The thought also crossed his mind that there was less to his friendship with Abi than he realised.

“Changing the subject although it is sort of academic since we won’t get to see them but the first commercials are being broadcast both on TV and at the cinema the week after Easter.”

This new shiny object captured the attention of Pam and she moved on from her daughter’s treatment of him.

“Are you excited?”

“Eh, excited? No.”

“Why ever not?”

“There will be no way to see them, short of going to France so it feels like it is happening to someone else. I know that I performed for those shoots but it is not my life. I have had a term of classes, labs and supervisions, that is all real. Playing with naked women is just a hobby.”

Dan Wilson snorted hollandaise out his nose and took several minutes to recover from the paroxysms of coughing that followed. His wife went from being annoyed, to being concerned to finally laughing with him.

“You could have waited five seconds Andrew.”

“Sorry Dan.”

Daniel and Pamela Wilson were another one of those surrogate parent couples. They were relaxed and accepting of who their daughter was and, most importantly, her physical relationships. But each time Andrew saw them he saw a couple very much in love, in a way that was unique to him at that point. There was a lightness to their interactions, no disguise of their love for each other. Freya and Jim, and Mary and Brian, had a sense of formality about them that never left, at least in Andrew’s presence. They were two happy couples but there was something different about the Wilsons compared to other couples he knew or observed. It made them very easy to get on with. The two women went to the toilet together and Andrew had a chance to talk to Dan one on one, a comparatively rare moment.

“How has the course been this term Andrew?”

“Great, no problems, but it was mainly Civil this term, with a lot of Structural. Could not be more of a sweet spot for me.”

“Is that what you are going to specialise in?”

“Almost certainly. I have my end of term meeting with my Director of Studies next week although I don’t have to declare until the end of the year.”