Chapter 12: News and Advice

My life in Westmouth had fallen into a fairly comfortable pattern. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays I spent almost all day with Imogen and varying members of our study group, either in lectures, seminars or the library. I’d meet her for breakfast at eight (along with Steve, who still hung around our breakfast timetable like a bad smell, and Vanessa too) and we’d part only after getting back to Wintersmith around five, just in time for the evening meal.

I spent the best part of Wednesdays with her as well, but, on the advice of my academic tutor, I finally got around to using the afternoon set aside for sporting pursuits to actually pursue some sport. Jem persuaded me and Mark to join him and Phil at the badminton club. It’s a fast, frenetic sport that provided a really good cardiovascular workout. Mark also persuaded me to do some weights work in the gym with him after badminton.

Fridays saw me and Imogen working through the day as we usually did, but we always cut Fridays short in order to get ready for a night on the town, finishing straight after our last lecture of the week and getting back to Wintersmith around three-thirty.

Friday and Saturday nights were our party nights. By November, the freshers of Wintersmith (and I guess all the other halls too) had crystallised into smaller groups. My group consisted of Mark, Jem, Phil and the girls from Emily’s flat. The other boys from our floor were another group, but they tended to go wherever our group was going and often mingled with us.

Imogen’s group contained Vanessa and some of the other girls who also lived on Wintersmith’s top floor. And while that group didn’t follow us, we did bump into them regularly.

We usually went to either The Union or Central Pier on Friday nights, typically a last-minute decision based on how far the girls felt like walking or how bad the weather was. If we’d been to Central Pier on Friday, then we would go to The Union on Saturday, but if we’d been to The Union on Friday, we went into town and normally ended up at Porky’s the next night.

Regardless of whether we stayed on campus or went into town, we always went to one or two bars first before heading for our final destination. And it was at that final destination that I’d find out whose company I’d have the pleasure of for the night. Or should that be just who I’d have the pleasure of? I mean, let’s face it, The Paul Robertson Experience wasn’t about keeping anyone company, but it was all about pleasure. Sexual pleasure.

It was a different girl every night—all prearranged by Amanda. There seemed to be a pattern too. Fridays were always for those I’d been with before but Saturdays were when I’d meet any new girls—of which there seemed to be a steady stream, one every couple of weeks or so. The voice in my head was happy whether it was a new girl or a regular, but she definitely seemed to have a preference for the new girls. <<Fresh Pussy, Fresh Pussy!>> She’d scream every time I was introduced to one.

The first Friday after The Halloween Ball, Libby got her third Paul Robertson Experience but the next night was another of Amanda & Emily’s second-year friends, a petite brunette named Alice. Another of their friends to join the list of regulars was Josie. The List was up to eight now. It was beginning to get so long I feared I’d have trouble remembering all their names. Perhaps I need to start a new diary.

Amanda did make sure she reserved one night every other week for herself—Friday or Saturday, she wasn’t picky—and though I hate to admit it, the sex with her was out of this world. After that first time together, when I put her lights out, she resolved that not only would I never be able to do it to her again, but that she was determined to do it to me. She never managed it, but damn if it wasn’t fun letting her try.

I hadn’t thought it possible, but as November gave way to December, my workload seemed to get even heavier. Lumbered with an ever-increasing number of articles to read, cases to study, essays to write and assignments to complete, on top of keeping a working set of notes from the lectures and seminars which was a massive job in itself, and I swear I could feel myself buckling under the weight.

I spoke to Emily about it but she wasn’t much help, to be honest. Her course seemed much more lightweight compared to mine. As did Jem’s and Mark’s for that matter when I spoke to them about it one night over a game of pool. Although, as Mark pointed out every chance he got, he spent up to six hours in a teaching laboratory twice a week on top of his lectures and tutorials, meaning he actually had more taught hours than anyone else. What he didn’t have was the sheer volume of reading and out of hours work that I had.

I found myself consulting Lisa. As a student at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, she would surely understand how I felt. We usually spoke on the phone every Sunday, so one week I asked her how she coped.

“You just have to learn to pace yourself, Paul,” she said.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“I never said it was easy, I said you have to learn to do it.”

“Look, if I pace myself I wouldn’t get everything done. I swear I feel like there’re not enough hours in the day sometimes.”

“If you really think you’re not coping, then go and talk to your tutor. He might be able to ease things. Is it just you or is everyone suffering the same way?”

“I don’t know. If anyone else is feeling the same, they haven’t said anything to me about it. But why would they?”

“This is the thing, Paul, I know you. You’re a perfectionist. You’ll be working yourself harder than anyone else, I’ll bet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—it’s worked for you so far, hasn’t it? But if you’re working yourself so hard that it means you end up not doing the best you can, then you need to back off a bit. But if everyone on the course is suffering the same way, then you all need to start complaining or nothing will be done about it.”

“I suppose.”

“There’s no suppose about it, Paul. That’s what you have to do. Talk to the others on your course. If it’s just you, you need to slow down and not work so hard, but if it’s everyone then you all have to complain. Maybe write one letter to the Head of Department and have as many people sign it as you can, that should work. Now, let’s talk about more important things. Do you know who’s getting their P.R.E. this weekend?”

I groaned. The Paul Robertson Experience. It seemed everyone else was more interested in who was getting one than I was. And when did it get a damn abbreviation?

During the last week in November, I got an unexpected call from Will.

“Hi, Paul, how are you?”

“I’m good, Will. Thanks.”

“You sure? I know how tough that first year at uni can be to get used to.”

“Well...” I strung out the word, which told him all he needed to know.

“Thought so. That’s why I haven’t contacted you before now. We were going to discuss you coming to do some work experience at the firm, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” I know I didn’t exactly put a lot of enthusiasm in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. The prospect of trying to fit in work at a law firm around my current workload was frightening.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it and, honestly, I think the best thing we could do is if you came to work for me full time during the summer. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great!”

“I thought you’d like that idea.”

“No, seriously, Will, I really appreciate it. I do. I’ve got so much work here right now that I feel like I’m drowning, but doing some proper work over the summer should make me realise why I’m putting myself through this.”

He chuckled. “Yes, well, don’t go thinking you’ll have any easier time this summer than you’re having now, because I’m going to expect a lot out of you.”

“But I’ll be getting paid for it, though, right?”

This time his laugh was loud and hearty. “Yes, you’ll be getting paid. But seriously, I know this first year is hard on law students, but they do that deliberately. As a career, The Law is hard work. Long hours, lots of pressure. So they do like to weed out those not cut from the right cloth early on, so to speak.”

I nodded. “I get it. It’s just...”

“It’ll be worth it in the end. Trust me. Think of it as preparation for the real world. Something more students could do with, to be honest. Now, on to more important matters, it’s your birthday next week.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Paul, I know you find the memories that your birthday dredges up are painful, but you really need to start celebrating instead of moping. It’s what they would have wanted.”

“I suppose.”

“So, in the spirit of celebration, how about I take you out for dinner this weekend. There’s this great little Italian restaurant just off the seafront called Capello’s. I’ll book a table for us and some of your friends.”

“Will, that’s very kind but—”

“I insist, Paul. Now, how many friends are we talking about?”

I thought for a moment, “Er ... Can I ask around and get back to you?”

My problem was that while I didn’t want any of my friends to feel left out, I also didn’t want to land Will with a huge bill at the restaurant. Then there was the problem that one of my very best friends, Imogen, wasn’t really part of the group of my other friends.

And the more I thought about it, the worse it got.

Obviously, I wanted Emily to be there. She was my best friend. But could I invite Emily without inviting Amanda too? And what about Libby and Lottie? Mark was a great mate, so I wanted him there, but if I invited Mark, then surely I needed to invite Jem as well. And what about Phil, particularly if Emily was coming?

Then there was Imogen. She wasn’t part of that group, so if I invited her, and I wanted to because I also considered her one of my best friends, would she feel out of place? And did that mean I needed to invite her best friend, Vanessa, too?

In the end, it was Mark who put things into perspective for me.

“This lawyer friend of yours, he going to be coming alone?”

“I doubt it. He’ll bring his girlfriend—sorry, I mean his fiancée—and probably his daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“His fifteen-year-old daughter, who, I think, has a crush on me. Or she used to. I think.”

“Fair enough. So that’s three. Plus you makes four. And you don’t really want more than eight at a table, or it gets too much. So you’ve got four slots. Me, obviously.” He grinned and I matched it. Mark was never one to turn down free food. “And Emmy, she is your best friend after all. You can invite your ginger friend—”

“She’s not ginger.”

“Whatever. But invite her, it seems only fair. Plus, she’s tasty. That means two girls, one bloke. You need another bloke to even it up, so that’ll be Jem. Simples, right?”

“What about Mands? Won’t she be annoyed if I invite Emily and not her?”

“Can you really see Mands giving up a night on the lash for a meal with some old lawyer and his family?”

“No.”

“So don’t sweat it. Besides, the way I hear it, Mands has got her own special birthday celebration planned for you.”

4^th December 2012. My twentieth birthday. I was no longer a teenager. I didn’t want to make a fuss. But then, I never wanted to make a fuss. My old friends from school all knew why and I thought Emily knew why too. But if she did, she didn’t do a very good job of letting my new friends from university know.

The meal with Will had gone well and Mark had been right, Amanda had no problem not being invited and flat out told me she had a birthday planned for me that I’d never forget.

She wasn’t far wrong.

It was a Tuesday, one of my lighter days in terms of lectures, although I did have a seminar in the morning and a tutorial in the afternoon. My alarm normally went off at seven-thirty, which gave me half an hour to shower and dress before meeting my friends for breakfast. But this morning I was woken an hour early—and not by my alarm.

Instead, I woke from an intensely erotic dream featuring you-know-who, you-know-where, doing you-know-what, to feel the unmistakable sensation of a soft warm mouth wrapped around my rigid cock. I raised my head from the pillow and lifted the bed covers to see who was fellating me.

“Lottie?”

She lifted her mouth from me just long enough to smile and say, “Happy Birthday, Stud.” Then she went back to her task, which appeared to be an attempt to get her lips to the base of my cock by taking me into her throat—something she’d tried to do before but always failed. She must have been practising on something (or someone) though because she was doing a good job of it this time.