Chapter 4

She gaped at him, suddenly aware that he spoke the truth. Her devious plan for him had unravelled, but she rose to the occasion.

“Oh. Oh, well, I suppose...” and she grasped her nightie hem and lifted it up and off her body. She was wearing only panties underneath, but quickly dropped these and stepped out of them. She faced Reg and said, “Right. There you are: just as you demanded, Reg, you forceful boy. Happy now?”

He was indeed happy, getting a full-frontal view of Frances in all her glory. Her face might be plain and ordinary-looking, but her body had a lot going for it. Her breasts were not large, but perfectly in proportion to her body. Her shapely waist was followed by wide hips framing a triangle of hair at her crotch. She had curves, but no excess fat, for she exercised.

Reg finally stopped staring when she demanded, “Well? Do you like what you see?”

“Um, well, yes. You have a gorgeous body, Frances. Thank you for letting me see it.”

“Right: tit for tat, Reg; or rather for tit! Pyjamas off, please.”

He blushed as he realised he had to bare all in his turn, and was conscious of his suddenly hard penis. She probably saw the bulge in his pyjamas, he reckoned, so gave up, unbuttoned his sleep gear and let it drop to the floor.

Frances in her turn got her first view of a naked adult male, and she was fascinated by his protruding member pointing at her.

“Wow! Is that because of me?”

Reg admitted, “In this case, yes. Sometimes in the morning it gets like this because I desperately need to pee, but this morning it is all because of your wonderful body in front of me, Frances.”

“Gosh! Can I feel it, Reg?” She said with trepidation, gesturing at his member. “I won’t do anything bad to you.”

He saw no way out. “All right, but gently, Frances. I am sensitive there, and haven’t had anyone else touch it.”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody. You are the first, Frances.”

“I feel honoured,” she said, as she tentatively ran her fingers over his engorged penis. “Is it always like this?”

He gave a short laugh. “No. This is when it and me get excited by a girl. It is normally a short and stubby flaccid thing.”

“Gosh.” She grasped his boner and held it steady. “You are a useful tutor to have around, Reg. I am learning all the time, it seems.”

A voice called from the corridor, “Reg, are you up yet? Breakfast is nearly ready, and it is...” Freda turned to look into the bedroom, to see Reg in the buff, member rampant, being stroked by a completely naked Frances. She continued, “Good God! It is only seven-thirty and you two are at it already! Couldn’t you wait until after breakfast?”

Frances and Reg both gasped at the shock of discovery, and Reg’s boner collapsed to a more bendy, flaccid, member that swiftly slipped out of Frances’ grasping hand. In the sudden panic, Frances had forgotten she was still holding him. Now she blushed and ran for her room and day clothes, calling back, “Sorry, Reg. My fault!”

Soon they were all dressed and at the kitchen table, demurely sitting down and eating breakfast. Reg found he was able to forget his excitement of a short while ago, as his attention was taken up by food intake, an important aspect of life.

It suddenly occurred to him that Erika and Freda were present, as well as Frances, so they must have all spent the night in Frances’ house. He had only been conscious last night of himself being offered a bedroom, but recalled that the girls had spent the night here previously. The number of times that occurred he did not know, having left beforehand with Frances.

He belatedly said “Good morning” to Erika and Freda. They grinned, and reciprocated his greeting. It came to Reg’s memory that when Freda had looked into his bedroom, she herself had been wearing a rather flimsy nightie, though she was now wearing her clothes for classes.

Reg cheekily said to her, “You look good in clothes, Freda, but your nightie was much more to my taste.”

To his horror, she responded, “In that case, we will test out that assumption tonight, Reg.” Stumped, he went silent, his face red.

Frances added to the fracas with her own comment. “Reg and I have agreed that the house rule for sleepwear is none at all. Birthday suits only.”

Erika and Freda look at each other, their mouths forming an ‘O’ of silent exclamation. Then they grinned, which Reg thought looked suspicious. No more was said about the subject while they finished breakfast and got cleared up. Reg was left wondering who dealt with things like cleaning and laundry, for no-one appeared to deal with such matters. No doubt he would find out eventually.

They all got into Frances’ car for the trip to the university, each of them loaded with whatever they might need for their classes, including the essays they had each written for the history class.

The morning went as normal, as far as Reg was concerned. He concentrated on the lectures, made notes, and generally ignored all the other students. When lunch break came along, he gravitated to the refectory for a simple lunch geared to his budget.

As he sat at a table, concentrating on his meal, he found the other seats being taken around him. Looking up, he discovered that his lunchtime companions were the trio: Frances, Freda and Erika, placing their trays on the plastic-topped table. He smiled a small welcome to them as his mouth was still half full of food, but raised a hand to acknowledge them, pointing to his occupied mouth to explain his lack of voluble welcome.

They embarked on their own food and silently enjoyed each others company, until a passing couple made a remark.

“Oh, look, Lonesome Robertson has joined the Plain Jane Society!”

Reg stiffened, but said nothing. It was his usual lack of response to any taunts about him as a loner, and this was no different. Another comment came.

“Yeah. Robertson and the Ugly Ducklings.”

This made Reg look up at the taunters. It was a beautiful girl and her boyfriend that Reg had seen around, but previously ignored. This time, he replied, “Oh, look, girls: it is the Ugly Minds Bunch. Thank goodness your minds are beautiful. I wouldn’t want to associate with such poor quality.”

The glamour girl paled at the returned insult, and her boyfriend got red in the face. He abruptly grabbed her elbow and steered them both away. Reg’s three friends allowed grins to arrive on their faces as they looked at each other. Frances spoke for them all: “Right on, Reg. That hit them on the chin. I would never have believed you could manage to do that; certainly not before now! You have gained in self-confidence, Reg, lad.”

He smiled awkwardly at her, unsure of his response. “Thanks, Frances. They were insulting you, and I couldn’t let them away with it.”

Erika added, “You certainly let them have it. That’s my boyfriend!”

Freda interjected, “Hey, he was standing up for all of us, you know.”

Erika responded with a smile, “Don’t worry, girl. If you like, I’ll say: That’s OUR boyfriend. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay, Reg?” said Freda. Frances was watching everyone carefully.

Reg knew enough about girls now to give the expected response. “Okay, Freda. I am an admirer of all three of you. You are the first girls to pay serious attention to me, for myself as a person, not just as a ‘clever clogs’, ‘egghead’, or similar insulting epithet. You make me feel good.”

Frances grinned slightly, and said quietly, “You certainly do feel good, Reg.”

Reg got her meaning, and giggled. He gazed at Frances and said carefully, “I am not usually so forward, Frances.”

This brought her to a spasm of laughter, and when she recovered, she told him, “That was a very pointed remark, Reg.”

He grimaced, “Oh, pun-ishing me, are you, Frances?”

Erika seemed puzzled at this exchange of banter, but Freda told her with a smile, “Let it pass, Erika. I’ll tell you later.”

They got back to finishing off their snack lunch, drained their plastic cups, and took the trays to the prescribed place for used utensils before heading back to the next class for each of them.

Reg had geology next, and was looking forward to it. The professor was an interesting speaker, and always had some point with which to surprise his class.

Today was no exception. He concluded today’s talk on major tectonic events with a statement, “The impact of the asteroid or whatever body that caused the Chicxulub crater 66 million years may not have been the killer event that wiped out the dinosaurs. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that the impact rattled magma chambers all around the Earth, and stimulated some into becoming more active.

The strongest candidate for this activity is the Deccan Traps in India, for after the Chicxulub event, magma rose twice as fast from below that continent, and the chemical analysis of the lava – which shows changes associated with this speeding up - gives credence to this thesis. The Deccan Traps became major producers of poisonous gases for thousands of years, and maybe that was what killed off the dinosaurs and the foraminifera that were wiped out in the oceans concurrently with the dinosaurs.

It may be worth your while investigating the evidence for yourselves. You might get a question about it in future work.

That is all for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have been listening productively.”

Reg was intrigued to hear this thesis. It seemed to have a strong rationale, so he was inclined to accept it at face value, though more detailed studies would be required to add to the prima facie evidence.

It was much like many other new developments, he thought to himself. You get a basic fact come to notice, then a variety of conclusions drawn from that fact. Other scientists try to find evidence to support one or other thesis, and the supporting facts would build up for it, or disprove the idea. But it was very easy to start with a fact and develop completely wrong inferences.

One assumption starts and becomes ingrained into general mythology. The idea that penguins are an Antarctic species was fine in itself. However, these birds were actually called penguins because they looked and acted like a North Atlantic swimming bird called the Great Auk. The Great Auk’s other name was penguin: a name in use centuries before the Antarctic birds were known. Spanish and Portuguese sailors called the Great Auks pinguinos. The word is possibly derived from the Welsh pen gwin (white head), except that normally the Great Auk had a black head with a broad white eye patch which became a white band in winter. The name ‘white head’ possibly differentiated it from the smaller razorbills, which have no white patch at all.