Chapter 1

I was so looking forward with great anticipation to my upcoming weekend in Paris.

It was the perfect time of year to be outside of the UK in the city of Romance and eternal youth. One of my side issues that filled my waking hours with the seeds of guilt was the need to converse in French with native speakers so I might improve my terrible Midland’s accent to at least the off chance I might be from somewhere more appropriate in the average French person’s thoughts of an ideal envivonment.

I cringed each time I saw that little look of distain when they heard me speak their beautiful language with my horrible harsh vowels. I was beginning to think it would be better if I had been born in Berlin or Frankfurt with all the guttural slaughtering of the beautiful French language with typical German pomposity of genetic superiority. It should be mentioned that I was funding the trip with Daddy’s trust fund for me because the BBC was dreadfully stingy about things like advance payments or compensation for something they couldn’t make a huge profit from. Of course, I was more Capitalistic in my economic appreciation than Socialistic although I would never say that in public because most of my friends are of the other persuasion. It almost sounds like I am talking about one’s sexual quotient rather than cold hard cash, but I have found that the all-important factor of “income” is the true barometer of one’s personal success in this new millennium century of instant gratification.

My room-mate Oscar was still in bed and his unclothed bottom was staring me in the face as I brushed my teeth in the tiny bathroom. Actually, we were fortunate to have a bathroom because most of the flats on this street still had a single bath at the end of the hall as archaic as it sounds to the modern ear.

Oscar was a dear and he was terribly prompt in his rental payments that reduced my expenses to a controllable level. Let me hasten to add he was of the segment of the population that preferred the company of their own sex more than the fun of the chase in finding new “birds” to satisfy their base urges. Sometimes he would bring a “friend” up for a little cuddling and it didn’t dissuade me from a good night’s sleep because I had the bedroom all to myself as part of our agreement. Besides, he was quite good at doing eyebrows and hair-tinting and I saved a lot of money by letting him experiment with my cosmetic needs from time to time.

In my opinion, I was better looking without any of that stuff because I had my peaches and cream complexion and I knew my hair was far better chopped off short and sort of boyish because it gave me a pixyish look that most guys find sexy.

During my university days, I had tried my best to mix in with the crowd and drink the awful beer at the pub and talk about the boring sports games so I could be just another bird in the crowd of smiling faces that doted on male superiority in all things in order to get my fair share of the young lads eager to copulate at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t help but think all they had on their mind with regard to anything dropping was my knickers as they hit the floor. I have to confess I was fairly quick to drop my knickers when it came to such matters because I preferred to be thought of as a social creature and one that got along well with all others.

In all honesty, I would be remiss to omit the fact that I had a shortage of female friends. That should be stated to be qualified to be females found in the same age category. I did have a fair share of older married women that I seemed to have more in common with and I enjoyed having tea or sipping a nice French wine rather than swigging down a pint with the boys.

When I included in that mix that I did generally like to be on top when it came to sex, I guess I was more controlling than your average “bird” with the much preferred submissiveness that most foreigners ascribe to British womanhood. Lately, I had been so anti-submissive that I drove away any chap looking for an easy lay and I probably scared off my future husband as well.

My father was a real “stick-in-the-mud” type that some people would describe as overly proud and snobbish. I knew that under his gruff exterior, he was really a “softie” at heart and could be counted on to bend over backwards to give anyone deserving a helping hand when one was needed in a time of emergency. My brother John was a bit of a cunt and I am not being facetious when I describe him in those terms. He was scheduled to be married this past June to a lovely girl from London and he up and leaves the week before the wedding and heads to his beloved India to play the role of the “good old boy” from the Mother country. I knew he had a little club of happy housewives there to entertain him whilst their husbands labored for the government in boring jobs and unhappy lives.

My almost sister-in-law was a beautiful young girl called Diana and she was one of these types that faced any catastrophe with a stiff upper lip. I had never known her to do anything of a shameful nature and she took her rejection with no rancor pretending that John was off doing something much more important and he would make things right and in order at the proper time.

I knew my father was terribly upset over the whole affair and had threatened to “cut him off” for his dastardly behavior.

Of course, I knew my father would soon back off his proclamation at the first sign that his only son John was in any kind of a predicament.

I decided to take the newly finished tunnel instead of flying because the last time when I flew to New York City for my girlfriend’s wedding, I had been rerouted into Boston and we waited in the middle of a terrible snowstorm for transportation down to her wedding location in a place called Port Washington out in the wilds of Long Island a short distance from the downtown area. We did make it on time, but it was all rushed and when we finally got back for our return flight, we found that all the flights had been cancelled for some sort of labor dispute that grounded us for nearly a full week. I missed no less than three exams and had to do make-ups in order to graduate as scheduled and not have to extend it all for another six months and do it with the next batch of graduates like boxes of candy on some cosmic assembly line.