Chapter 12: So We’re Friends Now?

I’d thought a lot about the conversation I had with Bobby about my wealth since that evening at Westell Mill. I knew he was right. I knew I needed to take a bit more control over the funds available to me.

So I called Bobby and asked him to release all the funds in my share dividends account to me. This meant I’d lose the three-hundred and fifty pounds a month income paid to me from that account, but I wasn’t worried about that. The balance was just under six and a half thousand and I immediately transferred it into my savings account. I also told Bobby to re-invest all of my dividend income back into the share portfolio he managed for me instead of just half of it. I also gave him authority to aggressively manage the portfolio on my behalf. Up to now he’d only invested in shares my parent’s already owned but I’d asked him to manage it as he would any other client and charge me the same fees he would any other client—if he was as good as both Will and David said then any profits he made me would more than outweigh the extra fees.

Bobby also had an account he’d been paying two-thirds of the interest I got from Clarissa’s money into. It was supposed to be for paying my due tax each April, but Bobby had said there was more than enough in it for nearly three years’ worth of tax. So I told him to keep back what he thought I’d need for this year’s tax and transfer the rest to me. He sent me one hundred thousand and told me it was just about two-thirds of the account. I also told him to start sending me two-thirds of the monthly interest instead of one-third and keep the rest in my tax account.

I put half of the hundred thousand into my savings account but what I was really interested in was some amateur share-dealing. So I had Bobby set me up with a second portfolio that I could manage online and sent the other half of the hundred thousand to it. Now I could decide what shares to buy and sell and even if I lost money doing it, I could justify it as a learning exercise.

Finally, since I now had about eight thousand being paid into my current account each month, I adjusted the amount I was sending to my savings so that I could also send some money to my new share-dealing account as well.

I was pretty happy with these new arrangements. They gave me a chance to learn how to manage my money, but with no real risk to most of my wealth and I was looking forward to getting stuck in and trying to make a profit buying and selling shares.

One part of the routine I’d developed in the first few weeks of term that I relished was our nightly quick pint in The Cap & Gown on weekday evenings. Emily and her group of friends had houses in the Student Village and my housemates and I met them in The Cap most nights for about an hour or so just to unwind from the day. The company and conversation was good. It was an enjoyable way to live.

On Monday of the third week in October, I was standing at the bar in The Cap staring into space while waiting for service when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, Paul. How are you?”

I looked to my right and smiled. “Hi, Hannah. I’m good, thanks. How are you?” I hadn’t seen much of Hannah this term—just in passing sometimes when we were out at the weekend, but that’s about all.

She sighed. “Stressed and overworked.”

“You should get out more.”

She barked out a strained laugh. “Yeah, right. Chance would be a fine thing. Other than Fridays and Saturdays, I think this is the first time I’ve been to the pub all term. Handed in a big assignment this afternoon so I figured I’d treat myself. I swear, Paul, I knew that the final year was going to be harder than the second, but I didn’t think it would be this hard. And we’ve only really just got going. I think it’s going to kill me. I have no idea how I’m going to cope next semester when we have to do our dissertations.”

“Are you sure you’re not just piling the pressure on yourself? I did that for far too long last year until a good friend of mine told me to learn to prioritise better.”

“I probably am but it’s got to be done. I need to do well this year. I can’t afford to slack off. Trust me, Paul, you should enjoy the relative freedom you get this year because if you’re like me—and I know that you are—you’ll put just as much pressure on yourself next year as I am now. It’s in our nature. We both want to be the best.” She smiled. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

I shrugged. You know me and shrugs—they are so much better than an actual answer.

“You know,” she said quietly, her voice dropping almost a whole octave, “It’s a shame you’ve got yourself a girlfriend. I could use the kind of stress-relief you gave me a few times last year.”

I grinned. “If I remember rightly, your stress didn’t take all that much relieving. I think it would be fair to say you have something of a hair-trigger.” Hannah had to be possibly the most multi-orgasmic woman I’d ever been with. During our first encounter—at least year’s Halloween Ball—I’d been able to make her come with barely the slightest touch.

She blushed and looked down at the bar, then up at me again once her cheeks resumed their natural colour.

“Would you believe me if I said I was only like that with you?” She leaned closer and whispered, “I can’t even make myself come as easily as you did.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? Or are you just trying to boost my ego?”

Now she shrugged. “Why would I do that? It’s not like it makes it more likely you’ll cheat on your girlfriend. Is it? Because if it is, then just say so and I’ll do it some more.”

I chuckled and said, “You are a bad girl.”

Her voice dropped an octave again. “Only with you. Stud.” She winked. Then in her normal voice, she said, “Seriously though, I wasn’t blowing smoke up your arse. There was something that sort of ... I don’t know ... it was like a switch flipped whenever I was with you. I think it might have been because of the way you were that first time I showed up at your door on Halloween.”

“Okay, you’re going to have to explain that,” I said with a grin.

She blushed again. She was really cute when she blushed.

“I think I discovered I have a bit of a submissive streak that night—”

“Really? I never would have guessed.”

She slapped my arm playfully and smiled. “It wasn’t that, though. Not really. I think ... Look, I’m not like Mands—”

“A slut.”

“That’s what she calls herself, yes, but I prefer free spirit. She knows what she likes and what she wants and she’s not afraid to go get it. And if that means people judge her for it, well, she doesn’t care. But I’m not like that.” She leaned in close and whispered again. “I’ve not had very much sex at all since coming here. There was a guy in the first year for about a month or so, maybe a little less, but that was it.” She leaned away again and resumed a normal volume. “So when Mands started telling us all—all her friends, I mean—that she’d found this guy who was amazing in bed and she could arrange a hook-up with him for anyone who wanted one and that he’d be completely discreet about it and no-one would know if we didn’t want them to ... It was... Tempting. You know?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t remind me.”

“Yeah, well ... none of us ever thought much about how you felt about it all. We just figured you were a guy, so...” She paused. “I’m sorry about that.”

“No apology needed. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. Partly. We are all to blame for the way we treated you. But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that you already had this reputation as some sort of sex-god made flesh even before Mands made me your date for The Halloween Ball. I really wasn’t expecting that, I thought it’d just be a hook-up after a night at Central Pier like the others, but when Mands told me to turn up and accompany you to The Ball as your date, well ... I kinda liked the idea.

“So I turn up, and knock on your door and I’m nervous as hell, to be honest. Then you open the door, hardly say anything other than tell me to stay there and then slam the door in my face. That just made me even more nervous. I realised that it wasn’t me. That Mands hadn’t told you what was going on. You didn’t seem to have the first clue about any of it, but that didn’t stop me from being any less nervous.

“Then you opened the door, dragged me in and slammed it behind me. I stood there in the middle of the room and you started talking and, I’ll admit, I was a little scared. Then you started touching me and told me to look at the bed and told me all the things you were going to do to me on it...” She shivered. “See, even just the memory of that does something to me.”

I arched an eyebrow at her, and she gave me a sexy, seductive smile.

“And then,” she continued, “You kept ... touching me. But not in some creepy way. It was ... I can’t describe it. A stroke of my arm here, and hand in the small of my back there, light, teasing kisses on the back or side of my neck, just brushing my hair out of the way to do it. And even when we danced it was...” She shook her head as if to clear it.

I reached up to deliberately stroke her upper arm—slowly, teasingly, a gentle caress, that’s all. She watched my hand then looked at me and smiled as I moved my hand away again.

“See?” she said. “God, I wish we were alone right now.” She shook her head again. “But it’s more than that, Paul. It’s ... This is going to sound stupid, be I think this—” She gestured between us with her hand. “—might be the longest conversation we’ve ever had, but I felt ... I don’t know ... it felt as if there was a connection between us. Do you know what I mean?”

I paused before answering. I felt no pressure from Hannah to say the right thing. I sensed she just wanted me to be honest, so I wanted to give her an honest answer.

“I don’t want this to come out wrong, but it probably will, so bear with me, okay?” I said.

She nodded. “Of course.”

I nodded back. “Thanks.” I paused again and took a deep breath. “Mands set me up with a lot of her friends last year. I think I might even have lost count and, honestly, if you asked me to name them all right now, I’d have to think about it. I’m sure I’d be able to, but I’d have to think about it. And if you asked me what was memorable about each one ... In most cases, I think I’d struggle. I wasn’t in a great frame of mind last year and—”

“Understatement of the year, right there,” she said with a kind smile.

I nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. And because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, I wasn’t as attentive to things as I should have been. I don’t mean ... you know... in the moment. I was attentive as I needed to be with each one of you then. But I mean I wasn’t really paying attention to who I was with rather than what I was doing. If that makes sense.”

She nodded but said nothing.

“Mands stood out, obviously, because she’s...”

“Because she’s Mands?”

I nodded. “I was going to go with nuts, but yours is better. She stood out because she’s Mands. But the other one that really stood out was—and now it’s me that’s not just blowing smoke up your arse—but it was you.” I smiled. “I think, if I’m honest, if Mands wasn’t pushing you girls at me, you might have been the only one I’d have chosen to hook up with myself.