Chapter 1: Jenny's request

Stephen

"Why do those two bitches keep looking at me? Normally they shun me or take the piss, or at least Clarissa does. Jennifer's not so bad when she's not with Clarrie, but even she never looks me in the face. After being in the same class for over three months you would think they would be adult enough to come to terms with my disfigurement but no, they and the group of boys they associate with, delight in trying to humiliate me by calling me Scarface, Monster Man, Troll, Beast, Ogre and any other derogatory names they can think of. Most of the others tolerate and accept me but even they tend to keep their distance in case they are ridiculed. Perhaps it is also because I'm older and not into partying and boozing but of course, the main reason is my looks; my face. Only Su Lee will actually sit and talk to me. She's nice and treats me like a person and not something from outer space. Perhaps that is because of her Chinese ancestry? An honour thing? I know I'm a mature student but still I'm only eight or nine years older than most of them. Shit, it looks like Jenny is getting ready to come over here. Bet she wants some help with the coursework. She only got a C- in the pre-Christmas mocks. Clarrie didn't even get a grade. I think I'll pick up my tray and head out before she gets here. Damn, she's coming over. We won't be able to talk much with the noise level in this cafeteria especially with the hearing aid in my left ear turned off, and I daren't turn it on with the amount of background noise."

"Stephen, can you spare a moment?" Jennifer asked looking at my chest rather than my face.

"Sorry Jennifer, I have an online appointment with a client at 1:30 to try and sort out his network problem. If it's important, come and see me at home at four. My housemaid will be there then and we can talk for an hour before she has dinner ready. I must go now though." I handed her my business card and she looked very surprised when I walked off. Perhaps flabbergasted would be a better word.

It was true, I did have the appointment but I could easily have spared ten or fifteen minutes to discus her problems, However, it would be easier if I had her on my home ground and not with the eyes of a hundred or more students on us, each wondering why a girl like her would deign to speak to me. It is also nearly impossible to hold an intelligent conversation over the high noise level in the university dining room. In any case it would give me some idea of how desperate she was for my help if she had to make the effort to come to my home. If she came on her own without Clarrie, then I suspected she would treat me fairly reasonably like she had on a couple of other occasions when she'd asked for help but if Clarissa was with her, then she'd have to keep up the appearance of animosity and dislike towards me.

During my slack periods that afternoon, my mind went through what I knew about Jennifer Watkins. I thought she was attractive even though she wasn't the glamour girl type. At 22 or 23 years old she was a couple of years older than Clarissa and had worked in an insurance office for two years before enrolling on the IT course. Most of the others were students straight from college and were around twenty years old.

By the way, I'm Stephen Faulkes, twenty-nine years old, 6 ft 3" tall and broad shouldered with it so at fourteen stones (a little under two hundred pounds for those who think our system is antiquated) I'm a big man. My size might have earned me some respect from the other students had it not been for the fact that my appearance is marred by severe scarring to my face, chest and left arm and leg, the result of a horrific accident when I was three years old. A petrol tanker driver working longer than the legal amount of hours, fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the central reservation and ploughed head on into the car my father was driving. We didn't have seat belts in those days and I was thrown through an open window and rolled into a ditch. The fire from the leaking petrol rapidly spread but the flames never quite reached me. The fierce heat though burned all the parts not protected by the water in the ditch. My parents died in the inferno and it was only the skill of the doctors at Great Ormond Street and other hospitals that I survived, but there were many times during my growing period that I wished I hadn't. Every few months I returned to hospital for skin grafts and other operations to save my skin becoming too tight and splitting. The burns also impaired the hearing in my left ear and whilst at school I had to wear a cumbersome hearing aid but now, with modern technology, it is almost invisible.