Chapter 41

A Well-Rounded Education

Alex

2030

"How is your daughter?" Karen asked.

Alex gazed dozily at the young woman who he'd only moments before been fucking and from which exertion he'd hardly yet recovered. Like most men, he wanted nothing more than to take it easy after such strenuous exercise but Karen was just as alert and alive now as she was when she'd dragged him onto her narrow single bed.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked.

"I am training as a teacher," Karen said. "I guess I should show some interest in children and stuff."

"My daughter's doing fine," said Alex. "Thank you for asking. She's just coming up to her first birthday. But are you really interested? You've never met her."

"And never likely to," said Karen cheerfully. "And I don't imagine you'll ever tell your wife about me, would you?"

"That wouldn't do my marriage much good. Does that trouble you?"

"Not much," said Karen. "You're too old for me anyway. You're OK for this..." She squeezed Alex's limp penis which was still sticky with her vaginal juices. "I don't need to actually live with you."

"Oh," said Alex who was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

The last year had been one of conflicting demands for Alex. He no longer needed to spend so much time in the office. His ill-defined but well-remunerated position gave him plenty of opportunity to look busy but hardly much of anything to actually do. As long as he attended every meeting and reported back regularly to the company's most actively interested stakeholder, there wasn't much else to do apart from walk around with a tablet PC and host vacuous meetings in his office. He'd gained more of a grip as to how Ibex International actually made money, but that only made him nakedly aware how little real use he was ever likely to be.

Alex felt inadequate in quite a different way when he was at home. Isobel had taken to being a mother with great enthusiasm and there was now virtually no conversation that wasn't predicated on their daughter's current and future happiness. Alex hoped that the process of throwing money at private schools, prep schools, home tuition and nursemaids would absolve him of the onerous weight of responsibility. There was much about being a father that he didn't relish at all. He didn't enjoy changing his daughter's nappies. His conversation with the baby had hardly progressed beyond the monosyllabic. Night-time was sometime barely tolerable when little Iris chose the least appropriate time to bawl her head off to demand breast-feeding, nappy-changing or just attention.

"One would almost think you'd never wanted to be a father," Isobel accused Alex on more than one occasion.

And then there was Karen. How did Alex end up having a relationship with a young teacher who didn't even pretend to be faithful to him but nevertheless demanded so much of his time and attention? It was quite obviously not the ideal time in his life to be entangled in the arms of a woman like her. He was blessed with a well-paid career and burdened with having to maintain a marriage and a family. All these precious assets were threatened by the slim young girl with short blonde hair, pendulous breasts and a voracious vagina that swallowed his erect penis almost as soon as they were alone together.

And together they were again. Another afternoon sneaked out of the office and a surreptitious trip across London to Karen's student digs in Wood Green. Fortunately, Karen didn't share her bedroom with a fellow student and none of them needed to know that the man in a suit and tie who regularly ascended the poorly maintained stairway wasn't there on official business. In any case, he didn't keep his suit and tie on for very long once he got to Karen's room. Nor anything much else in the way of clothes. Karen was at least as comfortable in her clothes as she was without, but when they were an obstacle to sex she discarded them as speedily as she could.

It was sex that Karen most enjoyed. There appeared to be no limits to what she would try with Alex and he guessed, though it was hardly ever mentioned, what she tried with other people. Alex knew for sure that he wasn't Karen's only lover. That she was insistent that they arrange their encounters in advance and actively discouraged him from turning up unannounced was evidence enough of that.

It disconcerted Alex as much as it pleased him that Karen was so attentive to not confusing her desire for his body with any other form of intimacy. She never told him that she loved him and Alex guessed that it would be very unwise to say that he loved her. It was difficult, though, after a year in which he'd had more regular sex with Karen than he'd ever had with Isobel not to feel some emotional attachment. In fact, the sex he had with Karen wasn't only more frequent, it was also more intense, more demanding and more addictive. Alex wondered which of Isobel and Karen he loved the most. Karen was a better lover, but it was Isobel to whom he'd pledged his eternal love.

"The education cuts really piss me off," said Karen as she leaned forward across her bed. She picked a cigarette out of her packet and examined it. She couldn't actually light it as smoking wasn't allowed in her bedroom or indeed anywhere else in the building. As Alex had never actually seen Karen smoke he wondered where she went to indulge her antisocial habit. "Here I am thousands upon thousands of pounds in debt that I'll probably be paying off until I'm in the grave and I don't even know for sure that the tuition fees and living expenses all that debt is paying for will even result in me finding a job. They're laying teachers off in some schools. Why would they want to take on a new teacher?"

"There have to be teachers," said Alex. "Children have to be taught."

"I might end up having to work at one of those private schools the government is so keen to promote," said Karen, ignoring Alex's comments. "State education is going to the dogs. The Tories hate anything that involves spending public money. You used to work for Reuters-Fox, didn't you? Are they like Fox News UK? Always pushing all the right-wing shit that would rather we paid no taxes at all than give ordinary children a chance of a decent education."