Felice attacked by her boyfriend!

Monday October 13^th

Typical Monday morning; dog walking; swimming; chatting with Sarah; breakfast; drive into Uni with the prospect of work this arvo at XXX & Y. Work there was much the same, although being a bit slack I ended up back on the task of digitising the archive, which is generally quite diverting but can be really tedious too. This avro’s fell into the latter category. I was glad to zoom off home for our evening meal and then play host to Laura’s second pupil. This is another guy, called Trevor. Does anyone seriously call their child Trevor these days? He’s an A level student and Laura finished at 9 o’clock with her faith in the ability of some school pupils restored. In fact she said she couldn’t really see why his folks wanted extra tuition for him.

Her next two pupils are both A Level students as well; Roberta on Wednesday and Sally on Thursday, then back to GCSE Josh on Friday, if he shows up. She has had a cryptic text which seems to imply he won’t be coming. She’s going to phone his Mum on Wednesday to check what’s happening.

There are now two girls menstruating at this address, I told you the longer we live together the more synchronised we are becoming. This didn’t prevent some frantic, non-penetrative, activity after lights out though!

Tuesday October 14^th.

Swim and dog walk in the rain this morning, seems like the first real stuff for ages. In fact it was so real it lasted all day. I spent a full day at Uni with still no Felice. I am beginning to get a little concerned, it is so unlike her. I mean I know she comes across as a scatty, mercurial and brainless type but she is a PhD student, FFS. All her seemingly unorganised demeanour is just a sham, she is very meticulous and thorough, she just doesn’t want to appear like a blue stocking. [I know this because we chatted about it once.]

Olivia came round tonight and I made her read her essay to me. She made her Mum go and sit in the lounge so she couldn’t hear her reading aloud. It sounded quite good. A little wobbly in places but definitely better than the one I have read before. I re-read it carefully and marked any errors with a little pencil line in the margin and then made her explain to me what they were. I don’t think anyone has done this with her before. She was a bit nervous and hesitant but I promised I wouldn’t be unkind or ridiculing if she didn’t know, however she had to tell me if she didn’t know because, “I don’t know what you don’t know!”

Once she got over her initial scepticism we got on with it really well. I explained the solution to the error and I made her write it down in her note book rather than try and correct it there and then, this way she’ll have to think about it again when she comes to revise her piece. This was a well tried and tested method in my household; Mum & Dad used to do it with me and my school work. I seriously believe it is what helped me get the grades I did. You couldn’t pretend you understood, if you didn’t, as you couldn’t revise the work afterwards because you wouldn’t understand how to make the necessary corrections.

She was really chuffed with what we did and thought this was one of the best English lessons she’d had because I had explained the fault and then talked her through the answer. She asked if my Mum did this with all her pupils when she was teaching, I explained she did it for those who wanted but a lot of the girls were so snooty and superior (being a private school) they thought they knew better. The ones who used Mum’s method got the better exam results, though.

Olivia’s Mum was very pleased that Olivia was pleased and said if she got stuck could she text or phone with any questions, I told her that was perfectly fine, but I thought Olivia’s notes would be sufficient to get her essay just right. I praised up her initial essay draft, telling her I was especially pleased by the way she had used her quotations from the play, letting them flow into her sentences when making her points. This is the way you need to work for A Level and a Degree so getting the method nailed early is a bonus. Our two hours seemed to whizz by and the £50 seemed like a bit of a con for doing something that I found so enjoyable. I am putting all my earnings in to my Gromit money box to splash out on something after Christmas. (I have no idea what, yet, however.)

After she and her Mum had gone Laura and I lay and cuddled on the sofa for ages and just snogged. I quite like doing that. No sex or anything, just kissing and kissing.

Wednesday October 15^th.

Felice is back! Whoo Hoo! She is looking grim though. She got back on Monday and just hid from the world, including me, which was a bit concerning. I discovered her moving quite delicately and carefully round her office and she didn’t give me her usual welcoming hug and peck on the cheek. I came right out and asked what the matter was?

She started to cry and said she had a cracked rib. I tried to give her a cuddle but she flinched and pulled away. It was still quite sore. I sat her down and made a cuppa and slowly and gradually I got the details out of her. The message she’d sent to me about her pregnancy might or might not have been true, she didn’t know. What she did know was that she had taken the morning after pill to make absolutely sure she was safe. Naturally I asked about the guy and it seems he was someone she had met in Bordeaux and had got on very well with. She wasn’t sure who had picked who up, but they seemed to be having fun and he appeared to be a really nice guy. She began to think her luck was beginning to change with this one.

They didn’t have sex straight away (I was tempted to make a comment at this point, but I sort of knew that would stop the confession) they did things that ‘normal’ dating couples did, meals out, cinema (twice) a music concert. It seemed that she was playing it quite seriously. He didn’t seem to pressure her or anything but they did snog quite passionately but never went further until after about a month and a half (mid August). She gave him a blowjob in his car and he fingered her to orgasm (like a pair of school kids) but no full sex. She did describe his cock but I won’t repeat that. She did say it was his cock that made her decide to let him.

They had sex the first time later that week. She made him use a condom. They continued like this for a few days until she allowed herself to be persuaded by him that sex without one was much better – God, they always say that! So she let him. He shot so much inside her, it trickled out for ages. She was convinced that she was bound to get pregnant by such a huge amount so, literally the next day, she went to her GP and got the morning after pill. (Why the hell she isn’t on oral contraceptives or the implant I have no idea.)

Anyway, for some reason to do with his job he was away for the next few days but when they met up again she asked him to wear a condom again. He baulked at the idea and she told him that she was scared of becoming pregnant and after their last time she had taken the MAP to make sure she wasn’t. He started to lose the plot and get angry. He called her ‘une petite pute sale’ and then began to hit her. She covered her face so she didn’t get it mashed but he whacked her about the body several times including the blow which broke her rib! She did get a black eye in the process but he didn’t try to have sex with her but dressed again and stormed off.

She went back home and her Mum and Dad went spare; they took her to the hospital and called the police. The hospital found the broken rib; the police took a statement and some pictures. Nothing much has happened yet on that front and she seemed reluctant to speak about it. The French justice system is pretty weird and she has seen a prosecuting magistrate already.

I was able to give her a semi hug and kissed her. She was so relieved that I just was there to listen not pass judgement (good job telepathy doesn’t exist) and she said she felt so stupid and foolish and had thought about staying away for good. I told her I was so glad she hadn’t. Her folks had said that almost all of her friends were in Sheffield so why not go back and she realised they were right, so here she was. Ready to face the consequences but pleased to be in familiar surroundings.

I ran her through all that had happened, at Uni, since the semester began and she was pleased about my Uni tutorials and intrigued by my pupil tutoring as well. Laura has her second one tonight and I start again tomorrow. I brought her up to speed on the work I’d done on the cache and how we’d missed a lecture and exhibition at the Ashmolean which would have been brilliant for our casket book.

We spent an absolute age just chatting and getting Feli back up to speed. She had a teary hug with Laura at lunchtime and then we had to say good bye as we headed off to XXX & Y for the afternoon. (She is amazed that we have managed to wangle that for both of us.)

We invited Felice round for a meal tomorrow, she will come straight across from Uni to ours and we will eat early. In readiness I prepped a huge beef stew to which I will add some dumplings when we get home tomorrow.

Tonight’s student was Roberta. She out-goths Jenny-Leigh if that is possible. She was so black, hair, make-up, lips, clothing – even her bag and stuff were all black and covered with graffiti that made you think she might be the Queen of the Damned. She is a science bod who finds the maths tricky, she didn’t like maths at GCSE and so didn’t opt for it at A Level but now she is sometimes stunned by how much maths is involved in her science classes. They spent their two hours on problems to do with physics which Laura said were easy peasy really but then an expert always thinks their subject is simple, don’t they?

Her Mum and I sat and gossiped all the two hours and I got to know all about Roberta’s brothers and sisters and what they were doing with their lives. I am fascinated by how other people organise themselves once they have children. I know I have experienced it as the child and a little as the live in ‘nanny’ for my sister’s brood but hearing other people’s routines and systems makes me realise just how diverse the ways of raising children are. I suppose most Mums just go along with what their parents did. I know that was what I based my pseudo-parenting of Jill, Annabelle and Jeff on, anyway. They seemed to go along with it.

After Roberta had left Laura and I sat and discussed the same topic. It is weird that we have never even talked about something like this before. She thinks she will be an awful mother because she just wants to strangle any brat she sees misbehaving when we’re out. She even confessed to hating her kid brother at times because of the way he behaved as a little one. She says that is one reason she doesn’t want to have any children.

I started laughing and she asked what was so funny and what had she said? I told her it was just the situation two lesbians sitting discussing being mother. The absurdity of it just sort of hit me as we were talking. That led us on the practicalities of how we’d go about getting pregnant if we ever did decide to become mothers. This caused a great deal of mirth. Especially Laura saying she would try and seduce the head of the Maths faculty as that way she’d be sure of having brainy brats. This got us giggling even more, firstly because he looks old enough to be our grandfather then, even more childishly, we joked about whether Prof Biggins had a big ‘un!

She is now fearful of meeting him and calling him Professor Biggun! LOL.

Thursday October 16^th.

When Felice discovered we’d both have pupils for tutoring at home she wanted to cry off coming round for an evening meal, but I insisted that she did and if she wanted to, she could leave when Sally and Jenny-Leigh arrived she could, or she could stay and chat with their Mums if she wanted.

We drove back down to Uni after we’d finished at XXX & Y and made sure our vanishing Frenchwoman didn’t do another vanishing act on us. She followed us back to ours in her car (a battered old style Twingo – with the really cute headlights) and was surprised to find there was almost no room on our front garden to park.

Inside, I put the dumplings on to the top of the stew and set some potatoes to cook in the microwave to go with the stew. We broke open a bottle of wine and heard the full and gory details about Mr Abusive. I won’t go into the nasty bits here but it seems she thought he’d be alright but turned out that his initial rough play was the way he always wanted sex.

We entertained her with our tales of Australia and Laura showed her the travelogue film she has made from all the clips we took on our phones and tablet whilst out there. She has put it on a memory stick so was able to play it through the TV which makes it look even better than it does on the laptop. She loved her goody bag of things Australian (all of the people we have given them to, have loved them) I also bought her one of the Gum Nut Plaques from Aus Bush Art in Fremantle market (I bought loads of these back last year for family and friends as they are so gorgeous) Felice fell for it too. They do look unbelievably good. We have one which is about a foot in diameter, hers is about 7”.

After the meal we chatted some more and learned that Felice was thinking of going home when the casket project is finished as she realised that she was breaking so many ties with people she had grown up with; gone to school with and been to University with, that if she didn’t she may end up as a stranger in her own country. I was aghast but she reassured me that it wouldn’t happen until after we had the work finished and published but she was going to put out feelers for jobs back across La Manche during the final year of the project.

When the two girls and their Mums arrived Felice decided to stay as they were both enchanted by this gallic vision of sophistication and charm (hah!). We promised her a bed for the night if she wanted to continue drinking and we even offered the Mums some wine, which they both (sensibly) refused.  Feli played the perfect hostess, offering the Mums hot drinks and even some of our own cake (apple and cinnamon, for our meal). She also showed them Laura’s travelogue film of our summer in Australia.

Jenny-Leigh and I continued to work through her past paper and Laura got to discover that Sally was completely ditzy, and boy obsessed! They had both asked for just an hour and a half instead of the full two hours and Laura actually did say that they had agreed on paying the full price even if the time was cut short but she was willing to reduce the amount pro-rata. They thought that was a very nice gesture but paid us both full whack anyway! Laura said it was reverse psychology. I said it was bloody genius.

Felice kipped the night with us, in my spare bedroom, which was fine. It was still fine, even when at about 1pm we heard a knock at the bedroom door and a voice asked if she could come in and sleep with us guys if there was room. Laura whispered that she was OK with it if I was, so we ended up cuddling a still troubled Frenchwoman to sleep, who despite her bravado and strong words on what had happened to her, was still obviously very upset. I couldn’t help thinking that it was a good job we were both on our monthlies and relatively covered up or who knows what could have happened? Normally we sleep naked and that may have been a temptation too far for the Mademoiselle from Archacon!