I was a bit of a nerd. In fact, I was a total nerd, especially when it came to women. I went all the way through my secondary education with absolutely no knowledge of the fair sex. It didn't hep that I went to an all boys' school where contact with the girls' school down the road was strictly verboten...except for the odd 'social' organised by the nuns; (no snogging, holding hands, petting or passionate clinches...)
Consequently, by the time I went up to university to study medicine, my contemporaries, for what they are worth, had all experienced the carnal pleasures of the flesh. In school, I was forced to sit next to little Lawrence in art classes who insisted of relating stories of exploits with his older sister and having no shame about it either...I didn't excel in still life drawing or painting.
The nearest I got to actually having sex was jerking off to a sticky magazine loaned from an exchange Danish student...I was an only child living in a house with older parents. My father, the local village doctor, was always at work, at least he said he was...My mother was a leading light in the local women's guild and was never at home. I was left to my own devices. In this part of rural England there was little else to do but study.
The nearest thing my mother ever got to bestow her blessings upon me was when I was accepted to study medicine in Liverpool. I was proudly paraded in front of her female friends as if her parenting skills were entirely responsible for my academic success.
I was thankful to enter into academia at the tender age of eighteen. I lived frugally and spent many an hour burning the midnight oil studying. Whilst my fellow students spent all their waking hours, when not engaged in anything remotely connected to their course, on bedding as many ladies as they could. I kept myself to myself.
My first hospital practice when I was twenty was a bit of an eye-opener. I had never seen so many of the female species altogether in one confined space. I began to notice the younger nurses who, restricted in the amount of make-up they were permitted to wear, pushed the boundaries to the absolute limit. When you are earing a facemask there is little else you can do than spend your time of plastering on as much eye cosmetics as you can...
Whilst my fellow medical students sampled the delights of these ladies, I kept myself to myself. I found their boasts of conquests tedious. Our time was split between the lecture theatre and hospital practice. I was permanently tired. It was often the case that I would come off an all night shift in some accident and emergency department and then faces a two hour examination on some obscure aspect of human biology.
Just before I went into my fourth year, I was twenty-two at the time, I was confronted with a compulsory course on medical ethics. I had only a fleeting idea of what that was but it was deemed so important that some students, who were actually very able doctors, where forced to re-sit because they had not paid enough attention to this course.
I was determined not to fall into this trap, which seemed to me to be a mixture of philosophy and the law... It was in this series of lectures that I first noticed this rather nice professor who went by the name of Doctor Rashmika Patel. I found myself staring into her eyes from the back of the hall. She was about five feet eight tall, slim with glossy black hair that was always neatly tied behind her head. She always wore expensive trouser suits often with a waistcoat and a shirt and tie. I became more engrossed in her than the wretched course, which I found neither challenging nor demanding. It seemed to me to be basic common sense. But, what did I know at the time?
I produced a couple of hastily put together papers to satisfy the requirements of the course and thought no more about it until I got summoned to her office out of the blue.
I tidied myself up and knocked on her door. A voice told me to enter.
She looked up. I must say that she was particularly beautiful that day. She was wearing a knee length skirt suit and some shiny black stockings topped off with some heels. I swallowed audibly at this vision of beauty.
"Ah, Student Doctor Carter, so good of you to come."
I swallowed again and nodded wondering what this was all about.
I nodded at her, "Professor Patel."
She waved at a soft chair over I the corner of the room in front of which was a small coffee table, "Take a seat, please."
I sat down and watched as she gathered up some papers, stood up and came and sat down in front of me. It was all I could do to keep my eyes off her long, nylon-clad legs that seemed to spark with electricity as she crossed them.
All thoughts of lust were soon dispelled as she tossed down my term papers.
"Do you not think ethics are important, Edward?"
"Yes, yes, Ma'am," I stuttered.
"Then why do you consistently achieve top grades in all your other subjects and not mine?"
I had no answer except for the truth that I had not really bothered to study her course preferring to ogle at this vision of beauty in front of me.
I then got half and hour of ear bashing. By the time she had finished, I was as red as a beetroot. I left when her phone rang and she dismissed me with a flick of an elegant hand. I spent the next weekend re-working the papers when I had planned a short trip home to visit my parents.
I passed the course with significantly improved grades and thought no more about it.
That summer I managed to secure a job in a local supermarket stacking shelves. I was living in a shared rented flat. My fellow students were away for the vacation. This would be the last long summer holiday before the final two years of my course.
I quite enjoyed the work; I didn't have to think. I resisted the urge to train as a cashier preferring to trundle pallets around the store and not tax my brain. Late one evening, I was stacking some tins in the grocery department when I felt a tap on the shoulder. Thinking it was one of the other staff, I turned around to see Professor Rashmika Patel smiling at me.
"Doing some real work, I see?"
"Ma'am..." I nodded and I blushed.
"Well, Edward, I am a little surprised to see you here."
"Ma'am, I'm just taking to opportunity to earn a little cash before term restarts in the autumn."
She was wearing a tight pair of jeans and a white blouse. Her hair was tied back on one side with a diamante clip that sparkled in the harsh lights of the store.
"Thank you for your revised papers. I managed to lose the others, as I didn't want your carelessness to come back and bite you later.
I flushed up again, "Thank you, Ma'am."
"Pass me a tin of tomatoes, please. Be seeing you..."
I watched as she sashayed down the aisle with a swing of the hips and shook my head. Back in my flat later that night I looked her up in the university handbook. Rashmika Patel was in her mid forties and had been at the university for a number of years coming from a background in London. There being no social media at the time, I sat back and puffed out my cheeks.
I didn't see her for a week or so but then she came into the store nearly every day buying little items at a time. She would always say hello and stop for a little chat. I was on the early shift one day having started at six in the morning. It was two in the afternoon and I had just clocked off anxious to get home. I was walking through the car park to get the bus when I heard her calling me.
"Edward, are you finished for the day?"
I was surprised, "Yes, Ma'am; just on my way home."
"Come on, I'll buy a penniless student a cup of coffee, if you like?"
She led me to a sleek Mercedes. I slid in on the smooth leather seats thinking I had died and gone to heaven...I looked down at her long legs as her skirt rode up her thighs flashing her stocking tops.
She drove into a busy shopping mall, parked the car with expertise, (I couldn't even drive at this time.)
