I jumped off the Stagecoach bus outside Hastings College in Archery Road and walked into the campus, feeling thrilled and scared at the same time. I was about to set out on an adventure of self-discovery, but little did I realise at the time just how exciting that adventure was going to be.
I had enrolled in a twice-weekly computer course and on finally tracking down the lecture room found, to my delight, that there were only four other students β all women β who had signed up for the course. I say "delight", but to be brutally honest I'm a 35-year-old divorcee and I far prefer women. Why, well I don't really want to go there, but let's just say men stink.
We had all placed our bags on desks were sitting down when the course lecturer walked in. And, to my delight once again, it was a woman. She was tall, with jet black hair which shone as it fell in beautifully brushed cascades to mid-shoulders.
She was wearing a jet-black leather skirt and jacket outfit which gleamed like her hair and said "This cost
hundreds
girls". She was wearing what I hoped were stockings, black like her dress, and high-heeled Manolo Blahniks which I just wanted to kneel down and kiss. Naughty me! Her figure was superb, high breasts, lovely bum, great legs. Her age was about the same as mine, I guessed.
Turning to face the class from her desk, she removed her glasses and smiled at us. She was so stunningly attractive, I felt my heart skip a beat.
"Good afternoon, ladies," she said, in a sort of BBC tone of voice β impossible to say where she was from. "My name is Katherine Entwistle, but please call me Katherine. Not 'Kate', thank-you β I hate 'Kate'."
One of our group put up her hand. "Please, Ms Entwistle β sorry, I mean Katherine β but are you any relation to that man who played for The Who?"
Ms Entwistle β sorry, I mean Katherine β gave a broad grin and I felt a wetness gathering at my crotch.
"If I had a pound for every time I've been asked that question, I could buy a record company," she said. "No, as far as I know my husband is not related to some old rocker."
Her husband! My heart fell. But in an instant, it soared again.
Katherine went on: "But when I divorced the old ratbag, I decided to keep his name. You see, my parents were Hepburns and both β mum and dad β had a huge crush on Katherine Hepburn. The times I've been teased about
that
name are beyond a joke. So about 10 years ago, when I became the former Mrs Entwistle, well I decided to keep the name."
Another hand shot up. "Er, I'm Daphne, Katherine," said a young, acne-ridden blonde. "Can you tell us what you've done in computers?"
Katherine stepped in front of the desk and placed her beautiful bum on it and hitched her skirt up slightly. Her thighs were to die for! I longed to place my face on her nylon-covered flesh and pour out my yearnings to her.
"Well, I was for far too many years," she explained, "a person who wrote computer programmes. I started off small, but then I won a contract to provide a training manual for the Metropolitan Police. The year I did it for them it was voted the best rozzer's training manual in the world.
"That led to a job providing a training manual for cabin crew on British Airways. If you want to know how to pour coffee without spilling it in a customer's lap at 35,000 feet during heavy turbulence call me. The answer, of course, is not to pour it but to go and strap yourself down as well, especially if it's really heavy turbulence."
We all laughed. "But that enabled me to provide a programme for the Boeing company," she said. "They were impressed, apparently, with what I'd done for BA and I did a computer programme on certain aspects of the Boeing 737 ER."
Daphne, the acned little bitch, shot her hand up again. "ER, er what's that mean, Ms β sorry, I mean, Katherine."
Katherine smiled at her and I wanted to scratch Daphne's eyes out. "It stands for Extended Range," she informed the bitch blonde. "And I love that plane because it earned me a helluva lot of money and enabled me to buy a place here in Hastings and go into semi-retirement."
Then she stood up, and said: "Right, starting with you Daphne, tell us a bit about yourself and why you've enrolled in this course."
The vacuous little blonde rattled on for a few minutes, but I hardly heard a word. What was
I
going to say when it was my turn?
Finally, it came to me. Last, as usual. "And your name is?" said Katherine, smiling her dazzling smile at me.
"Er, er, I'm Emma," I said.
Katherine smiled and I felt like melting. "Right Emma, what is it that brings you to my course β and please, don't say a Stagecoach bus."
There was a titter in the class and Katherine put up her hand. "Sorry, that was uncalled for and a dreadful joke. OK, Emma, tell us."
I breathed in a huge gulp of air and gabbled my lines. "I'm outwardly awfully shy, I mean dreadfully shy, but I like to think that inside I've got this, oh, this inner confidence. And I love computers and want to learn much more about them. I'm 35 and divorced, so I've got the time to find out more about computers now, and they're so useful."
Then I stopped, feeling gauche and silly, afraid I'd rambled on, whereas I'd only been speaking for less than a minute.
"Excellent," said Katherine, still smiling at me as if I was the only person in the class. "But you know the four most dreaded words in the English language, don't you, Emma?"
I shook my head. "N-n-no, K-K-K-Katherine," I stammered.
Katherine laughed. "The computer is down."
Then the entire class laughed.
"Computers are, of course, a wonderful tool," said Katherine, "but they're not the be-all and end-all of information. Say you want to know about, oh I don't know, let's say Napoleon Bonaparte. You want to know where and when he died.
"Punch it into your search engine and you might get the answer 'Elba, 1821'.
"But if the person who wrote the computer programme put, by mistake 1840 β the year his body was exhumed, by the way β then you get an example of what? Anyone know?"
The dreadful Daphne's hand shot up again. "Bullshit in, bullshit out, Katherine?" she asked, smugly. I wanted to throttle her.