The Jill Sanders Story
Jill was a newbie to the lunch group. She was a teacher so was not free to attend the lunch sessions during term time, but it was half-term, so her friend and neighbour, Brooke had invited her as her guest. Guests were also allowed in the group's after-lunch talks but were obliged to confess a secret sexual adventure from their present or recent-past life as the price of admission.
The luncheon was over, and the ladies had assembled at Brooke Osmond's house for the after-lunch proceedings. There were five women present, other than Jill and the hostess.
Amidst the melee of activities around the preparation and offering of coffee, tea and other warm beverage to her guests, Brooke made the necessary introduction for Jill's maiden speech to the 'Ladies who lunch'.
"Ladies! Your attention please!"
The hubbub died down and Brooke continued:
"For those of you who have not yet been formally introduced, our guest today is Jill.
Jill is a very close friend and neighbour of mine and is with us today to tell us her story, in line with the tradition of such gatherings. I am sure that, like me, you have been waiting with great anticipation in the hope of a jolly good tale of intrigue, and raunchy sex.
On that score, I can assure you, that Jill's tale will not disappoint!"
Suppressed giggles rippled through the assembly.
Brooke closed with, "Jill, you have the floor!"
"Do I have stand up for this?" Jill asked, as a newbie and uncertain of the protocol at these events.
"No, darling, just do it from wherever you are most comfortable," Brooke assured her.
Remaining seated on an armchair, Jill went on.
This is her story:
Oh, good! Thank you, Brooke, and thank you, ladies for welcoming me to your lunch today.
This is a big departure from my usual daily routine, and I am enjoying it tremendously.
Well, my name is Jill and I'm married, have two grown-up children and I teach at a College of Further Education, here in the county. My story is about my recent dalliance with a 'man of colour', for want of a better description. I say, 'man of colour', not as a euphemism for 'black man', because although he is of African descent, his skin colour is not actually 'black'. It's actually a very, light mocha. His name is... well, let's call him 'Clifford', and his parents are West Indian. From Trinidad, to be precise.
I met Clifford during the course of my work. At the time, he was a trainee teacher and doing the compulsory on-the-job training or internship, as it's referred to, for one school term at the Further Education College where I teach. I was assigned as his "tutor" for the duration of his internship.
He was in his early twenties, and he graduated with degrees in maths and economics so, you could say he was very intelligent as well as good-looking. Good-looking, he certainly was - just imagine a young Denzel Washington - yeh, like that!
Every time he walked into the staffroom, all the female staff would wet their knickers, and I don't mean they'd peed themselves - you know what I mean! Yours truly, included!
And, as for the female students, they all, of course, had the hots for Clifford. Many of the students were the same age as him, some were older and married, as well, but regardless of age, their rivalry for his attention verged on the maniacal.
Outwardly, he was totally non-plussed by all the hormone-driven fervour around him, and there was no inkling of any extra-curricular shenanigans between Clifford and anyone amongst the staff or student body. After about the first month of his internship, rumours and whispers started to circulate, rationalising his uncharacteristically moral behaviour.
At first, it was said that he was gay. Certainly, his sartorial style was not what you would expect from a man in the teaching profession. He always wore beautifully tailored suits, with a fresh, crisply ironed white shirt and cufflinks.
He had an aura about him that said, "Male Model", not "Teacher" so, one could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that he was gay.
But then, if that were case, wouldn't there be reports of compromising incidents involving Clifford and male students or staff? - Strike that last one, none of the male staff fit the profile - there were none!
So then, maybe he was from a strict sect, like Jehovah's Witnesses, or Seventh Day Adventist, or Born-again Christian, that forbade pre-marital sex, or consorting with members of the opposite sex who were not of the same religious persuasion.
Possibly.
My own observations, and in my conversations with him, backed up the notion, to some extent, about his religious affiliation.
For instance, he did not appear to have any of the vices you'd expect to find in a young man - he didn't drink or smoke and eschewed any form of drug abuse.
And, yes, he was a churchgoer, as was all his family but then, his older sister was married to an Irishman who was a Catholic, to boot!
Actually, I came straight out and asked him about his religion - not PC, I know, but I was always a nosey cow! LOL!
He told me that his family were Baptists but he, personally wasn't at all religious, though he did attend church services, but that was more out of a sense of duty than strong religious conviction.
Hence, with all those theories shot down, Clifford remained an enigma in the annals of the College's history, at least so far as the general consensus was concerned. I was soon to discover, first hand, what Clifford's predilections were.
So, it was half-term, and the students usually arranged various social events, one of which was a pub crawl, in this instance. Clifford was very popular with the students so, they'd invited him to join in.
In fact, these events were open to all members of staff, but few, if any, actually participated. This included me. I had never been on one of these student binges.
Although Clifford he did not drink, he went along in the spirit of the event, and volunteered as a nominated driver to convey the participants around the planned course.
Also, he asked me if I'd like to come along, to give him 'moral support' in the midst of the students who were likely to be a little the worse for drink. He offered to bring his car for the purpose.
I'd never been on one of these piss-ups, but I thought, why not? I like a drink, but I wasn't going for the beer. It was more for the company.
By the time the pub-crawl finally wound up, many had already started to disperse, even before closing time, so as to get to a chippie before the crowds descended on the take-away establishments after chucking-out time.
The other two passengers that had come with us had made other arrangements, so it was just me and Clifford, the nominated driver for the evening.
"Well Jill, I'd better get you home, else I'll have your husband after me for keeping you out late!"
Clifford joked
.
"No, it's okay,"
I replied, in my husband's defence. In fact, Graeme's not like that. Even though I'm not often out late without him
,
he's never annoyed if I'm late in if he knows I'm with people that I'm very familiar with, such as work colleagues.
"Tell you what, then," he said, "I know a good place for gyro, not far from here, why don't we stop off on the way and pick up some? My place is close by, we can go back there and enjoy it in comfort, instead of out of a paper wrapping, in a parked car. What do you say? Trust me, I'm not a serial killer, or anything like that. I promise!"
I was dying for a pee, anyway, and I didn't fancy using the loos in any of the pubs we'd been in, so the idea was appealing.
"Okay, it's a deal, so long as I can use your loo!"
I replied
.
"No problem, madam! I'll ring the shop and ask my mate, Ali, to prepare two Gyro Specials, with all the trimmings. It'll save hanging around,"
He said, and rang up the kebab place to place the order.
"Don't go too mad on the gyro, I can't eat all of it if there's a lot of stuff on it,"
I protested
.
I smile now, when I think about that, considering the subsequent developments. You'll see the funny side of this later.
Within ten minutes, we'd picked up the gyros and had arrived at Clifford's place
.
Clifford's place was a two-bedroom flat on the first floor of a refurbished Georgian townhouse.
