'My apologies, old boy, I am well rebuked,' said Charles. Then he chuckled and went on: 'But be a good chap, Henry, and ask her if she has any unattached friends!' I laughed and said: 'Your apology is accepted, my friend. And if you like, I will speak to Miranda and find out the answer to your query but I'm not sure whether you'll strike lucky. In my experience, pretty girls always seem to pair up with less attractive ones.' Charles nodded his agreement and said thoughtfully: 'Yes, I've noticed that too. At first I thought that perhaps the pretty girls did this deliberately to accentuate their beauty, but then one evening my brother Andrew and I were introduced to a brace of girls at a party, one of whom I thought was exquisite and the other, well, I know this will sound unkind but to my eyes she was frankly very plain. 'But Andrew thought the stunning girl rather ugly and found the plain one to be exquisite! And then it dawned on me that rarely will two chaps see the same girl in the same light, because it really is true that one man's meat is another man's – de gustibus non est disputandum.' 'No, there is no accounting for taste,' I agreed. Then we forgot about the other sex and joined in a fierce debate which was taking place between some other undergraduates at the table about the morality of the war in South Africa. 'I'll warrant that Kit Barnes is a pro-Boer,' drawled a tall, nattily-dressed youth with a spotty face. 'If I'm right, I shall let him know what I think of him this afternoon.' 'Quite right, Claude, in any case we all know that the man is an out and out cad,' agreed the fellow sitting next to him. But this only led to fresh outbursts of violent disagreement. Tempers became so hot that a free fight broke out between the spotty youth and his ally and a fair-haired burly chap. Thankfully, Charles cleverly prevented mayhem by smashing a plate on a table leg. The noise immediately distracted the attention of the combatants and Charles shouted: 'Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Remember where you are! This is a University not the public bar in a saloon.' I backed up my friend and called out: 'Free speech for all! For both those against, those who support and those who don't give a fuck about the Boers!' Although the Boer War is an important matter about which I would not normally speak so light-heartedly, I had hoped to cool the situation by making a serious point in a jocular fashion. Indeed, my words succeeded in dousing this over-heated argument, though from the manner in which the two groups snarled at each other whilst they filed out of the dining-hall it bodes ill for a peaceful settlement of this conflict.
Charles and I strode out of the hall and there parted company, he to his rooms to prepare for this afternoon's meeting with Dr Barnes and me to walk briskly back to the Randolph Hotel for my appointment with Miranda. She was waiting for me in the foyer. In the presence of strangers, she greeted me in a suitably chaste fashion by shaking my hand as she said: 'How nice to see you again, Mr. Dashwood.
Are you sure you have enough time to come sight-seeing with me this morning?' 'Of course, Miss Franklin,' I replied for the benefit of anyone else in the vicinity. 'I'm looking forward to our walk tremendously especially as I have yet to see much of the town myself.'
Oxford is an ideal city for the pedestrian and its centre is packed with memorable medieval buildings and other places of interest.
Our first stop was to make a brief visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Beaumont Street, the oldest museum in the country which was rehoused in its imposing building in 1845. Then we ambled down some of the town's prettiest streets past Merton, St Edmund Hall and Exeter colleges until we found ourselves approaching Magdalen, probably the most beautiful college of all, its tower a striking sight for visitors entering Oxford from the south. It is extremely pleasant to saunter through the cloisters, but the chief attraction is the deer park. We strolled through Addison's Walk and over the small bridge into the Fellows' garden where we admired the small ornamental lake.
The autumn sunshine was exceptionally bright and warm for the time of year which made our walk even more agreeable, but we decided that as our time was limited, we would take morning coffee in a nearby cafe and then finish the morning with a trip to see the famous Bodleian Library in Broad Street. We looked at the exquisitely vaulted fifteenth century divinity school which houses some of the library's greatest treasures. On the way out I left Miranda in the quadrangle whilst I went into the gentleman's washroom to relieve myself. I record this trifling fact because on the wall of the urinal some wicked undergraduate had penned the following erudite graffiti:
Apud Rege tutor veteramus Puellaria odit profanus Semper optandus Pueri sperandus Gellifactus in si His anus. And underneath that ode another hand had scrawled: There was a young rector from Kings, Whose mind was on heavenly things, But his heart was on fire For a boy in the choir Whose bum was like jelly on springs.
I gave a hearty chuckle as I buttoned my flies and walked out into the quadrangle where I saw Miranda chatting away happily to a craggy, broad-shouldered man in his late twenties. Who was this interloper, I wondered crossly? But when I reached them Miranda gave my arm a friendly squeeze and said to her companion: 'Kit, this is Henry Dashwood, the young man whom I met at the reception last night.
He has offered to escort me around town this morning. Henry, I would like you to meet my stepbrother, Kit Barnes.' 'Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dashwood,' said Dr Barnes. 'I trust you will take good care of my young sister. 'But of course,' I replied, shaking hands with the controversial lecturer. 'Er, we'll meet again at three o'clock, sir, as I happen to be one of your students this term.'
'Oh yes, of course. I remember your name now. Let me see, haven't you come here from the Albion Academy in Kent? Well, young man, in my opinion your former headmaster, Malcolm Muttley, runs one of the few civilised public schools in the country.' I smiled and said: 'He is of a liberal disposition, sir, but I don't know whether he would subscribe to all your radical ideas.' 'I doubt if he would,' he agreed. 'But old Muttley would certainly have the courtesy to listen to what I had to say and if necessary argue his corner afterwards.
Regretfully, this is not the case even amongst some of my fellow academics who simply try to shout me down when an emotive subject like the Boer War is under discussion.' 'How typical! I'm afraid that this is also true of a boorish group of your freshers,' said Miranda, shaking her head in disgust. 'Henry told me earlier that some of them came to fisticuffs this morning.' Dr Barnes gave a gruff laugh and, giving me a large wink, he remarked: 'Then I must certainly try to be particularly provocative this afternoon. Henry, can I rely on your support if the hooligan element attempts to silence me?' 'Of course, sir. He clapped me on the back and cried out: 'Capital!
Capital! I'll see you later then, but I must now be off and revise my notes for this afternoon's lecture. Oh, if you two would like to look round the Bodleian, you may borrow my reading ticket. Don't worry, the old dodderers in there won't ask you for any identification and there won't be any problem smuggling in Miranda as your research assistant.'
The sky had suddenly clouded over, so we gratefully accepted his offer and went inside where Miranda led the way to the public reading room. 'Henry, did you know that except for the Vatican, the Bodleian has the largest collection of erotic literature in Europe?'
Miranda murmured as we stood in a quiet corner. 'It would be a pity to miss the opportunity of browsing through some gallant stories whilst we have the chance.' 'I say, do you think they will allow us to look at any forbidden material?' I said, my voice filling with excitement. 'Well, we can but ask,' Miranda said. Unfortunately we were informed that one needed a special ticket to peruse books in the special section of the library. However, as we turned away from his table, the attendant called us back and said: 'Just a minute, sir. There is a annexe nearby where we store some of the more recent naughty books which have yet to be filed. You could browse for a bit in there, if only it weren't kept locked.' It was not difficult to understand what he had in mind. 'Does half a sovereign unlock it?'
I asked, fishing out the money from my pocket. 'That it would, sir, so long as you promise to give back the key by one o'clock,' he replied with a smirk as he pocketed the half-sov which I slid across the desk to him. We made our way to the small room where there were certainly some exciting books crammed on the shelves. I turned over some pages of In My Lady's Boudoir: A Journal of Voluptuous Reading edited by Sir Horace Shackleton and A Lady of Quality, whilst Miranda giggled over a copy of The Amorous Adventures of a Photographer's Model by Jacques de Clare. I peered over Miranda's shoulders to gaze upon one of the plates in her book. This was of an exquisitely beautiful, naked girl of no more than eighteen years-old standing with her arms at her side, looking sensuously at her reflection in a long cheval mirror. The photograph had been taken at a slight angle so one could see both the front and back of this stunning beauty whose fair, naturally curly hair fell over her shoulders like a shower of golden rain and her bottom was a perfect peach, the chubby cheeks well proportioned and eminently pinchable.
'Isn't she absolutely gorgeous?' remarked Miranda. I grunted my agreement whilst my cock swiftly swelled up to a steel-like hardness as I scrutinised the girl's firm, ripe breasts. Her erect nipples looked particularly succulent but my cock started to throb to bursting point when I switched my gaze to the thatch of hair around her prominent pussey lips. Thickly curled, the hirsute fleece had grown into a delicious triangle over her mound, so neatly formed that I wondered whether she had trimmed it. Miranda turned the page and we both gasped when we looked at the
