Educating Laura Ch. 01

This is the first of a five-chapter story arc which is all now available on Literotica. Subsequent chapters appear in Exhibitionism & Voyeur and in Group Sex. There is some discussion of mild BDSM; in the fifth chapter there is a bit of that and some brief same-sex activity.

Other stories featuring some of these characters are listed at the end.

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"Great to have you on board, Laura."

"Thanks," I said. It was a roof over my head for the summer. OK, technically it wasn't. But I'd have my own tent to live in -- old but sturdy. Two days off a week. All meals and a bike included.

For two months, I'd be a youth worker dealing with juvenile delinquents, a new batch of twenty kids aged ten-to-fourteen delivered to our camp site each Sunday, removed on Saturday. The chief organiser, Pete, had attended my college and asked for volunteers. I'd enjoyed working a few days and weekends with him and the kids at their south London base before, but more importantly, I didn't have anywhere to live until my college accommodation opened up again in September. Don't ask.

I liked camping, canoeing, teaching kids how to make fires and to cook and all. The Wye Valley, winding along the Welsh side of the border with England, was outstanding in its natural beauty. So, why not?

What I hadn't counted on was the three other female staff: two of them were in a tempestuous on/off relationship, confiding in the third. Confiding? Being comforted in their sorrows? I didn't want to know. At least two of them really didn't want me around and spoke to me as little as possible. It created a split. I'd hang out with cheerful Pete and the taciturn but amiable other male staff member, Andy, in the evenings, once the kids were in their two-man tents and allegedly going to sleep.

We took it in turns to be on night duty in the staff tent in the same field as the kids, me always paired with one of Andy or Pete, to reduce the tension. Often all three of us would end up chatting late over hot chocolate, playing cards under the hurricane lamp, an activity which slowly got Andy relaxed and joking about the game. Eventually one of us would retreat the few hundred yards to the other end of the next field, where our personal tents were set up. Well away from the children, completely out of their earshot.

Just as well. Some nights I could hear Alison and Jude yelling at each other. Or, when they had made up, screaming for different reasons. Sometimes it might have been Sam with one of the other two women. I really didn't want to know.

It was hard work, herding disobedient kids around various activities, but the beautiful surroundings in the green valleys made it a pleasure.

On the whole, I enjoyed the first two weeks as a vital crew member. I relished my freedom on my days off, when I'd take a mountain bike and ride deserted trails and minor roads for eight miles, until I reached the nearest town. Not only did Monmouth have mobile phone reception, unlike the entire valley near the camp site, but it also boasted pubs, take-aways, and a bookshop!

The fields we camped in were literal fields -- apart from one standpipe tap for water, and two blue plastic Portaloos which most of us avoided as much as possible, there were no facilities at all. Just green, green grass. Our cook tent provided two gas burners supplied by canisters, but as much cooking as possible was done over the open campfire.

No electricity.

Not even enough phone reception to send a text message. For that, you needed to be nearly a mile away. Another good reason to patronise the local pub.

Therefore, on my visits to town, I'd phone a few friends, buy more reading material, and hit the laundrette, washing and drying my muddy clothes and towels while sneakily recharging my phone. Sometimes I'd eat fish and chips or a Chinese down by the river, only meandering back when it threatened to got dark. There were some steep sharp turns on the return journey, where scree-covered paths made me bottle it and dismount, rather than risk skidding off a cliff into the shallow river running along the bottom of the valley. Not a route to try in twilight.

If I crashed, who would rescue me, or care if I didn't return? I was content enough, but I really missed having any friends about, finally having made some during my first year of university.

On the second weekend, I phoned to catch up with my friend Sanj. She'd lived on my corridor during first year. We were all studying various sciences, and the ten of us became reasonably friendly, but Sanj was a close confidante. Her family lived in a central London flat.

We blethered for twenty minutes. She sympathised about the screaming lesbians, after her obligatory suggestion I go over and shag the one left out. Just because I'd had a couple flings with girls as well as boys during the year! Freshers' Week had had a lot to answer for... The second girl had been more successful, at least for a few weeks until we'd parted ways, her being too closeted for a real relationship.

I'd seen a guy on my course for a couple months, and had two or three other brief encounters with men, but was currently free and single. Probably for the best, in the circs, but I couldn't deny some nights felt lonely.

My life was lonely, really. I hoped that one day I'd have close friends who would feel like family, but apart from one school mate and now Sanj, I hadn't any. Though, maybe, Lindsey and some lads from my course might be contenders?

I pushed another pound coin into the payphone, anticipating more chat.

"Hey, I've got to go, sorry, Laura. Got a dentist appointment..."

"Oh." Having spoken to no friends all week, I was disappointed, not to mention I'd lose the rest of my pound.

Sanj clearly noticed. She continued, "D'you want to chat to Richie? He's here."

"Er... Oh, why not?"

Richie had also lived on our corridor, though down the other end, using different showers and the other kitchen, so I didn't really know him well.

He was striking-looking, pale under long red-gold hair, but his main feature was being offhand to the point of rude. One could say he didn't suffer fools gladly, or more accurately, he told anyone he considered foolish all about it, which meant at least half the students. Very few people merited his approval.

He wasn't any more polite to some of our lecturers. Thing was, he was a dedicated, hard-working student, outshining most of us easily. He certainly mastered topics faster than me in Chemistry, the only subject we both took.

One of of his tutors had written him a despairing report, saying "I have only met Richard once. It was not a pleasure." Richie didn't see the point of attending most tutorials. "I predict he will either earn a high First or scrape a low Third in his exams, but have no idea which. It might prove a good lesson for him if it were the latter."

Our personal tutor hauled him in, for a lecture on his attitude.

Richie listened in silence. Then he pulled out the printout he'd just received of his exam results, all remarkably high First Class percentages plus two prizes for being the top student in the year, dropped it on her desk, and walked out. I'd been waiting outside for my own appointment with her, so knew it was no exaggeration. The woman had been furious.

Richie would be the first to agree he was an arrogant tosser, but he did have redeeming features. He was clean, and washed up his dishes -- no need to pile up dirty bowls and pans outside his door! Nor did he play loud music to disturb anyone. And if you were a reasonably diligent student, like I was, you'd eventually gain his respect.

Once, I was near tears over some thermodynamics problems. My friendly course-mate Adrian had come over to help, so we sat in the kitchen, Ade smoking in the vague direction of the window.

"Laura, love, you've done the difficult bit! You've created the wee equation summarising the situation an' all -- now all you need do is solve it!" Ade told me.

Richie had wandered in, in search of a clean saucepan. "Oh, hi, Laura. Who's this nicotine-addicted idiot?"

Before Adrian could get offended, I snapped, "Yes, he's stupid enough to chain-smoke and be a right pisshead, but he's clever enough to explain thermo equations to me. I hope. So shut it, unless you want to join in and help? I didn't do Further Maths, OK?"

To my surprise, Richie had nodded, seated himself next to Adrian, and between the pair of them they talked me through how second-order differential equations worked. Richie agreed with Adrian's assessment that the maths was the easy part -- they'd both done double the amount of A-level Maths I had -- and was mildly impressed that I'd managed the physical chemistry aspects myself without that extra mathematical knowledge.

"It's just obvious," I argued.

After that, I was in the category of people Richie was civil to. He helped me with some more maths, whenever I needed. "I like being helpful," he said. We'd briefly chat occasionally about chemistry or cookery, but I couldn't really call him a friend. I wasn't sure he had any.

So, in Monmouth's phone box, I tentatively queried, "Hey, Richie?"

He sounded nervous, for once. "Laura? Sanj just passed me the phone, said she had to run. What's up?" Richie probably wasn't good at coping with confusion.

"What are you doing at Sanj's?" Richie lived in Coventry, not London.

"I got a lab at UC to agree to host me for a month, so I've been taking turns, kipping round everyone I know in London. But Sanj's flat is local and her mum's hardly in, so often I can sleep on the sofa. Else it's my sleeping bag on her bedroom floor."

What were the chances of a woman staying alone in bed while a fit bloke lay on the floor? Especially a big-headed guy like Richie?

"Uh-huh! Sleeping in her room, 'on the floor'? I'm not daft."

Richie gave a rueful chuckle, a strange sound from the boastful guy who'd announced in Freshers' Week that he would get a First Class degree and go straight to do a PhD in one of the top labs in the world. By the end of our first year, no-one doubted it.

"No, you aren't! Just wrong. She knows I won't rape her in the night, so doesn't mind me on the far side of the room. Her folks want the lounge available, when they're around."

"Really."

"Really! I know, I'm an obnoxious arsehole... Dr Cousins told me that, after two sessions of Mathematical Biology. Just because I pointed out errors in his assumptions."

"Oh, Rich! You are going to need to find labs to work in that you haven't pissed everyone off in, you know!" I wondered if Richie had ever considered that.

"He shouldn't have published so soon. Or got a better cast to edit his paper before he submitted it. Best retracting and re-publishing in the same year, surely?"

Having to retract a published paper was the worst humiliation a scientist could have. I doubted Cousins had done that -- it would have been huge news. Richie continued, "Anyway, Alexei Chernov and Jenna Morgenstern and Dan Beddington have been getting on with me just fine."

The latter two were famous enough that I'd heard of them. I was amused by Richie's construction, that they were getting on with him, no thought of the other way round. When it came to science, he had the rock-hard confidence and tough skin of a concrete elephant. He also seemed confident enough that people should like him, and decide it was their loss if they didn't.

Most students who weren't looking for research careers wrote him off as a cocky dickhead with stupid earrings and excessive ginger hair.

Given the invariable rightness only covered academics, and he might concede a point in other areas, the more serious students got along with him well enough, laughing at him when he got too far up himself. I figured attempting to copy a fraction of his confidence might not be such a bad thing. Only a bit, mind.

Richie's hair was long, thick and straight, just blond enough to avoid being called mousy, with a reddish tinge, which he usually wore tied back in a low ponytail. Our personal tutor had said he'd have to look more professional for interviews, which only proved she knew nothing about science.

He'd replied blandly that it was a filter; anyone who couldn't cope with long hair and earlobe gauges on a man wasn't worth knowing. He might not have meant his tone to include her in that category, but that was certainly how it came across.

"How are you," Richie asked in his mildly-robotic tone that suggested he'd been told that was something to say near the beginning of a conversation. To be fair, he would then listen, with interest, to your reply.

So I answered the question, not taking it as a mere greeting.

"Somewhat missing having a shower, but apart from that, I'm mostly enjoying myself. Most of the kids are sweet enough -- only had to confiscate knives from two of them so far -- no injuries, getting well fit from all the running around. We're lucky, the weather has been fantastic so far, so everyone's been outside all day, cooking over the fire or on the gas hob out in the open. People can spread out across the field. Then I've got two nights a week on duty in the main field, sleeping with Andy or Pete in the staff tent -- "

"Sleeping with, eh?"

"Hardly! Two separate camp beds, thank you! Even if they were tempted to try anything, our sleeping bags are those ones you have to wriggle into, no zip..." Pete was engaged: off-limits, and I'd not be interested anyway. Andy was younger, late twenties, sharp-jawed and gorgeous under his pile of dark curly hair, but I'd swear he didn't know it. He was painfully shy, I figured, guessing at why he was always so unforthcoming. In any case, I wasn't even going to think about it, despite the temptation of his deep brown eyes under long lashes! There were quite enough stormy sexual relationships around.

"I'll believe you, if you believe me."

"Fair enough." I decided I did believe him. Richie was so painfully honest, I doubted he had it in him to lie. So those nights in Sanj's room were, presumably, chaste as anything.

I wondered if either of them were disappointed by that.

"What activities are you doing with them?

"Me? I do canoeing, raft-building, supervise swimming in the river. Lots of cooking over the fire, teaching kids how to wash up. Various scavenger hunts and things -- most of them have been terrified of eating a blackberry, bless 'em! I weasel out of the rock climbing where I can -- I'm not built for it!"

"Do you mean you're scared of heights?'

"Only when I can fall off them! And I'd have to trust the belayer. Alison's wet and dippy, and the other two women really don't like me."

"Really? How could anyone not like you?" High praise, from Rich. His surprise amused me.

"I don't think they like anyone, much; Sam in particular. She's the type of lesbian who gives them a bad name... Jude the manager used to go out with Alison, until the second week of camp. Now Jude's with Sam. You can imagine the drama...

"At least they've stopped having their big screaming rows -- that was the first week. Then Alison was in floods, crying, half of the second week, but this week's she's not been so bad -- she's been icily ignoring them. Pete reckons Jude wanted a triad but Sam wasn't having it. Probably Alison didn't want it either."

"Complicated. Avoid."

"Exactly. One time, Sam was driving me to the supermarket for supplies, when she suddenly bursts out with "I hate fucking bisexuals!"

"And did you reply, 'So don't fuck any, then?'" He sounded amused by his own joke.

"No, I was too busy biting my tongue so I didn't say, 'Don't worry, I wouldn't be seen dead with you!'"

Bugger. I hadn't meant to out myself to Richie, but his soothing voice in my ear had led me to keep talking. Having someone to talk to, actively listening, was something I'd missed more than I thought.

"Probably as well. That would have been tactless."

Pot, kettle, much! But I felt relief, that he was unbothered.

"Exactly. Especially as I can't drive the minibuses, so need to rely on her."

"Why not? They're not difficult."

"Insurance. You have to be 21." Which was true, but I didn't want to admit to the ever-capable Richie that I didn't have a driving licence, either.

"Ah. Does that mean you're trapped on site?"

"No. It's only a mile to the local pub. I wander down with Pete and Andy on Wednesdays; our evening off. Cycle to town on the weekends, sometimes go along with one of them to the supermarket. Andy seems to love going to Tesco's!"

"He mustn't have had much excitement in his life."

"Who knows? I go shop so I can send and receive text messages! The pub is good; their food is cheap and plentiful. Not gourmet, but makes a change from camping food! I do get a bit fed up of endless pasta, jacket potatoes and veggie stew."

"Makes your average student sound like MasterChef."

I laughed. "Yes! Though cooking for 25 people, with no oven, is different skills. I've become a dab hand at masses of fried eggs, to go with bacon and sausage and mushrooms. Kids do their own toast, over the fire."

"You could get a job as a short-order chef, next break. Or on weekends, if you're in a lab."

"I hope to get a placement for the summer, anyhow. The big chemical firms have schemes after your second year."

"Good luck." The pips went. "Nice talking to you, Laura."

He'd hung up, but I reckoned he wouldn't have said that if he hadn't meant it. It had been nice, actually, talking to him.

I gave Sanj a quick ring that Wednesday, from the pub. Again, she passed me to Richie.

"Enjoying your nosh? Good. I've copied down your mobile number for reference. You all right?"

I wasn't. I was really feeling lonely.

Pete and Andy were bonding over football, something I had zero interest in. Six more weeks of camp, before college opened again. Sam and Jude ignored my existence as much as possible; Alison was being depressed and silent. I supposed I was hardly opening up myself. I never liked talking about myself; people always judged. I flung myself into hanging out with the kids, but a posse of 12-to-13-year-olds with neglectful or criminal backgrounds was hardly a social circle.

I didn't say any of that. "Sure."

"Uh-huh."

I wasn't sure if he believed me or not. "How about you?"

"OK. Back at Sanj's for a couple nights -- couldn't outstay my welcome, previously."

"Oh? Who else have you been staying with? Gavin?"

A snort. "Hardly. He and James aren't talking to me. Sanj says it was because Gavin was going on and on about how he was going to fail his exams and I agreed, saying yes, you probably are." He sighed. "People complain when I argue with them; now they're objecting when I don't. Can never fucking win."

It occurred to me for the first time that perhaps Richie didn't actually mean to be so obnoxious. Just really was that clueless. Odd, given his enormous intelligence in other ways.

"Maybe your biology courses will help? 'Social interactions of young adult Homo sapiens'? They're probably very similar to gorillas..."

He made a small amused noise. "I'm not eating insects out of Gavin's hair. Or studying anything about animals next year. If it's bigger than cells, I'm not interested."

"The hairspray levels would be toxic, I'm sure."

"You'd know. You did the option on polymers. Do you think you'll do a PhD?"

"I might. I'll see what grabs me next year, but yeah -- then I choose whether I stay in pure Materials, possibly do the PhD, or I go get an MEng. Possibly end up in pure Chemistry, even."

"The world's your oyster!"

"Less so if I don't end up with the Engineering degree -- but I don't see myself endlessly travelling the world for different projects. Working a few years in Europe for BASF or similar, fair enough."