Mike & Karen Ch. 28

Mike and Karen shared a deep, timeless, and loving kiss, with Karen giggling lightly as she felt two of Jenny's fingers slip inside her to plug her up and keep any of Mike's pearly offering from escaping while she bobbed up and down on his cock, greedily slurping up their mingled cum. Assuredly, not a single drop would be wasted.

Up above, the husband and wife were lost a private moment, despite the presence of their dear lover just below. They had been one another's worlds for over three decades now, and that was in no danger of changing. They were hopelessly devoted to each other, and anyone who had ever seen them together couldn't deny it. This was one of the great romances of any age. Nobody they knew could think of a pair more desperately in love.

"Mmmmm," Karen hummed through the kiss, expressing her devotion to this magnificent man. "What you do to me, sir."

"I'm the luckiest man on the planet for the chance to play the part," Mike replied, holding her close, her massive arms encasing her like a shield against a world gone mad.

"Oi, get a room, you two," Jenny called out from below, making Mike chuckle and Karen giggle. She went back to cleaning him off, then pulled her fingers out of Karen and began coaxing the cum from her pussy with her deft tongue. Some minutes later, she crawled back up beside them and the two women made out for some time to entertain Mike before snuggling into his sides, everyone content and sleepy. They'd shower in the morning. Well, Mike and Karen would; Jenny might not wake up until noon.

"Splendid life, isn't it, Kat?" Jenny sighed, nuzzling her cheek against Mike's muscular chest, her eyes closed while she caressed the taut skin.

"No argument all the way over here," Karen replied, reaching across her husband to caress Jenny's hand. "Rather grand from my standpoint."

"You sure you can put up with me until June?" the countess asked, reveling in her beloved Kat's touch.

"There is so much to do until then, Jen," the bronze-haired goddess pointed out. "Lisa, Janet, and Mona are coming, the housewarmings, my little boy's birthday, the carnival week and talent show at the university, that absurd nerd convention. I plan to keep you busy, Penrose."

"Heavens, I might even have to forge a truce with mornings in order to fit it all in," Jenny quipped, smirking back at Karen.

"Don't worry, countess," Mike said, putting his huge arms around them and holding them both close. "I have no doubt Gordon can make it worth your while."

Jenny nodded and snuggled into him, slowly drifting off to sleep.

A grand life indeed.

***

St. George Campus, a lecture room, the present, Tuesday morning...

"So, while this may be slightly outside your normal course material, I think it might add a little something to your wider field," Karen explained as she stood at the front of the class. She was wearing a white lab coat over her skirt suit, keeping it buttoned below her bust, which she couldn't readily button the coat across. Professor Dwyer had called in sick today, and they needed someone to cover his morning class on health and molecular nutrition. Karen had been approached and agreed. "Does everyone have an understanding of what a key polarity protein does now?"

The students all said or nodded their affirmation to the question. She'd gotten through to them, even if many of them spent most of the lecture staring at her chest. Everyone knew her and had seen her countless times around campus, but to have Dr. Gordon here in their lecture hall...

Karen had readily acceded to the request, since she had no courses this morning, and without the distraction, she might have been stuck up in the offices, meaning having to run the gauntlet of walking by Anson at the reception desk and somehow not murdering the lazy little twerp. So when Dwyer needed a replacement, she was all in.

"While normally associated with ciliated cells, they facilitate other delivery mechanisms as well. For instance, they seem to help with insulin delivery. Cinnamon, it turns, out, interacts with polarity proteins, which explains why cinnamon is so helpful in insulin absorption by the body."

"So eating lots of cinnamon helps me not inherit my grandma's diabetes?" one young man asked.

"It seems to be a possibility, and it certainly can't hurt," Karen replied, smiling. "I-"

The door opened and in swished a lovely blonde woman of seemingly indeterminate age. She smiled at everyone dazzlingly as she walked through the room to the far side, having selected a seat. She was wearing chic jeans that seemed almost painted on, a pair of ankle boots, and a crème-coloured sweater that did little to hide her large bust. Over the sweater, she was wearing a brown bolero jacket. Her blonde hair was done up in an elegant chignon.

Coming in quickly behind her and trying not to blush was a smaller woman, with dark bobbed hair and wearing a pantsuit. The dark-haired girl avoided Dr. Gordon's gaze, the professor's eyes narrowing as she watched the pair.

"Hellooooooo," the blonde chimed as she walked to her seat, slipping into it and beaming a smile at the room. She addressed them all in a posh English accent. "Sorry I'm late, Kat, I simply had to go and find a new outfit before joining you."

"Countess," Karen said levelly as she tracked Valentina's movement across the lecture room, watching her stand nearby the blonde woman and wait awkwardly. "And how did you know I was here?"

"Oh, the administration told me, of course," Jenny said, waving the question off as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I told them who I was, I asked where you were, and they were more than happy to oblige."

Karen's head turned a little more to look directly at Valentina, her golden-amber eyes boring into the younger woman's head.

"Sorry, Mistress," Val said rather lamely. "Lady Penrose thought it'd be more fun if we showed up unannounced. She made me hand over my phone, in case I tried to warn you."

"As I was saying," Karen resumed, trying to get the lecture back on track while most of the students continued staring at Jenny. "An effective delivery mechanism for insulin, I-"

She paused again when she realized she doesn't have the attention of many of the students. They were still gawping at Penrose.

"Goodness, it is getting slightly warm in here, isn't it?" Karen mused, unbuttoning her lab coat and slipping it off, followed by her blazer. Her bust, which was larger than even Jenny's, was now restrained only by a pearlescent silk blouse.

She had their attention again. Jenny was trying to hide a smirk at the (decidedly effective) one-upmanship.

"Cinnamon is indeed an effective natural assistant in delivering insulin to the body, we've found," she continued. "That's one of the newest discoveries about it, the way it interacts with polarity proteins. It is effective with assisting antioxidants against free radicals, and is also a thermogenic."

"Do you and your husband have a lot of cinnamon in your diets, doctor?" a young woman asked, raising her hand.

"Lovey, have you seen Kat's husband?" Jenny cut in, smiling at the girl. "There's so much cinnamon in that man's diet that if he sneezes, he'll accidentally become the Kwisatz-Haderach."

I had no idea Penrose ever read Dune... Karen thought wearily while the crowd roared with laughter at Jenny's quip. Jenny winked at her.

"Oh, goodness, look at the time," Jenny said, examining her watch before standing up, grabbing everyone's attention again. "I simply must find an espresso, what with mornings being such a ghastly time of day."

She smiled dazzlingly and waved her fingers at the students. "Toodle-pip!"

The countess blew a kiss at Karen, and then she was gone.

Karen stared at Valentina, who stayed in place. She gestured toward the door. "Well, go after her, what makes you think I want her rampaging around the campus unattended?"

"Yes, Mistress!" Val said hastily, trotting across the room and disappearing out the door. Silence reigned for several seconds. Karen gave her charges a nonplussed look.

"Go ahead, ask your questions," the bronze-haired woman sighed. "We've covered today's material, and this is going to be all over campus soon enough, if it isn't already."

"Ummmm..." one girl said, putting up a hand. "She's a countess?"

"Yes," Karen confirmed. "One of my oldest and dearest friends, Jenny Penrose, the Countess Greymoor from Devonshire. She's come for a visit and clearly decided that my day needed to be made more chaotic."

"Annnnnd the other one that called you 'mistress'?" queried a boy.

"A member of my staff, Valentina, from back at my residence," continued Karen, knowing where this was going. "I asked her to look after the countess."

"Why'd she call you 'mistress' though?" he pressed. "Isn't that a bit classist and kinda smacks of slavery and oppression?"

"What I can guarantee you, sir, is that if you ever suddenly went completely stupid and said that to her, you would require special accommodations for the rest of the semester, the least of which is eating applesauce through a straw," Karen said dryly, making several of the students snicker. It was no secret that the professor was fabulously wealthy, heiress to an industrial empire. "Miss Prospero is a trained professional, and she likes the formality. I indulge it for her."

"Uh... okay, I guess," the young man said rather hesitantly.

"Oh, she'll be so glad to know she has your approval about how she does her job," Karen stated, shaking her head while several other students laughed. She'd made it through the day's material already, and now it was time to keep them distracted. She sat on the corner of the lecture station, crossing one leg over the other and rocking her knee back and forth. She definitely had their attention again, because her pencil skirt ended above her knee.

"Any other questions before I release you into the wild?" she asked, leaning back on her hands slightly.

***

The Theoretical lecture hall, Tuesday morning, the present...

"So as you can see..." Mike instructed while most of his students (at least the girls) just stared at him dreamily. "When dealing with observation of the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering through a crystal of sodium cesium iodide, we can isolate particles recoiling from charged light when the-"

"Bonjour, my friends," Jenny said gaily as she swished into the lecture hall, followed by Valentina. The students all seemed somewhat confused. "What did I miss?"

"Ah, there you are, countess," Mike said without missing a beat. "Folks, may I introduce Lady Jenny Penrose, the Countess of Greymoor, and mistress of Heatherly Hall in Devonshire. Please, take a seat wherever you like, Lady Greymoor."

"Oh, um... thank you," Jenny said somewhat hesitantly. With eyes still on her, she picked an empty seat and sat in it.

"As I was telling everyone else, an ansatz-scaling method allowed us to observe the charges in paired particles in a quantum bond using a cesium iodide medium," Mike continued. "Are you familiar with the sodium-doped method?"

"I... only for my tequila shots," Jenny replied hopefully. Fortunately, Mike and the students all laughed. She felt the pressure lift, and thought she might have to behave in this class; Michael was clearly on to her and had anticipated her arrival. Damn the man!

"Miss Prospero?" Mike queried, looking directly at her, standing near the countess. Val squeaked and stood up straight, her hands folded in her lap.

"Yes, Master?" she answered on reflex. Several students raised their eyebrows at her response.

"At the countess' convenience, make sure she is shown the staff lounge," the towering professor instructed. "Tell anyone who tries to interfere I said it was okay, do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," Val said, nodding her head respectfully.

Mike smiled at Jen. "You'll like the lounge, countess, but we'll head across the road to the pub after the lectures. We can test your tequila and sodium-doped medium theory."

"I'm glad to see you know the way to a lady's heart, good sir," Jenny said, standing up and fixing her purse. She looked at the students in their rows. "Pay attention, you lot. The instruction doesn't get any better than this."

She winked at Mike and waved her fingers before heading out again. Valentina trotted after her dutifully. The students were all staring at the door.

"Questions?" Mike asked, getting their attention again. "About the countess, I mean."

"She's a real countess?" asked one girl.

Mike nodded. "One of Doctor Gordon's oldest and dearest friends, come for a visit with us."

"Why did the other woman call you 'master', sir?" asked a guy.

"She's a member of our staff," Mike explained with a shrug. "She's been working for wealthy families for some years, and she is very formal in that regard. She calls my wife 'Mistress' and me 'Master', because it suits her style."

Silence hung over the room for some moments before a girl finally spoke.

"That is so cool," she breathed, and everyone seemed to agree with her. "Wish I had someone callin' me 'mistress' all the time."

Mike laughed. "Kar assigned Miss Prospero to look after the countess during her visit, so as you can guess, her hands are going to be very full. You'll enjoy getting to know Lady Greymoor; I'm willing to bet she intends to be around her a lot. Shall we continue?"

The subject matter was important, and they went back immediately to giving Mike their full attention. Countess shenanigans could wait.

***

The Sciences Faculty building, Tuesday afternoon, 1987...

"Pardon my ongoing skepticism, but you still expect me to believe that you have an office?" Karen asked somewhat tritely as she walked with the huge blond student while he strode down the hall. He was doing her the courtesy of shortening his steps, but even so, she found herself hustling to keep up.

"Yeah, that strikes me as kinda weird too," Janet added, walking with Lisa and Mona as they followed the pair. "And you said your dean gave it to you? He hates you. He hates you the way Heyman hates dairy."

"Hey, I love dairy!" the little Jewish redhead protested, bringing up the rear. She was the shortest of them, and usually ended up trailing and out of breath by the time they reached anywhere, especially if DeBourne was leading the charge. "I just hate what it does to my gastric system."

"Everybody hates what it does to your gastric system, Li," Mona pointed out, smirking. "We all hate it the way Marks hates DeBourne, meaning desperately. But yeah, I agree with Janet, big boy. Why on earth would your midget dean give you an office if he hates your guts?"

Mike smirked. "He didn't want to, but I made a very good point about my ability to get us ready for Lucerne and the numbers we'd need to be able to account for. That said, I mentioned a dedicated office space in the Sciences building would be extremely helpful in getting numbers coordinated and crunched as we prepared. He was ready to say no, but the Theoretical professors all agreed with me and insisted he make it happen. Saying he was displeased in an understatement, but he was caught, so he acquiesced. Now I have an office."

"That makes little or no sense to me," Karen sniffed, trying to sound officious. "If you needed help with crunching numbers, it's not like I am all that far away, man. And against all odds, I am even faster than you at it."

"Yes, but Calabi-Yau still belongs to Theoretical, and you belong to the Math and Logic Physics department," Mike pointed out, continuing to lead them to the lowest level of the building. "So until it's assigned to Experimental, which we both belong to, it's technically outside your field, Gordon. Hence, I have an office."

"DeBourne," Karen growled, almost glaring at him. "What on earth would you even do with an office? Since when can you afford anything to even put in it?"

"Hey, I'm not that poor, thank you," Mike protested, still walking.

"Please," Karen snorted. "If we were all in a Roman comedy play, your joke Latin name would be 'Impecunious'."

"Oh, ow," the huge blond man said, trying to sound hurt.

"I kinda figured it would be 'Biggus Dickus', y'know?" Janet quipped, smirking.

"My money's on 'Magnumopus'," Mona added, making Janet and Lisa break down giggling.

"Laugh all you want, puny humans," Mike sniffed, rounding a corner. "I'm still the only one with his own office."

"In the basement?" Karen asked, looking around. She wasn't even sure she'd ever been down here before. "Is there an old abattoir or trepanning room they're allowing you to make use of?"

"Nothing that grand, but I'll take what I can get," Mike said, finally stopping in front of a door, set into one of the bare concrete walls of this echoing basement hallway. The metal door had apparently once been yellow, but was now painted brown. "Allow me..."

Mike inserted a key into the doorknob, unlocking it and then swinging the door open. "Welcome to my office, ladies."

They all seemed rather hesitant to walk into the dark space, until Janet nudged finally Mona from behind.

"Oh, sure, make the black character go first into the murder hole," Mona groused before stepping inside. She paused, looking around.

"Uhhhh, DeBourne?" she said, finding a light switch and flipping it on, ignoring the faint traces of bleach in the air. "This is a janitorial room, pretty sure."

"Was a janitorial room," Mike corrected, letting her come out and then stepping in himself before beckoning them to follow. There were two long, plastic tables set at right angles along the walls. Several screens and keyboards were spread around the surfaces. "Nnnffff, I admit, it's a bit of a tight fit, but..."

He sat down in the large rolling chair and beamed at them. Karen was looking around in bemusement. What baffled her were all the computer towers and drives that lined the shelves bolted the all four walls. There must have been over twenty of them, all with little red lights blinking to indicate they were asleep, and with knots and twisted gnarls of wires and cables running between them and over to the tables, to yet more towers.

"DeBourne, what have you done?" Karen breathed, sounding slightly aghast. "Where did you get all these drives?"

Mike shrugged. "The university was getting rid of 'em, they're old and subpar, most of 'em. I managed to convince the powers that be to let me make use of 'em down here, to help with my number crunching. I've connected them all, and they borrow memory and processor power from one another when I feed them data."

"What sort of RAM are you getting from their collective input?" Karen queried. The other girls were still looking at the ophidian tangle of wires that were bolted to the walls to keep them out of the way before dropping down to attach to the drives sitting on the desks between the monitors.

Mike grinned. "If they're all running peak, I can get 980K out of them for a few hours at a time. Even got just over one megabyte out of them for about forty-five minutes the other day."

Karen's eyes widened. That number was absurdly high. That competed with the mainframe systems her father's various companies were producing! This little setup may not have been as sophisticated, but the fact that it was all here in this dinky little room...

"Ready for this?" Mike asked, reaching for a button.

At this single touch, all the drives hissed and whirred to life, making a general racket for a moment before calming down as he summoned the machine spirits to do his bidding. Lisa looked around nervously. She'd recently watched 'The Demon Seed', and she'd resolved to never own a powerful computer. Or a Bricklin.