The Fool on the Hill

I pointed toward the flap design. "I have had this thought for some time that the traditional flap design has two distinct sections, the wing and the flap itself and when the flap is moved a distinct angle is formed and a gap is formed on the control surface that creates turbulence. I have looked at ways of reducing this turbulence and improving lift. I looked to nature for a solution and I think that I've found it in the sea."

"How so?"

"If you looked at the tails of lobsters or prawns, thinks like that, you'll see that the surface of the tail is made up of rigid plates yet it can curl up quite tightly and quickly, so I looked at how the individual plates were joined together and have tried to duplicate that. It is only in the sketch stage at present."

"It's something that we should look closely at with the view to making a working model. Now these winglets, I notice that you have more than one, what is the concept in that?"

"The original winglet design is a simple form of nature, the end feathers of the eagle's wing. The way that I looked at it was; if nature, which has had several thousand years to perfect this design used several feathers, why shouldn't we? The original idea was to stop the wing tip vortices, reduce turbulence at the wing tip that was preventing the full length of the wing from providing lift, and at the same time reducing fuel consumption. I have used three winglets; the leading one has the greater curvature reducing as we go back. Wing tunnel testing of a prototype has confirmed an improvement in lift and reduction of turbulence from the single winglet."

The rest of the day was spent at the drafting table turning my preliminary sketches into working drawings, searching for the most mechanically efficient operation of the system. I admired the speed at which the drawings appeared on the paper and working in close proximity to this man was awe inspiring. When he was satisfied with the progress we moved to his computer and his CAD program. After inputting the information required by the program it produced finished diagrams complete with the necessary angles and dimensions. He explained that this was a requirement of the certification process.

It was about then that we realised that it was late afternoon and we hadn't even stopped for lunch. "I'd better get going, my mother will be wondering what's happened to me."

"Do you really want to go?" I got the impression that he wanted me to stay.

"No, not really." Home wasn't where I wanted to be, with its version of the Spanish Inquisition trying to find out why I had spent all day here. I could imagine my mother; "What must the neighbours think, a young girl spending all day with that crazy man." How about all night Mum?

"How would it be if I whipped up something for us and you can have dinner here. Then you can sneak home after dark and no-one will see you."

"Yes, I would love to stay for dinner and as for sneaking home, forget it. When I go home it will be daylight and I don't care what people think."

"Wait a minute, if you're going home in daylight that doesn't leave me any time to prepare a meal, unless you intend. . . ." His voice trailed off.

"Yes I do intend, that is of course as long as you have no objection."

"But I have no spare bedroom and that means that I'll have to sleep on the couch."

"No it doesn't, it means that you and I are going to sleep together. I have a reason or two for this. I'll tell you about it later, after you feed me."

Feed me he did and very well. I had never tasted a tagine before and he explained that it originated in Morocco and was cooked in a special dish with a conical lid that recirculated the moisture so you used less. Apart from all that, he explained, it was dead easy, the ingredients along with the herbs and spices were put in the dish and slow cooked for several hours.

What he served was part of a batch he had prepared earlier and frozen. It was thawed and then nuked in a microwave and served with cuscus.

We were seated on his sofa listening to music. "What are your reasons for staying the night?"

"Firstly I have to ask you a question; what is it between you and Professor Hartley?"

"We were close friends and went to Oxford together. After we graduated we were working on a project together when my parents died. I guess I lost my way for some time and just as I was about to surface again he pissed off with my fiancé. I went into what was called clinical depression that lasted for several years. I have little time for him after I found that he had used our work, claiming it to be all his own, to get a Masters degree and a job as a lecturer at university."

"I thought so. When I discussed my project with him I got the impression that he was clearly out of his depth so I did a little research and came to the conclusion, that you have just confirmed, that he is guilty of plagiarism. That has made me determined to succeed in this, and because he hit on me. I rejected him of course and that was when he suggested that I should try to find you, I think he hoped that I would waste so much time looking for you that I'd never complete the project. That is why this project has to succeed because he will crucify me if he can find fault in it."

"These projects, do they have to actually fly?"

"It's not essential but we will be graded higher if it does."

"Do you have a pilot's license?"

"Yes. I learnt to fly several years ago and have a commercial license." He had a smile on his face, he was up to something.

We went to bed at around 10pm and, no, we didn't have sex. I kissed him. "I hope that you're not expecting to have sex with me tonight, you see, it's been fifteen years since I have made love and I don't feel comfortable in myself and I'm afraid that I'll be a disappointment to you. When we make love I want it to be perfect." It would be a fool not to notice that he said 'when we make love' and I'm no fool.

"So the rumours about you going into town and visiting a brothel are just that, rumours?"

"Yes, I spent those days in research and sourcing materials that I couldn't find laying around the streets." This marked the end of his foraging forays down the hill.

On the occasions when I ventured back to my parent's home I was confronted by an angry mother and concerned father. "Fiona, what are you doing up there? You never come to see us and you're always up there with that crazy man and he's even stopped coming down the hill. Some of my friends have told me that you're even sleeping with him, please tell me that's not true, I just couldn't bear the thought of my daughter with . . . that horrible man."

"And you wonder why I don't come home." I looked from one to the other. "We are working on a project, a top secret project, and it has something to do with my studies, that's all I can say about it apart from pointing out that it is all legal and above board and that there is no sexual relationship between us."

"Thank God for that!" Mother's relief was almost overwhelming.

"I won't ask about your top secret project, I just want to say be careful, I don't want to see you hurt." Father kissed me on the forehead as I left with a bag of clean clothes. I should work out how to work the washing machine up at the house.

Two months later, after much static testing of the engines and control systems we decided that she was ready for a test flight. We wheeled her out of the barn into the early morning sunlight. She was beautiful now that you couldn't read 'Coca Cola' through the fibreglass, instead her fuselage was silver with dark blue side flashes and tailplane. There were no numbers on her yet, that would come next week when she gets her certification.

Thomas took her up on her first flight, he, we decided that if anything went wrong it would be a pity if we were both killed so we tossed a coin to decide who it would be, he won. She gathered speed across the field and took to the air smoothly, climbing quickly into the morning sky, the noise from her two engines barely disturbing the birds. He performed a couple of tentative aerobatic manoeuvres before a full blooded barrel roll before bring her back in. The smile on his face as he got out said it all, his only comment to me was "Sweet."

I took her up and flew her around for some thirty minutes and had to agree with him, she definitely was 'sweet'. Her controls were responsive to the lightest touch, her wing flaps had become an integral part of the wing structure not a separate entity like a normal flap and it performed better than I had hoped and there was no sign of flutter from her winglets. I landed and taxied over to Thomas waiting outside the hangar, I can't call it a barn anymore can I.

He met me with a questioning look on his face. "Well, what do you think?"

I threw myself into his arms and planted a huge kiss on his lips. "She is great! You've created a masterpiece."

"We've created a masterpiece, this is a joint effort and you are just as much a part of this as I am." He helped me push her back into the hangar and we went up to the house for a celebratory breakfast.

He looked at me over the rim of his coffee cup. "Fiona, my lawyer is coming to see me this morning and I want you to be there."

"What's it all about?"

"You'll just have to wait and see." I threw a toast crust at him and it soon degenerated into a minor food fight. Even as we cleaned up the mess he wouldn't tell me what was going on. To say that it took me by surprise would be an understatement.

The articles of a company were drawn up with Thomas and myself as Directors and THB Aircraft became a legal entity and patent applications were filed for all of the developments that we had included in the design of the THB001. We were officially up and flying. The next item on the agenda was to get certification for the plane to fly and for this we had to provide all evidence of our testing protocols and results as well as conduct a demonstration flight before an assessment panel that would then make the final recommendation before the certification could be approved.

In the mean time I had advised the university that I had completed my project and would present it at the airfield along with the other completed projects and no, I wouldn't be needing help with transport. This turn of events had Professor Hartley asking questions. "Yes I would be flying it in and yes I did have a Pilot's License and as it is a prototype it doesn't need certification and no, I would not be signing over the intellectual property for my project to the university." When pressed on this last issue my enigmatic reply was simply, "I have my reasons and I am not prepared to discuss it at this time."

In the days leading up to the public unveiling of my project we were really busy planning our dramatic entry. If it all went to plan I would present Professor Hartley with my project that he would not be able to mark down out of spite for my rejecting his sexual advances.

All of the other projects were assembled and the students were walking about looking at the designs and passing comment. Professor Hartley was pacing impatiently, probably hoping that I'd had engine failure or crashed and wouldn't turn up because he and one of the female students had places to be and time was running out.

"Look!" On cue as arranged, Charlie Rogers pointed to the sky. Some distance away a speck could be seen getting nearer, coming from the upwind end of the runway. It was still some fifty metres above the ground when it reached the centre of the runway where it performed a perfect barrel roll before looping up into a stall turn and swinging around to touch down. I taxied over to where they were all standing and climbed out. My fellow students rushed to have a look at this plane that I'd helped to build and it became the centre of considerable attention. I had to field dozens of questions and it was some time before Professor Hartley could bring himself to come and inspect it.

Hartley was disappointed that I had arrived in my plane and performed a perfect landing in a proper plane and not some modified ultra-light that other students had used as test-beds for their ideas. Professor Hartley was also furious. "What sort of stunt was that to pull! I'll have your license disqualified! That plane isn't certified and you're chucking it around the sky like that." A quiet voice from behind him caused him to turn around.

"You can do nothing about it, she had clearance to perform aerobatic manoeuvres, and the plane has a full certification."

Hartley stared at the speaker. "Tommy, is that you?"

"None other."

"What have you got to do with this?"

"Apart from helping Fiona design and build this plane, not a lot, unless you take into consideration her role as Director of THB Aircraft and owner of the intellectual property involved in this plane as well as several patents applications that are involved in it. So you see you can't steal the ideas and claim them as your own as you've been doing for years."

"You can't prove any of that! I'll sue you for slander!" That was as good as an admission that he had been doing that and the other students looked at each other.

"You won't win." Another voice, one that I'd never heard before. "I didn't believe this at first when Tommy told me about it but when he showed me proof that you had stolen his ideas I realised that it was true. Then when I asked around and found that you'd been cheating on me with your students I decided that enough was enough. Good-bye you miserable pig, your lawyers will be hearing from my lawyers."

I realised that I had just met Penelope Hartley, Thomas' ex fiancé. My heart skipped a beat when they kissed before she left, would they be getting back together?

"Don't worry, I'm not the slightest bit interested in her, besides she has someone else in mind." He told me over a celebratory champagne after we had officially christened THB001. We had decided to call this, our first plane the 'Peregrine' after the bird.

Thomas needn't have worried about his in-bed performance. I might be biased but it was the best love making that I'd ever experienced, and I told him so, sometime between four and five the next morning as I came down from yet another orgasmic high.

"I have you to thank for that."

"Me?"

"Yes you. That first night that we slept together and I told you that I hadn't had sex for a long time and that I didn't feel comfortable in myself and that you'd be disappointed in my performance or lack of performance, you didn't put any pressure on me. Well I do feel confident in myself again and for that I thank you, as for my performance you'll have to be the judge of that."

"That first night you said that you wanted our first time to be perfect, it was." I had decided on its perfection at around the time that he inserted his rock hard cock into my quivering pussy. I had been waiting hours for this moment, suffering through hours of caressing, kissing, fondling, fingering, tickling, teasing foreplay, hours of begging him for it before he pushed slowly into me for what seemed like hours of glorious sex. The fact that I was hopelessly and passionately in love with him might have affected my judgement somewhat.

I lay beside him idly fondling his balls, waiting for him to harden before I took the initiative. "What are we going to do now?"

"I get the impression that you're going to attack me as soon as he regains his composure."

"But after that, after this glorious night of loving. I know that I've passed and that I'll graduate, I have a great job with the best boss in the world, life couldn't get much better than this, but there's one problem that we have to face, my mother. My father won't be a problem, he knows about my love for you, yes I told him weeks ago, and he approves, but mother is a total snob and she doesn't want me to be involved with you."

"You mean with the 'Fool on the Hill'?"

"You know about that?"

"Of course, who do you think started it? It was my way of hiding in plain sight. As for your mother, here's what we'll do. As soon as possible we'll get married, (YES!) it'll have to be a Registry Office job and we'll have to rustle up a couple of witnesses not connected with your family, and then I want to see the expression on your mother's face when you graduate."

"What do you mean?"

"It's going to be a surprise even for you. As for time between now and then, we'll live together but keep our marriage a secret."

Try as much as I could I couldn't get him to tell me what the surprise was going to be, I even threatened to withhold sex until he told me, but that didn't work, I loved him and his cock too much to abstain for any length of time. I never ceased to be surprised by him sexually. "Are you sure that you weren't dropping into brothels when you went into town?"

"Of course I'm sure, cross my heart and hope to die."

"Don't you dare!"

"What, cross my heart?"

"No, die stupid."

Graduation day, there I stood with the other graduates in our caps and gowns waiting to be called onto the stage and be presented with our certificates by the Dean. I had kissed my mother and father and left them in the crowd of proud parents, kissed Thomas and left him standing in the wings while I waited for my name. I heard someone call out "The Honourable Lady Fiona Halifax Breckinridge, Baroness."

There was an expectant pause and then I felt someone nudge me in the back. "Go on, they've called your name." It was Thomas. He'd arranged for them to call my married name, and the title that I hadn't realised went with it, instead of my maiden name. Now I knew what the surprise was. I walked out under a blaze of flash lights and accepted my certificate and thought that that was the end of it, but no, I also had to go out and accept several other academic prizes that resulted from our work on THB001. Then there were the interviews. Somehow or other, and it couldn't have been my mother who told them because she didn't know Thomas and I were married until just now, the media had got to hear about this Baroness who had designed and built an aeroplane. It must have been a slow news day because they had all flocked to the graduation to see for themselves. Of course mother had to get in on the act, she tried to muscle in on all of the photos and was to be found hovering in shot when I was being interviewed for TV news services.

What a day! Watching my mother fawning all over Thomas and telling him that she had always realised that he was a good man and one that she was happy for me to marry, my father, and Thomas' fellow conspirator, kept a low profile but he couldn't wipe the smile from his face. He and Thomas were as thick as thieves and it wasn't until we got home that I realised why. My father was a builder and was responsible for the work that had just got under way for the restoration of the outside of Breckinridge Manor. It was only then that I found out that he had done the refurbishment of the interior. Talk about keeping things secret, I wondered, at around midnight, as Thomas slept beside my adrenaline charged body, what other secrets they had kept from me. It wasn't until I came to the conclusion that I didn't care about secrets that I was able to get to sleep, that and waking Thomas up and making love to him again.