Page 32 of A Cock and Bull Story

I throw a decorative pillow at him from where I sit on my couch.

“What do you mean that was you?” I demand while Theo dodges my soft missiles.

He shoots me an exasperated eye roll.

“I'm aslippery dick.”

“Listen—any other day, I’d jump on that, but now is not the time—”

Theo cuts me off.

“It's a type of fish.”

“What’s a type of fish?” I sputter.

Everyone appears just as baffled as I am. Sian lays a hand on my knee.

“A slippery dick is a type of fish. It's its name—just like a tit is a type of bird.”

I sit back on the couch and shut my mouth. I literally have no idea what these people are talking about now. I squint, as if that will help their words make sense, but it just brings the room out of focus. I open my eyes back up fully. I might as well enjoy the eye candy that this group gives me if I’m not going to understand a lick of what they’re saying.

“It's how we got into your room,” Elise explains.

“Even though it's pretty hard for boobies to fly!” Sian jokes.

“Yeah, well, I had my ass hanging out the window, so I don't want to hear it,” Jack snaps and his words bring a visceral image to mind. “I don’t even want to think about all the people that saw my hairy bum.”

“You guys—and gals—could have just waited and called me! I would have come right over. I don't know how you got here so quickly if you were all in Banbury,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

“Well, I flew,” Jude responds nonchalantly.

My mind boggles.

“Youflewhere?!”

Is this guy super rich or something?

Did he have a helicopter that could land on campus?

Why did he have to be rich and super good-looking?!

I toss my hands up in frustration.

“Don't you ever use your cat to get somewhere quicker?” Jude wonders, and I snort.

“Dude, the only place my pussy has helped me “get somewhere quicker” is in jobs. I have no problem climbing that corporate ladder one rung at a time, butI swearI'm not doing that here at Oxford!”

There’s another moment of awkward silence, and I mentally cringe at admitting to fucking for better paying jobs.

“Um, all right,” Arthur says after a beat. “Well, let's get back to why we’re here. If you say you have a strange vibe from this guy, then we should listen to it because your feline instincts are probably accurate.”

By “feline instincts”,does he mean mywomanly instincts?

“Erm, I guess I never thought about my, ah, feline instincts, but ok, sure. My feline instincts are telling me that the dean issupercreepy.”

“And to clarify,” Jack adds, “it's because Dean Hardwick doesn't want to sleep with you?”

“No! I mean, kind of. It’s like everyone isn’t interested in me sexually since I’ve joined S.A.” I pout. “I know that’s for the best, but the guy could have pretended to be a little interested in my pussy. Instead, he was all ‘creepo interested’.”