Millie reached out to grab his hand, as she did it. And she nodded towards the cupboard, door still hanging open, the one that contained her latest obscure and fantastical creation. (Millie was, in some quarters, held largely responsible for about half of the technological advances you might find around your home, office and public venues. If she didn't actually invent it, then the odds are that something she defined or discovered aided significantly in its invention.)
And oh, how very pleased with herself she was, as she said, "That's your present, darling. Do you like it?"
Well, there were a few different possible answers to that question. Some of them were diplomatic, and some of them were truthful, and some of them were apprehensive. Some were just downright boggled.
Uh-oh, was the first thing that sprang to mind, based on his experience of a whole lot of Millie's gleefully-plotted presents to him. That wasn't one of the diplomatic ones, obviously. Oh, it's wonderful, would have been another option, but not one of the more honest ones. So he went with the most clearly evident thing about it, and something she was already damn well aware of, too.
"Come on, Millie, old girl, don't tease a lad. I can't tell if I like it or not, when I don't have the first clue about what it is. So give – what have you come up with this time, my favourite mad professor?" (Millie did in fact occupy some obscure Chair or other up at the University. He thought it was something specially invented for her, when she'd just won too many damn awards and discovered too many things for them to have any excuse for why she shouldn't and couldn't be a Professor. Apart from her having been ruffling feathers and putting people's backs up, ever since she went up to read Natural Sciences as a young bluestocking and beatnik. She'd spent her time hanging out in coffee bars and smoking French cigarettes - mostly - but also, being such an unarguably brilliant scholar, that they couldn't deny her a congratulatory First, or a doctoral place. (Even though her history of bedding her professors, writing outrageous papers tilting windmills against received knowledge and common sense, and inconveniently inventing things and making useful discoveries along the way, was enough to make her almost as many enemies as friends. Even an enmity largely based on irrational jealousies.)
YOU ARE READING
Erase You
RomanceMichael is a musician, Cambridge-educated but living in London. He's successful, attractive and has plenty to keep him busy and happy. So why can he still not get over his old college boyfriend, Ben? Fortunately his old Great-Aunt Millie, a notor...
