The heir to a large fortune, Beatrice Bulford didn’t
really need to push herself academically,
and though she’s always regarded herself as socially conscious,
still sups £50 bottles of champagne at Glyndebourne Opera,
an event I attended with my wife, who felt these occasions
would help me advance in the world of academia.

However, all I achieved was to annoy Doctor Bishoprigg,
vice principal of the esteemed institution at which I
taught fine art, by saying his wife,
a rising firmament in the operatic universe,
looked more like a teeny bopper than a member of D’oyley Carte.

Beatrice laughed when I told her this, and to emphasise
her dislike of all things snobbish, boasted about smoking
dope with anarchists on Brighton’s naturist beach,
only giving me a playful shove when I tried a kiss,
instead of the usual slap that I get from the
ex-comprehensive-school youths it is my misfortune to teach.

However, I hesitated to point out that while leading her
and fellow students around Brighton’s historic lanes,
that she only becomes philanthropic when she works in
her cat-loving Irish aunt Deidre's charity shop, Fur Dos For Felines.

My hasty remark seemed to occasion a fit of pique,
but she explained she’d lost her good-luck bracelet down the sink.

‘I bet you felt drained after that,’ I quipped,
feeling proud of my wit, but alas all I received
was a frosty, ‘Pardon?’

My hopes of love were further stymied when
I glimpsed her snogging Freddie Farjnon,
but after he’d led the Old Harrovians’ polo team on
a boozy tour to Venice, he was found bottom up,
between two pontoons, thus dashing his hopes of marrying
the heir to Bulford’s, Makers Of Baths, Boilers and Bassoons.

You may wonder how I know all this.
Well, being her tutor, I made it my business to find out,
and hoped, to use an old-fashioned term,
become her suitor, dreaming of romantic days
and passionate nights.

When Beatrice heard a leading feminist urge all women to
‘No longer let their bodies be an open invitation
to the lust of men,’ she confided to her friend Claribel
that her body was still refusing invites,
and was unwisely pointed in the direction of
the murky world of casual sex.

So one fateful evening, had a date with a chap called Peter Picklesome.
On reading his profile, she thought,
‘Well, that’s a made-up name if ever there was one.’

He started the evening by declaring,
‘I must say, Marianne,’ for that was her online name,
‘you look better than on that website,
what was it called?

'Oh yes, If You’re Horny, Here I Am.’

Feeling eager, he asked, ‘So what attracted you to me?’

‘Well,’ she answered with a courage she did not feel,
‘you were the only one who didn’t send a picture of
your you-know-what.

'So what attracted you to yours truly?’

‘Well, you have a lovely smile and you’re into dogging.’

‘Oh yes I do like dogs, I walk my dad’s hounds, Bertram and Dennis,
the latter so called because...

Peter thought he would impress her, ‘Ha, I get it, he’s a menace!’

But when Peter declared that he ‘just loved pussy’,
Beatrice passed him onto her cat-loving aunt,
whose husband had left her for a rich widow.

Now unknown to Miss Bulford, her aunt had enjoyed fame
in a less than genteel profession – as Ireland’s greatest woman
wrestler – with the eye-catching title Wicked Wendy From Wicklow.

But when she met Peter, she rediscovered
her long-lost power to throw, grapple and grip,
and he was left bruised and battered,
after he misread her tactile friendship.

As he lay recovering, she apologised, saying,
‘I’m sorry I threw you over.’

Peter laughed bitterly.

‘Hang on,’ Deidre said, ‘Let me say my piece.
You see, I’ve suddenly realised that I like women,
and I fancy a threesome, you, me and Beatrice.’

Peter informed the latter of this disastrous encounter,
saying ‘All I said was, I’d plumb your untouched fathoms of lust,
for that was the advice given on that hookup website.

'But after two falls and a shameful submission, I was out like a light.

'She then poured me a whisky and made a most embarrassing confession.'

‘Go on,’ urged his avid listener. ‘What had she done?

'Uncorked my father’s wallet in the wine cellar?
Slept with my dad’s gamekeeper in the woodshed?
Oh do tell.’

But Peter backed off. ‘Actually, I think it would be better left unsaid.’

Needless to say Beatrice used her charm to discover the truth,
and arrived at our tutorial in need of a shoulder to cry on,
so I took her to her favourite seaside pub, the Hidden Well.

She chided me about my girth, so I joined her on a run along the naturist beach, where she spotted some of her guitar-playing chums.

Beatrice stripped and joined in the song,
rattling her good-luck bracelet, with me looking on.

I blustered, ‘Suppose someone took a picture,
and put it on instatelegram?

'No, I couldn’t face it.’

‘Come on man!’ One hairy specimen shouted,
‘We’re all the same underneath,
then stared at Beatrice’s bust, doubtless entertaining
lustful thoughts,
so I pushed in beside her, minus string vest
and knee-length shorts.

We sang, ‘We're naturists and we don’t care,
our bodies are round, thin and square.

'So when the sun shines, show your boobs, bums and willies,
but not when it’s cold, for then you’ll get the chillies.’

Filled with a strange delight, I joined in with gusto,
marvelling at Beatrice’s voice.

As dusk fell I found myself strolling with her along the sand,
and she said, ‘I didn’t know you could sing.

‘Oh yes, I used to sing folk songs and play banjo.
I suppose you prefer this modern rubbish.’

‘Not me, I’m an opera aficionado.’

‘Indeed, I saw you at Glyndebourne talking to a lot of old bores.’

‘So what were you doing there, you looked so out of place?’

‘I was dragged by her indoors.’

Then I looked at her and made the confession which sealed my fate.

‘But I cheered up when I saw you, looking oh so chaste.’

She walked on with a shy grin.

So I bravely continued, saying, ‘
'But I’d love to start performing again,
and it would be great if you would sing with me.’

‘Only if I can wear my good-luck bracelet.’

‘Of course.’­

‘Wouldn’t your wife object?’

‘Definitely, and file for divorce.’

‘In that case, it’s a yes!’