Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:44:37 -0000 From: Beverly Taff Subject: Two by Two Chapter 1 Two by Two. Chapter 1. Steve and Vicky each believed they had finally made it. They could now consider themselves successful. Not financially you understand, but academically. They had both newly been appointed to professorships at a prestigious university after both having succeeded in some vital research in their respective fields. Their respective individual researches were beginning to receive acclaim throughout the field of medicine. Steve had just been appointed as professor of human physiology whilst Vicky had been elected to the chair of vetinary surgery. They met at the university the very first time in their early thirties after long years of research at different universities all over the country. During those early years they had buried all other interests in pursuit of their respective disciplines. It was only after gaining their respective professorships in the same year that they had finally begun once more to explore other aspects of their lives. Both now felt they had at last arrived after long years buried in basement laboratories and operating theatres. . The two become acquainted with each other after the inaugural ceremonies as they were circulating at the garden party. Steve was turning to leave a group and accidentally knocked Vicky's plate out of her hand as she was walking by. It was not love at first sight. Steve lacked many social graces and after apologising cursorily, he stood awkwardly silent for long seconds instead of helping her to clear up the mess. Eventually, he recognised his blunder and quickly stooped to recover the paper plate. His next blunder was to gather some of the unbroken cakes and offer them to her as she tried to wipe the stain of her professorial gown. "I can get that cleaned." Offered Steve brusquely as he stood proffering the recovered plate. "It's no bother. It was an accident. There, it's almost gone. A bit of cold water later and it'll be OK." Steve still stood holding out the plate. "I won't be needing that now, will I? She scolded indignantly as she picked some tiny gravely bits out of the exuding cream of a crumpled pastry puff. "Here, you'd better give it to those squirrels." Steve shook his head stupidly. 'Of course, it was stupid to offer the spoiled food. No woman in her right mind would have eaten stuff off the floor.' That single action was an indicator of how far Steve had sunk in the slobbery scale. Buried deep in his researches, he had been living such a slobbish bachelor existence he had virtually lost all contact with women. Indeed, he had almost lost all contact with his fellow man as he laboured away with his research. Since leaving high school, his whole adult life had been bound by the simple criterion of science and logic. It had served him well academically, but as an all-round balanced member of the human race, Steve was a total failure. He had turned into a virtual recluse. Had it not been for his research and discoveries, the medical school would have chosen somebody else. He was an extremely useful reference agency for any of the medical faculty who had any physiological problems with any of their cases. Steve was a fantastic problem solver and solution finder. Steven however, considered people nothing more than a distraction. Once given a problem, he would disappear into his office, (Which was virtually a second laboratory,) and nag away at the problem until he cracked it. He was truly an asset to the university. Steve was neither a misanthropist nor indeed a misogynist; indeed, as a young student, he had entered medicine with the most philanthropic ideals. He did however consider his disassociation with people to be justified. As a nerdy high school student his bookish tendencies had set him apart and the other students. Most had tended to avoid him, tease him or bully him. Consequently, Steven was never comfortable around other people. He didn't hate them however he was simply indifferent to them. It was just, well, people were a distraction and girls particularly so. At college he found it better to work with the science of medicine and its structured order. The art of medicine did not really concern him. Bedside manners were no longer an issue once he entered research for he rarely had to bother with patients any more, except to occasionally take tissue samples. Then he studied the samples and tested them as he examined his ideas and solved others problems. He had little time for socialising except to discuss ideas and any new developments. Socialising was a luxury he did not let himself indulge. He found the effort to indulge in small talk and polite conversation to be tedious. He thought many academics to be too thin- skinned and jealous of their achievements and reputations. The easy way that some academics got offended and carried grudges was too much to countenance. Their fragile egos left him disappointed and weary, especially when they took offence at some real or imagined slight that they felt Steve might have committed. The whole social equation made Steve weary. Men he found bad enough, but he thought women seemed to take it that fragility little bit further. Oddly, for him that is, he found most women to be less vain academically. There were a few exceptions however and Steve felt that, if they suffered from any greater vanity, they often took their academic vanity into their personal lives. If they deemed themselves ugly, they would be jealous of any good lookers and if they were lookers, they tended to spend too much time on their appearances. Steve had often fallen foul of this particularly female type of vanity and it had left him puzzled. His solution was simply to bypass that particular woman in future. On the other hand male vanity was just too boring to countenance. Steve would cut a conversation dead if he suddenly encountered some inflated ego. However, it was that peculiar brand of female vanity that left Steve really baffled. It had that extra dimension that took any relationship into a different realm; a realm he preferred to avoid, a realm of sex and emotion. He'd had some bad experiences at high school and now he stuck to a rigid philosophy; once bitten twice shy. What had begun, as a simple teen-aged defence mechanism had, by his early thirties, become an ingrained unconscious habit. All importantly, appearances or looks counted for nothing with Steve. He only related to what the person said and failed utterly to read a person's body language or demeanour. As a social animal, Steve was a total no- no. The only time a compliment passed his lips was to praise a good idea. Clothes and appearance counted for nothing and this of course invariably put him continually in the female sex's bad books. Consequently he had no time for female vanity. 'Fine feathers,' he would often muse. 'Or was there something more. Something he just couldn't grasp. Was woman's extra vanity just a ploy?' He often wondered. To avoid these complications and keep his life simple, he avoided people generally and women in particular. Steve simply stared through women as though they were pieces of glass, unless of course, they had something intelligent or astute to say. 'Hell hath no fury,' he usually surmised defensively as he almost invariably stared straight through the woman in front of him. Vicky, the offended woman who now stood in front of Steve, was getting exactly this treatment after the plate incident. Other men who thought they new about these things considered Vicky a real beauty. Her stunning good looks and spectacular figure had already turned heads and broken hearts throughout every vetinary faculty she had ever worked in. Vicky had expected the same tiresome response from the clumsy lummox who had scattered her plate but she was surprised. After always having to gently scrape men off her arm, (and her body), then drag their gaze back from her cleavage to her face, then finally let their egos down gently, Vicky was mildly relieved to find an individual that simply did not appear to react to her stunning beauty. Vicky knew the normal male reaction when she saw it, it showed in men's eyes and even the most suave and sophisticated could not hide the glint of anticipation in their eyes nor the inevitable drop of their sightline to her cleavage. This big stupid lummox however was totally impervious to her charms. Women appeared almost alien to Steve. He had only moved to the university a few weeks earlier and this was the first time he had met any socially. The garden party after his and Vicky's installation was the first time he had met the whole academic caucus. Nearly every woman on the academic staff had been put off by his untidy, unkempt appearance. But even if he noticed, (which was not often,) it bothered him little. It served to keep that essential distance between him and his fellows and permitted him to pursue his researches unimpeded by emotional entanglements. Even his new professorial apartment already reflected Steve's unkempt habits. He had only occupied it for those same couple of weeks but already it was a virtual pigsty. He had already instructed the cleaner to stay away from the kitchen for that had already become an extension of his lab. The accident in the garden party exactly reflected all this about Steve. He was holding the paper plate and appearing to stare through the woman in front of him as he scanned for a waste bin. There was none nearby so without a word he decided to follow the woman's suggestion. Without a word he turned abruptly towards the bushes where the two squirrels were rooting through the fallen leaves. As several members of the staff turned to watch, he threw the two cakes towards a pair of squirrels. The pair flicked their tails eagerly and needed no second invitation. They shot forward and immediately seized the trophies. ` Steve watched and smiled as the pair chattered and squabbled over the titbits. Then, after studying their antics for a few moments, he concluded they were a courting pair and deemed it to be of no further interest. Already the incident with the plate and the woman was long forgotten so he did not return to offer any further any apology. Without further ado, he strolled off paper plate still in his hand, to address an idea that had been exercising his mind since talking to the group. Vicky watched him stroll unconcernedly away then she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as she joined the group. "You must forgive Steve," offered one of the other professors. "He's an oddball, but a brilliant mind." Vicky nodded sagely as she kept her own ideas to herself. 'Brilliant he may be but a total idiot socially,' she thought. 'For all that supposed intelligence, he seemed to be utterly dysfunctional. Bereft of social skills and more than a bit scruffy. Still, not bad looking,' she thought, 'under that wild thatch of hair and ridiculous worn out tweed jacket.' She watched him strolling away and studied him further. 'Even the professorial gown seemed to somehow look out of place on him. It only added to the strangeness of his appearance instead of bestowing authority and respect.' Vicky returned to the table and loaded another plate before resuming her socialising. The strange doctor however, would not leave her mind.