Hollyox
When Quent's phone had rung two days ago, it seemed like a blissful escape from the joys of Christian Moral Reasoning.
When Theodore Smarmington's voice of an alcoholic angel drowning on its own vomit had blasted out the earpiece, Quent had thought it as better than Thomas Aquinas' thoughts blurring into the paper.
When Smarmy had invited Quent for some free alcohol with some great friends of his, he had envisaged a chance to get hideously drunken amidst a gaggle of stunning debutantes that made up Theodore's social connections.
"Oh, Hunters, wear a bloody suit will you!" Smarmy had slurred at 3:47pm.
Standing, as he now was, trapped by the maroon walls of the Union's Gladstone Room for Oxford University Tory Association, (OUTA) Port and Policy, Quent could only long to be faced by Natural Law and Microsoft Word. This was a foreign galaxy far away from Quent's apathetic existence. Alone he stands encapsulated by those united in opinions.
On walking into the room, Smarmy had emitted a monosyllabic sound, which sounded along the lines of "Shhhaaahhh!" and promptly left Quent's side, striding across the room to a bespectacled, aristocratic Bond villain-esque figure.
"Giles, met an old school friend of mine, Quent Huntington-Smythe. Plays a bit of cricket you know!" Quent mustered only his name from the spoken version of the primitive sludge out of which life would eventually evolve. "Hunters, meet Giles."
Thankfully, an over-exaggerated splutter from a short man with a Presidential air seemed to push everyone to move towards a seat, rendering useless the need for niceties. Smarmy grasped Quent's arm, dragging him involuntarily to the back row.
"Quent, meet the Dark Side."
Managing an uncomfortable smile at the specimens before him, Quent simply nodded. To his right sat two apparent bastions of OUTA's evil empire - one dribbling, plump, wispy haired with a slight lisp and one draped in swirls of black curls. Smarmy sat chuckling as the first recounted tales of almost emerging victorious in the race for Professor of Prose.
Then it began - the policy. Quent had most definitely not signed up for this. A drawn out discussion, entirely between two wholesome ex-public school boys, both seeming to have hit middle age at the early age of 19, over the ethics of Asylum Seekers' in freezer trucks.
Suddenly, from nowhere, the Dark Side duo bolted out of their seats, bellowing an unintelligible war-cry.
Volume escalated, spiralling upwards towards super-posh sonic boom levels, good against evil, light against dark, a youngish, chubby Orielite caught flitting between the two. And then, as if a natural conclusion of proceedings a tuneless, hooliganistic melody began.
Quent found himself only able to distinguish the words "The Labour party's full of" and "only want to ban our hunts".
Catching a glimpse of the President standing on a table, decanter in hand, Quent could only guess at what would happen next. The smashing glass brought with it a silence broken only by the drunken blur of the eldest of the Dark Side and beginner of this vile fray.
"If," announced the President, with the serenity of one who could only be aiming to discuss serious policy, "you dare disrupt this society once again, some candide camera footage of your disappearing port bottle magic trick could well be made public."
As he polished off his port, Quent's confusion seemed to equal everyone else's shock as the meeting was deemed to have run its course. On the way out, disgraced ex-member with the lisp stopped Quent (the potently alcoholic stench of his breath invading Quent's nostrils) to give him a small card and a knowing blink.
It read simply: "The Culling Club. Thursday second Week. The Trout Pub."
"More free drinks, fantastic!" thought Quent blasé about the whole thing.
If you are sad enough to blackmail someone over they're sexual antics, please call our free termination service.
20th Jan 2005