Summer of Love (audio story)

 was the thirty-second Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the fourth story of the seventh season.

Publisher's summary
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was the hottest summer on record and the last summer before the war.

It was the one time Bernice Summerfield had a use for her otherwise useless boyfriend. But Jason Kane is away on the far side of the galaxy.

The Braxiatel Collection has always been an odd place to live. A perfect replica of the Palace of Versailles, stuck on a smallish planetoid, hanging in a much disputed sort of space. The weather's all over the place, the neighbours gathering armaments...

And now everyone's shagging like rabbits.

Everyone except for Bernice.

Plot
The weather systems on the Braxiatel Collection remain out of control and the climate is stiflingly hot. After Doggles climbs through her window and attempts to initiate sex, Benny speaks with Hass about him in his pocket universe and later speaks with a publicly naked Bev about the issue of time jumps and Adrian about how she feels that her life is not going as it should. She mentions Keith and Rebecca and rejects Adrian when he offers to have sex with her to conceive another child. On her way home, she finds students Minko and Xing Xang having sex outdoors and Doggles waiting for her with champagne and dinner.

Benny is visited in the shower by Joseph, who gives her a massage after offering one to Bev, and her students leave her class when she asks that any sexual relationships between them should happen outside of the classroom. Leaving early, she visits Adrian to take Peter to feed the fire penguins and finds that he and Doggles have been having sex, making her wonder if the time jumps have been affecting people's behaviour somehow. She consults Bev, telling her about Adrian and Doggles despite promising Adrian otherwise, but Bev is unconcerned as the phenomenon has meant that nobody has been deciding to abandon the Collection. The time jumps become more frequent and the virus spreads.

Jason, who has been helping the Mim off of the Collection, stops off at Benny's and she immediately attempts to instigate sex, but he is too tired to get an erection and they cuddle instead. In the morning, she goes with Hass to his pocket dimension again and leaves upon realising that she is technically inside of him and giving him sexual pleasure. She time jumps to Doggles and goes to Bev, learning that she planted Simpson's Thinweave on Hass's advice to keep the Collection from falling apart without Braxiatel and deducing that the pollen is what has been affecting everybody. Bev tasks her with working with Hass to resolve the issue, but he believes that only cold weather will stop the Thinweave and the weather systems remain out of control.

Adrian has sex with Xing Xang, leading Minko to try to strangle her until he is stopped and detained. Benny and Hass tell everybody the truth of what has been happening whilst Joseph decontaminates the other porters and Doggles builds a snow machine which will take eight hours to stop the pollen. Because of this delay, Benny decides to join the ongoing orgy and has sex with Doggles in the snow, resulting in her getting a cold. When Jason returns, he and Benny briefly discuss the possibility of having children until Bev interrupts with an assignment for them.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * Bev Tarrant - Louise Faulkner
 * Minko - Joseph Lidster
 * Adrian Wall - Harry Myers
 * Doggles - Sam Stevens
 * Joseph - Steven Wickham
 * Hass - Paul Wolfe

Worldbuilding

 * Peter is living with Adrian.
 * Jason is helping build a comms relay on the Mim's third moon.
 * Minko and Xing Xang have missionary sex.
 * Bev attends meetings with the Draconians, naked (and generally walks around naked).
 * Bev quotes section 492 of the Treaty of Heaven.
 * Benny and Bev share a kiss, which shocks the Draconians as it's an example of xenopornography.
 * Benny describes the Collection as a planetoid on the "edge of the universe."
 * Hass can see 13 dimensions. Benny can only experience 5 and not the other 8.
 * There are six races ready to go to war with the Braxiatel Collection.
 * The weather system has not worked for months.
 * Doggles has sex with Adrian and Benny (separately).
 * Bev says that she will have Dr Whitlam look into the phenomena.
 * Curator Fernley is from the Baragoot Half and swaps gender every two minutes.
 * Dennis serves drinks on the Collection.
 * When Benny wakes up, she shouts, "Watch out for the Gell guards!"
 * Umska is an Imalian. Imalians are self-replicating and asexual.

Continuity

 * Hass is no longer a Martian. (PROSE: Something Changed)
 * Benny mentions a time when she was chased on Jaiwan. (PROSE: Genius Loci)
 * Benny sings "Happy Place" in the shower. (AUDIO: The Worst Thing in the World)