72 comments/ 40975 views/ 6 favorites Castles in Spain By: MattblackUK Myra Broxon was short, pretty, vivacious and fun. She was in her early 30s and was a senior charge nurse at a large NHS hospital that was just off the M25 London Orbital Motorway. And she had got herself into a bit of a pickle, to be honest. She had been married to her husband Stan for ten years. She loved Stan to bits, but the problem with hospitals anywhere in the world was that all of the stories that you hear or read about the staff all being a bunch of sex-starved, lust-crazed sluts? Unfortunately, not all of them are untrue. For some reason (I am sure there's a PhD paper on this subject just itching to be written) infidelity is often rife within hospitals and other allied healthcare facilities. Myra had always held herself somewhat aloof from her colleagues who she knew were cheating on their clueless spouses. There was Jenny, the nurse in the Fracture Clinic and her "Christmas Kisses" for the handsome surgeons. Everyone knew that Jenny's 'kisses' were far more BJ than CK, but so long as her fireman boyfriend never found out, well, no harm, no foul, right? And there was Bill the orthopaedic surgeon who thought he was god's gift to women. And according to several of the female staff (married or single!) who had tasted of his wares, he was genuinely something of a gift to women! Myra's aloofness to the cheaters suddenly changed when a new surgeon came to work at the Ploughlake General Hospital. Dr Raff Bonchance. A name that came from a romance novel and he had a body to match. With considerable shock she realised that she had fallen in lust with Dr Raff and his Spanish-Irish good looks. Myra knew the difference between love and lust. She loved her husband, Stan, but she had a strong lust for Dr Cock as he was also known, so popular was he amongst the nursing demi-monde of Ploughlake General Hospital. Her Stan was, well, he just was! He was her Stan, loveable, loving, dependable. Handsome? Well... up to a point! But maybe just a little, tiny bit boring, too? When she thought this, she felt her face flush. She felt guilty because she knew it was unfair to compare Stan with Dr Cock. After all, it was not as if she was ever going to do anything about her lust for Dr Cock. Was it? As often happens, something bad can come out of something good. There had been a major incident on the M25. Three coaches carrying school children had been going clockwise on the Motorway when an HGV on the other carriageway had suffered from a catastrophic malfunction. One of the wheels has sheered off, bounced over the crash barrier and had struck the three coaches like a giant bowling ball, causing them to smash into each other and into the other motorway traffic that mild March morning. As the nearest hospital Ploughlake General put into action its Major Incident Plan and mobilised as many members of staff as it could using an automated SMS system and an old fashioned telephone tree. The MIP worked as smooth as silk. That was the good thing from which sprang the bad. Myra and Dr Cock worked together as part of the Post Triage Team, helping to treat the dozens of crying and badly injured children from the three coaches, the drivers and the teachers. All of the staff were running on a heady combination of coffee, Red Bull and adrenalin. Nearly eight hours straight under those conditions can leave you feeling a little vulnerable. Well, very vulnerable to be honest. You realise that the older man who lost both his legs had, even though he had known that his legs had gone, still maintained the professional dedication to steer the remains of his shattered coach to the hard shoulder of the motorway, thus saving the lives of his passengers. That the small child you had tried so hard, so desperately to treat had gone. They'd miss out on the opportunity for a life, to have children of their own, to love as the adults who had tried, but failed, to treat them, loved. Feeling keyed up, jazzed and blasted with grief and a dangerous combination of natural hormones and caffeine, the clumsy grope and kiss in a large supply cupboard between Myra and Dr Cock soon degenerated into some serious fucking. As they lay together, sweating, they realised they had overstepped several very important boundaries. Straight away the rationalisation hamster began running, running, running in the hamster wheel in Myra's mind. (They had sex because of the terrible situation they had just gone through together, it would not matter, as she would never do it again, so long as Stan never found out, what would be the problem, and so on. And, truth to tell, the equally married Dr Cock was going through similar mental gymnastics, himself in order to justify his actions in cheating on his wife and, by arguable extension, his three children.) In fact, several months later, and well into the affair between Myra and Dr Cock, which had now progressed -or degenerated, take your pick- into regular fuck sessions wherever and whenever they could manage to find a spare room at the hospital, and a couple of afternoons spent in motel rooms, Myra suddenly found herself shocked that she, aloof Myra, had been in a hot and torrid affair with a colleague and had (so far, so good!) gotten away with it. In an otherwise empty breakroom on the third floor, Myra spoke with Dr Cock about her dilemma. "Raff, I am in a bit of a bind. I have strong, lusting feelings for you, but I fear that I will somehow never get to know the real you. Of course, I love my husband, Stan, but I lust for you, Raff." Raff preened himself. What he -and his bevy of lusty nurses- did not know was that whilst some of his lovers call him Dr Cock out of reverential reference to his penis, most of the other doctors preferred to preface his nickname with Utter, such was the contempt that they held him in. "Well, Myra," he pontificated, "one of the best ways to get to know each other is to go on holiday with each other. I can book a ten day holiday to Spain for us. I'll tell my wife it is for a conference. What do you say? And isn't it time we took our affair to the next level? For you to tell your Stan exactly what is happening? After all, honesty in a relationship is important, I find." At first she said no, because she was immediately concerned about what her Stan would have to say about that. But Dr Cock was nothing if not persuasive, so the day before they were due to depart on their holiday, Myra, freshly showered and douched from her lover, was addressing her husband and, as they say, laying it all on him. Stan sat, shattered, as he had what seemed like pint after pint of warm, liquid bullshit poured into his ears. She still loved him, he was the only man for her, what she felt for Raff was just lust and nothing more. It was just sex with Raff. And, the next morning, Raff was going to take her on a ten day holiday to Spain. Stan shook his head: "Well, what about the holiday that we were planning to take later in the year? If you have your ten day summer break now, how can we have a holiday, later?" Myra frowned. She hadn't thought of that. "Oh! I am sorry, Stan. I guess that little fact must have slipped my mind! Look, you can go on holiday by yourself if you want?" "Oh, wonderful!" said Stan, bitterly. "My wife gets to fuck her lover whilst she is on holiday with him... and what do I get? A holiday some time later in the year when I can have the exclusive joy of my own company and a bed with no one to share it with! Thanks, 'wife' I'm not really sure I'll bother having a holiday, at all. To be honest, I think that I'd rather forget about a holiday this year and just work through until the end of the fucking year!" "I'm sorry Stan. I guess I hadn't considered that." She sounded genuinely contrite. "Anyway, this affair with that bloody doctor, how long has it been going on for?" Myra's face flushed. When she had spoken with Raff about revealing the nature of her affair with him to her husband, her poor clueless Stan, it had all seemed to reasonable. She'd tell Stan she was going away with her lover and Stan would... what, exactly, had she expected him to do? How had she thought he would react? She suddenly felt an upsurge of love and of empathy for him. "It's been going on for about three months. I'm only telling you because I don't want to lie to you any more." "Any how do you think I should react to this insult to me?" said Stan. "I never intended it to be an insult! Nothing could be further from the truth!" "That's so much bullshit! And I suppose I should have known you were having an affair, seeing as you have virtually cut me off from sex for the duration of your bloody affair!" She looked at Stan, nonplussed by what he had said. "But... I haven't cut you off from sex! We often have sex!" He gave her an odd look before speaking. "Really, 'wife'? Tell me... when was the last time we had sex?" She paused for a second before responding. "We regularly have sex. Don't we?" Suddenly, she was unsure. "No, we bloody-well don't!" He snapped. "The last several times you were so bored and distracted I was surprised I could maintain my erection! And the very last time at the weekend? I am sorry, Myra, but to my way of thinking, a half-hearted and distracted attempt to pacify me with a rather weak wank job does not count as sexual intercourse between a man and his wife!" "Oh, my God, Stan! I am so sorry! I guess what with work and the... and other things... I suppose I must have gotten a little distracted, forgot the really important stuff in my life. "When I get back from Spain, we will need to talk, I mean really talk. It's possible that my fling with Dr C.... ummm, Raff will be over by then. I'll make it up to you. I swear it." Stan looked at her. He asked her the one question that she might have hoped that he would not ask. But he asked it. It was only one word, but it helped to shatter the faintly ridiculous construct that she had erected to shield Myra, faithful married woman from Nurse Myra, the sex-starved slut. "How?" "How? How what?" she replied, swallowing painfully. "How will you make it up to me? Will you allow me to have a little fling, too? Will I get to have some mindless recreational fucking to try to help me get over the fact that my wife of ten years is cheating on me? Or will you decide to involve me with your lover in some sordid and dirty three-way sex sessions?" When he face flushed, Stan realised with disgust that something of the kind must have been discussed by the two lovers. She looked at the expression on her husband's face and realised that selling him on the idea of actively participating in sharing her with Raff would be a hard sell, if she could ever do it, which seemed increasingly unlikely. That evening when she asked Stan what he wanted to eat for his evening meal he made her cry. "I don't want anything to eat. Certainly not a meal prepared by you. I can still taste the shit sandwich you made me eat earlier in the day. Besides which, I am not certain I can trust you to cook food for me. I couldn't be certain you wouldn't try to put something in my meal to make me more compliant to your fucking around on me." She shouted at him: "That's unfair! You know I'd never do anything like that to you! How can you think that of me?" "Well," said Stan, "I never thought you'd ever take a lover and cheat on me, but one lives and learns, doesn't one?" She ran upstairs and lay sobbing on their bed. This made Stan feel ambivalent. He felt good that he'd upset her, but felt some guilt that he felt good about it. Complicated? Don't even go there! He spent a mainly sleepless night, tossing and turning on the bed in the spare room. The next morning she had her suitcases ready. Stan surprised her by offering to drive her to Luton Airport for her 8.40am flight. She babbled on, oblivious to the lump of hurt that she had inflicted on him. "Stan, I am really sorry that you have been so upset by this affair of mine. I honestly didn't think you'd mind all that much. My times with Raff have made me feel so happy and fulfilled, and I know that my happiness is very important to you, so I thought that you'd not mind my encounters with Raff. "Look, I know you must be hurting, and though the idea breaks my heart, I'd allow you to have a little fling if it would make you feel better." This morning Stan was feeling morose. "Oh, what's the point with that particular stupid fantasy, Myra? I mean, who the Hell would want me? I have no illusions about myself, I can't be that much of a catch if my own wife can't stand me, can I? If you had to take on a lover because I can't get the job done, why would any other woman want me? How could they be satisfied with me?" Myra suddenly got it. She realised that she had hurt her husband more than she could ever have thought possible. She patted his hand as he drove. "It's not that, Stan, please don't do yourself down. This isn't about any failing in you. It's all down to me. I am really so very sorry, you know." He shook his head: "I can't even get an STD test done, though I feel I need one. But as the GUM clinic is based at your hospital, how could I deal with the shame and the humiliation of seeing your colleagues, of knowing that they would know what was going on?" "Oh,you needn't worry about STDs," she replied. "Raff has himself checked out and he is safe, so you don't need to worry on that score. I wouldn't do anything to harm you, physically." No, just emotionally, he thought, to himself. He escorted her to check in and kissed her on her cheek and left her there. He noticed her lover skulking about, waiting from him to leave. He felt angry and humiliated as he left the airport. He had big plans for Myra and her boyfriend. He was going to go to B&Q and get new locks for the front and back doors and for the garage. He would change the code on the alarm system. He'd book a storage container at a self storage depot that was not far from their home so that he could put her belongings in storage. He would drive home, try to force himself to eat something (he still didn't feel hungry) and then go to B&Q. After phoning in sick to work. He phoned in work and left a message on the answer machine as it was still fairly early. After forcing down a breakfast bar with a glass of water, he went out again to visit the local B&Q and got what he wanted. He never made it back home. The driver of a car coming the opposite carriageway had a massive heart attack at the wheel. He was dead even before his car smashed into the front of Stan's Rover. Everything happened in slow motion. Stan felt the give as the part of the car to which his seatbelt was attached disintegrated, as the airbag began to inflate he found himself being propelled through the windscreen, passing over the airbag, out and beyond the once safe cocoon of his car. Then he felt a brief burst of pain and then nothingness became his friend and his sole companion as he smashed into the tarmac. Ten days later, Myra felt angry and concerned that Stan had not replied to her emails. She had hoped that he would be waiting for her at the airport to meet her from the flight from Malaga. Now she cursed the fact that she had decided to leave her mobile phone at home! "Maybe he is having a little snit?" said Raff, with more than the hint of a sneer in his tone. "Maybe I broke his heart?" asked Myra, feeling guilty. "He'll get over it," said Raff, confidently. "Don't worry. I'll drive you home. However, I won't come in, as I think rubbing his nose in it might not be the wisest of things." Besides, he had to get back to his wife, who was convinced he had gone to Spain for a medical conference. When she took her suitcase in to the house, it was obvious that Stan wasn't there. Then she realised that she hadn't seen the car parked on the drive. She was suddenly filled with a sense of dread, of foreboding. What if he had decided to end his life? What if he'd had an accident? It was then that she noticed the light blinking on the answerphone. She pressed play and listened to the message: "This is the Admissions Sister at the ITU at Ploughlake General Hospital. I am phoning with a message for Mrs Myra Broxon. It is concerning your husband, Stanley Broxon, who has just been brought in to ITU following a car crash. It is now Monday 1st of July, the time is 9am. Please reply to this call or come to the ITU." That was the morning she went away! When she turned her mobile phone on there was a similar message. Christ! What had she done? She rushed to the ITU at her own hospital and was ushered in to the room where Stan was being treated. It was all tubes and wires, respirator and bleeping monitors. So different when it was a loved one being treated. He looked so vulnerable, so sick, just lying there. And she realised that she was to blame for this. Her colleague, Wanda Voss was on duty. She looked at her, hard. She knew Stan, liked him, and she also knew that Myra had been cheating on him with Dr Cock. "Don't worry. He didn't try to cark himself over you and Dr Cock. Some old geezer with a dodgy ticker took his car out. He's in a shitty way, Myra. An induced coma to minimise the problems caused by his brain swelling. They had to operate too, took a chunk of his skull away due to pressure on the brain. Might recover, might not. Too early to say. "Does he know about you and Dr Cock?" "Please!" said Myra, desperately. "I don't want to talk about... that... in front of Stan. I don't want to upset him! But yes, he does." Wanda gave a hollow laugh. "You don't want to upset him? It's a bit late for that, Myra! Here's a heads up for you. One of the ambulance drivers said that there was a bag from B&Q on the passenger seat. "There were some nice new locks in it. Looks like he'd got himself a little DIY project whilst you were playing away with your lover. You fucking idiot!" She stalked out of the room, closing the door behind her. She had had enough of Dr Utter Cock, and was going to report him. This would be the last marriage that arrogant twat shattered, if she had anything to do with it! Myra went and sat at the chair by the bed. She had not just hurt Stan's feelings. She had betrayed him. And, she now realised, she had betrayed herself, too. She took Stan's right hand and squeezed it. "I'm here for you, Stan. I am sorry I was away from you for a while, but I am back now." The room was filled with the sound of the respirator, the bleeps of the monitors and of the sobs of a woman, faced with the brutal consequences of her thoughtless actions. Castles in Spain Pt. 02 Chapter 1 Life for Myra had settled into a routine. She worked her shift at the hospital from 8am until 4pm, then she sat with Stan for a couple of hours before she went home, showered, ate, did her housework before she retired for the night at 11pm or so. Sometimes she read, sometimes she didn't. Her relationship with Doctor Raff Bonchance had, unsurprisingly, ceased as suddenly as it had started. They had spoken and Raff had told her how sorry he was that her husband had been injured and he wished him a good recovery. They had agreed to cool their relationship at least until Stan had made a full return to health. As Raff had given her a chaste kiss on her cheek before he walked away from her, Myra recalled what her friend Wanda had said to her on that dreadful morning when she had found out that her Stand had been injured so badly: "He's in a shitty way, Myra. An induced coma to minimise the problems caused by his brain swelling. They had to operate too, took a chunk of his skull away due to pressure on the brain. Might recover, might not. Too early to say." So there was even a chance that Stan might die or might need special nursing throughout the rest of his life. Tears jetted from Myra's eyes. Raff stiffened as he heard the sound of her sobs. But he didn't return to her. He couldn't. He just couldn't. He continued to walk away, stiffly, unshed tears clouding his own vision. Chapter 2 There he was again, damn it! She had seen Dr Cock skulking round the ITU. Now what in the hell did he need in the ITU? Oh, no! Surely not! Did he intend to finish off Stan, his love rival for Myra? Wanda shivered at the thought. But it would explain why he kept sneaking to the ITU in such a furtive and secretive way. She realised that she could put it off no longer. She would now have to report Dr Cock. She asked her friend Sally, the secretary to Doctor Carter, the head of medical services at Ploughlake General Hospital, to arrange an emergency appointment for her with Doctor Carter. Luckily, he was free that afternoon. Just after lunch (industrial catering at its finest) she knocked on Doctor Carter's door and stepped in to his office. "This should be interesting," she thought, as she shut the door behind her. "Hello, Wanda!" said Doctor Carter, cheerily. He like Wanda Voss. He liked her no-nonsense attitude and he thought her pretty and vivacious. But just not enough to risk his marriage! "Please, take a seat." He looked at the expression on her face. He realised, intuitively, that he wasn't going to like whatever she had to tell him. But he knew it was something he needed to hear. "What's wrong, Wanda?" She shook herself, slightly, before replying. "It's about Doctor Bonchance." "What about Doctor Bonchance?" said Doctor Carter, evenly. He thought he knew. God, that man was nothing but a liability! "Has he been intimate with a student nurse?" Wanda shook her head. "No. Worse. He's having an affair with Myra Broxon." Doctor Carter was shocked. Really, deeply shocked. He liked and admired Myra and liked her husband Stan. So this news was a double blow to him. "Oh, no! Not Doctor Utter-Cock and Myra? That's shocked me. I thought Myra was far too sensible and decent a person to do that across Stan." Wanda shrugged her shoulders. "Yes, well, so did I. But you never can tell. But that's not the only problem. Of late, Doctor Utter-Cock has been hanging around the ITU. And I was wondering why he'd do that?" "Oh, fuck!" muttered Doctor Carter. "You don't think he'd harm Stan, do you?" "I honestly don't know," replied Wanda, shaking her head slightly. "But if he'd screw his wife and take her on a bloody holiday to Spain, God knows what else he'd do." "Thank you for telling me, Wanda. We can't have that idiot wandering round ITU when the comatose husband of his latest lover is in there, potentially at his mercy. Don't worry, Wanda! I'll make sure this is dealt with!" Wanda bid her farewell, happy in the knowledge that Doctor Carter would sort out the problem. Meanwhile Doctor Carter was not feeling exactly sanguine about the situation, but he knew he'd have to take action and that it would have to be quick and decisive. He picked up the phone on his desk and dialled the number of his secretary. "Sally, please arrange a meeting with myself and Doctor Bonchance? As soon as possible, this afternoon. Thank you." Even the very act of arranging the meeting made Doctor Carter feel better, as if he'd done something positive and important. He had. But not even he realised the significance of what he'd done. Chapter 3 Stan Broxon had started to exist again. Following the cessation of the drugs designed to induce a medical coma, he awoke as if he was waking up just like every other morning. Until he realised that this was not like any other morning. For today, he thought to himself, was the first day of the rest of his non-life. His life sans Myra, he mused. Stan was awake and his surgeon was explaining things to him. "Stan, we operated on you, we had to cut a small segment of your skull away to relieve the pressure on your brain. We have replaced that with a small segment of titanium. "We'll give you a series of tests which will help us to determine what, if any, damage has been caused and where it has occurred. Do you have any questions for me?" "Yes, Doctor Davis. Is that nice Harold Wilson still prime minister?" The expression on the Doctors' face was a classic. He did a double take, before gasping out: "Harold Wilson? But..." then he saw the expression on Stan's face and he creased up, laughing. "Stan! You old bugger! You really had me going for a couple of seconds!" "Yeah, that's me," said Stan "I'm a regular comedian. Look, Doctor Davis, can you tell me how things will be for me?" "Stan, I am not able to say with any degree of certainty, as yet. We'll need to run a series of tests on you. Obviously from just chatting to you, it seems your mental acuity and your speech haven't been impacted to any significant degree. And your sense of humour's still there. "But as I said, we will need to run a series of tests to find out what you can and can't do. There's a slight chance that nothing has been changed, that you should be able to function pretty much as before, but given the severity of your injuries I have to say that such an outcome would be pretty much miraculous." Stan suddenly remembered something. "The other man in the accident, what about him?" "He was dead of a massive heart attack even before his car ran into yours. "Turns out the poor chap shouldn't even have been at the wheel of his car, but from what we heard from the police, his line manager had made him drive a company car to run some damn fool errand, even though he knew his licence had been suspended due to his heart condition. He was booked in to Ploughlake General for a heart bypass operation the next week, as it happens." "Shit!" said Stan. "I imagine his widow will have a major case against his employer?" "You'd expect so. Cajoling him to drive a company vehicle whilst he was medically unfit to do so and when he didn't have a licence was the behaviour of a real fuckwit. I dare say your solicitor might like to take action against his employer, too?" Stan shrugged. "Maybe so." Doctor Davis looked at Stan for several seconds before speaking again. "Stan, I hear a little rumour that you can Myra have had a falling out?" Stan said nothing. "Just give her a chance to work things out, OK? Anyhow, I have ward rounds so I'll get out of your way and leave you to it. My assistant will be in later to get the assessment process started." Chapter 4 Dr Rafael Bonchance was in his early 30s, handsome, arrogant and somewhat haughty. As he walked into Doctor Carter's office, Doctor Carter found himself feeling furious with Doctor Bonchance, though ever the professional he hid his feelings well. "Sit down, Raff." He did so. He gave Doctor Carter a look that, if it was not actually a full on sneer, it was certainly a close cousin on its mother's side. "Raff, why are you hanging round ITU? Is it so you can get a chance to finish off your rival for his wife's lover, Stan Broxon?" Doctor Carter was shocked to the core by Raff's reaction. Almost instantly the arrogant, condescending sneer vanished as Raff crumbed before his eyes. Raff's head dropped down into his hands and he began sobbing, harshly and bitterly. "Shit!" thought Doctor Carter. "Now what the fuck is happening?" In faltering tones in between sobs, Raff denied that he had plans to kill Stan. "I know it doesn't sound likely, but I want to see Stan, make sure he is alright, that he will recover. If I could help, I would, but I'm only a general surgeon, not a brain specialist. "I also want to apologise to him. I never wanted him to be hurt, I didn't want to break up his marriage." Bonchance began sobbing again and said: "I'll leave the hospital, of course. Just give me a good reference and I'll be gone as soon as I can arrange it." Doctor Carter suddenly saw everything with crystal clarity. "This isn't the first time you have had a workplace affair, is it?" Bonchance nodded, now sniffling. Doctor Carter went on: "And each time they've swept it under the carpet, given you a good reference just to get rid of you? I wondered why such a brilliant surgeon as you was only in a relatively junior role. Well, this shit stops here! I am not going to get rid of you. I am going to help you get sorted out." He picked the phone up and dialled an extension from memory. "Hi. Bruce? It's me, Paul. Look, I'm in a bit of a bind. I know it's late but I need you to see a member of staff for me this afternoon, if you can. It is quite urgent. I'll bring him to your office myself. Straight away? Oh. That's splendid." Two hours later Doctor Bruce Porter knocked on the door of Doctor Carter's office and walked in. He looked tired. "Bloody Hell, Paul!" Said Doctor Carter. "You look frazzled! How did the session go?" Doctor Porter shook his head and sat down. "You'll not believe it. Raff Bonchance is mentally ill, but the good news is, I am pretty sure that I can help him." Doctor Carter took a bottle of single malt Scotch from a drawer in his desk, pulled out a couple of whisky tumblers and filled them, placing the filled glasses on the desk. "How did it go?" he asked. "Very well indeed. In my experience the first session is exploratory and doesn't often cover any details. But in Raff's case, he was ready to go. He really spilt his guts. Luckily I was recording our session, because I couldn't have taken notes from the session. Too much, too fast! It burst out like a ripe staph cyst. " He took a good slug of the Scotch, groaned and said: "Thanks. God I needed that!" "Basically, he has to have affairs. Preferably with married women. But not for the usual reasons of such a mental disorder. "This all dates back to his childhood, or rather his mid to late teens, in his native Ireland. His mother is a barrister and his father was in the Irish government's Corps Diplomatique. "His father died when Raff was ten years old and his mother never remarried, though she had some discrete liaisons. "With her husband's life insurance payout and his pension (he died whilst he was working) and her income (she is qualified to practice law in both Ireland and in Britain) they lived a very comfortable life. "The problems began when Raff was about 17 years of age. His mother often had friends round, they'd drink wine and spirits and eventually during one of these drinking parties a married friend drunkenly admitted to Raff's mother that she fancied Raff and had a crush on him. "Rather than punching her friend's nose, she decided to encourage her to seduce her son. And that's what happened. "Apparently, despite having been a virgin up until then, so being utterly inexperienced in the ways of sex, he must have had some pretty awesome natural talent as a lover because the friend mentioned it to the other women in the group and so from assignations with one married woman, he began to service the needs of a whole group of married women." Doctor Carter interjected: "Did his mother know? Was she aware of what was happening?" Doctor Porter took another drink before he continued: "Yes, oh, yes, most definitely! In fact, she became his manager, looking after his appointment book. She was passing him round to her friends as if he was a damned party favour. And whilst no money ever changed hands, it was, so Raff noticed, obvious that networking was done based on his efforts." "Oh." Said Doctor Carter. "That's... just so bloody wrong!" Doctor Porter added: "And there's worse. It became clear to Raff that whilst blackmail was never mentioned openly, it was obvious that the married women concerned were beholden to his mother. After all, what would happen should their husband become aware of their acts of infidelity?" "Like that, huh? His mother was one sick bitch! But how did we get from there to here?" "Raff had always had an interest in medicine. His grandfather had been senior surgeon at a hospital way over in the west of Ireland, so whilst all this was going on, Raff studied pre-med at the Dublin School of Medicine. He passed the course but during the summer recess before he was able to go on to take up his medical studies, he had a nervous breakdown. "He was sent to a private clinic in Dublin and spent almost a year there before he was declared well enough to leave. "His breakdown had, it seemed, given him a general amnesia about what had happened to him, but he knew he had to get away from his mother so he decided to leave Ireland for the UK, where he would live with a maiden aunt, a sister of his father, who had been a nun for several years before she'd given it up to take up a job as a secretary to a doctor in Birmingham's Royal General Hospital which, as you'll be aware, is a teaching hospital. "So she managed to secure him a place as a student, there. Well, with his one year pre-med that wasn't so difficult. "He did well in his studies and qualified as an MD and then went on to gain extra training as a surgeon. "He got married and he and his wife had two children. But sadly although he had no conscious memory of his mother working, in effect, as his pimp and he having affairs with married women, Raff still had a desire to have affairs. Sometimes with single women like nurses, but usually with married women like Myra Broxon. "He has lost several good jobs at NHS and private hospitals in the UK because he was found out for having affairs. But rather than dealing with the issue, they gave him a sterling reference and sent him on his merry, adulterous way." Doctor Carter snorted. "Yes! To cause more havoc at other hospitals! But please tell me, what brought about his change of heart?" "It was the accident that Stan Broxon was involved in. It caused something of a short circuit in his mind. Apparently his father died in similar accident whilst he was attached to the Irish Consular office in New York. "He had two sides to his persona, the loving, caring husband and father and Raff Bonchance, the Lothario of the NHS. But they have both crashed together and he can't carry on as he was, because now he knows what he was doing was so bloody wrong. I feel so sorry for him, for what his mother did to him. She ruined his life. What makes it worse was the utter hypocrisy of the woman, what with her public utterances!" Doctor Carter interjected: "Sounds like you have heard of Mrs Bonchance, but I haven't." Doctor Porter finished his glass of Scotch and waited whilst he was given a refill. "She works under her maiden name. She is better known as Deirdre Ghránna, BL." "Bloody fucking hell!" Shouted out Doctor Carter. "Deirdre Ghránna? Isn't she the Irish Barrister who is the chairwoman of the Irish League to Prevent the Exploitation of Minors?" "Yes. The very same." "The hypocritical bitch! But as he was well over the age of consent, she'll get away with it!" "Probably. Though if the Irish DPP were to go with the blackmail allegations, she might be in for an unpleasant shock." "Will you be able to help Raff?" "Yes, undoubtedly. Though my department will have to work with his poor wife, too. She's clueless to his double life." Meanwhile Stan Broxon had been released from the hospital and he was now an outpatient receiving physiotherapy to help correct a problem with his left side which was considerably weaker than his right side. He and Myra were still living together, but as roommates, rather than husband and wife. Within three months the only noticeable effect on Stan was that the toes on his left foot were slightly numb. Raff confessed to his wife and she tearfully took their two children out of London to stay with her mother in the Cotswolds. Three weeks later, she returned home and forgave her errant husband. She said: "Raff, it's no wonder you would never allow your mother to visit our children. I wondered why and now I know. Of course not even you knew at the time. But I'd like to thank you for saving our children from your evil mother." Both Raff and his wife were relieved when the Irish DPP had Mrs Deirdre Ghránna charged with several counts of blackmail. Fortunately as she decided to enter a guilty plea, there was to be no trial. She was given a jail sentence of 15 years. One day, it was the day after he had received a fit note from his GP, giving him a date to return to work, Stan received a visit from Raff Bonchance himself. "Stan, I know you probably want to hit me, and I wouldn't blame you, but can I please come in?" Stan motioned for him to enter the house, shutting the door behind them. "You are Doctor Bonchance. What brings you here?" Raff followed Stan into the lounge and invited him to take a seat, which he did. "I have come to apologise to you for what I did. I know that I have badly damaged your marriage and for that I can only offer my sincere apologies. Can I please tell you the background to what happened?" Stan nodded and as he heard the dreadful story of how Raff's mother had shamelessly used her only child as a pawn in a game to obtain power and influence over a group of women who should have been able to rely on her as a friend, he felt sickened. He accepted Raff's apology and later on when he had a session of his own with Doctor Porter he outlined why his visit had caused him so much distress. "You see, Doctor, having spoken with Raff about what his cow of a mother did to him, I find myself sort of able to forgive him. "But I find myself in a quandary about Myra. As far as I know, Myra didn't have any similar trauma, so as far as I can see she cheated on me just because she wanted to, because she thought I was boring and not particularly good as a lover. How can I get through this?" Doctor Porter shook his head. "It's not going to be easy, I won't be telling you what to do, but you have all the information that you need to make a decision that will be right for you and also, hopefully, for Myra. Because she does still love you. "You need couple's counselling and hopefully we can sort something out to resolve this horrible mess in a way that can satisfy both of you." Life goes on. Life went on, until... Ten years later Stan and Wanda are standing at the graveside of Myra Broxon. Mercifully her illness had been short and her death as painless as possible. Her former colleagues at the Ploughlake Hospital had made sure of that. They had returned after the service to stand, alone, yet paradoxically together. Once back at home after the wake, they had a letter to read and it fell to Wanda to read the letter out loud: Castles in Spain Pt. 02 "Dear Stan and Wanda, when you are reading this I will have left you Stan. I would have given anything for a moment of more time with you and also with you, Wanda, the two people in the world that I love. "Ten years ago, Stan, I made you a promise. I said that if I ever left you again, that you could have any woman that you wanted. And I meant that promise. Even though I am not leaving you willingly, I still want you to follow through on my promise. And I want the woman you will be with to be Wanda. Wanda, I know that you have been alone these last several years, so please, please be Stan's woman. I love you both, Myra." Stan and Wanda sat together on the sofa, in shock. "Should we do this?" asked Wanda. Before Stan could respond, a small bird flew head first into the picture window of the lounge. Hearts in mouths, they watched as he righted himself, shook his wings and flew off into the hedge with an enraged chatter. Wanda nodded and said: "If that's not a sign, then I don't know what is!" Stan smiled, took Wanda's hand and with tears in his eyes, led his new woman up the stairs to what, he hoped, would be their bedroom from now on.