30 comments/ 56670 views/ 52 favorites Peaceful Easy Feelin’ By: The Wanderer My thanks go to Techscan and LadyCibelle for their kind assistance with the editing of this story and correcting the usual clangers that keep my critics so happily amused. But I'm sure you'll find something you don't like in the story somewhere. Foreword: I know that some people will say that the hero in this story is manipulated by at least one of the other characters in the tale. As a man, I have had many women try to manipulate me on many occasions; my good wife is adept at the art. She has to be; I can be a cantankerous old bugger sometimes. I will point out to folks who don't like to see others manipulated, that sometimes there is a distinct advantage for the manipulated (I wonder if that's the right word). Let's face it; if you're blatantly conned into doing something and it all goes tits up on everyone, you can just smile and say, "Hey, look, it wasn't my idea; if it's gone tits-up, it's got fuck-all to do with me!" I've had heroes in similar circumstances in the past, where readers have failed to realise that playing dumb can sometimes be the hero's best option at the time. ------------------------------- Peaceful Easy Feelin' 'Just what the fuck am I doing here and how much longer can it last?' I asked myself. There I was, on the patio of a massive and very flash villa on the coast of an unbelievably beautiful (and bloody hot) Caribbean island. Not just any old Caribbean island either; this place was a private island. Only people who owned one of the villas -- or could afford to hire one for a week or so -- their staff and guests were allowed to step foot on the hallowed soil. The sort of place that the likes of me shouldn't even be allowed to dream about, let alone live in for a couple of months. I was lying back on a sun-bed taking in some afternoon rays, sipping rum - that had been poured over crushed ice - from a long glass. Every so often Sam - a big coloured man, dressed in an immaculate white shirt and slacks, and complete with a neck tie (in that heat?) - would come to adjust the large parasol that protected my face from the sun's glare. Sam would also send the little dark skinned island girl Simone out to refill my glass whenever it was empty, without me asking; Sam knew my preferences -- and consuming rate - by then. He'd also remind me about how long I'd been in the sun and send that same little beauty out to apply sun block to my body when required. That was assuming that Sonya didn't beat her to it. Somewhere below, I could hear the children playing in the swimming pool, I'd been down there earlier with them. As I lay there, occasionally I could pick out Sonya's voice amongst those of the children and their minders. Tutors, Sonya called them, taught the children everything from windsurfing to diving, but to my mind they were more like glorified nannies. I lifted my head and looked around the sun patio; Christ, just the damn sun deck was larger than any house - including the garden - that I'd every lived in before. As I looked around I caught sight of Sam standing at his usual station; from where he could watch me and be ready to cater for any request that I had. And at the same time, he could keep an eye on the swimming pool below; Sam was always ready for any request or emergency that could possibly happen down by the pool. I'd noticed that the guy was very protective of the children. My movement had caught Sam's attention and our eyes met for a second, so I waved my hand to let him know that I didn't require anything. He gave me a brief smile and nod before saying, "The Lady Sonya is coming up, sir." "Her name's just Sonya, Sam," I admonished him. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry I forgot." "And please try to remember, Sam, that when we're in private, I'm Frank. I'm not one for all this sir lark." "Yes, Sir.... Frank, I'm sorry I keep forgetting," he replied. I had been trying ever since I'd arrived here to get Sam -- and all of the rest of the staff - to drop the formality with me when there were no visitors in the house. But it appears old habits die hard. Sam had also pointed out that they might forget when we did have visitors in the house. "Who gives a shit, Sam. I don't want my kids growing up thinking they are something that they aren't. You guys are looking after us like bloody royalty, but you're just earning a living like most everyone else in the world has to. And all of you are damned good at what you do. That makes you anyone's equal," I'd told them. "Yes, Sir," Sam had replied. At one time, he tried "Mr Moore" on me, but I wasn't happy with that either. Sonya appeared at the top of the stairs that led down to the pool. She smiled at Sam as she headed in my direction. Sam, ever the soul of discretion started down the stairs toward the pool. He would move to a position about halfway down, where he could see the pool but not what was happening on the patio, although he could hear Sonya or myself if we called him. I marvelled once again -- as I always did whenever I saw her -- at the beauty of the woman walking towards me. 'This can't last much longer.' Was the thought that crossed my mind. Sonya was - I'd estimated - about thirty-five years old, and I swear, by looking at that shapely body of hers - clad as it was in one of the smallest bikinis that I'd ever seen in my life; Sonya had several that size -- that no one could discern the slightest evidence that she had borne three children some years before. "How's my lover boy? Recovered from playing with the children yet?" Sonya asked, as she swung one shapely leg over my body and lowered her backside carefully onto exactly the right spot on my groin area. Then she slowly began to rock her hips backwards and forwards, as she had done so many times in the previous few weeks. She knew full well that this would very soon have the effect she desired on me. "Tired, but not from playing with the children this morning, Sonya. You really wore me out after the party last night!" I replied. "Ah, diddums!" she giggled back at me. "But, it was a good session last night, wasn't it? Made me feel like a teenager again!" "You ain't kidding, girl. Last night you worked me over pretty good, and then this morning you started on me as well. Jesus, I wish I'd been around when you were a teenager? Christ, I don't know how Seymour ever had any energy left to shag Jean." "Neither do I! He certainly never had your stamina, in my bed anyway!" Sonya grinned down at me. "Perhaps he saved all his energy for Jean. She must have been really something in bed." "I wouldn't say that exactly." I replied, remembering back to how Jean had been when she was in bed with me, especially in the last few years, since the children had been born. "Oh, she liked to 'do it' all right, but I wouldn't say she was ever that mad about sex. One orgasm was always enough for Jean. When she was in bed with me anyway." I added as an afterthought. "Actually Jean was more like some of those blokes you hear about; only with Jean it wasn't wham, bam, thank you, mam! It was wham, bam, thank you, man! Or rather, thank you, Frank. One climax was always enough for Jean; I'd get her off once and then she'd say that's enough for one night, Frank, I'm tired now. Then she'd roll over and go off to sleep." "Sounds like some of the guys that I knew back at university." Sonya grinned again. "Anyway forgetting about Jean and sex for the minute. I sensed that there was something bothering you at breakfast this morning, Frank. I didn't want to ask in front of the children, but is something wrong?" For a few seconds I debated whether to broach the subject with Sonya in my mind and came to the decision that we'd have to talk about it sooner or later. Probably the sooner the better! "Well, to be honest with you, Sonya, no, not really at the moment. But I just can't help wondering when the bubble is going to burst." Sonya stopped her rocking motion, which had already had the effect she intended even though I'd tried very hard not to get aroused. "Bubble! What bubble?" she asked with a concerned look on her face. "This bubble! All of this. Sonya, you are a very desirable woman. You're what, thirty-five?" Sonya nodded to affirm my estimate of her age. "You've got more money stashed away than they've got in the Bank of England and three massive houses. This one, that villa in the South of France and the estate in Surrey, that must be at least a hundred acres...." "Two hundred and fifty!" Sonya corrected me still smiling. I ignored her interruption. "Last night, you had some pretty handsome and damned rich looking fellas running around after you like blue-arsed-flies. You know they were all vying for your attention at the same time - well, they were trying to." "And they didn't get it, did they? You know as well as I do that all they want is to get into my knickers, as you so elegantly like to put it," Sonya interrupted again, but still grinning. She seemed to enjoy my rather "basic English" vocabulary (Sonya's term) and often took the rise out of it in a friendly way. "I can't say that I can blame them for that either." I smiled back at her. "You're one beautiful and very sexy looking woman, you know. Especially in that damned bikini or that low cut dress you had on last night!" "So that's your problem; you're jealous. Well, don't be, Frank. They'll never get anything off of me while you're in my life." "Well, you see, that really is the problem, Sonya. You're a very desirable thirty-five-year-old heiress, and I'm a forty-three-year-old sodding truck driver, for Christ's sake, from the North London suburbs at that. What have I done to deserve being here with you?" "Well, you married a slut who let my husband fuck her brains out willy-nilly, that's what." Sonya giggled back at me. "And you screw better than any man I've ever shared a bed with before!" I knew full well that she was enjoying our little conversation. Damn, the woman never seemed to take anything seriously. "Yeah, so you say, but when you suggested this little jaunt, it was to wind-up our ex-spouses. I never in my wildest dreams imagined we'd ever... you know... The idea was that we'd make a big show of jetting out here to one of the houses that you took from Seymour in the settlement. I never intended to take advantage of you like I have." "Whoa there, stud." Sonya's facial expression changed and she looked just a little annoyed with me. "For a start, you have never taken advantage of anyone; I chose to seduce you and I have no complaints on that score. Secondly, I didn't take this place from Seymour in the divorce either; it was mine all the time. My family had this house built years ago. The house in the south of France was my father's retirement home until he passed away and the estate in Surrey, what's left of it, well that has been in the family for well over two hundred years." "Oh, sorry, I didn't realise. But it just goes to show that you and I are from completely different worlds... Well, look, Sonya, what I'm trying to say is that I could get used to this life... And, well, so could my girls, but the longer we stay out here the harder it's going to be to get back to normal." "What do you mean by 'back to normal'?" Sonya demanded. "Sonya, I love it here with you; Christ, I've grown to care for you a damned sight more than is prudent, under the circumstances..." "And what circumstances would they be?" Sonya demanded; she was looking - uncharacteristically - very serious by then. It was possibly only the second or third time that I hadn't seen a smile on that beautiful face of hers. "Sonya, let me get this out please! I've grown to care for you much, much more than you realise. And so have my girls; but someday soon you're going to figure that you've rubbed Seymour's face in the dirt enough, by slumming it with the likes of me and you're going to want to get back to your friends." "Jesus Christ, Frank, what are you, a bloody snob? What kind of shallow slut do you take me for?" "Sonya, I don't think you're shallow and I'll bleeding-well deck the first bugger who tries to call you a slut. As a matter of fact, if you remember correctly, I already have." Sonya giggled, "Yeah, that was funny. I doubt that Seymour's ever been flattened like that before, not in public anyway. One punch from you and he went out like a light." "Glass jaw they call it. Seymour might be a big man, but he can't take a punch." "Well, he deserved it; he was very insulting at the airport." "Sonya, he was telling the truth as he saw it. You led him to believe that you were bringing me out here to fuck my brains out in revenge for him carrying on with Jean when, in fact, we had already agreed that the whole charade was just for the press and the children's benefit. And to embarrass Seymour. We never did intend to sleep together really." "Who didn't intend to sleep with whom? I know what I had planned, even if it did mean that I had to use a little bit of subterfuge where someone was concerned. Look, Frank, when I approached you in that transport café that day, I soon realised that I'd found, or rather that Jean was about to lose, a real man." "I'll admit that when I went there that day, I had only intended to give you the evidence of Jean and Seymour's infidelity. But whilst we were talking, I recognised something in you that none of the other men that I've known in my life had, except maybe for my father. Perhaps I saw some of his character in you as well. He was a good man who thought of everyone else before he thought about himself." "You got pretty irate at first when you saw those photographs, but then you got your emotions under control and, yes, you mentioned that you'd have to divorce Jean. But your number one consideration was on what effect it was all going to have to Annette and Sheryl. And what possible damage had been done already." "It was?" I replied. ----------------------------------- Of course, I could remember the occasion that Sonya was talking about, when an immaculately dressed, very beautiful and quite definitely out of place woman walked into Wally's Café, accompanied by a flunky in a flash whistle. She'd gotten the attention of every damn driver in the place from the second she stepped through the door. The guy in the suit had gestured in my general direction and then went to the counter. Then I'd been totally gob smacked as the woman strolled over to my table and took a seat opposite me. "Frank Moore?" she'd enquired. Or rather asked me to affirm; it was pretty obvious that she knew who I was. "Yes!" I replied meekly, looking from her to my mates, some of whom were also sat at the long table. To be honest, I was wondering what kind of a practical joke the guys had set me up for this time. "I wonder if you would mind giving us some privacy, gentlemen?" she'd said, turning to the rest of the guys. "Mr Moore and I have something rather unpleasant and personal to discuss." As they'd already finished their meals, the guys politely acquiesced to Sonya's request and left the table promptly. But not without giving me some very quizzical looks and a few of them winked at me. I just shrugged. I figured at least one of the guys was bluffing and knew exactly what the woman wanted. How wrong I was! "Mr Moore, we've never met, but my name is Sonya Springfield. I believe that you've met my husband on a few occasions." Indeed I had met the wanker. He was one of the big-knobs at the place where my wife Jean worked. I can't say that I'd ever been impressed by the bugger either; fancied his chances too much for my liking. "Yes, I've met him a few times at the company do's," I replied, with a slightly uneasy feeling in my stomach. "Well, I'm afraid I've come here to give you some rather unpleasant information. I thought it only civil to inform you about what's been going on, before the balloon goes up. I'm afraid I've got to tell you that your wife and my husband have been having an affair." "I don't believe you!" I blustered. 'Jean, cheat on our marriage, no way! She doted on our children and she loved our little house; Christ, she loved me; well, she was always telling me she did.' But for some reason and almost immediately after that thought had crossed my mind, I began thinking. 'Now Seymour Springfield! Yeah well, he was the type who'd lay any little tart that he could get his hands on. But my Jean, no way would she cheat on me, not with the likes of him; she just wouldn't!' Well, that was the way my mind was working at the time. But somehow - I still don't know why -- in my heart, I knew that this woman wasn't spinning me a line. "I'm sorry, Mr Moore, but what I tell you is true," she said, placing a large manilla envelope which she'd been carrying on the table before me. "See for yourself. There're some photographs of them together in there. I'll warn you though, some of them are pretty disgusting and rather pornographic." With more than a little trepidation and even more willpower, I picked up the envelope and peeked at the pictures inside. It wasn't even necessary for me to pull the pictures right out. The first one I saw was of Jean all right; a very naked Jean, who was on her hands and knees, getting it from behind by someone. I couldn't see who the guy was who was shagging her, but it definitely wasn't me; the guy was much too fat. I looked back from the envelope to Sonya Springfield. I have no idea what kind of an expression I had on my face, but it must have been one of extreme shock and anger. "I'm sorry, Mr Moore, but I thought it only fair to let you know what was going on before tomorrow morning when the balloon will go up. Seymour is a very famous man. I'm expecting that pictures of them together will be all over the media tomorrow... after the announcement is made that I'm filing for divorce on the grounds of his adultery with your wife. You might want to make sure that your children do not see the news broadcasts on television tomorrow." I said something in reply but I can't remember what it was that I did say. Probably I thanked her for her thoughtfulness or something. "Mr Moore, the sleaze that I came in with is my solicitor, Ronny Macintosh. I can't say that I like him very much, but he's a damned good lawyer. If you should need his services, he'll be only too pleased to take on a divorce case for you as well. I've already spoken to him; he won't charge you too much because I have him under retainer and he can run the two cases together." Well, I think that was the gist of what Sonya said; neither my mind nor my memory was working properly by that time. Anger does that kind of thing to some people. But I wasn't just anyone. I am a professional driver. My working days were spent on Britain's crowded roads and motorways with anything up to 44 tons up behind me. With the way most of the idiots drive their cars nowadays, cutting us up, not giving the big trucks enough clearance when they pull out in front of us, or pulling back too early into our braking zone after they overtake. I've had to learn to control my emotions. It's a matter of self-preservation; lose it and you could pile the truck up. And then those 44 tons will try to join you in the cab and push you straight into an early grave. So pretty soon I managed to get my emotions back under control. "Um, thanks, yeah, divorce, yeah, well, er... Looking at these pictures that's about all I can do, divorce her, isn't it?" I mumbled, I might have gotten my emotions under control, but I was still in a state of shock. "No, sir, please don't be in too much of a hurry to make up your mind about divorcing your wife; it can prove expensive, you know," a man's voice said. Ronny Macintosh had come over to our table, probably at a prearranged signal from Sonya. "Divorce isn't your only option, sir. You should talk to your wife first before you make any decisions, and maybe see a marriage counsellor." Peaceful Easy Feelin’ "What the hell are they doing there?" I asked absent-mindedly. Whilst Ronny Macintosh had been talking, I had been thumbing through the photographs in the envelope. I still hadn't summoned up the courage to pull them out of the envelope and have a good look at them; I was trying to view them at an oblique angle from the end of the envelope. "Let me see," Sonya said. I tilted the envelope so that she could. "Oh, my, that was last Thursday in the lounge of your house." "I can see that!" "Yes, well, Seymour is having sex with your wife from behind. You can't see them there, but your two children are sitting on the sofa that she's leaning over, watching the television. You can't see them in that still picture but you can on the film. Mr Moore, I don't believe that they knew what the adults were doing. They were completely engrossed in the television." "Are you telling me that your husband was having sex with my wife when my children were in the same room?" I exploded; I was losing it again. "Yes, I'm sorry. But from what we can make out on the video, we don't think that the girls were aware of what was going on. Jean lent over the back of the sofa to speak to them and from the looks of it, Seymour appeared to creep up behind her." "And she let him! Jesus Christ, what is the fucker, sick or something? Shagging my wife whilst my kids were in the same room." I actually shouted that time. Everyone in Wally's place must have heard me. "I can take it that marriage counselling is off the list of options then, can I?" Ronny Macintosh said. He had already taken some forms out of his briefcase and had been writing furiously as we talked. "Too bloody right you can, mate, and I want custody of my kids as well!" "No problem there, Mr Moore; that bit of film will see to that. Child endangerment, I believe the Americans call it; our family courts take a very dim view of that kind of behaviour as well. Now if you'd like to sign here, I can get the ball rolling whenever you give me the go signal." "Go!" I replied, "I don't have to think about anything after seeing that. The sooner my girls are away from that bitch's influence the better. But god only knows what kind of an effect Jean and I divorcing will have on them." "If that's the case, I could call a social worker friend of mine in on it tomorrow morning. She can get an emergency order from the family courts, suspending your wife's parental rights for the time being. And most probably they will require your wife to move out of the family home as well. Once that piece of film goes before the courts, she'll be hard pressed to get them back again." "Hold your horses a little, Ronny. Mr Moore might not want to go that route. Surely it will be easier on the children if we can keep the social services people out of this. You know what those buggers can be like. Once they get involved, Mr Moore here might loose control of things completely," Sonya interrupted Ronny's flow. "Yeah, you could be right, Sonya. They can get a little overenthusiastic at times and pretty officious as well," Ronny said and then he thought for a few seconds. "Frank - you don't mind me calling you Frank, do you?" I nodded to let him know I was fine with the idea. "Were you planning on being home tonight. You know, before we told you about..." Ronny's voice faded away. "Yeah, I was. But how I'm going to hold my temper with Jean, I don't know." "Yes, it might be better if you stayed away from your wife until you've had time to get used to the idea. Could you fake a delay of some kind that'll keep you away from the house for the night?" Ronny asked. "Yeah, I can always call Jean and tell her that I've had a breakdown. But why?" "To give us time to get our pigeons all lined up. Oh, and don't worry about your wife getting all cosy with Seymour tonight. Sonya's got that one covered. If you aren't home tonight, you can't lose it and let on to your wife that you know about her affair and are intending to apply for a divorce and custody of the children. I think I can rush this paperwork through and get in first thing in the morning. You'll have to take tomorrow off from work, and I suggest that you collect your children from their school at lunchtime. Have you got any relatives living near by that they can stay with for a day or so?" "Yeah, my sister doesn't live all that far away. I could take them there. The girls stayed with her last year when Jean and I took a second - don't laugh - honeymoon. "Good, if all goes to plan, I'll have the paperwork delivered to your wife at the same time as we serve Seymour. We might have to hang fire on that news conference for a couple of hours, Sonya," he said turning to her. "I can't see any problem with that. We'll have time for the evening news programs and the dailies wouldn't have had the story until the Saturday morning anyway," Sonya replied. "Good, I'll have someone at your house with you tomorrow afternoon, Frank. When your wife turns up she'll already have been served with the papers, so she'll know to expect trouble. It'll be best if the children aren't around if the confrontation starts to get too nasty. It's not good for the children to witness scenes like that. When they get excited it's too easy to say things that you'd rather the children didn't hear. We'll have my people run off some more stills from that video and maybe a copy of the tape itself all set up and ready to play in your home player. You can simply tell her to pack her bags and vacate the premises. If she refuses, we'll just tell her that we'll turn that tape over to the social services and that they will make sure that she never sees her two girls again." "Can they do that?" I asked. "You're not kidding they can! Those buggers can do just about anything that takes their fancy, if they tell the court that it's for the children's protection; they have the family courts behind them. A divorce court judge - now they're a bit more circumspect and could well throw out that video evidence of what Seymour and your wife got up in that room with the children present, because technically it was taken illegally. But the family courts, they aren't so particular on that score; to them, evidence is evidence and bugger where it came from." I signed the papers that Ronny Macintosh put in front of me, then as he and Sonya got up to leave, I pulled the picture of my once happy little family out of my wallet and looked at it. Whatever happened I was convinced that Jean wasn't stealing my girls from me. "They're two beautiful girls," Sonya had come around the table and was looking at the picture over my shoulder. "Yeah, they take after their mother. Damn, they are going to be upset about all this." "I've got three of my own, a boy and two girls. It's not going to be easy on them either. Mind I wouldn't say that Seymour was there for them very much anyway. But he is their father." "Why do people do things like that - you know, have affairs? Don't they think about how its going to affect the children?" I asked. "I really don't believe they think about what they are doing in advance, Frank. You don't mind me calling you Frank, do you? You must call me Sonya. I expect that we'll be seeing each other again even if it is only in the divorce court," she asked. "Most everyone does," I replied. "I'm sorry I had to be the one to break this to you, Frank. Ronny said he'd do it; he's a bloody good lawyer, but... Oh, you know, to him it's a job. I thought you might take it a bit easier knowing that I'm in the same boat." "Thank you, Sonya, I expect we will meet again," I said standing to shake her hand. I shook Ronny's proffered hand as well. They left and I went out to my truck and called my boss to explain the situation to him. I figured that I could trust him. I'd worked for him for some years by then. He even offered to make the call to Jean to tell her that I had had a breakdown and that I wouldn't be home until the next day. But I told him that I would do it. He wasn't quite so happy when I informed him that I wanted the following day and all the next week off work, but he understood my position and that I'd have to make arrangements for the children. The call to Jean went surprisingly easy, too easy when I look back on it. It was if she didn't give a monkey whether I got home or not that night. Then I chatted with my girls for a little while. That was damned hard to do without getting emotional. -------------------------- That Friday didn't quite go as I had expected or planned that it would. I'd collected the girls from school at lunchtime without any problem and drove them over to my sister's house, having briefed her on the situation earlier in the day. I figured that I was going to need a lot of support from my sister, where the girls were concerned. She'd been through a divorce herself so she knew the kind of effect losing one parent from the family could have on the children. A woman called Rachel from Ronny Macintosh's office was waiting at my house when I got back there. Rachel explained that she was a solicitor who specialised in divorce and child custody cases; it appeared that Ronny Macintosh was the big cheese at the office and he had people who specialised in all the different areas of the law working for him. Rachel was very a good looking woman and probably in her late forties or early fifties. She sounded very pleasant, but sometimes when she spoke there was a hardness about her words that made me think she could handle just about any situation. I think she was a lot less surprised as the day's events unfolded than I was. Just after two o'clock Rachel received a phone call from Ronny, who had presented both the lovers with their copies of the divorce petitions when they had returned to the office after having lunch together. That was when we -- or rather I - discovered that things weren't going to go exactly as we'd expected. From what Rachel relayed to me, Jean and super stud were both pretty surprised at being presented with the petitions, but they had soon recovered their composures. Jean had said something to Seymour about it "Moving the schedule up a little" and they'd both smiled, although Ronny thought Jean looked a lot more confident than Seymour did. "He's a businessman who likes to be in control. We've wrong footed him and he doesn't like it a bit!" Rachel informed me confidently. "I'll bet he's running around now, like a tit in a trance trying to figure out how he can get back into the driving seat." Shortly Rachel received another call and was informed that Jean and Seymour had left the company offices together and had gone to a solicitor's office. "Might have guessed it. Harcourt's - they specialise in divorce and are very expensive," Rachel announced, with a smile on her face. "I like a good fight and we've got them by the balls on this one." The smile on her face turned into a grin. "But I think we'd better take some precautions," she added. Then Rachel went out to her car and returned with two more brief cases. She'd brought a small one in with her when we'd entered the house. From the larger of the two new cases she took a book, which she hid amongst the others already on the bookshelf in the lounge. A small ornament she placed among the others on the mantelpiece in the dining room. "Do you smoke?" she asked me. I told her that I did, but that I was trying to give the habit up. Rachel then enquired which brand I smoked and asked me for my cigarette lighter. She took the lighter and placed it on top of a packet of the same brand of cigarettes that I smoke - which she'd also extracted from her briefcase - on the side worktop in the kitchen. "There, that should cover all the likely places." She grinned. I must have been looking confused. "Microphones," she grinned at me. "It's useful to have a record of everything that's said on these occasions, especially if Harcourt's are concerned. I'm expecting one of his people to arrive here with your wife and he definitely will be wired, so hold your emotions in check please. I should imagine that they were planning on mental cruelty or accusing you of being a wife beater. You're guilty of neither, I assume?" "Do what?" I replied. I had no idea of what Rachel was talking about. "Frank, your wife took it much too easily. I believe she was planning on dumping you in the very near future. Didn't you hear me regarding what she said about moving the schedule up a little?" "Oh, god, you think that Jean was planning to divorce me?" "Yes, I very much suspect that Seymour and Jean were planning on dumping you and Sonya and setting up house together. Sonya did say that she thought someone was watching her in Paris earlier in the year. I should imagine that Seymour was trying to catch her cheating. He'd do much better out of a divorce if he some had some evidence that she'd strayed." "Do you think that Sonya has, you know, had an affair?" I enquired. Rachel must have known this Sonya woman much better I. "Frank I wouldn't take it on myself to speculate what Sonya gets up to. She was a real girl in the old days, led her father a real song and dance at times. Then she took up with Seymour and I think she's been the picture of virtue since. But anyone can have an affair, believe me; the circumstances just have to be right, that's all. You know, when it comes to love and fidelity, who can you trust in this world?" "That's being a little pessimistic, isn't it?" I suggested. "You think. Well, a few years back now, one of our client's loving wife framed her husband for the murder of her own lover's wife. When the husband eventually got out of prison she tried to kill him as well. Oh and she'd murdered her lover's wife and then killed her lover at the same time as she planned to kill her ex-husband. She was probably insane, but the husband had no idea that she'd been cheating on him all along; he thought she loved him." "Oh, fuck, sorry! Pardon my French!" I said when I heard that story. Seemed to me like you can't trust anyone. "Don't mind me. You'd be hard pushed to say anything that I haven't heard before," Rachel said in reply to my apology for my unintended bad language; that came from working in the real world. "There'll probably be some real colourful language flying about when your wife finally shows up here anyway. There normally is on these occasions." Later whilst I was paying a call of nature, Rachel received yet another call and was informed that Jean and Seymour had been to the girls' school. Rachel was in the process of calling the police to arrange for a patrol car to come to the house as I came back down the stairs. "I believe that she will have a gentleman with her by the name of Seymour Springfield. Should Mr Springfield try to enter the house with Mrs Moore, which I am pretty sure he will, then I'm convinced that it will lead to a confrontation with Mr Moore and a breach of the peace." Rachel stopped speaking while she listened to what whoever was on the other end of the line had to say. "Yes, Mr Moore is the householder here. This is his house and his permanent place of residence. Mr Springfield is the person Mrs Moore has been having an affair with." There was a pause before she continued, "No, for various reasons, I believe that it will be Mrs Moore who moves out of the matrimonial home." There was another pause. "Yes, that's what I thought. His presence alone would most likely lead to a nasty and possibly violent confrontation with Mr Moore should he try to enter the house." She continued after another short pause, "Thank you, officer." Rachel closed the connection on her mobile phone and smiled at me. "Seymour drove Jean to the school; apparently Jean came out again in a blind fury when she discovered that the children weren't there. Our man watching them said they telephoned someone; I suspect they called Harcourt. Anyway now they are waiting in the next street in Seymour's car. Probably for someone from Harcourt's office to arrive." Less than half an hour later a police car pulled up at the curb outside the house and shortly after that, two BMW's drove slowly past, looking for a space to park in our crowded street. Rachel and my cars were filling the drive. "Henry Harcourt himself. This should be fun," Rachel commented. Maybe five minutes later Jean came walking up the road with two men dressed in business suits. One, I knew was Seymour Springfield, the other I assumed was the Harcourt guy, who Rachel couldn't wait to lock horns with. As they got close to the house the policeman got out of his car and waylaid them. There was some animated conversation during which I could see that Jean was getting quite agitated. But the Harcourt guy was apparently trying to keep the peace. Eventually Seymour Springfield walked over to the police car with the officer and just Jean and Harcourt walked up the short path to the front door. "Where are my girls? What have you done with them?" Jean shouted the moment she clapped eyes on me. "The children are quite safe, Mrs Moore; I can assure you of that. We thought it better that they weren't witnesses this afternoon," Rachel replied. She had already instructed me to leave all the talking to her. "Hello, Henry. I'd better warn you that you're on a losing wicket on this one," Rachel directed to the Harcourt guy. Jean carried on trying to go off on one at me, but Harcourt managed to persuade her to remain silent, for a while at least. Then he turned to Rachel. "Hello, Rachel. I assume that you are representing Mr Moore?" "We are, and I'd better warn you, Henry, that Mr Moore is in a very strong position to dictate the terms on this one." "You think, Rachel?" Harcourt replied. "Mrs Moore has a strong case for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty. She demands that the children be returned to her custody immediately and that Mr Moore vacate these premises forthwith and stays away until we can place all of this before the court." Rachel smiled, "Henry, let's not beat around the bush on this one. Before you make a complete ass of yourself, I suggest that you and Mrs Moore watch the video that we've got set up for you in the lounge. Then I'll give you and Mrs Moore Mr Moore's terms for a settlement. I believe they are very reasonable considering the circumstances and I think you'll agree with me that Mrs Moore would be very foolish to reject to them. Not if she ever wants to have any personal contact with her children again in the future anyway. As it is, Mr Moore is prepared to offer her very reasonable but supervised visitation rights." "Supervised visitation with my own children! What the hell are you talking about?" Jean screamed; she couldn't hold her silence any longer. "Mrs Moore, you placed your children in what is usually considered to be moral danger. Whether you realised what you were doing at the time or not, that's what you and Mr Springfield did! Henry, go watch the damned tape and then we'll talk again; I should imagine that Mrs Moore knows how the video works. Oh, and you can keep that copy of the tape for your records; we'll wait in there," Rachel said, and then she walked past me into the kitchen. I followed her like a little lamb. We hadn't been in the kitchen very long before we heard a stifled scream come from the lounge, where the TV was situated. Rachel gave me that wicked grin of hers again. About ten minutes later Henry Harcourt came into the kitchen, followed by a rather sheepish but at the same time very angry looking Jean who had the videotape clasped tightly in her hand. I still wonder whether Jean's face was so red because she was embarrassed or because she was angry. How she managed to hold her tongue I don't know. "Mrs Moore informs me that that recording was made in her own home without her knowledge or consent; the recording of it was a blatant invasion of her personal privacy," Harcourt said. "So if you are intending on trying to use it in the divorce proceedings, Rachel, you're out of luck. I'm sure that any judge won't allow it to be entered as evidence." Peaceful Easy Feelin’ "Immaterial, Henry, we don't intend to use it in the divorce proceedings at all, only in the custody case in the Family Court. You know as well as I do that they will accept it as evidence of Mrs Moore's low moral character and her cavalier attitude to what is appropriate behaviour in the presence of impressionable young children. Now let's cut out all the crap and get down to the nitty-gritty." "The Family Court?" Harcourt queried. "Of course, a mother who brings her 'lovers' into the family home and has sexual intercourse with them in front of two young and impressionable girls." I noted that Rachel had laid emphasis on the plural even though we had no reason to even suspect that Jean had had any previous lovers. "Now you know as well as I do, Henry, no family court is going to consider her to be a competent person to raise children, especially young girls." "The girls didn't see what Seymour did..." Jean started to say, but her brief stopped her and told her not to say anything. Then they both returned to the lounge for a while. Later we learnt from listening to the recording that Rachel's gear had made that Harcourt told Jean that I had her by the short and curlys. "If the family court gets involved in this one, you will lose all your parental rights towards your children and probably you will never be allowed contact with them again," Harcourt informed her. "If you wish to be involved in some way in their upbringing, let's see what your husband has got in mind." After a lot of blustering Jean agreed to listen to our proposals. Rachel laid our proposals on the table, quite succinctly. Jean was to move out of the house that day and then we'd jointly apply for a divorce on the grounds of unreconcilable differences. Jean would voluntarily give up all her parental rights over the children, and in return I would promise to guarantee her reasonable visitation rights; but all of her visits were to be supervised until the girls were of age. We emphasised that I did not wish to alienate Jean from the children, just protect them from her low moral values. The moral values bit really pissed Jean off and she almost lost control of her emotions again. But after another somewhat heated exchange with Henry Harcourt in the lounge, she provisionally accepted my terms. There was a lot of wrangling that went on over the following months, but basically I'd been in the driver's seat. Especially after Sonya's news conference and all the publicity surrounding her divorce, in which Jean was named as just one of the co-respondents. I expect that that must have put her nose out of joint a little as well, to find out that her lover was bedding another tart at the same time as their affair had been going on. Jean wasn't too happy about the child maintenance that I demanded she pay me either. Jean's salary had been far in excess of mine for some time by then, even when she'd been working part time in the office; once she didn't have the children to rush home for in the afternoons, it must have gone through the roof. Actually I'd been under the impression that Jean had been working full time, but that she had been on flexi-time, so that she had time to look after the children. It had also explained to me the numerous times that she had to return to the office in the evenings and on weekends. Yeah, well, once I'd learnt about her affair with Springfield, it was obvious what she had really been doing. But like most husbands (and wives, come to that), I had no reason to disbelieve anything Jean told me until Sonya walked into Wally's Café that day. I certainly hadn't noticed any drastic change in Jean's behaviour towards me in the proceeding months or years. There had been the usual slowing down of the old lovemaking bit; but doesn't that happen in all marriages as the children become more mobile and aware of that kind of thing. Jean never did apologise for cheating on our marriage. Actually on the first few occasions that she came to visit with the girls, I noticed a disdain and hostility in her attitude where I was concerned. The term 'Truck Driver' was mentioned several times. So I have to believe the reason that Jean strayed in the first place was because she'd come to the conclusion that she'd married bellow herself. Possibly mixing with all those Hooray-Henri's in her office in the city, with their big cars, inflated salaries and even bigger egos, had given her delusions of grandeur. Anyway, I thought that the girls took their mother's departure from the family home surprisingly well. It was to be years later that I discovered that they had suspected that their mother was - to put it mildly - misbehaving. Now for a seven-year-old and nine-year-old to work that one out between them, doesn't bode well for my observations of what had been going on in our family home. Although I never did discuss Jean's infidelity with the girls openly, but over time I did learn that Jean and "Uncle Seymour" got progressively bolder in the months before the shit hit the fan. I can only assume that they were preparing the girls for the day when Jean was planning to dump me and move in with Springfield. I'm not saying everything was roses at home after Jean was gone; money was soon to become a serious issue for me. I had to restrict my working hours to look after the girls, and I was lucky there in the fact that I had a very understanding boss. But only being able to drive on local jobs, not being able to start early in the mornings and having to finish in time to collect the children from school had severe repercussions on my income. Jean's child maintenance payments helped, but I realised I was going to be in shit street when the school holidays came around. My girls were far too young to leave on their own during the day. My sister helped with minding the children, where she could. But she had four children of her own to look after, and her house was just too far away for me to drop the girls there every day and then go on to work. We toyed with the idea of buying a larger house together. But Sue had an admirer by that time. John was a nice guy and we had hopes (which were eventually to came to fruition) that he'd make a better husband for her than her first one had. I had little choice than to stop working during the school holidays that were all too soon upon us and live on my savings for a while. I think that I had it roughly worked out, that I could - by lowering our lifestyle somewhat for a few years, until the girls were old enough to be left to their own devices during the day -- make it through the next few years. And of course my social life would have to take a complete dive. Rachel kept in close touch. She also took to dropping in during the evenings, usually with her husband in tow. She admonished me numerous times for not taking her advice and demanding spousal support from Jean when I'd had the opportunity. I think that possibly 'male pride' had paid a part in that decision of mine. Rachel's husband even took me down to the pub a couple of evenings for a pint, whilst she stayed at my house with the girls. One thing that Rachel always seemed to mention somehow whenever she visited - and even when we spoke on the telephone; the divorce was still in progress at that time - was that Sonya had enquired after the children and me, and how we were getting on. To be honest with you, I'd almost forgotten about the woman's existence. After all, although our spouses had been cheating together, that was about the only thing we had in common. My divorce was progressing pretty quietly, whilst Sonya's was hung up in the courts and was also slapped all over the newspapers and on TV. I avoided reading those papers and watching the news broadcasts on TV, because I didn't want my girls to see or hear their mother's name being mentioned all the time in such a context. But the girls weren't daft, as I said; I was to learn later that they had a very good idea of what kind of character their mother had. But to my knowledge they never heard me run Jean down once. With Sonya's help I'd won the war; I had no intention of losing the peace by trying to alienate the girls from their mother. Rachel and her husband had become regular visitors at my house. A professional couple who had married late in life, I think they'd kind off adopted my two girls as grandchildren. I was pleased about that, because the only family I had alive was my sister. On a couple of Saturdays Rachel and her husband, took the girls out for the day, to give me a break Rachel said. On one of those occasions when they'd gone to the zoo -- or it might have been to the museums in Kensington -- the girls mentioned some new friends they'd made that day. I'll admit now that I didn't pay as much attention to those new friends as maybe I should have. And so, on my daughter Sheryl's tenth birthday in early April, I was completely taken by surprise by the events of the day. Jean had come to the house for Sheryl's birthday party that my sister Sue had arranged; well, it was little more than a formal tea really. Sue had brought her own children and the new man in her life along with her. He and I had spent most of the time that Jean had been in the house out in my garage-come-workshop; I'm afraid you could cut the atmosphere with a knife when Jean and I were in the same room together. Sheryl hadn't invited any of her school friends; I think she had been a little dubious about advertising the fact that her mother no longer lived at home. Especially because Jean had the habit of getting Seymour Springfield drop her off at the house when she came to visit the children. Jean had her own company car, so I'm not quite sure of why she insisted on having Seymour do that; maybe it was to rub my face in the fact that she was living with him. But then again it could have been pure thoughtlessness about the amount of embarrassment it caused her daughters, on Jean's part. All day Susan had been hinting that other guests were going to arrive later in the day, but she was being very vague about who they were. I'm not sure why I figured that it would be Rachel and her husband, who had gotten very attached to my two little tykes in the previous couple of months; but I suspected that was who it was going to be. Anyway, surprisingly early in the afternoon Susan served Sheryl's birthday tea; we had all managed to sit at the same table together to eat it and cheer as Sheryl blew out the candles on her cake. Then I'd retreated to the kitchen, in theory to do the washing up, in fact, to get out of Jean's company. I did note that there seemed to be rather a lot of Tupperware boxes - full of cakes and things in the kitchen - that hadn't been touched yet. On closer inspection I figured that there was enough food there for another birthday party. Whether by previous plan or because Jean had taken the hint from Susan, I'm not sure, but Springfield arrived around five to collect her. He didn't come up to the house - he never got out of his car when he dropped Jean off or collected her -- he just sat out in the street and sounded his car horn. It was as Jean was walking out to the car that Rachel and her husband came walking along the road; the parking problem had caused them to park further down the street. Sheryl, Annette and I were watching Jean's departure from the front door. Now the thing that I was having trouble understanding at the time was that Rachel and her husband had two children with them. And what's more Springfield appeared to be taking a great interest in them; so much so that he actually got out of his car and said something that I didn't catch. At first I thought he was talking to Rachel, but then one of the little girls who was holding her hand called out, "Hi, daddy!" and waved at him. But by that time Seymour Springfield's attention was on the people following Rachel who I hadn't seen yet. It was Sonya and her other child. Sonya and the young boy both waved at Springfield, Sonya also giving Jean -- who was still standing beside the car -- a big smile. "Thank you. I think I've got the better end of the deal!" I heard Sonya call out; at the time I didn't really understand what she was talking about. I thought she was referring to having gotten rid of her husband. Jean looked absolutely livid about something; she got into Seymour's car and slammed the door, then lent across the seats to say something to him. He waved at his children again before he got back into the car and drove away. The expression on Seymour Springfield's face had been one of total confusion though. "Sorry, I had hoped they'd be gone before we got here!" Rachel said when she got to the door. "Sonya has been wanting to speak to you for weeks, Susan and I thought it would be nice if her children came to Sheryl's party, they got on so well together the other day." I gave Rachel my 'What the hell are you up to now, girl,' look and she grinned back at me with that wicked grin of hers. Her husband gave me the 'I've got nothing to do with this' look that us guys use when our wives are not under our control. "Hi, Frank. May we come in and join the party?" Sonya asked, effectively bringing the mental confrontation between Rachel and me to an end. But before I could say more than "Hello, Sonya" in reply, Susan came dashing out of the house and hugged Sonya like they had been bosom buddies for donkey's years. Sue then dragged everyone inside. "We thought Sheryl deserved to have some other children at her party," Sue informed me a little later when we got a minute alone. "Sheryl is still a little reticent about bringing her school friends home; you know, what with everything. Mine have been through it all, but that was a couple of years ago. We thought that Sonya's children are in the same boat as your two, so we thought it would a good idea to invite them along so they can commiserate with each other." Then she dashed off to continue sorting the catering for our new guests out. Sheryl and Sonya's ten-year-old son -- Dominic, who appeared to be known by everyone as Tadpole -- seemed to hit it off remarkably quickly. Had they been a couple of years older I might have had cause to worry. Annette, Sheila (Sue's eldest) and Sonya's eight-year-old twins seemed to take to each other straight away as well. Susan's younger children were in a world of their own anyway. I'd say that after Sonya's crowd arrived it turned into a proper children's birthday party; although Rachel and her husband seemed to organise all of the children's games. They obviously loved children. I discovered later that both being into their careers when they were younger, they'd married quite late in life and had been unsuccessful in having children of their own. Consequently they liked to play surrogate grandparents to any children that their friends had. "How are you bearing up?" Sonya suddenly asked from behind me, when I'd slipped out into the garden for a quick smoke; I never smoke in the house. I think she must have made me literally jump, because she was giggling a little when I turned around to face her. "As well as can be expected under the circumstances. How're things with you?" I replied. "Not much different really. Seymour was never home much lately anyway. Always trying to swing another dodgy deal or the other, or so he said! More likely he was..." "You weren't suspicious of him then?" I asked. There was something in the way Sonya had replied that made me suspect that she had been. "I was a fool when I fell for Seymour's line of bull in the first place; he had me completely under his spell for a long time. I should have known that I couldn't trust the bugger. When a person can be as two faced as Seymour is in his business dealings, I should have wondered what his true feelings for me really were. I don't think my father ever liked or trusted him either. Am I glad daddy took the precautions he did with my inheritance. God, the man's a real slime ball. In a way I feel sorry for your wife. She doesn't know what she's let herself in for in the long term." "Well, I don't. Serves her bloody right for what she's done to me and the girls. I must have been blind. I had no idea that she was playing around on me." "When he wants to be, Seymour can be bloody charming, Frank. Christ, that man could charm the birds out of the trees, if he wanted to. I doubt that your wife knew what hit her. But she'll come down with one hell of a bump eventually. If she's got any sense she'll keep her job. She's damn good at what she does, you know." "Is she, or did she only get where she is because of her association with your husband?" "Oh, no, more like the other way round, I should think. Seymour doesn't have a controlling interest in that firm and Jean is good, even if she doesn't realise it. She holds a lot of influence with the board members. They recognise talent when they see it. I should imagine Seymour decided to hook up with her for nefarious reasons." I don't know what kind of look I gave Sonya when she said that. To be honest, I wasn't even sure of what Jean did at her office. Neither of us had - as some folks put it - taken our jobs home with us; maybe that had been a mistake and we'd drifted apart because of it. "I told you, Frank, he's a real slime ball. Seymour will try just about anything to get an edge in business. I'm damned sure that's why he married me in the first place; because my father was the Chairman of several companies that Seymour held directorships of at the time. But my father had a really serious heart attack a few years back and retired to the south of France. Knowing Seymour, that's probably when he considered I was of little further use to him; what with the way my father tied up my inheritance and all, before he died, so that Seymour couldn't get his hands on it." I think I must have offered my condolences on her father's death at that point and the subject of conversation changed to our parents and what few relations we both had still alive. After that we talked about our children and the hopes we had for their future and my disappointment in Jean's betrayal. Sonya told me that she didn't go out to work. A strange smile came on her face when I said that she was a stay at home mum. An even bigger smile came over her face when I said that I didn't blame her what with all the hassle of looking after the home and three children. Sonya was still smiling when Susan came out of the house to find us and informed us that Tadpole was looking for his mother. "Mr Moore, can Sheryl and Annette come over to our house tomorrow? I want to teach her how to dive," Tadpole asked me the moment we walked in the door. I assumed that the 'her' he was referring to was Sheryl, and I very much suspected that "teaching her how dive" was going to consist of Tadpole showing off his own prowess on the diving board. Sonya had told me that was where Dominic had got his tadpole nickname; once he had learnt to swim, she had trouble keeping him out of the pool. "Sure, if they want to and your mother doesn't mind, I can't see why not," I replied. "Susan, why don't you bring your children over as well? I'm sure they'd enjoy playing in the pool," Sonya immediately asked my sister. "You can all come for lunch." So the following morning found me with my two and Susan's eldest, in my car. Following John - who apparently Sonya had given directions to her house to -- with Susan and her other three in his car, round the country lanes of deepest Surrey. It wasn't at all warm that day, although it was quite sunny. I'd mentioned the temperature to Susan when we'd met up at her house; she just replied that the pool must be heated or Sonya wouldn't have invited the children over for a swim. I was just beginning to think that John was completely lost when he turned off the road, through an arched gateway and into the drive of a bleeding great country house. I had been expecting a fairly large house if it had its own pool in the garden, but nothing like this bloody place. There was even a gatehouse beside the entrance arch. Peaceful Easy Feelin’ I wasn't sure we had gone to the right house, until Tadpole and the twins came running out of the front portico, when we finally arrived at the end of the drive. All the children piled out of the cars and disappeared into the mansion as Sonya made her appearance. There was something about the woman that I couldn't get my head around. She was dressed in a pair of cut off denims and a blouse that was tied just below her breasts, showing off a vast expanse of midriff; not the sort of clothing you would expect someone living in a house like that would wear. But the point was, she somehow managed to look so elegant in that attire. It struck me that, whatever the woman wore, she always managed to look like she was about to step out on the catwalk at a fashion show. Sonya led us through the house and out into a rather large cast iron conservatory. Well, I assumed it had been a conservatory once; now it sported a large indoor swimming pool, that three young people -- a boy and two girls - were splashing about in. Sonya told us they were the offspring of some of the people who lived on the estate -- I noted that she didn't refer to them as workers. They were college students at the time, but on the weekends and during the holidays they liked to come up to the house and help keep the children amused, she informed us. All three were formally introduced to us, before the children came rushing back down from wherever Tadpole and the twins had taken them to get changed. At the time, I didn't think much of it, but I got the feeling that the boy, Jeremy, was sizing me up. I didn't really notice either, that both of the girls sought me out for a chat at one time or another during the day and afterwards they would spend a few minutes in quiet conversation with each other. Nothing much else of note happened that day; except I -- like all the other adults - was persuaded to don a swimsuit at sometime during the afternoon. Sonya supplied them from somewhere. I could only suppose that she held a stock of the things for guests to use somewhere in the house. Oh, yeah, one other thing I noted was that Susan's guy, John, couldn't keep his eyes off of her figure -- Susan's, that is -- once she squeezed herself into the bikini that Sonya supplied her with. Well, I think that was what he was gawking at! Whatever, the bikini that Susan chose must have done the trick, because she called me the next day to tell me that John had asked her to marry him when they got back to her house that night. I'd liked John from the moment I had met him; god knows where my sister picked him up. And I could tell he was a thoughtful bloke because the next time I saw him the cherished BMW Three Series was gone, replaced by a people carrier in which he could transport Susan and all four children around, in comfort and safety. Everyone had appeared to enjoy themselves at Sonya's house. Well, it was a different world to us. Anyway after that weekend, it became a regular thing for Sonya and her three to turn up at my house on Saturdays, and on Sundays my two girls and myself would go over to Sonya's house. Most often John, Susan and the children would be invited to Sonya's house on the Sunday as well. Since Jean had been gone they nearly always turned up at mine on Saturdays anyway. During our visits to Sonya's house over the following weeks, we did meet a couple of her relatives: an old boy who everyone referred to as Uncle Theo, who seemed to spend most of his time clay pigeon shooting out in the grounds somewhere, and a very formidable old lady who everyone respectfully addressed as Aunt Gilda. She frightened the arse off of me and just about every other adult that I ever saw in her company - well, Susan and John anyway. You'll remember Lady Bracknell from 'The importance of being Earnest.' Yeah, well, I think Oscar Wilde must have based Lady Bracknell on Aunt Gilda; there was an uncanny similarity in their personalities. I know that she wasn't someone I would want to cross swords with, in a hurry. Aunt Gilda always seemed very pleasant when she was with the children; she appeared to take a great interest in and spend a lot of time talking with my two girls, who were in complete awe of her. Exactly what she talked with the girls about, I have no idea. But whatever Aunt Gilda said to them, they accepted as gospel. At home I discovered that chores around the house and school homework suddenly took on a new importance to them. When I enquired of the girls why the sudden change in attitude, I learnt that it had something to do with what Aunt Gilda had said to them. I enquired no further. "All signed and sealed," Rachel said, handing me an envelope as I opened the door to her one evening. "The judge only made one order and that's that he considers Jean's reasonable access to the children shall consist of not less than sixty-five visits a year. Basically, once a week and on their birthdays and public holidays and the like." She grinned. "I thought with the mutual petition we were keeping custody out of the court?" I replied, as I led Rachel into the kitchen and began pouring her a cup of tea. "We were but the Judge wanted to know what arrangements had been made concerning them. He's a nice old boy so I told him what we had on Jean and Seymour. Henry wasn't too pleased about that. Anyway he decided to add it into the decree that Sonya's visits must be supervised by a responsible person and on no account could Seymour be present, even if she marries him in the future." "So that's it, we're divorced then?" I asked. "To all intents and purposes yes. It will be a little while before the paperwork's complete; it all has to be rubber stamped yet. But as far as you're concerned you are a free man from today and Jean has to pay the child support monthly or risk the wrath of the courts." "Thanks, Rachel. Now I suppose I'll have to look forward to receiving your bill." "No, the Judge took care of that as well. Once he'd asked about what arrangements had been made for the children, he looked at all the paperwork that I just happened to have with me. He saw your projected income and what Jean's raking in. That's when he decided to formalise the child maintenance payments, and when I told him that you were not asking for any maintenance for yourself until the girls were of age. You would have gotten that, you know; some cash to tide you over until you could go back to full time work. Anyway the judge decided that Jean should pay your legal expenses." "Thanks, Rachel. I'm not on Poverty Street yet, but I'm going to have to keep a close eye on the cash for a few years." Rachel went on to chastise me for not taking Jean for everything that I could. "That's the trouble with some of you guys. Your bloody pride gets in the way of your common sense. Jean would have taken you for every penny she could¸ don't you worry," Rachel admonished me. "You're probably right, Rachel, and most likely Jean would have tried to make it difficult for me to see the girls as well. But I'm not Jean. I'm Frank Moore. I don't cheat on my family and I don't use my children or money as a weapon." "I don't suppose the silly woman will ever realise what a catch she lost in you." "Looking back I think Jean always wanted a big fish with plenty of money, not a tiddler like me. I'm quite happy in my little pond and I need to find the kind of woman who'll be happy to share it with me." "What makes you say that, Frank?" "Oh, I don't know. The little things, like Jean always being envious of people who had newer cars and bigger houses. She was never blatant about it but I could always sense the envy in her." "Well, she's got her big fish, but I wonder if she got a strong enough net to keep him in." Rachel grinned. I wondered how long it would last as well; after all from the hints I'd picked up from Sonya, it was extremely doubtful that Jean was Seymour's first extramarital affair and there's the old saying once a cheat always a cheat. It was the following weekend that Susan and John announced their wedding date. Maybe I was a little worried that they hadn't known each other all that long, but in the long term John turned out to be a great husband and surrogate father to Susan's children, who by then hadn't laid eyes on their real father for three years. He'd turn up now and again in the following years, but not very often. Anyway a week or so after Sue had made the announcement; Sonya asked where she and John were planning on going for their honeymoon. "A honeymoon, you've got to be joking," Susan replied. "Who'd be dumb enough to look after the terrors whilst we were away?" "Well, they could come and stay here with the children and me. Or better still if you move your wedding back a couple of weeks until the schools break up; they could come to the villa with us," Sonya said, then turned to me. "You and the girls could come along as well, Frank. I think they'd enjoy it over there; I know that Tadpole and the twins would love having them along." "Over where, Sonya? Where is this villa of yours?" "On an island in the Caribbean," Sonya replied rather vaguely, and before I could ask more she went on to Sue and John. "Hey, better than that, there is a guest house in the grounds, you and John could use that, it'll give you some privacy most of the time and your children can stay with Frank and me up in the villa. Then the children would be able to see you everyday, but you'd be on your own at night." By that point the snowball was rolling down the hill on its own accord and getting bigger every second. One of the children must have overheard what we had been talking about and the next thing you know, it's all a done deal as far as the children were concerned. Disappointing them, I felt, was not an option; although I thought that the airfares were going to make a bleeding great dent in my bank account. I think I vented my spleen a little at Sonya later. "I'm sorry, Frank, I just got carried away. I like Sue, and John's a great guy taking on a ready-made family like that. Not every guy would do that. I just thought it would make their honeymoon something special. You know, a couple of weeks in the Caribbean for free." "Not exactly free, Sonya. There's the cost of getting there and back again," I reminded her. "Ah, now, this concern is about travel expenses, it isn't really about Sue and John, is it? Rachel told me that you're feeling the pinch a bit. But don't worry about the flights, Frank; I'll sort them out for everyone." "I don't think that's a good idea, Sonya," I started to say. "Frank, before you say anything else, my father was one of the biggest individual share holders in the airline. All those shares are still in the family and I get a whacking great discount whenever the children and I fly out there. On top of that, with the size of the party flying out we'll get an even bigger discount. So please put your masculine pride away for once." "It's got nothing to do with pride..." "Come off it, Frank. Don't you think I know you by now. But I'll be honest with you; I had an ulterior motive for inviting you, Sheryl and Annette along. Besides Tadpole believing that Sheryl is a private gift from god to him, he'd already said that he wanted to stay with Aunt Gilda this summer instead of going out to the villa, which means he must really be serious." Sonya stopped talking and smiled at me. "Yeah, I gathered that they are getting sweet on each other, but they're barely ten years old," I replied. "Children grow up a lot sooner than we did in this modern age, Frank." "Tadpole might change his mind later, when he discovers how much of her mother Sheryl has in her. But what's this ulterior motive you have for inviting us out there?" Sonya grinned again, "Well, you are well aware that my soon to be ex-husband is shacked up with your ex-wife, right." I nodded that I was aware of the fact. "You might not have heard about it, but all is not as well as it could be in the new household." "How do you know that?" "Trust me, Frank, I have ways of finding these things out. Jean is holding Seymour on a very tight leash and he doesn't like it a bit." "How the hell is she managing to do that, if someone like you couldn't keep him under control? Christ, you outclass Jean in just about every respect and you couldn't control the bugger," I pointed out. Hey, they weren't married or anything yet, so I couldn't see why Seymour couldn't just throw Jean's cheating arse out. "Thanks for the compliment," Sonya said, then asked, "That was a compliment, wasn't it?" I just gave Sonya a sideways look in reply. She smiled again. "Let's just say that some of Seymour's business ventures aren't quite as legal as they could be, and I do believe that Jean knows where all the skeletons are buried. Well, a good number of them anyway. What is it you say? Jean's got Seymour by the short and curlys! He's well and truly lumbered with her, until she gets bored with him. "Ooh ah," I commented. "Yeah, and I just thought it would be terribly funny if they got the idea that you and I were, you know, becoming more than just friends. Maybe we could put on a little show, just to turn the knife in the wound a little." "A show?" "Yes, we let them know when we are flying out and invite them to come and see the children off at the airport. Then you and I pretend to be a lot more familiar with each other than we really are. That should piss both of them off nicely." "Pardon? Did you just say Piss-off?" I asked. 'Piss-off' wasn't the sort of language that Sonya usually used. Well, not in my hearing anyway. "Frank, just because I went to Benenden - a school like that teaches you how to behave and talk like young ladies in public, but that doesn't mean all us girls didn't speak plain English when we were in our studies. There were girls from all backgrounds there, so I can curse with the best of them, when I want to," Sonya giggled. "Anyway are you going to go along with my dig at our exes, or are you going to disappoint the children?" "You know that you are a very wicked and naughty girl, Sonya, and you manipulated me today, didn't you? You made damned sure that Tadpole would overhear you inviting us along." "Honest answer?" she asked. "Of course!" I insisted. "Well, yes. I admit it. But in mitigation I must explain that it was Tadpole's idea to invite you all over there in the first place. He just had a different objective in mind. I told you, he has become very attached to Sheryl and threatened to stay with Aunt Gilda if Sheryl didn't go along with us this year, just so that he could see her." "I don't know what to worry about most, your son's intentions toward my daughter or what sly trick you are about to pull next. It's getting so that I can't trust anyone." "You are coming though?" I couldn't bring myself to say no to the pleading little-girl-hurt expression on Sonya's face. "I guess I haven't much choice really, have I?" "And you'll play the game at the airport?" "If you insist, but don't go overdoing things in front of the children; we wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea." "Oh no, that would never do," Sonya replied, with a strange inflection to her voice that I didn't quite understand. -------------------------------- The weeks went by and I still found I couldn't buy a newspaper. Stories about Sonya and Seymour's legal wranglings over money were in them most every day. And there always seemed to be pictures of Jean and Seymour together at some club or the other. I rarely read the stories but in the few that I did skim through on the news-stands - and reading between the lines - Jean was being painted as a real femme fatale and a marriage breaker. The news reporters' quest for something -- anything -- different to write about the divorce, led to stories even mentioning Sonya and her friendship with me, a few times. But oddly -- well, for the way the muckrakers' normally phrase things -- there was no insinuation that anything untoward was going on between Sonya and myself. Well, not blatantly anyway; for some reason I was expecting salacious hints, but I was surprised that there weren't any. Jean took to visiting the children for an hour or so a couple of evenings every week. Seymour would normally drop her off and by coincidence one or two press photographers always seemed to be hanging around in the street on those days. I came to the conclusion that someone was tipping the press off about which evenings Jean was coming to visit the children, because the press boys were never around on the days she didn't come. Considering the way she smiled and posed for them to take their pictures, it could well have been Jean herself. Right from the start it was evident that I needed to get someone else to supervise Jean's visits. Maybe I was being bloody minded, but to my way of thinking supervised means that she's never alone with them. My feelings towards Jean at the time were still very antagonistic; some people might have called it hate. But personally I don't believe we're on this earth long enough to waste time on hating anyone. But I will admit that I was winding her up, by insisting that a second adult of my choosing was always present when she was with the children. Because I was very aware that my personal antagonism towards Jean manifested itself whenever we were in the same room together, Rachel did the honours a few times, but then she turned up one day with Tracy, a young secretary from her office who didn't live far from my house. Tracy did the honours from then on for a small fee. Tracy's presence proved to be very handy. She looked very young herself and I do believe that Jean just thought that she was a local teenager who I'd roped in. Tracy didn't enlighten Jean otherwise and reported back to me diligently, when Jean began to question Sheryl and Annette, first about our visits to Sonya's house and her and the Springfield children's to ours. And secondly about what kind of a relationship was developing between Sonya and myself. "Don't be silly, mummy," Annette had replied. "We go over to their house because Tadpole is Sherry's boyfriend and Jeremy is teaching us to swim." Tracy said the mention of Jeremy had confused Jean somewhat, because she obviously had no idea who he was. Then she'd gotten further confused when Annette had rolled straight on into talking about Susan and John's wedding. Once again Jean had no idea who John was either. As she was leaving that night Jean did enquire of Tracy if she knew who Jeremy and John were; but that was the advantage of Tracy being there, she had no idea of who they were either. A month or so went past and Jean began to hint to the children that she was going to be away for a few weeks during the summer. Tracy informed me that Annette had begun to say something about us going away on holiday as well, but Sheryl had cut her off by changing the subject to Susan's wedding. "Frank, I know I'm only there to upset your wife." "Ex-wife!" I corrected Tracy. "Yes, sorry, your ex-wife. But I also know that you want the girls to have a, er, reasonable relationship with their mother." "As reasonable as can be expected under the circumstances," I commented. "Yes, I understand that it's very awkward," Tracy said, tentatively. I thought that Tracy was beating around the bush so I went straight to what I thought she was getting at. "Look, Tracy, if and when Jean ends her relationship with Seymour Springfield, I will relax my conditions on her visits to the girls. Whilst that animal is still around, she'll never be on her own with them if I've got any say in the matter, and she'll never take them out of this house unless you or someone like you is with them." "No, you misunderstand me, Frank. I think that she deserves the conditions you have put on her visits. I do all of Rachel's typing and paperwork, so I know all about the indecent with Seymour in your lounge. What I was trying to point out to you is that Sheryl is feeling some real animosity towards her mother. I think even more than you publicly show. It could be that she hates her mother and to my mind that isn't right." Peaceful Easy Feelin’ "You think?" I asked. "I'm pretty sure; perhaps a child counsellor or something might be a good idea," Tracy suggested. "Thank you for telling me Tracy. I have to admit that I hadn't really noticed. Maybe I'm too close, what with my own pain as well. I thought the girls were taking the marriage break-up pretty well." "I think that they are really. It's possible that Sheryl has placed all the blame on her mother's shoulders. Which, if you think about it, is where it should be placed. But if she's ever going to return to the reasonable relationship that you say you'd like her to have with her mother, then Sheryl is going to have to start to forgive her sometime." -------------------------- The headmistress at the girls' school put me in touch with a nice woman and we arranged for Sheryl and Annette to have a few sessions with her during the school lunch hours. I thought it wouldn't hurt for Annette to see her as well. A week or so later the woman called me in for a chat. "Both children have taken the recent turmoil in their home lives extremely well in my opinion, Mr Moore. And up to a point, you are right about Sheryl's animosity towards her mother. But I'm pretty convinced that Sheryl will get over that eventually and forgive her mother in the long term. But, I must add, Sheryl is very disappointed in her mother and I doubt that she will ever forget what her mother did and what Sheryl thinks she was planning to do if you hadn't reacted first." "I just hoped that the girls could have a reasonable relationship with their mother. I believe that they need her in their lives in the long term." "You were hoping that they would not blame their mother for the marriage break-up. Well, Mr Moore, it appears that Sheryl had worked out that her mother was having an affair with this man well before your wife left home. She also suspected that her mother had intended taking her and Annette with them when she moved in with this man friend of hers. Now Sheryl really does hate him." "She's not the only one," I commented. "I can understand your feelings there, Mr Moore. Anyway, before everything came to a head Sheryl had been agonising about what to do about the situation for sometime. She was trying to summon up enough courage to tell you what she thought was going on, when you found out by other means. Because of those other means, Sheryl believes that she failed you by not telling you sooner; that has caused her a lot of anguish and put her under a lot of mental strain." "I've looked at her books here and spoken to her teachers; her school work had really suffered in the weeks leading up to your break-up. They stayed pretty poor for some months afterwards; both of your daughters' studies went seriously downhill for a while. Then suddenly, about eight weeks ago, they both suddenly seemed to start getting her act together again and pulled their socks up." "Aunt Gilda," I said absent-mindedly. "Sorry?" "Oh, the girls and I met an old lady about two months ago. She took a great interest in the girls and spent a lot of time talking to them. I've noticed that they were more diligent about their school homework after she'd spoken to them, and seem to be a lot more helpful around the house as well." "It appears that Aunt Gilda has been a good influence on both your daughters." "Yes, I'd say she has as well, much to my surprise. She's a real dragon; she scared the life out of me the first time that I met her. But she's obviously brilliant with children. They've only seen her a couple of times, but she always finds the time to speak to them individually." "I believe that the lady is a good influence on your girls. You should encourage the relationship as much as you can. But may I ask you, if it's not too personal a question, who is this Sonya? Sheryl appears to be quite attached to her as well." "That possibly has more to do with Tadpole than anything else; Sonya is his mother. Sheryl and Tadpole have become very close friends; if they were a few years older, I would have said too close, if you understand me. And by the way, Sonya's the wife of the new man in my wife's life." "Oh, dear, I apologise. Lady Sonya Springfield, of course. I didn't realise who your wife's er... new friend was." "Yes, my wife is shacked up with Seymour Springfield now," I confirmed. 'Yeah,' I thought to myself, 'you've drooled over gossip in the newspapers like everyone else.' "Well, Mr Moore, I do believe that Sheryl is more disappointed in her mother's behaviour than anything else. She always has had a great attachment to you, and she feels guilty about not approaching you with her suspicions about what her mother was getting up to. She has also become attached to Lady Sonya and her son and she's probably blaming her mother for breaking that family up as well. However she does still love her mother so given time I do believe that she will forgive her." "I can't see that Annette has any problems to worry about. She loves her mother and misses her being at home. But she is really enjoying the extra time that you are spending with her nowadays. She thinks that you're more fun than her mother and enjoys helping you with the cooking." "Yeah, she's a little whiz in the kitchen." "Well, I'll continue to see them about once every few weeks during the school terms, unless something changes. But I don't think you've got anything to worry about in the long term. Give them both time to get used to the quite drastic change in their home life and keep on encouraging their mother's visits. ---------------------------- The following Sunday Aunt Gilda was at Sonya's house again, and as was her usual want, spent some time during the morning talking with both of my daughters. Not that I took any particular notice at the time because Uncle Theo had dragged me outside into the grounds where he had set about teaching me how to shoot. Clays that is; I had never handled a gun in my life before. I don't think I hit more than one of them before Dominic came out to tell us that lunch was being served. Uncle Theo thought Tadpole was a silly name for a young man and refused to use it; I had agreed with him but didn't think it was my place to interfere. At that time Uncle Theo was the only person that I ever heard refer to Dominic by any other name except Tadpole. It was well after lunch and I think I was going up to one of the bedrooms to change into my swimming trunks when I heard, "Mr Moore, I'd like a private word with you if I may, young man. Will you join me in the library for a cup of tea?" Aunt Gilda's voice boomed out from the library as I headed for the massive staircase. I didn't know why I looked at Sonya who happened to be in the hall at the same time. But the look she gave told me that she had no idea what Aunt Gilda wanted to speak to me about. I must have looked a little nervous - that was the effect that Aunt Gilda had on most adults - and I noted that Sonya changed the direction that she was heading in, so that we arrived at the library door at the same time. "I have some things that I wish to discuss with Frank in private, Sonya. Please make sure that we are not disturbed." Aunt Gilda dismissed Sonya with those few words. I followed Aunt Gilda into the library where she directed me to a specific chair with a wave of her walking stick. She took a seat on the opposite side of a small table. I, of course, waited until she'd seated herself before sitting myself. No sooner were we seated when one of Sonya's house staff came in carrying a tea tray. He placed it on the table between us and left again, after receiving a, "Thank you, Grant," from Aunt Gilda whom he addressed as Milady. "Now, Frank, what's all this nonsense I hear about you having 'my girls' seen by a trick cyclist?" she asked. I immediately noted that she referred to my daughters as 'her girls'; I took it as an affectionate term. "They've had a lot of upheaval in their lives recently and I was worried about how Sheryl was handling it. She's apparently been very hostile towards her mother," I replied. I suppose I could have been annoyed at Aunt Gilda's interference, but there was something about the woman. Dragon she might be, but I immediately knew that she had the girls' best interests at heart. I also had her taped as a very intelligent woman. "Well, that's not very surprising, is it? Her mother probably made the worst decision of her life when she took up with Seymour. I always knew he was a complete scoundrel and so did Sonya's father. But then youngsters will be so headstrong on occasions. "Sheryl's just fine, young man. She'll get over her anger eventually, don't worry. Children are pretty resilient, you know." "Yes, that's virtually what the counsellor told me," I replied. "There see, if you had spoken to me first, you could have saved yourself some money." I didn't bother to mention to Aunt Gilda that the girls' school had supplied the counsellor. Whilst we'd been talking she had poured the tea and at that point she handed the dainty little cup to me. Then she sat back in her chair and fixed me with one of those looks of hers. "Now tell me, what are your intentions towards my niece?" she asked. "Sorry, my intentions towards who?" I replied. "Sonya, young man. You're here every weekend. I would like to know what your long term intentions towards my niece are. She's made one big mistake in her life; I'd like to ensure that she doesn't make another." "Gilda, I bring the children over here on Sundays so that they can play together with Sonya's children. They all seem to have become great friends. Especially Sheryl and Dominic." "And that's the only reason that you visit here every Sunday?" "Yes. What other reason could there be? Both Sonya's and my children have effectively lost one parent. They are all in the same boat so Sonya suggested that they would... I don't know, commiserate with each other. Sonya brings her three to my house on Saturdays, and I bring the girls here on Sundays." What I can only call a knowing smile came over Gilda's face. "How much like her mother that girl has grown to become?" she mused quietly to herself. "Sorry," I said, not really understanding the relevance of what Gilda had said to the conversation. "Oh its nothing important. Now, the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about is this trip you are all taking out to the Villa. Sonya is a little concerned about whether you can afford the airfare." "Well, it is a concern to me, but I think I can afford it all right, thank you." "Frank, you... I mean, your family's presence has been good for Sonya. She's not as tough as she likes to act sometimes, you know. Please don't be offended, but if you need assistance with the airfares just ask me. I'm a very rich woman and I really haven't got much to spend it on any more. I love Sonya's children, but your two have taken my heart as well. I'd hate to see them miss out on anything for the sake of a few pounds." "Thank you for the offer, Gilda, but I'm fine financially, thank you. I have to be a little prudent, but we'll muddle through." I'm not sure whether I was annoyed or not about the old lady's offer of financial assistance, but as it appeared that she was more interested in the girls' welfare than mine, I chose not to be. Gilda and I chatted on about how well the children were getting together for a while and then she suggested that I should get back to enjoying the afternoon with the children. All the time we talked Aunt Gilda had this strange - what I can only describe as knowing - smile on her face. After that interview that smile nearly always came on her face when she looked at me. It appeared to be a private expression that she reserved for me personally. "What was that all about?" Sonya asked in a quiet moment after I'd returned to the pool. "I haven't got the foggiest idea; I think Aunt Gilda just wanted a quiet chat about my children." I replied; for some reason I didn't want to go into the details of my conversation with Aunt Gilda with Sonya. Possibly because Aunt Gilda had mentioned Sonya. --------------------------- It was during the week before Susan and John's wedding that I decided to drop the bomb about our holiday to the Caribbean on Jean. I had noticed that the girls hadn't actually told Jean where we were going. Oh, after Tracy told me about Sheryl's hostility towards her mother, I'd wired the lounge with a microphone hooked up to an old reel-to-reel tape-recorder hidden in my bedroom, one that I'd had since I was a kid. I would skim through the recording after the children were asleep, just to be nosy. Several times I'd heard Jean mention the fact that she was going on a cruise, so she wouldn't be able to visit the children in the later part of June and for most of July. "Well, daddy's taking us away for the summer holidays anyway," Annette had always replied, without actually saying where we were supposed to be going. I gathered that Sheryl must have sworn her little sister to secrecy on that subject. Several times Jean had mentioned that a cruise on a big ship was going to be much better than spending a couple of weeks in a caravan in Paignton, and she had tried to talk the girls into working on me, to allow her to take them with her on the cruise. The caravan holiday in Paignton had been Jean's idea of the perfect holiday location for children, by the way. It had been the place her parents had always taken her as a child and she had insisted that we holidayed at that same caravan site every year. Jean had rejected my suggestions of going elsewhere and positively refused to venture out of the country with the girls in the past. She must have assumed that I was going to take the girls to Paignton yet again. So she got one hell of a shock when she saw Tracy - on cue - pick up the girls' passports that I'd left strategically placed on the coffee table in the lounge before she arrived. "Why do you need passports?" Jean asked the girls. "Don't be silly. We need them before we can get on the aeroplane, mummy," Annette replied. Somehow Sheryl had worked out that this was the day that I was intending to tell her mother that we were going to the Caribbean, and she didn't dive in and silence her sister. "Where are you going in an aeroplane?" Jean had demanded. "Daddy's taking us out to the Caribbean with some friends of his," Sheryl had replied, with what I thought was more than a little trace of triumph in her voice. "We are going to stay in a big house with its own swimming pool and everything, just like Tadpole's house has, but it's outdoors. We have to be careful of the sun and Tadpole is going to teach us how to sail and swim with a snorkel thing so we can see the fish on the reef," Annette added, apparently not wanting to be outdone by her older sister. Jean had gone strangely silent for a few moments after that. Tracy, who was in the room with them - as she always was during Jean's visits - told later me that she looked like she'd been hit by a bus. We thought that Jean suddenly realised who the children and I were going away with and exactly where to. "I need to speak to my husband," Jean suddenly said to Tracy. "Where is he?" "If by that you mean your ex-husband, Mrs Moore, I think you might find him in the kitchen or out in his workshop." That's when Jean burst into the kitchen and found me playing with the rather ancient video camera I purchased second-hand a few years before. "The girls tell me that you're taking them to the Caribbean," she said as if I was taking them into a dangerous war zone. "Yes, we've been invited by a friend to spend a few weeks at a villa out there." "And when did you intend to let me in on the secret? You are breaking your promise already. How can I visit them if they are out there?" she demanded. There was a tone of triumph in Jean's voice as if she'd caught me out for a change. I looked up at her from the camera, very slowly. "So tell me, what was your plan, Jean? Were you intending getting off of your luxury cruise liner a couple of days a week and flying back home to see the girls? Or is it that you can have a holiday abroad but they can't? Or is it that you just don't like the idea of me going somewhere nice for a change?" "Well, no, but the Caribbean, there's sharks and things out there. I don't want my children getting hurt." "I can assure you that they won't get eaten by sharks, Jean." "They could have come with me on the cruise. I'm sure it would have been much safer!" "Possibly they could, if you weren't going with that arsehole. He's more dangerous to them than any of the sharks out in the Caribbean. But even if he wasn't going I think you'd find that the girls would much prefer to go with their friends." "What friends?" "Super stud's children, Annette and Sheryl, have gotten so tight with them, they are like siblings now. Don't look so surprised, Jean. They have a lot in common - they've all had one parent walk out on them." "I didn't walk out. You threw me out of the house, remember?" "I just got in first, Jean. Don't think I don't know that you were planning on dumping me and shacking up with golden bollocks well before I was even aware that you were playing his whore. You had every intention of taking my children from me and don't try to deny it!" I think I was sounding rather annoyed; Jean must have decided that discretion was the better part of valour and dropped the argument. "When are you going exactly?" she asked. "Sunday morning. We are all meeting at the airport. Are you coming to see the children off and wish them a happy holiday? I know that super stud is going to be there to see his children off." ---------------------- "Oh, I loved Jean's facial expression. She really didn't know what to say, did she?" Susan said, as she watched the video I'd surreptitiously made of my little confrontation with Jean that evening. We were in one of the many bedrooms of Sonya's mansion, where Susan was getting dressed for her wedding ceremony that was to be held in the house's private chapel. I was showing Susan the tape whilst we waited until Susan considered that she was just late enough to get John worried. "No, it's not often that Jean is at a loss for words, but she certainly didn't know what to say when the news finally sank in." I grinned back at her. "I wonder what she'll make of..." Susan began, but then she suddenly changed her mind about what she was saying and stopped speaking. "Make of what?" I asked. I know my sister and the expression on her face told me that she was thinking about something for a few seconds before she went on. "Oh, you know. Sonya is planning on trying to give Seymour the idea that you two have something going between you. I was wondering what Jean will make of it?" "Probably nothing. Lady Sonya Springfield and me, getting it on together! Come off it, Susan, you'd have to be bloody daft to ever think that's going to really happen. Jean might be stupid sometimes, but she can't be that stupid." "What's so daft about you and Sonya getting together or even just having a fling?" "Susan, we're talking one upper class woman here; so Sonya lets our children play together to keep her own kids happy. That doesn't mean she wants to slum it romantically with the likes of me." "What's wrong with you? You've got more class in your little finger than Seymour Springfield has ever had in his whole damned body. Just because Jean couldn't see that doesn't mean to say that Sonya can't." "Susan, you've got to understand these titled folk. Oh, they love to pretend that they believe that everyone is equal. That's all right until they think that us hoi pollois are getting ideas above our station, then... well, they slap you down without a second thought." Peaceful Easy Feelin’ "I don't think Sonya's like that at all." "Come on, Susan, you know what all this is about. It's about getting back at Seymour. I'm damned sure Sonya has only been inviting us over here to get under his skin. In a way she's rubbing his nose in it. Seymour isn't allowed anywhere near Jean's children, but I'm here every weekend with his. And now she wants to make him believe that we are getting it on together. Sonya's winding the bugger up, that's all. Once she's had her fun, she'll be out of our lives as quick as those sexy legs of hers can carry her." "You think?" "Susan, you saw that guy who turned up here the other Sunday to see Sonya, in that bleeding Vanquish. Have you any idea how much that bleeding thing must have cost Lord Kiss-my-arse or whatever his f-ing name was? Well, I'll tell you, over a quarter of a million quid those things are and that's without insurance or filling the bloody fuel tank. He's more the type that Lady Sonya will finish up with, take my word for it. Someone with all the flash clothes and plenty of money to throw around, not the likes of me. Sonya has her own reasons for wanting us around, so I'm just waiting for the bubble to burst and wondering how the girls are going to take it. Sheryl has gotten very attached to Dominic. Maybe I shouldn't have let things go this far." "But you do like Sonya, then; you know, you fancy her?" Sue asked. "I've never said that I didn't. She is a very beautiful woman. If you ask me, Jean will never match up to Sonya's poise, elegant dress sense or ever have the class of Sonya. Christ, to my mind her Ladyship always looks as if she's about to walk out on a cat walk somewhere. If it's a trophy wife that Seymour wanted, he'll never beat Lady Sonya. God knows what the wanker was playing at by nicking my woman." "No, I don't mean her looks; I mean you do like Sonya as a person?" "Yes, well, yes, of course I do. The person that I've seen so far anyway, but I have to believe that it's all an act. Remember, I know what her motive was for getting to know all of us and being so friendly in the first place." "You do? And what motive was that?" "To upset Seymour, I told you!" "Brother, I think you've become a bloody pessimist. Can't you believe that anyone is just being themselves and trust that their intentions are good? Does there have to be an ulterior motive for anything nice that people do for you?" "Trust! Good choice of word, Susan. Christ, I trusted Jean, remember? I married her, didn't I? We had ten years of marriage and two great kids together. And then, completely out of the blue she takes up with that tosser and plans to steal my girls from me. That kind of teaches you the lesson in not trusting what anyone does." "You're not the only one who's been let down by the person they thought loved them, you know." "Come on, Sue, you knew he was a bleeding piss-artist and into drugs before you married him. Everyone told you that he'd finish up an alcoholic or dead with an overdose eventually. And what happened? All the bugger cares about now is where his next fix is coming from." "I thought I could change him," Susan said defensively. "Susan, I'm not criticising you for marrying the man you loved. What I'm saying is that we can all make mistakes; I thought Jean would never change, but she did. Maybe I was just a stepping stone to Jean until she found someone richer. That's why from now on I'm going to look at everything that people do with a little more scepticism than I did in the past. I'll be looking for what they are really after. Don't you remember what dad always used to say to us - if it looks too good to be true, then you can bet your life that it ain't true." We were disturbed by a knock on the bedroom door. "Can I come in?" Sonya's dismembered voice called through the oak panelled door. "Yes, of course," Susan called out, then Sonya's head appeared around the door. "Susan, are you ready yet? Poor John's getting a little fractious; he's worried that you might have changed your mind, or something." Sonya grinned at us. The wedding went off very well; there weren't very many people there besides us and the children, a couple of guys from John's work and their wives, and the one cousin that Susan and I were still in contact with. We had sent invites to the others, but none of them showed. And, of course, Sonya's Uncle Theo (without his trusty shotgun for a change) and Lady Gilda Casson -- that was the first time I ever heard her introduced or referred to by her proper title. Aunt Gilda was waiting at the bottom of the main staircase when Susan and I came down to the hall. She told Susan to remove the string of fake pearls she was wearing and then handed her a diamond pendent necklace with a matching broach and bracelet to wear. Susan nearly fainted later when she was informed - by Rachel - that the glittering jewels were valued at nearly £100,000. They sure did set off that dress though. I'd never seen my sister looking so beautiful. For Susan's wedding night, the girls and I took Susan's youngest two home with us and Rachel took the elder pair back to her place for the night. Susan and John went off to a hotel somewhere, for their first night as man and wife together. For some reason I got the impression that it was the first night they had slept together as well. I know that John looked pretty knackered and Susan had a big smile on her face when we all met up very early the following morning at Susan's house. We were due at the airport by nine-thirty at the latest. I've got to say that it was pandemonium when we did check in for our flight. Six of the children had never flown before and were extremely excited. Sonya's three were used to the routine though so they enjoyed showing the others the ropes, even if some of the excitement did rub off on them. I was surprised at first to see that Jeremy and the two girls were in Sonya's party. I didn't question the fact because it soon became apparent that they'd been accompanying Sonya and her children on this summer jaunt for some years. They soon had the children under control and were adept at keeping them occupied. We'd checked in and were sitting in the refreshment lounge waiting for our flight to be called when Jeremy came over and whispered something to Sonya. "The lovers have arrived, Frank. Jeremy has just spotted them coming over the bridge from the car park. I suggest that we separate our children from Susan's before they get here." I didn't see how Sonya's children greeted their father. But Annette ran over to her mother and gave her a hug, Sheryl strolling along behind her quite nonchalantly. Jean and Seymour didn't separate so consequently, the two disjointed family parties converged on each other; I had hoped this wasn't going to happen and that's why Sonya and I had separated the children in the first place. I very much suspect that Jean and Seymour had a plan of their own. Whilst Jean was talking to Annette and Sheryl, I'm damned sure that Seymour edged even closer to her. It was with some difficulty that I refrained from commenting that Seymour was not supposed to speak to my children when he started ignoring his own three and said hello to Annette; Sheryl had returned to my side by then. But I couldn't really do so without making a scene and arguing with Jean in front of the children. Possibly because I didn't rise to the bait, Seymour switched his attention back to his own children for a while. But then I noticed him gesture to Sonya with his head and the two of them moved away from the group slightly; just far enough that I couldn't hear what they were saying. Jean was in full witch mode when she spoke to me. I can't remember her exact words because I was trying to eavesdrop on what Sonya and Seymour were saying (can I help it if I'm nosy). Anyway Jean was insinuating that I'd never offered to take her abroad for a holiday; that was a lie but I decided not to argue the point. Besides at that instant in time things got exciting. ".... more of a man than you'll ever be and he's a damn sight more considerate that you!" I heard Sonya say. "You slut! You've slept with him, haven't you?" Seymour shouted in reply. "You have no say in who I choose to sleep with anymore, Seymour. Now lower your voice in front of the children please." "You're nothing but a common whore, a slut who sleeps with van drivers," Seymour shouted. I've got to admit that my reaction then was most likely promoted by the fact that Seymour had called Sonya a whore and slut (twice) virtually within one breath. But it was probably also influenced - in some part - by the insult he'd just thrown at me. Shit, I'm a bloody professional truck driver. Only amateurs and cowboys drive bleeding vans. It took three paces for me to reach Seymour. I tapped him on the shoulder -- well, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face me. "The definition of a slut is a wife who shags other men behind her loving husband's back. You should know that - you're shacked up with one now. What a wife does after her husband walks out on her to shack up with a slut is no concern of his," I said to him. I was quite pleased with myself - I hadn't exactly blasphemed once in that statement. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to," Seymour replied. "I've got a good mind to take you outside and teach you some manners!" "I really would like to see you try." I grinned back at him. Now Seymour Springfield is quite a big bloke by any standards. But just for a moment I saw reticence in his eye; then his facial expression changed, he set his jaw and took half a step back leaning slightly to the right as he drew his arm back. The punch - when it eventually arrived - missed me by a mile. I'd just stepped back a little and leant to the right myself. When you have advertised your intentions as Seymour had done, he really couldn't have expected me to have waited for him to land the damned thing. My blow -- that as far as Seymour was concerned came from nowhere -- contacted his jaw as he was trying to regain his balance. Although I was distracted some by all the flashes that had suddenly started going off all around us. I hadn't noticed the press photographers all around before that instant. Anyway I do believe the distraction of those flashes possibly had the effect of weakening the force I put into the punch. Seymour didn't so much fall over; he just kind-of folded up and collapsed in a heap on the spot. "Is that what you had planned?" I asked Sonya as we herded the children back over to the rest of our party. "Oh, my god, no!" Sonya replied. "I'm sorry, Frank. I had no idea Seymour would get violent." I stopped and looked back at the now prone Seymour surrounded by Jean and airport staff attempting to revive him. And with a little group of fellow passengers and newsmen all of whom appeared to be taking pictures. "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword!" I said. "Pardon?" Sonya said. "Oh, I don't know if it fits exactly, but I've always wanted to say that. This is possibly the best opportunity I'll ever have to use it," I said. A smile came on Sonya's face, then she leant forward and kissed me very briefly on the lips. "It fits perfectly!" she said as she broke the kiss. That was the first time besides when we shook hands that I can recall any physical contact between us. And I must admit, I enjoyed that first brief taste. ---------------------------------------- The flight out to Jamaica was long and during it no one mentioned that altercation at Heathrow - well, not to me anyway. We six adults were in club class and the nine children, Jeremy and the two girl minders - that's obviously what they were; Sonya had brought them along to run herd on the children -- anyway their seats were all grouped together just through in tourist class. During the flight we could and did go back to see them often. Although after they got over their first excitement they settled down and slept most of the time or watched the films. It was pretty obvious that Sonya - or I should say, Lady Sonya - was well known at the airport and had also been expected; our whole group was herded off the aircraft together and given VIP treatment. After the formalities we were met by a giant of a Jamaican, who was introduced to me as Sam. Sonya's twin girls both gave Sam a hug; come to think of it, they seemed more excited to see Sam than they had their father at Heathrow. Anyway then Sam was very formally introduced to Susan's children and my two girls. They were told they were to pay special attention to anything he told them, because he was in charge of the villa and their safety. Finally Sam was introduced to Susan, John and myself. "I'm please to meet you, sir. If there's anything you require you just have to ask," he said to me. "I'll tell you what you can do for me, Sam; you can drop the sir bit. Her majesty hasn't waved a sword over any of my family's head, so far." I grinned at him. He'd grinned back at me. "I will try to remember that... Frank." After a ride down to the harbour on a coach, we transferred to a large cruiser type boat for the rest of the journey to the island that the villa is situated on. A meal had apparently been organised and was served during the long sea journey; it was dark and must have been getting near midnight by the time we tied up on one side of a jetty reaching some way out into the sea from the island. I was surprised that I hadn't noticed earlier but several guys were unloading our luggage from a second boat that it had obviously been transported in. Several men and women were in the process of carrying some of the cases up a path that I assumed led to the villa. Out of habit I went to pick-up my own suitcase, but Sam gently took hold of my arm before I could do so. "I can carry my own bag, Sam!" I said to him. "Mr Frank, you have a profession, I assume," he replied. "Yeah, I drive trucks!" I replied. "Do you let the people you deliver to drive your truck?" he asked. "No, Sam, I'd do myself out of a job, wouldn't I?" "Then please don't take the staff's job from them. You are on vacation and the staff here are paid to look after your every need. Well, almost! There's no other work around here except for fishing." I looked up at the big man who was smiling back down at me. "Okay, Sam, this is your island," I said. "Thank you, sir, and I wish it was. But I think we are going to get along fine, don't you?" The short conversation was interrupted by a little scream. Both I and Sam spun around to see Simone drop the two bags that she was carrying, run over to young Jeremy who'd just climbed off the boat and throw her arms around his neck. Sam gave a little laugh, "We told her Jeremy couldn't be coming this year as a joke. She was very disappointed." "Do I assume that they are an item?" "Simone and Jerry have been together for many years. Jeremy and his sister are planning on joining the staff here at the villa when they finish their studies; they are going to teach the guests water sports. I believe that he and Simone will get married as soon as he moves out here." Sam hoisted a couple of suitcases and made off up the path towards the villa. I looked around and realised almost everyone else, except Jeremy and Simone -- who were otherwise occupied - had gone on ahead of me, whilst I'd been talking to Sam. So I followed on in the same direction that Sam had gone in. Just taking a quick look back at the love-birds snogging on the jetty. The path led to a long flight of stairs. Some way up these I came to a large paved area with a pretty impressive swimming pool. On the other side of the pool level, I could see Sam climbing another flight of steps; these lead onto the large patio in front of the villa itself. It looked pretty big to me; well, I had assumed it was going to be quite big to be able to accommodate all of us. But later I discovered that it wasn't just big, it was massive, built with separate wings on many levels that seemed to snake around the hillside. Later it was explained to me, that although ostensibly it had been built as a private villa, the plan had always been to hire out wings of the building, something in the fashion of a hotel, when the family wasn't in residence, mainly I gathered to help with the running costs. Several much smaller villas which Sonya referred to as summer houses were doted around on the grounds. It was one of these that Susan and John were shipped off to, to allow the newly-weds some privacy. I have no idea which way the children went when they'd entered the villa. They had been led off by members of the staff to their own suites - nobody had rooms; all the accommodation was in suites of several rooms, each with their own private balcony or patio area. The place wasn't just impressive, it was unbelievable to a person like me; something like an elaborate film set. Sonya, like everyone else, had disappeared by the time I arrived inside the building and it was Sam who led me up to my suite. "That's the door to Lady Sonya's suite," Sam pointed out as we came to the door of my own. I noted that Sonya and I were in adjoining suites, but thought no more of it. It was only the following day when I discovered that all the children and the two teenage girls were in another wing that I began to put any significance to the room allocations. Jeremy, by the way, was accommodated in the staff villa. I didn't ask, but later I assumed that he and Simone were sleeping together. Whenever Simone was off-duty she was never more than six inches from his side. I took a quick shower, then set out to track down my daughters, who I soon discovered along with Susan's children being given a full tour of the house by Tadpole and his sisters. I pointed out that it was very late and eventually the children agreed to retire to bed. They were all very excited, so I couldn't really chastise them for being up well after midnight. As they disappeared toward their rooms, I wandered out onto the patio. "Can I get you anything, sir; coffee or something stronger?" Sam asked, apparently appearing from out of thin air. I was to get used to that habit of his over the next few weeks. It was like the man had a sixth sense; he seemed to be able to predict whenever I wanted anything and he would suddenly be there. "Sam, its Frank if you don't mind. Yeah, where's the bloody bar? I could do with something." Sam led the way and I sat on a stool at the bar whilst Sam mixed me one of his special cocktails. Then we chatted for an hour or so, Sam filling me in on the villa's history and he talked a lot about Sonya's father who Sam had apparently been devoted to. It was pretty obvious that that devotion had been transferred to Sonya with her father's demise. I have no idea whatsoever as to the time I got to bed. I know that I was awakened by Sheryl and Annette charging into my room and diving on top of me whilst I was still in bed. "Come on, Daddy, get up. We are all going swimming after breakfast!" they demanded in unison. My mind was filled with confusion and for an instant misplaced embarrassment. I could have sworn, that, because it was so warm, I'd pulled the covers from the bed and had just laid on it completely naked. But when my girls woke me with their yells and by landing on top of me at almost the same instant, my dignity was covered by a bed sheet. It was several days before I sorted that one out. Shooing the girls from my room, I had a shower, slipped some trunks on under a pair of shorts, added a shirt for decency and made my way down to the dining room. Only no one was in there; they were eating breakfast under a large canopy out on the patio. "Good morning, Frank. Did you sleep well?" Sonya asked. Peaceful Easy Feelin’ Sonya was standing there, dressed in one of the briefest red bikinis I'd ever seen in my life. I thought I was used to her brief swimming attire from the ones she'd worn at her mansion, but this one couldn't have half the materiel in it that those had had. Although she did have a sarong wrapped around her waist, but it was made of chiffon so it didn't exactly hide anything. Christ, the woman was any man's wet dream standing there. There was something about the expression on Sonya's face when she asked the question that I couldn't put my finger on as well. "Good morning, Sonya. A little hot, but I think I'll get used to it." "If you close the shutters you can put the air conditioning on, you know. We're trying to be a little environmentally friendly and the air-con shuts down in the private rooms if the windows are open and you are left with the old fashioned fans, like we have in the rest of the house." Once everyone - except for John and Susan - had appeared - we had some difficulty in persuading Susan's youngest two not to got searching for them -- and had had breakfast, we all adjourned to the swimming pool where most of the morning was spent splashing around in the water with the children. Yeah, well, that was the idea, but with hindsight I realised that Sonya and I seemed to be going for the same beach ball all the time. Normally thrown - I might add - by Tadpole. Also during the morning I had decided that something had to be done about the boy's nickname. Tadpole was all right for a little kid but he was ten years old, soon he'd be going into secondary education and surely the older boys would take the piss out of him with a name like Tadpole. I resolved to talk to the boy about it. My chance came sooner than I expected. I'd got out of the pool to have a drink -- of iced cordial, I ain't that bad -- I'd seated myself on the balustrade and was looking out to sea when Dominic climbed up beside me. "You like my mother, don't you?" he asked. "Yes, Dominic, she's a very nice person." "And very beautiful," the boy added. "Yes, she is very beautiful. I think your father was a complete fool." "She likes you as well," he said, ignoring my reference to his father. "I'm pleased to hear it," I replied. 'What's this boy up to?' I thought to myself, 'surely he can't be trying to match-make for his mother.' But I carried on "Dominic, this nickname of yours - Tadpole." "Yes, sir, it does get a bit..." the boy stopped speaking; I doubt he knew how to phrase what he wanted to say. "It sounds a little young, when you've got your girlfriend on your arm?" I asked, with a smile on my face. "Girlfriend, sir?" "Dominic, I'm talking about Sheryl here. I'm not blind you know. You're sweet on her and she's sweet on you. You just make sure that you behave yourself." "Do I look daft? I saw you in action at the airport, Mr Moore. You shut my father up faster than I've seen anyone do before." "I'm sorry you saw that, young man. I'm afraid I let my emotions get the better of me." "I'm not! He's a real pig most of the time, especially to my mother. He's hit her quite a few times, you know. Oh, Christ, don't tell mother I saw though. I was supposed to be in bed. One night, if the gun cupboard hadn't been locked, I think I would have got a shotgun and killed him." "Dominic, are you telling me that your father used to beat your mother?" "Yes, sir; I saw him hit her myself, several times. But I don't think he'll dare to hit her anymore, not after the way you knocked him out at the airport." This was indeed interesting and alarming information, but I thought I'd better move the boy off the subject of his father beating his mother. "Dominic, I've been thinking about this nickname of yours. Have you ever thought of dropping the pole part and just calling yourself Tad?" I asked. "What like the boy in that program on the television?" "Yeah, strikes me as a good idea. You'll have dropped one syllable and changed a silly name into a macho one." "Yes, I think I'd like that. But how can I make people call me Tad instead of Tadpole?" "You let me worry about that young man. From now on, if anyone asks your name you tell them Dominic or Tad. And after a few days gently stop answering to the name Tadpole." "Thanks, Mr Moore, I'll try to do that." He grinned as he climbed down from the balustrade. I asked him to send Sheryl and Annette over to me as he left. When they arrived, I told them about Tad's change of name. Annette was confused but Sheryl just gave me a hug and a kiss. Before the end of the day Tadpole had become Tad to nearly all of the children. You couldn't expect the younger ones to remember immediately. The surprising thing was that Sonya and the staff picked up the change so quickly. I know -- or rather I'd felt -- someone -- I'd assumed Sonya - watching Tad and I whilst we'd been talking. She gave me a wonderful smile when I was the first one to call him Tad whilst we splashed about in the pool later. After dinner that evening I was standing alone out on the patio. Jeremy and Simone were down below in the pool and I was watching them as they frolicked together. Then I saw Susan and John appear from one of the other paths also dressed to swim. They had a short conversation with Jeremy and Simone before they got into the pool as well. "Watching the lovers play? You're not a voyeur, are you?" Sonya was suddenly standing beside me. "No, I was thinking that they'd probably prefer it, if the lights down there were dimmed a little," I replied. "That's easy enough to do." Sonya said then turned to look back at the villa. "Sam, can we have mood lighting on the pool level please?" The ubiquitous Sam had appeared from somewhere as I was beginning to get used to him doing by then. He smiled back at Sonya, then disappeared back into the building. A few seconds later nearly all the lights went out on the pool level, leaving just enough on for the lovers to see what they were doing. And some safety lights under the water. Sonya explained that the pool had a computer system built into it. Underwater sensors set off alarms if anything remained static on the bottom of the pool for more than a few seconds. As we could no longer play voyeurs, Sonya took me on a tour of the vast complex of buildings. I'm not sure exactly when but sometime during our walk Sonya took my arm. "This is my summer house," Sonya said as she led the way up to what I believe was the smallest one. "My father gave me this one when I was a teenager, so it's never let out for anyone else to use." She led the way inside and showed me around. It was more like a home than any of the others. Stuffed toys, dolls and pictures of her family were scattered about everywhere. "This is where I stay when I come over here on my own; in the last few years, sometimes I just had to get away for a while. 'Yeah, from what Dominic told me, most likely to let the bruises go down, I should imagine,' I thought to myself. I couldn't actually say that to Sonya though. Sonya led me on a convoluted tour of the small bungalow - for that was what it really was - only it wasn't exactly what I'd term small, unless you compared it to the other buildings on the villa's estate. She steered me around the lounge area, then the kitchen and outside dining area and then into the bedroom with its massive round bed. I couldn't say that I'd ever seen a round bed before, except in films. Then she steered me out onto the bedroom's private patio. Private it certainly was; from it you could see nothing but the sea. Consequently you have to be out at sea -- and about two hundred feet in the air to see anyone on it. "How do you like this little toy?" Sonya asked, as she flicked a switch and what I had taken to be a raised flowerbed glided away to reveal a jacuzzi beneath. "Expensive," I remarked. "Everything is expensive out here, Frank. Don't let it worry you." "Kind of out of my league all this stuff. I'm still trying to take it all in," I replied. "Is that why you haven't..." she began to ask but suddenly stopped speaking. "I haven't what?" I asked, turning to look at her, but as I did so her lips came into contact with mine. Yeah, okay, I had never in my life dared dream that I would kiss the woman, but I hadn't forgotten my manners. Or could it be that the old autopilot took over? Anyway the next thing I know I'm holding Sonya in my arms and we're snogging like a couple of teenagers. I'd had no intention of it happening, but once she'd kissed me I could have stood there all night. Don't ask; I have no idea how many minutes passed before we broke the kiss. Basically, I think, I had to come up for air. "Would you like a drink?" Sonya said as she walked back inside the bedroom. "Thanks," was the best I could muster in reply. Don't ask me why I never questioned the fact that Sonya's so called private summer house - that nobody but herself every used and only then occasionally - had a bar that just happened to be stocked with a full bottle of my favourite rum and a freshly filled ice bucket. But I didn't! I was too busy wondering if Sonya was disappointed in my kissing technique and whether I was going to get a chance of another one. She poured me a rum over ice. I'm not sure what she poured into her own glass; it could have been bourbon, Scotch or Irish. She handed me my drink and then put her arm with her drink in it around mine, like they do with champagne in the films. "To us!" she said. "To us!" I replied, trying to remember if that was the correct reply. I'd never been able to understand all that symbolic stuff. We both took a drink from our glasses then we quickly kissed again. I could taste Sonya's Scotch or whatever, mixing with my rum. Then somehow we made our way back out onto the patio. "How about a soak?" she asked. "I haven't got my trunks with me," I said. "Who cares. You haven't got anything that I haven't seen before." She grinned, and then added, confusingly for me at the time, "Unless you've grown something since this morning!" I never did fully understand what she meant by that. Well, not for a long time anyway. Before I could say another word Sonya had melted out of her clothes and was standing in the jacuzzi waiting for me to join her. When I say melted, I do mean melted; she melted my heart on the spot. Yeah, yeah, we've all seen strippers and women getting undressed seductively in the films; but I have never seen any woman who can undress as enticingly as Sonya can, when she wants to get me going. And, boy, did she intend to get me going that evening. In my best macho film star fashion I tried to undress as seductively as Sonya had. But I'm afraid I was a little too eager. Yeah, the shirt came off quickly enough, but the elasticated waist on my shorts wasn't quite big enough to easily clear my appendage. That -- after watching Sonya parade about in that tiny bikini and having her accidentally rub herself up against me at every opportunity all day, not counting the little show she'd just treated me to -- was as big and hard as it had ever been. After some struggle I made an even bigger ass of myself by falling head first into the jacuzzi as I tried to climb in. As I came up for air, Sonya's lips clamped over mine again and I think she was trying to find my tonsils with her tongue. During this snog the bubbles came on. Sonya is nothing if not a contortionist to have one arm holding my head above the water -- my feet were still in the air somewhere -- at the same time as she reached over and switched the machine on was a real feat. Well, I hope it was Sonya who turned the thing on. I wouldn't have liked anyone else to see what a mess I'd made of things! Can I help it, if I'm not a Casanova when it comes to seducing women? Anyway a Casanova I might not be, but for the next hour or so I made passionate love to Sonya. Or maybe she might have taken the lead some of the time. It was her who actually fucked me first. I'd only just regained my composure and got myself settled on the seat in the jacuzzi when she swung her leg over me and settled herself on me. I was so hard and stiff I don't believe either of us guided it inside her. "No, please just sit there, Frank. I want to make this last as long as I can," she said. I have no idea how she did it but she gently moved up and down for the next twenty minutes or so. I'd thought I'd blow my load pretty soon considering how worked up I was. But Sonya appeared to be able to sense when I was getting there, and she'd stop moving and tongue fight me until I'd calmed down a little. She stopped moving a couple of times for her own reasons as well. Her eyes would roll up into her head, she'd shudder for a few seconds and I could feel her vagina spasm around me. Jesus, I have no idea how that didn't do the trick for me on its own. Then she'd look back down at me and say, "Thank you." before she started moving again. I thought I knew what having sexual-intercourse was all about, but Sonya took it to a whole new level. I had tried to ask Sonya a couple of times whether she was on the pill and suggest that if not we should take some precautions. Not that I had any contraceptives with me; I wasn't exactly expecting to be shagging -- should I say find myself being shagged by -- anyone, let alone Lady Sonya Springfield. But she would put a finger to my lips, to silence me. She was completely in charge during the whole of that first coupling and it was some time, months even, before I discovered her real motives. Or should I say, the effect that she was hoping the encounter was going to have. No sooner had I reached my climax, when Sonya suggested that we move things to the big round bed. Hardly waiting to dry ourselves we were at it again on the bed, but this time I was on top and running things. I could never remember recovering so fast in my life before. Sonya appeared to be able to get me hard again without actually doing anything but look at me. There hadn't been much, if anything, in the way of foreplay. The whole hour or so seemed to be filled with me emptying my balls into Sonya; maybe I should have realised that at the time. But she had me so worked up that I thought of little else but shagging her and watching that entertainingly strange behaviour of hers when she reached a climax. That was something no one could fake, and really did my ego some good after what Jean had done to it. As I said we were at it for about an hour when Sonya suddenly spotted a little light flashing on the wall. "Damn," she said, picked up the telephone and had a short conversation with someone. "Sorry, Frank, we'll have to get back to this later. The children are asking where we are. Sam's told them that we are visiting a neighbour's villa. But we'd better get back before it's their bed time." Sam gave me a knowing smile and nod of the head when Sonya and I reappeared on the patio where all the children, plus John and Susan, were sitting around playing board games. I'm not quite sure how it happened but I finished up playing chess with -- correction getting slaughtered at chess by -- Tad; I never was much of a chess player. We switched to draughts later, but the boy still managed to slaughter me. Mind I did -- or rather could have slaughtered everyone when we played dominoes later with Sheryl, Annette and the twins. I can't be sure but I think that both Tad and I let the girls win. Looks like Tad is as soft at heart as I am. "Did you let me win last night?" Tad asked me the following day. "I know you let the twins and Annette win at draughts." "Tad, if you think you are old enough to tip your hat at my daughter, then you're old enough to take any falls the world passes out to you," I'd replied to him. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand." "You whipped my arse, Tad, don't worry. You don't play poker, do you?" "Well, yes, sir, I do." "In that case, remind me never to play with you. I'd be bankrupt in a week." I think Tad understood me that time and he went off with a smile on his face. "Did he beat you?" Sonya, who had overheard the conversation, asked. "Beat me? The little sod buried me!" I replied laughing. ---------------------------------- Whoops, got ahead of myself again. I was on that second night at the villa, wasn't I? Well, it was extremely late before the last of the children had gone to bed. John and Susan slipped of to the little hideaway as soon as Susan had put her youngest down for the night. So that left just Sonya and me sitting on the main patio. I hadn't noticed but as the evening had gone on someone -- most likely Sam -- had been dimming the lights by switching some of them off. Suddenly I realised that the only light left on was the one over the table that the drinks were on. All the rest of the light was coming from the moon or the few lighted windows in the villa. Just as suddenly as I realised how dark it was, Sonya sat herself on my lap and a snogging session ensued. Within seconds my little friend was standing to attention, or rather trying to confined by my slacks the way he was, because of the way that Sonya kept wriggling around. "Sonya, isn't this a bit public? One of the children might come back down," I suggested. "Let's take it somewhere a little more private then, shall we?" she suggested. I did note that the light over the table went out, all on its own as we stepped back inside the villa. Sam must have been around somewhere. I got a surprise when we got to the door to Sonya's suite though. She kissed me and wished me goodnight, then stepped inside and closed the door on me. Somewhat confused, I returned to my own room, where I decided to have a cold shower to cool myself and my emotions down. When I came out of the shower I poured myself a drink of water from the iced jug in my room and wondered out onto my private patio/balcony thing, to look at the sea. "Thought you'd never get here!" Sonya's voice said from the balustrade where she was sitting. "What the...?" I managed to say. "You wanted privacy, Frank. It wouldn't do for one or more of the children to be sneaking about and see you enter my room now, would it?" she smiled at me. "You cheeky monkey, you were teasing me. I've got a good mind to put you over my knee and spank your behind for you." "That sounds interesting, might even be fun. But you can't prove that my explanation is a lie. She smiled back at me slipping off the balustrade and closing the gap between us. Okay, this time we did all the foreplay bit. I even went down on her and she pretended my little mate was a lollipop. However after rolling about on my bed for a while -- I realised later to mess it up and make it look slept in -- we climbed over the balustrade and made our way to Sonya's room for most of the night. Sonya pointed out that my girls might come and visit me again in the morning. We couldn't have them jumping around on sheets that we'd been shagging on all night. We even got a telephone warning in Sonya's room -- Sam again, I suspect - that my girls were up and about the following morning. Every night after that Sonya would arrive in my room shortly after we'd retired. We'd kiss and cuddle on my bed for a while before moving into her room for the fun and games. Although I was getting worried. I was falling in love with this woman who I figured that I could never have in the long term. What a complete load of bollocks; I'd fallen in love with Sonya well before we flew out to the Caribbean, but I'd just tried to ignore the fact. The next month was one long round of swimming, water activities and parties at our and neighbouring villas. All sorts of people who were staying at or owned other villa's on the island turned up to visit Sonya: film and pop stars, politicians (both British and American) and member or two of the British aristocracy. And some apparently pretty rich and undeniably handsome men, who I believe were looking to replace Seymour when the divorce was final.