Old McDonald had a Farm...

Chapter three

“The greens aren’t all homegrown”, Bessie said, handing me a plate with a very generous portion of her fish pie. “There’s more sauce in the silver boat if you think it’s too dry for your palate. Robbie hates sloppy potato on fish pie, shepherd’s pie and so on, so I always stint a bit. Soggy mash, he calls it!”

“It looks delicious”, I assured her. “Smells good too”. 

“At least not grown by us, but they might have been homegrown locally. I know they buy locally grown stuff at the post office. It’s only a small place, but you’d think they were huge from the amount of stuff they manage to stock!”

“Everything is homegrown, dear. Well, kind of, although I doubt you can call those massive farms, they have these days all that homey….” Robbie trailed off under the look his wife threw at him. 

We were seated in the big cosy farmhouse kitchen that looked to take up a considerable portion of the old house's ground floor area and, from the other furnishings and big TV, probably doubled up as the main living area. 

“That silver sauce boat isn’t silver either”, Robbie muttered between forking helpings of pie into his mouth. “Its polished pewter belonged to an aunt of Bessie’s. 

“An elderly cousin dear, a second cousin if you want to be strictly accurate. Not too hot, dear?” She looked inquisitively at me, so I shook my head, my mouth full of the tasty dish. “We’re still getting organised on the agricultural and livestock side, both types of livestock”, she added with a laugh. “The place had been near derelict for many years, so you can imagine what state the land was in?”

“It took a while to get the house and all the basics set up,” Robbie told me, nodding towards the big wall-mounted TV, which was presently functioning, I noted as a multi-screen monitor split into nine smaller pictures. I could see what I assumed was the start of that torturous track and a couple of similar views presumably further along. The rest covered the farmyard and stable stalls, a couple of blank screens, and various open views of walled fields. The bottom right showed the BBC evening news with the sound turned down.

I glanced around.” It all looks very cosy, very homely,” I said, thinking, a world apart from that expensive West London apartment within walking distance of Harrods, the world-famous exclusive and costly department store in Knightsbridge where the families of mega-rich Middle Eastern potentates loved to shop! I recalled my embarrassment when my company had tasked me to escort a visiting party of senior executives and their wives around London for three days. 

One port of call had been Harrods for shopping. It wasn’t a retail venue I was familiar with. I was consequently somewhat shamefaced when having ushered my party into the store only to be promptly ushered straight back into the street by several elegantly uniformed porters. I was haughtily informed that the ‘entrance for groups’ was clearly marked and further down. The CEO of our American partners had not been amused, his annoying wife even less so!

“We like it, " Robbie said, “plus it was admirably sited and suited for our prime purpose in buying it, which I might add, as you’ve already seen, was not to grow vegetables, green or any other shade, shape and hue!”

“We fully intend to, of course,” Betty assured me. “We aim to be semi-self-sufficient, at least in some things, but we’ve hardly started going down that route. This whole place had to be rewired, replumbed, walls replastered, and everything decorated, plus replacing the windows. An entire new cesspit and all that’s involved with that had to be done after the survey guy condemned the old one, and getting the folk we needed to do everything up here wasn’t cheap, not with accommodation and what have you added on top!”

“First thing they wanted to do, of course, was sort that entrance track out.” Robbie chuckled. “I ran out of excuses for telling them to leave it be. I reckon they thought I was crazy,” he shrugged. “Well, I could hardly tell them why we wanted such a difficult access road, could I? That suspension-breaking obstacle course had been one of the major selling points for us. Guaranteed privacy, more or less, but it didn’t help them when it came to getting the heavy stuff in for the renovations!”

I glanced at the monitor images. “Yeah, I can imagine they weren’t overly keen. What did they use? A couple of tanks!”

“Don’t be silly. I told them we were reclusive writers and artists creating our little retreat away from the world, and they seemed happy with that. More pie” Bessie picked up her serving spoon and pulled the dish towards her. “No, are you sure? Well, if you change your mind later, I can always put a dollop in the microwave for you”.

“Dollop” Now, there’s a good word you rarely hear these days”, Robbie laughed. “Anyway, the project took an age, and we’d only been moved in fully for a month, no, not even that and had hardly started on stuff beyond the house and building when we got distracted” he jerked his head towards the farmyard and winked at me. “Totally distracted!”.

Bessie pointed towards the monitor. “Saw them on that thing. We were just having our morning coffee and a nice, buttered fruit scone apiece when that big TV suddenly scared the hell out of me with its damn alarm racket. Robbie jumps up and fiddles with the remote, and we see that big thing of theirs bumping and banging down our track. I looked at Robbie, and he looked at me, wondering who they were and why they were coming here. Then he goes and fiddles a bit more, and we saw a bigger picture for a second on that third camera.” Bessie laughed and shrugged. “Never once did we give it a thought, did we, Honey?”

Robbie chuckled and shook his head. “Nope, despite all our plans and nasty intentions when we bought this place and had things done, none of that was in our minds initially after they pulled into the yard out there. 

“Lost, I presume?”

Robbie shook his head and then nodded. “Yes and no, kind of, I suppose. They certainly weren't helped by the lack of signals for cell phones around here. We had to have a fancy satellite dish installed and not for TV, although it does that too. It’s on yon side of the house, something to do with pointing in the right direction! Still, it keeps the thing out of sight instead of making us look like something to do with Nasa. We need it for the phones and internet plus it has a thingy that picks up the signal from all the outside cameras and alarms. Remind me to look for the bit of card with the password and details on it so you can put it into your phone”.

“I swallowed another mouthful of Bessie’s delicious pie and asked. “What do you mean by kind of lost?”

Robbie paused his loaded fork midway between mouth and late and shrugged before popping it into his mouth. A moment later, he swallowed and gestured with his empty fork. “Dopey over there was something of an aviation nut, I gather. The family were holidaying in Rhyl, not a bad little seaside town as such towns go with a decent enough bit of beach. Have you ever been there?”

I shook my head. “I can’t say that I’ve ever had the pleasure. I assume there was an aviation museum or something there?”

“Nope,” Robbie shook his head after hastily swallowing another mouthful. “No, not as far as I know, nothing like that. It was a mini family break at the seaside for a few days, with several side trips to the high hills. I gather from what Dopey told me out there while his wife was using the bathroom” he gestured over his shoulder towards the farmyard. “Apparently, there are a fair few aircraft wrecks on the hills, all dating back to World War Two training exercise crashes. He’d already been up to what was left of a Wellington bomber and showed me the pictures on his phone. The remains of two engines and some twisted metal and not much else. Not exactly impressive, was it, lass?”

Bessie shook her head. “Four hours he told us. It took them four hours from where they left the car. I can’t say I was very taken by the pictures he showed us. I can see more scrap metal around the back of Taffy Owens’s old garage in the village and recognise what it is, I expect. No need to bother with a four-hour hike there and back!”

“Yeah, well, there was also a little commemorative cairn with a bent propellor blade on top and a plaque listing the crew who were killed, so I expect that was a part of it for him”, Robbie continued. “Anyway, their next trip was looking for an American plane, a B17 bomber that crashed in bad visibility on a navigational exercise. It came out of the low clouds at exactly the right angle and sort of performed a high-speed belly-landing uphill rather than an outright crash. A few broken bones and bruises all around, he said. Likewise, their collective ego, I’d imagine! All the crew survived that one.” He paused and then gave a short laugh. “So might Dopey and company had his navigation not been on a par with that unfortunate crew!”

“How so?” I shook my head as Bessie pushed the pie dish in my direction and tapped my stomach several times with one finger to indicate I was full. Robbie spared my apologies by pulling it towards his plate and adding two spoonfuls. His waistline was probably well beyond hope, whereas I wasn’t ready for a wardrobe predominantly occupied by wishful-thinking garments! 

“Bloody idiot!” Robbie continued. “He couldn’t even blame low clouds and poor visibility, and his navigator was working perfectly, his built-in sat nav. He programmed in the wrong village, the same name as ours but one letter different and then when he got there made the mistake of assuming our track was the one he wanted to take him to, where he intended to leave his expensive four-by-four and start walking. He must have realised his mistake when he spotted our little homestead and decided to continue instead of turning around and returning.”

“He was a good forty miles out”, Bessie interrupted. “he told us he hadn’t noticed because he wasn’t used to the narrow roads with stray sheep everywhere and focusing on his satnav and trying to ignore the constant chit-chat of his six passengers. A typical case of relying on technology instead of common sense and using your eyes!”

“Forty miles”, I muttered thoughtfully. “That’s quite a distance to miss your target by!” A remark that caused them both to laugh and then they nodded in unison, smiling at each other. 

“Yes,” Robbie agreed. “That thought occurred to both of us, especially as they’d told us where they were staying, and one of the younger elements was lamenting that she’d lost her phone signal ages ago, as she put it and was sick of looking at rocks and bloody sheep! That’s when we looked at each other.”

“Two minds with but one thought”, Bettie chuckled. “and a very nasty thought it was!”

“Exciting, though”, Robbie mused as I looked from one perfectly ordinary everyday face to the other and back. Neither displaying the absolute wickedness and evil that I now knew lurked beneath that innocent surface. 

Betty smiled. “It was like a follow-on from the night before almost. A kind of divine providence if you believe in that sort of thing, although in this case bottom up rather than top-down,” she laughed, gesturing with one thumb downwards towards the floor. “We’d been lying in bed the night before talking about our proposed”, She paused and jerked her head towards the stable, “Our project. Neither of us had been very sleepy, so we’d kicked around a few ideas as to catching a suitable occupant for a stall. Not the first time we’d done that, but still more wishful thinking than practical for the most part”.

“Until the next day,” I added.

Bessie nodded, a big smile on her motherly face. “Oh yes, the next day was, well….” She stopped and shook her head, and gave a rather chilling laugh. “Having seen them on that monitor, we both went outside to see who they were and what they wanted. As you’ve learned earlier, visitors here are a rare species.”

“Unless, as you said, they own a tank or lacking that a decent off-road vehicle”, Robbie quipped. “Which, unfortunately for them, they did; otherwise, they might never have reached our little farmyard. Dopey was driving, and Peaches was in the front passenger seat. I don’t think he’d even had time to pull on the handbrake afore she was out and begging to use our washroom facilities!”

“Not the sort to pop behind a hedge or a stone wall that one”, Bessie muttered. “Far too finicky for that! I saw that straight off even as I told her where to go”.

Robbie chuckled. “Not the only thing you saw either, was it lass? I copped you eyeballing her tits in that bit of cloth she was barely wearing,” he turned to me, “and it wasn’t no lowland Scottish puritan disapproving glint in her eyes either!”

“Bessie gave him a sight smile and continued. “We’d argued a bit back and forth ever since we’d decided to get ourselves a real two-legged equine. What we’d go for, male or female, but it always came down to a male, for somehow, we thought that was the more likely sort of animal we’d acquire, only we didn’t know how. I fancied a filly or mare, whereas Robbie wasn’t fussy, but the getting was the problem, plus making sure it was a decent specimen! Now, ready for some pudding?”

I looked from one to the other again. They were being so casual, so cold-blooded and unemotional about what amounted to a major and very evil crime and one they were still committing and yet had no qualms about as Bessie rose from the table and put her head into the kitchen.

“Leave that for now, sweetie. You can bring dessert now, clear the table, and then see to the coffee”.

“Rhubarb crumble and vanilla ice cream,” Robbie said. “That was the only useful thing growing when we took over unless you like nettle soup! It was running wild behind the house where the old kitchen garden would have been. I’ll warn you now, Bessie always makes it a bit on the tart side because we like it that way, but ask for some more ice cream if it’s too much for you”. He gave me an odd look and then laughed. 

“The ice cream isn’t homemade, of course,” Bessie said, resuming her seat, but it is local, almost local anyway since the name came up. It’s made by a small family company in Rhyl, far better than the big-name brand stuff the supermarkets sell. The post office refuses to stock anything else; very patriotic! Anyway, where was I?” she asked, turning to me.

“Ah, here we are,” Robbie interrupted, still grinning like crazy as the kitchen door opened and then he nodded and chuckled. “Not the only thing around here that’s a little tarty, eh, laddie?”

Tart wasn’t an entirely inappropriate remark as my eyes widened, although that wasn’t the first thing that sprang into my mind as the dessert course arrived. Seven seats, he’d said and now, counting those in the stable, this one made six! This…this thing bringing in the tray with three dishes on it. One glance at a well-whipped bottom immediately confirmed that fact. They’d employed a part-time cleaner in London, but I doubt she’d ever gone home with her bottom that hue and covered in angry red raised stripes! Nor, I supposed, had she even bobbed down in a respectful curtsy like that to her employers with that fearful look on her painted face. 

Come to that, I doubt if the sour-faced woman of indeterminate age they’d employed had ever bothered applying makeup before her daily stint of scrubbing, polishing and moping! Even had she done so, I doubt she could have competed with what I was staring at now. 

“Quickly, Baby, don’t dawdle, girl” Bessie chided. “You knew we had an important guest coming to stay, so you’ve no excuse. Put them on the table and clear the other things away. Look lively now, or I’ll liven you up on the spot” She turned to me and apologised. “No doubt she’s embarrassed with you being here, but that’s no excuse. She’s had enough time to learn her duties and accept she is what she is now!”

“Baby?” I queried as a trembling hand with long pink nails carefully placed my dish of rhubarb crumble in front of me, joined immediately by a lidless plastic tub of vanilla ice cream propelled by Bessie’s pudgy hand towards me.

“Guests first. Excuse the ornate serving dish,” Robbie chuckled. “No elaborate fancy restaurant stuff here. No scoop either, so help yourself with your spoon; we’re not fussy! That’s what we called her after some debate. We came up with various names, Sissy being the main one for obvious reasons, but somehow that one stuck more than any other”.

“She was the youngest, just nineteen, would you believe and rather baby-faced in a sweet and innocent-looking way, " Bessie said. “I was calling her that almost from the first day, and there was never any chance of her occupying a stall. I knew that right from the start, even if she was a mite troublesome at first!”

“Who’s a lucky girl then?” Robbie laughed, running his hand up a black stocking-clad leg and fondling those quivering well-whipped buttock cheeks. He suddenly frowned and then slapped a lot harder. 

“Well, bitch?”

The young girl that clearly wasn’t jumped slightly at both words and slap but managed to maintain control of the tray she/he was holding, although for a second or so, the plates and cutlery she’d just collected bounced around a little precariously.

“Answer your master, bitch!” Bessie snapped immediately in a tone that brooked no dissent. 

“I….I am, Master. I’m a lucky girl”.

The words came out haltingly, and the tray briefly wobbled even more dangerously until the maid visibly controlled her terror and brought it back from the edge. No doubt she’d seen that cold look in Bessie’s eye that I had, and it had chilled me so heaven knows what terrors it had portended for her!

“We know you are”, Robbie chuckled, leering at her as his hand continued fondling, moving up and down between a white scarred buttock cheek and a sharply contrasting black stocking-clad thigh. “Far better off in here than out there in that nasty stinking stable with the animals”, he added, winking at me. “You wouldn’t happen to need an almost new but no longer needed dishwasher to go with a certain surplus seven-seater vehicle I mentioned earlier?”

I shook my head. “Overkill, as a single guy in a cramped one-bedroom flat with a minuscule kitchen, where would I put it? Only three slots, cooker, fridge and a washing machine, so one would have to go.”

Robbie chuckled, still running his hand up and down while the maid stood there, tray in her hands, hardly moving. I thought she wouldn’t until Robbie grew bored or hungry and switched his attention to the contents of his desert bowl. I’d got as far as absently picking up a spoon, my attention primarily focused on ‘Baby’ as they called him, her rather.

Bessie, I recalled, didn’t entirely focus her literary efforts on human equines. Although such stories were our stock ‘bread and butter,’ if you’ll forgive the pun, she often ventured into other areas, such as enforced femininity. That was another joint favourite subject but one that appeared far more frequently from her keyboard inputs than mine. On that basis, I suppose I shouldn’t have been unduly surprised when Baby made her entrance. Even more so given that two out of seven hadn’t yet been accounted for when we left the stable.

The youngest Bessie had said, just nineteen if I believed it, and I could see why she’d added that qualifier. If she hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have believed it. Height wise, maybe for Baby was tall and slender indeed, almost malnourished, although perhaps not quite that extreme. He was way taller than either of my friends, yet probably no more than half the weight of his captors. 

Had I not immediately seen the flat bare chest and that cock cage with its bent flaccid captive, I probably would have taken Baby as female from the outfit and face paint, certainly from a short distance. Even the figure was somewhat feminine. Long legs that certainly weren’t unsightly in their black hose and garters. The waist was improbably wasp-like and artificially constricted to what must have been a painful degree. As for the baby face, it was hard to tell under the heavy layer of paint, but quite attractive in its unique way.

The female parody vaguely reminded me of one of those over-muscled American footballers you sometimes see. Far slimmer, to be sure, but with the same broad-shouldered physique tapering down to a trim waist. Although, in this case, that ultra-small waist cruelly encased in a leather waspie style corset complete with a multitude of long garters supporting those sexy sheer black nylons that descended into equally sexy high-heeled court shoes complete with dainty ankle straps secured by tiny golden padlocks. Not the sort of things you’d find in a pro footballer's locker alongside helmet and shoulder pads!

The only additional garment was the very brief frilly apron around his waist which seemed more a demeaning ‘badge of office’ than for practical use. Oh, and a pink dog collar, maybe an inch and a half high, encircled his thin neck, partly hidden at the back by a short blonde ponytail.

“That’s new”, Robbie told me, following my line of sight. “The hairstyle, I mean. Our sexy girlie boy here was well overdue a visit to the barbers when we caught the bitch. “Initially, Bessie had him in bunches, and I think they suited her better, but Bessie got a bit bored with it hence the change. Another few months, and no doubt it will be pigtails, eh, lassie?” he chuckled.

I thought he was talking to his wife for a second and then realised he wasn’t as he continued to fondle the youth very intimately. Baby, I noticed, accepted his attentions somewhat stoically. At least outwardly, it wasn’t hard to sense the sheer pent-up feelings of rage and humiliation within that bizarre figure and, even more so, that sense of fear!

“Virgin fresh as well, at least as far as this ornament goes”, Robbie laughed, shifting his hand and tapping on the chastity device with one finger. “Can’t say that about the opening on the opposite side anymore, can you, babykins” his laugh grew very coarse as he winked at me.

Bessie snapped her fingers and pointed at the kitchen door, my eyes following that well-whipped bottom back to the kitchen. Was it my imagination, or was it deliberately trying to wiggle seductively? Bessie diverted my attention by asking, “Now, where had we got to?”

My mouth was full, so Robbie obligingly stood in for me. “Peaches had just gone upstairs for a pee, and you were saying that actually getting our hands on one was the problem, lass”.

“Oh yes. Well, Dopey was talking to Robbie and no sooner had Peaches gone inside to use the facilities when the whole gang started piling out of that big car of theirs. I mean, I looked at Robbie, and he looked at me, and we were both thinking the same thing. Yes, there were many of them, but what with Dopey going on about the narrow roads and getting lost and being miles and miles from where he was aiming for? My, he wasn’t half going at it and cussing his satnav, the roads, his wife nagging at him and blaming everything bar himself for getting so lost, well,” she paused and then smiled at the expression on my face, repeating somewhat firmer, “Well?”

“Two minds but with one instant and evil thought”, Robbie chuckled, interrupting. “Lost, miles from where they were supposed to be and forty-plus miles from where they were staying. Hell. What more could we have asked for, a mini herd on our doorstep and dammed good prospective animals at first sight!”

“But seven of them!” I exclaimed. “Seven!”

Bessie shook her head. “Yes, but we didn’t know that when they pulled up. Only one at first, and then it was a case of one out, two out, and then all wanted to be out. It reminded me of something I saw on the telly years ago, how many Oxford University students can you cram in a mini. The original little one, not those modern German things!” she laughed. “Seemed no end to them for a second coming out of that big thing! One moment we’d been on our own, and next, we seemed to be entertaining a football crowd, well, a team, at least!”

“Two-thirds of one, anyway”, Robbie amended.

“That must have been….”I groped for what I wanted to say. “Must have been a bit intimidating. I mean, given what you were jointly contemplating?”

They looked at each other across the table, Bessie holding a loaded spoon to her mouth. She swallowed the contents and then licked the empty spoon before she gave a shrug and smiled at her husband. “Of course it did, but then things just kind of happened”, she laughed lamely.

“With a bit of help from you two, imagine. So, what caused you to pull the trigger then?” I looked at them both and then raised an inquisitive eyebrow in Bessie’s direction again. They were a perfectly matched couple in almost every respect, but I’d learned a while back which was the twosome's more dominant, more forceful and decisive half.

“Trigger is spot on!” Robbie exclaimed. “Three more of them also felt an urgent need to empty their bladders, so Bessie waved for them to follow her into the house while Dopey had a map spread out on the bonnet and I was showing him exactly where he was and the best way to get where he wanted to be.” He paused for a moment and gave me a sheepish sort of grin. “ I think I’d chickened out at that point. I mean, as you keep saying, seven of them! Then just as he was folding his map up a few minutes later, everything went crazy, and I do mean crazy, not to mention scaring seven shades of shit out of me!” he suddenly chuckled. “Kind of an appropriate number, eh?”

“Two things,” Bessie said quietly. Her face was thoughtful then she gave me a wry smile. “Dopey had said something about being so thankful they’d found us otherwise; they’d really have been in trouble. Very likely starved to death in the wilderness because no one knew where they were. Maybe they should have told the hotel reception where they were going and what time they expected to return like sensible hillwalkers often do. Not what you’d expect to have to do in a small Welsh seaside resort, though!”

“A joke, I take it?”

Bessie nodded again with a rather severe school-marm-type expression on her face. “Quite so, but a highly informative joke that was to prove not the least funny for him and his family.   Life-changing, in fact. But what he’d said and the way” She paused and relaxed that expression to wink at me and run her tongue around her lips very suggestively. “That bum on Mrs Dopey, my splendid Peaches to be, had jiggled so enticingly,  just begging for the touch of a whip. She shouldn’t have worn those skintight pants, not with me still feeling all horny and restless from our pillow talk the night before. I went into the house to check on her then the others all trooped in; none of the sluts were wearing enough to cover up a respectable body. So when they came back downstairs en-masse, it sort of just appeared in my hands!” she finished with a big self-satisfied smile.

“Like I said”, Robbie chimed in. “One hell of a bloody bang. Talk about jumping out of your skin, and I weren’t the only one going vertical, and once our feet were back on terra firma, we all piled into the house where all the screaming was suddenly coming from. 

“They were very noisy”, Bessie agreed with a nod. “Very shrill. Because of it, I had the makings of a migraine headache hanging around the rest of the day and evening. Mind you, I doubt it would have bothered me over much, what with everything we had to do and all the excitement!”

“Not to mention a certain touch of fear creeping into the situation”, Robbie added with a chuckle. “I don’t know about my good lady here, but I sure as hell had one ear cocked all day and the next few for police sirens screaming in upon us!”

I glanced towards the huge fireplace that still had the remnants of an old iron cooking range within its cavernous maw. Above it was the wooden mantlepiece, and presumably, by the clock, was the stable key Robbie had mentioned. A couple of feet above that was a double-barrelled shotgun mounted horizontally on a couple of hooks. 

“Yep,” Robbie confirmed. “There she was, Annie Oakley herself, cool as the proverbial cucumber with that bloody thing in her hand and four screaming, hysterical females all laying on the floor giving it all they’d got vocally with a cloud of blue smoke billowing about and the stink of gunpowder in the air plus a large patch of plaster blown clean off that wall! Look, there, see it? Three goes it took me to get that replastered semi-decently, and you can still see the bulge. I bet it’ll all fall out again!”

“Calamity Jane, Dear. I prefer that one if you’re going to hand out sobriquets and like I told you. I was going to use the wooden floor, but then I thought about it making a big hole and rats getting in again, so I just used the wall instead. I didn’t think it would go through the stonework or ricochet around as the pellets are made of lead”.

“I don’t think they use gunpowder these days”, I murmured, still eyeing the shotgun, then shook myself as the full realisation of what they were saying came to me. “Just like that?”

“Just like that”, Robbie confirmed. “I must admit I was a bit shocked, but I did have a slight advantage over the others. As soon as I heard it, I knew instinctively what she was doing and what she had in mind, so by the time we’d all run inside, I’d got myself in hand a bit. There she was, Annie, I mean Calamity Jane, calmly breaking the gun, inserting another cartridge just as cool as anything, and pointing it at the others that came in with me, yelling at them to lay on the floor as well.”

“They did, too, after one horrified look”, Bessie added. “I saw some hesitation, so I just raised it, pointed it at them, and repeated myself, and they all obligingly did as I told them. I’m no expert, of course, but we have some friends, old business colleagues in the US, Arizona, who go shooting. We’d been on the local range with them a couple of times. Walter collects old cowboy-style guns, colts and what have you and Maratha’s a regional Clay Pigeon shooting champion, Skeet, they call it over there.”

“Very different story this side of the pond, of course, gun-wise,” Robbie said. “Initially, we had a very severe rodent problem, so we applied for firearms licences for the shotgun and a point-two two rifle and jumped through all the usual hoops to prove we had a valid reason for them and weren’t a couple of loonies.” He broke off at that point as he saw the look on my face, which made both of them laugh.

“Well, you know what I mean” he continued. “I ran straight into the study, got my rifle out of the cabinet, and returned to join her. In for a penny, in for a pound situation. Technically the shotgun should have been kept in there, as well as those half dozen spare cartridges alongside the clock, but it looks good up there over the fireplace. I gather the police always let you know if they’re going to come out and do a security check on you” he looked across at his wife “You know I’d forgotten all about that, something to keep in mind now we’ve added all the illicit livestock.”

Bessie shook her head. “I wouldn’t worry over much about that, love. The renewal period isn’t for another four and a bit years, and by the time they’ve bounced themselves silly on the track getting here, it’ll be a ten-second decko at that steel cabinet and then on to tea and cake for the next hour while they put off going back to the station. They drank the teapot dry twice when they came to do that initial check, remember?”

I looked from one to the other again, thinking they were being so casual about what they were telling me. So unconcerned and laid back about it all. They’d kidnapped seven human beings at gunpoint, yet they seemed so relaxed about their actions. Then again, that had been four months ago, hadn’t it, and they’d done far worse to their captives since then, hadn’t they?

“I must say they were all exceedingly cooperative the way they dropped to the floor,” Bessie told me. “But then, as Robbie said later when we discussed it, we’re not that accustomed to guns over here, are we? It's not a case of a gun and a half in every household and a mass school shooting every other day. Did you know that parents over there can actually buy bullet-proof little backpacks for their kids? Now there's a crazy thing, isn’t it? Actually, when you consider that and think about it logically, maybe it ought to be the other way around. Maybe they should have all just stood there thinking, ‘She cannot be serious!’

I glanced up at the shotgun again, thinking I knew what I’d have done if she’d pointed it at me, and if so, I’d be out there alongside Dopey and Co. I remembered that poor hotel barman and her threatening finger. With a gun in her hand, Bessie was probably a very formidable proposition! Hell, I felt myself shiver slightly at a sudden thought. If she’d been that eager to acquire them, I could imagine her being ruthless enough to have gone one step further. Six would have been almost as good as seven, wouldn’t it? 

“Maybe they would have done that had you not tried to blow half the damn wall out”, Robbie chuckled. “I don’t know what it sounded like in here, but from outside, that was a thunderous bang! Anyway, It had the right effect, for all seven of them were on the ground when I came back with my rifle. Hell, if they’d known what we had in store for them, I expect they’d have jumped us there and then. Two cartridges in Bessie’s twelve bore and one puny little point two two cartridges in mine. I’d have been better off using it as a bloody club, I expect, if it had come to a fracas!”

I smiled politely, for I didn’t know a thing about guns other than that they were dangerous things, and calibres meant nothing to me. “Obviously, it didn’t come to a…a fracas, as you put it?”

“Obviously” Robbie gave me a sardonic smile. “They all proved to be most delightfully cooperative once we’d shouted at them a few times to ‘shut the fuck up’ and shoved a gun barrel in their faces. Then I passed my rifle over to Bessie, to Calamity there, and she kept an eye on them while I collected a bushel of ropes and such from the outbuildings along with a box knife. When I got back, Bessie had them all face down, legs together and hands behind their backs ready for trussing, just like they were a lot of chickens awaiting the oven, weren't they love?”

Bessie smiled. “Serendipity in motion, Dear. In what, less than a dozen hours, we’d gone from wishful thinking to practical realisation and on a scale we never could have imagined” She paused to chuckle. “It was so sexy and sweet hearing all those silly little protests and terrified whimpers as Robbie went around securing their wrists and ankles one after another. Even more satisfying knowing what we would be doing to them soon, and I wouldn’t need an oven to start cooking them!”

I shook my head and looked from one to the other and back again. “You two”, I managed and then repeated the head shake at a loss for words. “I mean, jeez, it is unbelievable. Un bloody believable! And no one said anything? You never had any visitors, no enquiries from the authorities?”

Robbie beamed at me and shook his head. “Nope, not a dickybird as our cockney cousins or whoever might say, not a word, not a single peep. There were newspaper articles and something on the regional telly news for a week or so, but that was about it, and that was ages ago. There were searches, of course, but we never saw hide nor hair down this way.” He winked at his wife. “Random chance, eh, lass and way better than winning the lottery and far more fun! Now how about coffee to finish off with, or would you like something a touch stronger?”

I remembered that another of his hobbies was acquiring bottles of rare Scotch Whiskies. Collecting, not drinking, I’d rarely seen him drink so much as a half pint of beer. Bessie was the same; said strong drinks made her all tipsy, silly and giggly. That was an image of her I couldn’t even begin to imagine! Somehow picturing Bessie standing there with that gun in her hand, calmly cowering half a dozen innocent people, yes. Behaving like an adolescent teen on her first night on the town, no! 

I shook my head. “A cup of coffee will be just fine”. I wasn’t much of a drinker or pubgoer myself. The odd pint after work or with a meal. An occasional glass of wine but very rarely anything stronger. I grinned and nodded towards the kitchen door, already knowing the answer. “Do I have to help with the washing up, or do I get excused from that chore on the first night?”

“Don’t be a silly billy.” Robbie laughed. “No need to worry about that. We’ve got our own, er, dishwasher for that sort of thing,” he winked again. “Not so much plumbed in as reluctantly live in and does much more besides housework!”. He gave me a very leery grin.

“Indeed, we have”, Bessie added, raising her voice slightly. “Baby, Baby, get your butt back in here, girl!” her fingers delivered a couple of sharp snaps in tandem with her words. “We’ll go over and sit on the sofas and take our coffee in comfort in front of the big fireplace. They were here when we arrived, old, almost antique, but oh so comfortable. I’m so glad we kept them. Bring the coffee in now and then clear the table,” she ordered her youthful feminised maid. 

“Covered in mildew and mould with the stuffing sticking out all over where the stitching had perished” Robbie led me over to the two old sofas, a two-seater and matching three-seater, in front of the enormous fireplace. “I sat in one by accident when we were viewing, and it was a case of being saved by the bell, so to speak. Damn, comfy despite the ravages of time, we found a guy not far away to refurbish them both. Did a good job too. Go on, park yourself, and we’ll fill in a few more blanks. Something wrong?”

He added the last solicitously as I sank down and down into that shabby-looking old sofa. He was right; it was exceedingly comfortable. “I’m fine”, I hastily assured him. My shaking head that he’d noted was purely because of the incredible situation I’d walked into and what they were so openly admitting to. First, the stable and now that maid of theirs so nonchalantly introduced that had initially been ‘a mite troublesome’. The one that reappeared carrying a tray with the coffee things and looking decidedly nervous as Bessie accompanied her to where we were seated.

Was she still troublesome? I wondered, looking at the bottom of the girl who wasn’t as she bent down to set her tray on the low coffee table between the sofas. I realised my initial perception was wrong, for her bottom wasn’t so much as scarred as heavily maked. Unlike Dopey, who must have been thrashed and whipped savagely many times, leaving him with marks and scars he’d carry to his grave. Baby hadn’t been disfigured in that same savage way, at least not yet. Spared one cruel fate only to be forced into another and which, I wondered, would be preferable as the frightened youth placed my coffee cup on the table. His hand shook noticeably. I wasn’t the only one to notice that tremor.

“Spill so much a single drop on my nice, polished table, and it’ll be another dozen on the spot from my cane girl”, Bessie cautioned quietly.” and don’t think I’ll hold back because we have a visitor!” Indeed, her words were barely audible, but the threat they carried made me quiver, so god alone knows what it did to that poor terrified creature serving me. “Now finish clearing the table and get on with the washing up”.

“We’re almost over those ‘difficulties, ’ Bessie mentioned. Robbie laughed, reaching for his cup. “Spare the rod and…well, you the rest”, he chuckled and reached out to run his palm over Baby’s nearest buttock cheek as she turned back towards the dining table. “There's an old Spanish saying about hospitality I once heard. Now what was it?”

“Mi casa, su casa”, I told him smugly, enjoying the astonished look on his face. “Spanish class at night school a few years ago I attended with a girlfriend. It means to make yourself at home. Literally, my house is your house”.

“Well then, consider it said and all who sail in her”, he laughed. “including this sexy bitch should you feel a particular need for entertainment of a relieving nature during your stay. Baby here is very familiar with rods” he gave another coarse laugh and slapped the maid's bottom.  

Bessie picked up her cup and reached for the milk jug, then changed her mind raising her cup to her lips and blowing gently as she smiled at me. “Robbie’s quite right. We made that decision the first night, not that it needed making. If they were going to be of any use to us, they needed to learn very quickly that their lives had changed considerably. Indeed, one might say that they’d been born anew and, like any new infant needed to be thoroughly educated into the rules of their new world so they were not spared anything!”

She said that so sincerely as she took a sip from her cup that I shivered again. The woman meant it, didn’t she? So casually said with not the slightest hint of compassion as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Even as those thoughts crossed my mind, I noticed a couple of items dangling from hooks in the wall beside the huge open fireplace previously hidden by the stonework on the right-hand side: a long thin bamboo cane and a slim riding switch. 

“Tools of the trade”, Robbie sniggered, observing where I was looking. What's that saying they have in London about rats? You’re never more than ten feet from one or some such rot! Absolute drivel, of course, but you might say here, our livestock are never more than a couple of yards from a suitable…”

“Educational tool”, I filled in as he paused or “re-educational tool” I quickly amended, given what Bessie had just said.

He grinned. “Attitude adjuster!” that’s the term I was looking for. He smiled at his wife and chuckled wickedly. “Pity we aren’t ambidextrous, eh love, all that arm exercise in those first few weeks! I’m surprised we didn’t end up with right arms looking like, what’s his name, that cartoon sailor guy with the muscles? My brain is going in my old age!”

“Popeye,” I said. “And you're not that old!”

“Yeah, that one. Long time since I saw that cartoon.” He agreed and nodded towards his wife. “Weren’t just arm aches either. My lassie here had to resort to foam earplugs a few times because of all the noise they made. Brought on some of your migraine headaches, didn’t it, dear?”

“Only mild ones and well worth the price”, Bessie laughed. “Besides what was a little discomfort to me compared to theirs, I could hardly complain, whoops, clumsy me!” she exclaimed as she subconsciously made an accompanying gesture with her cup and dribbled coffee all over the table. She muttered an inaudible curse and called, “Baby, baby, in here now!”

I glanced towards the closed kitchen door, but there was no response, nor after another and louder call, and I didn’t need to look at Bessie. I could sense the rage and anger rising in her by the second. She pulled her cell phone from a pocket in her grandma-style floral apron and tapped, muttering several times as her forefinger bounced up and down.

“Shock collar,” Robbie said rather unconcernedly as the shrill screams died away, and Baby staggered through the door, waivered and then bobbed into a wobbly curtsy in front of her angry Mistress. This time I’d have been hard put to decide which was genuine wobble and which was fearful tremble as the poor wretch quailed before that expression on Bessie's face. Kind and motherly looking was how I’d always viewed her, but there wasn’t a trace of such on that severe countenance. 

“I’m sorry, Mistress, it started raining. I went outside to bring in…” but that was as far as Baby got before Bessie half rose from her chair and delivered a face slap that knocked the poor creature sideways, and advancing years hadn’t slowed her reflexes. She grabbed a handful of blonde hair and hauled Baby back into position, holding her firm with one hand while the other bitch-slapped her face several times.

“No fucking excuses bitch”, Bessie screamed as her hand lashed back and forth. “I don’t care if you’ve just dropped down fucking dead; you still get up and get yourself in here when summoned. Piss me off, girl, and you’ll soon wish you were fucking dead!” she shook the girl hard and virtually threw her to the floor, lashing out with one foot in a vicious kick. “Now go fetch a cloth and wipe that table, pronto, you useless slut!”

I was thoroughly startled by Bessie's outburst, and half wondered if the display was merely a charade for my benefit. The motherly sweet-tempered woman I knew had lived in a different universe where the F word never featured, let alone that savagery I’d just witnessed. However, one look at the terror on Baby’s face and accompanying body language as she struggled to her feet and dashed for the kitchen negated that line of thought. 

“She’s pretty darn nifty on those heels these days “, Robbie chortled gleefully. “Doesn’t half make that pert sexy ass of hers wobble about so delightfully? Finished, or do you want another cup?” He cocked an inquisitive eye at me. “If not, we can stroll back to the stable”. 

I put my cup down and shook my head, “No, thank you. It would keep me awake; I should have asked if you had any decaffeinated”.

“Only Instant”, Bessie grunted, watching Baby, who’d swiftly returned and was energetically moping up the minor spill her Mistress had made as though endeavouring to polish the table to a glossy sheen. A fact that hadn’t escaped my hostess.

“That’s enough, girl! Heavens, it’s a few drops of spilt coffee, not the Atlantic Ocean, and I said to fetch a cloth, did I not? Well, ANSWER me, bitch!”

Baby bobbed into another quick curtsy and mouthed, “Yes, Mistress”, so softly it was barely audible. That expression of fear on her painted face was more evident than ever. What the hell had Bessie done to the poor creature? I wondered to reduce her to that quivering state, especially when she wasn’t a girl at all!

Bessie crooked a finger and beckoned to her strange maid to come closer, and the moment she was in range delivered another facial slap that looked hard enough to have knocked a professional boxer out. It knocked Baby sideways to the floor, leaving the poor wretch dazed for a second before she resumed her former respectful position. Four and a bit months, I thought and looked at that blistered bottom. And a very intensive four and a bit months it must have been!

“Next time I tell you to get a cloth, you get a cloth and not a couple of pieces of kitchen roll. There is a difference, Missy Moron! Now scoot back to the kitchen. I’ll deal with you later. If these gentlemen don’t want another cup, I do. Just in time to catch the regional news on the television”. 

Robbie stood up, beckoning to me, and so I did likewise as Baby scurried back to the kitchen, her bottom, I noticed, still sashaying rather noticeably as she moved. Robbie laughed and made an obscene gesture trusting the forefinger of one hand through a ring made between the thumb and forefinger of the other. “Quite the little tart is she not” he gave me a very leery grin before opening the door.

It had rained briefly, one of those short but heavy showers that are over almost as soon as they’ve started but enough to thoroughly soak you if you’re unlucky enough to get caught. It did leave a lingering, pleasant, cool sense of freshness and renewal in the evening air as we paused outside the house, instinctively stopping to take a deep breath and admire the red glow over the higher ground to the West. 

“I assume from that obscene gesture you don’t exclusively reserve your amorous backdoor activities for Dopey alone?” I observed, and then another thought occurred to me. “How the hell do you stop him, her, it,  whatever, from doing a runner? What do you do, chain the poor thing to the kitchen sink when neither of you are around?”

Robbie shook his head and chuckled. “Amorous! Well, that’s one way of putting it. But no, fortunately not. In a sense, we were the ones initially chained to the kitchen sink, as you put it, for that very reason. The stable stock are different, for they haven’t the freedom to go anywhere, but Baby has the run of the house and immediate vicinity. Hell, she’d be pretty useless otherwise, so far as domestic chores go and with that many available to us, there was no way Bessie wasn’t going to have a domestic slave for all the chores and the ‘whatever he, she, it’ is very much her by the way” he laughed. “Nowadays anyway, despite any evidence on view to the contrary! I’d advise keeping that in mind, as Bessie can get a bit touchy if you forget!”

I shook my head dubiously. “Thanks for the warning, but surely it must be a risk?”

“Nope,” Robbie shook his head. “That pink collar around her neck, as I mentioned earlier, is a shock collar, a dog one”.

“I thought they were illegal in the UK?”

Robbie shook his head again. “Yes and no. I gather there is pending legislation, but hers didn’t come from here. Our Arizona friends across the pond got several of them for us. The ones over here are pretty tame despite all the objections to them, whereas you can get some in the US that would knock an elephant out…well, maybe a mountain lion or something similar. We can operate it from an app on our phones, and I’ll sort you out while you’re here for yours.”

“Thanks, but I’m not sure it will be necessary.”

“Might as well”, he grinned. “Right setting and a casual tap of the finger and little Miss Uncooperative can become amazingly enthusiastic due to one tiny touch upon a screen. Believe me, one touch can make a whole heap of difference “ he paused to chuckle. “Just make sure your cock is out of her mouth when you do it, though!”

“Hurt?” I grinned.

“A momentary case of ouch with a capital O and fortunately for yours truly, no lasting damage done, not to me anyway. The resultant hurt was very much on her side of the equation! We both learned a lesson, but the device we acquired goes beyond the app and the collar. We have several clever sensors dotted around that are linked to her collar. Attempt to go anywhere near one of those, and it's zap with a capital Z, and we’ve set it so it’s more of a capital ZZ. Plus, we get an alert on our phones as well. Naturally, the silly bitch tried it a few times, but it was on lower settings then. She’d be very foolish to try now, plus the bitch is equally aware of what Bessie would do to her when she comes around! If indeed she did come around!” he added the latter rather grimly.

“Bessie does seem a bit….” I paused, groping for what I wanted to say.

“Scary”, he added, gently retaking my arm and steering me towards the stable. “I’ll say she is—bloody terrifying to our reluctant guests, no doubt! Come on, let’s throw another scare into the stable gang. Normally we only go over in the evenings to amuse ourselves, which doesn’t mean that our livestock finds our little fun visits very amusing” He chuckled wickedly. “I saw that expression on your face. Maybe by the time we head back, you’ll regard Baby in a different light should certain manly needs arise. It wasn’t just household chores we had in mind for the bitch!”

He winked and repeated that obscene gesture before tapping in the stable door entry code again. Even as I watched his fingers and murmured the code to myself, a shrill scream sounded from the house, followed by a second and then louder and more agonised third and fourth. Evidently, the local evening television news hadn’t captured Bessie’s attention, and that threatened ‘later’ was being administered earlier!