Chapter 1
Lightly bearded Ted Brough, dressed in a faded red polo shirt draped over the belt-line of near indestructible faded jeans that topped scruffy soft lace-ups, stopped his Jeep Grand Cherokee on the roadside at the edge of town.
The aggressive leader and two irate followers dragged a severely beaten guy from the vehicle.
Two centuries ago, victim Andy Briggs may have been tarred and feathered before being run out of town in disgrace as an alternative to being shot dead or hung from the limb of a tree.
But this was the more civilised and law-enforced 21st century.
Ted said, voice rasping in anger, "Hold him up, keep him still"
The head of semi-conscious Andy Briggs lay slumped on his chest as he was propped up firmly.
Ted kicked the rampant fornicator in the groin with such force that the two henchmen men holding the victim staggered backwards.
"Let him drop and let's go," Ted said, spitting on the groaning victim being run out of town.
Earlier that day, Ted had found the bruising of a suspected 'love bite' on the neck of his wife and mother of two.
Under the threat of being punched in the stomach, she confessed that she'd had sex with the recently-appointed replacement security guy at the civic art gallery.
Furious, Ted snarled that she meant she'd been raped. He'd press the Police to lay charges and the scumbag would end up rotting in jail.
But his wife wept that she'd consented to sex.
Momentarily dumbstruck, Ted then demanded had she'd turned loco or had been drugged.
His church-going wife denied that foul play had been involved and turned his face livid when weeping it had been a magical encounter.
She confessed that a number of her female friends had said this new guy in town performed sex with the skill of an attentive artist imbued with romantic over-tones, or words to that effect.
Ted demanded the names of other women who'd fallen under the hypnotic charms of this foul interlope. His tearful wife provided the names of five women who'd confessed over coffee after their book club meeting of being expertly seduced by this guy Briggs.
Three of those fallen women were the wives of Ted's friends.
It was Saturday, and Ted successfully called two out of three of those similarly wronged cronies to an emergency meeting within the hour at a cafe where he broke the disturbing news.
Ted's pals were angry, disgusted that their wives could fall so easily to a preying seducer but the urging of enraged Ben the plumber, "Let's string him up," got no support.
Ted, who'd being humiliated plus astonished by the sluttish outbreak of his wife, said they must act calmly, and warned they must use restraint. At best, the worst they could do without being severely punished under law would be to apprehend the guy quietly, without being observed.
Then they could beat him up and dump him at the edge of town after warning him he should flee the wrath of other murderous husbands.
After dumping Andy Briggs, the guys drove back to a pub feeling justice had been done, more or less, but remained angry that their wives had fallen to mass hysteria over some cock and bull story about receiving an amazing experience from a self-appointed cock-shafting guru who surely was a complete fake.
Meanwhile, back at the dumping place, Andy Briggs, who was in intense pain but believed no bones were broken and he'd escaped suffering serious internal injuries. The battered guy, in severe pain, rolled over gravel beside the sealed roadway and slid virtually concealed into a storm water drain where he fell unconscious, oblivious to his body's attempt to heal itself.
Understandably, err perhaps, Andy provably consider he'd been an innocent victim illegally violated by jealous hooligans. All he'd done was make friends with women who felt they were somewhat neglected, and under encouragement he'd given them a brief experience of the quality of a sexual encounter that they really desired and deserved.
He could have had those men arrested and punished by the full extent of the law, although there was the question of where did that leave him? He'd committed no crime as adultery was not a crime in their country. He'd chosen consenting married women to avoid the risk of 'soiling' innocent unmarried adult women, assuming that some still exist. However, his male accusers would have demanded severe punishment of the offenderl
Andy groaned himself awake not long after dawn next morning. After checking that he could freely moving all limbs and gingerly touching his painful groin with the most pain centred on his enlarged and inflamed testicles, he leant to one side and urinated, intermittently and with significant discomfort.
He lay back thinking, what now?
"Those jerks, they've severely disrupted my very enjoyable way of life."
He groaned as he sat up and heard the sound of a passing vehicle skidding in metal on the side of the roadway. He turned and saw a van had stopped and then caught the sight of a female hurrying toward him.
He shuddered, believing she'd call the cops thinking he'd been a hit and run victim and he'd then potentially he'd be really in a fix."
"Hi sir, are you injured? Good gracious, it's you Mr Briggs!"
"Oh, Mrs... Mrs... of the book club."
"Mrs Armstrong but Lillian to you. Here let me get you into my vehicle and off to hospital."
"No, not the hospital."
"Why ever not?"
"Um, I don't wish to point fingers but a vigilante group of irate husbands did this to me. They have attempted to run me out of town and threatened real bodily harm if I attempt to return."
"Omigod, this is a matter for the police."
"Waste of time Lillian. I'm unable to identify my attackers."
"Unable or unwilling," she scowled.
Andy managed a weak smile and said she was on to him. He urged her to use her ample brain.
"Let's concentrate on what is the best outcome for me."
She frowned and then said, "Yes, I see what you mean. Your life in our community is over, or almost. First, let me get you home when I can clean you up and nurse you."
"But what about your husband? In due course, he'll hear the blasphemy about me, the ugly way people can bend the truth. The truth is I was assisting women, not harming them."
"I agree with that point of view. I, too, almost tumbled to your deliverance, the message that sex can remain a wonderful instrument of personal enjoyment to life even into old age. But come on, let's get you into my van. I've completed delivering flowers to regular outlets and don't worry about my husband, he left two days ago on a two-week business trip far from here."
* * *
As Lillian assisted the victim of that cowardly attack (depending on one's point of view) into the master bedroom, Andy with great difficulty to walk stopped, and with his face wrinkled in pain said, "No, not here; that's the marital bed."
"Yes, where nothing much happens these days," Lillian smiled. "You'll sleep with me here where I can keep an eye on you but you'll have to move to the guest room the moment you begin to feel frisky again."
"Ha, when will that be, sometime next year?"