A Sticky Wicket

Jack Boston was a competent member of the Pottersbridge village cricket team. A good middle order batsman and a good utility bowler. As a youngster he'd even had a trial for Northamptonshire Cricket Club, but it hadn't come to anything. Pottersbridge was a large village in the Home Counties. It was 40 miles from London and fairly prosperous. Jack was married to Wendy. Wendy was something of a blonde sex bomb, pretty face, a well-rounded bottom, large breasts and legs that just didn't seem to want to stop. She was a bit flirtatious at the Cricket Club dos, but fair play to her! Wendy knew how to handle herself and she enjoyed Jack's full confidence. He never thought of the possibility of her cheating on him. Why would he? He would never cheat on her, she would never cheat on him! Simple! They were both just turned 30. Jack was reasonably tall and well-built. He was considered handsome by the ladies and a good sport by the men. He had no enemies that he was aware of. But things can change, can't they? Jack worked in IT for his father's Times' 1000 firm, he was a skilled IT troubleshooter. One of the best in the industry. He was amused, but flattered, that one of the girls in the village had, from about the age of 12, become his shadow. For some reason Sarah Clark was fascinated by computers and IT. Sarah did not mix all that well well with the other children in the village. She had moved to the village to live with her grandmother in a nice chocolate box cottage on the edge of the village's cricket ground, when she was eight. There was no hostility toward her, from the other children, or from her to them. It's just that she was not interested in boys (or girls) and rather than getting fun at the village disco in the church hall, she really got off on looking at IT issues, building her own computers, installing her own wireless networks and the like. The other children were actually sort of proud of her for being their own special geek. Now at age eighteen she was a very comely looking young maid, as the locals described attractive young girls. When she reached sixteen and had left school she had approached Jack to see if there were any work placements within the company his family owned. For her? Of course there were! Jack liked Sarah and when he quizzed her on her knowledge of computers he realised that he would have to make a place available for her. Wendy liked Sarah and although she teased Jack about him having a little girl friend, Jack knew Wendy was only joking. After all, many people in the village described Wendy and Jack as the perfect couple, right? And they were talking about having children. Wendy would be coming off the pill within the next month or so and they'd let nature take its course. The PCC (Pottersbridge Cricket Club) was, along with the pub the Cricketer's Arms, the centre point of the social life of the village. Especially for the more well-to-do members of the community Doctors, lawyers, architects, company directors and the like were all members of the PCC. The less wealthy villagers, some of whom resented the "gentry," tended to avoid the hothouse atmosphere of the PCC -and its plush and elegant club house- and either drank in the back bar of the Cricketer's Arms (where they always used the original and ancient name of the pub, the Drover's Rest, resenting the pointless change in name brought about by a deal with the brewery that owned the pub and the PCC Committee) or the Service's Club which was a combined forces venue, frequented by a couple of retired colonels and a former RN commander, though the bulk of the membership was made up of retired NCOs, other ranks and a few serving servicemen. As far as Jack was concerned, his life with Wendy was idyllic. They had a large, modern house. Jack lived in a lovely, comforting and comfortable pink fog. They made love regularly, that is to say, they often made love. It was spontaneous and gorgeous. Sometimes Wendy cried off from having sex, as she was too tired to make love and on those occasions Jack was just happy to cuddle her until they both fell asleep. Jack's father was still the managing director of the family firm, although he left the day-to-day running to the company president, George Murphy, who had been promoted from chief finance officer to president. His father spent much of his spare time involving himself in the running of the cricket club, which he was chairman of. His wife was president of the Lady's Group at the cricket club and they both enjoyed the social life that revolved around the club, from the monthly tombola nights to the annual dinner-dance. Jack did not resent the fact that an outsider had been granted such an important role, although he knew that he should. In truth, Jack wanted to be left to do what he liked doing and what he did best. Running the firm's IT systems. Somehow, Sarah's summer placement had become a permanent position, although only part time. The company was funding her to study for a ICT degree by distance learning and would, if Jack had anything to do with it, rapidly proceed to her MA. Some of the women at work teased Jack, calling Sarah his faithful puppy. They meant no offence by the remarks. But there was some truth behind them. There was something puppy-like in her devotion to Jack. But Jack could not notice it, as he was so hung up on the love of his life, the lovely, loving Wendy. Well, you have to know this must end badly, right? Despite her youth and despite her lack of experience with boys, Sarah knew a great deal more than one might suppose possible. Sarah had come to live with her grandmother because her parents had fucked their marriage away by cheating on each other with multiple partners and then, as idiots often do, chose to blame each other, rather than accepting their responsibility for the debacle they had each helped turn their marriage into. Even at eight, Sarah had known the truth about her parents and what infidelity was like and the trouble and pain it could cause. She had gone to live with her mother's mother because her parents had not worked out how to live with a little girl who they had both failed so very, very badly. So, to their shame and discredit, they had abrogated their responsibility for their only child and a temporary arrangement ("Just a few weeks mum. Until Matthew and I both get ourselves settled down.") had become something far more permanent. In fact, Sarah thought of her gran as more of a mother than her own mother had ever been. Certainly from the time Sara turned six and when, eventually, her parents marriage crashed into the rocks of infidelity on both sides. She had rarely seen either of her parents. Didn't miss them, really, either, for that matter. They each had new partners and seemed to regard Sarah as an embarrassing relic of their failed marriage. As a consequence Sarah's grandmother chose to have very little to do with her own daughter. So, as a result, Sarah knew a good deal about cheating. Had a sixth sense for it. Knew it when she saw it. Had a nose for it, as you might say. Sarah knew that Wendy was cheating on Jack. As far as Sarah was concerned, the stench of betrayal was heavy around her. After learning how to cope with her parents, Sarah knew enough not to show Wendy that she knew what she was up to. Besides, Jack would need hard evidence before he decided what course of action to take. And Sarah, with her knowledge of computers and allied fields, would provide that evidence for him. Sarah would be patient. She had to be. She did not want anything to go wrong with her plans. And yes, Sarah did have plans. Not the plans of a girl of her age, but the plans of a woman, still young, yet old before her time in so many ways. Wendy would get hers. And so, thought Sarah, would she! One morning in the early summer Jack was on his way to work in London when he took a very unusual phone call from Sarah. "Jack, hi, it's Sarah, here." "Hi, Sarah! What can I do for you?" "Jack... I am sorry to disturb you, I know you are on your way to work, but I need for you to please come back to the village. There's something very badly, terribly wrong. Please come back." She sounded upset. On the verge of tears, which was unusual in itself. Jack wondered what on earth it could be. Boy trouble? What? "Are you in trouble?" he asked, feeling concerned about his youthful protégée. "No, Jack. Not me. But there is trouble. You must come back. You have simply got to come back! Now! I will wait for you at the overspill car park at the cricket club. Please hurry! But don't tell anyone! Anyone at all!" "OK, I'll be back in about fifteen minutes, I hadn't gone very far towards London, so I'll turn round as soon as I can." They broke the connection and Jack's powerful Mercedes Kompressor Coupé made the journey back to the village in just over ten minutes. He found her at the far end of the overspill car park, lurking surreptitiously by the hedge. He locked the car with the remote and walked over to her. He realised that she looked distressed, on the point of tears. "Sarah! What on earth's wrong? What's happened to you?" She shook her head. "There's nothing happened to me. I'm not the one with something happening to them. You need to come with me to the cricket clubhouse. Be as quiet as you can and no matter what we find, please, please promise me that you will not do anything stupid! Please?" What on earth had she discovered? Some kids using it to smoke dope? He'd had suspicions that the clubhouse had been used for something illicit several times, but had never had any concrete proof. "Probably that son of my best friend, Steve. I really will have to have a word with Steve about his boy," he thought. The front door was locked, but Jack realised someone was inside as he noticed that the light on the alarm was not flashing, so the alarm system wasn't activated. "Shhhsh! Do it quietly!" urged Sarah, who was standing at his side. He grinned, slightly, and unlocked the door with his set of keys (he was in charge of youth training) as silently as he could. They crept through the large lobby, passing the notices on either side of the room detailing net practice dates and times, youth team sessions, the club dinner-dance and the like. They were faced by three doors, Sarah tapped his arm and pointed to the door to the club lounge. With its plush leather armchairs it always reminded Jack of an exclusive gentleman's club in London. Which was pretty much the effect his father had aimed for. They opened the door, walk through and the Jack's world collapsed. The room was filled with a large group of men all in various states of undress, but all without trousers. But only one woman. His Wendy. Wendy was the centrepiece of the room, she was naked and sat, cowgirl fashion, on the lap of his putative best friend, Steve Markham, Cricket Club chairman. It's odd how things strike one, in that first moment of discovery. "Shit! Steve has no cock! Wait! Oh my God!" It was them that Jack realised that Wendy's mons was bulging with Steve's large, fat cock buried up to the hilt in her cunt. Which was why he appeared to have no cock. Bastard! The silence in the room crackled. It was broken by Sarah who gasped out: "Jesus! Oh, god! Jack! I'm sorry! I thought she was only cheating on you with Steve! But she's just been fucked by the entire Cricket team!" Wendy gave a little shriek and shouted: "Get your cock out of me, Steve! My husband's here!" She had forgotten that one of the reasons she had allowed her lover to arrange a session with the entire cricket team (with the honourable exception of her husband, of course) was so that she could be filled with all of their sperm. Which, without the plug of Steve's cock, gushed out like a gooey, translucent fountain. Jack had lost his voice. The shock of seeing what gushed forth from the slut that used to be his wife caught him unawares. He projectile vomited onto the carpet, splashing the naked legs of the two fuckers. And on Steve's patent leather shoes which he had incongruously continued to wear as he had fucked his friend's wife. At this point the door to the gents opened and a rich, plummy and affected voice intoned, heartily: "What's going on? Why has the fun stopped? Oh, fuck!" Wildly, Jack glanced to the left and realised that the portly and naked form of his father had just entered the lounge. "You were with everyone in the cricket club except me, you fucking whore! Even my own father! Oh, Wendy, you fucking bitch! How could you?" Wendy stood in front of Steve, she tried to use a small face towel to stem the flow of the sperm of eleven men from her enlarged and gaping cunt. The combination of her own body's desire to rid itself of the interloping fluid and gravity ensured it was a losing battle. She had gone white with shock. "It... it's not what you think, Jack! Don't listen to that bitch, Sarah!" She pointed at Sarah, who was standing to Jack's right side. Sarah was still deeply shocked by what she had just witnessed. "Fuck off, you stupid cow!" Shouted Jack. "Sarah told me nothing! She just asked me to meet her here. And look what I found! The original good time that was had by all!" "I say," intoned a pontificational voice. "There is no need to address the lady in that manner!" "Oh my God!" Shouted Jack. "You, vicar? You bastard! You took our wedding ceremony! You made us spout those vows of fidelity! How could you help her cheat on me, you cunt!" Nobody else said anything. Wendy looked at Jack, and, tears streaming down her face, she shook her head. Jack turned, grabbed Sarah and ran back through the doors. Once out in the open air he was again violently sick. "Oh, Christ, Sarah! Why didn't you warn me about that?" She looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. "Jack, please believe me, I had no idea that they had arranged that giant gangbang! All I thought was that Wendy had arranged to meet Steve here for a tryst! I knew she was cheating on you, but... fuck me! Not with all of your mates from the cricket club! And wasn't that fat bastard who came out of the bog your own dad?" Jack gave a bleak smile at her description of his father. Sarah walked round the side of the building and she stooped, opened a small external cupboard and removed a portable drive unit and a mini receiver, which she placed in her pocket. "I recorded it all. HD video, stereo sound. I had several video cameras and microphones hidden in the room. Don't worry! It's approved for use in court cases!" By this time they had reached Jack's car. Sarah gave his arm a comforting squeeze. "You don't have to worry, Jack. You can come and stay with me and my gran. She took me in when I was a victim of the infidelity of my stupid parents. So, you see, she's got form for looking after people who are victims of infidelity. She'll see you right!" So that's what happened. The cottage was Tardis-like, in that it seemed larger on the inside than it looked from the outside. Jack was given a bedroom at the back. "Best not let you have the room that overlooks the cricket pitch," had opined Mrs Clark after she had sat, ashen-faced, listening to the story of Jack's betrayal. The problem for Jack was that his whole social and professional support network had been cut from beneath him. His wife, his best friend, the vicar, his father, his own doctor and the family solicitor. Jack felt that they had all conspired to destroy him. And even if they hadn't, the result was exactly the same. He had been destroyed. He drove to a town fifteen miles distant and attended a walk in NHS clinic. When he told the sympathetic doctor there that his own MD had been caught fucking his wife, the duty doctor had given him a fit note, pointing out that he was, in his opinion, unfit to work for a month. He also gave him a prescription for Paroxetine, having diagnosed Jack as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He also arranged for an STD test at the local hospital's GMU clinc. (Somehow, Jack was clear, but no thanks to Wendy fucking eleven other men unprotected, he mused.) The doctor had also handed Jack a leaflet of how to lodge a complaint against a doctor. "I hope you nail the bastard to a tree by his bollocks!" the doctor had said, adding: "Metaphorically speaking, of course!" He asked Sarah how she had known about Wendy's infidelity. Sarah looked sad and said: "From watching my own mum and dad. It wasn't that they had an open marriage, they just cheated on each other, with multiple partners. I began noticing certain behaviour patterns that were common to the both of them. I realised your wife began to exhibit the same behaviour patterns as my stupid parents had shown and I just knew she was cheating." "How did you find out?" She grinned: "Oh, I planted Voice Activated Recorders in her handbag and in her car! That was how I found out about her and Steve. I am so sorry that I never found out about the gangbang. That shocked me, to be honest. I suppose she left her handbag in her car while they were together planning her 'event' at the cricket club." He looked dubious. "Isn't what you did illegal?" She shrugged. "Possibly. However, the recording I did in the cricket club is legal, if we stretch a point. You have expressed concern that you thought someone was making illegal use of the cricket club buildings, so you had me put a security system in. I mean, it's not your fault if you forgot to mention this to your wife or the other members of the club, is it?" He laughed. "God, Sarah! That's pretty devious! I'm glad you're on my side!" "I've always been on your side, Jack," she said, with a mysterious smile on her face. He steeled himself to watch the video. The duplicity, the lies, their mocking words about him and his relationship with Wendy, the fact that she laughed along with them, the fact that she requested her fuck buddies to have unprotected sex with her as many times as they could, so that they could fill her cunt with as much spunk as they could produce, killed any chance of reconciliation as far as he was concerned. The whole village was a-buzz with rumours that something had happened, but nobody knew the exact truth. Though the continued absence of Jack's Mercedes from the double drive of the house caused much speculation. Most villagers didn't know where the car was, as it was parked in the old stable block behind the cottage, safe from prying eyes. All Jack wanted to do was to sit and mope and try to knock himself out with copious amounts of Scotch. But he knew this would be a bad way to cope. Over a cup of tea sat at the well-scrubbed white pine table in front of grandmother's Aga range he spoke with the older woman. "Mabel, I want to get drunk and stay drunk. But why should I let my cheating wife and those miserable bastards who I mistook for friends dictate to me how I should live my life?" She nodded and after taking a drink of tea said: "There's no reason at all. You need to stay strong and well for yourself. You haven't spoken to your wife yet, have you?" He shook his head. "No. I haven't. I suppose I'll have to." He called Wendy's mobile. The conversation was short and to the point. "It was as if the bitch was angry with me! Christ! She'll be blaming me for the bloody gangbang, next!" he thought. They arranged for him to visit the house later that afternoon. The meeting was tense. They sat in the lounge, staring at each other, each waiting for the other to start. Eventually Wendy began. "Jack. I am so very sorry you saw what you saw. Sarah had no right to..." Jack shouted: "Fuck off, Wendy! Don't blame Sarah for what you did! She didn't force you to fuck eleven of my so-called friends! You did that!" "But why did she have to interfere?" said Wendy, petulantly. "Because she did something you obviously don't do! She cared about me! She cared enough to look after my interests when you were enjoying a new life as the fucking village bike!" Wendy's face flushed. "I am not the village bike!" "Oh, OK, Wendy," sneered Jack. "I apologise. You'ree only the cricket club's bike!" "What do you want, Jack?" she asked. "I rather think I want a divorce, actually, to be honest." Wendy gasped. "A divorce? But why?" He sat back in his chair and threw his hands up clapped them on his head. "Dear God, woman! I caught you fucking eleven of my former friends! I threw up because I saw all of their spunk gush out of your gaping cunt! The question isn't why I might want a divorce, but why wouldn't I want a fucking divorce!" "Can't we get through this?" "Get through the fact that you had unprotected sex with eleven men, allowing them to come off in your cunt more than once? That you allowed, even encouraged them to talk shit about me, that you laughed at my expense when they made mock of me! How, Wendy? Please tell me how we can get through this? Please tell me how I can get through this? "We could get Doctor Collins to arrange counselling for us?" Wendy sounded hopeful. "You fucking moron!" shouted Jack. "You seem to forget that I can no longer go to see that fuckhead Doug Collins, as he was one of the men fucking you!" Wendy flinched at that. "Oh. I am sorry. I hadn't thought of that!" "There's a lot you haven't thought of, you stupid, fucking bitch!" "I wish you'd show me some respect!" snapped Wendy. The look on Jack's face was priceless. "Show... you some respect? What in the name of fuck do you mean? Oh, hang on! I'll show you some disrespect!" He stood up and walked over to the coffee table and took her iPad, started it up and plugged a data stick in it and showed her the video that Sarah had recorded. Wendy watched it, with tears streaming down her face. "Dear God! Oh, dear God! No wonder you want to divorce me! But you weren't meant to see or hear any of that! We, none of us meant any disrespect to you! It was just intended to be a bit of harmless fun! Maybe it went to far?" "Too far?" Jeez, that's an understatement, if I ever heard one!" He shook his head. "I can't forgive you for this, Wendy. I'll never be able to get over it." "Why not?" "Because if you had just had an affair with Steve, that would have been bad enough. But you had sex with eleven other men. If you'd just stayed at one lover, I might have been able to get over that. "I'd have had some problems, wondering if your lover was better at sex than I was, if he had a bigger, longer or fatter cock than I did. But with what you did, having sex with eleven other men, I can't compete with that in my own mind. Because the law of averages tells us that out of those eleven other men, of course some of them were better at fucking than I am! Of course some of them were really well endowed, with absolutely huge dicks! "Any normal person who had a cheating spouse would only have to get over with the fact that when they were making love that their spouse might, however unwillingly, be comparing their stupid, cheated on spouse to their lover. "But I wouldn't have that luxury, would I, Wendy? Should I ever be stupid enough to stick my cock in your cunt again, I'd know that you were comparing me to at least eleven other men, including my own fucking father!" At this point, Wendy really began bawling her eyes out. She was trying to speak, but only a few words were intelligible. "Sorry" being predominant. While she cried he went up to their bedroom, the used to be their bedroom, and cleared out his side of the wardrobe and his drawers in the dressing table. He packed them in a couple of suitcases and took his clothing to his new home, leaving Wendy distraught in the lounge. Later that afternoon Jack had a horrible meeting with his parents. They sat in the large kitchen of their equally large house. Jack had always felt comfortable and at home in his parents home, the house he had grown up in. Now, he felt like a stranger. He no longer felt at home, there. Before he could say anything his mother said: "Jack, I feel that we owe you an explanation. Over the past several years, the romantic life between your father and I has declined, greatly. This is due to the fact that I passed through the menopause. However, your father still has a high sex drive. He overheard your friend Steve talking to Doug Collins about their plans for some fun with Wendy at the cricket club and rather than putting a stop to it, he asked if he could join in." Jack realised that this was yet another level of betrayal that he had not counted on. "Mother, did you know beforehand that he planned to have sex with my wife?" His mother looked at Jack, with a gaze that was impossible to fathom. "Yes, Jack, I have to be honest and say that I did know." "If you two can't have sex any more because its uncomfortable for mother, you could have gone to the chemists and get a tube of K-Y Jelly, you fucking bastards! You do not use my wife as surrogate whore!" Jack's father said: "Show some respect in my house! If you don't stop swearing I'll..." Jack cut him off by shouting: "What? What will you do? Hurt me? You stupid twat! Nothing you can do can hurt me any worse than my finding out you were one of my wife's eleven lovers! I am not going to put up with any more of your shit! You are no longer my parents. Good bye!" The next morning he made a phone call to speak with a firm of solicitors in the neighbouring town of Bankridge. "Gains, Leper Legal, how may I help you?" said the bright and cheerful voice. "Hello, I'd like to make an appointment to see a partner at your firm to start a divorce action, please?" "I'll just put you through to the secretary of our Mr Rollings. He's our divorce expert!" Within ten minutes he had an appointment for early that afternoon. Apparently there had been a late cancellation. His lucky day. He typed out the list of adulterers and shook his head. None of this seemed real. Dr Doug Collins (our doctor) Peter Shapell (our solicitor) Nigel Boston (my father) Peter Brickmann, Reverend Barry Cotter (our vicar) Will Downton, Clayton Smith, Arthur Harris, Steve Markham (ex-best friend), Patrick Smee, Donald Ross. When he handed the list to David Rollings the divorce expert at Gains, Leper, Rollings' eyes had bulged. He said: "This is a long list. Over what period of time has she had these men as lovers?" Jack swallowed and said: "Just the one morning, actually. Though for some time before with Steve Markham." "That morning? Dear God! What did she do? Have sex with a cricket...? Oh! Dear God! Oh, my God! That is a cricket team, isn't it? It's the Pottersbridge Cricket Club! Your own father? Christ. I feel for you, young man. Do you have any evidence?" Jack plugged the data stick into his iPad and let Mr Rollings watch the video. He began taking notes. At one point he paused the video and rang through to his secretary and asked her to cancel and reschedule the rest of his afternoon's meetings. He then started the video again. Nearly two hours later when the video stopped (when Sarah removed the receiver and drive unit) he sighed and put his pen down. "That's horrible. No wonder you want to name all of the bastards!" Jack signed up with his company and they instigated the divorce proceedings on the grounds of adultery with 11 different men. In the UK one does not have to use process servers. The First Class post usually suffices. But Rollings wanted to use old fashioned process servers to hand deliver the divorce petition naming them as adulterers, hopefully embarrassing them into the bargain with a public humiliation. In theory a divorce can be obtained in about six months in the UK, but the fact that Jack wanted to go for the nuclear revenge option meant that things were delayed. However, the revenge hit several people well before the divorce hearing started, let alone for the Decree Absolute to be handed down. The vicar was stripped of his parish living, the doctor was sacked by his colleagues at the practice (and awaiting a BMA trial for inappropriate sexual contact with a patient) and their family solicitor was suspended from practising law, pending an ethics and professional standing hearing by the Law Society. And still it meandered on its not-so-merry way. Several of the adulterers attempted to have their name struck out of the divorce petition, but their lawyers had to admit failure. As the judge said: "Your client was recorded having sex with the wife of a friend. That the aggrieved husband chooses to sue all of his wife's affair partners for divorce should not, in my opinion, give rise to any questions as to the propriety of his actions, which, if I am honest, are wholly and entirely justified." Sarah tried to avoid Wendy as much as she could, but ultimately there came a denouement of sorts in the village shop. Sarah was on the way in whilst Wendy was on the way out. Harsh words were said, mainly by Wendy. Eventually Wendy shouted: "You are trying to steal my husband from me, you bitch! Why? What have you got that I haven't?" Sarah was the original Non-Confrontational Kid, a hang over from her life before she moved in with her grandmother. But this time she was stung into making a reply. "What have I got Wendy? Let me tell you what I have got, shall I? Legs that stay together and, unlike you, I don't use my cunt as a Tunnel of Love for fucking all-comers!" Several things happened at the same time. Sarah realised she'd rather have no made that remark, the people in the shop roared their approval at Sarah's remark and, with a sob, Wendy fled the scene. The confrontation angered Jack. "She had no right to say those things to you, Sarah! No right at all! Do you want me to get Mr Rollings to take an order out forbidding her from approaching you?" "Hell, no!" said Sarah. "Certainly not! I doubt she'll bother me again." And she didn't. After a full year, the Decree Absolute was handed down and the marriage was over. As were several other marriages in the cricket club. Collateral damage, one might say. It was then that Sarah invited Jack out for a drink in the Drover's. "Jack, this is by way of a celebration of your freedom." He nodded and they clinked their glasses together. "Jack," she said, tentatively, What do you think of me, as a woman?" The question caught him unawares, so his answer was perhaps more candid than it might have been. Which was perhaps why Sarah asked the question in the way she did. "You're a very pretty young woman, Sarah. Oh! I hope I didn't..." She cut him off. "No, you didn't! I am glad you think I am pretty. I think you are handsome, Jack. Very handsome indeed." "Really, Sarah? I had no idea! When did this come on?" "I have fancied you rotten since I first saw you!" By the end of their visit to the pub, they were officially an item. Their relationship caused some raised eyebrows (she was almost 20, he was 32) but the majority of people in the village thought that it was a sweet story and that Jack deserved some happiness. One day they were talking and Jack asked Sarah if they could make love? Sarah went beet red and stammered: "Oh, Jack... I have a confession to make, I am still a virgin!" He smiled at her and said: "Well, that's interesting news, Sarah! This just means I will have to step things up a little!" He went down on one knee and proposed to her, presenting her with a gorgeous engagement ring. She accepted, with tears running down her face. The pre-Wedding interview with the new vicar (nobody in the village gave a shit where the previous incumbent the reverend Cotter had gone to) was interesting. After chatting for a few minutes Sarah said shyly to the vicar: "Actually, vicar, I have something to tell you. I am a virgin." The vicar had smiled and nodded. "Well, that's good. A fairly rare thing, but very good, in my opinion." She added: "I have known Jack for years. I realised I was in love with Jack, but he was married. But I knew his then wife would cheat on him, eventually. It was only a matter of time." She gripped Jack's hand and smiled at him. Jack looked at her and said: "Well, what if Wendy hadn't cheated on me?" "Then I'd have had to have died as a spinster, never having had a man in the Biblical sense of the word!" The vicar smiled and said: "Now that is love and devotion!" It was a summer wedding, a day that was warm, yet not too hot. Sarah was in white, not merely to follow tradition but, because it was her right as a virgin. Her grandmother gave her away and most of the village turned out. A few of the members of what was left of the cricket club turned up. And Wendy attended the wedding. She hung around at the back of the church watching her handsome ex-husband marrying his beautiful bride. She had tears in her eyes as she thought: "I can't blame Sarah for what happened. I was a bloody fool to listen to the blandishments of Steve Markham. And fuck knows why I let him convince me to take on the entire cricket team, especially Jack's own father! It was such a stupid idea! Jack was bound to find out, sooner or later." The honeymoon started in a hotel in Barmouth in coastal Mid Wales. That night, in the Honeymoon Suite, Jack stood, naked, as he watched his new and bashful bride take off her wedding dress to reveal her new sexy lingerie that she was wearing just for him. "Jack," she said: "You know it's my first time. I'm not going to insult you by saying crap like: 'Please don't hurt me' because I love and trust you enough to know you'd never hurt me deliberately. But I do have one request, my love." "OK, what's that?" he asked. The first time we make love, no condom, OK? And I know what you are going to say! But if I fall pregnant on our honeymoon, then so be it! Come on, Jack! Love me!" And he did. Nine months later, they were proudly pushing their baby -a boy called Harry, in honour of the grandfather who had died before Sarah was born- round the village. Life was good. 823 3.00/512345