The Peaceful Rural Lifestyle

When the hurlyburly's done.

When the battle's lost and won.

Act 1 Scene 1

Macbeth -- Shakespeare.

I am cold, wet and uncomfortable and my backside is aching from sitting on a horse for the last six hours. Do not let anyone convince you that armour is water proof. It isn't. It leaks, it chafes and it gets sodding cold. Ask anyone who fought at Agincourt and they will merely confirm my analysis.

How did I get myself into this mess I hear you ask. I was warned, but as usual I ignored the warning and am now paying the price.

This whole sorry saga started with a visit to a Holistic Fair that my fiancée Alice insisted on going to. Now if you have no idea what a holistic Fair is, let me enlighten you. A holistic fair; or lets say the holistic fair that my beloved fiancée Alice talked me into going to consists of mad, wacky and starry eyed people who sell crystal balls, tarot decks and who do readings. Your future in the the cards as one of the grifters put it.

The warning came from a sangoma [African Witch Doctor] who looked up at me as I walked passed and said:

"You will ride with the Wild Hunt after losing your temper three times."

"Thank you." I said and kept on moving.

Of course I blame Alice for everything. That is what fiancées are for aren't they?

So what caused my first temper outburst? It was caused by Alice when she came to bed looking absolutely ravishing in a thin diaphanous nightie. Of course I responded with lust and of course I expected the same enthusiasm back, but no, not a chance.

"Hands off you lecherous bastard! I have my periods and I am not allowing you and that cock of yours anywhere near me until I am no longer menstruating."

And so my testosterone went into hiding until I set out for work the next morning.

Driving into town during rush hour traffic can be trying at best but with my testosterone running at peak levels it became a battle to restrain my anger at anyone who drew my attention too audaciously. I was minding my own business when a minibus taxi cut me off making me stamp on my brakes and lose complete control of my temper so I shouted a string of obscenities at him and he responded in kind. Being a South African argument it was carried out in three different languages, English (my natal language), Afrikaans (the absolute best language to swear in) and isiXhosa (a complex language to hurl insults in as there are no actual swear words). The taxi driver won of course and headed off to infuriate other drivers leaving me in a terrible mood.

Now minibus taxi drivers are quite often armed and do not take to opposition too kindly so when I had time to reflect on the whole incident I decided it was maybe time to give up the big city and retire to the country where the pressure of life was said to be massively decreased and traffic almost non-existent.

I discussed my finances with my investment advisor and found that I had enough money to live a comfortable life for the next decade or so and with careful investment strategies I could in theory live until I was one hundred.

I resigned immediately which made Alice furious.

"What did you do that for? You were earning a fabulous salary. Now nothing."

"If I live carefully and frugally I can live comfortably for a long, long time."

"And what about me?"

"You can come with me. Live in the country, breathe fresh air and relax. Live away from the pressures of the city."

"I hate the country, fresh air usually means cow shit odours and relaxing means boredom. I love the excitement of the city. I won't do it I tell you!"

"OK. Bye then!"

"You just going to drop me like that? Are you fucking mad. What happened to the I love you forever thing?"

"We have obviously got different objectives in mind. Different life plans."

"Stop talking like a life coach! It is all bull shit and you know it."

"Start packing. Either to come with me or to move out of here, because I have given notice that I will be giving up this place as soon as I have identified a home in the country."

She cried and shouted and ended up sucking my cock to try to persuade me. None of which helped and so she eventually joined me in searching for a rural place to settle in.

We finally found and bought a patch of land that the farmer said he could not use. Infertile he called it. Unusable the neighbours said.

The plot was perfect. A sloping pasture that looked across to a mountain chain.

Alice said that it was the haunt of the Fae. Not fairies with sparking wings, but nasty, evil demons that did all sorts of ugly things to people just for fun. Superstitious nonsense the townsfolk said but everyone agreed that the crooked hawthorn tree in the middle of the plot should not be cut down or damaged in any way.

I moved there immediately, Alice followed but was still not super pleased by the idea of moving to the country.

And when the tine came for me to build my rural cottage the builder told me that we must make sure that the paths were clear and so he planted hawthorn twigs at the four corners of my proposed dwelling (all documented, approved and surveyed) and left them there for the night.

And when we went back the next morning one twig had disappeared completely.

"We'll have to adjust that corner." he said and planted a new twig away from where the corner was supposed to be (all documented, approved and surveyed). When we returned the next morning, the twig was where he had planted it.

He asked the building inspector to come and look. He told the man about the missing twig and the change he had made and the inspector gravely nodded his head and said to me,

"The change must be done. I will square it with the council." He shook my hand and drove away. Two days later I received a letter approving the change.

The plans had of course to be altered and the draughts man made the changes necessary. Without cost he said.

The builder added one embellishment without consulting me. At the foot of the moved corner he added a small tiled bowl.

"What is the bowl for?" I ask perplexed.

"For milk." he said.

"Milk?" I asked.

"To bribe the good neighbours." the builder explained "To smooth the good neighbours way around the corner." he added as a further explanation.

I accepted all this nonsense as just something that rural people believed and understood but I did fill the tiled bowl with milk

The next morning the bowl was empty which pleased the builder immensely.

"A good thing you did that, it shows that the good neighbours approve." the builder said.

"A thirsty cat in the area!" I thought to myself.

The building went up quickly and smoothly and soon I and the still grumpy Alice move into the house. The last thing the builder said to us was;

"Do not forget the good neighbour's milk every night, lest you annoy them and bad luck befalls you both."

Alice was of course intrigued by the milk and the small tiled bowl specially built for it. Then of course she wanted to know why it had been added.

I told her the whole story about the hawthorn tree and the corner that was moved and the milk bowl.

"You mean," she asked "That there is a Fae path across your land?"

"Fae?" I asked confused "They only spoke of good neighbours." I said firmly.

"Same thing!" she said, which added much to my bemusement.

"How often do you replenish the milk? Because that bowl is quite big." she asked.

"Every night I fill it up, and every morning it is empty!"

"You mean have the Fae passing through every night? How exciting!"

"Or a very thirsty cat." I said.

"Nonsense!" said Alice and of course I had to prove her wrong so the next evening I put a trail camera facing the bowl. In the morning I went out to retrieve the camera and found that the camera was now a small puddle of melted plastic and metal.

When I told Alice, she was furious.

"Are you absolutely fucking mad? You tried to film the Fae? You had better fill the bowl with milk and add some of those chocolate brownies we bought the other day."

I grumble to myself but I do put the brownies out and the next morning they are gone.

"Hopefully we have appeased them!" Alice said.

"This is ridiculous. We have unseen creatures wandering through my land and I must feed them milk and now brownies despite the fact that they have not asked permission."

"Permission?" Alice asked sneeringly. "They have probably walked the same path for centuries and you have been here months. They have more right to this land than you do."

All of this of course led to my next temper tantrum. I did some research and found that the Fae could not tolerate iron, so I went out and put an iron gate across the diagonal path that I assumed the Fae were following.

"That will stop them!" I said triumphantly.

"That will just annoy them and you do not know what will happen if they are annoyed." said Alice "Take it down now, before things go badly wrong."

"Nonsense!" I said and left the gate where it was which only went to prove that I was wrong and Alice was right.

That night at midnight there was a thunderous knocking at the door. I got up to see what was happening only to find that the door which had been firmly locked was ringed in a cold, silvery light and was slowly opening. I did try to stop the door opening, I really did, but to no avail, the door kept on opening and the room temperature dropped dramatically.

When the door was fully open, a large man in silvery armour stepped into the room.

"You dared." he said in a strangely accented voice "To bar my way along the path! You dared, you puny little human."

He picked my up by the throat and carried me like a bag of potatoes into the bedroom where Alice was sitting up looking scared. He tossed me onto the couch at the bottom of the bed.

"Stay there!" he said.

Of course I tried to get up and of course, I failed. I seemed to be paralysed.

Alice was by now fully awake.

"You fool!" she hissed. "Look what you have done now."

Then she looked at the armoured man.

"Welcome my lord. I tried to stop him, but he would not hear."

"No, he didn't hear did he?" hissed the armoured man "You do know the penalty for such insubordination don't you?"

"No. My lord. What is it?"

"I get to claim his most prized possession and use it as I will."

Alice merely nodded at this.

"Do you know what his most prized possession is?"

"No. My lord. I don't."

"He doesn't realise it yet, but his most prized possession is you." he said looking at me.

"Me my lord? I don't believe that. He uses me like a common whore."

"He might not realise it now but by the time we are finished he will know it and regret his stupid actions."

"I doubt it my lord. He is an egocentric, horrible man and he says that I am a greedy woman living off his wealth like a whore." Alice sounding more bitter than I had heard her in all the time we had been together.

I tried to speak, to refute what Alice had said but I could not. I was struck dumb.

The armoured man made a gesture and his armour disappeared and he was left standing naked between us.

"You!" he said to me. "You will witness me using your prized possession for the rest of the night. I hope you enjoy the sight."

"No, my lord. Please. I am not worthy! I am not his prized possession." Alice looking horrified.

"Yes. You proved that, but his prized possession is his pride, his terrible lust for money at the expense of others. So, he is going to watch me use you, his fiancée and there will be nothing he can do about it. His pride will be severely damaged. Strip woman!"

Alice looked at him and his huge rampant penis, then looked at me and smiled.

"You are right my lord. He is a miserable lover. Please take me to heaven with that sword of yours."

And saying that Alice, my beautiful Alice fell backwards on the bed, her legs apart.

"Fuck me lord. Fuck me. Make me yours. Let him see how he failed to posses me."

Bitch! I tried to say but of course nothing came out.

He smiled at me and then climbed onto the bed and proceeded to push his large cock into Alice's pussy which I noted with some disquiet was already wet and engorged.

As he thrust into Alice she started to moan, her body shaking and jerking the deeper he thrust into her. And when he started to move, I watched as his backside moved back and forth between her legs, his cock sinking into her, his balls banging on her backside.

The sound of their fucking resounded throughout the house and seemed to go on for hours. Finally Alice begged him to stop and I saw his balls pumping, obviously filling Alice's pussy with his cum.

"Oh, God! Oh God!" moaned Alice as she came for the third or fourth time.

The man climbed off of the bed leaving Alice lying legs apart, her pussy oozing his cum.

He turned to me, his cock dribbling cum onto the carpet.

"Now be a good boy and take that gate down. And throw it away so that it never bothers me again."

And suddenly I was free and under some sort of duress I walked to the iron gate and removed it and threw it over the fence. When I got back to the house he was gone and Alice was dressed and packing.

"You stupid, ignorant, arrogant prick!" she said through gritted teeth. "I told you not to annoy the Fae but you went on and did exactly as you pleased and I had to pay the fucking price. We are finished! Over! I am gone." she said and stormed out of the house. Moments later her car pulled out of the drive way and I watched as the tail lights of her car disappeared down the road.

I did not sleep again that night. I raged and ranted, I cursed and swore. I called Alice a whore knowing deep down inside that it was I who had messed up. I was the one in the wrong. I tried to contact her but to no avail. He number never rang, her emails went unanswered, she was digitally and physically gone.

I looked at my life and my decisions and wondered what had gone wrong. I realised that my quick temper had caused much of the chaos that ensued, and my disbelief in the supernatural. Had I taken Alice's warnings to heart I might have handled the whole issue more carefully. But I didn't and now I was stuck with the results.

I settled in to a bachelor life on my plot of rural peace and soon found that I was becoming rapidly bored so, in the hopes of meeting Alice and trying to make some sort of peace between us, I headed back to the big city and the Holistic Fair in case she was there. Alice was not there but the Sangoma was and so I sat down opposite her, paid her a hundred and asked her the questions I should have asked when I first encountered her.

"I know what my first two temper tantrums were, what will be the last?"

She gazed at the board in front of her for a long time and then looked up at me.

"You will lose all your money."

And that made me sceptical, but I didn't laugh, I just nodded.

"And what is the Wild Hunt?" I asked.

"It is a gathering of the supernatural beings who live alongside us and is led by Odin."

"The Norse god?"

She nodded.

"How do I escape joining the hunt??"

"You don't. You are fated. Only once you are captured can you escape and then only with the help of a woman who loves you."

"Not much chance of that. In that case I am doomed." I said.

"No. It is written that you will escape. Who the woman is, I cannot tell." she said sadly.

"And then?" I asked.

"Sorry, but I see no more."

I gave up at and, aside from talking to my investment advisor who told me my money was safe, I headed back to my lonely, rural home.

I settled into the rural life and started interacting with the locals. Eventually I decided that I might as well go to the local pub, drink some beer and see if there were any rescuing type women there.

There weren't. What or should I say who was there were all the locals I had met and others that I had greeted in the street, more out of politeness than any other reason.

I sat in an listened to the gossip. The murmuring of a slow life that all seemed to enjoy and share. It was comfortable, but terribly staid and conventional, nothing exciting or unusual. Finally in desperation for a change in topic I asked about the "good neighbours" and that livened up the conversation.

Stories of weird happenings and of course about my milk bowl and the fiancée who had fled. When asked I told them that Alice could not take the rural life and had gone back to the big city.

"Nothing to do with the Fae path across your land?" asked the builder.

I denied it all of course and of course no one believed me, then came a revelation.

"That plot of yours." said Mark, an old guy with a white beard and more wrinkles that a sheet after a brisk threesome, "That plot was owned by Oscar Smith. His family lived here for years until he went missing and then reappeared. Once the family figured out what had happened they all fled. Oscar died pretty soon after coming back so he is still in the graveyard."

"We hope he is still buried there." this from the draughts man "I always said we should have tied him down."

"Tosh. That is for vampires and Old Oscar wasn't a vampire." someone from the crowd said.

"Jed! He was done for by the Fae." said another.

"That Fae story is nonsense." said Jed.

"It isn't. He was thirty when he disappeared. I was a kid at that time. I remember the hunting that went on looking for him." Mark said "And he was still thirty when he walked back into the village two years ago."

"AH, just trickery. He was a con man." Jed said firmly.

"If he were a con man why did he off himself just after he returned?" Jed again. "Hung himself he did."

"Well what would you do if your wife aged to sixty while you were away for one night."

"Wait. Wait." I say "Explain this to me. How could she age and he not?"

"He went out one evening and came back thirty years later, still wearing the very same clothes he had left and thinking he had got lost for a night in the woods. Ended up admitting he had danced with the Fae though." Mark says.

Jed turns to me. "They say that if you dance with the Fae you lose all track of time and are out of this world for decades while you think you have been away for an evening. Load of nonsense I say."

Jed's aggression breaks the party up and I go home deeply troubled because you see, I had met one of those Fae and after what he had done to both Alice and I, I kinda believed the story.

Just in case of trouble I stayed at home most nights, I didn't go out and I checked with John my investment advisor regularly. Eventually John started to get short with me about "worrying too much" as he put it.

Also I made sure that the milk bowl was not only topped up regularly but spotlessly clean and on Fridays I left chocolate brownies. The milk and brownies always disappeared and I was never troubled by the Fae and in fact my poor, weak farming attempts were suddenly met with far more success than I believed was justified. I didn't complain though and I started handing out produce to anyone who cared to visit.

Soon I had what I suppose you could call a farmer's market on my plot. Jilly, Marks daughter arrived one day with some cheese which she swaps for some tomatoes and an aubergine. The rest she exchanges with someone who had arrived with a couple of bags of potatoes. I gave Jed a bag of tomatoes and some chillies in return I got six eggs.

Suddenly I found that I had become part of a community and I resumed visiting the pub where topic of the Fae was carefully avoided. I even ended up singing silly folk songs I learned when I was a long haired student, before becoming a boring accountant.

One evening Jilly arrived and sat listening, then she came across and talked to me about music. After a while she suggested that we meet one evening and see if we could sing together because she enjoyed singing but didn't want to sing alone.

So, the next Thursday I went over to the home she shared with her parents and we tried out singing together. Elanor, Jilly's mother played the piano while we practised.

It turned out that Jilly had a lovely soprano voice and we worked well together so we ended up singing duets together.

Now the thing about singing duets is that some practice is necessary so every Thursday I went down to Mark's house and Jilly and I practised some of the duets that we both knew. It was a friendly, happy evening and for the first time in ages I went home feeling that life was not so bad after all. I was so happy that I didn't phone John for reassurance.

Jilly and I were a total hit at the pub the next Friday night and we finished off with Islands in the Stream in tribute to Dolly Parton. It was kinda emotional because Dolly had just died and anyone who had ever taken any interest in country music adored the woman.

That evening I walked Jilly home and halfway to her home and without thinking I took her hand, realised what I had done and tried to retrieve my hand but she held on.

"No. Leave it right where it is!" she said and we walked hand in hand all the way to her home. When we got there we stood on the doorstep and I felt like a teenager again; not sure if I should kiss her or not.

Mark solved the problem by arriving before I could make a move and Jilly went inside with him. I walked back to fetch my car at the pub and drove myself home feeling that my life had turned a corner and was maybe heading in the right direction.

Of course I thought of Jilly when I went to bed; and before that too if truth be told and I masturbated I thought of her.

We started spending more and more time together. One night we went to the next village for dinner at a new restaurant and before she got out of the car we kissed very demurely. Before I could get any further, she leapt out of the car, looked back at me, blew me another kiss and skipped away and into her home.

Winter arrived suddenly, a cut off low bringing rain and high winds and I found myself along with other towns people cutting fallen trees and clearing roads. Somehow the city slicker had become a member of a small town community and I found that I enjoyed the experience and the camaraderie.

Jilly and I continued singing duets at the pub on Friday nights and one night I asked her if she would be brave enough to come to my home, sit in front of my fire and extend the evening.

"Only if you behave." she said smiling gently. "Even if it is badly." adding softly.

We got back to my place and I got the fire going and we sat in front of the fire, drinking port and talking of aimless things. I said something silly and she laughed at my joke which made me look at her, and seeing her in the flickering firelight made me want to kiss her, hold her and make love to her; she was just so beautiful and so very special to me that I could not resist, I pulled her close and kissed her.

She didn't resist and in fact she folded into my arms like she was already part of me. It was a very chaste kiss, no tongue action just a brush of our lips and I pulled back and looked at her, at her beautiful wide eyes, her flushed cheeks and her partially open mouth. Without thinking I kissed her again, our mouths opened and my tongue slid into her mouth. She pulled me closer and her mouth stayed locked onto mine.

When we broke off her eyes were sparkling and her mouth open waiting for another kiss. I hesitated because I was so very aroused that I knew if I kissed her again, my hands would start wandering and I didn't want to trespass so early in our intimate journey. She broke the impasse by pulling me closer and kissing me again and as I knew they would my hands started to wander.

I ran my hands down onto her breasts, felt the engorged nipples, felt her sigh gently and move back slightly so I could take her whole breast in my hand.

Then she broke the kiss and pressed her face into my neck biting gently. My hands now completely out of control slid downwards towards her pussy making her gasp softly. As my had cupped her pussy through her pants, she took my hand and gently moved it back up.

"No. Not yet. Not yet." she said softly.

We kissed and held onto each other for a while longer and then I took her home, kissed her chastely on the doorstep and left her there.

We met regularly, kissed and caressed one another, but she would never let me go all the way.

"Not yet. Not yet." was her constant refrain and while it frustrated me immensely, I did not dare push it any further in case I chased her away. We didn't often get a chance to be intimate with one another so the challenge not to ravish her was reduced somewhat, but I was slowly becoming frustrated and feeling that we needed to break the impasse when one afternoon I got a text message:

Jilly > Come fetch me at 7 - I want to bring you supper.

Me > OK. See you then

When I fetched her she was looking stunning and had gone to the extreme of make up, bright red lipstick, red finger nails and sexy clothing.

"Let me guess." I said "We are going out dancing and you want to drive every man who sees you completely mad."

"No. Only one man. Take me to your place, your supper is getting cold."

When we got to my place, she set the table, broke out a bottle of bubbly and laid out a simple dinner. We drank the bubbly, ate the dinner and when we were sitting in front of the fire she wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Time to behave badly." she whispered into my neck.

I kissed her open mouthed, I stroked her breasts till she started to sigh and pull me closer. Taking that as a sign, I slid my hand down her body and up under her dress. My hand sliding up between her legs felt them part slowly and invitingly until my fingers were resting on a very hot, very wet pussy.

"Yes. Now." she said and as I stroked her clit, she pulled my cock out and stroked it gently.

"Wait! I want to plant a red ring around your cock." and without giving me chance to reply she had swallowed my cock down to my balls. She swivelled her head a bit and pulled back and admired the red ring of lipstick around the base of my cock.

"Been waiting to do that for ages and ages." she said "Now do to me what you have been wanting to do ever since we met. No foreplay. Just fuck me."

We spent the night together and sometime in the night I whispered, "I love you." and she cuddled up to me and murmured gentle sounds in my neck.

The next Friday after our first duet, I demanded silence and we were accorded dead silence.

"Jilly and I." I started to say and was interrupted.

"About bloody time!" shouted Mark which triggered cheers and laughter from the audience.

Deciding to play the fool, I changed my speech.

"Jilly and I will now now sing the next song."

Which drew more laughter.

"He is such a liar!" Jilly from next to me. "Go, tell them. Stop chickening out."

"Jilly and I are..." and I froze

"What he means is that we are engaged and will marry sometime soon." Jilly completed to much applause.

Summer was coming soon and I was in my vegetable garden as the sky darkened, checking on seedlings, and making sure that my vegetables were doing just fine when my phone pinged.

John > Hi. This is John's wife, Mary. John was arrested two days ago for fraud. When he got home after making bail, he hung himself. His last words to me were Tell Greg, the stupid accountant shit that I spent all his money and I am not sorry.

Me > He embezzled all my money?

John > All of your money and all of his other customers money. Fuck knows what he did with it all. I got fuck all.

I hurled my phone across the plot and then I made a very stupid mistake. I kicked the hell out of the hawthorn tree. It was only when I was standing on the broken and battered stump of the tree that I realised what I had done.

I went to see Jilly and told her the whole story and all she did was nod and then said

"We will sort this out. Go home and face the Fae. Everything will be fine."

So, I went home and I tried to resurrect the hawthorn, but it was long past resurrecting so I gave up, went inside and drained my bottle of whiskey and passed out. Until.

Until the front door opened and the silvery light entered the house followed by the armoured man.

"And we thought you were on our side!" he said. "You destroyed our tree in a stupid fit of temper. Come. We are going riding."

And that gentle reader is how you found me at the start of this story; cold, wet and uncomfortable with my backside aching. I am now a member of Odin's wild hunt and have been for six weeks.

Anrieth, for that is the armoured man's name comes past me and slaps my horse's backside making it move reluctantly forward.

"Come on. We are going back to your land which is actually our land and has been for centuries. Lets go see how things have gone in the last six weeks."

We ride wildly, through forests, across open patches of land chasing innocent humans inside, terrifying children and doing nothing creative that I can see.

The small town I learnt to know and love appears and soon we are standing in the middle of my plot of land. I don't want to look knowing the plot will be overgrown, my crops dead and my home destroyed. How many centuries have I missed I wonder vaguely. I just hope that Jilly found a good man and lived a good happy life.

"Why have we stopped?" I ask of Anrieth.

"Look for yourself you stupid man." Anrieth laughing at my pain but I have learned not to react, my temper tantrums have caused me too much pain and trouble to continue with.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes. The plot is clean, well tended and standing right if front of the lead horses where the hawthorn had stood is Jilly.

"I want him back. He is mine!" she says firmly. "Where is he?"

I hear a muted mumble from the lead and Jilly stomps down the line of horsemen until she sees me.

"You are wet and wearing silly armour. You have been gone for six damned weeks leaving me to look after our crops and I might add look after our baby. Now get down off that mangy nag and stop playing at soldiers."

Anrieth looks at Jilly and then at me.

"I would stay right where I was if I were you. She looks too much of a handful for you." he says with a laugh.

I look at Jilly and slowly, stiffly climb off my horse and then turn to face the wild hunt riders.

"Why?" is all I can get out.

"Chocolate brownies." he said "She told us that there would be no more until you came back."

And before I can respond the wild hunt is gone leaving me standing looking at Jilly.

"You bribed them with chocolate brownies?" I ask.

She just nods and then I remember.

"You said baby! You are pregnant?" I ask amazed.

"Nah. Sorry, but it just sounded so much more dramatic. You are going to have to be far more active between my legs to make that happen. Now come on in, it is cold outside and you are cold and wet. You need to bath because you smell awful. Do it fast and then come to bed because I am tired of sleeping alone."

And with a glad heart I followed her into our house and found the love of my life.

It is only much later that I start to wonder about Jilly and how she could talk to the leader of the Wild Hunt like that and get away with it. I don't dare ask though.