It was no surprise at all to me that none of my fellow troop commanders and their men were re-upping either; they were done too; the enlisted men had done their stint, they were sick of the army’s ‘hurry-up and wait’ bullshit, and the long periods of dusty boredom interspersed with truly terrifying episodes of panicked combat against a fanatic rabble who didn’t care if they were killed as long as they could get through our lines and kill us.
*****
Arriving back home was a strange, almost surreal experience. For the first time in my life there was absolutely no sense of dad’s presence; before, even if he was with the regiment, or home but out with the estate management people miles away, I always knew he was there, somewhere, I don’t know how, I just did, the house just felt like him. Now, nothing, and it was weird, unsettling, wrong. Mother was expecting me, but not for a few more days, I’d told her I was going to spend some time in Gibraltar doing the tourist thing, maybe get around a few beers, and do what everyone does for entertainment and lob fruit at the apes just to watch the little bastards fight over them and knock the paste out of each other, but I changed my mind, so I was about a week early.
Georgy was due home from university that day, so I thought I’d ambush and surprise her, but she knew; somehow she knew I’d pulled a fast one because blow me down if she didn’t barge in the door and call out “Mum, Will’s here, I know he is, where is he?” So I had to jump out and surprise her and she did her usual frenzied leap on me.
*****
It didn’t take long to get bored; I love my home, I never tire of exploring it, but I needed to be doing something, something useful, not just a hobby, and maybe make some real money of my own, not depend on mother and the estate for handouts. I wondered what there was out there for someone who had basically been trained to drive a tank and kill people; not much, I suspected. The thought of managing the business-side of the estate left me entirely cold; we had employees with fancy degrees who liked that stuff and were actually good at it, I saw no reason to step on their toes. I could go and be a mercenary (apologies, ‘specialist security contractor’) but I have a deep-rooted aversion to killing people just because someone with an axe to grind asked me to, so what to do, what to do?
And then it came to me; I was watching one of those ‘fixing-up my perfect house’ shows on TV and it struck me that I could do that; it looked kind of doable, and I had enough savings to buy a place, do it up, sell it on, and use the profits to do it again. So, I went looking for what I thought I could reasonably do up, something to get me into that world.
What I found was not quite what I’d been looking for, but it was love at first sight, a beautiful listed Georgian mansion staggering on its last legs, but too beautiful and elegant to let go to waste, and literally going for a song; as soon as I saw it I knew I wanted it, and so, with a little help from Mother, and every last penny I’d saved, I bought the house that the council were shunning and hoping would fall down so they could sell the land in good conscience.
I worked alone on the house; I had a shoestring budget, so I had to do everything myself; I literally taught myself, after much trial and error and outright fails, basic DIY skills like how to plaster and lime-putty, and how to use things like saw tables, chop-saws, milling routers and power-planers, and slowly, carefully worked my way, one room at a time through that magnificent but sadly decayed house, slowly defeating the ravages of time and gradually, carefully putting it back together again.
Georgy thought I was mad to saddle myself with such a huge task, but I really had nothing else to do, and no real-world skills, at least none I wanted to advertise. She couldn’t bear to see me working away by myself, alone in that huge shell, so weekends when she was home from university she’d help me, fetch and carry, picnic with me in one of the empty rooms, and generally keep me company as often as she could.
Other things were happening, too, things that were to directly impact on all our lives. It started innocuously enough, when I heard from Mother that she was feeling the strain of managing all the estate business, and she was thinking of engaging a business manager.
“Fair enough,” I thought, Mother needed to start slowing down a little, the place wouldn’t fall down if she wasn’t everywhere at once. I never really wondered anymore about it, until one day I wandered up to the house to get a change of clothes and do some laundry, and there was a strange man sitting at my father’s desk. He jumped when I cleared my throat.
“Who are you, and why are you in my father’s study?” I asked him, not exactly aggressively but letting him know aggression was an option.
He jumped up and walked around the desk, his face wreathed in smiles that didn’t touch his eyes, and when I took his outstretched hand his handshake was the dreaded ‘squishy wet-fish’, limp and insincere.
“Hello, you must be Tyler; your mother told me you’d be around at some point. Mrs. Lassiter has engaged me to manage the day to day affairs of the estate, sort of take some of the business management burden from her; my name is Max, Max Preece…”
*****
A World of Our Own
Georgy had some very definite ideas about how she wanted the nursery she planned to look, feel, and appear; she wanted a ‘cosy’ feel, which I didn’t get but she knew what she meant, so I followed her lead. We hadn’t really talked about children yet, not the nitty-gritty planning side at least, just the definite understanding that we were both on the same page; I wanted kids (note: plural; not one, some) we just hadn’t had ‘the talk’ yet, but that was next.
The thought of Georgy pregnant made me feel very horny, I have to admit, and I wanted little girls who looked like her, black-haired, grey-eyed perfect little copies of my Georgy-Girl; the world could do with more people like her in it, and I intended to ensure it did, which is why we were making sketches of the old dressing room and taking measurements. Watching Georgy bend and shuffle around on all fours was also a sight worth seeing, especially the way her delightfully perfect bottom twinkled at me as she shuffled into corners on her hands and knees with the tape in her hand.
Georgy looked over her shoulder from her tape measuring and smiled at me.
“What are you smiling at, Mister Pop-Eyes?” she teased, knowing full well I was contemplating her sleek bottom, and thinking pleasant thoughts about how it felt when I squeezed it, teased it, and jiggled it when we made out, not to mention bit it when the making-out got more serious. To tease me even further she stood up and shimmied her bottom at me, focusing me even more intently on her perfection. Georgy usually wore either yoga pants or skin-tight jodhpurs that moulded to her every curve and contour, and the sight of her in either was usually enough to get my motor revving.
“I was just thinking ‘I wonder what that hot girl would look like all naked and stuff’ and you derailed my train of thought, so now I’m going to have to come and see for myself…”
Georgy giggled and dodged out of the way.
“No, bad boy! Down, Will, naughty monkey, don’t make me use a rolled-up newspaper!”
It wasn’t that big a room, and I was faster than her, so I caught her easily and kissed her enough times to let her know I was serious; there’s something about her, but one kiss just isn’t enough, and the more I kiss her, the more I want to, and then naked things happen, so she finally sighed and surrendered.
“You are a very bad man, Tyler Wilmot, I hope you know that!” she murmured, kissing me with those soft little butterfly soft kisses she does that drive me wild and always leads somewhere good.
Kissing her was good, and standing and holding her close while we snogged like horny teens was even better, but I wanted more, and by the way she ground against me, so did she; so why were we standing here? Luckily I knew a way to fix that, so over and above her token protests I carried her into our bedroom, handily right next door, wasn’t that lucky?
“Willie, put me down no, I haven’t finished yet, stop it, no!” she gurgled, but I wasn’t going to and she showed no inclination to take her arms from around my neck so she probably didn’t mean it; besides I had my hands on her now, two very nice handfuls of soft, warm Georgy, and I was going to enjoy every second of it as I plumped down on the bed with her still in my arms…
“Will stop it, we need to talk, how can we talk when you keep… Oooohhh!” (that was me sliding my hands down her inside her yoga pants and pulling her bottom cheeks apart)
“Naughty Will, bad boy!” she giggled, so I stopped and she nipped the end of my nose with her lips.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, y’know…” she grinned, wriggling on my lap so I did it again, making her sigh as she kissed me. When she’d decided she’d kissed me enough for now she pushed me over backwards and wriggled up to lie next to me.
“Can we talk now, Tyler?” she smiled and I grinned right back at her; Georgy only calls me ‘Tyler’ when she wants something from me or needs me to do something; poor, simple, deluded thing, thinking she needed to do things like that; she should know by now that I’d give her anything she wanted even if she just gave me a vague hint. I did like it when she used my given name though; it was like a secret only we shared.
“So talk, baby girl, what’s so important I have to give up my precious groping-time with you? This better be good.”
“Shut up Will, I’m being serious!” she responded, punching me lightly in the arm, then looked super-remorseful at my sudden gasp of agony.
“Owww, right on my war-wound! Georgy, why did you have to… ” I moaned theatrically.
“Willie I’m sorry I didn’t mean it, show me, baby, I’m sorry!” she gabbled, her eyes big and shiny. She gently slid my sleeve up while I did an Oscar winning turn of mute suffering, and watched her eyes narrow suspiciously as she scanned my arm for any sign of injury.
“Where’s this so-called ‘War Wound’, Tyler Wilmot?” she gritted and I looked innocently at her, all puppy eyes and sorrowful expression.
“I could have had one, the point is you just hitting me at random, after all I’ve been through, wasn’t fair, supposing I’d really been injured, I bet you’d be feeling pretty bad about it round about now, after all…”