by Abigail Armani
He had been in the house exactly three weeks. Three weeks of peace and quiet and luxurious solitude - and then he met Dorothy. In under an hour she managed to scrape his car, demolish his gate, and ransack his garden.
There he was, relaxing in the comfortable chair by the window, enjoying a cold beer while he read the Sunday paper. It was bliss. But then the tranquillity was shattered by a sudden series of loud cracks. Thinking someone had been shot, Grant put down the paper and looked out of the window. A battered red car misfired its way down the lane, accompanied by a huge cloud of thick black smoke from the exhaust pipe. As the lane was a dead end and his was the only house located there, he fervently hoped the occupant of the noisy smelly car wouldn't be visiting him. With any luck they would realise they'd taken a wrong turn, and head back the way they had come.
With a nauseating crunch of gears, the car pulled up outside his house. Grant winced. Who the heck was this? A woman emerged from the vehicle, pushed open his gates, ran up the path, and started hammering urgently on the front door.
"Yes?" he enquired, looking into a pair of green eyes beneath a mop of tussled red curls.
"Hi. Hello. Pleased to meet you. I'm Dorothy but you can call me Dotty - everyone else does. I'm your neighbour. I live up there - Gamekeeper's Cottage." She pointed to a low, grey stone building in the valley about two miles across the field. "Not that I'm a gamekeeper of course." She grinned. Her face was full of freckles. "But there used to be one living there, years ago. He had a big nose - a right whopper it was. He kept a goat. It was really smelly. I would have come round to say hello sooner, but I caught mumps off my nephew. You should have seen my face - it was all puffed up. I looked like a hamster. Anyway, I've lost George. I don't suppose you've seen him? Oh - did I say I was called Dotty? I'm a bit forgetful."
She paused for breath, grabbed his right hand and pumped it up and down enthusiastically.
"Dotty," he murmured, thinking she did indeed appear to be completely dotty. "Er, I can't say I've seen anyone else wandering this morning. Hopefully George can find his way back home."
"There's not much chance of that. Damn and blast." She cast an anxious glance round Grant's front garden.
"Who exactly is George?" enquired Grant, somewhat bemused.
"He's been up to his usual tricks, the dirty little devil. I'm afraid he's turned into the most frightful sex pest. He just won't leave my girls alone - he wants to be at it constantly. He's a damn nuisance."
"A sex pest? Surely not. Shouldn't you be calling the police and pressing charges?"
"What? Oh my! Oh, you silly man!" Dotty threw back her head and guffawed. "No, no - you've got it all wrong."
Grant stared icily at this strange rambling woman on his doorstep, wondering how he could possibly get rid of her.
"George isn't a person," she explained. "Fancy you thinking he was! Though I'm convinced he thinks he is a real person at times! He has his own chair in my kitchen, and he likes regular mealtimes. George is a rooster. And he's gone missing, the bad boy."
"What - a bloody chicken?!"
"He most certainly isn't a chicken. He's a rooster. He used to come down here on visits, when Mr Mawson lived here. They were very good friends."
"Look, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen a rooster round here. I..."
"Ssssssh - listen. I hear him! George!" called Dotty. "Come on, Georgie! Chuck chuck chuck."
To Grant's amazement, an answering call sounded from his back garden. Blasted rooster! It had better not be digging up my vegetable plot, he thought as he opened a small side gate that led round the back of the house. Dotty followed him, clucking madly. The woman was clearly nuts. And there, rootling about in the flower beds, trampling on the dahlias, was George. Grant stared at George. George stared back and waved his black and russet tail feathers. There was a look of murderous intent in his beady little eyes. He suddenly lunged forward and pecked Grant on the ankle.
"OW! Bastard bird!" yelled Grant, rubbing his ankle.
"It's only a little nip. You'll be fine," said Dotty.
"Only a little nip? Darn animal almost had my bloody leg off," snarled Grant. "Let me get my hands on it - I'll throttle it then casserole it."
"Throttle and casserole my George?! I don't think so," huffed Dotty. "You obviously don't know anything about roosters. He's only being friendly."
"Oh I see - friendly, is he? So what's this river of red stuff trickling into my sock?"
"It's just a little drop of blood. Don't be a baby," said Dotty dismissively. She stooped down and began crawling on her hands and knees, clucking and cajoling the rooster.
Grant was about to let fly with a torrent of abuse, but at the sight of the well proportioned bottom swaying and wobbling about in front of his eyes, the words dried up in his throat. It was almost a year since he had spanked a bottom, and the one jiggling before him presented a very tempting target. His palm began to itch.
He knew he shouldn't spank her bottom - she'd probably call the police and have him arrested for molestation. But how was he to resist? Perhaps if he just gave her one spank ... one very big and very hard spank? That could work. He could pretend it was an accident, and apologise.
Dotty's botty smiled up at him tantalisingly, nice and round, with a deep cleft connecting the prominent mound of her buttocks. The glorious rump was encased in a clingy, stretchy fabric which emphasised her curves. Grant swallowed. He wanted to spank that bottom. He really, really wanted to spank that bottom. He watched it in a kind of hypnotic trance, mesmerised by its swaying. It was without question, a most magnificent bottom.
George clucked loudly from the nearby bushes, poked out his head followed by the rest of him, and strutted forward, his beady eyes fixed on Grant. George clucked again, and waggled his tail feathers conspiratorially. It was as though George was saying 'Go ahead, mate. Spank her arse.' At least, that was how Grant interpreted the situation.
Silly man.
Grant raised his right arm, took a swing, and brought the palm of his hand down hard on Dotty's bottom. The sound of that spank was like a gunshot, followed by a high pitched squeal of outrage from Dotty - followed immediately by an even louder squeal from Grant as George the rooster flapped and jumped up - and pecked at a rather obvious looking bulge hiding in the confines of Grant's trousers.
Squeals, howls, roars and manic clucking rent the air.
"You spanked me! You SPANKED me!" cried Dotty indignantly. "How dare you!"
"Aarrrrrrgh," moaned Grant. If that damned rooster had bitten his pecker off there was going to be big trouble.
"Oh - are you hurt? What's wrong?" Dotty couldn't but fail to notice that Grant was doubled up, clutching his manly bits, and George was looking rather smug.
"Bastard chicken. Bastard, bastard chicken," was all Grant could manage for the moment.
"Oh my - did naughty George peck you?"
Grant nodded and grimaced horribly.
"Naughty George! He's very protective of me you know." Dotty wondered whether she ought to offer to put a Band-Aid on Grant's affected area, or perhaps give it a little rub, but thought better of it. "I know just what you need - Granny Edith's muscle rub. That will sort you out. I'll just nip back home and get some."
"I don't need any muscle rub ... just a hatchet to decapitate this bloody bird," spat Grant, glaring fiercely at the rooster.
George cocked his head on one side and clucked gleefully. He scratted about, hopping from one foot to the other, in a kind of jubilant victory dance. His beady eyes were fixed on Grant as if to say, 'Touch her again mate, and I'll have you.'
"Look after George for me til I get back. I'll be as quick as I can," said Dotty. "Now then where did I put my car keys?"
"No muscle rub," repeated Grant, clutching his testicles.
"Oh but it works a treat. Last time George pecked at my boyfriend - well, ex boyfriend now," she added glumly, "Granny Edith's muscle rub made his, er, you know - thingy - much better."
"What?! His THINGY?! Are you telling me that blasted rooster pecks blokes private parts regularly?"
"Well, not exactly regularly. He's only done it about a dozen times."
"Aaaaargh," wailed Grant. He wished this mad woman and her mad rooster would bugger off and leave him alone. He wished the sting in his testicles would stop. He fervently hoped there was no serious damage. "Blasted chicken. I'll kill it and stuff it."
"Don't be silly, said Dotty. "He likes you really. I can tell. I know these things. Trust me."
Dotty found her keys, ignored Grant's futile protests, got in to her car and started up the engine. The lane was narrow and turning the car around would take forever, so she decided to reverse up Grant's drive instead - quite forgetting about the gate. There was a loud scrunching noise as she backed into it, demolishing three of the wooden posts and denting her back bumper.
"Ohhhhhh!" flailed Dotty. In a panic she selected reverse gear again instead of first, floored the accelerator, and the car shot backwards, knocking down the remainder of the gate which toppled over and landed on the bonnet of Grant's car - Grant's NEW car. "Oh! Heavens! Oh no! Oh dear!"
Dotty gazed at the destruction and gulped. She somehow managed to get her vehicle off the drive. In all the commotion, the glove box door sprang open and out fell a bottle of Granny Edith's muscle rub. "Oh! I'd forgotten I had some in the car. What a stroke of luck!" Grabbing the bottle, Dotty hurried round to the back garden. Grant was cupping his testicles with one hand. In the other hand he held a stick that had formerly been propping up his runner beans, which he brandished ominously at George.
"What was that noise? What have you done, woman?"
"Er, nothing," said Dotty. She would confess of course, but right now didn't seem to be a good time. She held out the bottle of muscle rub. "Look, here it is. I had a bottle in the car after all. Isn't that fortunate?!"
Grant looked at it with deep suspicion.
"Look - I'll just put George in the car for ten minutes, and then I'll come and make you a nice cup of tea." Dotty gathered up George who gazed adoringly into her eyes.
"What do I do with this?" Grant waved the bottle.
"Oh - you just rub it in. It's marvellous stuff - takes all the pain away in seconds."
"Hmmmmn. Well I suppose I could try it." Grant limped off to the downstairs bathroom.
Dotty deposited George in the back of her battered car - which was now looking in an even worse state - and then returned to the house, entered through the open back door, found the kettle, filled it with water, and set it on to boil. As she was looking in the kitchen cupboards for cups, an agonised screech came from the downstairs bathroom.
"Grant? Is it working?"
She was answered by another blood-curdling yell, and then there was the sound of water gushing out from the tap.
"Have you tried Granny Edith's muscle rub? Is it working?"
"Is it working?!" exploded Grant, as he emerged red-faced from the bathroom. He was wearing blue socks and a wet green towel was secured around his waist. "Is it working?! No it bloody well isn't! The label says 'best before December 2000'. That's over ten years ago. The stuffs gone off! It burns like hell and it stinks like a rotten fish!"
"Oooops. Sorry about that. Shall I go home and get you a brand new bottle?"
"No! No! My God woman - first your blasted chicken almost emasculates me, then I practically burn off the remaining stump of my manhood with a bottle of putrid burning stuff from your barmy old Granny. What next? Huh? What will you do next?!" Grant strode into the kitchen and banged his fist down on the table.
"Oh dear. Well, now that you mention it, there's your front gate," began Dotty.
"My Gate? What have you done to my gate?!"
"Er, well. It fell down. Kind of."
"It fell down?" Grant's mouth opened in shock.
"Um. Yes. Well, actually, I ran into it - with my car - by mistake of course," added Dotty. "I'll pay for any damages."
Grant legged it outside, and surveyed the pile of splintered wood that had once been his gate. The Dotty woman had done a thorough job of demolishing it beyond repair. But - what was this? Parts of the gate had fallen on to the bonnet of his new car. He moved forward with the speed of an Olympic athlete and removed the plank, revealing a huge deep scratch on the paintwork beneath.
"No! No!" Grant gazed at his baby, his pride and joy, with a gigantic scratch across her lovingly polished red bonnet. "No," he repeated, shaking his head in disbelief.
Dotty followed him outside and stood a safe distance away. She swallowed hard, and gave a polite little cough.
"I'm terribly sorry. I'll pay for it." She flashed her biggest and brightest smile at him.
Grant tore his gaze from the car and looked at the woman. "By God, yes, you will pay for it. But not quite in the way you expect."
He strode towards her, his dark eyes glittering. She'd pay all right. Oh yes. OH YES!
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