The car pulled slowly into the gravel driveway on a county road five miles from nowhere and came to a stop. The left-rear door swung open, and a tall, leather-clad woman unfolded herself from the back seat, walked to the mailbox and used a handful of grass to wipe away the grime hiding the name.
Tossing the grass aside and nodding to the driver, she grinned and fingered her rivet-studded belt before re-entering the car.
Wheels crunching on the gravel, the car inched forward again toward the house a quarter-mile away.
Betsy had been preoccupied most of the morning as she did the chores and waited for the laundry hanging outside to dry. It was another hot, sunny day; she squinted at the sky but saw nothing that would suggest the slightest bit of rain to break the two-month drought. The two windmills on her spread were enough to keep the stock tanks replenished for her modest herd, but she knew that at some point, the shallower of the two wells might run dry. Then, she grumbled to herself, she would have to sacrifice her long baths and find other ways to get additional drinking water to the livestock.
She sighed aloud as she wiped down the kitchen sink and gathered her plastic jugs in preparation for a trip to the hillside spring. At least she had enough sweet water for drinking and cooking, even though it was a nuisance to haul the water from a mile away.
"Always trade-offs," she thought to herself sourly, wondering rhetorically why the well water, after being run through the water softener, had to be great for laundry but awful for drinking.
On her way to the front door, she paused in front of her computer, where her latest effort for the story site was on the screen. She still didn't have it quite right, she mused, and she didn't want to have still another story rejected.
The grammar books piled beside the computer seemed to mock her as she looked at them. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she turned again toward the door.
As she pulled it open, her eyes widened at the sight of the group standing on her front porch. The water jugs clattered as they fell from her lifeless hands to the concrete stoop.
Before she could recover and without a word, the burly, bearded man in the group took her by the arm and began to guide her back into the house. She jerked away, preparing to scream, when one of his companions, a petite blonde with a pixie hairdo, gestured at her to be quiet.
"Don't be afraid," she said. "We're here to help you. We're the intervention team from Literotica."
Betsy stood quietly, still resisting the pressure of the hand on her arm but not moving a muscle. From the corner of her eye, she saw the third member of the trio, a woman in a skin-hugging leather jacket and pants, smile faintly and rub her hands together.
After a few seconds, Betsy recovered some semblance of control and tried to voice her unsettled outrage. Nothing came out but a phlegmy rattle and, clearing her throat in irritation, she tried again.
"What's an intervention team?"
"Have you read the site rules, dear?" pixie-hairdo asked. "You've been on the edge for several months now. Your stories are sometimes good enough to pass muster with the editors -- barely -- but many times aren't. You're causing the site a lot of work, and we're here to intervene."
"That's right," the beard echoed. "You can either cooperate or the site will block your IP address. We're tired of trying to decide precisely how many comma splices or misused words you can have in a story before we bounce it. We're not ready to lower our standards to accommodate you, but you're not hopeless, either. So here we are to intervene."
Ms. Leather snickered. "Sweetie, you have two choices. We can do our thing today, or you can find somewhere else to post your erotic fantasies." She paused for a few moments and caressed her thigh with her fingertips. "And I must say some of those fantasies would have been hot if not for the crap you call punctuation and grammar."
Betsy flushed and opened her mouth to reply, but Mr. Beard squeezed her arm in warning and said, "You have a choice. Cooperate or be banned."
"That's not fair," Betsy protested. "I don't even know what you're going to do!"
Ms. Pixie shrugged. "Cooperate or be banned."
Betsy stood silent. The Web site had become an important part of her life during the year since her husband died. Still in her mid-30s and with a figure that the ranch chores had preserved rather than damaged, she was an object of interest to most of the single older men in her part of the county and more than a few younger ones. But she had dreams of escaping the ranch once the farm economy turned around, the drought had broken and she could find a buyer for the land.
Until her dream came true, though, she had to cope with her own needs after ten years of lusty sex with a husband who could leave her drained and content. The Web site was a good complement to her hidden stash of toys, and even though she knew she wasn't the next A. N. Roquelaure, she enjoyed the arousal that went with both reading others' stories and writing her own.
"How do I cooperate?" Betsy asked nervously.
Ms. Pixie grinned, and Betsy thought she saw a hint of malice -- or perhaps lust -- behind the grin.
Mr. Beard answered in her stead. "You just relax, Betsy, and let what happens happen."
Ms. Leather fingered her belt again, her eyes a bit dreamy and unfocused. Betsy looked at her speculatively and moved her eyes to Mr. Beard, who returned her gaze impassively.
"Intervention," Betsy repeated nervously.
"Intervention," the trio chorused.
