"It's time we got rid of this antique plumbing; get some modern stuff; you'd like that, wouldn't you sweetheart?"
"Another bribe to keep me quiet," I thought. Ben was always coming up with something to shut me up.
"I could get all the stuff we need, new bath, hand basin, sink and pipes. All we need to do is get the plumber in to install it."
"Yes, I bet he could 'get all the stuff'," I mused. Ben always knew someone who knew someone who had an uncle who…. Ben who was as in "Import - Export," which really meant he had a lot of shonky mates with whom he did shady deals he called "business." You know, deals out of sight of the taxman and police – stuff that just happened to fall off the back of a lorry or someone happened to be selling in the pub.
Still, it was a good idea. The existing plumbing had been put in the cottage on the cheap some time back in the nineteen thirties and the iron pipes were choked up with some alkaline stuff and the water only dribbled out of the taps.
I say "cottage" because that is what the place is called, "The Cottage." If that conjures up in your mind a quaint thatched place, forget it; it's more like a mini mansion that I was supposed to keep clean and tidy while Ben was off making his deals, and other things I suspected.
You might be getting the impression I didn't like Ben very much, and you'd be right. Why had I married him and why did I stay married to him? I'll tell you in one word, "Money".
Where I come from money is scarce and a good looking girl wants the best deal she can get, and that means financial security. I had the looks and I wanted the best deal, so in a way I suppose that makes me no better than Ben.
I'd better give a description of myself and Ben.
I'm five feet eight; long darkish blonde hair; big blue eyes, nicely chiselled nose, wide mouth with full lips. Breasts? Yes, you guessed it, 38DD; narrow waist; hips to match the bosom and lovely long legs that guys always wanted to get to the top of. I had plenty of female assets and I was going to sell them to the highest bidder.
Ben turned out to be that highest bidder. He's five feet four, balding, plump and his breath always smells fishy. In addition he is twenty years older than me. But he had the main asset I was looking for at that time, the moolah.
He had a warehouse underneath the railway arches near our place where he kept his "Stock," as he called it. I used to pass it on my way to and from the shop I worked in. One day we got talking and one thing led to another. Of course, he didn't have marriage in mind, and in the phony American accent he sometimes affected he put the proposition to me, "Hey babe, you and me could have a great time together."
"Nothing doing," I told him. I was hanging out for marriage and nothing less. He was so horny looking at my bosom he finally surrendered and asked me to marry him. Security was won!
My mum and dad didn't like him, but when he started to bring them things he just "happened to have got" his hands on, they relented and told me what a lucky girl I was.
So that was it. We got married and came to live in The Cottage on the outskirts of a village miles out of town.
For a while he fucked me like a pig. Come to think of it, I don't really know how a pig fucks and perhaps I'm insulting pigs. Let's just say he had a nasty way with him in bed.
One of the things I discovered was, that however good looking you are, if a guy marries you just for bedtime, the icing can go off the cake fairly quickly. A couple of years after we were married Ben's bed performances dropped off remarkably and his need to be away "on business" kept pace with the decline in sexual activity with me.
So why did he stay with me?
Well, there was something of an unspoken deal between us. Even if he didn't fuck me very often, he was business man enough to realise he had an asset in me. "You keep your looks and I'll come up with the money," was the deal.
You see, beyond that he expected me to "be nice to" his "colleagues" as he called them. This included letting them ogle my tits and let them fumble me a bit. To put it another way, I was part of his business assets, and when he couldn't close a lucrative deal I was supposed to do it for him.
Don't get me wrong. It was never bed time with any of his grotty colleagues, just the promise of delights to come if the deal was struck – a promise I made sure I never kept.
Perhaps you think that we were a pair well matched, and you're probably right up to a point. There I was, twenty five years old, undoubtedly sexy and well looked after financially. All I had to do was be a "good girl," not enquire too deeply about what Ben got up to on his so-called business trips – not that I cared very much – and I got the goodies, including new plumbing.
On the down side I was bloody bored.
Ben was as usual as good as his word, as he always was when it came to giving me the things he could do deals over. Consequently various items of plumbing began to arrive at The Cottage over the course of a couple of weeks, mainly delivered after dark.
These were followed a week later by several plumbers who came to look the situation over and make their offer for the work. The one chosen was a dismal middle aged man who always looked as if he'd just received bad news. His name was "Arry" (Harry), and he was accompanied by a young man around nineteen years old who was introduced as, "Me apprentice Morrie" (Maurice).
In female fashion I noted that Maurice was a nice looking well set up young bloke, but beyond that I let them get on with the job.
"The job" seemed at first to consist of hammering, chiselling and sundry other noises interspersed with, "Push it to me," "Just lift that end," and similar communications. Added to this was the inconvenience of various items of existing plumbing going out of service from time to time as the old was removed and the new installed.
I bore this with patience since at least it broke the monotony of the rural silence that usually prevailed, except when such exciting events as a farm tractor passing The Cottage took place.
What an awful woman I must sound to you! You might say that I could have involved myself in village affairs, done charitable work, gone to church and so forth. I suppose I could have, but my city upbringing had never prepared me for that sort of life. Since my personal Saab sat in the garage I could also have taken trips to the city, but I rarely did.
Why was this? I think the trouble was I was depressed. I'd got the money and The Cottage, a fancy car, but there was something missing. I just didn't seem to be able to get off my butt and do things. I even had wistful thoughts about the shop I used to work in and the manager with his wandering hands and five kids.
I began to get some entertainment when I decided to offer the plumbers tea and coffee during their breaks. 'Arry' regaled me with stories of gloom and doom and informed me that the end of the world was arriving soon with "The Second Coming." Maurice on the other hand told of games of rugby he played and who he was dating "next weekend."
His talk of dating sent a pang of nostalgia through me, recalling my teenage years holding sweaty hands in cinemas, bodies pressed close while dancing and fighting off fumbling hands on a park seat late at night.
Maurice was no different from other males I met. I saw him looking at me with big brown contemplative eyes. He was a nice looking boy, strong and healthy but with a pensive look about him. He was not a bit like the ominous 'Arry, or for that matter any sort of plumber I had ever imagined. I must admit I hadn't often dwelt imaginatively on plumbers.
