The Abbey Farm Curse Ch 11

The Abbey Farm Curse.

Chapter Eleven.

Monday was taken up with work on the farm refurbishment. I had to go and meet with the planning officer as well as do a few other bureaucratic chores, and that left Angie and Willow to supervise the builders when they decided to turn up. We had two sets coming this morning, the electricians were due to begin the rewire before the walls were replastered and another crew was supposed to begin laying the pipes into the new drainage trenches crisscrossing the yard. I'd given Angie all the details and the plans of what should go where, and so I got booted and suited and drove into town with my fingers firmly crossed.

I picked up the architect and we went to the planning office together where, to our immense surprise, our meeting was on time and when we showed our proposals to the planning officer, he foresaw no real problems. We already had planning consent of course, and these meetings were mainly to be sure that we didn't contravene the restrictions it contained. Abbey Farm is a grade II listed building and everything was subject to extremely careful scrutiny. It was always a 'will they or won't they' moment when you put changes before the planning department. At least this time it had gone well. There were a couple of minor details he wanted changed and he did point out something we'd missed that the environmental health people wouldn't like, but apart from that it was a productive meeting.

I dropped the architect back off at his office, had a spot of lunch, dealt with a couple of queries at the bank, called in to pay the builder's merchants their bill, and, because I was ahead of my estimated schedule, I went to sit in the park to enjoy a little stress free solitude. It had been one of the best morning's work I'd done for a long while and I reckoned I deserved a worry break. I sat for an hour or so watching a squirrel foraging, the simplicity of nature taking away much of the tension of living at Abbey Farm. Don't get me wrong, I'd already fallen in love with the place and it would be a fabulous home when it was finished, but it certainly wasn't stress free living at the moment. How in heaven's name were we ever to solve the problems it carried? I shrugged, sighed, pushed all anxious thoughts out of my mind and reached for my mobile phone. At least I could report to Ma and honestly tell her of good progress on both the planning and the actual building stages.

The conversation was cheerful, optimistic and upbeat, at least from Ma's side, but when it had finished I sighed again. Now I had another problem to sort out. Apparently Rhys was due on leave and would be coming to stay with us for a few nights, and Ma herself would be over at the weekend to see how things were coming along. Now we really were in the manure business. If Rhys was staying then I couldn't see a way of keeping our dreadful secret from him, the house would let him know even if we didn't, but there was no way we could ever let Ma find out. She was rather old-fashioned, which in this context is a euphemism for being a prude -- though she called it having good moral standards. Any idea that Angie and I were sleeping together and she'd have a fit.

'Sleeping together', what a ridiculous euphemism! We had done a number of questionable things together, but sleep didn't figure very high on the list.

The magic of the park was shattered, I stood up and cursed aloud, and then with an apologetic wave to the squirrel, who was watching warily, bright eyed but totally uncomprehending, I left the bench, the grass, the trees and the tranquillity they engendered behind to begin my drive home, wondering as I did so how Angie had coped with the builders in my absence.

I got home to find everything there was ticking along nicely. The electricians had turned out to be a conscientious and friendly pair who knew exactly what they were doing, and the pipe layers had got on so well they'd run out of pipes to lay for the day and had gone home.

The only fly in the ointment was that Angie had gone out too, and I wasn't all that happy to find Willow had been left alone in this strangely potent house with a crew of red-blooded men, especially as the electricians would need at some point to run cable under the floorboards of the bedrooms. In the event everything was fine, Willow had been smart enough to find reasons to keep out of the electricians' way and Angie wasn't out late. She came into the yard as the electricians' vehicle was leaving, her smart little mini all but finding itself wrapped around the bull bars on the front of the departing four by four. But the near collision fazed her not at all and she spun the tiny saloon around with a blast of her horn to park it neatly in her self-allocated spot beside an open trench.

'Hi Gary.' She greeted me as she breezed in. 'You know, I think this fucking house is going to drive me bloody mad.'

She was talking to whoever wanted to listen, house included. 'When I went out there was something I absolutely had to go and buy today, no doubt about it, it couldn't wait. But as I parked up in town -- and I wondered if I'd run into you, Gary - I realised how stupid I was being. There was no urgency and it wasn't even needed, so I suppose it was this stupid pile of bricks making me think it was.'

'The last I heard you'd decided that didn't happen,' I reminded her, '"I feel randy because I feel randy", isn't that what you said?' I looked at Willow and grinned.

'Yeah, I know. But that was the abbey speaking then as well.'

I couldn't argue with that, but there was something else that needed answering. I looked at Willow again.

'Are you going to ask her or shall I?' I queried.

Willow knew exactly what I meant.

'You do it. She'll only have expected it to be obvious to me.'

Angie had shut up and was gazing at us confusedly.

'What was it that was so urgent to get but that you didn't need when you got there, and did you actually go ahead and buy it?' I asked her.

'Yes, of course I did. It'd be silly not to wouldn't it, seeing as I was already there? I got something else too, I'll show you in a bit.'

She gave me the look, the one girls reserve especially for members of the opposite sex who refuse to grasp the obvious, and waved a carrier bag at me.

'And what is it?' I nudged gently, hoping for some kind of hint.

'I'll tell you after tea,' she replied frustratingly, 'right now I'm starving.'

I'd got my own little bombshell to drop, and I figured after tea would do for that too. But in the end I told them while we ate.

'So what you're saying,' Willow said thoughtfully and a little carefully, having spent several silent minutes digesting the news, 'is that we've got until about Friday to find out what the hell is going on here and how we're going to fix it.'

'Unless you can figure some way of keeping Ma away over the weekend, yes.' I agreed with her.

'So what the hell do we do?'

It was Angie who answered and her finger was right on the button as usual, even if her phraseology lacked any sign of finesse.

'We have as much sex as we can and hope that way we get told more about what happened and what's needed.'

What else could we do?

'That's all very well and good,' complained Willow, 'but the idea of the house turning me on and off like some damn light switch is a bit off putting to put it mildly. I don't like my sex life being controlled by a force I can't understand.'

I knew exactly where she was coming from, even though it didn't worry me quite as much, maybe because I'm male.

'It's always got to be down to something or other to get you started in the first place,' Angie observed. 'So why worry what it is?'

'Yes, but doesn't it bother you that it isn't actually you wanting it and the real you might regret it in the future?' Willow asked her.

'I don't think so, no. Why should it? Like everybody, I've done things before that I've thought later 'I shouldn't have done that', but they've all added to my experience of life so far and so why regret them? If we never did anything a bit wacky we'd never discover anything about ourselves.'

To me that seemed quite deep for a teenager, and especially one as flighty as Angie. She paused for a moment before continuing thoughtfully. 'This place obviously wants us to put something right and it's trying, the only way it can, to point us in the right direction. So I don't see how we can stop now -- or why we should.'

Angie must have been in a particularly enlightened mood, because she succinctly put into words the idea that had been running around in all our heads, but that we'd been unable to nail down.

'What about you, Will?' I asked. 'Is that what you think?'

'Yes, I have to agree with her, because we've got to get to the bottom of this, but I must say that I still think we might regret it morally later on, and I still don't like the idea of being manipulated like this.'

We were none of us completely happy with the way things were. Our 'fun' had been exactly that - fun -- until we realised it was being orchestrated, and now our instincts rebelled even though our bodies said yes.

'Maybe we won't have to go to bed with each other.' I observed wistfully. 'Maybe it'll set things going without, like it did before.'

'Maybe, but if not then we'll enjoy it, like we did when we didn't know what was happening.'

'It's not what we end up doing.' I pointed out. I enjoyed that as much as anybody could. Like Willow said, it's just being manoeuvred into it that's getting up my nose.'

That was the moment my mobile chose to ring and I found myself talking to the other important person caught up in this grubby affair. I took the 'phone through into corridor and sat on the window seat to talk to June, looking out over the abbey ruins and towards where she lived, peering sideways and trying to pick out her cottage in the distance but finding it hidden behind our headland. I felt the need for contact closer than a disembodied voice from a 'phone and I thought that seeing where she was talking from would help me envisage her in person, her haze of golden hair swirling as she spoke. With her cottage out of sight I relied on memory and imagination, but I still peered in her direction in the vain hope that the land might have moved.

She had clearly rung me for a purpose, but she let me rabbit on about how nice to hear from her and about how I was thinking about her, in fact about pretty well anything except what I needed to say. What did I need to say? Only that I was falling in love with her, but did she mind that I was going to have sex with Angie as often as I could because my home wanted me to, and my mother and brother were going to be here soon, so I'd better shag an answer out of the place somehow. And that, if it was any consolation, even when I was fucking the arse off of Angie, I'd be wishing I was fucking her instead. Of course I said no such things, only that they would be visiting soon and it might prove awkward. Ok, so I'm a coward.

I think June understood what I wasn't saying, because she agreed about visitors possibly being awkward and told me I should do whatever I needed to and she knew 'that won't be easy either'. She was wrong there. It would be easy, too damn easy, if a little unsettling. Then she got to the reason for her call, well, not really a reason, more an excuse. She'd been going through some old documents at the library and found that in 1401 the Bishop had given consent for 'a service of exorcism to be carried out in the abbot's house to rid the abbey of the evil spirits that were every night tempting one brother to lie with another'.

That in itself didn't tell us a lot, except to confirm that as we suspected, the problems had predated the fifteenth century at least. Interesting that it should be the abbot's lodgings that were mentioned specifically though, the space that was now occupied by our bedrooms. Perhaps we should have them exorcised too, except that exorcism had obviously not worked before.

Neither of us wanted the conversation to end, and even when we had nothing more to say to each other we still kept the connection open for a little while, as if the silent static brought us a little nearer to each other. It was a beautiful moment, the one when I realised June felt for me as I felt for her. We would meet again on Wednesday evening, and I couldn't wait.

I went back to the table only to find that the girls had cleared away, even though I hadn't actually finished, but then I don't suppose I'll starve for missing a few mouthfuls of fish pie, so I poured myself a coffee and settled into my favourite armchair just as Angie lifted a carrier bag onto the table to show off her 'important' purchases. I suppose I should really have realised what it would be, or at least what sort of thing one of them would be. But Angie wanted to show us the thing that had been so urgent first.

'This,' she said, 'is what I went all the way into town for, and before you put me down for the next vacancy in the nuthouse I know it isn't really needed, but I was kind of pushed into getting it.'

What she had been so pushed into buying was an illustrated calendar carrying landscape views of the local area. The only apparent relevance was that the page for June, the month we were actually in, coincidentally carried a photograph of our abbey ruins. I looked from calendar to Angie and back again, wondering what the hell was going on and showing it on my face, and Willow went even further.

'That is it?' She asked, dumbfounded, 'We needed a calendar?'

'I know, I know.' Angie shrugged. 'It doesn't make sense to me now either, but I promise you, it did at the time.'

'But we've all got calendars on our phones.'

'Well,' I put in, 'maybe it'll all become clear in time.'

'I hope so.' Willow commented.

'Right.' I wanted to move on from the calendar, another mystery was just one too many as far as I was concerned. 'What else did you get?'

I should have realised that the plain white bag was something of a giveaway, for it soon became clear that Angie had been visiting the nearest branch of an adult toy shop, the sort of place that used to be euphemistically known as a 'marital aids emporium'. Angie was now the proud owner of an ordinary white plastic vibrator of the bog standard seven inch variety.

'What exactly do you need that for?' Asked Willow, beating me to the same question by a split second.

'Well, the shop was right next door to the one that sold the calendars, and I thought it might be fun.'

'But you're not exactly going without, are you? In fact none of us are, so when do you expect to use that?'

'I don't know.' Angie shrugged again. 'It seemed like a good idea at the time. Will that do for a reason?'

Willow looked at her disdainfully.

'Maybe you'd like to help me play with it?' Angie asked her. 'I've never used one before.'

'Don't count on it. I can think of better ways of having fun.'

So could I for that matter, but I figured it was time to move on. 'I'm sure there'll be times to use it.'

'Well then, Gary, do you want to give me a hand with it instead?' Angie turned to me.

I wished I'd kept quiet, but my mind was too busy trying to picture Angie with a synthetic dick inside her. I didn't answer for a moment and Angie repeated the question.

'What?' I returned to reality long enough to nod. 'Oh yes, you say when.'

I'd responded without thinking and I suppose I meant it, although I'd always assumed that vibrators were for when you were on your own and when the real thing wasn't available, and so I didn't really think she intended it. I still couldn't imagine why any normal teenager was going to want to use a vibrator, in fact the idea of her with one seemed intriguingly erotic and shudderingly repellent both at the same time. I felt my cock twitching inside my trousers as the pictures went through my mind. But was it me, or the house?

'It was you saying that, wasn't it?' I asked her suddenly, my brain clicking into gear. 'Not this pile of stone?'

'Yes, it was me.' Then her voice became more subdued before flaring in irritation. 'At least I think so. Oh fucking hell Gary, how I'm I supposed to know. Wait and see!'

'Sorry, it's just that what's happening is getting to me. In any case, aren't we supposed to be having real sex in order to find out what's happening here?'

'Actually.' Willow interrupted. 'Something has just occurred to me. You know the influence this place has on us? Well I think it's changed in some way since it's been able to send us back without you two shagging, have you noticed?'

I hadn't, but now she came to mention it maybe she was right, although I couldn't put my finger on how. 'In what way?'

'I don't know, it just seems not quite so heavy, more fun and less pushy.'

'Hmm, maybe.' I was doubtful.

'It'll be bloody handy if it is,' Angie put in, 'seeing as we're getting visitors.'

I couldn't argue with that, because we knew that whatever we did we still ran the risk of Rhys or Ma getting a quick first hand lesson in history and if that happened then the less it turned us all on the better. I hated to think what effect it might have on my prudish mother. I pushed an uninvited and unwelcome image of her with a dildo out of my brain and concentrated on Angie instead, not that it was too difficult. In fact all evening I couldn't get that image out of my brain and every time I looked at Angie I could envisage her, naked, her face contorted with pleasure and arousal, legs open and her pussy lips wrapped around the shaft of that vibrator. Once or twice I even imagined Willow trying the same thing, and with her slender body the act seemed even more unlikely and so even more stimulating. I was getting more unsuitably turned on as the evening wore on. I presumed it was the house at work again, but like Angie earlier, I couldn't be sure.

It wasn't helped by Angie's invitation to use her toy on her, especially as, during the course of the evening and in Willow's absence, she had whispered her intention to come to my room after 'lights out'. Willow, she said, was 'wimping out' and trying to make us all feel guilty. I didn't quite see it that way, but I didn't argue because I kind of liked the idea of her slipping into bed with me on the quiet. The secrecy gave the rendezvous an edge of excitement and I went to bed with my heart beating that bit faster than usual in anticipation of her visit. The abbey was still working quite hard on me, that was for sure.

I lay in bed wondering if Angie would visit me as she had promised, I wasn't absolutely sure that she meant it -- in this place how could I be sure of anything? As I have already observed, vibrators are intended for when you've no partner, or so I've always thought, and anyway, now that we were beginning to get a handle on what had been happening to us I wouldn't have put it past her to say that just as a tease. As it was she did mean it, but the little minx must have known I was as horny as hell once again in anticipation of some illicit fun, for she made me wait. I lay naked under my duvet with my fingers wrapped loosely around my cock for what seemed like hours. Eventually I almost came to the conclusion that she'd been teasing or she'd changed her mind, or that she'd decided to use her new toy, and I resigned myself to a quick disappointed wank before rolling over to sleep. But then, just as my hand began to slide along my shaft in earnest, I heard the latch lift on my door and a quick draft of cool air announced someone's silent arrival. Feet pattered across the floor and I heard fumbling hands place something on my bedside cabinet before my duvet lifted and a cool naked female body slid in beside me. The body rolled into my arms and Angie whispered in my ear.

'Hold me tight, Gary. Give me a cuddle.'