After a heady night's work letting it all hang out at the Berriga Pub's "Tits-Out Thursday", Libby and I were in trouble. We had been strolling through the carpark, utterly naked, our heads buzzing with elation after our lewd antics in the pub. We were ready to leap into my absent husband's luxury saloon and drive off into the night, most likely with our fingers buried deep inside ourselves, ready to masturbate with wild and abandoned fury as we relived our adventures.
But it was not to be. Walking back to where we had parked in a darkened corner of the lot, far from the pub, my heart was gripped with panic as we beheld a group of four guys standing around the car. They were huge, all of them big and bulky, each of them missing teeth and with scars on their faces... the very definition of ugly, unpleasant hillbilly hicks.
"Well hello, Libby," one of them – apparently their leader – spoke up. "How nice to see you again. And you've brought along a friend this time..."
I looked to Libby, hoping desperately that this was all just a joke; that perhaps she might smile at them in recognition, and they would break into laughter, the threatening air would dissipate and they would prove to be friends. Instead, Libby had stopped in her tracks, hesitant, trying to look brave though I could see she was fighting down her panic.
"Boys," she replied, curtly. "I hope we're not going to have any trouble tonight."
"You bet you're gonna have trouble," the lead hick promised her. "Your mate smashed my nose up a real treat, last time we met," he added, pointing to his ugly broken nose as proof; was he referring to my Tom? "When we heard you had come back tonight we rushed on over here, and straight away we picked this pimp-mobile as his. So where is he?"
"He's not with us," Libby told them, bravely. "If you've got some beef with him, you'll have to wait til next time."
"No no," the hick disagreed. "I'm thinking: if we can't take it out of his arse, we're just gonna have to take it out of yours. And a mighty fine arse to take it out of, too. Awful kind of you to leave it unwrapped for us." and his posse of hillbilly thugs leered their agreement.
"Who's your friend?" another one of the hicks chimed in, scanning me up and down with the most repugnant look on his face. Now more than ever, I wished we had got dressed before we left the pub.
"Get your damn eyes off her," Libby nearly snarled, her fists balling up instantly.
The ferocity of her reaction took them all aback – and me too – but only for a second before their ugly chuckles and unkind gazes came back to me. "Oho..." their leader saw. "She's a 'special friend' then, eh? Well well," he reckoned. He had been reclining lazily against the front fender of my husband's car, but now he stood up properly to saunter a few steps in my direction. "Hello there," he greeted me, with the most unkind intentions blazing in his squinty little eyes.
I felt the fear grip my heart as he walked towards me. I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that he was an animal; he would take what he wanted, he would not hear 'no' for an answer, and Libby and I were in trouble – me especially, as I saw his evil hunger locked unwavering on me. But before he could get any closer, Libby stepped protectively in front of me.
"You stay the fuck away from her," she hissed, dangerously and possessively.
"No I don't think so," the guy told her, though he did pause somewhat in his advance. "You and your buddy caused all of us a great deal of agony, you see; and it's just like they say: 'payback's a bitch.'"
"You've got to leave her alone," Libby told her, and now there was an edge of pleading in her voice. "Please. She's a mother."
"And a yummy mummy at that," the hick replied, with a few more chuckles and whistles of agreement from his posse as they rose and stepped up behind him.
"Please," Libby said again; and even as I saw her shoulders slump somewhat, I knew what she was going to say. "Please... do me instead."
That made them all stop. "Come again?" the lead hillbilly invited, most surprised.
"You can do me instead," Libby told them, though I could scarcely believe my ears. "I'll let you do it. I won't stop you."
"Libby... no..." I breathed, in sheer disbelief.
"What... all of us?" the second-hick-in-command piped up, with optimism.
Libby nodded her consent, most grudgingly. "But only," she added, "if you promise you won't touch my friend."
Terrifyingly, our aggressors looked dubious. "I dunno..." their leader mused. "I mean, she's an awful fine piece of arse there."
"She's done nothing to you," Libby reminded them. "My friend broke your nose, and I ran the rest of you over with his Porsche... but she hasn't done a thing to you. She doesn't even know him," she added, which was of course an outright lie; I was in fact married to him and had borne his children.
I'd had no idea that Libby and Tom had faced down these guys before, and it amazed me that Tom had dealt with their leader so effectively. For as long as I'd known my husband I'd never seen him in a fight, though I'd also never seen him with a cause to fight for. How I wished he was with us now – but he was still ten thousand miles away, tooling around Europe exactly when I needed him to be with me.
"Look, just..." Libby went on. "Just do me. All of you. Go for it. Just please: don't hurt my friend. Okay?"
