Gifted

You think it's easy for me to tell you about this? Well just fuck off. Sorry about that outburst, but I'm still trying to manage the hurt and anger that won't go away, even after all this time.

My life was great until I found out my wife was gifted. I don't think I could ever have lived with her being gifted, but I still can't get my head round the idea that Shona was so proud and pleased about being gifted. She thought it was a blessing and failed to see it for the curse it really was.

Shona Mackie and I first met many years ago when we were working for a national telecoms company in Inverness. She was a dispatcher and I was a telephone engineer. I fell in love with her soft Highland accent before I ever set eyes on her. Of course it helped that she turned out to be a red-haired little beauty with a cheeky smile, a twinkle in her eyes and a scattering of cute freckles. She told me she was first attracted to me because my name is Rob Roy MacGregor, the same as the famous Scottish outlaw from the late seventeenth century. Maybe she liked the challenge of taming an outlaw!

My job took me all over the Scottish Highlands and I was responsible for installation and maintenance of masts and receivers for faster broadband access. My boss joked that I was making life safer for the sheep by bringing internet porn to the crofters, but that's not why I enjoyed doing my job. It was not so much what I did that motivated me; it's where I did it that made me like my job. The Scottish Highlands were my workplace and they combine stunning scenery with pure air and a gentle quality of light that makes the heart sing.

After our son Robbie was born it didn't take Shona long to persuade me to move back to her home village of Lochmagandie. In hindsight I should never have agreed to the move. That's not because of the location. The setting is wonderful and Shona's mother and sister lived close by, so we were never stuck for someone to babysit wee Robbie for a day, an evening or a weekend. Unfortunately, what I hadn't realised was that Shona would get completely caught up in the workings of a very tight-knit, matriarchal community, where the women make the important decisions while the men seem content to spend a lot of their free time in the village pub, drinking whisky and beer and blethering about the weather or the price of sheep.

When the sun shines you would think the place was a paradise. There is a scattering of white-walled cottages on the lower slopes of the hills and the village of Lochmagandie is formed by a cluster of modest houses, shops and little cottages around a village square, where the road ends at the head of the loch. On three sides, the settlement and its outlying crofts are sheltered by what is known as the Hoch Magandie, a necklace of high hills around three sides of Glen Magandie, affording protection from extremes of weather.

It is a lovely location, but when the clouds darken the skies and you can't see the tops of the hills it's gloomy and depressing. On those dark days it is easy to believe the story that the loch is haunted by the troubled spirit of Morag MacDarell, a young woman who was gang raped and drowned one summer's evening long ago in 1744. The details of what actually happened will never be known for sure, but the story has been handed down from generation to generation and it was the legacy of Morag MacDarell that was to cause me grief.

*

By all accounts Morag was a spirited young woman and a great beauty. She lived in an era when life was very tough and brutal. No one knows exactly how old she was when she met her fate, but the story has it that her flirting with the local youths was the problem. While she naively thought a little bit of flirting might help her find a husband, some of the young men were resentful that she was teasing them.

Four youths ambushed her that fateful summer evening on her way home from the fields to her parents' croft. They shoved a rag in her mouth to stifle her cries for help and dragged her into the deep beds of purple heather on the banks of the loch. Perhaps they thought she would put up little resistance, but she must have fought like a wildcat to save her honour. The four suspects were identified afterwards by the scratches on their arms and faces.

Poor Morag took a hell of a beating. Her arms and face were badly bruised while they took it in turns to rape her. Eventually, after they had finished with her and she lost consciousness, they carried her into the loch and held her under. She was found later that night when a search party led by her father spotted her naked and lifeless corpse floating face down in the shallows at the side of the loch. At first it was assumed she had drowned while bathing in the loch on her way home, but it wasn't long before the truth began to emerge.

The story the young men came up with was that Morag had wanted to have sex with them and afterwards they had left her alone to wash in the loch. They insisted they had no idea how she had drowned or why she had bruises on her face and arms.

Losing four young men from the available workforce in a small Highland village would have created serious problems for the community. Donal MacDarell, the chieftain of the clan, did not want that to happen. In his capacity as judge and jury, he decided the case in the youths' favour, ruling that the allegation of violent sexual assault was without foundation.

None of the young men was punished in the aftermath of Morag's death. Instead these lads were free to carry on working the land as usual, while the local women were left to mutter and grumble amongst themselves about the failure of old Donal to punish the guilty. Over the course of the next winter there was much talk in the community about what the consequences of such a grave miscarriage of justice might be. Highlanders are attuned to their natural surroundings and are often very superstitious. Most of the locals subscribed to the idea that the spirit of Morag would not be able to rest in peace, that the loch was now haunted and that the guilty would be cursed by fate.

Donal MacDarell, the chieftain who failed in his duty to dispense justice, met a grisly end soon enough. He and his MacDarell clansmen, including Morag's murderers, joined Bonnie Prince Charlie's army in 1745. At the battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746 they were among the ranks of the Highlanders, charging at the redcoats of Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland. Donal and the young men who had raped and murdered Morag died terrible deaths. Shot or bayoneted, they were systematically slaughtered like animals by the soldiers of "Butcher" Cumberland as they lay wounded and screaming in agony after the battle.

The women of the glen were distraught with grief. Apart from losing most of their menfolk, there was every possibility that their fragile economy would collapse and they would either starve to death or be forced to leave the glen, begging and prostituting themselves in the lowland towns in order to survive. That they overcame the odds and saved their community is testimony on the one hand to their strong will and determination to survive. On the other hand it reveals their willingness to take desperate measures.

In the absence of any adult males, old MacDarell's widow took over the chieftainship of the clan. She and some of the womenfolk journeyed to Inverness and successfully petitioned for a meeting with "Butcher" Cumberland and General George Wade. No one knows exactly what happened at that meeting, but Glen Magandie's future was assured soon after, when General Wade made the glen a staging post and supply depot for the British Army.

There was only one road in and out of the glen, which made it easily defensible, so that would have been a good enough reason for Wade's decision. However it seems the women of the glen had also given their word to General Wade that soldiers temporarily billeted with them would be made very welcome. Indeed, so much so that in the late eighteenth century the name of the towering mountain range of Hoch Magandie became synonymous with getting a good fucking. The slang expression for having some wild and probably illicit sex was to "have some Hoch Magandie".

Many Highlanders regarded the actions of the women of Glen Magandie as shameful, but others saw it as a positive and practical strategy with no real alternative.

Soldiers came and went and the seeds of the community's recovery were sown, quite literally. In contrast to other parts of the Highlands that became depopulated, Glen Magandie flourished. The women enjoyed the undisturbed tranquillity of the glen and made enough to sustain themselves and their families by producing beautiful hand-woven woollen garments that quickly became much sought after in Edinburgh and London. A new generation of children, including many bastards with mixed redcoat and MacDarrell blood, grew up in a matriarchal society, with the chieftainship being passed down from eldest daughter to eldest daughter.

Mindful of Morag MacDarell's fate, the women of the glen also took steps they believed would eliminate the risk of any similar sexually motivated aggression in the future.

*

We had been living in Lochmagandie for about five years and we were coming up for our seventh wedding anniversary when my life changed for the worse.

I was as happy as a hog in a bog as spring gradually turned into summer that year. Shona had been like a bitch in heat every time I came home from a few days on the road. It wasn't that she was wildly sexy or fucking me half to death. It was more lovey-dovey than that. She was kissing me more often and she had taken to running her hands through my hair, touching my hand, stroking my arm or rubbing against me at every opportunity. More often than not, her displays of affection would lead to us making love. She didn't just want a quickie either. She wanted me to take time to do all the touching, feeling and exploring that would make her feel loved, desired and comforted. It reminded me of how she had been when we first got together and I was pleased she was making an effort to be more romantic.

That Friday was fairly typical. Wee Robbie was away on a sleepover at his Aunt Maggie and Uncle Duncan's house, visiting his cousin, another copper-haired six year old boy called Malcolm. Our nickname for the two of them was "The Ginger Nuts". Coming home from a week of maintenance inspections up north, I dropped in to say hello to Robbie and thank Maggie and Duncan for giving Shona and me a night to ourselves. I got a quick cuddle from Robbie, but I was playing second fiddle. He was more interested in running around with Malcolm. I remember thinking they would probably be best friends forever.

When I got home there was a delicious aroma of beef stew with wild mountain thyme wafting from the kitchen. Shona was bustling around, setting the table in the dining room. She had added a couple of tall candles, which was usually a sign she wanted some romancing, and there was an opened bottle of Cotes-du-Rhone on the table. She fetched me a cold beer while I hung up my coat and put my dirty laundry in the laundry basket.

After a week working away from home it always takes me about half an hour to chill out and tune back into the home environment. Shona had got used to that and she didn't expect me to make any meaningful conversation straightaway. Instead she filled the gap by telling me all about her day or her week and whatever was the latest gossip.

I relaxed with my beer and she pottered around in the kitchen, stirring the stew and putting plates in the top oven to warm up, prattling on about the ceilidh that would take place the next evening. The ceilidh was to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of Callum MacDarrell, whose mother was the lady chieftain. There would be a top-class fiddle band and Scottish country dancing. Everyone was coming from miles around and the village hall would be jumping with folk of all ages, from toddlers to tottering pensioners.

Shona had become good friends with Fiona, the lady chieftain, and had been helping Fiona and Dougal, her husband, to organise the ceilidh. In recent weeks Shona seemed to be over at their place every time I called her when I was away from home. She was immensely excited about the preparations for Callum's birthday celebrations and had told me more than once about what an honour it was to be chosen to help.

Her dinner conversation was all about what a great day it was going to be and how amazing that Callum had grown up so quickly and would be eighteen tomorrow. She had got him a gold signet ring, engraved with the intertwined initials "CS", which she showed me that evening after dinner, as we sat in the lounge, enjoying a dram of whisky from nearby Glenfarclas.

"So, why is it not CM for Callum MacDarrell?" I asked.

"Oh! Right! Aye well, Stuart's his middle name," she quickly replied, snapping the little red velvet box shut and setting it down on the coffee table. I didn't think too much about it at the time, because she gave me one of her special looks. Her twinkling eyes and naughty little grin were telling me she was ready for bed.

Highland cottages are usually single storey and ours was no exception, so there were no stairs to climb and it wasn't long before we were between the sheets in our big double bed. I held her in my arms and kissed her tenderly and then she climbed over me, pushed the bedsheet off and started rubbing her moist pussy up and down the underside of my rapidly hardening cock.

She flipped my cock up and impaled herself on it, sighing in satisfaction.

"Aah, yessss!" she murmured, looking me straight in the eye. "I just love being on top!"

We were off to the races and there was no doubt about who was doing the riding. I tried to keep pace by thrusting up into her little ginger box, but she was soon bouncing up and down like a buckaroo, shouting and screaming about how she needed to be fucked harder. I could feel her cunt grabbing me like a silken glove as I held onto her slim waist with one hand and pulled on her pale little tits and reddish brown nipples with the other. Just when I thought I couldn't hold out any longer, she stopped bouncing on me. Shuddering and moaning, she was overcome by her orgasm as I shot my load into her. Still sitting astride me, she slumped onto my chest.

"Mmmmmm," she whispered. "Thanks, Rob. That was really something. I love you so much."

"I love you too," I whispered back, pulling the bedsheet over us as my cock slipped out of her dripping wet pussy.

*

With Robbie away overnight, I thought we might have time for a nice slow session of love-making that Saturday morning, but Shona was up bright and early, leaving me to snooze while she showered and dressed.

"Morning, lazybones," she said, as I sat up in bed and watched her preening in the mirror. "I'm just going over to Fiona's, but I'll pop into the baker's on the way back and get us some breakfast rolls. You can have a long lie in bed for once and we can fetch Robbie after breakfast."

I thought about lying in bed after she left, but decided to get up and get on with some of the domestic chores. I had a quick shower and changed into denims and my favourite green and black checked casual shirt, loaded the washing machine and then went to tidy up the lounge before getting started on the rest of the house.

Still sitting on the coffee table was the little red box containing the signet ring. Next to it was an envelope addressed to Callum MacDarrell, no doubt containing a birthday card. It looked like Shona had forgotten to take them with her. I suppose we could have given them to Callum that evening, but it seemed easier to just take them over myself straight away. The chieftain's cottage stood on its own in the middle of the land that was legally bound to the chieftainship and it was comparatively isolated, but it was less than a mile away if I took a short cut across the fields, and I figured the fresh air would blow away the few cobwebs left by the Balvenie.

In the distance I could see the village on the shore of the loch as I strode through the fields of long, lush meadow grass, much loved by the sheep. I had to scramble over a couple of dry stone walls, but it only took me about twenty minutes to reach the stone barn that abutted the cottage. To get to the front door of the cottage I had to go round the back of the barn and down the north side of the cottage.

The chieftain's cottage is an old-style Highland cottage, long and low, with thick white-washed walls and a black slate roof, which would originally have been a thatched roof. When it was built over two hundred years ago it would have been important to minimise heat loss, so the windows are quite small, especially on the north and west sides of the cottage that face the prevailing wind and weather. However, as I made my way along the north side of the cottage, the window I passed was still big enough for me to catch a glimpse of my wife that stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was clearly a bedroom and she was on a large double bed, completely naked, bouncing up and down cowgirl style on top of someone else, exactly the way she had fucked me the night before. She didn't see me, because I was looking in on her left hand side and her long red mane was swirling around as her head nodded up and down while she rode her partner, whose hands had a firm grip on her tits.

I don't know how long I stood there, transfixed. It was as if the earth stood still. The couple in the bedroom changed positions and the man moved to get up behind her, his naked prick pointing the way. I wasn't sure who it was at first, as he had his back to me while he got into position, but then I saw it was Callum MacDarrell. He was grinning from ear to ear as he slammed into Shona doggy style. Over and over again he pulled out and pushed back in, as I stood there, paralysed with shock. I watched in horrified amazement as he pulled her tightly to him in one final thrust and they collapsed in a heap on the bed. There was absolutely no doubt he had just come inside my wife, filling her with his sperm, and she had let him. What the hell?

I pulled away from the window and leaned back against the outside wall of the cottage, almost hyperventilating. I realised that I must have stopped breathing normally while the dreadful spectacle unfolded before me. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes and now I found myself feeling physically ill. My mind was screaming in protest against the information it had just received and my body was straining to purge itself. I put my head between my legs and took deep breaths in an effort to regain control of myself.

I don't know how long I stood there. Maybe it was a couple of minutes. I was stunned, but I had been trained as a maintenance engineer to deal with difficult problems. Knee jerk reactions are not my style. I had no idea why Shona would fuck Callum, but others might be hurt in the fallout if I hit out immediately. Wee Robbie was my main concern and I needed to know more about whatever was going on before I took any drastic action.

I trudged homewards, keeping the barn and a small stand of pine trees between the chieftain's cottage and myself to avoid being spotted, although that was unlikely. My thoughts were jumbled and confused. It seemed obvious that Shona had planned this. It was her bad luck that I decided to forego the opportunity to lie in bed and instead deliver the card and gift she had forgotten. Most likely she hadn't remembered to take the card and the signet ring simply because she was preoccupied with going over there and getting Callum to give her a good fucking.

It had looked like a hot and heavy sex session. Maybe it was his first time and she had just taken his virginity. Or had he been fucking her for a while? I couldn't be sure. They were in his bedroom in his parent's house. Did his parents know my wife was fucking up a storm with their son? This was a big day in their son's life, so I couldn't imagine they were not at home that morning. They must have been aware of what was going on, unless they were blind and deaf.