"The firm's gone bust," Eric told his wife, Carla. "Management called us in today to break the bad news. I'm out of a job."
Carla paled. They had a mortgage, a heavy one, and with only one of them working they wouldn't be able to make the payments.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"I've been looking at our finances. We'll have to sell but we should get a fair price even in the current market. That'll take the mortgage off our back and we can invest whatever we have left after the mortgage so that we have a good deposit when I finally get a new job. In the meantime, we'll have to look around for somewhere relatively cheap to rent."
Carla nodded, resigned. She liked this house but better to sell while they could get some sort of return from their investment instead of waiting for the bank to come and take it because they couldn't pay the mortgage.
Carla was pleasantly surprised at how easily their house sold. They'd have quite a nice nest egg that they could invest and when Eric was firmly established they'd have a deposit on a new house. Now all they needed to do was find a place to rent for a while.
"The Pines?" Carla said. "You found a place to rent in The Pines?"
Eric flushed. "It's cheap, and it's clean and well maintained," he said. "At least have a look at it before you say no."
"Ok, I'll look, but it had better be good," said Carla. "The only reason they don't call The Pines Hillbilly Heaven is because there're no hills there. Although why that stopped them I have no idea. They're no pines there either."
After checking out the proposed rental Carla had to admit that the house was quite nice. It was just the neighbourhood and its reputation that she was a bit worried about. Looking around the neat tidy street, she had had to admit the reputation may not have been really fair. There was no graffiti, no cars standing on blocks, lawns were all trimmed. She gave Eric her blessing and the lease was duly signed, with Eric and Carla moving in a few days later.
For the first week or so everything was quiet. They didn't actually get to meet any of their new neighbours as Carla was working and Eric was out looking for work all day. Then Friday rolled around. It was summer and it was hot and Carla was happy to be leaving work and heading home. Walking down the street from the bus stop, Carla was surprised to see that all the men in the area seemed to be home and were sitting clustered on the front porches of some of the houses near hers, apparently enjoying the sunshine and a beer.
As she approached her house she saw that her next door neighbour was sitting on his front steps drinking a beer. For some reason no-one else had joined him and he was sitting in solitary splendour. He stood up and called out as she approached.
"Excuse me, little lady. Have you got a moment?"
Shrugging to herself she turned and crossed over the lawn to where he was waiting. "Good afternoon," she said. "I'm Carla McPherson. My husband Eric and I moved in a few days ago."
"Yes, I noticed," her neighbour said. "I'm Mike. I live here with my daughter, Tess."
They swapped a few pleasantries regarding the weather and the neighbourhood and then Carla started making noises that it was time for her to be heading home.
"Look, before you go there's a couple of things I think you need to understand about the area," said Mike. "You'll find we're a rough mob who call a spade a spade, even though some people get upset about straight talking. You don't mind a bit of plain talk do you?"
"No," Carla hastened to say. "Of course not."
"That's good," said Mike. "Anyway, we figured that as it's Friday night and we had nothing else planned some of us decided that we should give you and your hubby a welcome to the neighbourhood sort of event."
"That's very nice of you," said Carla surprised. "What did you have in mind?"
"Well, Tess and a couple of her friends have gone in to see your husband, and knowing them they're screwing his brains our right now. I said I'd wait here to intercept you so you wouldn't interrupt their fun, and that I'd fuck you senseless as my contribution to the welcome party."
Carla went white at this blunt statement and turned to bolt for home, but too slowly as Mike had already reached out and caught her wrist.
"Now hold on there, Carla," he said. "Let the poor guy have a friendly fuck in peace."
"I very much doubt that my husband is having sex with any girls who may have happened to call. He's not that sort of man. And if you don't let go my arm I'll scream. You may have noticed that there are a number of people about."
"Yes, I noticed," said Mike with a smile, "and if you scream you'll see money start to change hands but no one will come over."
"What do you mean?" asked Carla.
