Peaceful Easy Feelin’

John and Susan could only stay at the villa for a fortnight; they had to get back to work. However Susan's children stayed on with us for the rest of our time out there. We had planned to stay for the six weeks of the school holiday but somewhere along the line it changed to two months.

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So there we were seven weeks into the holiday and Sonya had just decided that she wanted an afternoon session in her private summer house. That's what the sitting astride me was all about; I had the beautiful sex maniac sussed by then. Christ, the woman was insatiable. We'd shagged half a dozen times every single day since the day after we'd arrived.

Sonya had just mentioned our first meeting and was throwing all that bullshit about me being such a great guy at me, again. I might have been in love with the woman, but I knew damned well it couldn't lead to anything in the long term. We came from completely different worlds.

"Come on, Sonya, you know as well as I do that you are going to tire of me before very much longer!" I said to her.

"Why do you say that? Are you tired of me?" she asked, sounding very hurt.

"My god, no, Sonya. I told you I've fallen in love with you. But you can do much better than the likes of me."

She lent forward and kissed me. "Maybe I don't want to. Maybe I'm happy with who I've found," she said.

"And tell me, what would Lady Gilda Casson or Uncle Theo have to say about that?" I asked her.

Sonya sat up straight and a thoughtful look came over her face. "Yes, that's a point. Aunt Gilda... I wonder what she'd do in the circumstances?" Sonya mused.

Then she smiled and leant down and kissed me again. "For the moment can we forget about who you are, and who I am, and just go play in my Jacuzzi for a while, until the children work out that we are missing again?"

There are times when arguing for argument's sake just isn't worth the effort so we walked arm in arm up to Sonya's private summer house. Where for a change, I caught sight of Sam coming out after he'd refilled the ice bucket. Somehow he manage to disappear into the undergrowth.

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About four or five days later, I didn't see the significance in Tad and Sheryl insisting that I go out on one of the sail boats with them, so that they could demonstrate their prowess at sailing to me.

It took some persuading on everyone's part to convince me that a complete novice should go out in the open sea with two ten year olds who would have to do all the sailing. I had no idea what to do or how to navigate if anything went wrong. In the end Jeremy, Simone and the twins came along as well on one of the other boats.

I suppose we were out for about two hours and I was just beginning to enjoy myself -- I'd been watching what everyone was doing very closely and had convinced myself that I could sail the boat back to the island myself, if anything went wrong - when Tad suddenly decided that it was time to go home.

The trouble was that when we got to the jetty and I climbed off the boat, Tad and Sheryl cast off again and sailed away. I had no idea what the little tykes were up to, but I stood and watched as they rendezvoused with Jeremy's boat in the bay, then both boats sailed off around the head land.

The pool was deserted and strangely quiet as I walked up to the villa. There was no one on the upper patio either, and even Sam didn't appear when I went into the lounge where the bar was. 'This is all very strange,' I thought to myself as I threw some ice into a glass and I poured myself a large rum.

"I'll have a gin and tonic while you're behind there, young man," Aunt Gilda's voice cut the air like a knife.

Jesus, I nearly dropped the bottle of rum I was holding; now that would have been sacrilege.

"Lady Casson, I didn't know that you were coming today," I said in surprise.

"Young man, you know that it's Aunt Gilda to the family and don't you go forgetting it. Anyway I can't stand it out here - too damned hot for my constitution," she replied, "but I had to come to sort this mess out."

"What mess is that, Aunt Gilda? Is there some problem with Sonya's divorce?"

"Of course not. No, you're the only problem around here, young man!"

I knew it; I figured that Aunt Gilda had somehow heard about Sonya and me getting it on together. Most likely Sam had reported back to headquarters. I figured Aunt Gilda was there to kick me out and send the girls and me home.

"Now I think Lady Sonya Moore sounds just a little plain. How about Casson-Moore? It would bring the family name back into use as well."

"Sorry, but you've lost me there, Aunt Gilda."

"After the wedding, I think Sonya should use the name Casson-Moore. What do you think?"

"What wedding?"

"Your's and Sonya's of course. We can't have any illegitimate children in the family."

"You've lost me completely, Gilda," I said.

"Oh, for pity's sake, Sonya's baby - it can't be born a bastard. The last time that happened was over a hundred years ago and we had all sorts of trouble sorting everything out."

"Are you telling me that Sonya is pregnant?"

"Why, of course, didn't you know?"

"But who's the..." Yeah, I was just about to ask the stupidest question in the universe. Why I hadn't figured out that Sonya hadn't had a period since we'd arrived out there, I don't know. Anyway Aunt Gilda interrupted me before I finished asking it.

"Oh, dear, the silly girl has tried to entrap you, hasn't she? She said she was going to move heaven and earth to get you to marry her. Looks like she tried trickery."

"But she's a Lady and I'm a..."

"Man, and a damned good one at that." Sonya's voice came from behind me somewhere. I spun around to face her. But she didn't address her next remarks to me, she spoke to Aunt Gilda. "Please tell him, Gilda. I don't think that he'll believe me."

"No, he's very proud, isn't he. Well, Frank, when I met Sonya's uncle, I was a maid in the big house of hers. Plain old Gilda Smith and my father was the pest controller on the estate. Do you know what that means? It means that he spent all of his time catching rabbits, rats and setting traps for mice.

"The Cassons don't worry about what class anyone is or how much money they have in the bank. Love is what counts in this life, Frank, and my niece here loves you. Not only that, she's totally convinced that you love her. Do you?"

When Gilda asks you a question like that, you tend to answer right away and truthfully.

"Yes, Gilda, I'm sure that I do, but..."

"I'll hear no bloody buts, young man. Here, give her this ring and ask her to marry you," Gilda said. "It was the one her uncle gave me; it'll suffice until we can get her another one!"

Gilda handed me the ring, I turned to Sonya and asked her to marry me, then placed the ring on her outstretched finger. As I said before Gilda is not someone that you argue with.

"Now I suggest that you two disappear to that little love nest of Sonya's before everyone else gets back. I'll make sure that you're not disturbed until dinner time, won't we, Sam?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Sam's dismembered voice replied from wherever he was hiding.

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Sonya and I were married two weeks after we returned from the Caribbean. Sam and Simone came over for the ceremony, but there weren't very many more guests than there had been at Susan's wedding.

I don't drive for a living anymore; actually I don't really do much in the way of work at all. With a wife who enjoys sex like Sonya does, I don't have the energy left to do much anyway. Oh, yeah, I drive tractors and trucks around the estate quite a bit; I like to pitch in and help where I can.

Sheryl and Annette quite like their new school; well, providing Tad's about Sheryl would enjoy any school anywhere in the world, although we have had some stick about their close relationship from the head teacher.

Sonya had another girl and the other five children dote on her. She's going to be really spoilt when she gets older.

Jean and Seymour didn't last that long. Well, they couldn't really because someone bubbled Seymour to the authorities about some dodgy deal he'd been involved with and he's doing time now. If you're wondering, it wasn't Sonya or me; I sometimes get the suspicion that it could have been Jean herself. I have to wonder whether Seymour made the mistake of raising his hand to her.

Whatever, she's shacked up with a newspaper editor now, who just happens to be the editor of the same newspaper that broke the story about Seymour's misdemeanour's. She visits the girls now and again, and even takes them out with her new husband sometimes.

How do I like being a kept man? Well, I could think of worse places to be. But I've gotten used to the nice peaceful easy feelin' that I get, sitting out here on the back lawn bashing away at this keyboard, whilst my loving wife breast feeds our baby beside me.

Life goes on.