After Vicki’s stupendous orgasm we all made a big fuss of her. It had been a rite of passage, really, and everyone had been impressed by its ferocity, including Vicki herself of course. And it had changed her.

I hadn’t known her up to now, but it was obvious that she’d been quite uptight about things - especially about her sister! But she’d come a long way in half a day, and it had ended in her getting a rise out of Lettie, which had given them the basis for a truce. Now I hoped she just needed some time and affection to continue the transformation.

Graham Harris pretty quickly left, unnerved by the realisation that if Vicki HAD told someone about what was going on here he’d have been in prison for a long time. I could imagine him wondering how he’d ever allowed Lettie to talk him into coming! Perhaps she’d stood with her tits projecting out at him, explaining that Janie Simmonds and Ella Green were hanging out naked with her and they needed a man? I could only smile at the thought; though he was right about the risk.

Vicki wasn’t going to tell anyone now of course, but I could see how easily word could seep out. Personally I was going to risk it though! Not being their teacher I’d have less jail time, and having lived a good proportion of my life there seemed to be less at stake. Also I’d got away with a month already and in my mind that was worth a couple of years in prison.

Anyway Vicki stayed, we hung out nude by the pool, had a meal, then Seeta and Ella got dressed and I ran them home with their bikes in the back of my car, which these days is a people-carrier for just such occasions.

I dropped off Ella at the end of her road, and then Seeta at the end of hers.

It turned out that was careless.

The next evening we were lying around, with Vicki over again, when Lettie’s phone went. She looked at it and answered: “Hi Seet!”

I watched her stiffen as she listened, looking more and more alarmed. “Your own sister? Your mother?”

She listened some more, increasingly disbelieving. “Pakistan? Married? But how can you marry someone at your age? ... kill you? ... you’re kidding! ... just because you did something with a girl? ... No Seet, seriously, this is your own family, how could that be honourable? ... Seet? Seeta?” She took the phone from her ear to confirm the line had gone dead.

“Shit!” She jumped up. “Someone came so she had to ring off. Somebody saw her being dropped off last night, it’s like everyone’s a cousin or uncle or something, in the whole street, and word got back to her family and they’ve grilled her all afternoon, all her brothers and parents and sister, about who was the white guy and why was she in his car, till she told them about here and the lezzie sex.

“But les is a sin in Islam and now she has to marry someone because of something called izzat otherwise people won’t respect her family and won’t even talk to them, like at the mosque. So she has to go to Pakistan and be married. Even though she’s hardly even been there. They can marry her over there, even though she’s so young and doesn’t want it.”

“Let’s call the police!” gasped Vicki in alarm.

“There hasn’t been a crime yet,” Lettie pointed out, “they won’t do anything and the family will just hide her and take her anyway. And if they can’t marry her off they might kill her, she said, for bringing shame on the family. And anyway how are we going to explain it?”

“It is hard to believe,” I said, “I’ve heard about that kind of thing though. Hard for us to understand, but it does happen. Izzat is a cultural thing, it can be pretty powerful.”

“We have to do something,” said Janie.

“Quick!” added Lettie.

We put clothes on and all piled into the car. We would go and talk to them, at least. We couldn’t just not do anything, as Janie said. The girls would go together and call as Seeta’s friends.

As I drove Lettie called Ella who called someone for Seeta’s address, and by seven thirty we were pulling up two houses down from it. It was a little terraced house in a street of them. I stayed in the car, out of the way but able to see, while the girls went up to the door.

Lettie rang and a man opened the door. He looked about forty perhaps, on the small side, half bald but with a big black beard. He didn’t invite the girls in, and I saw Lettie’s usual hand-waving as she talked, obviously asking for Seeta.

The man came out of his doorway making the girls step back, said something, and waved them away. When they didn’t leave he waved harder and more dismissively, then went back in and closed the door.

Lettie pressed the bell again. Nothing happened and she started pressing it over and over again. Inside it would be going ‘ding-dong’ or something every time.

She kept it up relentlessly for a good minute, until the door opened again. Three young men came out of the house and stood around the girls on the pavement. Sons, I guessed, in their mid and late teens. The father followed as far as the doorway.

I would have to get involved after all. I got out and started walking the few yards to the house, trying to ready myself for a confrontation, which is not my thing at all.

I heard what looked like the eldest son getting into it, crowding Lettie, looking down at her: “It’s nothing to do with you. Mind your own business.”

“But we just want to see her,” Lettie had the determined tone she takes on when she isn’t getting what she wants, “why won’t you let us? She’s here isn’t she? So why not? We’re just friends from school.”

“We know what you are,” said the boy, who looked about eighteen, “fucking white trash lezzies. Fuck off, it’s all because of you in the first place.”

“Yeah go on,” said the middle boy, “fuck off.” He gave Lettie a shove, then Janie. The girls staggered back a step, along the pavement, but didn’t retreat any further.

“Go on,” added the youngest, “before we show you about proper sex.”

“No need to get physical,” I got in before Lettie could retort, making the family notice me for the first time. The three boys turned towards me, as I went past drawing them away from the girls to the other side of the door. For the first time ever I felt a red mist. A real one. Seeta’s fears looked all too well-founded.

Two of the boys were shorter than my average five feet nine, and one was about the same height; all of them lightly built but acting like a gang. The father came out of the doorway towards me so that they formed a line in front of me.

They absolutely weren’t going to let us see Seeta, that was all over their attitude. We were aliens, and a threat. Interfering. Were they also a bit afraid?

But now we’d made an issue of it, surely that desperate phone call meant that if we left her Seeta might not be here the next time. It was either get her, right now, or abandon her.

“This is official,” I said, surprisingly myself by sounding quite tough, and pushed quickly between two of them to the open doorway. It’s a cliche but the element of surprise IS key. Nobody expected me to go into the house, and my tone made them hesitate. In a moment I was through the door.

I slammed it shut, turned the key and ran up the stairs two at a time. My instinct was that Seeta would be banished from downstairs and alone in her bedroom, and my red mist said nothing was going to stop me getting her out of there.

I opened three doors in quick succession ... there was Seeta, looking out of the window, luckily fully dressed.

I didn’t waste time explaining. “Come with me quick,” I said, and towed her out onto the landing by one wrist, feeling no resistance. In the brighter light of the landing I saw both sides of her face were reddened and swollen. Men, or women, her own family, had been hitting this small young girl...

I ran down the stairs, still towing Seeta, who kept her balance somehow. At the bottom now were two Pakistani-looking women, about to open the door that was being banged on. A girl and a woman. They wisely stepped back as I arrived and I lost track of them.

I dropped Seeta’s hand and opened the door. It was about fifteen or twenty seconds since I’d come in, and the four males were clustered round the doorway, while Lettie, Janie and Vicki stared from behind them.

The first one was the father. Seeta’s own father, and I was having to rescue her from him. I poked him in both eyes with two fingers of my right hand hand, pulled him into the doorway by his shirt with my left, and while his hands flailed towards his eyes I punched him in the temple with a crude, instinctive roundhouse right. He sank to his knees, clutching the door frame.

I braced my hands on the door frame, half-jumped past him through the doorway, and kicked straight-legged at the knee of the nearest boy. It was the eldest son. I registered a solid contact, resistance that gave way, him going down, and my focus was moving on.

My momentum carried me forwards and I grabbed the right arm of the middle boy. He punched me weakly in the face with his left but that meant he was off-balance. I whirled him with that momentum, one circuit and then into brick wall of the house. His head hit the wall and he clutched it, bending over. He wasn’t unconscious but he wasn’t a threat now either.

Dimly I registered Lettie pulling Seeta out of the hallway into the street, and then running with her and Janie and Vicki up towards the car.

The youngest son was trying to kick me, keeping his distance. I rushed him, grabbed him by the throat, turned and pushed him up the wall. He was only fourteen or fifteen, but this was the one who’d threatened to ‘show Lettie and Janie and Vicki about proper sex’. He was lightly built and my strength seemed limitless. I have pretty reasonable upper-body strength these days but it was more rage than anything. He didn’t even try to defend himself; rather I fought with myself to control how hard I squeezed his neck.

“Tell the others,” I snarled into his face, “I will kill you. I can, and I will. Not just me, but my army mates. If I hear from you, if Seeta disappears, anything happens, anything at all, I will kill all of you. Understand?”

There are no army mates of course, but he wasn’t to know that. He nodded, terrified. Quite rightly because I was in a killing rage. I felt like I didn’t need any mates to dismember all of them on my own.

“Don’t get brave,” I ranted on, “after I’ve gone. Don’t think you can get others involved and win. We have guns. People in places. OK? I wouldn’t mind killing you, you can believe that can’t you? People who’d kill their own daughter and sister; just for trying a relationship. You don’t deserve life. Honour? Izzat? You SCUM. Make sure everyone understands.”

He stared at me in terror and hatred. I hated him right back. I closed my grip on his throat, tighter and tighter so he could feel death in the offing. Then I managed to get hold of myself and let him go; he turned away, gurgling and retching.

People were starting to come out of other houses in the street. I realised the eldest had screamed when I ruptured his knee. He was writhing on the ground.

I ran to the car, where Lettie was getting everyone in. In a few seconds we were driving down the street, past the gathering crowd of people outside Seeta’s house.

“Are you all OK?” I asked.

Nobody said anything. I looked at Vicki in the passenger seat next to me and she recoiled slightly. I looked in the mirror and caught Lettie’s eye. Even she was scared of me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to find my normal quiet voice. I was hoarse, my throat stinging painfully, telling me how hard I’d been shouting.

“Sorry,” I said again, “I lost my temper.” Still nobody said anything. I took a deep breath and tried to work out what to say. Not coming up with anything I drove us home in silence.

Once we were back in the pool room Janie put her arms round Seeta, who looked too shocked to cry.

“I didn’t know,” said Vicki.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Lettie understood her sister was feeling responsible, irrationally but instinctively, “Seeta came here to find out about it, she was going to do it with someone.”

“It’s not any of us, it’s them,” said Janie, “look at your face,” she indicated Seeta’s face which had clearly been slapped hard and repeatedly.

“I’m sorry I dropped you off there,” I apologised, “it was too close.”

“It’s alright,” murmured Seeta, “I ought to have said. I’m sorry I made all this trouble. I just wanted to try it. It didn’t seem wrong, here.”

“It’s not wrong,” said Lettie, “it’s just their stupid superstition ... sorry are you a Muslim? I don’t even know.”

“Not really,” Seeta shook her head, “I have to go to prayers but I don’t really believe in it. There are always arguments about it. My brothers are on at me to wear a hijab now, like my sister, but I won’t it’s stupid. I looked it up: you have to wear one in some countries, but you don’t in other countries, or you have to wear something else. It’s not really from Allah they just make it up, so they can tell girls what to do all the time...”

The words poured out now.

“They were mad about David, in case I’d been with a white boy, cos I mix at school, and I couldn’t think how to explain it and they got more and more suspicious and angry so in the end I told them it was only with girls not boys; it seemed better but it wasn’t they went mad and said it’s homosexuality and a sin and hit me and said nobody must know, it would be a disgrace on the family, and I’d have to leave and be married or just die ... then they caught me phoning you so it was even worse...” A few tears started and she wiped them away.

“Just as well you lost your temper,” Janie smiled at me as she cuddled Seeta. Janie is someone with a lot of loyalty. I raised a smile back.

“It’s not like me,” I apologised again.

“It worked,” said Lettie, looking hard into my eyes. “I never knew you were like that though. It was scary.”

“Yes, sorry,” I said again, “I was just desperate. To scare them off.” I had been too. But full of hate as well. I hadn’t known I could be like that either. It wasn’t like me at all. Now I was thinking I could probably have got Seeta out of there without nearly strangling a teenage boy.

Well ... I had no experience of fighting. Perhaps I’d been afraid that anything less than berserk might have failed and Seeta would have been basically enslaved in Pakistan, or even murdered by her own mother and father and siblings. Incredible, but I knew it happened ... perhaps berserk had been what was needed. The main thing had been not to fail, and in truth I didn’t feel any empathy with the people I’d hurt, I just didn’t like being the person I’d been. I wished I’d stopped once I’d stunned the second boy, when I could have just walked off.

Anyway at least the police weren’t going to be after me - Seeta’s family weren’t going to call them and have the ‘sin’ all over the papers, nor their daughter’s bruised face.

We sat round for the rest of the evening, supporting Seeta, and my alienation gradually wore off as I suppose my normal placid self reassured the girls. I went through a shaky period that I guessed was mild shock and Janie noticed at least, but nobody said anything. Everyone was feeling quiet, dealing with that violent scene, but the girls seemed to be coping at least as well as me, to my relief.

One thing came into my mind: “So are your sister and brothers at the school?” I asked Seeta. There’s really only one big state secondary school in the town.

“Yes but they don’t mix with us,” Lettie answered, “they go round together, that sort of them, they’re the biggest racists going. We don’t even know their names.”

Janie and Vicki were nodding. I thought it seemed a shame. And what was Seeta supposed to do, torn between two camps? I wondered if the hijab thing was part of that; it would tend to separate her from the white kids, I was sure.

“We’re going to get to know them though, next term,” Lettie added with menace in her voice suddenly, “we’re not going to have them saying that to us. Our guys will have a word.” I could imagine Lettie and Janie would have some big friends. “And we’ll make sure they know Seeta’s one of us, and if they ever want to be able to have kids they’d better leave her alone,” she finished.

“I never knew you were scary like that,” I said with a grin.

“Touché,” she smiled back. I felt somewhat rehabilitated.

We did our best to make Seeta feel cared for, then quite early we put her to bed in the spare room. Vicki went home over the road, and I went to my bed while Lettie and Janie went to theirs.

I woke next morning trying to work out what to do with Seeta. She could stay here, in terms of space, but who might look for her? How would we work it with the authorities? I didn’t want any risk of her being put back in her family and I didn’t want her in a council care home either, with all the stories of what can happen there.

And would the family leave it alone now or would they come after her?

I had a suspicion that once the fright had worn off they’d be left with their original desire to control and punish her. Well ... to get rid of her in fact. This izzat honour thing probably still applied; more than ever perhaps with her being taken away by non-Muslims.

Over breakfast we looked it up: a big part of izzat is revenge. Damn.

“There are some Muslims at school who’re alright, I can ask?” suggested Lettie.

We all agreed and she went off to phone in the quiet of the dining room.

“We can talk to one of their imams,” she said when she came back, “that’s like a priest. Faisal says his is a good guy and he’ll ask if he’ll talk to us and then Seeta’s family’s imam and perhaps get it sorted out.”

So later on we went back into town, just me and Seeta, and Lettie who is not easy to leave out of things. The imam was indeed a kind and gentle man, not that old, and he listened carefully while we told him what had happened.

He said little, which was impressive, and didn’t condemn Seeta when she hesitantly told him about doing ‘it’ with girls. She wisely didn’t mention sucking off a boy. At the end he put his fingertips together.

“I will talk to their imam,” he said, “it is a familiar problem, that families have these conflicts - the parents come with their traditional culture and then their children who are born here have a different experience and see everything differently. Some children keep the traditional ways, some don’t. It is their temperament, more than anything.

“I have to tell you homosexuality is indeed a sin under Islam, though attitudes are changing, but slowly. But I will talk to their imam and we will see what can be done. Is she safe in the meantime?”

I explained she could stay with Lettie, and left him my number.

The next afternoon he called and we went back, to meet both the imams. It wasn’t quite so sympathetic this time.

“Seeta’s family is a traditional family,” said the original imam, “from North-West Pakistan. This sin is a great shame on them. However we have told them it would be un-Islamic to kill her and a sin itself.”

“She must marry,” intoned the new imam with a heavy accent, “that is the only way she can become respectable and avoid shaming her family.” He was older and severe. I presumed he was from some stricter mosque.

“She’s too young to marry,” I said, calmly but trying to be definite, “even in Pakistan, legally, surely? And she’s here and a British citizen. It would be a crime to take her out of the country for a forced marriage. Just as it was a crime to assault her.” I indicated Seeta’s face which was a little less swollen today but had some visible bruising.

“You must understand that we can advise, but traditions can be strong...” the old imam glowered disapprovingly at me.

We all looked at each other.

“I don’t want to marry anyone,” said Seeta, “I don’t want to go to Pakistan and I’m not going home either. They said they’d kill me.”

“Of course you can’t go back,” Lettie stated flatly, “and you don’t have to do you?” She looked meaningfully at me. I could feel all the ingredients for her to have a go at the older imam, but she was resisting the temptation. It gave me strength.

“No she doesn’t.” I’d made up my mind. It was clear even the imams didn’t think she’d be safe there.

“She’s staying with me.” I said. “If she disappears it will be obvious who did it. I will make sure it’s a story in the media: another forced marriage or another Muslim honour killing. More bad press for Islamic communities everywhere. Perhaps you could explain to the family that their shame will be far greater? ... And that at the moment nobody else knows about her harmless little experiment...”

There was a pause.

“If she is not seen and nothing is said about her, no-one will enquire,” grunted the older imam ungraciously, “it will be as if she has gone to Pakistan to visit her grandparents, perhaps. I will explain to her family they must forget her, for the good of the community and Islam.”

The younger one nodded sagely.

I nodded with them. “She stays with us, then. We’ll see about another school.”

It wasn’t until we got back and told Janie, and Vicki and Ella who had come round anxious to know how it had gone, that it started to sink in that I had pretty much adopted a girl.

At least I wasn’t doing it alone through. Everyone clustered round Seeta.

“You need a new family,” said Vicki, for once getting in before Lettie, “and I’m going to be your big sister.” She gave Seeta a kiss and hugged her.

“Me too,” said Janie, stroking Seeta’s ass.

“And me,” added Lettie, “and David’ll be your dad, won’t you?” She looked at me.

“Yes I will,” I stroked Seeta’s long black hair. The situation brought back feelings from when my two sons had been this age, though Seeta was so much more vulnerable of course. I loved my sons, though secretly I rather regretted their emigrating, and I wouldn’t have minded a daughter too.

“Thank you,” Seeta smiled at us all. She wasn’t as emotional as I’d been expecting. It made me wonder how close her family life had been, though she seemed to be a pretty resilient character anyway.

“I’m going to be your best friend,” Ella smiled her beautiful smile and I saw Seeta react as Ella eased her arm into the huddle. It was instinct for us all to make space for Ella, and in a moment the two youngest girls were cuddling gently, Ella’s arms round Seeta’s shoulders while she rocked her gently to and fro.

They are about the same height and Seeta’s face slid naturally alongside Ella’s, nose to ear. Ella’s broad shoulders enveloped Seeta’s narrow ones, and as we looked at the two nestling together we all sensed the same thing and moved away, leaving them to it. Intimacy was probably the best therapy.

Lettie started undressing and Janie did too. In a minute their two made-for-sex bodies were lying together on the mats.

“I think I’ll have a swim,” I said to Vicki, and started stripping too. She stood looking while I took my clothes off and slid into the pool.

I swam a couple of lengths, enjoying the feel of the water sluicing over my skin. A pair of feet appeared on the bottom, under two slender, sexily-shaped legs, topped by a triangular brown bush and a delectable smooth ass. I stopped and stood up.

Above the water were the rest of Vicki’s lithe body: neat little waist - which is absolutely lean and flat - her firm B-cup tits, lovely square shoulders, narrow neck and gorgeous face, along with her long brown hair. I noticed her features again for some reason. Perhaps because there was a different expression on them from before.

Her face is a touch less round than Lettie’s, with a bit less dimple and more cheekbone. Her eyes are a darker brown than Lettie’s hazel, but with some green in them. Her mouth was a delicious shape now it wasn’t curled down in disapproval. She is, as Janie had observed, like a fashion model who is only five foot five.

I was curious that she wasn’t more confident, though I supposed having Lettie for a sister couldn’t be easy, if Vicki had this feeling that she ought to be senior. Anyway her hangups didn’t make her a bad person. Seeta’s ‘big sister’. I smiled at her.

“I’m sorry I was a bit off yesterday, after your fight,” she smiled back, “you were right. It was amazing, actually. Now here she is, safe, when otherwise...” we both looked at Seeta and Ella, who were still cuddling.

“I don’t know anyone,” she carried on, “who’d have done that - just gone for it and not been fobbed off and argued and waited till it was too late; just gone straight in and got her and then fought them all, like nothing mattered apart from saving her. And then making sure, seeing the imams and having her here. It’s like, I don’t know ... wonderful.”

It was a little dazzling to have this from a girl who looks like Vicki. I am not any kind of hero whatsoever, I’d just lost it. I scoured my meagre social skills for something to say back.

“It was nice of you to say you’ll be her big sister,” I offered.

“She’ll be an easier little sister than Lettie,” she grinned.

“I bet. I don’t think anyone could be a BIG sister to Lettie.” I felt a grateful reaction somehow.

We watched Lettie and Janie cuddling nudely together.

“They make it look very natural,” Vicki murmured.

“They do, don’t they?” Their naked bodies were clearly giving each other a lot of pleasure. “And so do Ella and Seeta.”

Ella and Seeta had hit it off straight away, two days ago; well perhaps they’d been friends before, I wasn’t sure. Now they were stripping too, the golden-tanned blonde and the light-brown Asian looked amazing together. Ella’s little hand cupped one of Seeta’s plump breasts and started to fondle it. Seeta pushed it forwards a little, loving the sensation, the nipple sticking out looking half an inch long.

“Do you ... do it ... with them all?” Vicki’s voice was so low I had to move towards her to catch it. I realised that was the idea: it was to be a private conversation.

“Not all,” I found myself murmuring too, “and not Seeta. Just the ones who want to - safely, because I’ve had a vasectomy now, but some of them just want to look, or play with it and see what it feels like.”

“Do you with Lettie?”

It was a question loaded with issues.

“Yes, we do.”

“Cos I thought she was girls-only.”

“Well she is otherwise, as far as I know, but somehow it just works between us.”

“I can imagine.” Vicki paused. “She just does what she wants.”

“I know,” I smiled back, “you can’t pigeonhole her; she’s not like everyone else.”

“Everyone thinks she’s so special. She’s so clever. Even Mum and Dad prefer her to me...” Her mouth had turned down again.

“Oh no!” I blurted, alarmed, “I’m sure that’s not how it is. She’s over here because your mum and dad find her difficult, I think. You mustn’t think every difference between you is an advantage for her. Not everyone wants a human tornado all the time.”

“You do though. I think you love her. The way you look at her, and talk about her.”

“Well...” I felt a bit cornered. I didn’t want Vicki adding me to some list of people she imagined preferred Lettie to her. But I hardly knew Vicki. And do I ‘love’ Lettie? I realised at some levels I probably do. And Janie too. They are special to me. Some of my berserk rage had been about the threat to them.

I realised I mustn’t deny it, anyway: “Yes I do love her, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love other people too, and more normal people, like Janie; and Seeta in time I expect. It’s not like being ‘in love’ with just one person when you’re marrying someone. You can love a lot of people.”

Vicki’s hand touched my arm. “You’re a loving person, I think. You know - affectionate. That’s what’s so attractive. You went mad because of what that boy said. And it’s part of how you do sex, that you feel like that about them, Lettie and Janie, and Ella. And Seeta too, just because she’d been here.”

It was a little bit of a challenge, somehow. Perhaps the way I was looking at her was giving her confidence. And she was standing rather close to me.

“Thank you,” I replied weakly.

“It’s funny, that you’ve fucked me, you know, but here I am having to seduce you.”

I just grinned inanely at the lovely girl. She was being quite confident now, giving me a seductive look. She was so different I couldn’t think what to say.

I felt her fingers go round my cock; it made me jerk so that ripples spread out across the pool.

We both sensed a movement, and glanced over to the mats: Lettie and Janie were sitting up looking, big smiles on their faces.

“Can we go somewhere, please?” asked Vicki. She didn’t want to do it with Lettie watching, for some reason.

Well, I reflected, perhaps most people would feel like that, if they weren’t yet into the sex-mad culture Lettie had built here. Or possibly Vicki was afraid she wouldn’t be as good at it as her sister.

We got out and towelled off, then I led Vicki out into the garden. We walked round, nude, and she took my hand in the late afternoon sunshine while I waited for her to move things on in whatever direction it was she wanted.