Chapter 2: Ivor

I wondered whether there was someone I could call, as I tried to settle down with my book again.

I have four grandchildren, two of them are still nearby and they’re both bigger than Thea and Nancy. One of them is a strapping young man in fact, and the other is a substantial girl who does a bit of rowing.

But what would they think?

For one thing they’d be surprised, and no doubt disappointed, that their big granddad couldn’t handle two lightweight girls, sporty karate kickers or not.

For another, they’re of the same generation and might secretly share some of the same woke ideas about equality and food. It had to be admitted that Thea and Nancy had a certain bad-girl charisma. It could all too easily end up with my grandchildren being recruited to the dark side, and making things worse!

As for my children, they’ve already raised polite questions about my being in this big house, ‘as time passes’. Presenting myself to them as this incapable wasn’t a good idea there either.

And friends - there was definitely an issue of pride, not to mention that they’re my age and generally smaller, so it wasn’t a given they could subdue the girls in any case.

I read another few pages, mulling it over. What could I do? Simply attack them? Threaten them, with a golf club? No, in all conscience that was overreacting, wrong, immoral and illegal. Also there was the possibility that once I introduced weapons into the arena, the girls could use weapons too. These days they could have that pepper spray in their bags or even a knife. I had an idea they could be rather quick and deft with, worst case, my antique swords over the mantlepiece.

Wild ideas about firing nets, hiring a security company and building a trap flitted through my mind. Everything I could think of was absurd.

What did they want? Why were they talking about dinner and shopping?

They’d arrived because they’d gone to the park to sunbathe, been harassed, looked for somewhere else and seen my garden just handy right next door.

Then they’d been having a game hadn’t they. At my expense! Decided to see what happened if they defied me, now they were more or less full grown...

I went and got my laptop. What sport was it they said they were doing? Football, was one. I searched ... girls do play quite often now, apparently. Big clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal have women’s teams. I found myself watching some ... the standard was better than I’d expected. They run fast. Also they were rougher with each other than I’d expected! The program was presented by two slim, loud, laughing, confident girls in trainers - not unlike the two sunning themselves on my lawn.

What else? Rollerblading ... oh apparently that’s doing tricks on skates with the wheels in a line, in big concrete bowls, like flipping right over as they come out. Or skating recklessly on roads, in traffic or sometimes downhill at excessive speeds. Some girls proudly show off their injuries!

Skateboards ... similar kind of thing, but on boards they stand on, or deliberately don’t stand on sometimes. They certainly need a lot of balance, and courage. Falling is expected.

Bouldering ... climbing - without a safety rope. How had I guessed! Falling was routine again, just onto a thin-looking mattress placed hopefully underneath. Though the girls seemed to survive unhurt. Their backs and shoulders tended to have muscles all over them, and they were utterly lean, often showing off with skin-tight leggings and tiny tops.

So, add in karate and what was I up against?

If I was honest - and of course I do like to be - they were not like girls as I knew them, back in the day. These were risk-takers, on their own account not looking for a boy. Or they might have boys - there’d have been a queue I had to suspect - but in the background of their lives not their focus. Their long hair could be in a ponytail in a moment, flying behind them.

They liked something to be happening, and in this case the something was me: enlivening their rather static sunbathing with a challenge - in some ways a physical challenge, with my being a large male. They’d provoked me into grabbing Nancy, and then into trying to block her and to pull her aside.

I became a magistrate for my sense of justice. In fairness - if I made the effort to be fair - they had shown a sense of justice too: about this largely underused space and about the hapless chickens. And perhaps about how I had expected to use my size against them.

So, after all, I could try engaging with them?

As I calmed down, this became the obvious way forward: don’t let it become a fight, then they’d lose interest and leave. I strolled out into the garden to offer them afternoon tea.

There they were, right in the middle of the lawn. Or one of them? I hadn’t bothered with my glasses so at first I was wondering where the other one was. I looked around, not seeing her.

“Hello Ivor,” it was Thea I saw, as I drew nearer, with the mass of brown hair ... Oh!

“Ivor,” Nancy laughed, kneeling up from being intimate with her. Her modestly sized breasts stared brazenly at me while she swept long blonde hair behind one ear. Underneath Nancy, Thea’s small, firm breasts presented themselves with equally brazen immodesty.

I focused on Nancy’s magnetic, challenging face to keep my gaze away from her nether region, which I’d momentarily registered was featuring not a bikini but a triangle of pubic hair! On top of the thigh she was straddling!

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” I pointed an outraged finger. “In the middle of the lawn!!”

“Nude sex, Ivor,” Thea was grinning too.

“Naked,” added Nancy.

“Unmarried,” Thea smirked.

“Underage too!” Nancy was moving suggestively, right in front of me.

“Lesbian!” Thea continued the taunting double act.

“Right out in the open,” Nancy was leaning over, pulling her hair forward and swaying from side to side to make it brush over Thea’s swelling nipples. I had to close my eyes to shut out the shocking spectacle.

Everything they were doing wrong, they were proud of! It made accusing them impossible. “You are an absolute disgrace!” was the best I could manage. I turned on my heel and strode back to the house.

I knew they were deliberately provoking me, but I couldn’t help being provoked. Sex is not something to flaunt, out in the open. It’s private. Not to say, it’s about love between a man and a woman, having a family, bringing in the next generation and keeping the human race going!

The whole of society is going downhill, with all this social media, artificial intelligence, wokeness, gender tomfoolery, and now girls wearing nothing in other people’s gardens...

I sat down to write a brisk letter to my MP: It’s time the government concentrated on educating girls properly and enforcing standards, so decent people aren’t getting their homes invaded by violent teenage lesbians!...

I was on my third draft, realising I had to tone it down a bit, when the reprobates in question strolled in. They had clothes on this time. I say ‘clothes’, but in terms of being dressed it was a partial effort. The skirts were bright, short and skin tight, the tops were bright, short and loose, and the almost entirely bare, neatly muscled legs ended in ostentatious trainers - without socks.

“Ready?” asked Thea.

“If you think I’m going shopping with you dressed like that, you’ve got another thing coming!” I snapped.

“Oh go on Ivor,” Nancy giggled.

“What’s this ‘Ivor’ nonsense?” I fell for it.

“Ivor Biggun, geddit?” Thea pointed between my legs, with the inevitable laugh.

“Never you mind what size I might be!” I got the corny joke.

“It does bulge quite a bit,” Nancy was looking there too.