Well, It's Complicated You See
Chapter 2

Copyright© 2013 by mthommotoo

Over at the old Mason's Lodge almost every male over the age of fifteen had congregated and are sitting around a drinking out of open bottles of assorted liquors that were being handed around. There was no crime in this town tonight, as everyone is here. The practice, which had been instigated by their grandfathers, had blown up in their faces and they, the younger generation, had no reply.

When their grandfathers had returned from the war, they had returned to a town where all the women had been taken by the local army base's personnel, and who then wanted nothing to do with the returnees. After the returned troops, husbands, fathers and boyfriends, had been all snubbed often enough, all of a sudden the base was closed by the Government, as excess to peacetime requirements, and the bulk of the remaining contingent left.

Some, a very few women, went with them. Otherwise, they weren't welcome in the ex-base's personnel's home life. It only occurred to the women, too late, that they had been being used and that they needed the returnees back with them. Of course, that then became a problem. Because, by then, the men didn't want them. They had all, every one of them, been socialising in distant local towns. They had met widows, there were lots of war widows around then, girlfriends, often even other servicemen's wives and daughters, and returned to their town no longer having a need for the fickle, cheating town's women.

That's when the men began a form of guerrilla warfare against the fickle ones. Many of the local men had died overseas, and when the returned veterans first visited the wives of the dead with letters from commanding officers and keepsakes, they discovered them already either in a long term relationship to a base's man, or simply sleeping with an assortment of them. That included not just the widows, but also the returned one's own mothers, wives, fiancée and girlfriends and almost every one of the town's female adult and teenage population.

After the base's men had almost all left, these women and girls then began finding themselves pregnant, and the only men they'd had sex with for years were the base's men. There were few women who escaped this plague of maternity. Later, even ones who had literally never had sex, supposedly virgins, were finding themselves pregnant.

No one in responsible positions in the town would even investigate the women's complaints, as the town's male population had been decimated by defence requirements, and the survivors, all ex-service personnel, were all members of The Hand. An expression often used by the scornful women to the returned soldiers ("well you'd better go and use your own hand"), came back to haunt them, over and over again. The returned soldiers eventually began calling themselves The Hand or more fully, 'The Hand of Man'.

Things evened out eventually, but the men's memories were long and the learnt lesson was handed down to the sons of the returned soldiers, then to the grandsons, which is the current breeding adult population. Many of the women left the town deeply shamed and remorseful. There were few, if any, women in this town who haven't been used by The Hand of Man. It has since been proven that most, if not all, of the women had returned to their old ways, even after finally remarrying and creating permanent relationships. Unfortunately, this practice has been inherited by their daughters and lately, granddaughters who had been encouraged to do so by their mothers.

The few of the surviving returnees, and most of their sons, amounting to about twenty men in all, which included the mayor and all the judiciary, put the complete story down on paper. They had it printed during that day, then the twenty entered the town hall. The remainder of The Hand of Man, that is every male over the age of fifteen in the town, stood at attention outside in the street. As the twenty walked, marched, limped in their old age and infirmities, to the lectern, they passed bundles of the pamphlets to each seated row of women. The noise from the floor became a din and a steady chant of rapists, rapists, rapists was begun. Ninety-year-old Freddy Driscolle, still spry and complete with all his faculties, stood up to the microphone, "Minister Willis, who was your father?"

"I don't know who my father was, you disgusting old man."

"When I went to the war, I was married to your mother as a young bride and groom of three months, and when I returned after five years your mother had born you, who was four, and your two younger brothers. A soldier from the army base was billeted in my house and was sleeping in my bed. She told me when I confronted her that she had a new man and said, 'you can go use your hand, ' as she didn't want me any more. We divorced and the judge gave her my house, which I had paid for by sending every cent I earned in the Navy, home. He said that was because the children had to have a home."

"I found a new wife in Wilberforce as I did a lot of work there, and I created a new life for myself. The baseman who was with your mother, then went home when the base closed, leaving your mother and you children alone. I don't know if you are mine or not, maybe she was screwing around on me before I was called up, as the timing was too close. I don't know and I don't care anymore. But unfaithful fickle women are still paying the piper and we have little sympathy for you," he sat again as he'd had his say.

Douglas Faraday is very tall and thin but bent of shoulder and in his late nineties. He took the microphone and sat down again.

"Is Florence Sutton here? High Flo, how are you enjoying what you begun? Flo and most of the local girls decided that seeing they had their men taken away they would get what was left and available. I was married to Flo for a year before being called to serve, and when I arrived home I found she had organised the comfort girls for the base's soldiers. Almost ninety percent of the women in town used to go over to the base and make the soldiers 'welcome'. She and Gwendolyn Matthews had even organised huge shipments of condoms to be supplied to the base, which the soldiers sometimes used, but by the subsequent population explosion, often not.

"Usually thirty to forty wives and mothers and girlfriends went up to the base every night without fail and there was never a soldier who went without 'comfort'. Eventually the women took their share of preferred men home and billeted them. The soldiers were impressed that they could get all the sex they could ask for, but weren't impressed that these women would do this to their fighting men, so every condom used was riddled with pinholes.

"I don't know what the women thought would happen when their men returned, maybe they thought the war would never end, you should ask Flo and Gwen because Flo laughed in my face and I'll quote her exactly, 'tough shit, fool, use your hand.' I never got a divorce, actually, intentionally, so the woman couldn't normalise her life, though that's by-the-by, but my new faithful woman gave me six children and Flo taught me to never trust women again.

"Something very similar happened to every man you see up here. Cheryl Rhyleston nee Bender, where are you. Ah, you're in amongst the organisers, thought that may be so. Your mother died last year. Do you know who your father is? It doesn't matter who you think he is, you're wrong.

"When your grandmother's husband came home from the war, he found your grandmother playing musical beds with five trainee officers. Usually three in her bed at a time and two were sleeping with your great-aunts, her younger sisters, who your father was also supporting.

"The day your grandmother's husband, Andrew Fulton, came home, it was late and that is what he found. Unfortunately for them all, about ten of his Commando mates were with him, and they had to, badly damage, every man stationed in that house. Your grandmother was six months pregnant with your mother, and she picked a surname from one of the men who had been living there.

"Who's Andrew Fulton? You've never met him, but both of your aunts, who had both been engaged to be married to returning soldiers, were disowned by him and their one surviving fiancée, and they were thrown onto the street. Oh, you didn't know you had two older aunts. Go down to the brothel at number 4 Main Street, as they own it. Originally, they opened it and were also the opening employees. You should talk to them because no local citizen in this town uses that facility or will still talk to them. You should ask them why.

"Your mother became pregnant in your great-aunt's house after running a little short of money and she kept her husband's name for your surname. Unfortunately for her and you, he found she had been going overboard on fancy clothing so she could go out man-hunting, which is why she needed extra money, earning it on her back. She had her mother's genes, so have you.

"The one thing we taught our boys (note I didn't say 'our sons' as we usually don't know that, although that's not their fault) after they were born, is to never trust women. Love them, by all means, but never trust them. Tammy Hollows, I believe both yourself and your mother were attacked by a young bloke. He was not a member of The Hand, he was simply a rapist, who took advantage of the situation. His mates didn't know he wasn't a member.

"Your late mother, until the day your father, officially, died of cancer, had been having an affair with a minimum of two of the few base's officers who had decided to stay in town, Stanford Hollows and Phillip Rhyleston. Your mother's husband didn't die of cancer he was bashed to death by Captain Stanford Hollows, your supposed father. Stanford Hollows died of cancer in gaol for the murder of your mother's husband.

"Your lawful name is Tammy Rhyleston, half-sister to Charles, look it up at the Registrar of Births and Deaths. The body of the late and unlamented Lieutenant Phillip Rhyleston, a most prolific man, who impregnated to our knowledge, more than fifteen women in all, was buried down in the local cemetery without a headstone and without any witnesses. Your father was also legitimately the father of Cheryl Bender because he was also having sex with her mother, which is until Captain Hollows bashed Fulton because he wanted Fulton's wife. Everyone, it seems, wanted have sex with Rhyleston; but none of them stayed with him, and his progeny are everywhere.

"Phoebe Witherspoon has been having an affair with Ryan Brooks of Canton for two years. Her husband doesn't care as he doesn't even like her any more. Before Ryan, there was Bob Arthurs, before that, Andy Muirhead, and so on, he used to love you but after the tenth lover, he just gave up. How many affairs has he had Phoebe, you know that don't you? That's right, none, because as long as he is getting his end in, he doesn't care.

"Us men, don't have to have affairs because we get all the sex we want, with every woman in this town. You and Tammy started all this trouble tonight, Cheryl. Remember that delivery driver in the back of your company warehouse last year, five times wasn't it? Two months before that, the representative from the printers, you'll have to remind me of his name. Are you going to get a little hypocritical on us now are you? Ladies, we don't trust you and often barely like you, though now you're acting so very superior. Be careful what any of you say as we do know what you have been up to. Does anyone have any questions?"

Kelly stood, "Why did my father molest me?"

"Your father didn't, your mother was already pregnant when Charlie had sex with her. She had already been voluntarily with Geoff Milne three times, or more, and would do anything he said including not use protection. It's just that her pride was hurt when he left with Tammy. If you look at those photos, you will find she was awake all the time and that was why she married Charlie because I'm told he's good in bed. The other bloke there was Jimmy Garfield and he did her even before Geoff. Things are a bit iffy there, but he took her virginity we believe. On the subject of Charlie molesting you in your sleep, did you ask who was taking the photos of your father, so called, molesting you? Your mother of course but at that moment she was trying to separate you from him, so you would no longer love him. She's was planning well in ahead to divorce him. Your father was not conscious at the time these happy snaps were taken."

The women just sat there in stunned silence. The old man was raising every one of their secrets and if they whinge he'll probably only have their secrets brought up.

Marianne Willis stood, "What do you men want?"

The mayor stood as now it is his turn. "Ms Willis, we want faithful, honest wives who love us. As is blatantly obvious we don't have that, now. If your menfolk were called away again, to do their duty again, the lot of you would do exactly as your forebears did. The men had no choices in what they did. You women had all the choices in the world. An enemy could take over this city by simply walking in and dropping their collective flies, you'd fall over each other surrendering, with your legs spread and on your backs. There isn't one of you who haven't fooled around, if for no other reason other than that you could.

"It may be justifiably said that your husband is not good in bed ... maybe so, maybe so. But the only time you put some effort into your loving, is if you have got to hold the man you've got on the side, that is your lover. Your husband has to put up with a hole to masturbate into as you snore. Does anyone want to debate me on this? Is it even vaguely feasible to have faithful, honest wives who love us? Ms Willis, will you drop Carling Waterford? How about you Judith? Do you want me to name him and the ones before him while I was working long and hard hours to support you? Ladies, we watch you and you think we are such gullible fools and yet we are having sex with most of you every night, in any way we feel like it. And your upset! If any of you will be faithful, honest wives who love us, we will drop this practice as it deeply disturbs us to do it. We will leave you to your deliberations."

What the twenty men left behind was stunned silence!

Kelly eventually stood and said, "Mum, how could you?" and ran out the door.

Tammy turned to Marianne, "Who's Carling Waterford?"

"A nineteen year old work experience kid from Sydney, doing government at uni and is currently my work experience person. He gets an erection and keeps it indefinitely."

Mayor Templeton's wife Judith stood, "Marianne, you just proved the point they are trying to make. Everything they just said went in one ear and out the other, with you. Can anyone here prove they're wrong, anyone at all? Not one! It's just not right. Surely, it can't be? I think the only way we are going to get out of this is by keeping our little flings to other women, as every man seems to put their information into the head office of the men. Our own lovers don't trust us, as that is the only way they can know."

Cheryl stood, "I'm going down the road and meet my great-aunts and see if they can lend me a bed ... without me having to have sex for a living, that is."

Tammy, "I'll come with you half-sister-in-law, lets walk on the wild side for a while. Are you going to try to be faithful?"

 
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