The Swap, Part I
by Wabbitboy, Decca555@aol.com
Quarrelling neighbours come to an unusual arrangement


On the face of it, the two women should have been the best of 
friends. Their experiences had been almost identical. Both were 
middle-aged, both had been deserted by their husbands, and they'd 
both struggled to bring up their sons alone. But maybe that was it. 
Perhaps they were too similar. Life had been tough, and the drive to 
succeed gave them a competitive edge. But while Mrs Cotterell had 
sought to 'better' herself, Mrs Rawlins remained defiantly down-at-
heel. Her boarded-up windows and weed-ridden garden remained a 
constant affront to the sensibilities of her genteel neighbour.

The two women had barely spoken to each other for the past five years 
and when they did speak it was inevitably to snap out a complaint. 
And now, in the depths of the hottest summer anyone could remember, 
the simmering feud was about to catch fire.

It was the smell of woodsmoke which first brought Mrs Cotterell to 
her backdoor. She could barely see her own backyard for the thick, 
grey clouds drifting lazily from next door's garden. Her neighbour's 
son, Vince, was piling heaps of rubbish Ñ old wooden crates, a busted 
kitchen chair Ñ onto a clumsily stacked bonfire.

"Excuse me!" called Mrs Cotterell, but Vince was too busy ripping 
apart a flimsy old chest of drawers to reply. "Young man!"

Mrs Cotterell knew his name well enough. Vince casually let drop the 
plywood drawer he was struggling with and, without looking up, let 
out a quietly resigned sigh. Always something to bitch about, he 
thought, another scene, another shouting match. It was then he 
noticed the washing - pristine white sheets, naturally, now specked 
with black - strung out on Mrs Cotterell's line. It hadn't been 
deliberate. Vince was just thoughtless, and really not too bright. He 
groaned quietly to himself and waited for Mrs Cotterell's ritual 
complaint.

"I simply don't believe that anyone could be so inconsiderate!" she 
began, matter-of-factly, "except that it's not inconsiderate, is it? 
You just have to wait until the worst possible time."

Vince squirmed. To be honest, he didn't have a leg to stand on, but 
after so many years of constant whingeing he wasn't about to cave in.

"It's a bit of smoke. Big fuckin deal."

Mrs Cotterell squinted through the acrid fug. The skinny youth 
represented everything she despised, slouching about the backyard 
with his long, unkempt hair, faded jeans, battered old trainers 
flopping about without laces or socks, arms ringed with cheap tattoos 
and Ñ worst of all Ñ the piercings. She was driven to irrational 
distraction by the sight of the youth's nose stud, his eyebrow ring 
and, in these stripped-to-the-waist summer months, his nipple ring. 
The crude, cocky sexuality he exuded represented a constant affront 
to Mrs Cotterell's prissy gentility. At nineteen, Vince was almost a 
year younger than Mrs Cotterell's own son, Mark. Although an outsider 
might have had difficulty distinguishing the boys' social class, Mrs 
Cotterell remained convinced that her Mark lived in a wholly 
different world.

Vince swept the long, dark, sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, 
slipped the rubber band from his ponytail and began nonchalantly to 
rewind it around his tidied hank of hair. The studied show of cool 
insolence was just about the worst way he could have added insult to 
injury.

"And I certainly don't appreciate that kind of language. I've made a 
perfectly civilised, and valid, complaint. It's typical of your kind 
that I should receive a mouthful of obscenities."

"Whatever." mumbled Vince, quietly seething at 'your kind'. Mrs 
Cotterell returned, muttering, to her house while Vince continued to 
dismember cheap furniture, slightly disappointed by the anticlimax.

But it wasn't long before the confrontation was resumed. Mrs 
Cotterell reappeared carrying a large, and obviously very heavy, 
metal bucket full of water. She clanked it down heavily on the low 
brick wall between the gardens and, with surprising agility, 
clambered over. To Vince's amazement, she emptied the contents of the 
bucket onto the bonfire in one deft movement. It wasn't only the 
speed with which she had doused the fire, but the ease with which she 
handled the weighty bucket. Vince was impressed and, to be honest, 
enjoying the way the situation was escalating. A good old slanging 
match was on the cards.

"You are just so out of order, lady." muttered Vince as clouds of 
steam hissed and billowed, "Your kind, you think you own the place. 
Well, you've got just five seconds to get the fuck off our 
property..."

Although Mrs Cotterell had successfully doused the fire, she had no 
intention of being ordered about by this arrogant little sod. She 
stood her ground.

"...before I call the law." continued Vince.

And that was it.

A scruffy, tattooed low-life threatening Mrs Cotterell with the 
police was beyond comprehension. She made an impulsive lunge for the 
lad.

Twenty years of looking after old folk, a daily routine of lifting 
and carrying, had given Mrs Cotterell a powerful physique. More 
powerful than Vince could ever have expected, or have coped with. 
Without plan or thought, Mrs Cotterell had grabbed the boy's wrists 
and yanked them suddenly downwards, bringing Vince to his knees. He 
twisted and squirmed but the older woman's grip was rock solid.

"I think you owe me an apology."

"Go fuck yourself" began Vince, but Mrs Cotterell flung the boy hard 
to the ground and fell to her knees astride him. Once again she 
grabbed his wrists and pinioned him to the rough concrete.

"An apology, please, Vincent."

Mrs Cotterell was beginning to feel almost light-headed with the 
sense of exhilaration as years of pent-up resentment were finally 
given voice. The surly, aggressive youth who sneered from his 
rubbish-strewn backyard was pinned helplessly beneath her and she was 
damn well determined to get her apology.

Yet still he sneered, even now.

"Yeh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry we got a stuck-up old sod like you livin 
next door."

The boy remained smugly defiant, seemingly willing just to lie there, 
grinning. Mrs Cotterell shook the youth's wrists in a totally futile 
gesture of frustration, but this was stalemate. She let go, and sat 
back on her haunches. Vince pulled away from under her weight. He 
cocked his head to one side and grinned: "Five seconds, OK?"

Mrs Cotterell remained very, very still, feeling her weight and her 
balance. Vince was beginning to stand. The woman judged the moment 
carefully. The tightness of the boy's jeans gave her an easy target. 
As Vince raised himself, Mrs Cotterell shot her fist into the bulge 
of his groin.

The high-pitched yelp brought Mrs Rawlins to the back bedroom window. 
For a while, she couldn't quite make out what was happening. Vince 
and her next-door-neighbour seemed to be squirming on the ground 
together. "What's that mad bitch up to now?" she thought.

Mrs Cotterell determined that the only way to undermine Vince's 
arrogance was to humiliate him. She wrenched the lad's hands from his 
groin as he writhed on the ground, and grabbed at his leather belt, 
quickly unfastening the buckle. Undoing the button of his jeans, she 
unzipped his fly and began to tug his jeans down around his thighs.

"Do you feel like apologising yet?" she grinned, one hand easily 
slipping off his battered, unlaced trainers. Vince's jeans were tight 
and Mrs Cotterell had to struggle to tug them down his skinny thighs. 
The boy was beginning to fight back. Mrs Cotterell needed to take 
serious control, and urgently. Vince's white briefs presented her 
with a too-easy target. She suddenly yanked his legs apart and her 
fist hard into his sore balls. Vince spasmed, gasped and doubled up 
in agony. Now he was helpless enough for the woman to take her time, 
tugging and pulling at his jeans until she finally freed them from 
his body.

Mrs Cotterell hooked one arm around the dazed youth's waist and, 
hoisting him from the ground, deftly slipped off his briefs and flung 
them across the garden. She let his naked form fall heavily and with 
a contemptuous flick of her right foot, rolled him onto his back. The 
victorious woman stood back to survey her conquest, spreadeagled 
before her, naked and vulnerable. As Vince struggled to focus his 
addled brain, Mrs Cotterell studied his prone form, the tattoos on 
his pale, skinny legs and the small silver ring piercing his 
foreskin. Her lip curled in contempt. She planted a foot heavily on 
his chest.

"I believe I was asking you for an apology."

Vince attempted to rise, but Mrs Cotterell's foot slammed him back to 
the ground.

"An apology please, Vincent, before you get up."

The boy drew his knees up and tried to cup his hands over his aching 
groin.

"OK, OK..."

"Was that supposed to be an apology?"

Vincent mumbled incoherently.

"I AM VERY SORRY, MRS COTTERELL." prompted the woman, pressing her 
foot so hard down into the boy's chest that he could barely breathe.

"sorry... Mrs Cotterell..." was all Vince could gasp out, no trace of 
arrogant cockiness as tears welled in his eyes. It was enough for Mrs 
Cotterell, satisfied by the boy's obvious humiliation. She lifted her 
foot from him and sat down on the low brick wall.

Vince slowly sat up, coyly holding his legs together, and reached for 
his clothes. He got to his feet, unsteadily, clutching his jeans in 
front of him, and bent to pick up his trainers. Mrs Cotterell quickly 
grabbed a length  of plywood from the drawer Vince had been ripping 
apart. She couldn't resist the opportunity of laying a loud slap on 
the lad's bare arse.

"Cover yourself up, for God's sake." she snapped. Vince didn't wait. 
He hurriedly stumbled, still naked, clumsily dropping his trainers, 
into the house, leaving the doors wide open.

Mrs Cotterell sat back down on the wall, smiling to herself, 
listening to the sound of Vince's heavy footfalls up the wooden 
stairs and the loud slam of his bedroom door. A wisp of smoke still 
hung over the sodden bonfire.

Up at the bedroom window, Mrs Rawlins had watched everything. 
Constantly on the point of rushing down into the garden to sort out 
her neighbour, she hadn't made a move. An uneasy fascination 
outweighed the guilt she felt for not going to her son's aid. The 
woman's strength was intriguing, and Mrs Rawlins was even forced to 
admit to herself a grudging admiration. But all the same, Mrs 
Cotterell had overstepped the boundary.

And Mrs Rawlins was determined to even the score.

-

To be continued.