The first light bars of early Spring sunshine fell upon the English Rose complexion of Octavia, gently prodding her toward wakefulness. She stirred from sleep, passing a languorous hand over her eyes to see the morning light clearly, before tossing the pure linen bedsheets in a jumble to floor and making her way to her steel finished, Aga furnished kitchen.

Making a delectable Italian coffee that a besotted previous amour mailed weekly from Piza, she glanced through her morning’s post; billet-doux, bills and invitation to the TMO Flower Show. She rubbed this last gently between her fingers, luxuriating in the soft weft of the card. “Real gilt edges”, she murmured, impressed. “Oh, we shall have to do something good for this”.

She wandered out into her garden, the sweet early morning dew soaking lightly into the trailing hem of her nightgown, coffee in one hand and invitation in the other. She was searching for her loyal, patient and actually, rather damn attractive Head Gardener. He was man who knew precisely how dirty forearms should be; enough to indicate a hard days graft but not so much that a shared bath with aromatic candles became unromantically tainted. Octavia’s Head Gardener was man who knew exactly which thigh muscles looked best when you leant on a spade, and there were things he could do whilst propagating roses that still made her gusset whump after the 3 long and rather sensual years of his employment.

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Originally posted by Louche:
[ muscles writhing like cats in a sack

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Thorn sniggered appreciatively. If only Ringo knew what he had planned, he'd never have agreed to lend him his precious baby for the day. He nodded vaguely as Ringo pointed out the other modifications he'd added to the gleaming yellow monster. A 10 m reach should just about be enough for what he had in mind. Those lazy bints with their muscle-bound gardeners would see just where their airy-fairy ways had led them. If they couldn't be bothered to dig their own gardens, he'd show them what digging really was. Subconsciously he flexed his own bicep. Some people were just naturally skinny, that was all.

Ringo turned off the engine, and the silence was deafening. He slid down the shiny slope of the JCB's shoulder, and tossed the keys to Thorn. "Why won't you tell me what you want her for? I can be discreet!"

Her sinuous form was wrapped in the red silk pyjamas she had donned last night after throwing yet another bumbling village boy out of her boudoir for incompetence but she looked annoyed rather than reposed. She rose and walked with purpose to the elegant French windows, pushed aside the dusty, over heavy velvet drapes and stared rather forlornly into her garden. The long, elegant dog, sensing that there may soon be a significant change in Her Ladyship’s mood, crawled quietly under a lacquered chaise longue and settled down to wait it out.

Lady Astro contemplated her view. It was desolate. In the shadow of the Gothic monstrosity nothing would grow. Her eccentric father, an Egg Curry baron, refused to move to a light new 5 bed exec detached in the village. He imposed Draconian rules on his daughter, who prowled the length of the oppressive house daily. Usually she could find nothing to inspire her. Today, however, a movement in the adjacent meadow caught her eye. She raised the trusty binoculars which taught her all she needed to know about life outside her claustrophobic prison, and took in the most amazing sight.

quote:

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Lady Astro was enchanted. And perhaps something else as well.

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Louche = brilliant.

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…and you remember the mess he left mine in when he came to fix it”.

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‘That I do, ma’am,’ said Barry Blackmask. He slipped a broad shoulder from his flannel shirt and unslung the two sacks of kittens. ‘For the compost.’ Octavia loved this bit. She felt herself bite sharply into lower lip, a quick breath. A blush of colour ran to her breasts, heaving now, a moan waiting in her mouth. ‘Get thee here.’

Barry’s hands – broad, flecked with dirt, ridged and caramel – were on her hips. He turned her and in a moment she was naked in the greenhouse’s earthy warm. Softly his hands cupped, the light play of hard skin on soft breasts making her push against him. He craned to her neck, her shoulders, building layer after layer of soft kiss, of playful nibble. His breath on her neck, his voice in her ears: ‘Now, mi’lady.’

‘Yes.’ A sybillant of pure lust.

Barry pulled away and turned Octavia again. Crack. He stomped heavy on the first sack.

‘O god.’ Tavia new this was going to be the best yet. Crack. Crack. Crickedy-crick. Meeeowwww. Mow. Skkrunch. Crick. Mowwwowww. Cricksh. Shquicsh.

Barry was doing the Hornpipe – her favourite. The forbidden lust dance of the Scottish fell walker.

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Originally posted by 69 Comeback Elvis:
‘I’ll grow us the biggest cock cucumber you ever did see.’

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“M-Miss Vogon? Is everything alright?”

“Well, Michael, let me put it this way. I have just taken a call from Mr Vikram – I don’t care what he says about challenging our perception of form and aesthetics. I will NEVER have a stall for Vegetables Shaped Like Amusing Body Parts at my flower show. Never! And I really do not care for exhibiting his marrow resembling a particularly bulbous penis.”

She put a hand to her neck and her bottom lip trembled. Michael admired her, as always. They’d been organising the flower show together for 5 years now and every year it was the same. He would follow her movements from beneath lowered eyelids – the way she caressed the coil of the telephone wire while she ordered the marquee, the firmness of her behind as she bent to the filing cabinet and the way she tapped her pencil against her mouth as they worked on the floor plan. He longed to sweep the papers from her desk whilst lowering her onto it, breathing hotly against her neck.

“They might find that sort of thing entertaining in Dudley or bloody Ashby de la Zouch but the TMO Flower Show is an altogether more refined event.”

He loved her when she was like this. When the redness flushed over her neck and her eyebrows arched. Luckily, it happened at least three times a day. He reached inside his drawer and pulled out a packet of photographs.

“Never mind old Vikram, Miss Vogon. He does this every year. Remember his last suggestion? The Organic Cider Tent? It was lucky that we found out about his shed full of....how should I put it?....open air gentlemen when we did.”

She smiled wanly and relaxed slightly into her chair.

“Miss Vogon? Can I show you how my orchid is coming along? I’ve got some photos here...”

He held the packet out and moved towards her desk. The beautiful Aeranthes Grandiflora. Its velvet curved petals shining graciously in print. Her eyes widened in admiration and her lips parted slightly. A dart of her tongue moistened them. He heard her sigh.

“Oh, Michael. It’s beautiful. Such a deep pink. So luscious. The fragrance must be amazing.”

“It is, Miss Vogon, it is. I like to cup it gently and breathe the fragrance in until I can almost taste it.”

“It has a splendid shape too, Michael – look how the petals form a soft tunnel. So sensuous. Almost like a...like a...”

“Like a flange, Miss Vogon.”

Suddenly, her arms were around his neck and her breath in his ear.

“Tell me, Michael. How are you shaped?”

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Originally posted by Sidney:
“Like a flange, Miss Vogon.”

“Tell me, Michael. How are you shaped?”

“Like a marrow, Miss Vogon.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by Louche:
This has to be the best piece of comedy dialogue I've read in ages.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Louche:
Octavia: Ye Gods

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She was stuck on Chapter 4: Uses for Essential Oils in Cooking. If only Mart was home, he would be able to give her some advice on if it was ok to substitute ginger essential oil for fresh ginger on occasions. But he was away again on one of his frequent trips to the continent, and its not like she ever really spoke to him anyway. Trick rented a small cottage on the grounds of his rambling estate and her sister rented the one next door. Paying the monthly rent was about as intimate as it got between her and her handsome landlord.

Glancing at the clock on the wall she noted that the moussaka she had made would reach its sizzling perfection in about half an hour, an hour and a half after her sister was due for dinner, which made it perfect timing. They cooked dinner for each other more nights than not when they were both at the cottages at the same time.

Standing up and making her dog Sam stir in his dreams of chasing squirrels she went to the fridge and poured herself another glass of wine. Lighting a Marlboro Menthol she went outside into garden. On the patio there were some strawberries plumping up in a clump on the edge, a rash of tomato plants, a pot of spring onions and various herbs including basil, parsley, chives and rosemary. She must pick some tomatoes and basil for the salad to go with the dinner, she thought.

It was a gorgeous summer evening, the butterflies were flitting around the heavy lilac blooms and the fairy lights were intertwined amongst the jasmine flowers over the pergola creating an ethereal feel. She walked past the rose bushes breathing in their heady fragrance and felt light headed at the beauty of it all. Her mind wandered to the invitation she had received to the TMO Flower Show that morning. She had been surprised, its not as if she was a true village member, both her and her sister kept flats in London and just escaped to the country to write, but she had been touched. I don’t think I have anything here up to their standards she mused. Their shared garden was hedonistically beautiful but only in its rampant wildness. If removed to the stark whiteness of Miss Vogon’s marquee it would loose all its thrown together appeal.

Wandering down to the back she breathed in the musky scent of the foxgloves growing under the large oak tree. Leaning against the gate that led onto Mart’s fields she looked at his large rambling house and sighed again. Her tabby cat mewed and jumped out of the shadows on to the top of the gate, rubbing his head against her shoulder. Stroking his lustrous coat she picked a grass seed out of it, “Been romping in Mart’s fields again, Tab?” and wistfully imagined that it was her running hand in hand with Mart amongst the thigh high grasses.

How many evenings she had stood here looking at his house wishing that he would come to her back gate and take her forcefully in his arms. Taking a last drag on her cigarette, Trick scooped up Tab and made her way back inside.

Something caught his eye, broke his concentration. He stopped. Before him lay a humble oil painting. In its frame was painted a stunning yet modest work of art. It was a young girl clutching a tabby cat in her arms. A smirk, slowly creeping up the side of her face. The skin was very dark with thick reddened lips. Highlighting the eyes were brilliant vibrant green brush strokes. It was like no oil paint Martin had ever seen.

His knuckles whitened as he gripped the elaborate golden frame, almost bending it, with his powerful biceps.

Richard S. Norton was the village stationmaster, and master of his station. The enigmatic “S” in his name he had added himself - to his mother he was plain old Dickie, one of the dozen children she had sired from as many clients. Richard had hated his infancy and teenage years, the memories of growing up in Pykesbury, surrounded by siblings that ran the gamut of skin tones, from his eldest brother, the gay albino with the bleached backside, to his second sister, as black as coal, equally as coarse and now a 'rapper' of international renown. Richard had fled his background as soon as he was able, taking a job with British Rail, growing a small, compact moustache and adding the “S” to his name to lend it, as he put it, a touch of gravitas.

To the locals, he was just the pompous, over-officious stationmaster who liked to march up and down the platform in time to Wagner and tend to his modest and woefully unsuccessful vegetable patch behind the guardhouse.

All he could grow was potatoes. Nothing else flourished in that little patch of earth he inspected and reviewed, tended and pruned, watered and fertilised with an almost religious devotion. Not that he was religious, of course; Richard S. Norton frowned on all religions, just as he frowned on the nickname cruelly given him by the village youths: they said the “S” in his name was for ‘spud’. They called him Spuddy Dick.

Sadly the name had stuck, like the piece of chewing gum he suddenly observed on the otherwise pristine platform, and as he bent down to remove it with his penknife he heard the whistle of the approaching 18.24, now a full three minutes late.

He scowled at the driver as he pulled in, but couldn’t help bringing himself to attention with a resonant click of his heels, as the commuters on their way back from Pykesbury alighted from the train and made their way to the exit. Dick Norton scowled as he noticed the two sisters up from town flounce off the train together, giggling loudly and tottering on their heels like a pair of harlots, he thought to himself, which made him scowl further. Trick and Amp, he’d heard they were called, which made him scowl further still, his little moustache bristling, as if he had come too near to the static on the television screen again, something that happened whenever he made his video recorder pause on that cherished moment when the nine o’clock news had shown Margaret Thatcher taking tea with good old General Augusto.

Last off the train was Ben Farmer, and Norton’s scowl reached new heights of disdain. Ben Farmer was the gruff but ruggedly handsome manager of the de Mariner estate, and Spuddy Dick’s nemesis in the village. Norton hated Ben Farmer, for the strangest of reasons: he liked him. The fact was that Ben Farmer was the only villager ever to talk to the stationmaster when he stopped in at the local for a quick pint, and Richard S. Norton was so profoundly grateful for this attention from such a notable member of local society that it enraged him when Ben Farmer made a point of disagreeing with everything he had to say, mainly, as Spuddy Dick had realised, for the entertainment of the other cronies in the lounge bar: Professor Kovacs, who had taught at Oxford (the Poly, no doubt, thought the stationmaster); Dr Ben Wei, the oriental acupuncturist (a drunken quack, in Norton’s opinion); and of course the landlady herself, Gail, the evil witch who always laughed loudest whenever Ben Farmer drew Norton into the conversation, with an air of condescension and familiarity which Richard S. Norton had only ever experienced elsewhere with young Hélène N’aïtaoulle, the French au pair employed to look after the various children of Homeless Dang, the former tramp and now the richest man in the village, who had made his fortune by writing a sequel to Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, becoming the darling of Bloomsbury society and marrying the actress Louche Lankishyre, who lived with Homeless Dang on his houseboat on the river. They had taken on Hélène N’aïtaoulle as an au pair to control their unruly, bohemian children, and the shy, pretty French girl had struck up a friendship with stationmaster Norton as a result of the trips she took the children on to Pykesbury, “so zey can go to see ze museums and learn important zings”, as she had put it. Richard S. Norton had approved of that, learning important things, and he was always deferential to Hélène whenever they met. She was the only person who was nice to him.

Apart from Ben Farmer. At least, at the beginning, for about, oh, a minute, whenever Norton stopped off at the local. Ben Farmer would ask the stationmaster’s opinion on the subject of the day, and Spuddy Dick would unwittingly enter into the game, only to have his views mercilessly torn apart by the gruff Ben Farmer, who had a way of phrasing his cruel epithets that would delight the cronies, followed by some crass comment (“You’re such a flid, Spuddy”) that would make Norton cringe in embarrassment for Farmer himself and force him to drink up his pint as quickly as he could and scurry back to his room adjoining the guardhouse, where he would punish his folly by pleasuring himself furiously as the image of Mrs Thatcher on the screen merged with the vision in his mind of young Hélène N’aïtaoulle, his “nightowl”, as he liked to pronounce her surname, as she always seemed to fly into his dreams at night, an Aryan angel from a better, more ordered world, where he could march by her side and together forge a larger, better empire than his depressing railway station, where one day his Reich would include the whole village and far, far beyond, where order meant peace and peace meant order.

Of course, these heavenly images were almost always ruined in his dreams by the apparition of Ben Farmer’s mocking face, floating in front of him, taunting him as he whispered “Spuddy Dick, Spuddy Dick, show us yer ‘taters, Spuddy Dick”, which never failed to wake Norton up with a scowl as dark and bristling as his Charlie Chaplin moustache.

It was such a scowl the stationmaster sported when he saw Ben Farmer get off the train after the Amp/Trick sisters, and the scowl only deepened when Farmer approached Norton with that laconic grin of his and struck up conversation.

“Ey oop, Spuddy,” said Ben Farmer. “I see t'flower show’s come round again.”

“What?” snapped Dick Norton. He was in no mood for one of Farmer’s pointless jokes.

“TMO Flower Show. You know.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Norton replied, irritated. “What of it?”

“’Appen there’s a chance for yersen, this year.”

“Look, Farmer,” Norton sighed wearily. “You know I don’t grow flowers, all I have is potatoes. I fail to see how I could win anything.”

Ben Farmer grinned. “’Ave yer not seen this year’s invite, then? Not get sent one, eh?”

“No, I haven’t seen the invitation, mon ami, and have no interest in the whole affair”.

Farmer grinned even more, and pulled a gilt-edged card out from his jacket pocket. “’Ere, ‘ave a look, then. See that? ‘Vegetables Shaped Like Amusing Body Parts’, it says!”

The stationmaster looked at the card and snorted. “That’s absurd. What sort of a prize is that?”

“Search me, Spuddy, yer know I’ve no business wi’ that flower show, I’ve got t’ole de Mariner estate to worry about mesen... I just reckoned mebbe yers could enter one o’ yer spuds as a body part, a wart or a bunion or summat. Anyroad, yer can keep t’invite if yer like, no use to me.”

Ben Farmer strode off, leaving Norton with the invitation card in his hand, and seething with rage as the passengers finally made their way out of his station which, he noted, had once again been dirtied by another piece of chewing gum, no doubt crudely spat out by one of those two sisters.

He knelt down once again to remove the offending item, and suddenly found himself trembling with anger, at Ben Farmer, at the two girls, at the whole village and its idiotic flower show which he could never hope of entering, let alone winning, not with his potatoes.

And with the flower show invitation still clutched in his hand, his whole body quaking with rage, he stormed over to his vegetable patch and began furiously uprooting his potatoes, grabbing them by the stalk and jerking them out of the ground, the small round tubers loosening themselves from the earth and shaking free as he snatched them up violently and tossed them onto the railway lines. Every single one was lifted from the soil and discarded with disgust at the world, the tracks soon littered with green stalks and dirt-covered potatoes, as Spuddy Dick unleashed his pent-up frustration in a massacre of root vegetables.

When there were no more potatoes to uproot, Norton stood up and, regaining his senses somewhat, glanced round to make sure no one had seen him. He looked down at the railway line and saw the mess he had created. He began to cry, softly, without tears, as he surveyed the damage he had wrought. A whole season’s harvest, lying in a cruel lump on the tracks. He looked at the potatoes; the one thing he was good at. He saw their round shape, their healthy skin, and immediately regretted what he had done.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. That one potato, grotesquely deformed, lying slightly to one side of the tangled mess of vegetation he had created. It was much, much thicker than all the others, and elongated to the extent that it resembled not so much a potato as, as, as...

The stationmaster could hardly bring himself to think the word. Yet it was unavoidable; it was staring him in the face. The potato looked all the world like an enormous erect male member.

Like a huge, giant cock.

He gazed down at the TMO Flower Show invite in his hand, at the ridiculous announcement of a novelty prize for oddly-shaped vegetables. And a thought came to his exhausted mind. A thought even he had to laugh out loud at, as it formed itself with remarkable clarity.

“Spuddy Dick, they call me,” he thought. “Spuddy Dick with his taters and his train station, marching up and down with his Wagner and his moustache.”

He laughed again at the thought; he couldn't help it. He would enter the flower show. He would show them. He would win the contest with his enormous, cock-shaped potato. Finally, finally, the sad little stationmaster had produced something he could be proud of. His spud would really be something, something great: it would be The Great Dick Tater.

Hysterically.

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Originally posted by mart:
young Hélène N’aïtaoulle, the French au pair

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Gemini noisily slurped the last of her tea (second mug of the morning, and it was only 8:30am) and pointedly used the invitation as a coaster. She shuffled out of the conservatory, picked up her laptop and shuffled straight back again. Working from home was the greatest blag ever. She settled down and waited for the laptop to start up, and as she leaned back into the sofa, she thought about that white, heavily embossed, beautiful invitation.

Last year, she was new to town, and Miss Vogon thought it only right to invite her along. Miss Vogon knew what a lovely garden she had there, as Miss Fifichan used to live there and she entered with relish every year. Strangely, since Gem moved in, it seemed a little, well, lazy, to Miss Vogon's eyes. There was no attention to detail, and she had never seen Gem out gardening! Still, it would be rude not to appear welcoming.

Gem was touched by the invitation, and off she went, despite only having a few peace lilies to show off. She bought them from M&S, and hoped no-one would notice, being as they didn't have big shops like that round here. Dolled up in a black frock, hair freshly reddened by Clairol, peace lillies and a couple of bottles of wine, she trotted off down to the flower show.

Unfortunately for Gem, four hours and a couple of bottles of wine later, she was found underneath her stall, giggling about silly lillies, and singing 'Daisy, Daisy, how does your garden grow' over and over again. Even more unfortunately for her, she was found by Lady de Mariner, who looked simultaneously shocked and envious - how could this woman be so relaxed, and ignore social convention like this! Lady de Mariner ensured that her story was quickly spread around the entire village. Miss Vogon's eyes grew wide, and she wrote a very haughty letter that evening, demanding an apology for Gem's reckless behaviour at such an event.

Gem snapped out of her day-mare as her laptop sprang to life and started flashing messages at her. She cringed outwardly at the memory and strengthened her resolve once more, determined not to go and make a fool of herself again. 8:35am and no tea! She raced back to the kitchen, knocking the invitation to the floor in her haste. Whilst in the kitchen she noticed the half eaten packet of jammy dodgers, and couldn't resist. Armed with tea and biscuits, she marched back to the conservatory, slipping on the invitation as she went and spilling tea down her front.

"Fuckity! This was clean on, too!" She yelled. Unable to decide what to wear, she simply put the hairdryer on the t-shirt until it was dry and got back to work. After all, it was Mart's t-shirt and he'd never ask for it back.

The invitation had again crept closer to her since she slipped on it, so she picked it up, brushed the biscuit crumbs away and swore once more. It was embellished with daisies! Miss Vogon had done that on purpose, she was convinced of it, so she decided that she would get her revenge.

"I suppose some might call it a bit modern"

Got that right. Modern wasn't the word. What he'd created would surely offend the very souls of the simple country folk he'd be presenting to the next day.

Thorn followed Ringo around what he described as a garden.

"Here check this one out, I love this"

Rising from the perfect tarmac was what looked like a traffic sign, proudly showing the speed limit of 580 miles per hour.

"I got that legally certified, you know. Anyone going faster than that on here could get pulled.

Thorn could see the basic premise behind it. To be fair, if he'd have called it art, he'd be a millionaire, but sadly Ringo seemed to lack whatever part of the brain came with common sense. This wasn't a car park, nor was it a work of art, it was a garden. Rather than grass, there was ashphalt, and lots of it. Instead of lining the edges with trees and shrubs, there were streetlamps and old tyres. He'd even gone to the trouble of creating a small 'rockery' from old engine glocks, with timing belts cascading gracefully down the side. It was almost pretty from a distance. There was a fountain near the back, and a small pond, filled and gushing with synthetic motor oil. Neon lights were strategically placed around the sides, under the tyres, to create a strange glow that seemed to ripple and pulse with colour.

Taking pride of place in the centre of the garden sat an almost unrecogniseable Japanese imported Toyota Supra. It's paint reflected in five different colours, depending on how much light hit it. It sat dangerously close to the ground, allowing just the thinnest shaft of electric blue neon to escape across the tyre marked tarmac.

"What I'm struggling to figure out, Ringo, is exactly what this is meant to represent"

"Well it's a car, innit"

"Yeah, I realise it's a car but everything else here is meant to represent something from a typical garden. What's this car meant to be?"