Posted on Tuesday, 25-Aug-98

ell it sorta started like this. Here I am minding my own business in Hertfordshire, when I wake up and find out that I've been dressed up as a woman!! I mean the nerve of those two younger Bennets! So, as not to digress. Captain Denny and a Colonel Fitzwilliam (where he came from, I'll never know; but oddly enough, he had all these women chasing him? Lucky guy, I think?) Okay, I'm digressing -- Sorry.

Anyway, to get back to my original thesis. Captain Denny and Colonel Fitzwilliam said that I should get away from the Bennets, and told me of a new sport being played in Highbury. Some people call it Football, others call it Soccer. So off I go to Highbury.

It took me only three days to get there. Not bad timing, I must say. So I get to the stadium or is that a coliseum? I buy a ticket and proceed to my seat. I must say that it is quite crowded and the language! Well, anything is better than those younger Bennet girls.

I proceed to my seat and smiling quite beatifically, I sit down. On one side of me is a cleric, on the other, a lovely grandmother. I say hello to the cleric, and he proceeds to shout such profane words. (I inform him that the game or match, hasn't quite started yet; he informs me that he is getting ready.) I don't think I'll say much to him today. But the sweet old woman. Very serene or is that serenity?

Okay, Colonel Fitzwilliam explained to me that there are strikers and midfielders and defenders and the goalkeeper. A ball that is kicked, but never touched with hands. It can get quite violent. The team I am to root for is called "Arsenal". (I hope there isn't one underground!) Captain Denny said they are also called "Gunners". They announced the starting lineup and the crowd goes crazy. Grandma beside me says not a word, but the cleric! Me, oh my! His language is as foul as Miss Lydia Bennet! And he's a cleric! What is this world coming too?

Lucky Fitzwilliam Darcy gets the good Bennet girl, and that strange chap, Bingley gets the other normal one. I was born too late, I think? So the game starts, and I'm quite excited. Grandma beside still says not a word. Although, she hands me her reading glasses. (I think she needs me to fix them.) Finally, someone sits beside her. A young, pretty girl with a placid countenance. I like her. She whispers in her the old lady's ear, but I don't think she actually hears anything. Grandma smiled more.

What I am about to tell you next is horrendous, absolutely positively disgusting. The midfielders claim the ball. I mean my team claim the ball and they are making a run for the opposing net. From what Colonel Fitzwilliam told me, that is how they score a point. So one chap kicks the ball to the striker who aims it at the goal. Ah, but the opposing goalkeeper is at the ready. The striker does something totally amazing he backtracks the ball, sending it to the defender who then whips it to the midfielder again and BLAM! He sinks it in! The crowd is on their feet. When grandma turns to me and lands one on the kisser. No, not a punch. A kiss! She kissed me. (Tongue and all, blech!)

After that I knew it was over. Not the game, mind you. My peaceful existence. Once everyone sat down again, grandma took my hand and put it close to her heart. It was quite a big heart, let me tell you. The pretty, young woman explains to me that the woman is her great aunt -- a Mrs. Bates of Highbury. I tell her my name and quickly end the conversation. I really am here to watch the game.

Finally it's half-time and I run to get myself a cold drink of anything. This is a very strange place and day! I run to the concession stand. (That is what the sign said, you don't think I could come up with that name do you?) I ask for cold water and the man hands me a stout beer. Well, anything is better than nothing, right? I take my dark stout and head back to my seat. The cleric is now wasted and flirting with the pretty, young girl! Grandma is beside me drooling, panting and indicating for me to sit down. I roll my eyes and proceed to sit down.

Mrs. Bates as she is known, has now put her arm around me and is snuggling up closer to me. But I have no clue as to why she doesn't talk? And why she can't keep her hands off of me! Is my name Colonel Fitzwilliam? Ah, I think I know what to do.

"Mrs. Bates, have you perchance, mistaken me for, ah… you know… A.. Colonel Fitzwilliam; because I did tell you that my name was Chamberlayne, did I not?"

She nodded negatively when asked the Colonel question, and positively when I reminded her who I was. This is most beguiling. I try to extract her arm from my shoulder and proceed to watch the second half of the football/soccer, what have you.

The players below are playing a nasty game -- blood, sweat and tears -- are displayed on the pitch. This is a man's game and women should not be allowed!! But grandma beside me is licking it up. Although, she says not a word, she throws her fist in the air, and slaps my back when the home team have the ball. (I think her thoughts are quite impure, too)

After the "gunners" have made yet another exciting goal, she caresses my leg! Slowly. My mind is in a tizzy and I haven't a clue as to what, or is that wot! To do? Again, I try to extricate her hand off my leg, but this time her tongue is in my ear! I mean to have grandma all over me! It's disgusting and abnormal; Well, it's just plain strange. But her hand moving up my inner thigh and that wet moist tongue in my ear. OH NO!! Banish, you impure thoughts, go away!!!

But no, she doesn't stop. I moaned. Oh God, I groaned! If I had been born 50 or 60 years earlier, we would've had a good tumble right there on the pitch. But this woman is old enough to be dead! The cleric beside me is now starting to pray over my mortal soul. (He has drunk alcohol, flirted with the young, pretty girl and swore; and he prays for my soul!) I am too confused. The other team has just scored and grandma grabs me where -- I don't think I need to tell you where she grabbed me! Funny, I always thought that it would hurt. Actually…

The cleric beside me is now practically on top of that young, pretty girl and her great aunt is well somehow on my lap. She's jumping around my lap. I don't know what to say to get her off of me or why she is even like this toward me. I'm fairly ordinary looking. Brown hair, chocolate brown eyes. A physique that most women would die for. Oh God!!! That's it, she finds me positively irresistible. (I know that Robert Palmer hasn't been born yet, but it just came to me. *Chamberlayne*)

"Mrs. Bates, I don't understand why you are all over me. I am here trying to watch this game and enjoy my time in Highbury, but with you all over me. I find myself not having a good time at all! Please, please, stop with these advances. They cannot and will not work."

She looks forlorn at me and squints her eyes at me. I hate that look a woman gives a man when she has been rejected. But hurt isn't exactly what I see in those eyes either, I sense revenge. I now hate the Colonel and Captain Denny. They had to have set this up, it's the only thing that could possibly make sense!

My team have possession of the ball and the men are bloody and tired. But they are definitely giving it their all. The midfielders stay in midfield and the defenders -- defend. The strikers -- strike; The goalkeepers are very busy trying to keep the nets free of balls; Balls, oh God!!!

"Mrs. Bates, I ask you again, to please let go of me. I do want to watch this match. You have no idea how very upset I'm getting."

She removes her hand and leaves it resting on my knee; I have been sitting beside her now for eighty minutes, ten minutes left of regulation, and barring injury time, I should make a clean break in that time. YES! NO! Again, she caresses my leg. Why can't this woman just leave me alone. What did I ever do to her?

My team is up 2-1 and as there seem to be -- no, no, no, no, no, they put five extra minutes on the clock. I'll never get out of here. Anything can happen in five minutes. Well, not that, but anyway. Grandma beside me is extremely happy. I am forlorn. I'm useless, I can't get an old woman to leave me alone. I have two silly girls dress me up as a woman -- Aha!

That's it!

"Mrs. Bates, I like to wear women's clothing. I live for it. I do it at least once a day. In fact, I am wearing women's underwear right now!"

She shakes her head and pulls me up and proceeds to look down my trousers!

"Mrs. Bates, please! What will the cleric say!"

"Oof, whyshouulldda I care, wenntheres a pretty young thang aroun." He slurred. I suspect he had his hand up her dress.

I am now going to kill the Colonel and Denny!

The whistle is blown and regulation is over: finally. Now we go into injury time. Yet, another minute has been added on. I am know stuck beside this woman for six minutes. I pray:

Our Father
Who are in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespass,
As we forgive those who trespass against us
(I think not!)
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil
(Good Lord, I am not evil!)
Amen

My silent prayers are not answered. I will never go to church again! Dammit. She has put her hand on my arm and placed her other hand under my chin. She opens her mouth. Will she speak? Will she finally tell me what she wants? She thinks.

She brings my mouth closer to her. I don't want to kiss her, NO!!!!

She yells. "PORK!"

I fainted.

Epilogue

Final score Arsenal -- 2 Opponent -- 2

And what happened to me, pray?

I ended up at Mrs. Bates house with the squeaky stair and a stupid pianoforte in the middle of that tiny flat. I fix a lot of her reading glasses, and her daughter talks my ear off. Mrs. Bates actually enjoys my dressing up in her gowns…