The Present

THE PRESENT

FINAL CHAPTER

By Ross Martin

I am writing this because I am being force to and because I really want to. Obviously, in my situation, it doesn't matter what I want and that's the way it should be. It took me a long time to arrive at where I am but I am so glad that I did.

May last escapade as a free woman had me signing away my freedom for a weekend to a man in the outback with a reputation for treating women the way I need to be treated. How I would be delivered was all arranged with a Sydney based company. All I had to do was sign on the doted line which I did.

And so I left my comfy home in the suburbs and took a private flight to the never-never or as close to it as I will ever get. The guys doing the delivery were happy not to use the air conditioning if this made me less comfortable. Such sacrifices they were willing to make. So why didn't I just turn it on myself? Well, my arms were spread apart by a spreader bar and the same can be said for my legs. It was in the contract that Bill, the guy in the outback, first notices me this way. Lovely contract that. You'd think I'd be out to get whoever put that damn thing together and you'd be wrong. For, you see, I knew that person pretty well and knew they weren't going to get away with it.

I am a big woman so it wasn't surprising pig sweat was coming off me because of the heat and the ball gag crowding my mouth made it difficult to articulate any pressing needs I might have. Still, those blokes knew I was thirsty and so offered me some water if I just let them cop a feel. It was on the paper that they couldn't cop it without my say-so which was all well and good. I shook my head vehemently in the negative and so remained hot, sweaty and thirsty up until I was at Bill's doorstep. Oh, and you can add dusty to that because of the trip from the makeshift airport to his home.

Naturally, when offered the choice of taking me or sending me back, Bill made out like he was in a quandary. Eventually, my deliverers left and I got into the house and out of the sun. My clothing was soaked and I must have smelled awful. I was feeling less than human I can tell you.

After feeling me up and undressing me, he gave me a bit of attention because I wouldn't tell him what 'Happy Birthday' written on my stomach meant. He pushed and pulled me into the bathroom because, he figured, if he was going to have me around it wouldn't be with a clothes pin on his nose. There he took a large sponge, soaked it in warm water, added liquid soap and rubbed me down.

He started with my nose, mouth, ears and neck. Somehow he got the sponge under my collar without choking me to death though I thought at the time it was a near thing. He scrubbed extra hard on my tummy to get the letters off. They were very stubborn and my stomach was cherry red and tender by the time he succeeded. Believe me it was a lot of me to be red and tender. He soaped me under the arms good and rough nearly bowling me over twice with his enthusiasm. Then he told me what a hairy bitch I was. He soaped my cunt and poked around my asshole, too, grumbling about the hair. To get to my snatch he had to lift my belly which made my face go red knowing he wouldn't have to do this with other subs sent him. "Quite a pot," he commented and squeezed a handful of it. I squealed. It really was raw there. He squeezed again but this time I refused to squeal. Overall, the sponging felt good.

"You're hairier than last time," he told me. He gave a look of disgust. Actually I hadn't shaved my arm pits or vaginal area for two months and was pleased he noticed. What he was hopefully also noticing was the trembling in my arms and legs. Thanks to the spreader bars, it had been a long while since I'd been able to rest them. But what did that matter to him? My shoulders and calves were aching but I was sound enough. Why, if he wanted me to, I knew I could stay in these spreaders all weekend and then some. Part of me wanted him to want to.

"So you won't tell me what those words mean?" he said as he put away the sponge. He grabbed me b y my head of hair and brought my face to his. He was grinning when he said: "Very well. I just might have made your stay more pleasant. Do you know I can do whatever I like to you?"

"Yes, Master," I sighed.

He kept his face close to mine with one hand and was now finding my clit with the other. It took some doing but he got his fingers on it and squeezed. I yelped and he laughed. Then he patted my snatch and said: "And this is all with your own consent, right?"

"Yes, Master," I said firmly.

"What an absolute dumb fuck you are," he commented.

He pushed and pulled me back into the lounge room. There I was positioned near the lounge as he took down the plants on one wall to reveal strategically placed hooks for what I suspected he next had in mind. Slowly, carefully he removed the bar separating my arms and then the bar separating my legs from me. I let my arms drop to my sides and brought my knees closer together. What I most wanted to do was sit and that lounge looked mighty inviting but he wasn't going to give me permission so I could forget about it.

What's more, having my arms free didn't last long. He grabbed my collar chain near the collar and dragged me over to the hooks. Then he said: "Hands above your head." I did as I was told and he stretched my left arm until he had me connected via the ring in my leather bracelet to an overhead hook. He did the same with my right arm. At the end of this my feet were barely touching the ground and there was considerable strain on already strained arm muscles. He grabbed his camera and took a few shots. Then he looked at his watch, turned on his television set and settled in to watch the evening news. And why not? I wasn't going anywhere.

During commercials he came over to me and grabbed some pussy hair and pulled. What did I do? Yelped mostly. Then a Pavlov's dog thing sort of happened. The forth commercial came and so did I. Ahead of him grabbing and yanking, I came. I did it in anticipation and when he did grab my cunt hairs he found them sticky. In response he grabbed my nose and tweaked it savagely, took his handkerchief out and with it grabbed some cunt hair to pull. I yelped louder than I had before and moaned a real, deep doggy moan. He showed me his hanky and it had at least twelve hairs. He held them up to my nose and said: "Smell it, bitch. That's what I've got to put up with." He took a sniff himself and put the hanky away. At the end of the show he went to one of his drawers and brought out a few items to show me.

"For tomorrow," he said, brandishing a paddle about twelve inches in diameter at the business end and spiked with sharpened nails. The nails were an inch in length and straight. To say it terrified would be an understatement.

"Last time you refused," he reminded me. "By the contract you cannot refuse."

"Yes, Master," I gulped, looking at the formidable object with dread. I also tingled with anticipation and dripped. Well, a dog is a dog I suppose.

He then showed me two enema bags and the biggest plug I'd ever seen. The nozzle wasn't much smaller. What scared me the most though were four twelve inch stainless steel spikes. I could guess what they were for and I wasn't sure I was ready for them.

"What do you think of these beauties?" he said, holding them up to my lips.

"Horrible," I said and meant it then added quickly, "Master."

"Want me to use them?"

"No, Master." I shook my head emphatically knowing it wouldn't make a scrap of difference.

"What do the words mean?" he asked. "Tell me and I will spare you everything I just showed you."

I didn't give myself time to think, I just blurted out: "No Master" real quick. He put everything away in the drawer, took me down from the hooks and secured my hands behind my back. I heard muscles creak as he did so and softly grunted. He took a small whip and applied it to my behind to get me down the stairs. I dripped some more and somehow he managed to hit one o9f my cunt lips. I yelped sharply and my speed toward the stairs and the dungeon below increased considerably despite my weariness.

Down in the dungeon he gave me a few tepid mouthfuls of water from a glass. Then he pulled out some more of my cunt hair with his hanky. I whimpered and dripped. Next he took a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a cloth. He soaked the cloth in the alcohol and applied it liberally to my vaginal region. I screamed because it burned like you wouldn't believe where I'd been royally deforested and he had to slap my face a few times to get me to stop fidgeting about so much so that it would go on liberally.

I was crying when he locked me in. Great fat tears rolled down my fat face. I wondered how long the terrible burning would last. It was mounting to pure agony, or so I thought, and wasn't to leave off for hours. I made myself as comfortable as I could on the straw provided. Sleep eventually overcame me.

I awaked the next morning to the sound of his footsteps and that of the opening of the dungeon door. He picked me up off the ground and set me on my feet. He then looked intensely at me and said: "Have you thought about it? Have you decided to take up my offer and just tell me?" He had his bag of tricks with him and showed me. I shook my head, no. I was in awe of the fact that I could do that, especially when he now had the dreaded spiked paddle in his hands. He laid it down on his work bench with the bag and trudged up the stairs. I wondered what he was up to. He returned an hour later with a handsome breakfast of eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee just for me. He even allowed me the use of my hands and a knife and fork.

"Enjoy," he said and left. He returned in another hour to take the plates, cup and mug away. Some minutes after that he came back He tied my hands behind my back with cord and picked up the spiked paddle. He smiled what I thought was a warm smile and sprayed the nails with special stuff so I wouldn't get lockjaw.

"Lean against the wall," he told me and I leaned. He spread my legs apart with hand slaps to my thighs and said: "Hold that pose." I held. Then one cheek exploded with pain and then the other. I screamed and stamped my foot. It was worse than the alcohol over deforested cunt had been the night before. He hit me again and again in quick succession. I gulped for air and assimilated the pain as best I could. Three more whacks and I was gyrating that bum like nobody's business. My legs were starting to close so he whacked them open with paddle hits to my thighs which were a lot worse than the hand slaps had been. Then he managed to score one of my cunt lips and I howled and stamped my foot to his glee.

"You know," he said. "They tell me fatties like you don't register pain like other bitches. I don't really think that's true but what I do appreciate at times like this is there's so much more of you to hit." Before I could think if he's said that before the paddle came down and hit the other vaginal lip. I cried that cry of agony that sounds so much like high spirited laughter and shook spasmodically. "No….," I blubbered when he stopped hitting me and managed to think to chuck in "Master" to please him. He brought me around to face him and wiped my face with a clean cloth and even had me blow my nose on it.

"Better?" he asked.

"Y…Yes," I said softly. "Yes, Master."

"Turn around."

I did so and spread my legs dutifully. He hit both cheeks twenty times more then stopped.

"Please…Master," I said in a whimper.

"Please what?"

"Please…Master."

He took some photos of me and then took the cloth and smeared my backside with it. He then reefed my head around by grabbing the hair on my head and said: "Look at this!" I looked and there was blood on the cloth, my blood from thousands of puncture holes. My eyes must have spoke volumes but he just put the cloth in his pocket and hit me some more with the paddle. At this stage I was grunting with each impact, snorting out my fury at what was being done to me and stamping my foot a lot. I was also dripping. He stopped altogether at fifty and had me turn around to face him.

"You know I could keep this up till they pick you up," he said. "I like this paddle so I just might."

"Yes, Master," I blubbered, little bubbles breaking on my lower lip which was quivering. Part of me was excited at just such a prospect.

"But no," he said and put the paddle on his work bench. He tied my wrists together and then to a single ring above my head and attached a spreader bar to my legs to separate them. The cold stone of the wall against my bleeding bum smarted something fierce.

With great skill he tied rope around each of my breasts and pulled tightly. I grunted my displeasure and he showed me a ball gag. It was the same size as the one I came in with but blue instead of red. He said: "Last chance" and I shook my head in the negative. The gag went in tight and was fastened. It filled my whole mouth and I snorted at it being there.

Bill took more photos and then had a cup of coffee from a flask he'd brought down with him. He set up the enema bags which were full of icy water so I'd cramp a lot where I'd see them. He then moved my stomach and wet pussy out of the way so that he could get at my asshole. The nozzle was greased but it didn't feel that way going in. It felt like it was going to split me wide and I was wide enough already. I involuntarily rubbed my ass against the wall which wasn't a good thing to do.

So, with my ass bleeding some more and my asshole filled I awaited his pleasure. It came in about two minutes after he turned the release valve. It came as a cold shock like a cold punch to my extremities. Half way through the first bag he undid the gag and removed it. A great stream of spit came out of my mouth with it and washed over my left breast. By now my breasts were starting to gain color from the roping and were throbbing away. They were bigger and so was my belly which was growling. Also, I'd been hit a number of times by the cramps already and this was only the beginning.

"Stick out your tongue and beg," he said.

I stuck out my tongue and said in a wobbly voice: "Please, Master."

As I was assaying "Please, Master" he was snapping away on his camera.

He picked up a small bamboo rod and approached me with it. He put it to my lips and said: "Kiss it."

I did as I was told and put plenty of saliva on it. There seemed to be plenty to go around.

The rod whistled through the air once, twice then collided savagely with my left nipple. My eyes crinkled up and I grimaced with the pain. It then collided with the other nipple. This time I yelped and my left leg came up presumably to somehow protect them. Considering the spreader bar and my advancing stomach this was some feat on my part. Something I couldn't have done if I'd thought about it and something I instantly regretted by the extra strain it put on my arms and belly. He hit around the nipples for a while after that and then came down hard on my belly button which was coming out to greet him. This caused one hell of a cramp and a rumble from my stomach. I made that scream that sounds like laughter and juiced. He took a taste. "Not bad," he said and put the rod away.

He left me alone after that until the last of the first bag was in. I was groaning lightly trying not to cry or blubber because any movement at all was likely to bring on more cramps and they were rocketing my way frequently enough. He took some more happy snaps with his camera.

"Want this to end?" he asked conversationally, his hand on the valve that would release the second bag's contents.

"Yes, Master," I said in a girly voice that was just short of a sob.

"So what's the deal with the writing?" he asked.

"No, Master," I said still in that voice. "I won't say."

He released the valve and in two minutes there was a shock and I shuddered with the new cold. He sat down on a comfy chair and watched me closely. I went back to groaning lightly though my belly was doing serious flip-flops and sweat had broken out large as life on my forehead. According to him, this called for more photos.

Once all the liquid was in me and seething he showed me the large plug and said: "I'm removing the nozzle but you hold it in until I get the plug in place."

It was a hell of a strain but I did as I was told and the plug, big as it was, managed to get inside me. I grunted lightly, ever so lightly, at the intrusion so as not to start the internal volcano. He felt my stomach and said: "Hard as a rock." It gurgled in reply.

Then he showed me the four very thin ultra sharp spikes. He waved them under my nose and then pressed the business end of one lightly against my left breast.

"Please," I murmured pitifully. "Please, don't."

"Why?"

"I…I…Pity?"

"That don't buy nothing here," he said with a smirk driving a spike through my complete left breast. I breathed in as it went in and so felt its presence as I exhaled. "Oh!" I cried loudly. Tears were forming in my eyes. I uttered the same "Oh" after it went through my right breast. A red haze then engulfed me. I was swimming in it. I don't think I noticed him sticking the third and forth through my cunt flaps. But he slapped my face hard twice to get my attention as he put alligator clips on my nipples to complete the picture. They were put close to the edge for maximum bite and their bite did bring me around.

He snapped more photos of me and told me to keep my eyes open and smile for the camera. When I closed them he slapped my face hard again and said: "I have a stimulant here. I have a medical background and so you are not going to go into real shock. You are not going to faint. Got that?"

He showed me a syringe filled with God knows what. If I could I would have shrunk from it. So, hurting incredibly the way I was, I kept my eyes open and smiled for him. My big purpling skewered boobs I took to be the main focus of his artistic endeavors with the Kodak experience. Little did I know then his fascination with my face in agony pretending on his cue that it wasn't.

"Pretty," I said looking down at m y own pained boobs and stomach then added: "Master."

"Yeah," he said, touching my boobs, face and stomach gently. He positioned a bucket under me and pulled out the plug. It came out with an almighty pop and a deluge. I groaned my new situation which was improving. It took two buckets and some squeezing from Bill to get it all out but boy was I relieved.

"Thank you Master," I sighed as he took the buckets away. He untied my boobs and then removed the spikes and clips. That way the rushing blood would hit me with awful pins an' needles which it did. I sobbed loudly and dripped.

He left me hanging there awhile and returned with his afternoon tea. He gave me a taste. The tea was refreshing but hurtful to my stomach all at the same time. The clips on my nipples were now really giving me grief but still they remained. He fiddled with them a bit aggravating them, getting me to grunt. He also fiddled with the spikes going through my cunt lips.

"I bet you wish you'd told me now," he said.

"Yes, Master," I answered.

He had some magazines to read so he left me there just hanging from my wrists with my nipples beating to their own band and my boobs in general still feeling where the spikes had entered and left. I was like that for hours. He removed the nipple clips and cunt spikes and took me down sometime before his dinner. He left me there in the dark for at least an hour. When he came back it was with a glass of cold milk and a biscuit.

"There," he said, handing me the plate it came on, " that should tide you over till morning."

I thanked him and he left. It took me awhile, with the way I was hurting, to fall asleep but eventually I did.

The next morning he took me on a naked run around a square mile of his property. It was hot and dusty. Here I was out of breath most of the time, naked, my hands secured behind my back, trying not to be strangled by him as he dragged me around by my lead. I sweated a lot. I collapsed twice and was whipped to my feet. Somehow I made it back to where he showered me with the hose and pulled more cunt hairs out of me. I wondered if I had any left.

Lunch time came and he gave me an apple to eat which I was grateful for. Then he had me on all fours in his barn. I wondered what was going to happen next. I could guess when he pulled down his pants and, for a man older than myself, showed me one corker of a cock. I dripped. He mounted my still smarting ass, getting between my pained vaginal lips, rubbing table salt on my paddle punctures to excite them. I reared up with pain and anguish and he pushed down. This went on for I don't know how long. He rode me hard and savage. I resented it and loved it at the same time. I was crying when he finished and slapped my behind to let me know. I'd never been ridden so cruel in my life but there was more to come. He had me suck him hard and then rode me again. I howled, came and cried. When he put his pants on I thought that would be it but he tied me up so that my cunt was out and I couldn't move. He put kitty bites in my vaginal area and called his cat to lick then and eat them out of me. What's more, he took pictures of the cat doing so. The cat had a sandpaper tongue.

He left me like that for an hour then untied me. He took me into the house and had me sit on the lounge.

"I've been thinking about you," he said. "I made some calls. It seems it was you who paid for this little weekend get-together and you paid the last couple of times, too. What's more, you asked for me and I am flattered. Not many ask for me a second time, let me tell you, let alone a third time. I know you live alone and it costs you plenty to come out here."

"I don't mind, Master," I said weakly, a tear forming in my eye.

"I know," he said. "But I've got a proposition for you. I'll arrange for you to fly out again next weekend and if you can help me with this problem I have then our next weekend together I'll pay the company for. And if you continue solving my problem, I'll continue giving you what for. Deal?"

"Deal, Master," I murmured. "By the by, did you work out why I had 'Happy Birthday' on my stomach?"

"It's your birthday. Today, Sunday, to be precise."

"How long have you known, Master?"

"Since before you arrived Friday. I figured it out from the other times you arrived here."

"Why then, Master, did you try to torture it out of me?"

"I figured you had your reasons for keeping quiet."

"It was to give you a reason to really go to town on me. The clause in the contract saying you could do anything meant you'd be especially mean and you were."

"It's not yet over," he said. He had me stand up and turn around. I screamed in great pain as he poured rubbing alcohol over my ass and then my boobs. I pounded my feet against the floor for it to stop but the awful high-powered stinging continued.

"Oh, Master!" I sobbed loudly as he put me into an old dress and fitted me to the spreader bars. Slowly he pushed and pulled me sobbing greatly up the stairs and, by the time we got to the front door, the pickup men were waiting to take me home. On the way they asked to cop a feel for a few aspirin and a drink of water. I refused. The stinging persisted for hours after I'd returned to my house as did the ache in my gut and the throbbing in my boobs which resurfaced with the pushing and pulling. I continued to drip.

Two day's later, as per the other times, I got a whole swag of photos of myself undergoing torture via email from Bill. I particularly liked the facial shots of near panic or of burbling suffering because it showed my torturer to have a liking for my dial as well as other parts of me. He genuinely liked to make me suffer and to try to capture choice moments on film. I felt flattered. These were the best snaps yet.

With trepidation I came out to Bill's home the following week not as a prisoner but as a guest. He greeted me cordially and offered me tea and biscuits. He examined my breasts and ass and told me they were healing up nicely.

"What is this pressing problem, Master?" I asked him and he escorted me down the stairs to the dungeon to look for myself.

There a woman was standing dead center with a collar around her neck and a lead in her hand. She had long red hair down to her shoulders and a slightly trimmer figure than mine. It was clear we were both of the same age but, whereas I had a cute nose, hers was long and she wasn't as fat. She was wearing a frilly white blouse and a pair of black hot pants. Her thighs were big but not as big as mine and her bust was slightly smaller. What took me about a little was the enormous ring through her nose. It was so beautiful. It was the mark of a real slave and I wanted one just like it.

"She's my sister-in-law," Bill said, giving me her lead. "Her husband will be away for eight weeks and he wants me to look after her every second weekend while he's away. Since I can't I told him I'd get someone who can."

"Who?"

"You."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Guess."

I looked at the equipment on the work bench and noticed my ball gag and the rag he'd taken blood off my bum with.

"Right," I said. "Fine. What does she have to say about this?"

"Tell her," she prompted the woman.

"I am a cunt, Mistress. I obey."

"No permanent damage, though," put in Bill. "The holes I put in your breasts will heal up nice into tiny scars but I did that because you said no holds barred and it had been a while since I was able to do it."

Sitting in a corner were the two buckets still filled with my excrement. Suddenly I had plans for them.

"Otherwise anything goes?" I asked.

"Yes. That's right. I'll leave you two to get acquainted. Do a good job."

I'd punished women before and he apparently knew that. What's more, I can be a real bitch.

"What's your name?" I asked the woman still holding out the lead.

"Cunt."

"Your real name."

"Cunt."

I had her strip and then I tied her wrists together and over an overhead hook, her legs were spread apart via a spreader bar. I took my old ball gag that still had traces of my saliva on it and forced it into her mouth. She made a face over the taste but I didn't care. Tied her tits good and tight with two thin cords because they bite better than rope and added each bucket of excrement to the end of each cord. Letting the buckets drop made her shudder. The stink then hit her nostrils and they flared in horror. I took a bamboo rod up and swished it around. I hit her on the breasts scoring the nipples ten times out of the twenty. She rolled her head backwards and forwards with each impact and a tear ran down her face.

After the twenty I surveyed her boobs and saw lines reddening up nicely. The rest was also coloring up and getting bigger. She sighed as I patted her knockers and a stream of her own saliva exited her mouth when I removed the gag. I checked her snatch and it was noticeable she'd come for me. "Dirty bitch," I said and slapped her face. She smiled an enigmatic smile and so I slapped her again. The smile remained.

"Name," I said.

"Cunt," she sobbed.

I sat down on the chair provided and watched her struggling to get away from the stench. It was starting to get to me so it must have really been burning her nostril hairs.

"Don't worry your pretty little head," I told her, "we've got all weekend."

"You think I'm pretty, Mistress?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then how can you do this to me, Mistress?"

"Because I can."

"Please…Mistress…the smell…"

"Tell me then?"

"Cunt."

I gave her an hour or more like that then removed the buckets and gave her breasts a good slapping with a light paddle. She tried to move away from the impacts but she was tied too securely. I gave her thirty per breast and she gave me a deep growl. I notice she'd come again and so shoved the rag with my sweat and blood stains on it in to her mouth and told her to hold it. She did so as I took two small pins and forced them into the center of each nipple. She struggled and screamed as I forced them in but, to her credit, didn't drop the rag. I took it out and asked: "How does that feel?"

"Hurts?" she said in a sobbing voice.

"Want me to hurt you some more?"

"No, Mistress."

"Good. We're going to get along fine," I said, toying with one of the pins in one of her nipples. I was looking at the enema equipment and at then strap-on artificial cock I could ride her with later.

"Please…," she began, "please, Mistress…"

"What?"

"I shouldn't ask, Mistress."

"Ask."

"Please…Mistress…Hurt me some more."

What can I say except that I was obliging? At the end of Sunday I dressed her back into her clothes complete with collar and leash. She was very sore but I don't think she was sorry.

"So do you know her real name?" asked Bill as he said his farewell of me.

"No," I said. "But I'm determined to find out."

"Hey! Cunt," he said to her, "She treating you okay?"

"Yes, Master," came the reply. It was accompanied with a shy grin.

"Then I'll see you weekend to punish you for abusing my poor sister-in-law."

"Yes, Master," I said.

"And two weeks from now you'll abuse her some more?"

"Yes, Master."

At this answer from me, his sister-in0law had a Pavlov's dog reaction.

"Just smell that," he said. "She misses you already."

On my flight home I laid down my plans for Cunt as I'm sure my Master Bill laid down his plans for me. He told me – ordered me – to keep a diary of what he does to me and what I do for Cunt. I find this passes the time nicely during my normal working week.

Skipping two weeks in my notes (this being only a supplementary scribbling on my part) and getting to the third, I can say I've lost a little weight but not Bill's interest in me. My boobs are in recovery from the whipping with a light flogger he last gave them and from the heavy nipple rings he gave me without, I might add, anesthetic. This satisfied my masochistic leaning greatly. Still, finding out Cunt's Christian name is Betty like mine was my treasured moment as a sadistic pig. I think it was the two glasses of beer while two bags of cold water were in her that did it for me. She bellowed out her secret amid lots of tears and rumbles from her belly. Then, as I was about to pull the plug, she begged me to continue her punishment and so I did. I wanted her to suffer. I quite enjoyed her that way. So I gave her an extra twenty minutes. And she thanked me for it. Betty, after she returns to her husband with visit Bill on special occasions – occasions I will be invited to. Gee, I am so lucky nowadays to have Bill and that other Betty in my life. Very lucky.