Burley Cross Postbox Theft

by Nicola Barker

  5. ORCHIS MASCULA.

  This is the Early Purple Orchid (or ‘Cuckoos’ as it’s often called in the Midlands). It’s fairly widespread all over the UK and can be found in both woods and on meadowland. It flowers from mid-April to mid-June, but the flower’s of no interest to us. What we need is the tuber (i.e. the root).

  To complicate matters, the plant has two of them (both fleshy and egg-shaped). The difference between them is that one feeds the plant (then shrinks as the plant matures), the other receives all the excess nutrients that the plant accumulates throughout its growing season and so expands as the year progresses (thereby providing the energy the plant will need in order to germinate the following year). This is the tuber you want. The withered one is sometimes used in spells to ‘check wronged passions’ (the last thing you need). The fresh one is ‘under the dominion of Venus’ and will certainly serve our purpose.

  6. ORCHIS MASCULATA.

  It looks very like ‘Cuckoos’ (just to add to your misery) but flowers slightly later (July). You’ll find it on heaths and commons. It’s generally known as the Spotted Orchid (Mascula also has spotted leaves, so whoever you get your supply from certainly needs to know the difference between the two. Try looking on the internet if you get desperate).

  The important distinction between the two species lies underground. Masculata’s tubers are divided into several ‘finger-like’ lobes (as a consequence, it is sometimes called ‘Dead Men’s Fingers’ or ‘Palma Christi’ – I believe there’s a reference to it in Hamlet. Ophelia is wreathed in them when she drowns).

  This root is also referred to as ‘the Female Satyrion’. The myth is that they were the special food of satyrs and excited them to terrible excesses. Once again, it is the plump tuber that you want (and to distinguish between the two types they must always be harvested in autumn).

  Both kinds of tubers need to be prepared in the same way. First you’ll need to immerse them in boiling water (briefly scald them, in other words - but be sure and keep the sets of tubers strictly separated throughout this process, or you’ll forget which batch is which). The skins must then be rubbed off and the tubers placed into a pre-heated oven for around ten minutes (180 degrees Centigrade – 160 if your oven has a fan. Never, never microwave).

  Once you’ve removed them from the oven, place them somewhere cool and airy for a few days (away from any damp). During this time they will change from looking ‘milky’ to transparent and ‘horny’.

  When fully dried they can be stored (indefinitely) in a glass jar or a plastic bag (remember, do label them correctly to forestall any future heartache).

  For the Hex to work you will need a small slither of each, approximately the size and width of your littlest nail.

  7. A SAMPLE OF THE SALIVA OF THE OBJECT OF YOUR DESIRE.

  Sounds tricky, but this is easier to manage than you might initially imagine. Just invite the Object/Hex-ee out for a meal, or buy them a coffee, or – if needs be – just follow them around until you see them partaking of a random beverage and then acquire the can/glass/cup after they have gone and simply wipe a clean white tissue around its rim (a good quality tissue: white, pristine, with a high ply – none of that recycled rubbish). It is this tissue that you will employ in the Hex.

  8. PAGE 85 OF THE KAMA SUTRA.

  This is the Numerological part of the equation. The page number is acquired (a detail that had always deeply perplexed me before I finally worked it out during that especially long and boring debate about the future of the Ilkley Lido last spring) by adding together the numerical value of each individual letter in the words SEX HEX, i.e. nineteen for S, five for E etc. etc.

  When I initially used the Hex I bought a new copy of the Kama Sutra for each fresh conquest. Now I just photocopy the page. It seems just as effective.

  HOW THE HEX WORKS

  Using a black pen, draw a large vagina on to the sheet of plain white paper – in as much detail as you like – and then print the name of your Hex-ee – in capital letters – around its perimeter (if you don’t know their name, then their title will do just as well, so long as you keep a clear vision in your mind of them all the time as you are drawing, e.g. LOLLIPOP LADY).

  Underneath it, draw a large, erect penis, pointing directly towards the vagina (try and give it the characteristics of your own penis), then print your name in clear, strong, capital letters along its immense, distended shaft.

  Next, fold up the tissue, the page of the Kama Sutra, the hair, the feather, the two slithers of dried orchid tuber and place them all into the envelope alongside the drawing you have made. On the front of the envelope write SEX HEX. Underline it. Twice.

  Take this envelope outside to a quiet corner (or if you have an open fireplace inside which is sufficiently private, use that) and set fire to it while repeating the phrase: COME TO ME! COME TO ME! (- - - - is the name of your Hex-ee, obviously. If you don’t know their name then – once again – use the appropriate phrase, e.g. SEXY BRUNETTE IN THE POST OFFICE COME TO ME! etc.).

  Leave the burned remains where they lie. Do not touch them or move them.

  Soon – very soon – The Object Of Your Desire will be beating a path to your door. Just sit back and wait. It will happen. On average, I find, it takes around forty-eight hours. When they finally do turn up (pulling off their clothes, gasping, panting), the sex will be astonishing. Explosive. Filthy. Unconstrained. Orgiastic.

  The only negative effect is that there can often be an unpleasant smell in the room during the act of copulation. I have been told that this aroma is something to do with the power of the Early Purple Orchid which – while generally odourless – can exude a foul smell as dusk falls. For this reason I always tend to burn sweet orange oil in the room (if I’m in a room and can plan ahead) for the duration of the coition.

  Occasionally the smell clings to your skin for a while. It’s not a terrible aroma – like burned butter. Quite acrid.

  Another negative effect of the Sex Hex is that the Hex-ee will loathe you afterwards. They won’t understand what it was that compelled them to initiate a random act of sex with you. They’ll start off feeling dazed, then become slightly panicked and confused, then grow deeply resentful (but hey! Who cares? You’ve got what you wanted, so what the heck?!).

  I have used the Hex twelve times now (and have yet another charming little Hex-ee lined up – unbeknownst to her – even as I type this!). It has worked like a dream each time – except once. I’d Hexed this sweet Danish nurse at work and she never showed up. It later transpired that she’d been knocked down by an ambulance while running across the road directly adjacent to my office (she broke both her legs, so was of no use to me then for several months. I don’t think the power of the Hex lasts indefinitely – and I couldn’t risk Hexing her again after that).

  Do choose your ‘conquests’ carefully. I once made the mistake of using the Sex Hex on Sarah Jane’s geography teacher (gorgeous red-head, straight out of college. A real goer!) Once the Hex had been fulfilled (two rampant hours locked inside the school sick-bay) and she turned all sour and vengeful, she opted (unfairly) to take out her rage on SJ. The poor child came bottom of her class that year (which was a shame – geography was her favourite subject). It really knocked SJ’s confidence and finally put to rest all her ambitions of becoming Derby’s answer to Sir Ranulph Fiennes (a pretty silly dream for a girl to have, anyway, I suppose).

  I also used it on Pleasance Rutler (the wife of Ilkley’s old Mayor – remember her? Blonde. Bossy. Great legs – ex-professional dancer. Thighs with the grip of a python).

  She really, really bore a grudge. Nasty piece of work. Slashed the tyres on my car (well, it was Tamm’s car, as it happens – I’d taken her little black VW Golf convertible to work that day – my Range Rover was being MOT’d).

  My first Hex was on a young Nigerian traffic warden who gave me a ticket while I was parked on a double-yellow outside the hospital (a ‘revenge fuck’, so to speak. Although – of course – I
was able to claim the money back on the grounds of it being ‘a medical emergency’).

  I banged her inside a bus shelter, then several more times back at her home. She was the mother of twins. Lived in a crummy flat (on a still crummier estate). Kids screamed in their cot as we screwed next door. Her caesarean scars were still pink, which was slightly off-putting, but hey-ho…

  In case you’re interested, I was originally taught the Sex Hex by a heart surgeon I worked with in Derby. It was a teaching hospital. He’d been through half of the med. students there and I was desperate to know how… (can’t have been much under seventy, the frisky old dog!). I’m not entirely sure where it was that he learned it from, originally…

  So… yes. I think that’s about the sum of it. Text me if you think I’ve left anything out. Good luck with it. Don’t be scared to give it a whirl. And remember: it might seem fiddly to start off with, but it’s foolproof, and a hell of a lot less trouble than the ‘other’ techniques we discussed.

  Happy Christmas etc.

  Bax

  NOW BURN THIS, YOU HEAR?

  [letter 15]

  Saint’s Kennels

  Sharp Crag Farm

  Nr Burley Cross

  7 December, 2006

  Hell’s Bells, Prue –

  It’s been best part of a week – longer…

  I scribbled the address on this damn thing ten days ago, and as God is my witness, I’ve not had so much as a minute to call my own since.

  The fly strike’s taken out three of the Romneys! Poor Donal’s at his wits’ end. We never had it so late in the season before – it’s bitter out there (‘Cold as the north side of a gravestone in winter’ as me mam always liked to say). A very different story from Olonzac, eh?

  Those filthy flies shouldn’t be alive, let alone breeding… Donal don’t know if he’s coming or going – me either (more to the point!).

  Then – as if that wasn’t quite enough to be getting on with – the Coombes kid (our newest recruit, tho’ he’s about as much use on a farm as a chocolate teapot) has gone down with sodding measles – caught it off our Lawrie (Ta very much, Son!) who’s been fretting about a constant headache for nigh on a fortnight and won’t eat a thing (apart from fruit smoothies – home-made, fresh strawberry. Fussy little so-and-so… Oh, and he will force a soft-boiled duck egg down his gullet, but only if you ask him very nicely – granary soldiers, mind! Whenever I trudge down to the local shop they’ve run out, so then it’s a pesky drive to Ilkley Tesco’s to mollify the little sod).

  Finally, to crown it all, Gayle’s gone and had herself a huge barney with Ryan (it would’ve been a year this Christmas; she must’ve told me all of – oh – three hundred times) so she’s mooching about the place like a wet weekend, all heartbroke and love-lorn. ‘The weddin’s cancelled!’ she announces at table on Friday (over a glamorous bowl of microwaved carrot soup). ‘Weddin’?’ Donal growls (he’s been up best part of the night). ‘Who said owt about a bloody weddin’?!’

  Now she’s hanging crape. Shooting him dark looks. Won’t utter so much as a word in his general orbit (not that our man’s noticed – he’s that knackered!). ‘Insensitive brute,’ she mutters this morning after he turfs her out the bathroom (get her, eh? All hoity!). She’d been walled up in there over an hour – trimming her fringe (she’s cut it way too short – silly mare – and has spent the best part of the day yanking and pulling at the damn thing in the hope of making it grow back again).

  I’m still running the kennels single-handed. No sign of that extra help Donal promised after the Guy Fawkes Night hullabaloo (would’ve called it a ‘debacle’, but can’t see my way to spelling it right… And we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of that bloody Setter – tho’ Arthur Wolf swore black is blue he saw the damn thing at Raven’s Peak atop Kex Gill last week).

  We’re fully booked over New Year. Six months back I would’ve been made up about it – happy as Larry – but now? I dunno. I’m still not…

  Sorry, Prue, love. Donal just hauled me down to the small paddock (Phew! Still short of breath, in fact!). Had to wrangle the ram as Donal teased about a million fly eggs out of the wool. The deeper he worked his way in, the worse things got. They’d hatched! An earlier infestation, Donal reckons. We finished up shearing the whole back end. It was far worse than we’d initially conceived of – they’d chewed through to the backbone, pretty much. Poor blighter was in agony! I just dashed back home to ring the veterinary (no mobile reception) …

  Sorry, Prue – different pen – the veterinary turned up just as I was settling down. He said as how he thought we could save the poor blighter, but in the end it was too late (£94 too late! Merry Christmas to you, too, Veterinary Crawford!). Donal shot him first thing (the ram – tho’ if the veterinary’d hung around a minute longer than it’d took the ink to dry on his blasted cheque…).

  He’s been ashen all morning (it was Pye, the first Romney ram he ever got. Donal doted on the tusty old codger).

  Even Gayle clocked how riled her dad were (through that thick stew of heartbreak!) and took him his mug of tea out at ten – a timely rapprochement! (Looked up the spelling in the dictionary! Double-checked debacle! Nowt’s too much trouble for you, Prue, love!)

  I found mine (tea) nicely stewed on the kitchen table once I’d mucked out the stables – her job, coincidentally (Oh aye – and she was literally falling over herself to thank me, after… uh… Not).

  You won’t believe it: she’s only back to worrying at her bloody fringe again! Looks like a Trappist monk! Ryan still isn’t returning her texts (that was some row, eh?), but – like I keep telling her – he’s on a walking holiday in Wales with the Scouts, so what’s she expect? (I just thank God I’m not a teenager no more, Prue. All those new-fangled ways to feel rejected! ‘He di’n’t email, Mam! He di’n’t phone, Mam! He di’n’t text!’ It’s enough to send you do-bloody-lally!)

  You’ll doubtless be delighted to hear as Billy’s in rare health. Still three bricks shy of a load, of course. Lawrie says he spent best part of an hour chasing his own tail in the yard yesterday, then collapsed – where he stood – and slept for three hours, solid. Wouldn’t move a muscle – not even when Donal sounded the horn on the tractor!

  I’m only glad you didn’t risk taking him to Olonzac (what with the Gala virus running so rampant up in the hills there). He’s having a whale of a time here! Loves charging about the place – tho’ he’s crouched over my boots, shivering (fit to bust!) as I write this (I had to hose him down after he rolled in a cowpat. He’s fine. He’s been sat by the kitchen range. The other Borders are all green with envy! Tarry and Rusty’ve had their noses pressed to the door throughout).

  He just scoffed down all the cats’ food while someone dropped off a Labrador – beautiful chocolate-brown bitch, five months old, name of Tess – and left their bowls in all four corners of the room.

  How’s your sister faring? Two broken arms, three kids, five months pregnant and a B&B to take care of? And there was me thinking as I was hard done by! You must be run ragged, poor sod! Bet you can’t wait to get back home! Talking of which – I went down to The Old Cavalry Yard and dug out that recipe you was hankering after (Stewed Pork and Puy Lentils? Was that it?) and your rosary (enclosed). Then there’s the seven cards I found on your doormat – and something you won’t so much like the look of: a lengthy epistle about the Promise Auction from the reverend’s good friend, Mr Sebastian St John (don’t fret – I double-checked the deadlock on your door so as to be sure that BC’s answer to David Dickinson couldn’t wriggle his way in there and start pricing up the cutlery!).

  Anyway, that’s all my news for now – Oh, Lor! Apart from this month’s Book Group! How’d that slip my mind?! Life of Pi! Total catastrophe! Hadn’t had so much as a chance to look at the damn thing, but didn’t dare confess it – being as it’s my third book in a row I haven’t read (folk’ll start thinking I’m only in it for Sally Trident’s legendary Cheese and Olive Scone Bake! Your lower
digestive tract must be in uproar having missed out on it all these long weeks!).

  As luck would have it, nobody else could make head or tail of the book (so I passed off my ignorance as confusion: ‘But why’d they call the tiger Richard? Where’s the sense in that?!’). Discussion was just getting started, when, next thing we know, Tom Augustine and Robin Goff start going at it hammer and tongs! (Don’t have the first clue why the two of ’em turned up, quite frankly – I much prefer it when it’s only us girls.) Clash of the Titans, it was! Tom Augustine jumps to his feet and sends a plate of bourbons flying. Robin’s all up in his face, ranting and raving (poor Brenda didn’t know where to put herself!).

  I wouldn’t mind, but the row wasn’t even about the book! It was some pointless little dispute about ‘the proper definition of a Farmers’ Market’(!). Robin says as the produce has to come straight from the farm. Tom says summat to the contrary. The argument goes on for bloody hours, all manner of accusations flying hither and thither, the two of ’em crashing and butting like a pair of rutting stags!

  Nobody else can get a word in (nor wants to, either!). Of course neither of ’em bothers asking me my thoughts on the matter (I’m just a farmer’s wife after all…). Jill Harpington’s down on the floor, meanwhile, gathering up the bourbons, trying to minimize the damage to her new cream Axminster (we’re all in our stockinged feet – Tom, for the record, has a large hole in his sock) when her contact lens falls out. ‘Don’t move!’ she’s wailing. ‘Don’t move!’

  Next thing we know, Tammy Thorndyke stands up, throws her book on’t floor and commences mewling like a newborn! Sally Trident starts having a panic attack. ‘Jesus wept!’ she keeps panting (her glasses all steamy). ‘Jesus wept!’

  I’ll tell you this for nowt, Prue: I don’t know what the heck they’ve chose to read next month, but I’ve already booked my front-row seat! Wouldn’t miss it for the world (am even thinking of taking young Lawrie along – you know how much he enjoys watching the WWF on the box)!