The Farmer’s Wife. Rachael Treasure

Devils night,’ Doreen said in a drawling, twanging voice that made the word ‘horny’ sound like a motorbike passing. ‘This is Tracey and she’s our Horny Rep.’ Beside her stood a demure girl, dressed all in black, with heavy eye makeup and jet-black hair pulled tightly back in a pony tail.

      ‘Geez, check out the woman-child,’ muttered Gabs as she surveyed the sex-toy consultant. ‘As if she’d know how to use this stuff. She looks like she’s still in grade six.’

      Bec stifled a giggle. Tracey stepped forwards. ‘Evening, ladies. I’ll walk you through the catalogue. We’ll start with our lingerie and finish with the boys’ toys.’

      Rebecca flicked to the first page, where a fake-tanned, breast-enhanced, air-brushed bottle blonde was slipping off the strap of her hot pink, sheer Yvette Babydoll with matching G-string. Bec’s eyes meandered over a few more pages of ‘flog-me’-style black lace corsets with suspenders for the larger ladies. For the more demure there was the Courtney Gown in elegant duck-egg blue with ‘sexy thigh-high splits’. She wondered what Charlie might do if she turned up dressed in some of the clothing. Maybe as the raunchy police officer, complete with gun, baton and hat, whispering to him, ‘Frisk me?’ He’d probably laugh at her.

      As Tracey passed a few samples around, the women began to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at the potential the outfits could bring to their marriages and partnerships.

      ‘Now if Doreen here sells over fifteen hundred dollars’ worth, she’s in for tonnes of free product.’

      ‘Not used, I hope!’ Doreen snorted.

      Tracey smiled patiently. ‘Which brings us on to cleaning. On page twenty-two, there’s a range of play wipes and safe sterilisers for your vibrators.’

      ‘So you don’t just wash ’em and hang ’em on the line?’ Janine chortled.

      ‘No,’ said Tracey, straight-faced.

      ‘Not in the dishwasher?’ Janine added.

      Tracey gave her an ‘I’ve heard it all before’ look and soldiered on, holding up a six-inch iridescent blue Wallbanger complete with ‘additional dolphin’, flicking the on switch so the thing contorted like Flipper having a seizure. She passed it to Doreen, who shrieked and almost threw it to her daughter-in-law, Bonnie.

      ‘Oh my god,’ Bonnie said, blinking from behind her glasses, ‘I can’t believe my mother-in-law just passed me a vibrator! I’m going to need therapy!’

      Rebecca reached for a crabstick, smiling as the other women laughed. Soon the buzzing Wallbanger got to her. ‘Here, Gabs, test it on your schnoz,’ she said, buzzing the vibrator to Gabs’s long, red-from-rum nose.

      ‘Oh my god!’ squeaked her friend. ‘I think my nose just went off! It’s not dripping, is it?’

      Laughter erupted from within Rebecca. ‘That is most disturbing,’ she said.

      ‘I’d be gone before I’d even put the batteries in that thing,’ Gabs said, taking it from her. ‘That’s just too much!’

      Next Tracey was holding up what looked like a fancy seat belt for a racing-car harness. ‘This is part of our Fetish Fantasy range and is the Door Swing. So you attach it to the door frame like this …’

      ‘Looks like a baby’s jolly jumper,’ Gabs muttered. ‘Ted would love a go in that, then once he’s in bed, I could let Frank have a crack at it with me in it!’

      ‘That is utterly gross,’ Bec said.

      From the back row of women, Ursula called out, ‘Would it hold me? Reckon I’d bring the supports of the roof down if I got going in it!’ Some of the women struggled to stifle their giggles.

      ‘It takes up to one-twenty kilos,’ Tracey said.

      ‘That means I’d need a bloody small bloke,’ Ursula said.

      ‘You could grab one of those new jockeys from up the road to give it a go,’ Gabs suggested. ‘Come to think of it, if you weren’t in it, you could fit three jockeys in there. They’re only about forty kilos each, aren’t they?’

      The women all laughed. Jockeys had been the focus of jokes lately since the sale of Rivermont. It was the district’s second largest farm after Rebecca’s Waters Meeting and a bit more sizeable than Janine’s husband’s Elvern Estate, and had in the past twelve months sold for three million. The new owners, who wanted to expand their racing operation from Scone, had dived in and proceeded to give the entire property and homestead a facelift and transformation that was beyond belief. Within months it had been cultivated into a premier racing training and breeding facility that would rival the Packers’ polo place.

      It wasn’t the only change the locals were dealing with. The previous summer the road from Bendoorin had been sealed right up through the valley so that rich sightseers wanting an easy glimpse of the summertime snow country could now drive their BMWs and Mercedes Benzes through the valley comfortably. There were also mutterings that the mining companies were sniffing about for new leases.

      In short, Bendoorin was experiencing a renaissance. So much so that Candice’s daughter Larissa had opened a coffee shop that served flat whites and chai lattes to the Rivermont staff, new tourist trade and mining men.

      Transition and change were in the air and, even though there were employment benefits (and sexy visiting tradesmen for the women to ogle), most of the locals didn’t like it. Particularly Rebecca. Her quiet backwater farm of peace and solitude had now become a thoroughfare for ski-bunnies, bushwalkers and weekend tourists looking to escape the city during holiday periods, along with four-wheel drives packed with workwear-clad men carting geo-equipment and core sample drilling rigs. And the conversion of Rivermont to a place frequented by pukka big-money corporates and the best racehorses on the planet was just another pain in her arse.

      Absolute tossers could now be found at Candy’s store, asking for organic sourdough bread and low-fat soy milk for their coffees. And there was often a rowdy queue at the counter when the playful Rivermont staff zoomed into town in their sign-painted work vehicles and bought up all the sausages and steak from the meat section for their pissy barbecues, leaving none for the locals.

      ‘Bugger the Rivermont jockeys and the snobby bastards there,’ Ursula said. ‘I’m sick of their bloody helicopter flying over and upsetting me pigs!’

      ‘Hear, hear,’ said Rebecca, raising her empty glass.

      Just as the other women joined them in a toast, in walked a stunning woman, dressed in skinny jeans and knee-high leather boots. A classy blonde pony tail pulled back from her clear vibrant face meant it was difficult to tell her age. She could have been in her late twenties or early thirties. Or she could have been a well-preserved forty. Rebecca looked at her with a tinge of regret. It was how she wanted to look. How she suspected she had looked before life had got in her way.

      ‘Sorry I’m late,’ the woman said to Doreen, glancing around the room.

      ‘No problems, duck. We’ve only just started. Everyone, this here’s Yasmine Stanton. From Rivermont.’

      The ladies eyed her more thoroughly.

      ‘Yazzie, for short,’ she said with a big perfect-toothed princess smile. ‘Everyone calls me Yazzie.’

      ‘Jazzie Yazzie,’ Bec heard Ursula mutter, knowing news of the presence of the leggy blonde in the area had already spread like wildfire among the Bendoorin men. ‘More like fucken Barbie.’

      If the woman had heard Ursula’s comments, she didn’t react. She just beamed a smile and graciously accepted a shooter from Doreen, downing it and eagerly grabbing up a second.

      An hour later Doreen had Tom Jones blaring from the stereo. Some of the women were gyrating on the specially bought red shag-pile rug. Gabs’s terriers, who had now been allowed into the house, were up for some fun too, trying in vain to hump the rug and the leg of anyone who would stand still for long enough. Amanda