Last year I wrote a very good book, The Tale of the Tawse. It’s funny, sexy as hell, romantic and exciting.

In it, a man with a name like a Wodehouse character (Freddie Underhill) meets two women, Daphne and Shar, and helps each of them deal with a life crisis, with occasional applications of his hand or a long leather strap, the tawse of the title, to their firm proud et cetera.

At the end of the book, he’s back on his own in New York, and he gets an invitation from each of the women to come to a global warming conference in Wellington, New Zealand. Daphne is having an art exhibition there, and Shar is the translator for the diplomatic team of a small mid-eastern country. Freddie ends the book wondering how he’s going to manage his way through that.

The Tale of the Tawse is currently with a publisher, under consideration, but it’ll be out soon. I have every confidence in that. And one thing the world will be demanding is the continuation of the story. What happens in New Zealand?

I think – just working this out as I go along – that he lets each woman know that the other woman will be there. They both already know of the other’s existence. On the day he arrives in Wellington he invites both women to dinner. 

They get on very well. However, Daphne’s up for a threesome, or even a twosome with just her and Shar. But Shar’s not having that. She’s a straight girl. 

In the meantime they decide that they’ll get a hotel suite together, the three of them, and they’ll each take turns to sleep with Freddie, while the other sleeps in the next room.

Then Shar hears that her younger cousin, Mahtab, who she hasn’t seen since she was three years old, is also in Wellington, to be married off to a Saudi aristocrat of striking physical and moral unattractiveness. She and Daphne go to meet the girl, and Shar gives Mahtab a card with their hotel room and phone number. Daphne tells the girl about  Freddie, and says they’ll get Freddie to help her. She writes down Freddie’s number and gives it to her. 

The next day, on the way to the global warming conference, Freddie is attacked and stabbed. He manages to break away and staggers into a butcher’s shop, bleeding a lot. The attackers follow him, but are attacked by the huge butcher, and they run. The butcher calls an ambulance for Freddie, and the hospital stitches and bandages Freddie and says he’s fine to go home.

Back at the hotel, Daphne and Shar are waiting. When they see him injured they realise it must be their fault for giving Mahtab written information, that has obviously fallen into the wrong hands. Shar begs him to punish both of them.

He does. Shar, now sore and weeping, begs him to help her cousin escape. Of course he agrees.

I’m thinking the escape takes place on the ferry running between the North and South Islands. But I’m a bit vague about the details.

That’s as far as I’ve got, so far. I’m making this plot up as I write this post, and I’m out of ideas now. Thank you for listening.