I Started Smoking Again

I started smoking, after work. Oh, you know, work, those cunts are enough to drive anyone back to the old tobacci, as they say. Maybe, I should get a new job rather than a new packet of smokes.

My addiction councillor, Jackie, says it might help to record my fails at quitting, so I can look back and use it somehow to stop smoking completely. 

I'm not really sure how that works, but assume more information will help somehow. I guess it’s gotto. Hey?

Jackie is pretty fierce. She has a take-no-prisoners attitude to addiction and her clients. 

Keep trying to stop! Never stop trying to stop, is the motto.

I say nervously, fingering my cigarette packet. I like it all. The smell. The taste. The feeling. Just holding it in my hand, I think. I like all of that. The packet. The lighter. Putting it to my lips. The action of the lighter. How I hold my head as the tip turns red. Inhaling, that lovely feeling. The smoke rising up off it, and swirling about my head. Inhaling the aroma. I like it all. 

The smoke swirling in the rays of the afternoon sun, when I sit out the back on my wicker chairs in the garden. I have taken photos of that, I have to admit. The beauty of that white smoke swirling in the rays making them visible to the eye.

I guess I am supposed to call the group and admit my failings?

That’s how it works, in Group Think, Jackie’s Quit Smoking Group. She guarantees success, one of the reasons I signed up, a guarantee, or your money back. That has to count for something.

Jackie is a treat with her green hair and her thick black rimmed glasses. She swears and drinks like a fish, which I really want to point out to her is, surely, against her ethos. The drinking. But I guess it is more do as I say, not as I do, that’s how the world works anyway, isn’t it.

When she calls me, she is always yelling into the phone. “James, James, is that you?”

“Yes.”

“James, James, speak up I can’t here you, the reception is bad here.”

“Yes, Jackie, it’s me.”

“James?”

“Yes.”

“James Matterhorn?”

“Yes, Jackie, it’s James Matterhorn here.”

“Oh, good, I’m glad I’ve got you James. I wasn’t sure I had the right number.”

“You have the right number,” I yell into the phone.

“Okay, okay, no need to yell, I’m on the same fucken planet as you James.”

“I thought it was the reception?”

“It’s not that bad, keep your pants on.”

“Okay.”

“We have a meeting of Group Think next Friday.”

“Is that the Friday coming up? Or is that the next one?”

“It’s the next one.”

“So, Friday week?”

“No James, next Friday. Are you listening?”

“Yes, Jackie I’m listening.”

“Friday 31st?”

“Um, er, ah, let me just find my phone. Now where did I put my phone?”

“The one you are talking into?”

“Oh yes. Ha ha. Goodness me. Now just a minute, where is my calendar.”

The call drops out.

The phone rings.

“It is next Friday the 31st, James, did you get that?”

“Yes Jackie, next Friday.’

“Yes, next Friday, isn’t that what I said?”

“Yes, Jackie it was what you said.”

“Well, I am fucken glad we have that sorted out. James. I’m talking to James, aren’t I?”

“Yes, Jackie, James here.”

“Just with all this ringing around, sometimes I’m not always sure.”

“No, I got it Jackie.”

“Abe won’t be coming, he’s dead.”

“What?”

“Yes, dead. Heart attack, from all accounts, on a table in a Greek restaurant smashing plates.”

“OMG! That’s terrible. Poor Abe.”

“Yes, indeed, went down like a bag of shit, from all accounts, dead before he hit the floor. Poor Abe.”

"Poor Abe."

“Anyway, everyone else with be there, Even Hatchet Betty, she’s out of hospital, the wounds have healed and the charges have been dismissed, so that’s good news.”

“Really? Is it?”

“Good news for Betty.”

“But what about the rest of us?”

“She’s just misunderstood.”

“I thought the problem was medical.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, James.”

“I thought the problem was that she stopped taking her anti-psychotic medicine.”

“Yes, well, she’s back on them now, James, and as gentle as a lamb.”

“Good to hear.”

“So, can you bring a plate?”

“To Group Think?”

“Yes James.

“Next Friday?”

“James, I am pretty sure we have been over this.”

“I’m just wanting to be clear, Jackie.”

“Good habit to get into, James, don’t get me wrong.”

“Yes, Jackie.”

“Remember, just good habits, James.”

“Yes, just good habits.”

“Lovely. Next Friday then.”

"Yes."

I went and emptied the ashtray, as soon as I hung up the phone. I got a chill up my spine as I did. It was my shame. I didn’t tell Jackie. I’m not really sure why? Guilt. A sense of failure? Ego? I don’t know? All I knew is that I had until next Friday to stop smoking again. Could I go to a meeting while I was smoking? No. No, I couldn’t do that. Out of the question. 

I had a week to stop again.

Good Morning, Sunshine

I walked out onto my balcony to see what sort of day it was, hot or cold? It’s been warm, followed by cold, stormy and wet.

It’s been raining all morning. It is cool but muggy. Lovely.

No, I think Melbourne’s changeable weather is way over exaggerated.

Now, I had only just cracked open the coffin lid, as I stepped out onto my Juliet balcony, over looking my street, the day, the world.

That was as I stepped outside into the morning to discover it was a lovely day, 25, or so, and sunny, with a breeze. And with that, I was quite pleased.

It was early, 9.30am. Lovely.

What to do for the day? What indeed.

I made a promise to be more, to all of my friends. But life got in the way, as life has a habit of doing. We all haven't talked in so long, you know together, around the same table so to speak, but it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s as though no time has passed when we do get together. That’s what friends are.

I feel like we are always working now a days, it seems to be a given, a sign of being productive. I found a local news article that describes ways we can fill our lives with work rather than love. It's easier than it sounds, ha, ha. But then, we all look like we have already found the secret.

Work to live, that’s my motto, it was Australia’s motto once. Not live to work. We need to rediscover the dinner table laden with food and wine, surrounded by friends and long evenings to consume all of it. Forget the board table Australia and go home to your loved ones. The corporate world eats it’s young and leaves the carcass bleeding in its wake, don’t forget that.

I see the young kid from down the road jog passed in those little black shorts and that kind of uncoordinated way he has a jogging. He has a particular look on his face, when he jogs, kind of expressionless mannequin crossed with disappointment. I don’t know how old he is? I remember seeing him in his dark blue school uniform, but that was probably a few years ago now. It’s funny how we all jog in our 20s when we don’t need to and then we all sit on the couch in our 40s when we do need to jog. It has something to do with sex, 20 year olds get lots of sex, 40 year-olds not so much.

He’s probably 20 now and going to uni now. 2nd year. Isn’t that what they all do? Kids from trendy middle class families. Go to uni. I look down and spot a nearly unsmoked joint in the ashtray on my balcony wicker table. I slide it into my mouth and light it. I couldn’t quite remember when I left it there. I went to uni, of course, but that doesn’t lessen my argument, about modern youth. The joint is a good vintage, I inhale deeply and exhale up into the sky. The jogging kid, I guess, would have a uni girl friend who he’d study with. Eat lunch. Travel to campus with by public transport. I hoped he’d have a uni boyfriend too. One of each. Really enjoy his uni days. Attend protests. Arm around a girl. Arm around a boy. Get shit faced. I didn’t do any of that at uni. I just studied and felt miserable just about every day I went. I had no one with whom to get shit-faced.

I sat down on one of the wicker chairs. The sun was nice. I was thinking about what I’d do today, but now I didn’t care. I puffed some more on the joint. I blew the smoke into the air high above my head.

The sky was blue.

“Come on Nat, we haven’t got much time to get to the concert,” says Lachlan. “And I’ve heard Atomic Waste goes on right on time.”

“Oh Lachie, no band goes on on time, they just don’t.”

“They do, apparently Spiro the lead singer has OCD bad and he has to.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Nat, this is Ashleigh, he’s coming to the concert too.”

“Hi Ashleigh,” says Nat.

“Nice to meet you,” says Ashleigh.

“So, how do you two guys know each other?” asks Nat.

“We do the same European History tute,” says Lachlan.

“You studying Arts too, Ashleigh.”

“Arts/Law,” says Ashleigh.

“Does the Arts degree soften the Law?”

“Something like that,” says Ashleigh.

“So, you can explain the ethics of what you do to your clients…”

“Something like that.”

“Or, so you can justify draining the folks of their life savings when you draw up the legal papers.”

“I was hoping to work in public law after I graduate.”

“Is that because you don’t have the stomach for corporate world.”

“Hey Nat, you are being a bit aggressive,” says Lachlan.

“No, it’s okay,” says Ashleigh. “I’ve got choices to justify, if only to myself.”

“Oh, am I? Sorry,” says Nat.

“Don’t be,” says Ashleigh. “It’s good, I like robust discussions.”

“You know my parents are going through a messy divorce.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Ashleigh.

“Yeah, me too,” says Nat.

“I bought us a couple of joints for the walk to Rod Laver,” says Lachlan. “Let’s smoke them as we walk through the park.”

“Get them out,” says Nat.

“The joints?” questions Lachlan.

Ashleigh laughs.

“You guys,” says Nat.

Lachlan puts both joints in his mouth and lights them.

"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars," says Nat.

Lachlan hands each of them a joint.

“Now Voyager,” says Ashleigh.

Lachlan exhales a huge cloud of smoke. “Nat is an old movie buff.”

“I study drama…” says Ashleigh.

“You study drama?” questions Nat.

“It’s my one indulgence,” says Ashleigh. “My one frivolity.”

“Frivolity,” asks Lachlan.

Nat hands her joint to Ashleigh. Ashleigh hands his joint to Lachlan.

“We just watched Now Voyager, my lecturer is a Bette Davis nut,” says Ashleigh.

“Is she the old chick with all the white makeup who fed the budgie to her sister?” asks Lachlan.

“Yes, Baby Jane,” says Nat.

Lachlan hands his joint to Nat. Ashleigh hands his joint to Lachlan.

“I’m not really into old movies,” says Lachlan.

“I find them interesting,” says Ashleigh. “It’s another world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Exactly,” says Nat. “Great analogy.”

Nat and Lachlan hand both their joints to Ashleigh.

“Wow, hang on, are you guys trying to get me shit faced,” says Ashleigh.

“You catch on quick,” says Lachlan.

“I’d be into it,” says Nat. She smiles at Lachlan. Lachlan can’t help but smile as he looks from Nat to Ashleigh.

Ashleigh hands one of the joints to Nat.

The crowds started forming as they approach the stadium.

“Come on, lets go,” says Lachlan. He grabs Nat’s hand and Ashleigh’s hand and he runs them down the hill to the people milling around the entrance.

Nat and Ash take awkward last puffs on the joints and then throw them almost in unison onto the grass as they run past.

I chuckled a warm, nostalgic, chuckle to myself as I put the split out in the ashtray.

I was already imagining what Lachie, Nat and Ash got up to when they got home to Lachlan's place after the concert.

The Question

Finn asked Chris if he had been unfaithful. Finn just came out with it, in the kitchen as they made coffee.

Chris left the crab ointment on the bathroom bench and Finn had noticed it when he used the bathroom. Finn had had a shower, we’re not using soft language for Finn taking a dump.

Finn could see Chris was taken back, because he was.

“Finn?...” Chris’ eyes glassed over, as if they had already decided. “I never... no.” 

For the last year, since Angelo gave crabs to Chris, just occasionally Chris has felt something crawling on his skin. It had a really high ‘ick’ factor for him. In those moments, he puts the ointment on, for peace of mind, more so than anything else. He changes his sheets, washes his clothes and then he feels everything is fine. 

I don’t even really feel them, as such, Chris has said. It’s just a feeling, a passing shiver up my spine, I get sometimes.

Angelo still lives up the street. He's just finishing uni. But Chris hasn't, you know, not since he met Finn. Well, maybe that one time right at the beginning, but Chris counted it as before Finn, when he got the damn crabs.

“I know. I just wondered,” said Finn. He was quiet after that.

Chris suppressed the urge to confess. Brain kicked in. It was one of those red stop-light moments. Don't say anything. Count to ten. Do not question. Don't pull a face. Keep your mouth shut.

“I have only been with you,” said Chris. And that was true. He’d been with Angelo moments before he met Finn, but that still counted as before. Chris thinks he was still dealing with the crabs when he and Finn drunkenly hooked up that first time.

“Me too,” said Finn. “I’ve only been with you.” Chris guessed Finn felt he should add that, you know, in the spirit of the conversation.

“The cream is psychosomatic,” said Chris. “It is all in my head.”

“What is?”

“The crawling on my skin,” said Chris.

“The crawling on your skin?”

“Yes, not another man,” said Chris.

Finn laughed nervously. “Is that why the cream is on the bench?”

“Yes, that’s why the cream is on the bench.”

“What? Crab ointment?”

“Yes. I had a struggle to get rid of them once. And sometimes I feel them. Imagined, don’t worry. But…” Chris shook all over. “Yuk.”

“They can’t hurt you?”

“Have you ever had them?”

Finn blushed. “Yeah, sure, um...”

“How many times?”

“Oh, come on, you don’t expect me to admit to that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You might think less of me.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“How many times have you had them?”

“More than once,” said Finn. “Is that enough information?”

“So, bigger than a bread box?”

Finn laughed. “Yes, sure, let’s say that.”

“So many many times is what I am hearing?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t use quite so many manys.”

“So many times?”

“It doesn’t really sound much better.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Oh?” Finn looked crestfallen.

“Oh, Finn, I am kidding you.”

“Sure.”

“Yes, positive, I don’t care how many times you have had them, despite only ever having them once myself.”

“What?”

“It’s a joke.”

Finn inhaled noticeably. “My house mate used to call me pigpen, because of how many times I had them.”

“Oh.” Chris kept a blank face for as long as he could, but eventually he couldn’t help but smile. “Is that a Peanuts reference.”

“Yes.”

This Is It

This is it. There is nothing else. Only this. This is our shot, don't fuck it up. You don't get another shot at it. No. Never. No chance.

And when it is done?

It's over, all over, everything is over, never to come again, done, finished, final. Minute by minute. Life time by life time. Only what is coming, will come. The only thing you have control over is your positioning against the thing that comes.

You can choose what you get, to an extent, by a positive outlook, a cheery face to the world. The best way to face it is to be happy. Content. In a random world, chose life. Chose happiness and everything else will take care of itself. With some luck. But a good nature super charges luck, haven’t you heard?

Be happy. Make a life of it. As there is no going back, there is no revision, there is no practice run, there is no re-write, there is no chance to start again. Sorry to inform you. But, you must have known.

This is it! 

It is happening now.

It’s draining out of you now, draining away. Your life, even if you don’t notice, it is happening. Right now, ebbing away. Minute by minute, second by second, you are closer to the end than you were before, even if you don’t feel it.

“Do you think I look older?”

“Older than when?”

“Than five minutes ago?”

“Oh, darling.”

“This morning?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Than I did last year?”

“Well, if we are talking about last year?”

“Our photos from our trip to Amsterdam?”

“Five years ago?”

“Is it five years ago?”

“The last trip?”

“When you stood in the moonlight in that lime green cagoule?”

“You were smoking those long joints.”

“Do I look older now?”

“That was five years ago?

“My how the time disappears.”

“You are lovelier now…”

“That wasn’t the question?”

“What was the question?”

“Do I look older?”

“You are as beautiful now…”

“Than when we drove that Fiat around southern Europe?”

“Twenty years ago?”

“Than when Oliver was born?”

“He’s twenty one years old?”

“He got your good looks.”

“He looks so much like you that if we put a dress on him…”

“Do I look older now, than then?”

“When you were red faced and screaming as he slid out of you?”

“To think that big boy came out of me.”

“It is the only time I have ever believed in miracles.”

“Do I look older than that night on the dance floor?”

“When we met?”

“What was the song that was playing?”

“You sexy thing.”

“You sexy thing?”

“Ah yes, I remember it like yesterday.”

“Do I look older than that night?”

“You had a mass of blonde curls.” 

“You had long dark hair.”

“You were lovelier than the sun and the moon and all the flowers in between.”

“We danced together until dawn.”

“I loved you from the very moment we were introduced.”

“I think I loved you from that moment too.”

“That was thirty years ago.”

“Do I look older now than then?”

“No.”

Blah, blah, blah

Girl's just talk, don't they. I must be getting intolerant? I went to the post office and had to stand in line for quite some time and these two girls in front of me never shut up, not for a second. There wasn't even a pause. They didn't even seem to draw breath. They just kept on yak yak yakking until I wanted to scream, "Shut up!" "Shut up!" "Shut up!"

I just have to breath instead. 1, 2, 3…

“Oh, I know. Did you see the look on her face?”

“Like a slapped arse, she was not happy.”

“It was Jeremy’s fault…”

“Oh yes, I know.”

“He was the one…”

“He was, that is for sure.”

“I thought Natalie was going to lose it completely.”

“At Jeremy?”

“Oh, at everyone by that stage. Her face said it all.”

“Her face said it all.”

“I didn’t know where to look…”

“Or say. I didn’t want to be dragged into it just because I made an off the cuff comment.”

“Oh, I couldn’t agree more. I was keeping my mouth shut that was for sure.”

“For sure.”

“And all Simon could do was laugh.”

“Standing there in his sweaty jogging shorts and singlet.”

“Good legs though.”

“Oh yes, I have always said that about Simon.”

“He could fling his jogging shorts on the end of my bed any day.”

“Any day, I agree,”

“Could you imagine?”

“Do you think about that?”

“With Simon?”

“Yes, with Simon.”

“It has crossed my mind, I am not ashamed to say.”

One leant into the other and whispered. (but I was right behind them so I could still hear them) “More so than with Jeremy?”

“Oh no!” The other exploded, well, whispered explosion. Trying to keep a squeal contained.

“Never!” 

“No, never.”

They both laughed. 

One of them held up her little finger. The other one tried to stifle her laugh with one hand as she slapped the other girl’s hand away with the other hand.

Then it was all fast whispered hisses, which somehow was even more annoying.

“Oh stop!”

“It’s true though.’

“So true.”

"Isn't it."

They both cleared their throats simultaneously as if indicating a return to normal transmission.

“But Natalie?”

The other one groaned.

“Oh, I am not looking forward to going back to the office.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Like a bitch on wheels is Nat when she is pissed off.”

“Like a bitch…”

“If she says anything, I am just going to tell her to take it up with Jeremy.”

“Me too, I am going to tell her the same thing.”

“Let her sort it out with him.”

“Yes, sort it out with him.”

“And leave me out of it.”

“Out of it." She nodded her head emphatically. "Me too?”

“Next please.”

“I’ll see you back at the office.”

“Yes, see you back at the office.”

Now There's Jack

Now there’s Jack’s pills. Thank our existence for the pills. Thank the pills for giving us back our happy Jack. Thank you, modern pharma.

He finished his environmental science degree. He started his own business renovating run down houses. (Like father, like son) Positively gearing, he espouses positive gearing.

“It is something that really shouldn’t be legal,” said Jack. “But thank fuck that it is.” Then he smiles that gorgeous smile of his, that has charmed half the world. Happy Jack.

He drives a brand new VW twin cab ute.

He’s now bringing up his son, Felix, with his girlfriend, Indigo. They seem happy.

Jack and Indigo still see Campbell. Is it a thrupple? Jack wouldn’t exactly say. All he has really ever said was, it’s a modern world. He has said at varying times that Indigo couldn’t choose between the two boys and while they had threatened to fight it out in a boxing ring and a football field, if that’s what it would take to impress her, they haven’t. It came down to the two of them being in love with Indigo and neither wanting to let her go.

When we have questioned do all three of them sleep together? He’s been kind of vague about it.

“If you want to know if Campbell and I are great big gay lords on the quiet, well, no, the answer is no.”

Liam and I looked sideways at each other, raising our eyebrows at exactly the same time.

Jack and Campbell play football together at the local club. They train together at the gym too, of course.

Indigo is now pregnant to Campbell. Jack did say that he was holding both Indigo and Campbell in his arms when Campbell impregnated Indigo, in a kind of reverential tone, like it was some kind of spiritual event.

Liam and I looked sideways at each other, once again, raising our eyebrows.

"We all like each other very much," said Jack.

Yeah, that got raised eyebrows too.

Campbell is a nice boy. Dark hair, blue eyes, good looking. He’s a lawyer at a corporate city law firm.

The three of them have bought three odd little derelict houses in Fitzroy some hundred year old hoarder owned that are next to each other. You don't have people in the 'business' without managing to secure such deals. One house for each of them. Jack and Campbell are currently renovating the three houses.

@19

I saw both boys down on the beach at our beach house recently throwing a football to each other. Jack and Campbell were both in speedos and they looked mighty fit.

I looked at Liam, he looked at me.

“I’d like to watch…”

“Don’t say it,” said Liam.

“That,” I said.

“I told you not to say it,” said Liam. He smiled.

“It’s a modern world,” I said.

“But, is it really,” said Liam. “Really? It’s as old as time itself. Love triangles.”

“I guess, you are right.”

“It’s just conservatives who want you to think otherwise.”

“Do you think they get it, really,” I said. “Conservatives?”

“Yeah, well,” said Liam. “Dunno.”

“No, I don’t know either,” I said. “It could go either way. I’d believe either.”

Liam shrugged.

“On one hand they are so uptight about anyone who appears to live a life outside of their realm of existence,” I said. “But, on the other hand, conservatives only ever seem to consider the world around them.”

“I’m going for ignorance of others,” said Liam.

“I’m going for fear of anything that is not of their world, somehow being a danger of their world view.”

“Are they the same thing?” asked Liam.

“It has the same outcome,” I said. “They were against gay marriage because it might give straight boys ideas outside traditional marriage.”

“Sad, scared, ignorant conservatives,” said Liam.

“You wouldn’t be them for quids,” I said.

“You wouldn’t be them for quids,” said Liam.

I took his hand and we continued walking up the beach. We walked on that firm sand closest to the water, before it turns powdery under your feet, just that bit further up the beach. I don’t really like the squeak of the powdery sand under the soles of my feet.

The dogs ran ahead.

“Do you think Jack takes after you and me and Jamie?” I said.

“What?” said Liam. He was looking out to the far off horizon. “Me and you and Jamie? Maybe.”

Indigo had Felix and baby Charlie on the sand playing together. Felix had built sandcastles; baby Charlie was knocking them down. Felix was laughing as if Charlie was the cutest thing.

"Do you think Jack and Campbell play as well together?" I quipped.

"Stop it," said Liam. He laughed. "Wasn't that how they got Charlie?"

"Stop it," I said.

Madge

As me old granny used to say – that's the alcoholic one, on my dad's side – “Put your arm out so I can measure the length, yes, just like that.”

Her house always had a peculiar smell, now I recognise it as booze and fags and air that was stale.

Sadly, she died youngish, sixty nine, too much booze and heart break. My grandfather died young and left her penniless and alone, before I was born, before I was even thought of. She smoked menthol cigarettes and always had a brandy on the go. She could play backgammon like a shark, she'd encourage me to bet. 

“It makes life more interesting,” she’d say. “You wait and see.”

She'd sneak me puffs on her cigarette when I was a kid, (no she didn’t, I just like to romanticise it that way) when mum and dad had gone to bed. She always wanted to know if there was a girl in my life. She'd want to know the details, but I knew how far I could go.

She used to knit me jumpers, “Boys need woollens to see them through life.” She’d laugh and pat me on the head. “You’ll understand when you are older and have to travel for love.”

She’d knit jumpers only in kid’s sizes, she’d knit them all day. There was speculation that the booze rendered adult sizes out of her abilities. (I didn't hear that until I was grown up, of course)

Or she’d spend the day at the pub, bringing cream cakes home for tea.

She loved me. I miss her. She’d look after us when mum and dad were out for the night.

I don’t remember if she used to drink when she used to babysit us? I don’t remember anything like that, but I would have been young, of course. But mum told me they couldn’t go into town shopping unless they stopped for a brandy on the way in and on the way home again. So, I don’t know how she would have got on for the evening babysitting without a drink.

I don’t think it would be acceptable to let a drunk babysit your kids now a days, we’re far too uptight to let that happen, but, it was a different time when we were being babysat as kids, and she was my father’s mother, after all, so I’m guessing it would have been more difficult to say no.

A Fine Mist of Rain Fell

I stepped out on to the street and pulled my gate shut. The air was cold, I shivered. I pulled my collar up around my neck as my body vibrated momentarily underneath, shivered. It was early, the full veil of the morning hadn't quite lifted. The light was grey, a fine mist of rain fell.

I had only taken a few steps when I heard, pad, pad, pad behind me. Then whoosh, a jogger whirled passed me. I stepped sideways and out of the way. I mean, he probably wasn't going so fast, maybe I was still on slow, no coffee yet, no heart starter to make my eyes fully open.

I heard him snort and pant, gasp in, exhale. I watched his legs, like springs, propel him past me. I watched his ankles flip up behind him and then push his feet to the ground, straightening as his shoes touched down on the bitumen. The backs of his wide-legged black shorts flapped with each step. The was a hint of his red jocks underneath hugging him tight. His arms swung rhythmically, matching his breaths.

His back was straight, his head was up, he pranced. he was  a fine specimen.

He flipped around the corner at the intersection and was gone. He was nowhere to be seen when I turned that same corner a few moments later.

The street was quiet again, except for my short, sharp breaths sounding in my ears. And the clop, clop, clop of my own feet. The morning air was cold on my face. I yawned. The inhale of breath was cold. I looked both ways on the street, and then I crossed over to the other side and continued my walk. A car drove past me on the street, otherwise it was early and it was only me making my way in the deserted street.

Indigo

Indigo did get pregnant. The girl Jack woke up with a few weeks ago. She was at her most fertile, Jack fertilised her. She knew that, but she’d ogled Jack from a distance for the longest time, so she decided to take a chance, that chance didn’t pay off. Lazy coming down Sunday morning sex. She booked an abortion. Jack accompanied her to the clinic. The Christians got in his face. He ignored them. Indigo and jack waited in the waiting room. By this stage, Indigo was at peace with her decision. 

Of course, there was a time there when Jack wanted her to have it. He said he'd raise the kid. Jack who has no home of his own. Sense prevailed. Jack wasn't that happy about it.

"Man, when all is said and done," said Jack. "She is killing my baby."

We should have seen that coming.

Jack pleaded with her to keep the baby.

Indigo listened to her girlfriends. And eventually she told her mother.

"Why weren't you using contraception?" her mother asked.

Jack drove Indigo, Indigo's mother thought it was good that Jack went in with Indigo. “Take some responsibility,” the mother said. The implication we couldn’t help but translate as he hadn’t taken any responsibility so far. We were ready to defend Jack, you know, because that is what you do.

There was an added complication to this story. You might remember that Indigo had a fantasy of having two men together, which she wanted Jack to fulfil with her boyfriend Campbell, which the two boys did.

“Yeah, we did,” said Jack. “We met one Saturday night at Indigo’s place. I got there before Campbell, but he arrived pretty soon after me.”

“What was he like?” I asked.

“Oh, he was a big, solid, handsome guy,” said Jack. “Pretty sexy, well hung, so it wasn’t lack of cock size she was craving.”

“And how did it go?” Liam asked.

“Oh, well, I guess it went pretty well,” said Jack. “She got two big guys who took turns enthusiastically fucking her, so I’m guessing the brief was fulfilled. I didn’t exactly ask her for a review afterwards.”

“Did you enjoy it?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Jack. “What guy isn’t going to enjoy sex.”

“Was it strange having Campbell there?” Liam asked.

“No, it wasn’t strange,” said Jack. “You know, I knew that was going to happen.”

“So, it wasn’t strange having another guy naked there with you?” I asked.

“No,” said Jack. “He had all the normal parts, there were no surprises.”

“Was it a turn on?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Jack. “Three dimensional porn.”

“Did you mess around with Campbell?” I asked.

“No, not really,” said Jack. “We touched each other’s cocks. I pushed his hardon back in when it slipped out of her at one point, But nothing really.”

“Would you do it again?” I asked.

“With Indigo and Campbell?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I would.”

Of course, the complication arose when Indigo turned up pregnant a few weeks later.

“So, the three of you didn’t use condoms?” asked Liam.

“No,” said Jack.

“The three of you had unprotected sex?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Jack.

“Really? Have you learned nothing?” said Liam.

They had to get a paternity test. Jack and Campbell went together to give their sperm.

“It was kind of a turn on, seeing the two boys going together to provide their samples,” said Indigo.

“You and Campbell went together?” asked Liam.

“Yes,” said Jack. “It was no big deal. Campbell is a nice guy.”

“So, how did it go?” I asked.

“Oh, we got a few looks from the nurses,” said Jack. He laughed at the thought. “Especially, when we suggested we could go in together in the same room to produce the sample.”

“You didn’t.” asked Liam.

“It’s not like I hadn’t seen Campbell cum,” said Jack. “The two of us thought it was no big deal.”

“So, did you?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Jack. “The nurses were a bit weirded out about it.”

So, Indigo and Jack were in the waiting room of the abortion clinic, moments away from their termination appointment, when Indigo’s phone rang.

“It’s Phoenix,” said Indigo. Her older sister.

Jack shrugged at the thought. “I was way too nervous to be caring about a phone call from her sister.”

Indigo’s sister Phoenix was in the last stages of IVF, where nothing had worked. She was pretty much at the end of her fertility journey, pretty quickly having to accept that she would never be a parent.

“Oh, I see.”

“You can see where this is going?” asked Jack.

“I can.”

“Well, it was really curios timing,” said Jack. “But Indigo hadn’t said much about the pregnancy due to the Campbell/Jack complication. And after it was ascertained whose baby it was, it all moved really quickly after that.”

“So, she hadn’t told her sister?”

“No,” said Jack. “She had meant to, as she and Phoenix were really close, but as I said time just got away.”

“So, what happened?”

“So, what happened,” repeated Jack. “Just by chance, really, Phoenix turned up at their mum’s place unexpected for a cup of tea, and at some point in the conversation Annie told Phoenix.

“Unexpectedly met up?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “It was really serendipitous.”

“And Phoenix’s reaction?”

“She called and begged Indigo not to go through with the abortion.”

“At the eleventh hour?”

“The nurse was calling Indigo’s name as she was still on the call to Phoenix,” said Jack. “That is how close it was.”

“Amazing.”

“She got off the phone in tears,” said Jack. “She looked at me saying that we had to go. She apologised to everyone at the clinic, it was really a major scene.”

“And she gave birth to Hugo.”

“Six months later,” said Jack. “Handing him to Phoenix almost immediately.”

“And he’s doing well?”

“He is doing well,” said Jack. He couldn’t help but smile.

Jack & Chris

Then there was Chris. He was the sweetest, nicest, loveliest guy you would ever meet. Everybody loved Chris. He and his boyfriend, Mark, became a part of our party set.

Chris is a handsome boy of Asian heritage, Mark is a handsome boy of Dutch heritage.

Jack and Chris were boyfriends too, to which Jack never really admitted. The beautiful Chris, we were all beguiled by him, so we all understood. 

Not that it was a secret exactly, the last year Jack lived with us, Chris was a regular inclusion on the couch midday Sunday. Dance music playing, the 5am kind of dance music. Jack and Chris would be in the corner of the couch in each other’s arms, having showered and changed, rubbing and caressing each other, looking balefully into each other’s eyes, for hours before retiring to J’s room not seen again till morning.

 “If ever I was to cross over,” Jack always said. “Chris would be the person I’d do it with.”

“At first retiring to Jack’s room was all innocent. We’d get into bed and cuddle until we fell asleep,” Chris said. “Jack and I fall asleep really quickly.” Chris never wanted to tell us the details, he said it was unnatural for his father and step father to want to know the gory details.

“I don’t want to know if he’s any good at it,” said Liam. “I just want to know if he’s happy.”

“I just want to know the truth,” I said. Jack had never really convinced me that the obviously love struck Chris wasn’t going to eventually put a move on his very own Tarzan? It didn’t add up.

Jack and Chris would be out on the weekends at the clubs hand in hand. Seemingly, only with eyes for each other. Chris certainly looked like he was in love, so did Jack, really.

Chris’ boyfriend kind of faded into the back ground. Chris would never really say that he’d split up from Mark, but Mark was also not really seen again.

While Chris was at our place, cuddled up with Jack. Or they were in Marie’s house together.

“Should I be worried about Jack?” Marie stopped me in the street one day.

“Why?” I asked.

“Chris sleeps over on the weekends,” said Marie. “He sleeps with Jack in Jack’s bed.”

“What would you be worried about?” I asked.

“Well.” Marie pulled a face. “You know?”

“No, no I don’t, that is why I asked.”

“What are they doing when they sleep together,” she said.

“Really?” I laughed.

Marie pulled a very stern face.

“Do you really want to know?” I asked.

“Yes, sure I do,” said Marie. “I don’t think it is strange that I want to know what’s going on when my son sleeps with a gay boy every weekend.”

“Well, then ask him,” I said. “If you really want to know.”

“And this has nothing to do with Chris,” said Marie. “If Jack was going to have a boyfriend,” she laughed nervously. “I’d want it to be Chris, he is lovely. But Jack is supposed to be straight.”

“What if they are having sex?” I asked. “What if they are banging each other’s brains out?”

Marie sighed loudly. “Well.” She took a big breath. She shook her head. “I’d just want to know if this is, um, a, um… is Jack gay?”

“Well, he doesn’t have to be,” I said. “Straight guys have sex with men all the time…”

“Don’t give me that, it ruins people’s lives…”

“Jack is single, Marie, he’s not effecting anyone’s life…”

“But, is it a good thing,” said Marie. “Isn’t he confusing himself?”

I shrugged. “Ask him.”

Marie focused her gaze on me. “Ask him? Yes, yes, of course you are right. Ask him.” The intensity disappeared out of her voice like a deflating balloon.

Chris coyly admitted one night when he and I had sat up smoking what seemed like an endless stream of joints, that while it started really beautifully, with Jack, and rather romantically, and it could quite likely have stayed that way was it not for him waking up to Jack’s near naked physical form.

One morning, after Chris rolled over in bed, and took Jack in his arms, with Jack taking Chris in his arms, they kissed. They had kissed before, but this morning the simple kiss turned really very passionate seemingly quite beyond either of their control.

Chris’ body rubbed up against Jack, and instead of the gesture dying away, Jack didn’t let go, or back down. Chris’ and Jack’s legs were entwined as their lips locked and they gently rubbed each other’s hard-ons together before they even realised what they were doing.

Jack’s hands rubbed down the sides of Chris’ torso, his fingers catching in the waistband of Chris’s trunks, 

Chris wasn’t even sure that Jack meant to slide Chris’ undies down his thighs. It just seemed like tender touching, like they had done many times. But suddenly Chris was naked in Jack’s arms. 

Chris shrugged and blushed.

“Well,” I said. “I think you two make a cute couple.”

“We’re not a couple,” said Chris.

I shrugged and smiled.

Big Bro, Little Bro

Jack lived with us for 5, or 6, years, until we got sick of his antics and we sent him off to live with his mother, Marie Campbell, who lived in the house next door. Oh yes, in a moment of family bonding, she bought the house next to me.

That’s been okay. She got new job she loves and I don’t see a whole lot of her. Occasionally, we meet up down the dog park and we chat civilly. Actually, because I have no skin in the game, as they say, Marie and I get on pretty honestly with each other. She has learned that I don’t tell everyone else her business, so we are pretty honest with each other. It’s kind of weird, we’d have such a relationship, who’d have thought.

The thing being, that the change of address did nothing for Jack’s sense of direction, so every weekend, after popping pills and dancing and trying to pick up birds, Jack would appear in our lounge room, collapsed across one of our couches, across a whole couch, so nobody could sit down. He would suddenly come in, and crash between two people if no space to sit, actually, existed. Until one of us managed to wake him to tell him to go and find a bed to sleep in.

The thing was that Jack’s room had been taken by our youngest member of the household, Jamie Brown. 19 year old blonde curly-haired, blue-eyed western suburbs lad, who Liam and I found hugging a club toilet hand sink pedestal, sobbing. 

“Nobody likes me, I have no friends, I will never fit in here.”

“Oh Jamie, it gets better.” He looked around at us with teary eyes. “Come with us.” 

We took Jamie home and showed him love, Liam and I. Another young life fixed, even if I do say so myself.

Jamie had our room on the weekends. Jamie came to stay with us from Friday to Sunday, on many weekends. 

Then Jack moved next door. And Jamie got kicked out of home when his parent’s found out he was gay. So, Jamie got Jack’s old room, when he was thrown out on the street.

“In the beginning, it was very slow. I didn’t know how to pick up guys,” said Jamie. He was lying in his room, late Sunday, wishing for the guy he’d fancied at the club he’d just been to, but didn’t have guts to approach, when he prayed to God. 

“Please, give me him, even just for a little while, and I promise I will get more confidence and flirt with guys and do it myself. But just this once,” Jamie told us, “I kid you not.”

“Which god were you praying to?” I asked.

“You know, mother Mary, Joseph and Jesus.”

“The god that says being gay is a sin?” I asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Jamie.

“Jesus never said it was a sin,” said Liam. “He thought it was so important, he never mentioned it at all.”

Jack had been downstairs taking up the whole couch in an-out-of-it stupor. and we’d told him to go find somewhere else to sleep. We meant his own place, next door, with his mother.

“Go home, Jack, and sleep.”

Jack gets up complaining and disappears. Unbeknownst to us, Jack headed upstairs, stripped to his jocks and crashed through his old bed room door and collapsed on the bed, nearly naked. When Jamie complained about the intrusion, Jack simply took Jamie in his big, naked arms and pulled Jamie to him, spooning the little guy. Jamie slept naked, Jack had on a pair of his loose boxer shorts like he always did.

“His bulge was pushed up against my arse, his naked chest and arms were around my naked body,” said Jamie. “It was heaven.”

That is how Jamie woke up on the Sunday mornings, Jack would come crashing into Jamie's room drunk, wrapped in Jack’s naked arms. Jack wouldn’t go home to next door, he’d head upstairs to his old room, mindless. 

“I don’t really mind,” said Jamie.

If Jamie fidgeted about too much in the early morning, Jack would push his hardon into Jamie to tell him to stop fidgeting.

“I don’t mind being told to keep still that way,” said Jamie with a cheeky smile.

Jack would crash in my bed in an ill fitting pair of boxer shorts on, barely covering him. And he slept the sleep of the dead. 

“So, I’ve played with it,” said Jamie. “It gets hard easily. Jack has a nice, fat cock.” He’d say it like a naughty boy as he lay between Liam and me.

“Jamie?” we questioned.

“Well, it’s my bed. He really has no consideration for me,” said Jamie. “What does he expect? Really? He does it all the time.”

We’d both laugh.

There was another time when Jack crashed home from a night out, had a shower first, and then got into bed mindlessly with Jamie naked. Jack has a habit of lying on his back. 

“That night I took Jack’s cock in my mouth for the first time,” said Jamie. “I sucked it until it was rock hard, stretching all of its skintight.” Then he got too nervous and stopped, worried what would happen if Jack woke up.

The thing with Jack is that he never remembers what happened. He used to wake up on our couch 3pm Sunday and have no idea what had happened the previous 24 hours.

Another time Jamie was sucking Jack’s cock, and he felt Jack’s hands grip his head. “You shouldn’t be doing that, little man,” Jack’s voice croaked. Then Jack grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him up to face to face with Jack. Jack exhaled, then he rolled Jamie over and spooned him.

“Seriously,” said Jack. “Now, go to sleep.” 

Jamie felt Jack’s hardon fade away.

Jack looks after Jamie at dance parties, nights out. He is always walking hand in hand with Jamie through the crowd, seemingly watching over him. They always say they are brothers. Jamie always tells gay guys that Jack is his big brother. They can always be found on the dance floor dancing in each other’s arms.

When they are really high on drugs, it is so cute when Jamie asks Jack to kiss him. Some times when they have kissed, Jamie will say, "You can do better than that." And Jack will really pash Jamie passionately, after which Jamie will look all google-eyed. And Jack will laugh.

There was the time Jack and Jamie, dressed in matching school boy uniforms, playing little brother, big brother boyfriends so believably at Red Raw, that they had all the gay boys sniffing around for a piece of threesome action. With Jamie’s hair buzz cut like Jack’s, they really looked alike.

“I’ve never seen that side of gay men before,” said Jack. “Yikes. Those guys were deadly serious sick puppies.”

Jack's been known to throw Jamie over his shoulder on more than one occasion.

Apparently, one night, Jack crashed into Jamie’s room, stripped to his jocks, without realising Jamie was awake and wanking to old school Jeff Stryker porn. "Have you seen the schlong on that dude?"

Jamie said he was peeking on the drugs he’d taken when he got home, and he wanted to continue with Jeff to the end.

Jack, apparently, eyes as big as planets, shaking and chattering, hesitated momentarily, brooding good looks, arms, chest, abs, bulge, legs, and then proceeded, to lie on the edge of Jamie’s bed facing the wall. 

“What a big, beefy butt Jack has,” said Jamie. “I really wanted to reach over and touch it.”

Jamie heard Jack sigh a few times, a bit later.

“What are you doing?” grumbled Jack.

“Nothing,” said Jamie.

“How long is it going to take,” said Jack.

Jamie said it was his bed, after all, so he kept pulling himself. Once he’d cum, and he’d pulled out his headphones, he felt, perhaps, a little guilty, only to hear Jack snoring.

Let’s Hope it’s Not a Bad Choice

Jack woke up horny. He rolled over on top the girl and kissed her. She gazed into his eyes, how beautiful, you know. They kissed good morning, she even tasted sweet.

Jack wanted more, the girl did too. They were kissing, Jack got hard, she was wet and more than willing, Jack was inside her, as they kissed good morning. Did you sleep well? Here is my hard cock.

I can't remember your name?

They fucked without a condom, “really fucked, long and hard, like it was a race to the finish,” Jack said. The first time ever I have done that without it being a girlfriend. He was surprised, as he was doing it. It was easy with her, like it never has been before. He wanted to. She sat on him and he couldn’t feel a thing, except with her fingers. He always found that a problem with the girl sitting on top, it would all go dead for him. He rolled her onto her back and just slid it in. He could feel it then. He could feel the edge of his knob on her ring. He could feel every centimetre of skin going inside her. He lay her sideways and fucked her good, no holding back, until they came, he carelessly blew inside her.

Let’s hope it’s not a bad choice. 

Jack sobbed the whole story, Monday morning, on the couch, after she kicked him out to go to work.

They fucked mindlessly against the front door, with her in her work clothes, her panties pulled down.

“You’re dangerous,” she said. “You could get me fired.”

I wasn’t exactly sure why Jack was so upset, something about the girl he really liked had kicked him out so unthinkingly.

Just the usual suspects were present, Anthony, Liam and me, Luke, Sebastian, Jamie, Chloe, her latest boyfriend. Mitchell. Tom.

“Hasn’t it been hot lately,” said Jack. Off came his t-shirt. Some girl he’d met in a night club in the city, her name was Arizona, no Indigo. He went with her to her Southbank apartment, her boyfriend is away overseas for two months, they fucked until the sun came up. Then he left and came home. He was shiny with sweat. “She had a tight pussy.”

“She wants me to go back when her boyfriend is back.”

“When her boyfriend is there?” I questioned.

“Yeah, she wants to have two guys at once,” said Jack. “She says I am very like her boyfriend which turns her on.”

“Do you want to?” I asked.

“Yeah… kind of,” said Jack.

“Well?” I shrugged.

Jack’s got big, beefy legs and a big beefy arse. Weight lifters legs. He’s got the kind of bulked up torso the kind you’d look at and say he was on steroids. Jack has been on steroids for years. That was part of the trouble, we are all convinced of it. He’s big and cut. I mean his chest. But he is big and cut down there too, Jack’s rat-faced mother, Marie Campbell, had wanted Jack to look just like his daddy, and his grand daddy, (not that grand daddy was ever sober enough to know who Jack was) I kid you not.

“It’s just easier,” she sighed. We were all in the surgery. Jack was lying on his back, his cock out. “One less thing to go over the reason why.”

Marie Campbell was stressed out. Well, her husband, Liam, had just told her he is gay. So, maybe we could put it down to not thinking straight.

Jack lived with us, 18 through to his late twenties, until we got sick of his aggression and sent him back to his mother. Jack is big, and strapping, and handsome, and charming, and strong.

Some Sunday mornings, he could be found walking the top of the parapet wall, deep in thought, only centimetres away from falling through a glass roof, maggotted on booze. Hanging from 12 floor hotel balconies, high on speed. (the brothers who taught him to inject, should hang their heads in shame) When he raged, he’d walk up the middle of our street with a baseball bat egging people on to challenge him, in what, we were never so sure. 

Fortunately, the doctors got his pills right, and the rages seemed to stop. He gave up drinking too, it is alcoholism that ran in his mother’s, Marie’s, family. Jack’s maternal grandfather was a serious alcoholic for many years.

Other days Jack would come home and say he woke up inside a MX5 with the side all kicked in. “Who the fuck would kick in an MX5?” said doofus Jack. We knew instantly. His short term memory was shot when he was on booze.

There was the time he made the bomb scare because a club kicked him out (for being too drunk) and the police raided moments later. Jack never thought about caller ID. Seriously. I was away that weekend, thank goodness. If we’d had a police raid on some of our weekends, we’d have never been able to flush it all down the loo to escape charges.

Nice one, Jack.

There was the period he’d bringing home the homeless, high on drugs, coming home from clubs, for everyone else to look after. He’d install them in our lounge and promptly pass out and sleep the sleep of the dead. There would be this awful stink.

There was his lunatic mother, who told him every day of his teen years that he wouldn’t amount to anything. 

“You’ll grow up just like your uncle.” 

There was his uncle, his mother’s brother, who, while the idiot mother was distracted by her father’s alcohol problems, the grandfather, raising the other 10 kids as if they were her own, the criminal brother would babysit Jack. We found out years later, he would torture Jack by locking him in a box in the back yard for hours when he got sick of him. 

By all accounts, the criminal brother sexually molested Jack when he was approaching 10. 12. The criminal brother, was caught once by Chloe “doing things to a dog,” when Chloe was very young. Their Labrador, Sandy. 

“I don’t know, I closed my eyes,” said Chloe. “But I can’t unsee the first bit I saw, the image of Uncle Ivan may never leave me, even if I didn’t understand what I was seeing.”

Poor Sandy.

Ivan is now in jail. For other reasons, because he is a piece of shit. Marie still kind of defends him, I think that is so as not to have to admit the extent of the mistakes she made.

On the Couch

We had a big, open house, as open as our relationship. Everybody, and everything was welcome. They were heady days, those first few years with my relationship with Liam Dean. We met in a sex club and it was love at first sight.

Then for a few years we fucked everyone, and everything, in any number of sex clubs, bars, nightclubs, dance parties, wherever, Liam and I, until, eventually, we kind of wore it out.

Patrick, the guy who ran the sauna we used to frequent, hated us. Another friend, Robert, explained it this way, you and Liam are handsome and successful, of course, rat-faced Patrick hates you, you are everything he isn’t.

Liam had a son, Jack. Liam, was ten years older than me. I was ten years older than Jack.

Jack used to party with us. He was handsome and well-built, so the punters enjoyed him being around.

Liam and Jack’s favourite party trick was to tell the gay punters they met that they were father and son. I’m not sure how many strangers would ask me, when I was invariably off my face, “What relationship are these two?” Invariably pointing to shirtless Liam and Jack.

We used to give 18 year old Jack drugs. Not until he was 18, we thought it was better he did them with us where we could look after him, rather than doing them with who knows who, and who knows where. He used to party with us at gay clubs and dance parties.

He’d come back to our place, which was his place too, to hang out, post party, with our friends, to take more drugs to enjoy that lovely post drugged night Sunday.

We’d make tea and roll joints and top up on pills and powders. 

Jack, true to form, would invariably pass out the moment the dope hit him. As much as he objected to smoking, he sure looked serene like that. Calm. Sleeping. Quiet. But, also annoying as he could take up a whole couch, no matter who else was in the room requiring a seat.

He used to go out drinking, invariably with his mate Anton, he’d come home munted, strip to his boxer shorts, t-shirt on, or off, in direct ratio to how hammered he really was. If he was relaxed, chilled-out-Jack, he’d be shirtless, calm, passed out face down and no one could wake him. If he was angry-pissed-off-Jack, which he could be, t-shirt and boxer shorts and implements of war, and grumpy Jack. He came clumsily crashing through the place, landing on the nearest empty part of the couch, and if necessary, the nearest person, if there were no empty sections of couch, as such, and pass out, normally lying face down.

Many a gathering of gay guy clubbers would be surprised and then amused by this behaviour. Jack being well-built and handsome meant all those present would invariably make allowances for him, especially if he was half naked, you may understand.

Once he pulled it together, Jack could be smart, witty, charming, flirty with all the gay boys present, half the time, bare chested.

My introduction to Jack was his eighteenth birthday party, when the house got trashed by a selection of his mates. Jack and Anton being the main culprits. I saw screaming, raging, drunk Jack for the first time.

Jack was very big into gym, in a more intimate drug moment, he rather unexpectedly said he had to get bigger than all the other bastards, then he would feel safe. Then he burst into tears.

I held him that day as he sobbed into my chest.

The next time I saw him it was smart, handsome, charming Jack, who didn’t add up to the first Jack I had witnessed. They often say you can take first impressions to accurately sum up a person.

Warm and, admittedly, sexy and smooth and handsome and smart… Jack had the potential of being the perfect son.

Handsome, together, open-minded, raised by poofs and lesbians… oh, no, not lesbians. Marie Campbell is definitely not a lesbian. Although, her and Nora in those more recent years living next to me, I have sometimes asked? There didn’t seem to be a cock in sight for years between those two.

Ha ha, Marie is far too, um, what is the right word, conventional? Maybe? To be be licking Nora’s snatch for comfort?

Yeah, the mother of the children bought the house next to mine when it came up for sale. Some people have asked how that is? It’s fine, I like Marie. I may not have been friends with her in another life, but it’s not another life.

They were big drug taking days back then. His father and I and our crew got munted on recreational drugs every Saturday night for 2 years, maybe 3 years, it was the carefree recreational drug taking 90s. I don’t know how I did it? I do know how I did it, I didn’t work Mondays. I worked Tuesday to Friday and even then my hours were pretty flexible. I was always finished early Friday, putting extra hours during the week. 

Liam had his own business, building/renovating, Dean Australia, that ran itself Mondays and when necessary, Tuesdays, with the other tradies he employed, so he didn’t have to go to work. He and Jamie were probably still dancing.

I hate going out before 1am anyway.

We took everything. Our crew. They were fun times. Many of us had our businesses, or worked nights.

Our motto was the least drugs, for maximum fun. You can take as much as you like, as long as you get up and go to work when you have to.

19 year old Jack, was liked by everyone. (as long as he behaved himself. He was no different to other 19 year old boys, he could misbehave and be a pain too)

Jack lived with me for five years, 6 years, 3 years of hard partying and 3 years of pulling away from it.

Our house was the big party house, everyone would come to our place post party, where we’d drink tea, smoke pot and play music. We take more drugs and dance, before some of us went out to recoveries, or went on somewhere else, and some of us would go home with our respective partners, trade we’d picked up the night before, or we’d go home to sleep.

Jack had a habit of coming and collapsing in a stupor in the middle of everything dressed, or in a relatively baggy pairs of boxers shorts he normally wore, all sweaty from a night of popping pills and dancing. 

The morning sun was just shining in through the windows and I was bathed in warmth, it was early Sunday morning, everyone else had gone home or to bed, or topped up and gone to recoveries. I was often on my own. Liam liked to go to recoveries. I did too, sometimes, but I definitely had a limit, end-of-drug taking when I just wanted to smoke pot and chill.

Jack would collapse on me bare chested, his arms around my neck, 

“Josh, I love you mate.” 

“Yes, yes, I love you too.”

He’d cuddle up to me like that, Sunday morning, just as the sun was rising. You know how the drugged get so earnest in their drug effected state.

Jack crashed through and he was on top of me, we were chest to chest, the sun warming his skin to a toasty warmth, on his naked back, which my fingers were stroking, caressing, probably peaking on ecstasy, after Sunday morning re-dose. 

We would have gotten home and dropped another whole pill each. Generally, there would be many people, but on this particular Sunday morning, it was just me. The others had decided to go onto the after-parties that went all day Sunday until midnight Sunday night. Ketamine, cocaine, ecstasy, speed, crystal, if it was around. 

What was a shot up each nostril called, a Manhattan? No, I don’t think that is right. 

Re-dose when we get home, that was the usual routine. Head out again. Head to the couch. Nobody worked Monday, we’d all be home 9am Monday morning smoking joints.

I slid my hand onto the curve of Jack’s back. He’d be warm, and smooth, and, you know, solid. 

I know you probably shouldn’t talk about your stepson in such a way, I know it probably violates some sort of step-father, step-son code, I’m aware of that.

I remember, on occasions, I’d ogle any sight of the elastic of his underwear. On some occasions I could help but see his impressive bulge, in soft, white cotton. But, it’s just appreciation, you know, nothing else. It’s nice to know our boy looks sexy in his underwear for anyone who chooses to unwrap him. 

A Calvin Klein, that's what it was called. I remember now, a shot of cocaine in one nostril, a shot of ketamine in the other nostril, at the same time, sniff.

There was that time, somewhere, in the murky world of Sunday morning dance party, Mardi Gras? Red Raw? In club land somewhere, peaking on too many ecstasy, we once connected lip to lip like two men, in the middle of a frenetic, sweaty dancefloor, and we pashed with each other, like it was the most natural thing, in the rush. 

“I love you too, Josh.”

“I love you mate.”

I passed my lips over my stepson’s lips, who was, like, twenty, at the time. And that big, strapping boy responded by doing the same. We kissed. My tongue found his. I felt his lips on mine, his big, soft lips…

But suddenly, I felt my moral codes snapping and going off like gunshots. I couldn’t be that cliché, I thought. Somewhere in my drug high mind, as our lips tasted each other, under those coloured lights, I remember distinctly thinking, this really is kind of tacky... I can’t be that person. 

We both sat back on the couch. Jack’s eyes were rolling into the back of his head. He slid his hand into his boxer shorts. He was really peaking all over again. 

“I love playing with my balls, when I am high, I never get my balls played with enough.”

I gazed at Jack, his face was red and he was sweating. I wondered if I looked like that.

“I love wrapping my hand around my big hairy nuts. They feel good.” 

I was tripping hard, this hardly seemed real.

“Yeah, squeeze them. yeah, just like that,” said Jack. He’d spread his legs wide for full access.

Jack, of course, had a ragging hardon, by this stage. Which he took it in his hand inside his boxer shorts. He clearly ran his hand up and down it. 

I tried to remember what it was like at 21? The air in the room seemed slightly sticky with sweat.

Jack groaned. “Oh, yeah, that feels good.”

That was it. I looked away. I got up and danced away. I left him to it there on the couch.

I didn’t wake up again until midnight Sunday. I woke up just after midnight. I had no idea where I was, although that quickly became apparent, as I was home. I couldn’t remember anything much, after Jack putting his hand down his boxers. Jesus. Good thing Jamie wasn't there. That kind of made me smile. Not that I felt together enough to smile. What is Jamie like?

I remember dancing. I remember stumbling around dark toilets. There were men there. There were hard cocks. I couldn’t be sure if one of them was Liam.

No, that was before I got home. Of course, it was before I got home. Where was my head?

But that was about it, that was as far as it went.

I remembered the music stopping and walking out with Liam. I remember catching a taxi with somebody, it may, or may not have been Liam, but probably was. And Jamie. They went where? Where were they now?

Jack was on the couch still dressed only in his boxer shorts. He was playing some sort of game boy. The room was hot. We were both sweating, I could smell us both. He was totally engrossed. 

“Where’s dad?” Jack asked. “Upstairs, in bed?”

Nah, I remembered, Liam went to recoveries with young Jamie. I wondered where he was now?

I lay back down on the couch next to Jack. I rolled a joint, which I probably didn’t need. I shared it with Jack, of course. Then, of course, I rolled another joint, I shared that with Jack too.

After that, I fell asleep on the couch. 

I woke at some time later with Jack’s big arms around me, like they so often were. He’s a cuddler, is Jack. I rolled onto my back, and Jack lay on me breathing into my chest.

I lay there in the quiet and gazed at the ceiling. I looked at Jack’s sleeping face. I played with his hair. I remember thinking how handsome he was. I remember wondering if we could keep him safe and happy in an ever increasingly harsh world.

I just lay there and felt the world hum.

There was a rolled joint in the ash tray, I managed to get hold of it with my finger tips and I even managed to reach a lighter. I reached over to the remote and put on Aretha Frankling sings the blues. I lay there smoking the joint with Jack practically in my arms.

More and more, Liam was away intestate with building projects more often than not in Queensland. He bought a cheap apartment on the Gold Coast to facilitate business.

21 year old Jack would go out partying with his mates, coming crashing home in the very early hours of Sunday, when he’d crawl into bed with me in his boxer shorts. He’d want to cuddle up in my arms. I’d wrap my arms around him. I’d often slide my hands onto his back stroking him until he fell asleep. 

It felt very natural.

When he’d roll over and I’d spoon him from behind, I’d slide my arms around him hugging him. I don’t know how often I fell asleep that way. There is something special about having another trusting human in your arms.

He said he felt safe with me. He said that was where he felt like nothing could hurt him.

“You’re my guardian angel,” he said.

“I’m your what?” I was always kind of surprised by what he’d said.

“You are the one person who chooses me without any obligations,” said Jack. “You don’t have to, but you do. That is why I feel safest with you.”

“Oh, Jack,” I said.

“When you wrap your arms around me, I feel I’m in the safest place in the world.”

Anyway, he was safe with me. 

It was when he crashed into Jamie’s bed unconscious that he got himself into trouble. Once he was out to it, nothing woke him. He was better in bed with me, in that case.

He’d be better home next door in his own bed, of course, but on party weekends he didn’t seem inclined to do that.

Fear In A Big Car

“The same fear of being assaulted, is essentially the same fear that makes woman want to drive four wheel drives,” says Emerald.

“You can't touch me in this?” says Jerry

“I can get you first, she thinks, as she cuts everyone off... and the persecuted become the persecutors,” says Emerald

“That's life, I suppose,” says Harvey.

“Increasingly, we are making decisions on fear and not on logic. The commercial world's greatest asset, keep them afraid and they will spend more money to make themselves feel better, to make themselves feel safer,” says Brian.

“Funny how self preservation is our greatest goal,” says Jerry.

“It kind of has to be, now doesn’t it,” says Harvey.

“Mine is to get lovely art on the wall, a 911 in the garage, and a beach house down the coast. Oh yes, and a few dollars saved in the bank,” says Brian.

“Stop living in fear girls, go and get yourself a nice dress instead, a job you enjoy, and a man for your bed,” says Harvey.

“Easy for you to say,” said Emerald.

“Oh yes, I know. It’s just that this conversation was about chicks in their 4WDs, namely of the charcoal grey Volvo variety,” says Brian.

“Watch out, I am coming through, sitting up as high as I like. I feel invincible in my command centre on wheels. Out of my way, little man, you are in my path,” says Emerald.

“You won’t fit through there, Emerald. No, you won’t,” says Harvey.

“COMING THOUGH!” says Emerald.

“Jasus Xist, you fitted through. Dear Universe! How did you do that?” says Harvey.

“Cackle.” Emerald laughs.

“You sound possessed when you laugh like that, Emerald, you really do!” says Jerry.

“Maniacal laugh. The engine roaring,” screams Emerald.

“Did you see the look on that poor sod’s face,” says Jerry.

“He’s lucky he had a face left now that I am done. GET OUT OF MY AWY!” says Emerald.

“It is fear, that makes them act in such away, it has to be, as nobody is that fucked up naturally,” says Jerry. “Surely?”

“It could have been just as easily said, Stop living in fear boys, go and get yourself a nice dress, in which you can feel the fresh air blow, a job you enjoy, and a man for your bed. Enjoy taking what your wife/girlfriends can’t give you, in your tiny briefs and your arse swishing in just such away, being such a tease, baby,” says Brian.

“Women have to win sometimes,” says Emerald. “They can’t always live in fear.”

“Here’s to women,” says Jerry.

“To women feeling safe,” says Harvey.

“And to all those men who make them live in fear,” says Brian. “Hold up your glasses.”

They hold their glasses high in the air.

“Fuck you,” they all say in unison.

They scull their drinks.

“More wine?” says Emerald. She holds up bottles of red and white wine, one in each hand. Everyone wants a refill.

“All those men who make women afraid, they should be given to the gays,” says Jerry. 

“In their undies,” says Harvey.

“Made to dance like go-go boys,” says Brian.

“Until they fucken drop,” says Emerald.

“And judged on performance,” says Jerry. 

“And looks,” says Harvey.

“And how they fill their briefs,” says Brian.

“They should be made to serve the queens meals?’ says Jerry.

“High tea,” says Harvey.

“Get their arses pinched while they are doing it,” says Brian.

“Get touched up,” says Jerry.

“Right up the crack in their arses,” says Emerald.

“Spoken down to…,” says Harvey.

“Like objects,” says Brian.

“Yes, that would fix them,” says Jerry.

“Knock the misogyny out of them,” says Harvey.

“Fuck them up,” says Emerald.

“And if it doesn’t, they should be kept in service,” says Brian.

“In their scanties,” says Jerry.

“Until they learn how to behave around the opposite sex,” says Harvey.

“I’ll take one,” says Brian. “Under my wing.”

“For the good of the planet, I assume,” says Jerry.

“Doing your bit for society, I assume?” says Harvey.

“More wine?” says Emerald. She held up the red and white bottles again.

“It will be the best gay version of They Shoot Horses Don’t They,” says Brian.

“Except for aggressive straight boys,” says Jerry.

“Dancing solo go-go style,” says Harvey.

“Until they drop,” says Brian.

“And they get carried off,” says Jerry.

“By muscle boys,” says Harvey.

“Getting dumped like bags of shit into bunks provided,” says Brian.

“With collars,” says Jerry.

“And leashes,” says Harvey.

“I’ll apply the lashes to the recalcitrant ones, right on their firm round arses,” says Brian. “This is for every woman you've made to feel afraid. Thwack!”

"This is for every girl you've hurt. Thwack!" says Jerry.

"This is for every girl you've made cry. Thwack!" says Harvey.

“More wine?” says Emerald.