Not Rape

"It wasn't rape," said Doug. "She got me all skank-arse drunk out of it and then drugged me, I mean, what could I do but oblige her, willingly, it seemed like the polite thing to do."

“Oblige her, willingly?”

“It seemed only fair, when she’d gone to all the trouble of getting the drugs and slipping them into my drink.”

“What could you do?”

“Well, not be too critical of her work, go with it, it’s tough work, but you know what they say?”

“No, what do they say?”

“Good for her, somebody has to do it.”

“Somebody has to do it?”

“Credit where credit is due. She bought the tape, she bought the knife, which bought a genuine feel to the whole thing, even if it was small, you know, that’s not a knife, this is a knife, chuckle. She laced the drink, she rented the room, she went to all that trouble.”

"That took some organising."

"I had to admire her work."

Ivan held up his fist, Doug bumped his fist with Ivan’s.

“You can’t help but admire it.” Ivan shook his head in admiration.

“Yeah, sure. Knives, tape, drugs," said Doug. "Just the organisation alone, you know, has to be commended.”

“Has to be commended?”

“Yeah, not to mention the muscle who cornered me in the parking lot.”

“There were other people involved?”

“Yeah, two huge thugs, in the car park, when I was trying to get to my car.”

“After you’d been slipped the mickey?”

“Yeah, the Mickey. Laugh. One of these huge bruisers was called Mickey.”

“What?”

“No, not what you are thinking. Mickey kept his pants on through the whole procedure.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.”

“I was out in the car park, it was dark and I was losing the fight against the strong sedatives, it turns out she’d given me.”

“Sedatives?”

“Yeah, Rohypnol. The date rape drug. Never thought it would be used on me.”

“Jesus!”

“And suddenly there were two massive guys standing in front of me, as I stumbled towards my car.”

“Massive guys.”

“They both had on shorts that looked as though they belonged to their little brothers. They had those massive thighs the ones that are all veiny.”

“Veiny?”

“You know, like the skin is set to bust right off the flesh they are so tight.”

“Mr Universe?”

“Two of them, right in fucking front of me.”

"Right in front of you?"

"Like they were blocking my way."

"Jesus!"

“What was it that my old dad used to say, like two brick shit houses.”

“They looked impressive?”

“Except they were blokes. I tried to walk, ha ha, stagger, around them thinking they'd just accidentally gotten there.”

“But not accidently?”

“No, that became pretty obvious when I couldn’t get around them no matter what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I remember looking up at these couple of man mountains, and one of them said my name. I think my last thought was, how does this guy know my name.”

“That was your last thought?”

“The last thing I remember.”

“And?”

"I woke up in that dingy house, in that dingy bedroom, with both my wrists tied behind me to a brass bed head, and my ankles tied to the brass bed end like some terrible cliché from the worst B movie you’d ever seen.”

“You woke up like that?”

“It was more of a 'come to' situation. Jesus did I feel groggy. It took me the longest time just to kind of understand where I was.”

“Understand?”

“Well, there wasn’t so much understanding, as I didn’t have a fucken clue, there was a lot more, um, what would you call it, absorbing the situation.”

“Absorbing the situation?”

“Um, taking in something that was an absolute and complete befuddlement of all of my sense. I had no fucken clue where I was, or how I got there.”

“No clue?”

“Nothing. Just a huge fat blank.”

“Jesus.”

“It was as if my reality had been snatched from me, and while I was unconscious a new reality was morphed in.”

“Like that?”

“Actually, I don’t know why I say like, there was no fucken like about it, that is what had happened, I just didn’t know it at that point.”

“You. didn’t know what you didn’t know?”

“Exactly.”

“So, you woke up?”

“In the dingiest bedroom you have ever seen. With Mark Normand comedy playing constantly on a screen.”

“Fuck me. What did you do?”

“What could I do? Nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea how I got there. I assumed those two muscled guys had something to do with it, but what good did that piece of information do me?”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I had no idea what they had to do with it, but that was all I had to go on.”

“Not much.”

“No. Except for that room.”

“The room you woke up in?”

“Except for that. It was green like ferns.”

“Like ferns?”

“No. More like algae. Rotting algae.”

“You mean it was wet, damp?”

“Not as such, just the colour, the wallpaper was the colour of slime, peeling off the walls in places. The ceiling was nicotine yellow as if a million cigarettes had been smoked in there. The carpet, what I could see of it, was green shag.”

“Green shag?”

“Old, like it was straight out of the 70s.”

“70s shag, sounds like my teenage years.” 

“There was one small window with a nicotine yellow blind pulled all the way down. It was the kind of room a 100 year old chain smoking grandma with dementia was left in to die, that was the feeling it gave me.”

“That gives me shivers just hearing it.”

“Until her emaciated, cancer ridden, 101 year old carcass was carried out in a body bag.”

“Poor grandma.”

“Poor fucken me.”

“Did it smell?”

“Like sweaty gym clothes left in a gym bag for too long.”

“Was it cold?”

“I was probably lucky it wasn’t winter.”

“So, what happened?”

“What happened? Ah, what happened?”

“Give me the gory details.”

“Well, it turned out to be my stalker, mad Charlotte.”

The Office

And then I was running down the street and the office was on fire behind me. I don't know if it was just that I was more sensitive to the smell knowing the building was burning, than if I hadn't known. I could certainly smell it in the air, but nobody around me seemed to be paying it much attention.

And then I was home. Closing the front door.

They were photographic chemicals, the delivery guy said. He made some joke about not lighting a match around them, probably the same joke he'd made at every stop ever since he began making his rounds, and jokes. Ha ha, everybody laughed. He was clearly a funny guy.

I’m guessing her never expected someone to, actually, light a match around them, despite what he said.

It had to be done, I decided there and then on the spot, as I was accepting the delivery. Everybody was full of so much talk against the evil overlords, but nobody was up for any action, despite the talk. If the despots in charge were to be toppled, something had to be done. Clearly.

I only tipped one of the containers over and, yes, I had to throw one lit match – I first considered using my cherished zippo, but realised that would look too much like evidence, then I found that box of matches in a draw – it didn't half make a woof when it caught. I was glad that I had hustled myself out of there when I had.

I liked the symbolism of the HR department going up first. Witches burn, at the stake, wasn’t that always done? 

No? 

It was some hobby of Di's, the photographic materials. She likes taking children's portraits, for her friend’s kids, or something like that. (I would say a hobby of the barren, but she had a beautiful son, I should talk about him?) I was lucky to get a moment to myself in the office, from the mail room, from the counter. And there it was, the few moments I needed, just like that.

All I had to do was unscrew the cap and roll up that old rag, like I’d seen them do the movies. What movie was that? The rag was one of Di’s scarves, I liked that touch. I knew it would come in handy some day for something, when I acquired it. The rest, as they say, is now history.

The people in the street were very slow in noticing the smoke billowing from the building, and I was able to get all the way up Main Street and around the corner. I just naturally check where the CCTV cameras are because, you know, in my fantasies of also had of fixing the restaurant next door to my house that doesn’t adhere to its noise levels, so I knew which route to avoid. Usually, the restaurant ‘fix’ involved a gun, and watching them all drop one by one but, you know, fire makes just as strong a statement. I knew exactly where to walk, I knew just to walk casually, as though it was any afternoon that I was walking home and I was home quickly, cuddled up to my dog Nudge.

I couldn’t tell if I was nervous, or excited? I was like a ginger horse in the wind, as my granny used to say. So, I made a cup of tea, it was the end of the day, after all, and drank it down strong and hot. 

My granny also used to say that nothing can’t be solved with a hot, strong cuppa. She used to stand the spoon up in hers, that is the expression, isn’t it?

The fire sirens seemed to wail loudly from every direction. (I only took the job in the first place because it was close to home)

Fatty Cake Snoop Lady, Lauren, my boss, had headed home early on one of her many excuses to head home early. Translation, she was heading out for a big dinner for one. She and her fat boyfriend, who she met at the Big Girl’s Night, for men who are interested in the larger lady, had split up weeks ago. Apparently, he’d found a bigger girlfriend.

I was surprised that was possible. But, apparently…

Our anorexic bitch boss, Belinda, who had been jogging the stairs manically, in all her decrepit glory, as she does starting around 5pm every night, was greeted with flames when she came back down to our floor. She called Lauren to see if she and I had been accounted for.

So, Belinda didn’t burn, more is the pity, maybe water would be more effective against the likes of her. "I’m melting! I’m melting!" The thought made me laugh.

Lauren called me in her little girl voice and broke the news to me, sometime in the evening, which meant she finished her all-you-can-eat buffet first, before she called.

“Oh Josh, I have some bad news,” Lauren’s voice was a near whisper coming down the phone, not unlike how those young boys would have heard Michael Jackson.

She told me that the head of HR, sorry People & Culture, Di's chiffon pant suit caught alight as she tried to escape and, from all accounts, she went up something like a Katherine Wheel, she was so panicked to get it put out. And all that black hair of hers, not a wig after all. So many people make the mistake of trying to beat the flames out in their panic.

“Oh, really when?” I feigned shock. “Now? That is terrible.”

I wondered if Di had a momentary realisation that I was as unsuitable for the role as she had always claimed, before she, at best, burned, or, at worst, suffocated? I guess we’ll never know? Shiver! I was made for that role. Or, more precisely, that role was made for me. She shouldn’t have plotted to get rid of me, after all I have put up with.

Lauren told me there would have to be an investigation, the police and the fire department would coordinate.

We were all advised to stay home until further notice. 

“It would be on full pay,” said Lauren. “Another office will be sourced quickly.”

“Could nothing be saved?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do they have any leads?”

“I think it is too early to tell.”

“I see,” I said. I wanted more details than that.

“Apparently, it started in HR,” said Lauren.

“All that hot gossip, no doubt.”

Lauren laughed nervously into the phone.

“Do you think Di suffered?”

“Well, it all looks pretty grim for her,” said Lauren.

That made me smile. I knew I had to be careful not to let Lauren hear the smile in my voice. “Well, that’s…” Oh, I just couldn’t say it. “That’s…” Um, my mouth just wouldn’t work. “Poor.” It was poor that I couldn’t finish the sentence. 

“Yes, poor Di,” said Lauren. “We’re all feeling it.”

“We are.” My voice just naturally went up on the 'are', like a question, but Lauren didn’t notice.

“At least Belinda fared better,” said Lauren. “They don’t think she will be kept in hospital for very long.”

“Two birds…”

“I’m sorry?”

“Two of them,” I said. “Who’d have thought?” Dared to dream. My fingers were twitching, I was trying to keep them still, but I was having trouble.

“It’s awful,” said Lauren.

“Awful,” I repeated.

“I’ll keep you updated,” she said. She hit end.

It had been my role, it was coming to an end and they wanted someone permanent. Lauren had asked me to apply. “You are a shoe in,” she said.

A shoe in, I thought, that sounded good, even if I didn’t exactly know that I wanted the job. Lauren kept checking with me that I had applied.

They had a meeting about the role. My team managers were quite keen for me to get the role, apparently.

But there was Di, head of People & Culture, even if we didn’t exactly have a People & Culture department. She said in that meeting, in front of everyone, all the senior managers.

“Couldn’t we get someone younger,” said the head of People & Culture. “Someone more ‘with it.’” She would have said with her Jackie Kennedy hair do, now died a little too black for her paling skin, her pearls, her cashmere scarf and her silk blouse with her Katherine Hepburn trousers.

Don’t employee him, he is too old. Some one more with it? Seriously?

I mean, apart from all the employment laws she just broke, what was she, a 65 year old woman whose had too much work, with a sphincter that is permanently clenched? With a soft voice she has perfected as a purr? Does anyone buy that voice? With an HR department with only one person under 40? Fat Karen. 

And, I have to say, that I didn’t really, completely, want the job – or vengeance – up until that point.

Of course, I wasn’t in that meeting and I was told 3rd hand. Is OCD Jess prone to exaggeration? Not something I had thought about until that point.

At first, of course, I didn’t want the job after that. Oh fuck you, I’m leaving. 

I thought about Sarah, who I temporarily replaced originally, and how she told me that when she found herself taking tentative steps out into the traffic one night after work one night when the pressure had built to such an extent, she knew she had to say something.

I thought of Jesse, who had been the original ‘with it’ young thing who’d replaced me, and how she had felt so miserable after months in the job that she too had trouble making sense of her life altogether.

That was when Sara called me back to fill in, because she had no idea what she was doing. No idea. That was when she asked me to take the job, which I was disinclined to do because I realised she was a major part of the problem, not knowing what she was doing.

But then moments after I returned, Sara was walked out by the bitch Belinda – because the cruelty is the point of her life – Di’s, I can only assume, ‘with it’ manager who resembles an anorexic only moments off death, er, treatment.

Sara and I were at our desks after lunch one day. Belinda entered the room, saying to Sara, “Can I have a word with you?”

“Sure,” replied Sara.

“Would you like to get a coffee downstairs at the coffee shop.”

“Yes, okay,” said Sara. At that point, she gave me a wide-eyed look, which I recognised as odd, but I was unclear why?

Sometime later, Di came into the office, with a waft of Chanel and without saying a word she picked up Sara’s bag and left the office.

I never saw Sara again.

Sara was replaced by Fatty Cake Snoop Lady, my new obese Chief Financial Officer, who also encouraged me to take the permanent job.

It was Sara who told me what Di had said about me as a parting gift, I think by phone a few days later.

Fatty Cake Snoop Lady, you ask? Well, she was bought in as a (parenthesis) consultant to look at why so many people had been through the Financial Accountant’s position that I filled in for, a month, or maybe 6 weeks before Sara’s departure. Sara and I didn’t trust her, didn’t believe she had been bought in to help, hence the ‘snoop.’ She was obese. Now, when I say obese, she seemingly had a whole other entity hidden under the front of her dress which at times seemed to be moving independently to her, hence the ‘fatty.’ Just about every lunch time, certainly after Sara had been walked out by the anorexic, she would bring me back cake. 

“I picked up this lovely chocolate cake while I was out at lunch, and I got you a piece,” she’d say to me, hence the cake.

She immediately took over Sara’s role, and nothing more was said. Really, very little. “Sara has decided to look for new challengers at a new company,” she said.

“Really,” I said.

So, there you have it, I was in office services as Di said there was an important delivery and she had no one there to accept it, 

“Could you please wait for it, Josh, it should only be moments away. I have an important meeting I have to get to.” 

So, I did. 

It was a delivery of personal items for Di. The driver told me it was photographic chemicals for Di’s hobby, as I was staring down at the box of stuff, my phone rang.  

“Oh Josh, it’s Lauren.”

“Hi, sorry to call you at home…”

“I’m still in the office.”

“Why are you still in the office?” 

“Di wanted me to wait for a late delivery”

“Di did?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yes, she was going on a date tonight…”

“A date?”

“Yes. I guess it’s a last hurrah… you know, at her age.” Lauren’s one weakness, she liked to gossip.

“I see.”

“Did I leave my blah blah at work?”

“I don’t know, but wait, I’ll look.”

And there it was on her desk.

“Yes,” I said, “It is here.”

“Oh good.”

“Do you want me to do anything with it.”

“No, I just wanted to know where it was.”

That was not long before the delivery. No, not ideal. And if I’d known what was going to happen not long after that, I would have said I was at home. Still, it couldn’t be help, what was done, was done.

Don’t light a match around them, said the delivery guy. That was the last thought that went through my mind, as I flicked the match and made for the back lift door. Don’t use in case of fire, I read, as I pushed the button

I chuckled. I put Nina Simone on. It was definitely a Nina Simone moment. In The Dark started to play and I thought of the office again. 

I sat back in my lounge chair. I lit a cigarette. I blew the smoke into the air rather exaggeratedly.

How would I know that Di would come back to get her delivery? I wasn’t to know that.

I didn’t know that Belinda was coming back to the office having been out exercising every last gram off her 40 kilo frame at the gym.

I wasn’t to know that they had met up in the carpark and were probably heading up in the other lift to me, probably as I got out on the ground floor.

It was good that I didn’t know, as I probably would never have lit that match and chucked it at the spilt chemicals. 

And we never would have got the delicious result that we did.

The police said it was suspicious. They also acknowledge that I was the last person in the office.

“Yes, I took delivery and left the office immediately.”

As long as you stick to the exact truth, right up until you can’t, you should be okay, I told myself. Get away with it. That way, your story never changes, you can’t afford to change your story, no you can’t.

“And you left them on the head of People & Culture’s desk?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Was there anybody in the office when you left?”

“No, I don’t think so. The delivery took longer than anticipated, so I think I was the last.”

“So, Belinda Horton wasn’t in the office?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“So, she wasn’t still in the office before the fire started?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Although, she could have been in her office and I just didn’t realise.”

“What is your impression of Belinda Horton?”

“Oh, I think she is possibly unhappy in her life, as she seems to take it out on the staff, for no apparent reason.”

“So, is she not liked in the office?”

“I don’t always understand he reasons for doing things.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“Well, sometimes the only point I can see to her behaviour is cruelty.”

“That’s very blunt.”

“Oh,” I said. “I assumed you wanted me to be blunt.”

“Could you make any comment on her health.”

“Well, she trains 5 nights a week, and her weight must now be down to 50 kilos.”

“Has that always been the case?”

“Oh, no, this has been true for her for the last 12 months.”

“And would you say her, as you say, cruelty has escalated with her loss of weight?”

“She’s always been hard work, but to answer your question, yes.”

“Do you think her obvious diminished physical capacity has affected her mental state?”

“Well, in my untrained capacity, I’d have to say yes.”

“Well, thanks you Mr Smith.”

“Oh, call me Josh.”

“Thank you, Josh.”

Di’s funeral was a simple affair, from all accounts, I didn’t attend.

Sometime later, Belinda left the company and from all reports entered a facility for the bewildered, as they say in nice circles.

I turned down the full time position and left the company.

Ray Sinclair

“Gin!”

“Again!”

“You betcha!”

“You are too good for me!”

“Read ‘em and weep. Ha Ha!”

“I don’t know if I will ever…”

“Oh! Oh?”

“Are you alright?”

“Oh? God! What’s happening? 

“What?

“Suddenly, I don’t feel so…”

“You don’t look…”

Thud!

“Beth!”

“Police? Fire? Or Ambulance?” asked the nasally voice on the other end of the phone.

“Ambulance, Ambulance! Quick! Ambulance,” Ray pleaded.

“I’m so sorry, Ray.”

“Thanks, Leo. Such is life. Hey?”

“It was a beautiful service,” said Leo.

“As far as funerals go, hey,” said Ray. "I haven't seen you since then?"

"No, not since the service."

"Oh, Leo."

“So, Ray… er… mate, what, um?”

“What?”

“What? How? I never asked?”

“A stroke. Then a second stroke.”

“Beth didn’t deserve that.”

“No.”

“Still… what was…um?

“What was what?”

“Er… the age difference?” said Leo.

“Forty years,” said Ray. “But, I never felt it. Never.”

“No?”

“No.”

“No one would have ever picked Beth for 75,” said Leo.

“No, no one ever did.”

Leo ushered Ray into his lounge room.

“What are you going to do with the house?”

“I’m not going to do anything with the house.”

“Don’t you have to…”

“The house is mine. Beth left it to me. I don’t have to do anything with it.”

“It’s going to be expensive…”

“Beth left me everything.”

“Everything?”

“The lot.” Ray laughed self consciously, even he heard it.

“What?” quizzed Leo.

“What? What?” said Ray.

“That laugh. What was that?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“You don’t know what I mean?”

“No.”

“How long have we been best friends, Ray?

“Since school.”

“Yes, since school.”

“Twenty years?”

“Longer,” said Leo.

“Okay, longer? So?”

“There is something, that laugh gave it away. I know that laugh.”

“You are talking shit, Leo.”

“No, no I’m not.”

Leo lit a cigarette. He offered one to Ray, which Ray took. They smoked in silence.

“Beth, um, had left half her fortune to me and the other half to her children, except I, um…” Ray stubbed his cigarette out in a dish on the side table between the two of them. “I? Ah? Did a new will.” Ray smiled at Leo waiting for Leo’s reaction.

“Did a new will?” Leo creased his forehead in a question.

“Which left, er, me, um, all the money…” 

“And her children? 

“Well…” Ray held Leo’s questioning gaze and found he couldn’t help but smile.

“And?”

“Nothing.”

“You stole from her children?” asked Leo. 

“No,” said Ray. “Of course not. What kind of person do you think I am?”

Leo raised his eyebrows. 

“It wasn’t theirs,” said Ray. “It was, um.” He tilted his head for effect. “Beth’s.”

“So, you did?” said Leo.

“Did I?”

“Yes, that is what I am asking?”

“That is what you are asking?”

“Yes, that is what I am asking.”

“I took what was mine.”

“Ray?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Ray?” Leo’s voice went up pitch.

“Well, you asked.”

“Didn’t she have a lot of money?” asked Leo.

“Yes. Yes, a lot.”

“Enough for everyone?”

“Well, um, define enough.”

“Plenty for you and her two children to live on for all of your respective lives.”

“Well, that’s a definition.”

“That’s what you just asked for.”

“And you delivered.”

“And the answer would be?”

“Well, yes, yes there is.”

“So wouldn’t it have been fair…”

“Fair?”

“It means…”

“I know what it means.”

“Wouldn’t it have been fair?”

“I do think fair is so over used, don’t you?” said Ray. “Cancel culture and everyone being outraged today.”

“It is the only thing that separates us from the animals…”

“Oh, Leo.”

“The only thing that defines us as a civilised society.”

“Civilised, smivilised.”

“Oh Ray?”

“What?”

“Did you do it?”

“Yes, I pinched the kid’s money. So, kill me.”

“Ray, I will never be able to look at you in the same way again...”

“Do you want a Mustang?”

“Well, yes.”

“A black one?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, tell me you still love me.”

“I will always love you, Ray.”

“The kids won’t starve.”

“They won’t?”

“No, Beth gave them plenty of money while she was still alive.”

“She did?”

“Yes,” said Ray. “I’m not a complete monster.”

“Not a complete monster,” said Leo.

“Besides, neither of her kids did what I did for her in the last 15 years of her life.”

“You don’t expect her kids to do that, do you?”

“No, I don’t mean go face down in their mother…”

“Euw!”

“It wasn’t euw!”

“Didn’t you do it for the money?”

“No, I never did it for the money,” said Ray. “I liked her, I really liked her.”

“Careful, you are sounding like whoever that actress was.”

“She was different and interesting and smart and amazing and funny and more than once she took my breath away. I miss her so much.”

“You didn’t do it for the money?”

“No, I never did it for the money.”

“Never?”

“No!” said Ray. “It doesn’t mean I want to lose the money now that I have lost her.”

“I think that much is clear,” said Leo. “So, how?”

“How what?”

“How did you get away with it?”

“I made up a new will.”

“Yes, I know you did that, but how did you do it?”

“Well,” said Ray. “I knew what was in her will, and how she wanted her estate to be divided, despite on numerous occasions how she complained about her kids and how she had provided for them only to be thanked by them being too busy to spend any time with her.”

“Wasn’t that because of you?” said Leo.

“Was it because of me?”

“Didn’t they state on more than one occasion that they weren’t okay with their mother taking up with a younger man?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“From you Ray, from you,” said Leo. “So, wasn’t it?”

“I’m younger than them,” said Ray. “And, they just couldn’t put their mother’s happiness above their own.”

“It was all so sudden, so how?” asked Leo.

“She had the 1st stroke and was put into hospital,” said Ray. “She had a 2nd stroke three days later which killed her.”

“A three day window period?”

“So, after the 1st stroke, I decided just to ask her to sign a new will.”

“So, you did?”

“Yes, I put it in front of her in the hospital and asked her to sign.”

“Which she did?”

“Yes,” said Ray. “Then I took it to my lawyer John Walker and he witnessed her signature.”

“In his office, quite separate to Beth?”

“Yes.”

“It kind of plays with the definition of a witness?”

“Oh, John Walker does anything for me, since I found him a,” Ray made parenthesis in the air with his fingers, “girl, who’d let him dress up in a school girl’s outfit for sex.”

“Is this the same guy who was mayor?”

“Yes, he was mayor, what is your point?”

“Isn’t he married?”

“Happily.”

“You don’t see any problem with that?”

“Um, what? No. We used the same pen, don’t worry.”

“I meant,” said Leo. He waved his hand as if to say never mind. “He was in a position of power based on honesty…”

“Yes, I think the fact that he was mayor worked positively towards believability.”

“Then you lodged it?”

“John did all that.”

“And it was accepted?”

“No drama,” said Ray.”

“Did the kids try to fight it.”

“No, not a peep. I guess they are used to me.” Ray shrugged. “By now?”

“They didn’t suspect?”

“Not for a minute,” said Ray. “And the previous will had stood for 10 years. Longer. They missed out on millions.”

“Where did you two meet?” asked Leo. “You and Beth.”

“I’ve told you that.”

“No.”

“On a golf course,” said Ray. It was a glorious day.”

“On a golf course?”

“Beth was my grandma’s golf buddy,” said Ray. “I used to caddy for gran from time to time.”

“You were caddy?”

“For gran.”

“Golf.”

“Yes, a sexy young caddy towards who Beth made several inappropriate suggestions.”

“What did your gran think?”

“Oh, she didn’t hear.”

“And it went from there, from the golf course?”

“No, not exactly,” said Ray. “Sometime later gran had a dinner party and I offered to be waiter?”

“So, a sexy young waiter now?”

“Dressed up in a waist coat and tight black pants," said Ray. "Beth got drunk and told me she was Mrs Robinson.”

“Did you understand the reference?”

“No, not immediately, but in one of those coincidences that happen all the time in life, the film came on TV and I watched it with mum.”

“So, I am assuming it didn’t lead on from the dinner party, if it took until later to get the Mrs Robinson reference?”

“No, by chance we met in a service station in Nicholson Street sometime after the dinner party, when she was filling up her Mini Cooper and I was putting $5 worth in my big old Mercedes.”

“Just by chance?”

“We laughed at the ridiculousness of our fills.”

“Was that serendipity?”

“She asked me if I was interested in mowing her lawns.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No, it’s the house in Victoria Road, you know the lawns it has.”

“Oh, yes?”

“And I mowed her lawns,” said Ray. “She made me coffee and cake afterward, and we got chatting. And I found I liked her. She had interesting things to say.”

“Ah, the young lawn boy.”

“Her husband died in a car accident,” said Ray. “Eventually, a long time after, she told me she hadn’t had sex for 10 years, not since her husband.”

“And your relationship developed from there?”

“We had fun, we laughed,” said Ray. “Sure, she treated me to things. But I liked her, I liked spending time with her. We saw plays, we saw movies, we went bush walking with our dogs, we went on a cruise. She had always wanted to go on a cruise, and she could with me.”

"You and Beth, hey?"

"She was lonely. She was happily married. She was devastated when her husband was killed.” 

“He was killed?”

“In a car. Head on. The other driver was drunk, veered onto his side of the road.”

“She said that I reminded her of him. I think that’s what drew her to me.”

“Not your 20 year old loins?” said Leo.

“Her husband’s name was Ray. And her first boyfriend she dated at uni was Ray too. She said she is a Ray kind of girl.”

“You were made for that role.”

“She kept me while I finished my law degree.”

“Have you always fancied older women?” asked Leo.

“I don’t know, maybe,” said Ray. I always remember thinking Joy Behar was a good sort and was shocked to find out she was nearing 80 years old.”

“Joy Behar off the TV.”

“Yes, from that talk show where all the chicks yap on.”

“So, what happened to Beth? When she got sick?

“We were drinking Mojitos and playing Gin Rummy…”

“Gin Rummy?”

“It’s a card game. You have to get a certain combination of cards that gives you Gin Rummy. And when you get them, you call out Gin!”

“I’ve never heard of it,” said Leo. 

“It’s exciting. Beth screamed out gin! Then she keeled over,” said Ray. “I thought she was kidding, messing about, playing a prank, lying on the floor, but she wasn’t.”

“She’d had the stroke?”

“The first one.”

“So how did you forge her will.”

“John Walker…”

“Your lawyer?”

“Yes, he wrote it up for me.”

“So, what did you tell him?”

“The truth?”

“That you were forging Beth’s will…”

“So, I got everything and the kids got nothing.”

“He didn’t have an ethical issue with that…”

“No, I paid him, he was okay with it.”

“With forgery?”

“He didn’t care, besides, it wasn’t a forgery, not really.”

“How can you say that?”

“John wrote the will. Beth signed it. It’s a real will.”

“But Beth didn’t know what she was signing.”

“Erm...she knew it was a financial document.”

“How did she know that?”

“I told her.”

“What, sign this financial document.”

“Yes, that’s what I asked her.”

“What were her children like?”

“Fiona and Robert.”

“Just the two?”

“They were spoilt, she spoilt them.”

“With a sense of entitlement, no doubt?”

“Oh, um, kind of,” said Ray. “They are just into themselves, and their lives, making money, working the corporate ladder and buying bigger houses and bigger beach houses, the latest cars, sending their kids to private schools.”

“That seems pretty normal.”

“Robert is a big time lawyer with a stay at home wife, Prue, who is so vacuous I feel like I lose IQ points when I have a full conversation with her,” said Ray. “And Fiona is the mayor, or do they call them CEOs now? Of River Council, where her main achievement seems to have been to triple her salary all the while managing to stay in office despite mounting, damning criticism.”

“River Council has been riddled with allegations of corruption.”

“Because she is only there for her own benefit, not unlike the rest of her life. Or the rest of the councillors, for that matter.”

“Just what we need from our public servants.”

“I don’t think that they are, actually, capable of thinking about anyone else.”

“Which cost them?

“Which cost them big time, in this last election.”

“So, what do they think happened to Beth’s money.”

“They think Beth left it all to me.”

“So, you just made the reality fit the perception of reality.”

“Yes, I guess I did.”

“And they were none the wiser?”

“They didn’t approve of me,” said Ray. “But, were happy for me to look after Beth so they didn’t have to.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked Leo.

“I don’t know,” said Ray. “I don’t know.”

“Find another Beth?”

“Ha ha. As if.”

“You shouldn’t lose hope.”

“Live happily ever after,” said Ray. “That’s all that’s left.”

“What else is there to do?” said Leo.

“What else, indeed,” said Ray.

“At least you have Beth’s money to keep you warm,” said Leo.

“You know, it was never about the money. It was always about nothing changing. I just wanted life to go on as unchanged as much as I could make it.”

“Without Beth?”

“I can’t change that,” said Ray. “But I could change the rest.”

“Or stop it changing?” said Leo.

“I’d give up all of it to have Beth back,” said Ray. “Like that.” He clicked his fingers.

“I know you would, Ray.”

Okay, Okay, I Shouldn't Have Eaten Those Mushrooms

The Land cruiser was really comfortable on the trip back into the city, he thinks he may have nodded off. He forgets how high the, what is essentially a, truck is off the ground, when he gets out at his place in Brunswick, and he slides out in an ungainly fashion. He’s sure he was grabbing on for safety handles as it all gave way below him.

That’s funny, he thinks. Is he unsteady on his feet?

Tim leans into the back of the car to get the mushrooms. “Will, maate? You ate from both bags.”

“No, I didn’t,” he says instinctively. What?

“Both bags are open,” says Tim sounding like mum.

“I couldn’t have.” Even he heard the quaver in his own voice.

It was as if Tim sniffed his admission in the air. “Maaate?”

"Okay, okay, I shouldn't have eaten those mushrooms," he says. He holds his stomach and wonders if he is turning green.

"Maate? Maate? You didn't eat the red cap ones, did ya?"

Red cap, gold cap, I ate them like I'd eat potato chips. "Dunno..."

"Oh maate..."

"I don't reckon..." What the hell do mushrooms do to you?

"You sure?"

"Nah, of course... I'm... I'm not sure." He was sure alright, he knew he'd eaten them, but he didn't want to look like a complete idiot, now did he.

"I told ya just to eat the ones from the first bag, the ones I'd picked..." Tim says. “And then only a few.”

A few? Now suddenly there is a number restriction? "Yeah, yeah, I listened to ya..."

"So, did ya?"

"Did I what?" He was having trouble keeping up by this point.

"Just eat them from the bag, eat the ones I picked?"

Don’t question me. "Yeah, yeah, I think so..." he didn’t, actually, remember eating any of the damn mushrooms, he just knew he had eaten them. One by one as he gazed out the window.

"You think so?" Tim’s voice squeaked ominously.

"Yeah, okay, I did. I did, okay." Why did his voice squeak?

"You don't wanna eat any of them red ones, or any of them gold ones, from the other bag, you really don't want to do that."

"Sweet." He didn’t look at the colour of them. WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT COLOUR?

There is silence for a minute.

That's all you are going to say? He thinks. Does he feel well? Is he beginning to feel sick? Is it psychosomatic? "Like, why?" he asks.

"Why what?"

"Like what will happen?"

"Oh maate, I couldn't say. Wouldn't like to say. Not really sure."

“Give it your best shot.” He was suddenly feeling desperate, and he didn’t entirely know why?

Tim makes sucking sounds.

"Don't say that." What the fuck does that mean? I don’t like the sound of that.

They hold each other’s gaze.

Tim’s mouth creases first. “So, I have one question for you.” Tim holds his hands out, flat in the air. “Then I’m done.”

“What is it?” You only have one question? This is my life we are talking about.

“Why were both bags open, when I got them from the middle of the back seat, next to where you were sitting?”

He’d done coke in Sydney with Mardi Gras queens after a long weekend of taking every other drug he could get his hands on. “You must have put them in the car that way.”

“I didn’t.”

“You must be mistaken.” He’d done MDMA and trips with drag queens in London until the sun came up.

“I’m not.”

He’d done MDA with drunk girls in Milan. “Ah… er…ah” was all he could manage. He was thinking about the time he got a lift across Milan with a willowy black woman, with bright red lipstick, in a bright red Fiat 500. Was everything suddenly looking red?

“The second bag was what we’d all picked, but I just hadn’t checked it for poison’s rooms.”

Silence.

“What if I did?” He holds his hands in the air, he’d suddenly exposed an uncomfortable truth about himself.

Tim sucks in breath. 

That sucking sound, the only other time he’d heard that was when, as a kid, his dad used to get bad news. He is sure that isn’t good in this situation. 

Tim looks into the second bag. “The ratio of poisonous is disturbingly high.” Tim sucks in breath again. “I should take you to get your stomach pumped.” His eyes blink fast. “It would be the kindest thing.”

“What!” Even he hears his own voice squeak.

“Did you eat…” asks Tim. His right hand does a kind of Sale of the Century’s model’s hand gesture to the bag he is holding in his other hand. “These?”

Ambulance. Emergency. ICU. All flash through his mind. “What?”

“What did you eat?”

“Just what you told me.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

“Okay then,” says Tim. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“I’ve gotta go.”

He’s what? Oh… yeah… okay. Will suddenly closes the Landcruiser door with a jerk of his arm, as though suddenly he wasn’t in full control of his arm. He sees it close. He could tell he’d closed it too hard, as Tim’s mouth makes an 'O' shape and his eyes widen noticeably, but Will didn’t hear the door closing make any sound.

Tim guns the engine and selects 1st gear with a crunch of the gearstick before he accelerates away.

Will stands and watches the big truck disappear out of view. Then he stands there for a bit longer, gazing at the spot Tim disappeared around the corner.

Will’s eyes lids suddenly feel heavy, he’s not at all sure if he has both eyes open.

The front path comes up at him in the most peculiar way. The front door feels huge. The last thing he remembers is the hallway carpet coming up and smacking him in the face.

In the first few hours he thinks he is going to die. In the hours after that, he hopes he will die. Sometime after that, he remembers wondering if he has died.

He opens his eyes. Where was he? There was a flat plane seemingly extending out from his eyeballs to infinity. What the fuck was that? If only he could focus, he’d be able to tell. Why won’t his eyes focus? Why is his mouth in pain. He tries to lick his lips but no moisture comes. His lips feel like what he would imagine the parched landscape of the Nullarbor would taste. He works his sore tongue, which somehow feels too big for his mouth, like it was borrowed from a giant, or something unexplainable, in and out of his mouth and moisture does come. Painfully, he has to acknowledge. His eyeballs focus finally, to discover the flat plane extending out in front of him was his hallway floor. He is lying face down. He tries to sit up, but his back feels locked in position. 

“Ohhhh!” He instinctively knows the moan is coming from him, even if it feels like he has a ventriloquist dummy somewhere out of sight through which he is speaking. If he’d heard the words, just look at you, what state do you call this? You are a disgrace. He wouldn’t have been surprised.

Slowly he starts to work his joints. First his spine, which feels like it is fused together. As it comes good, he is able to slide around onto his arse and sit up.

Everything hurts. Now, when he hears people say ‘everything hurts’ he’ll have some reference point for the sympathy he might give. 

He doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t know how he feels, but it isn’t good. 

Somewhere in the recess of his brain he thinks he feels pleased. He didn't die, after all.

He gets to his feet with difficulty. He needs some water to restore moisture to his throat, as even though moisture has returned to his mouth, there is, really, barely enough present to facilitate swallowing and he is continually suffering a series of mini gagging events due to the lack of fluid in his throat.

He pulls his phone from his pocket as he makes his way hesitantly to the kitchen, there are quite a few missed calls. It is 9.40am.

He gets a glass of water at the sink, it has a very strange effect on his throat as the liquid goes down, like the reintroduction to his system of an unfamiliar element of life. As he is trying to swallow the water, he again glances at his phone to see the date of the Tue 6th.

He straightens up with a groan that goes from the back of his head to the tips of his toes and focusses on the sky beyond the kitchen window as though he is searching for something. He looks back at his phone. 

They went mushroom picking on Saturday.

Maggie's Night Spot

Serendipity was swinging around her pole slowly, it was a slow night at Maggie's Night Spot. None of the regulars were in, just a few losers who seemed to be staring down the misery in their pint glasses, more than they were staring at the girl's tits. 

Where were all the fun guys? The drunk guys? The guys with full wallets? The easy guys? A grab of your tits and they are happy guys.

Serendipity had a hand full of lard, so she just kept spinning around that big, greasy brass pole. 

The piano player, Johnny, was playing blues, as if he were on Serapax. Serendipity knew he drank two bottles of red, and smoked half a bag of weed before he came on. The jukebox of emo go slow.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

"It is me, they are coming to see," sang Johnny. "To forget about life for a while."

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

"Man, what are you doin' here?" Johnny screamed.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum.”

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

"Well, we're all in the mood for a melody."

Johnny’s fingers crash off onto a classical music interlude still with a stripper’s beat, naturally. Tits and arse. Snatch and feathers. "Da da-da da da-da da da-da da da..."

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

"And you... " Johnny’s voice soared.

Johnny plays a crashing piano solo. High art. Avant-garde. Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da.

"Got us feeling alright," wails Johnny’s bluesy voice.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

The guys weren't coming in. Serendipity was getting a pain in her shoulder for no money, for no cash. She spun and she spun and she spun.

Daaaah, Dah, Dah, Daaah, Dah, dah, daaah. Dah.

Serendipity spun, and she spun, and she spun.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum,” sings Johnny.

Heels click across the concrete floor. “Step it up a bit, you two” says Maggie. “People will think somebody has died here soon, if you keep this up.”

“Not exactly a jumping night,” whines Serendipity.

“Well, do something about it,” says Maggie. “It’s not a fucken wake.”

 “What do you suggest?”

“Shake your arse, get ya fucken tits out, that’s what I fucken suggest,” says Maggie. “Before I get up there and show you how it’s really fucken done.”

Serendipity spits her gum. “That won’t be necessary,” Serendipity says, on all fours, twirking her arse slowly in the air. Serendipity gets to her feet, she steps up to her mic. "Fuck you,” she wails at Johnny, pointing in the air at him. She breathes in deep. “It is me,” she pulls her tits out. “They are coming to see," Serendipity wails. She slides her hand down her stomach and into her panties and clearly into her vagina. "I POP my cork for every man I see!"

Johnny’s harmonica soars as the piano pounds out Hey Big Spender.

Serendipity puts her mic in the mic stand, then she gyrates across the stage, wiggling he ample breasts.

Maggie whistles. “Show ‘em why you got them fucken implants, babe,” yells Maggie.

The boys instinctively make their way in from the bar to Serendipity’s stage, one by one. They start gathering at the front of the stage.

“That’s my girl,” yells Maggie. Two thumbs in the air as she walks away.

Serendipity kicks her leg high. She shakes her tits. She unwraps herself from her bra top, like she is doing the dance of the veils, and spins around back to the mic stand.

“Oh, la la la, di da da, la la, di da da da dum,” sings Serendipity. “Oh la la!”

Some of the boy’s wolf whistle. Some of the boys cheer her on.

“Come and get this, boys,” wails Serendipity. “Hey Big Spender!”

Hector is at the front of the stage. The young, Greek fish monger from up the market. Handsome Hector.

Serendipity grabs her mic and goes down on her knees in front of Hector, black g-string and black leather boots. Serendipity wraps both her arms around Hector’s head, she slides one of her nipples into his mouth.

“Say wouldn’t you like to know what’s going on in my mind.”

The punters go crazy. If Hector gets to suck tit, it means the rest of them have a shot of sucking her nipples too, in group think. Hector sucks her breast like a poddy calf.

Serendipity stands up. “The minute you walked into the joint.”

“Boom! Bang!” Johnny ponds the keys.

“I could see you were a maa, an, an an aan,” sang Serendipity.

Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da, Johnny plays

“A man of distinction.” Serendipity slides her g-string to her ankles.

Da da-da da, da da-da da, da da-da da da.

“I pop my cork for every man I see.”

Serendipity squats in front of Hector. She slides a finger into herself.

“Spend a little time with me,” Serendipity sings.

Serendipity takes Hector’s hand and puts it on her hand, the finger of which she is fingering herself.

“I pop my cork.”

Serendipity fingers herself open for all to see.

“I pop my cork.”

Hector’s finger disappears inside Serendipity.

“I pop my cork!”

The boys all start to cheer.

Serendipity stands.

“For evvvvery… Maaaaaaaan,” she wails. “I” She turns to face the men full frontal nude. She blows air kisses. “Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” She shakes her tits from side to side, as she struts around the stage.

Lights up. Serendipity takes a small bow. Lights down. Serendipity heads for the back of the stage. The boys cheer.

The next stripper Coral, with her python, heads towards her.

“Well,” said Serendipity. “I think they are warmed up enough now.”

“Yeah, thanks a fucken lot for makin’ my shift that much fucken harder,” said Coral.

“If you’ve got it, you’ve got it.” said Serendipity. “What can I say?” She laughed 

“Well, next time you decided to wake up from your fucken drug nightmare and do some fucken work for a fucken change, instead of thinking about how you are gonna fuck Hector next,” said Coral. “I’d have bought my dog in if I’d known that.”

“Maggie is on the snarl, apparently we aren’t bringing in enough of the filthy.”

“Was that her down the front,” asks Coral. “That I saw tonight?

“Perhaps we should do a double act?”

“Have another nosefull and come back out,” said Coral. “I could ditch the snake if you do.”

“Nah, I got me a big, Greek stallion tonight.”

Johnny’s piano started to wail on stage.

Coral stepped up to the microphone.

“I was five and he was six.”

The stage door banged shut behind Serendipity. The music stopped.

She had told Hector to meet her out the front. She didn’t want to leave him standing around the building. Serendipity knew what slags the girls were. Any handsome thing with a pulse.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” says Maggie. She’s got an armful of outfits she was clearly moving. “Good job.”

“You don’t mind Hector being out the front?”

“You can fuck him on stage, if you keep getting the punters through the doors,” says Maggie.

Serendipity clunked down the back-stage corridor to the dressing room in her stratospheric stilettos. She pushed the dressing room door open. The air was thick with cigarette smoke.

Magenta was just tucking her penis up her arse and applying a thick wad of gaffer tape to hold everything in place.

“I hope Coral put enough lube on that snake,” said Serendipity. “We don’t want a repeat of last week.”

Martinique was sitting back on her chair staring into her mirror, surrounded by exposed light bulbs, feet in strappy shoes up on her dressing table, drawing hard on her smoke, the ash from which was hanging off the end of the cigarette between her turquoise talons. Bustier, but nothing else. “She bitched for fucken days,” said Martinique.

Sibeon was crying, and Aurora was trying to comfort her.

Cashmere was shooting up in the corner. 

“That stuff will fucken kill you,” said Serendipity.

“I need something to get me through this nightmare.”

“Your choices, welcome to them,” spat Martinique.

“Seriously, Cashmere,” said Magenta. The gaffer tape was all Magenta was wearing. She had a powder brush in one hand as she puffed on a splif with the other.

“Sibeon’s got man trouble,” says Aurora. “What else makes a girl cry around here?”

“Have you done your make up?” asked Serendipity. She was now standing at her makeup table wiping at her face with a sponge.

“I’ve been touching it up since last month,” said Magenta in her baritone voice. “I call it scat face.”

“You are succeeding,” said Serendipity. She looks over at Cashmere. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I think the goblin bit off her clit,” said Martinique.

“What’s his number?” said Magenta. “That could save me a fortune.”

“Can someone look after Sibeon?” said Aurora. “I’ve got to get into my lights outfit, I’m on after Coral.”

“Not me,” said Serendipity. “I’ve got a date.”

“Hector?”

“Hector.”

“You lucky bitch, he’s got girth,” said Aurora.

“Just what mama ordered.” Serendipity twitched her nose at the thought. She dropped the humour from her voice. “And he’s nice, too. He wants to…”

“Oh Jesus, don’t even fucken say it,” said Martinique. “Dear God!”

“Good for you,” said Magenta.

“Come here, dohl,” said Cashmere ricocheting off the furniture in Sibeon’s direction. “We’ll make plans to kill the son of a bitch, then claim diminished respo… respo… “

Magenta moved towards Sibeon in rubber tits and that strip of grey gaffer tape. “No, hon, not you.” Magenta grabbed Cashmere by the arm and pushed back in the direction of her makeup table. “Sibeon, darl, get some clothes on and you can come out drinking with me. You can unload about him with me, but we won’t be planning any one’s murder tonight.”

“It’s what the fucker needs,” said Cashmere from her chair. “We could tie him up and cut his cock off and let him bleed out. That would fucken learn him.”

“I’m at a loose end…” said Martinique.

“I’ve heard the guys describe you just that way,” said Cashmere.

“Says the human bowling ball,” said Martinique. “I’ll come out drinking, too.” 

“Sure,” said Magenta. “I was planning to get shit faced and fall down, but if we are baby sitting, we may have to curb it a bit.”

“You don’t have to baby sit me,” said Sibeon.

“Of course not,” said Magenta, in baby speak.

Aurora headed to the stage. Cherish and Elektra arrived at the same time, as Aurora left. “I’m doing the Virgin Mary, tonight,” said Cherish.

“I’m doing Madeline McCann reimagined,” said Elektra. They both laugh. “Good evening… ladies,” said Elektra to the dressing room.

“It’s not a jumpin’ night, you’ll need all your tricks,” said Serendipity. “Good night ladies.” 

Hector was waiting out the front.

“You been waiting long,” Serendipity said to Hector.

“No,” said Hector. He laughed. “You know how long I have been waiting.”

“I guess,” said Serendipity. “Where are you taking me?”

“Where would you like to go?” said Hector.

“I’d really like something to eat?”

“Okay.” Hector put his arm out for Serendipity to loop her arm through, and she did. “Food it is.”

They walked towards Hector's Mustang, arm in arm.

“Did you sleep with Aurora?”

"What?"

"Did you?"

“That was before I met you,” said Hector. “You can’t be cross about that?”

“I guess, as long as you haven’t slept with Magenta.”

“I don’t think I know which one is Magenta.”

Serendipity laughed. “It doesn’t matter.”

Hector and Serendipity went to Charcoal Joes, the twenty four hour Greek restaurant in Lonsdale Street.

They sat in the large window and the world passed by outside.

“Serendipity…”

“Call me Amy.”

“Amy… Amy, I like you…”

“I like you too.” Amy liked Hector’s handsome face. She liked his dimples. But mostly she liked the feeling she got when she was with him.

“I really like you.” Hector smiled.

“Like Aurora?”

“That was just sex,” said Hector. “You must know that?”

“Why would I know that?” said Amy. “Because I am a stripper?”

“No, because you are an adult and we all have a past.”

“Yes, well,” said Amy. “I know I do.”

Hector tilted his head in the cutest way, just like Amy’s pug dog. “I want to be with you,” said Hector.

“You know the right things to say.”

“I don’t want to stop you from doing anything,” said Hector. “My mum was unhappy because my father stopped her from doing the things she liked.”

“Do you think I like stripping?”

“I don’t know, Amy, I don’t know,” said Hector. “But it is up to you.”

“It is up to me?”

“Do you like it?”

“I like the money,” said Amy.

“What about the men looking at you?”

“They can’t hurt me with their looks,” said Amy. “They can’t hurt me.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“You make me happy.”

“You know all the right things to say,” said Hector.

“I just don’t like what people think of me?”

“What do you tell people you do?”

“I tell them I am a dancer,” said Amy. “Generally, people don’t ask too many questions.”

Hector reached out and took Amy’s hand in his. Amy felt a thrill down her spine. She couldn’t ever remember a man taking her hand so tenderly, ever.

“Amy, I want to marry you?”

“Marry me? Are you sure, Hector?”

“I’m sure,” said Hector. “I want to have children with you.”

“Children, Hector? I never thought…”

“Why would you never think?”

“What would I tell them?”

“You’d tell them you were a dancer.”

“Oh Hector.”

They drank too much at dinner. Amy was tipsy and giggly balancing on her stratospheric stilettos when they got back to Hector's.

The third floor of Hector’s terrace house had a balcony, the French doors open to the stars.

Some men are truly gifts from the gods, thought Amy, as her head hung off the side of the bed and she saw the room upside down with a carpet of stars leading out to the rest of the world. 

Suddenly her life made sense, upside down. 

Hector snored. He is the one, she thought girlishly to herself. A girl can dream.

Amy was late to the club the next night. She crashed through the door with barely enough time to get ready to go on, but she clearly wasn’t upset by that, in fact she felt happier than she could ever remember feeling.

“What are you so happy about?” said Aurora.

“I’m going to be a decent, upright, respectable, married lady,” said Serendipity.

“You’re a funny girl,” said Magenta.

Work Shop Boy

The machine shop - 6/10/99

His name was Brett; the sandy-hair young guy in the machine shop. His hair was cut short, perhaps a number two and his face was round, tanned and he smiled easily. I’ve never met a Brett I didn’t like, and he was no exception.

He worked in the machine shop, downstairs and below the offices, where I worked.

He’d say, “How are ya,” and smile and wink in that blokey sort of way as I walked passed on my way to collect the time cards and to stir up the managers in the back office. They could slack off down there if they thought there was no one keeping an eye on them.

Two smiles hello, but I bet he wasn’t stripping me with his eyes as I was him?

I imagined Brett’s testicles rolled around as he said, “How are ya,” like a cord was being pulled up through his arse, such was the depth of his baritone voice. It surprised me a little from such a fresh face. Such a man’s voice emanated from him when he spoke. It was the sort of voice that would come from the pit of the stomach. He couldn’t have been older than twenty.

A clear open face, his lips rolling into a smile so easily, neatly finishing the pale skin of his face around his mouth in healthy pink mounds. He had a beautiful mouth. I’d seen him laugh so often with his work mates in the workshop, all boys with girls in bikini’s hanging on calendars on the walls. Work benches and machinery and the constant whirr of construction.

Brett’s was a smiling and happy face, as open and as a fresh as a spring day; pale blue eyes, pale skin with freckles and strawberry blonde hair. His smile was beautiful and had the devil in it, all at the same time. His innocent’s had a disarming edge. He could look right through you in a momentary lapse of concentration.

I was often found down in the machine shop striking up a conversation where I could.

He reminded me of a young deer, a young buck, already powerful but not yet aware of his strength, still giving the impression of tottering a little on his long legs. At the height of his power, but as yet still unaware of it’s abilities. I could gaze at him all I liked, so it would seem and he simply saw it as friendship. He’d smile and chat back, he had a habit of touching me on the arm whenever I said something that amused him.

His hand felt big and warm.

The curves of his overall-clad body were smooth and flowing, curving beautifully at his shoulders and arse with a long softly flowing torso, a narrow stretch joining two masculine curved mounds. His arse filled out around his hips, round and firm and it filled his over-all’s leaving only the material around his stomach lose fitting.

He had a habit of showing me his arse whenever I walk by, bending sweetly as he worked, so his rear was fully exposed, like he was offering it to the world quite unwittingly. (subconsciously, he was aching for it to be filled) Coincidence, nothing else. Pushing it out into a pucker, my imagination ran with it, wild thoughts followed.

I could almost taste his soft hole on the tip of my ripe tongue.

I found myself imagining what he may look like prone over his work bench face first, his overalls around his ankles, masturbating, letting his arse be completely free. Uninhibited, oblivious to anything but his own needs, thumbing girlie magazines, the calendars off the walls, in the deserted workshop when everyone else had left for the day.

I shook my head disbelieving at the thoughts he had engendered, surprised at the instantaneous depravity of my imagination. I kept walking, I’m sure, with a bemused smile on my face.

The workshop was like a big aeroplane hanger, although the roof was of course too low, but it was a big tin shed that stretched down to the back of the company’s property, with doors and prefabricated rooms all leading off to somewhere else.


One day I saw Brett hurt his hand, as he was fabricating some sheet metal at his workbench. The sharp tin caught him on the hand, slashing it around the base of his thumb. It was a deep gash into his flesh. His face screwed up into a pained expression and turned red and momentarily he looked like a little boy just about to cry. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. I went over to comfort him, I wanted to pat his forehead and hold him until the hurt passed, but he went pale and passed out and collapsed into my arms, instead. The blood ran from his hand, in a scarlet torrent, sweet and sticky to touch, like golden syrup or treacle on my hands. I couldn’t look at it; blood made me faint also.

He had been working back, so had I, there was no one else around.

2001

His chest felt broad as I wrapped my arm around him to catch him. Hold him. He was suddenly very heavy, a dead weight. His face was serene as he fell against my neck, where his breath felt warm on my skin and his cheek felt soft to touch.

He smelt sweaty and dusty and slightly acidic. His hair felt surprisingly soft against my face. He smelt good. I rubbed his ear with my nose. I held him in my arms, he was falling for me, I laughed. I hugged him tight. His body felt good against my body. My cock started to go hard against him.

I lay him gently on the ground. I wrapped a towel tightly around his hand, it was dirty as it had been lying on the floor, but the blood soon stopped flowing because of it, although it seeped through and made the bandage red before it stopped.

He lay there as if he was in the most peaceful sleep. I touched his face and ran my hand over his chest, down the front of his over-alls, over his stomach, gently touching him when I felt what was soft and squashy between his legs; his round testicles and his sleeping cock. It all fitted into my hand. I watched his face, nothing.

2002

I wondered if he’d stay unconscious long enough for me to slip my hand in the side of his over-all’s. They were a press-stud type, three in a row behind the pockets on his hips. He’d only fastened the top one, my hand slipped through easily. His hipbone stuck up and the elastic of his briefs was tight, hugging his warm soft skin. Pubic hair poked out of the top of his briefs at the front, course and bushy. I swirled my fingertips around in it gently. It felt so good. The material of his briefs, below his tuft of pubic hair, felt soft and warm and inviting. I slipped my long finger under the elastic and touched his foreskin, bunched like a sleeping bag. It felt soft and pliable; the tip of my finger slipped inside with a push and touched the slippery end of his knob inside.

I pulled my hand out as I began to shake.

I wanted to give him a hard on; a shiver ran up my back. It would be the only chance I’d get. Maybe. I squatted down and gazed at him for a time, waiting for him to wake. His sleeping face, the neck of his T-shirt lay gently around his strong freckled neck. I touched his skin where it disappeared under the white material. I wanted to kidnap him and undress him and lay him in a bed with just the corner of a sheet covering his genitals. My sleeping prince. I wanted to posses him, dress him up, undress him, taste his fluids.

I shook him gently and said his name but he just lay there.

Beautifully serene, it was a moment I hadn’t expected, there was no hurry. I shook him again, gently squeezing his biceps, which were round and plump and hard, and I rubbed his chest, making his nipples hard under my touch. They both became like little bullets on his chest. His face twitched, I removed my hand, and his blue eyes blinked open in his pale skinned face. Momentarily, he looked five years old and completely lost and in needed of his mother. He looked dazed, like an angel waking up from sleep.

“What happened?” he said.

“You cut your hand and you fainted,” I said. “But it’s okay, I’ve wrapped a bandage around it.”

“Jesus,” he said lifting his bandaged hand into the air.

“Just be sure you’re okay before you get up.”

“Thanks mate.” He sat up and looked pale and dazed. “It’s good that you were here. I owe you.”

I smiled.

“We’d better get you to a doctor, have that looked at.” He started to peel back the bandage. “It’s nasty,” I said. “Perhaps you should leave it until we get you to the doctor.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. He put his arm around my shoulder and I helped him to his feet, hugging him tight as he stood up right. My hand rested in the small of his back. I wanted to slide it down onto his arse, just to see the look on his face. I wanted to kiss him, as he stood helpless against me, as I held him up. I massaged his back. He stood there getting his head together.

“I’ll drive you, to the doctor,” I said. “You may not be able too with that hand.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose I will. I’ve got a manual car and all.”

“You’ll need stitches, it’s pretty deep.”


I took him to the doctor. He had to have six stitched in his hand.


I took him home to his place, a small flat in an ugly brown sixties block, in Preston. A chair, a table and a TV with Foxtel, that was all Brett seemed to need.

“I need a scotch,” Brett said as soon as we got there.

“I’ll make it, if you like,” I said. “You sit down.”

“Cheers,” Brett replied. “I’m gonna take my over-all’s off.” He disappeared into the bedroom, as I looked in the cupboard above the fridge for the scotch and the glasses as directed.

I rested the glasses on the washing machine, which was next to the fridge. The two hi-ball glasses seemed to be the only glasses Brett had. I made his a triple and disguised the fact with coke.

“Thanks mate,” he said to me with a pat on the back as he came into the kitchen. “I owe you, Chris. Whatever you want.” He’d taken off his over-all’s. He stood there in his underwear and T-shirt.

I handed him the scotch and we chinked glasses and I thought about him lying on the floor of the machine shop, helplessly letting me take charge. Now I could see his package, the bulge in his cotton briefs. It looked good.

“Ah, I needed that,” said Brett as he sipped his drink, before he turned to go back into the lounge room. His black long legged briefs hugged his round arse tight. The material slipping in and out of his crack as he walked. I watched him walk.

He flicked the TV on and sat in one of the two orange beanbags that had been piled together behind the kitchen door.

“Jesus, what a day,” he said as he picked up the remote with his good hand.

“Yeah,” I agreed as I sat in the other beanbag.

I had some Rowy’s in my car from the last dance party I’d been too. A friend had asked me to bring them for him, but I didn’t find him the whole night, so they were still in my car, I hoped. I don’t take them usually myself. If I take an upper I want to experience the whole effect, not cut it short with a downer. I never understood that? It would be like having your stomach pumped half way through a drinking session. If you want to take downers, just take less uppers, surely that has the same effect.

“I need to get my smokes out of my car,”

“Sure,” said Brett “Just leave the door unlocked so you can get back in. Then I don’t have to get up.”

The Rowy’s were in the plastic film canister in my glove box, next to the film canister that contained my parking meter change. There were four tablets and two tabs of ecstasy. I had no recollection about the E. Could I give him them all? I wasn’t sure. I shrugged as I pushed the security door open. I took one step back into the block and realised I had forgotten my smokes.

“Jesus.” That would have given it away.

“Another scotch,” said Brett as I entered the apartment, holding the empty glass in the air.

“Sure,” I said as I took the glass. This is going to be easy.

His kitchen was small, painted white, just a sink and a bench and a fridge and a stove. Square lino tiles, bare walls and a small aluminium window over the sink. The benches were barren; it was as if no one lived here at all.

I slipped the Rowy’s into his scotch. They dissolved to nothing. I laughed at the thought of getting the glasses mixed up, me comatose and dribbling on the beanbag, with Brett having no idea why. I was vigilant not to swap the glasses. It made me nervous until he’d taken it out of my hand.

“Thanks,” he said with a sweet smile looking up at me with his twinkling eyes, as he took the glass. Such trust. “You’re a mate, Chris.”

I raised my eyebrows and smiled and sat back down in the beanbag with my scotch.

Brett grabbed the remote and the television went clunk as it powered into life.

“Do you live here by yourself?” I asked.

“Yes, just me. Not even a cat.”

“It’s a cool place.” I was just being friendly.

“I’ve been here six months.”

“Have you got a girlfriend?” I asked.

“No, no one special,” he said. “I don’t want the hassle. But I could do with a regular girl for sex.” He rubbed at his crutch. “You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said. ”You gotta get it where you can.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Chance’d be a thing.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

We drank our scotches. “The Weakest Link,” was on the television.

“My hand is throbbing, do you reckon you could get me those pain killers.”

“Sure,” I said. I wondered about the painkillers on top of the Rowy’s I’d just given him, as I headed off into the kitchen to collect them. I shrugged my shoulders and thought nothing more about it. He’s young, what harm could they do? “Another scotch?”

“Sure, I’ll need something to wash them down with,” he said as he passed me his glass. I wondered how much scotch Brett should have.

I was getting a bit pissed as I matched his glasses of scotch one for one. I wasn’t that much of a drinker, not usually. Strictly a marijuana boy myself. But of course, I was making mine singles and his triples. I hated scotch normally, couldn’t stand the taste, but I wanted to be sociable, at least for the next little while, until the Rowy’s took effect.

The painkillers warned not to operate any machinery as they may cause drowsiness. I gave him three. He complained that his hand was sore. I wanted to explain to him that if he just waited thirty minutes…but how could I?

He looked at the three painkillers in his hand and then back at me.

“Bottom’s up,” I said. He swallowed them, washed down with his third triple scotch, in which I dissolved an E.

He handed me the glass when he’d finished. I took it with a smile.

“You are the Weakest Link,” said the host on the TV. I looked at Brett; he had closed his eyes.

“Woe,” said Brett, trying to open his eyes wide. “My head’s spinning.”

“It’ll just be the painkiller, that should wear off in a minute,” I said. "The alcohol may have made them work quicker?"

“It feels kind of nice when I relax and let go,” he said. “I just wish the room would stop spinning.”

“Don’t fight it,” I said.

“They sure are strong,” he slurred. “Jesus.” He rubbed his forehead. He lay back in the beanbag. “I don’t thin…”

I took the scotch glass out of his hand. His head turned sideways on the beanbag. His legs relaxed and fell apart ever so gently. His hand rested on his thigh.

I finished my drink.


He lay there completely helpless, innocents etched across his serene face. He had good legs, muscular and hairy. He had little hips and a beautiful stomach, what was visible, where his T-shirt had ridden up. I pushed it up to his chest so I could see his nipple. I sucked at it gently, as if milk might come out at any second.

I took his T-shirt off; it came off straight over his head. I held his head so it wouldn’t flop awkwardly. I didn’t want him to sustain any permanent damage.

His chest was near perfect. Defined pecs, two red nipples and a six pack underneath. Such beautiful tits, I sat there crossed legged, admiring them. So soft so smooth. I kissed his flesh, licked him, sucked the salt off his body.

His nipples went hard as I sucked on them, leaving a ring of saliva around each. It glistened in the light; the skin around each was red. Wonton innocence sleeping. Slut boy, for a good time…

His nipples felt like peas between my fingers, they remained hard and erect. He smelt good with his nipples in my mouth, sweaty, like a man. I bit too hard and drew blood; I’m use to some response before I get to that stage. I licked the drip from his skin, it tasted acidic. Blood brothers. I licked his blood again. I wanted to bite him and make him bleed more, so I could quench my thirst at his fountain of life. If I’d had sharp eyeteeth, I’d have bitten his neck.

I slipped my hand into his black trunks. I cupped his balls in my hand. They felt soft and squashy. I rolled them around, like eggs.

He rolled over like I’d always imagined a corpse would. Floppy. Pliable. Limp and manageable.

I pulled his trunks down his thick thighs and over his feet. The boy had a great arse, plump cakes, with a crack fill with reddish blond hair.I didn’t have a condom, shrug, I was negative the last time I had it checked. He had sorbolene cream in his bathroom cupboard. I spread it through the deep crack between his cheeks and over my cock which could have won the wet towel competition, right at that moment, no sweat. It sprung up in the air every time I stopped massaging in the white cream.

The tip of my finger penetrating him each stroke of the cream. His tight ring relaxing after every gentle push of my fingertip. The flesh parted more and more and his soft red membrane slowly allowed me in.

I stroked my cock between his cheeks. I sawed at that hairy butt as I gently held his thick shoulders. His little waist bent backwards and forwards as I rode his round arse. He was slippery and wet, I was going to ride him good.

Brett groaned, the voice of someone who didn’t want to wake. He groaned again, like he wanted unconsciousness, but something was calling him from sleep. He groaned again, the sound baby Harp seals make just before they are clubbed.

I pushed harder, he opened slowly. Then, I was fully submerged. He held tight as I started to move.

He groaned like a deaf boy, who’d never heard human speech or the married man at the beat, when he finally lets go after so many years.

He bucked his arse and threw his head. His arse held tightly, as I lanced him again and again with my sword, like steel it was, it had never been so hard. He barked like a mute when I pushed on his prostate, but fell down unconscious afterwards every time. I’d have thought that would unnerve me. Scare me. Put me off. But it just made my dick harder; he’d push back when I massaged his prostate. I lanced his anus like raw meat.

Just as Chris cums deep in his tight hole, Brett leans over the back of the couch and makes a chocking noise. Then there is the unmistakable sound of rushing fluid. Brett is gagging. “Jesus, I don’t feel good.” Slurred at best, could hardly be called speaking.

Chris pulls his still hard cock from Brett’s arse.

Brett vomit’s again.

Chris gets the towel he had for the clean up and wipes Brett’s mouth. Brett lays gently back down on the couch. Chris pulls his jocks on over his erection. He pulls on his jeans, zips them up. He looks over the back of the couch, with the towel still in his hand. He looks at the mess behind the couch, he looks at the vomit, he throws the towel back down on the couch. He shakes his head and grimaces.

Chris pulls Brett’s jocks and jeans back up. Chris lies looking at the ceiling. He realises he doesn’t have to wait for Brett to wake, so he leaves.

Brett tells him a few days later that he was really sick from the painkillers.

“What happened to you, anyway,” says Brett. “I had weird dreams.”

“You fell asleep, so I left,” I said. “I thought it was probably best if you slept it off.”

“Thanks Chris,” said Brett smiling broadly. “You’re a mate.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I was happy too.”

“Hey, do you want to come over next week,” said Brett. “We could do it again.” He smiled. “Except of course, without the cut hand.” He smiled again holding his hand in the air. “And I won’t fall asleep.” He laughed. He looked adorable. “I promise.”